Yummy paper flowers

I asked Randy to stop at the thrift store on his way to the fishing hole to pick me up an old hardback dictionary. He thought I was goofy.....well, he always thinks I'm goofy!....but when I showed him the finished project he was rather impressed. When will he ever learn. LOL! ;)

I've had to warm up to these, to be honest....my own that is. When I first made them I wasn't thrilled but the more I look at them the more I like them. :) Paper flowers!! Layered paper flowers a la Donna Salazar. I liked hers so much I've ordered some glimmer mist (which I've never used before and, frankly, didn't think I would ever have a use for it or even want to use it--don't faint! LOL) and I can't wait for it to get here so I can make some of these flowers from the very beginning using Donna's recipe.

For now, here's the first one I made, which looks pretty on this card. There. I said it! I like my card. {gasp} As you may know if you've followed my work for any length of time, I just really don't like many of my finished cards. But this one, I admit, I really like. :) Thanks for looking! And check out Donna's video tutorial on how to make these pretty flowers yourself.

Look what Randy made for me!

I love it! Now I can display my latest page (or two - one on each side!) and keep it protected till I put it in its album. Isn't this cool?

Still deciding if I want to leave it natural wood or paint it...white? pink?

Five Things I Love

I was blog-tagged by Jayma to list 5 things I love. Jayma and I met on Facebook on the PaperCrafts Magazine page about a week ago. She read every page on my scrap blog all the way back to 2006!!! And her doppleganger is Tina Fey, so I had to love her. :) Jayma did her list in such a cool way I have decided to copy her and include pics with my list like she did! Click her name to check out her awesome blog and see five of her loves.

1. One of the many things I love is scrapbooking and papercrafting. I started scrapping for real almost 8 years ago, though I've always made cards and altered gifts etc. for as long as I can remember.....covering orange juice cans with pretty paper to make a pencil cup for dad's desk, making book covers, wall art and decoupage to name a few. I love my scraproom!


This is the little plaque on the door to my room.

2. I love that Grace enjoys scrapping. She has been a scrapper since she was 3 -- she turned 9 this month.


3. I love the vintage goodies in my kitchen. Here are a few of them. The bottle of Shinola shoe polish was my grampa's--it's still full -- and grama's spice boxes still have spices in them! Some are as old as 1940.


4. I love pink. Maybe you noticed. ;)


5. I love LOVE looking at old pictures. Here is one of my faves of me and the sibs. Me, Sue (on my lap), Pat and Kathy.


Tag, you guys! Now you're IT! Post a link on your blog to mine (the person who tagged you), then share five things you love and tag five other bloggers. :)

1. Darla - Forced Optimism
2. Cindy - A few of my favorite things
3. Kip - A day with me
4. Nicole - It's 5 oclock somewhere
5. Pam - Two days in February

I love these CottageCutz butterfly dies by Scrapping Cottage. Aren't they cute? I used them with QuicKutz flourishes for added interest. Simple page that took me way too long to do. LOL. QK Garden font for the title, hand doodling, inking and stickles.

Thanks for looking! :)

mini-mini book

I love using things you normally throw away. My favorite is using fake credit cards, membership cards and empty gift cards to make mini books. I often order extra prints in wallet size just in case I need a smaller one for whatever project I decide to make so I have wallet sizes left over a lot of the time. Since these wallets were left overs, I used the same pics as I did in my Scrapbuggy Friends book, just for fun. To punch the hole I used the crop-a-dile. This is a super quick, cute little key ring or purse book. I did books like this with the grandkids' pics for the great gramas a couple of years ago. Great brag book they can toss in their purse and share with the ladies. :)

I lied

Oops. The layout below is not the first layout of the year. It just seemed like it I guess since it had been so long since I scrapped a page. LOL It's actually the third layout of the year. I did two pages in January before "the incident" (stupid fall that broke my fingers). Not that it's a huge diff considering how far behind I am on my yearly goal already. Sigh.

Did you set any type of scrapping goal this year?

First layout of the year

Messing up my hand has really screwed up my gung-ho scrapping goal for the year. This is the first layout I've done so far this year. I sure hope I'll be able to catch up, but it will take months for my hand to heal so we'll have to see how I do as time goes on I guess. Wish me luck!

