Dog- gone it!

Sadly, our little hobby farm is a magnet for those who decide they don't want their pets anymore. Stray dogs and boxes of kittens can be found out in the yard up to a dozen times a year. Here's our latest visitor:

I opened the front door on my way to pick up my son at school and that's what was looking at me. Cute, huh.
Usually we try to find homes for these poor four legged friends. But, every once in a while one steals our hearts and ends up taking residence. I'm not sure if we'll keep this pup. He's going to be huge. But, how can I resist that face?

Either way he's going to need a name. Any suggestions?

Loose Ends

The scrapping part of my life is driving me nuts. It's nothing but loose ends. Partially done projects, partially completed scrapbook room. I look around at all these pictures of other people's scrapping things and they are so finished and polished. How do other people do it? That's my question of the day. I'm determined to get things completed. No more loose ends.

Here's an acrylic album I started for my son's girlfriend. She knows that I am making it for her... so it's my first loose end to finish... Here's what I have completed so far:

I wanted to really play up the clear empty spaces of the acrylic album. Afterall if you cover evertthing with paper- what's the point of working in a clear album?

Working with Acrylic Albums is all about preplanning. What you put on one page will show up on the next page. I wanted to add some fun funky pages to the book- so I made my own pages from Hambly Acrylic Sheets- the black stitching is on the actual edge of the page.

One of my favorite things about the album so far are the faux photobooth strips.
I made them by printing small photos and then cropping them to the same size and
applying them to blank photo paper in a strip. Fun!
That's it for the album thus far... I promise to add more soon. I also promise to get cracking on the scrapbook room during the next two weeks.... I think I will be purchasing the final piece on Tuesday!

Spring

What's with the weather? Yesterday I experienced the strangest weather phenomenon. It was warm and sunny- probably close to 70 degrees-when suddenly a black cloud was overhead and it started to snow. It was the strangest thing... there I am sitting in van for carpool with the windows down and no coat when snowflakes started hitting my windshield. At first I thought it was petals blowing off flowering trees- so I got out of my car to be sure.... there was no doubt about it..snow! Of course it melted the instant it landed on anything- but, how weird is that?? Then last night it went down to freezing! It hasn't been the cold for a long time. I want it to be Spring so badly- no more freezing weather!
In honor of spring I am posting a flowery layout.

Peonies are one of my favorite flowers. They remind me of my Grandmother. She tatted the piece of lace on the top of the layout- so pretty. Remember when I told you to save to scalloped cardboard label on the top of Cool Whip? That's what I traced and used as a template for the scalloped journaling circle. Thanks for visiting today- hope you have a warm spring day!

Gift

I wanted to do something special for the woman for books all the reservations for our Boy Scout Summer Camp. It's a tough job. Everyone wants to make sure that their scouts get the merit badge classes that they need. Everyone wants the same campsites. She's always so nice and so pleasant to work with and yet no one gets to meet her nor does she get to see the boys enjoying camp. I thought she deserved a little something to let her know that someone noticed what a great job she does.

I started with a 4 pack of Starbucks Frappuccino. Once we finished off the drinks I ran the bottles in the dishwasher and removed the labels. There was a little bit of glue residue left over that I used fingernail polish remover to take off.
From there I started decorating the carrier, using things from my stash.

I had my son, a Boy Scout tie the rope around the necks of the bottle using different knots he's learned in scouting and burnt the edges with a lighter to prevent fraying. On the tops of the jars I added round tags that say things like camping and adventure. Each jar has a label for a specific kind of complaint she encouters, Unreasonable Requests, Not Happy No Matter What..etc.

