Thanksgiving Blocks

Just a quick view of my entryway with my new Thankful blocks. Hope you take time to remember everything you are thankful for this holiday season!


Here’s my first shot at vintage scrapping. I don’t know if it’s truly vintage style or not, but in my mind it is.

I think it’s the vintage ric rak and the pin hanging from the frame (thank you for both of those Dee!). Do you like my little piece of cork that I added? I do too! I found the flowers at Michael’s on fall clearance for 80% off, costing me a whopping 80 cents for both! The vinyl record was a steal also at 50 cents from the Goodwill. Dee made the tag (and I just permanently borrowed it) and she gave me the pin & dew drops also. I had the rub ons (on the tag) and so I think this little piece of art cost me a grand total of $1.30, not including all the permanently borrowed items or the wine bottle that I got the cork from. Great deal for me! Here’s where I first got the idea to scrap on vinyl http://michelehamilton.typepad.com/makeart/2009/10/sherry-rawks.html. Now go out, get yourself a record and start decorating!

Still working on my mini book

I started working on my Coffee Cup Mini Book from Wilna Furstenberg's tutorial that appeared on Ali Edward's blog back on October 19th.

I thought I would make it easier on myself by opening the pages in Photoshop Elements and replace the pics and print all at once. It worked well. But then I forgot to print, of course- So I printed them this weekend and embellished them. Yesterday Dee scored us a dozen white tall cups from Starbucks and I started working on the cup portion of the tutorial when I got home. I finally got the colors to look the way I wanted after ruining 2 cups. I don't suggest spraying Ranger Color Wash directly onto the cup. Way too dark (learned on cup #1). Cup #2 was a dark brown glimmery mess from multiple layers of glimmer mist and a little color wash. Cup #3 turned out the best! I sprayed my stream color wash onto a piece of cardboard and used a baby wipe to pick up the color and paint it onto the cup. Looks great! Oh also, in the steps where it says to use a hot glue gun to glue the cardboard into the cup, I tried that and either my "low heat" glue gun wasn't the best idea, or I just didn't glue it down fast enough. I ended up using Zip Dry and it worked perfectly! Only other thing I forgot was to do was cut out the circle on the front of the cup and replace it with a picture. I'll do it later! Ok going to get to work now (Yes I'm actually at work- updating my personal blog... oops!) but once I'm done with the book- I will post it here! It's turning out A-MAZ-ING!

One more thing before I go- Wilna is teaching another version of this book on her DIY Holiday class and it's actually TODAY's class! It's a Holiday version with the Starbucks RED cups! SOO CUTE. Go sign up now if you haven't already! www.kaylaaimee.com


Gorgeous Wreath

Deanna came over the other night and brought this gorgeous wreath with her! I couldn't stop staring at it. She said it took her a couple nights and some mindless TV to work in front of, but the outcome is stunning! She found the wreath base at the dollar store and it's just a white one. Nothing special. Then she cut this beautiful paper (that she was saving for a special project-- we all that "stash" of paper!) and decided it would be perfect for this. She cut all the papers pretty thin, and wrapped them tightly around a ball point pen. When released, they sprang into the cute coils. She hot glued them to the wreath and continued to fill in the gaps where needed. She also created these super cute roses by crumpling the paper, then folding a strip of the crumpled paper in half lengthwise and started twisting it into a flower shape. She used hot glue to keep it together as she was working, and then glued it down when she was done. Turned out so beautiful- I can only hope she makes me one for Christmas *hint hint*!





Christmas Workshop!!!

I'm ready to be in the *Holiday* mood! I just signed up for Kayla Aimee & Wilna Furstenberg's "A DIY Holiday" class that starts THIS SUNDAY! It looks so cute from the website pictures!!! Check it out for yourself: http://kaylaaimee.com/. It's only $20 and has all kinds of classes- more than 25 actually! Kayla Aimee already posted a free lesson "Paperback trees" which I remember making as a child, but they never looked this pretty!
You take the classes from the comfort of your own home, online, when you have time. How perfect is that! You can just cozy up to your computer with a warm cup of tea and your scrapping supplies and away you go. My family better be ready for some hand made gifts this year.

