fun

times.


i just had to use some of the October Afternoon i bought last week.

and then i used up some other leftovers i've had.

Heidi Swapp plastic letters. Scenic Route sticker. Jenni Bowlin journal tag. Prima flowers. Making Memories flowers and buttons.

and how pleased was i when i got to the point where i thought some ribbon would be nice. i had just been to the store earlier and saw a cool thing Jan had done to some ribbon. i never thought of pulling that middle "string" in this type of ribbon..... (you rock!!) i store my ribbon in glass canning jars...so this particular ribbon seemed to work with the colours the best. AND it had that middle "string".... i'm showing close up pics further on.

this was the day that i took the kids to the hairdresser. then the plan was to take photos of them. the purpose was for Kristians' fathers' day gift. those bright lollipops were not part of the original plan. sort of a detour? hmmm....that is the name of this line of paper and tags from October Afternoon.....again...so cool!!

last year, Roslyn had used the title from a strip of patterned cardstock in her layout. i still think that is such a fabulous idea! and i used that nifty trick too. again....had to record the coincidence between the paper and the story behind the photo. sigh.

i did have one silly boo-boo. fortunately it didn't work too badly. i wanted to use alcohol ink to colour my pewter brad...but a drop landed on the cream flower at the top. a little unique....but the colours worked. so the mistake stayed. again, it sort of went with the theme of the story....yes, crazy!!

came up with this trick myself... i cut a tag in half. cut out one side of the parentheses. pop dotted it over top of the second parentheses still visible on the tag. i have seen a lot of packaged embellishments like this. but this goody i came up with on my own! {just wait...i'll probably learn later that OA makes an embellishment similar to this one! lol}

here is that cool ribbon. i just looped it once behind the flowers.

did some detail cutting. some curling of the edges.

oh! and i used a green pigment ink for distressing. Heather P. shared that hint with me one day. i thought it worked well with this layout.

i haven't done a whole lot of scrapbooking lately. could be something to do with a certain garage getting built. or maybe summer fun stuff. trying to get photos of stuff to scrap in the winter.

maybe once i do more scrapbooking, i'll have more photos of layouts.....and less multiple photos of the same layout....maybe....

by the way, Chicago CHA is happening right now. i learned this year that this is where the retailers go to see the latest and greatest in crafting. i think that the new stuff they see this week will be stuff available in fall and winter. i've noticed a lot of Christmas themes in the sneak peeks some of the gals are sharing. not exactly what i'm thinking of right now.....

incredible to see how much stuff is being produced for scrapbookers these days. i got into it in the mid-1990's. it was mostly plain cardstock, a few typical patterns (like gingham), lots of stickers and stamping stuff.

we were married in August 1995. i made my own wedding invitations. parchment paper from Staples. a stamp and ink and embossing powder from a store in south Edmonton that i don't think exists anymore. envelopes for our odd sized reply cards from a printing store downtown. i embossed all of the cards with gold powder using the flat side of my clothing iron. burnt myself a few times! the printing was done on the computer and printer at the office where Kris had worked....where i learned that budding engineers only had use for 3 different fonts....wept rivers over that one....let me say that for the time and money spent on them, these cards were quite nice. but it wasn't even two years later that more stores were opening up and more ideas were getting shared...and the invitations got smarter. and now my once beautifully handmade invitation....looks like crap in comparison! sigh. i suppose i should try to embrace innovation....realizing that the day may come when i'll say the same thing about the above layout....at least for the present time, i do enjoy it!

i had read on someone's blog a few months ago....the desire to re-do old scrapbook albums our grandmothers or great-grandmothers made. to freshen them up. revitalize and improve. the blogger disagreed. making the point that perhaps one day one of our ancestors would say the same thing about our albums. we need to respect the thought and time that went into preserving the memories and leave them alone. not to say that we couldn't scan some photos and make new pages though. i think too often we find ourselves seeking perfection. i know i struggle with it. i keep reminding myself that the primary reason i scrapbook is to preserve my memories. the other reason is that i love to create pages and projects with paper. i love that a hobby, a stress reliever, energizer may also be enjoyed by my kids and their kids and maybe even their kids. how cool is that?!

{i don't have heirloom china or jewelry....so i suppose this is a worthwhile substitute!!!}