@rt-thol-o-gie

I LOVE blogs. They're kind of like soap operas. You can get so caught up in the day to day drama....or in the case of scrapbooking....the day to day eye candy, and I LOVE eye candy.


A few weeks ago, a special friend of mine scrapped her little Cosmo Cricket heart out, hoping to be picked for one of their design teams. Every day she'd post a layout or other craft that she'd created with the CC line on her blog and in online galleries. The powers that be at Cosmo would then review each persons work in these galleries and blogs. Great advertising gimmick for Cosmo, doncha think? I won't go there right now, but using people for free advertising kind of pisses me off.

And that makes what Tracey did during her Cosmo Cricket week all the more awesome. She posted the following....

"One more thing for today... in the past few days I found another designer that is going for a spot on this awesome team. Her name is Lynn and if you love scrapbooking, paper crafting, and/or Cosmo Cricket, you have got to check out her blog. Yes, technically she is "the competition." She is also very talented and a kick in the pants... go... enjoy her site, too!!!"

..and then she linked to Lynn's blog. Cool, huh? I'm telling ya, good scrappers are good people. They love receiving praise, but I think they love giving it even more. So go check out Lynn's blog. It's a winner.

It sure is quiet out there in blogland. Everyone must be extremely busy with their vacations and such. As for me, I'm still scrappin'. I think someone must have lost their mojo because I found it....made 3 more layouts over the weekend. I've been playing with the embellishments on this one for 3 days now. I've never done this much scrapping at one time...maybe it's the Starbucks.

Is anyone going to take Cathy Zielske's design class? I'm considering it...have to sign up tomorrow if I want to do it. I hate to start something that I won't finish, and 12 weeks from October right up to Christmas is really cutting it close. On the other hand, it's 12 weeks of hands on design, something like 36 layouts. I wouldn't make 36 layouts in a year! Decisions, decisions.

One Amazing Girl

Can you read that? It says ONE AMAZING ALBUM by Paige Evans. Album created by Dedra Long. This article appears in the August issue of Scrapbook Trends.

And on the Editor's page....

This is a terrible picture, I know, but I just wanted to show that another layout of Dedra's caught the editor's eye. I'm impressed... and Yes, I'm gushing.

Way to go Dedra!! You're one amazing girl!

A Blog Award!

How cool is that? My cyberfriend Erika, over at Scrapbook Obsession, gave this to me because I have the same warped sense of humor that she has. (I wonder how she knew that..) Anyway, she said some really nice things about my blog, and left me a really nice message to stop by her cyberhome because she had an award for me. So I go, and what do I see?! This adorable award with 7 little strings attached to it. I want to keep the award but those strings have to go, folks. And the only way to do that is to give them away! Are you ready to play? Okay, here goes....

The Rules of the Game
1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you’ve nominated.

So, here's my award which will be moved to a permanent home in my sidebar poste haste. Since I already have a link to Erika, I'll just link you to the original link because she was one of the first links I had on this blog. Link

Now I have to nominate 7 people to give this award to. Yay! And the nominees are...

1. My friend, Tracey Locher, at WhoooooHooooo , for her generous recognition of, (and link to), a major competitor in a design team contest. That was so cool, and so admirable.....she blogs with integrity!

2. Barb, aka Sawdust, a fellow boomer who never fails to stop by and leave an encouraging word. She's taken the big leap and started her own blog... Thought Connection, which I find very thought provoking. I think she planned it that way. Way to go, Barb!

3. Allsmiles, Creative Living because her blog is filled with happiness, because she's from my home town, and because her blog is just plain good! I love her pictures and her layouts, and her scrap space, her decor, her beautiful girls, her life! Yeah, I'm just a little envious....

4. Kary Lewis at Creating Chaos because she's the most down to earth person I've ever met on the internet, she's one cool lady and she creates beautifully colored layouts that make me very happy to look at! Like this one here. Unfortunately, she's lost a dear friend recently and my heart goes out to her.

5. Harley at Koala Fuzz who bakes and scrapbooks, takes fabulous pictures and makes adorable stick pins that she sells in her Etsy shop . Her photography collages are just as yummy looking as the cakes she makes. Beyond that, I just like reading her blog!

6. I am Derby because her profile reads..."Just another mom of two, thirty something year old whose life has all the excitement of a snail." I don't know, with two kids, several cats, and the myriad number of crafts she's involved in, I think she has a happy scrappy life.

7. And last but not least, this award is going right back to my fellow Journey fan, Erika, at Scrapbook Obsession, for knowing a good blog when she sees one. ;-)

That's all folks. Have fun playing..........or not! Please know that you're under no obligation to play....your name won't be deleted, I won't say bad things about you, and I won't boycott your blog. Thanks for stopping by!

This is the final layout from last week. I just had to make a few final touches and add the embellishments. Did that while I watched and/or listened to Paperclipping Live last night. If you haven't checked out Paperclipping yet, please do. Noell's insight into design and form has been so helpful to me. I'm looking at layouts with more understanding of design, therefore, I think my layouts are getting better....even if I am a "scooper".

Thanks for looking!

One Scrappy Weekend

I spent the weekend tearing, inking, and sanding...at least it seems that way. I like the look, I just never think about doing it so I kind of forgot about it. It's kind of fun, but since I don't have a lot of experience with it, I'm still testing the waters. Sticking to just a few colors for the layouts really saves a lot of time, for me anyway. I normally agonize over every decision, but if I keep my choices to a minimum, the decisions are easy, and I only have to agonize over the placement!!

I did this one on cardstock and I'm not that happy with it. I like it more when I use patterned paper, and for this picture especially, the color blue. It looks so much better against a blue background.



Here I used patterned paper, and I like this one so much more, but the scan was terrible so I took a picture of it.

Hey, I like this one...

I LIKE THIS LAYOUT! I think it's cool... Yes, I made it! However, I totally copied the style of Iggydodie

I've been looking at her layouts for so long that I finally decided to scraplift her style and try one on for size. If you check her gallery out at Two Peas, you 'll see that quite a few people have copied her style....no great surprise to me, I've been wanting to do it for a year. I've tried from time to time but always gave up...until I really started to look at the construction of her layouts. It's not just the embellishments that she uses so well, but the paper and the colors that she blends together. She usually only uses three major colors.....in embellies and papers. How hard can that be? Especially when I have this entire block of coordinated printed paper, cardstock, and embellishments. So here I am, staring at a layout of Iggydodie's, and wondering how she decides where to place the paper, where to place the embellies, where to place the pictures. You know, kind of like scrapbooking 101. Geez....so, I said the heck with it. Nike* the damn thing and get it over with.

And I did.

And this is it.

And I like it.

And I hope I can make more just like it.

*Nike="Just do it"