Ok, so here I've used the adorable Li'l Buddy papers by Pebbles, Inc. I had to use them to scrap this photo of the sweet smiling face of Feliciano after he got his much desired haircut. My page was inspired by a layout on the Pebbles Inc. blog (I don't find the designer's name, sorry.) No QuicKutz here but I did make use of buttons, brads and my beloved foam tape for 3D affect! :)

Altered Calendar - finished!

Thank you, Connie, for the blank DIY calendar. This was such a fun project! And now I have finally finished it, gimpy hand and all. :) I've added more goodies to a lot of the pages since I shared the first few with some of you. Gotta have bling, doncha know!

I've put all the images in a slideshow (see it over on the left) if you'd like to see the finished pages. Here's the cover.

Happy Valentine's Day

Look, yummy cupcakes! Randy will be home from the fishing derby in a couple of hours so I made these to surprise him. He placed 11th in the derby out of about 200 entries. :) Woot!

For the adorable animals on the picks, I used Cuttlebug 2x2 monkey, giraffe, elephant, and lion. The hearts with the messages on the back are also Cuttlebug dies. Around the base of the cake stand is the QuicKutz cupcake liner with ribbon threaded through the holes. Cute, huh.

messages on the back:
Won't you BEE my valentine

No more MONKEYING around - be my valentine

I'm not LION, I want you to be mine

DON'T FORGET I'll always be your valentine

Did GIRAFFE to be so sweet

Super fast and easy mini book

Some of us on the Scrapbuggy message boards made friend pages for Gia to combine into a mini book. We used the QuicKutz Santa's Workshop Peppermint mini book and Gia made the cover and posted her book on the store blog. I liked her version so much I scraplifted most of it but didn't want to copy everything exactly.


Of course, for my book, I didn't have actual scrapbook pages, so I printed the scans as 4x6 photos and cut them with the peppermint page die that was used for the original page, then simply made a cover for them. A super easy way to make duplicate books for gifts too. The cost of a 12x12 print would be different than a 4x6 as these are, but a great idea don't you think.

Here's the cover of my book



and a close up of the title treatment.

And here's a side view of the inside pages created by the Scrapbuggy Design Team and message board members. They look like real scrapbook pages don't they! But they are one-dimensional photos. Voila--mini-book. :)

TREASURE TROVE!!!!!!

Oh my gosh, I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about the AWESOMENESS that my mom and dad brought over yesterday........all my dad's old slides!!!! I cannot wait to get a scanner to put them all on CD and share with the fam. These are dad's pics of his time overseas while in the Air Force, tons of pics of us as kids that I don't recall ever seeing before, and lots of others I can't wait to delve into. I'm sure I must have seen these at some point when I was a kid, but I don't remember when. Anyway, I can't even stand it. These will make the coolest scrapbooks!

Thanks, mom and dad! :)

Healing hand

The hand is doing well and healing pretty quickly I think, considering what I did to it. Saw the ortho on Tuesday and had the stitches removed--OMG that hurt!!!--and as of today I'm no longer covering it with gauze, tape, or bandaids. Still doesn't look real purty, but sure beats those awful, black sutures, and it's still swollen but mostly on the inside if that makes sense. The knuckles are really tender yet as two of them are fractured so that will take some time. My hand looks rather like a paw still. LOL I need to be extra cautious and remain aware that it's not healed yet though--I keep bumping it and that is so not pleasant.

The best news is I'm getting more movement every day. But the strength and dexterity are going to take awhile I'm afraid. I'm typing pretty fast though for using only my left hand and right index finger. Now if I can just hold the scissors so I can scrap a little faster. ;)

If I keep making progress I won't have to go back for any physical therapy or anything. Yay.

Grama's girls come to visit

Grace and Olivia are cousins but they are only 5 months apart in age and are almost as close as sisters. They love spending time together and are best friends.

They took Joey for a walk to the park.....


....Grace gave Olivia a piggy back ride



and they loved scouring through every one of the scrapbook albums! We had a fun time. :)