Each bottle contains a different type of candy, M&M's (just the colors that coordinate), Whoppers, Raisinettes and Peanut M&M's (also color sorted). The hiking boot tag reads - Take as many needed to cure the ailment on the label. Thanks for all you do!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I thought today I would post an altered board book. If you've never made one- they are quick, easy and have a really professional appearance when completed.
In addition to your regular scrapping supplies you will need a children's board book (yard sales and dollar stores are a great place to find these) acrylic paint that matches your selected patterned paper and gesso(found where art supplies are carried.) Then you will need a plan. Before I began this book I counted the number of pages and then on plain piece of paper made a rough sketch of what I wanted to put on each page. I began altering the book with the cover.

First, I sanded the front cover with a rough sandpaper just enough to make the surface porous enough to hold paint. Then I painted the cover with Gesso. If you aren't familiar with Gesso, it's a thick white paint usually used for covering and priming canvas. Once the Gesso was dried I painted the front cover with acrylic paint in a spring green. While waiting for that to dry I worked on covering my chipboard letters with paper and created the bunny paper piecing. Once I was sure the paint was completely dry I assembled the front cover, including a piece of green gingham paper over the spine. I used ZipDry Paper Glue to adhere everything in this project.

I wanted my book to have a closure so I glued a piece of twill across the front over the spine and down the back of the book, leaving long pieces on both ends so that there was enough to use to make a bow. I was worried about the ends of the twill unraveling- so along the raw ends I used a product called Freycheck (sold where sewing notions are found). This products seals raw edges of fabric and ribbon. To add depth and to give my book a sense of history I used Tim Holtz Tea Stain Distress ink and rubbed it all over the pages. A piece of an old t-shirt was used to apply it. Think about where the wear and tear would occur on the page and to make these areas darkest.

For the rest of the pages of the book I covered the pages with patterned paper, except for the center of the book where I repeated the Gesso and acrylic paint process. If your board book has slick, glossy pages then you will need to do a quick sanding on all pages, even if covering with patterned paper! All the words in the book were printed out on my computer and I added a little doodled border to most with a black marker. Ribbons were all attached by folding the ribbon in half and then stapling them to the word strips and then gluing them to the book as a whole unit. The most time consuming part of making this board book was the preplanning. I searched for a long time for all the paper piecing patterns.

Some were found in Scrapbooks, Etc, some on the internet, some on the Creating Keepsakes website. The final steps for completing the book was to sand along the edge of the pages to make sure that there wasn't any lose paper hanging over the size of the original book. For this process I used a large emory board. Altering this book was one of my favorite projects, ever! My plan is to add Easter pictures to it from various Easters and to store it along with my Easter Decorations to be displayed year after year. I think it will be a darling on my coffee table. I hope my boys will get a kick out of seeing how they've changed over the years. I know I will!

Thrifty Find

It's been a while since I've posted a Thrifty Find- but, I haven't stopped thrifting. A while ago I picked up for $1.00 this very cool stencil book. It's full of stencils of construction equipment. I was so tickled with this find. Not only is my husband a construction superintendant - but, I have pictures to scrap of a camp I ran a few years ago that had a construction theme.
If you haven't used stencils before when paper piecing. They are great! Just trace and cut. If you want to vary your papers and patterns. First trace the entire stencil onto cardstock for your background. Lightly with pencil draw on the interior lines. Then use the stencil on patterned and different colored papers to trace just the segment you need of that particular color or pattern. Cut out and adhere it on your background piece using your pencil lines as a guide.
A white eraser comes in handy to remove all pencil lines. I always rub my eraser on a blank piece of paper first to make sure it won't leave any smear marks.
Details can be added with thin markers, chalk and ink. Next time you are thrifting don't overlook children's items. You might be surprised. It's a if I purchased 10
die cuts, perfect for my pages for a buck!

Word Play

There sitting with all my Patterned Paper was a Making Memories page kit for dog pages I bought long ago. It was darling - I just never got around to using it.
It's a perfect example of why I can't seem to part with older scrapping supplies.
If I had used the kit when I first bought it- I surely would have done a regular
old layout. Photo matted -square on the page a few embellishments. A square block of journaling.

By waiting to use it- I was able to take new ideas and new techniques and combine it
with an older product. I love the results.