Mid Winter Fun

I had a ton of random pictures that had been taken during the winter of Ben's first year.  Some of them were so cute that I couldn't not add them to the book.  It turns out, in most of the photos he wore the same shirt so it looks like many of them were taken on the same day!

 I had quite a few photos that were taken from far away and really needed to be cropped.  So, I went for the film strip look by matting them and placing them evenly down a border strip of cardstock.  On the two ends, I just put in a piece of the background color so it wouldn't look funny.

The papers and embellishments are by random companies.  It's really mix and match on this page!  I think there's some Crate Paper, American Crafts or Making memories, Doodlebug chipboard alpha, Chatterbox Alpha and some CTMH brads and a stamp.  It's a jumble - but it worked for me!

Thanks for stopping,

Retreat Photos

Breaking up the layouts with a few photos of the fall retreat.  I'm going to be putting them into a mini-book when I have the time...haha...maybe after the holidays.

Everyone is busy scrapping away.  You can see we totally took over the room!  Good thing we all had our own table - no oozing allowed.  :)

Harmony was hard at work on her book and actually got herself caught up!  Can you believe it?  Amazing, I know.  Look at this scraptabulous page she made...so cute!

Tomorrow I'll have more photos of layouts I completed while away.

Have an awesome Monday,

Are Bubbles Tasty?

My wonderful boy is a curious little kid.  Early in life he decided that he should see if bath bubbles were tasty.

The consensus was that bubbles are kind of fun to eat, don't taste very well, but look darn cute when mommy puts them all over your face.  :)

My extra photos wound up on the right hand side of the second page.  Ben as Super Baby!  How can that not go in the scrapbook?

Have a great day - more tomorrow,

Speedy Camera

Layout number two of my weekend retreat.  I have some pictures that are really cute, but just aren't enough to create a double page layout.  I have this thing where all my pages have to be double unless they are at the font or back of a book.  So, many of my pages from this weekend are combo doubles.

Thanks to high speed photography (many cameras have sports mode on them which works fabulous for home use) I managed to capture one of Ben's claps.

The other few pictures were Ben's first bitter biscuit - what a mess!  And a cute moment with me in our kitchen.

I did my best to visually separate the photos while making the two sides work together.  Not easy!

More retreat pages tomorrow,

Winter Wonderland (my deja-vu)

This is one of the layouts I made on my retreat.  These pictures were taken just before Ben's first birthday.

I don't know how to get good photographs of a two page layout yet and I didn't feel like stitching them together in my photo program this morning...

I was browsing my favorite blogs the other day and imagine my surprise to find that Vicki had used the exact same paper on a winter project for her son!  I love this new Echo Park paper.  :)  If you're local to me, I got it at SS&S.

The details in the title page are shown below.

I fussy cut the paper, embossed with a clear/prisma glitter combo I learned from Tresa and added some liquid appliqué, heating it immediately for fast completion. The title was stamped in white daisy ink and embossed with white powder.

Have a great day,

Crop Day Updates

I've updated the information on the Classes/Events page to reflect a new location and new times.  The previous location was not available year around and I needed to find a good alternative in my price range.  My original alternate location was a bit out of budget.  The new space, the Hudsonville Community Room inside the Hudsonville City Hall, is a much better fit and allows me to keep the cost low.  It's still $20.00 for all day (9am -11pm now!) plus lunch, dinner and prizes.  The dates are still the same: January 29, April 16, July 30, and October 15.

Quota Sale

On Saturday (tomorrow) I'm going to be a vendor for the first Quota fundraiser sale.  The times are 10am - 3pm.  To see the flyer and learn more, click HERE.  There will be all kinds of vendors and it's a great place to get a ton of holiday shopping done before the holiday rush while helping a great cause.  If you stop by, tell me you saw this post and you'll get a little something special from me to you.

Hope to see you tomorrow,

Fall 2010, November 5-7

We had a ton of great fun again up in Tustin.  This is quickly becoming like a second home to me!  Here's a quick peek at some of our weekend in the mini-album I made.  I used some papers from the old Felicity special paper pack.  All of the embellishments are from various other companies.  I was trying to use up some of my stash.  :)

Our group photo is on the top.  We all posed under the banner I made, but it didn't really show up because of the lighting.

Saturday morning, we awoke to a light snow fall.  It was their first snow of the season and made a beautiful view.  The lake was so still and calm.  It was even covered with fog.  I had to have a picture!  It was really cold out there, but the picture turned out so well that it's now in my living room.  Love it when that happens.  :)

More pics of the view.

One more.  This shot looked good in my head, but didn't come out quite right.  You can't argue with mother nature about her lighting choice at that moment.  She sort of gets to do what she wants.  lol!

This is my friend, Annette, and her layout.  It's the tomb of the unknown soldier and she did the whole thing in mosaic.  Click on the pic to enlarge it - it's an awesome layout!

This is my friend, Nicole.  Even though this paper packet doesn't really work with hot pink, I had to use it on her page.  She loves hot pink and she got a TON of cards done that weekend.

This is my friend, Harmony, who got herself all caught up this past fall.  Can you believe it?!  It was amazing and her pages were gorgeous.

I took a few shots of all of us scrapping together.