CKC Seattle was a blast!

CKC (Creating Keepsakes Convention) Seattle was SOOO MUCH FUN! This was my 2nd year attending and it is so worth the money! Classes range from $15-45 and you basically determine how many classes you take so it can be as cheap or expensive as you want. I spent $180 on classes & 2 crops ($26/ea). The classes teach you new techniques, get your hands on new product, and leave you inspired. If you've never been, I highly recommend it! They have over 15 locations across the US.

This year, we took my car. We- being myself (of course), MaryJo, Kristen and Amanda. We all packed pretty light knowing we'd all be shopping and having class projects to bring home. The car wasn't too full on the way up. It was comfortable. We left Thursday morning and headed straight for Scrapbook Nook in Kent, WA. It's my favorite scrapbook store of all time! They have a huge 5000 sq ft store, amazing current products and and there are so many projects on display you don't know which one to put in your basket first!

Thursday night the four of us were at dinner at the Cheesecake Factory **YUMMY** and we got a text from our good friend Kelley. She was sad, and lonely. The text said something to the effect of "Dear CKC, why must you be so far, so expensive, and take all of my friends away". We giggled about it and then a lighbulb went off! Hey, it's Thursday, my husband Garrick is driving up Saturday, we have an extra wristband for the vendor shopping ($9.00 savings) and we have extra room in our hotel room & car to bring her home. We texted her back and told her all she'd need to do was to buy a ticket for the Saturday night crop! She was IN! YEAH!

Around noon on Saturday, Kelley arrived at the convention ready and armed with cash to shop! We all had lunch together (in between classes) and although the Saturday night crop was sold out, Kelley managed to score a ticket- EVEN BETTER!

We all did a lot of shopping, and I mean A LOT! Remember when I said my car wasn't too full, well... I couldn't really see out the window on the way home! With 5 suitcases, 2 rolling totes, 4 backpacks and even more shopping bags, it was a tight squeeze! Here's proof! This is my car...
Well, we can't wait for next November for the convention again! Yippee! I better start saving now- Maybe I should give up my daily latte habit... Nah! :)

Scrapping thru the eyes of a 5 year old

My 5 year old niece Emma was given a homework assignment to make a scrapbook page. I'm the scrapper of the family so I was asked if I would mind helping. Of course not! I packed up about 2/3 of my scrapbook stuff. I had no idea what she was going to want to do. I had in my mind some cool ideas but then I had to remember it was her art. My husband laughed and tried to remind me that it was for kindergarten not for an adult. Well, I did end up leaving one of my totes in the car but figured I could go get it if needed (I didn't need it). Emma's dad gave me a surprised look when he saw how much I was bringing in. Hey, you never know I told him! And yes, we did look through most of what I brought.

I brought her 3 plain sheets of paper to choose from. Then we went through my printed scraps to find something that she liked. Come to find out, she doesn't like flowers. Who knew! Definitely not me! We also looked through my stickers and rub ons and all that fun stuff. The only part that I really contributed was to the glittery "E" at the top, but even then, I just mentioned to her that it would be cute and she decided to do it. Found cute rub on glitter, instead of the pouring kind. Much easier for her.


She enjoys soccer which prompted the soccer ball on the bottom right. But then I showed her the light up star that I'd bought for a page for my son (probably about a year ago). She instanly asked if she could use it. SURE! She really liked that it lit up. Then she added the other sports shapes too. Oh, and the guitar pic which says "tough". She liked it. It's all good. The part that I find the most interesting of her choices is the chipboard people shapes. My thought was to put them off to the side and ink them, or something like that (*I didn't tell her that though). She decided that she wanted to put them on the actual picture of the family. I put the glue on them and she placed them where she wanted them. All in all, we had fun together, even though it was a short project. Guess you can't expect too much out of a 5 year old. I did mention as I was packing, for her to let me know when she wanted to do another one. We'll see when/if that happens!
I love you Emma & enjoyed our time together! LOVE, Auntie Jenn