This last page shows my version of our challenge for the weekend.  Everyone turned a coaster into a magnet or hanging for their home/desk that would hold the group photo for the weekend.

The back is just the same pattern paper as the front but unembellished.

Have a great day,

And the winner is...

Once again, I must say thanks to random.org.  What would I do without them?

The winner of the Retreat Rolling Tote is........#11,
Kim Regedanz!

Congratulations, Kim!  Please email me your address and I'll get the package out to you right away. (gloriajrogers@gmail.com)

Thanks so much to everyone who commented.
Have a fabulous day,

Happy Birthday Luanne!

Today I'm heading back from the retreat.  :(  I'm sure it was a blast (always is) but it will be good to get back and see my family.  Tonight, unless plans change, I'll be over at my In-Law's house celebrating my MIL's birthday.  Waaa-Hooo!!!  And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

Yep, I'm one of those rare people who has an awesome MIL.  I know there are many stories about horrible MILs and the awful things they do to their DILs, but not me.  Not only do I have an awesome husband, but his mom rocks too!  Now that's something I'm going to be extra thankful for this holiday season.

BTW, don't forget that today is the last day to comment for Blog Candy!  Tomorrow's post will be the winner!!  After that, I'll get to the retreat pics and projects.

Thanks for stopping by,

Gotta Get Gear

Of course, our weekend retreat wouldn't really be official without gear!  The first Spring, I had them done at the cheapest cost I could find for what I wanted.  Whoops!  Ladies, you really do get what you pay for.  After the disappointment, I put my knowledge and my education to work.  I found a FABULOUS free digi-scrap kit by Carrie Stephens and worked some magic to come up with a shirt front, back and bi-annual badge.  Check out what I sent to my girls in the gear announcement:

The backs of shirts or bags say "Eat. Sleep. Scrap. Repeat." and then have the badges below them.

They can be put on t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, or large & small bags.  I made them as an iron-on and I had the girls get their own shirts.  We all have different tastes and styles, so it made it easier anyway.  I got the bags and did them before the retreat.  I'm hoping to have some cute gear photos after the retreat.  Yep, I'm making them take a lot of group pictures and they probably won't be happy, but I've gotta scrap our retreat!  :)

Have a Scraptabulous day,

Out of Office Reply:

Greetings from "Virtual Me" as I am currently eating my fill of Rose's delicious cooking, scrapping my heart out and hanging with some of my best friends.  As promised, VM (virtual me) is posting like she should.  

This is the banner that I made for our retreat for this fall.  It's in its elementary stages in this picture and it's hanging on my wall in my room.  I also made one that says "retreat" to go below it.  Better pictures after the retreat is over.  :)

Each attendee also gets a cute little wall hanging on the door to their room.

Again, this photo was taken in my room.  What a monstrosity!  Hopefully VM is cleaning it right now and it will be beautiful when I get back. (Ha-Ha!!)  I've got some serious work for me when I get back, but I will eventually get it cleaned and post some pics of my space.

Have a good Friday,

P.S. Don't forget about Blog Candy!

Blogtoberfest Recap & Retreat

Well, I didn't quite hit every day in October for Blogtoberfest, but I don't think I did too badly either.  21 posts in a month is actually pretty good for me!  I'm going to try to keep things rolling in November since it's fun to see something new on a blog that you check often.  At least I know it's fun for me when I check other blogs.  :)

Don't forget about the latest blog candy contest!  You can read the post and enter by clicking on the picture for it in the right side column.

Tomorrow is the first day of my retreat!  While I'm swamped today preparing for it, I'm so excited and really am looking forward to the break and scrapping with all of my friends.  While I'm gone, I've set up some automatic posts so there's something for you to see while I'm away.  When I get back on Sunday, it's my Mother-In-Law's birthday so I might not have anything Monday, but I'll for sure be back on Tuesday posting all the pics from the retreat and hopefully tons of my pages that I got done.  :)  If you're not retreating with me this time, hopefully you can make it in the Spring.  I'm already accepting registrations!  The dates are May 13-15.

"Virtual me" will see you all tomorrow!
Have a great day,

Fabulous Fall

Ben is very excited for the snow to come, but in the mean time he's enjoying jumping in the leaf piles.  Here's a cute photo of him in the leaves from a few days ago.  :)

Have a great day,

Loves Buzz, Loves to Read

Seriously, how cute is this?!

Glasses?  Check.  Milk?  Check.  Toy Story books from the library?  Check.  Fabulous photo opportunity?  Duh!  Honestly, how in the world could I resist taking a photo of this?  Seriously people, I'm a scrapbooker.

Brownie points if you know the author of the book I "borrowed" the title from.  The real title of the book is Loves Music, Loves to Dance.

Happy Reading,

Ben & the Bags

I think it's going to be Ben photo week.  Hope you all don't mind!  It's a good way for our families to see some recent pics of the growing little man and fills in while I'm unable to create projects before the retreat.

Also, for those of you looking for a tutorial on the latest blog candy - I've got one for the outer tote on my tutorial blog here.

Back to today's post, Ben loves it when CTMH boxes come to our house.  They are always filled with these green bags of air that we love to cover ourselves in and pop when we are done.  It always makes for a good day.  :)

Enjoy your day & don't forget about the latest blog candy!  You can access the post by clicking on the picture in the sidebar.