2 nights of scrapping ...woot woot for me!

I've been jonesing to scrap for weeks now but it just hasn't been happening for me...most of this week was a bust because I've been completely wiped out at night because we've been crazy busy at work...actually had to do work the WHOLE 40 hours...geesh...anyways between that and the ridunculous heat last week that made my scraproom feel like a boiler room there has been very little scrapping going on at my house...actually there has been very little anything going on at my house...doing dishes is overated anyways right :). Anyways this week I needed to scrap...I'm in another Chinese Whispers challenge and it's my turn so I had to get at least that done. So Thursday night when I got home I sucked down a 5-Hour energy and gave it the ol' college try. Unfortunately I was having major issues finding photos for my challenge layout and I was lacking moojo so I decided after a couple hours of frustration to move onto something different. Decided to go through my kits and find one of them to work on.....ended up settling on one of my daughter at Mystic Aquarium. It took me most of the night to finish it but I was happy with it and it got the moojo flowing so it was a win-win.



Used very minimal product on this layout...cardstock is Bazzil...those great stickers around the photos were actually a really awesome border from Creative Memories (yes...I saidCreative Memories ;)..some of their stuff is pretty darn cute) ...I cut it into pieces so I could use it all over my layout...used my Sakura Gelly Roll pens to create the rest of the border around the pics...love those pens...when they work right anyways. Added my title (it was too late for clever so I went with simple) ...used some super cute puffy tiny letter stickers from Sandylion..got these bad boys and 2 other colors at ACMoore...really wish I could find more colors...totally love the size and dimension of these. Added a small amount of ric-rac from my super huge stash of ribbon and then did some detail work on the stickers to give them a little more oomph...




I added some stickles to some...brads to some and then busted out my Gelly Roll pens again to add some dimension and voila...done!
Since I was still on a scrapping high from Thursday I decided to scrap some more Friday night and get my Chinese Whispers layout done...which I'm proud to say I accomplished...totally love how it came out...can't show it to y'all yet though....can't post it though until the last person in our round is done with theirs ... so I guess you will just have to wait patiently ...or wait impatiently...either way your waiting. :)

A confession and some layouts to share

OK first the confession...I'm a geek! Yep that's right...a geek! Hard to believe right. I mean I'm sure everyone thinks I'm as cool as Fonzie but I so ain't. Don't get me wrong I'm no mega nerd either...I don't own a pocket protector or live in my mom's basement and I've never played a game of D&D evah...but I do have a love for one of the geekiest things on the planet ...Harry Potter. I am full on lover of the boy with the lightning scar and his precocious friends. Now if I were a 8 years old my love for Harry Potter would be OK because that is what little kids are supposed to be into but as I'm a few (cough) years older than 30 being a mega fan of Harry Potter makes me a geek and I'm OK with that...after all judging by the crowd of the other over 30 somethings that were in the theater with me this weekend it's safe to say I'm not the only geek on the planet. Like many other geeks I've been hooked on Harry since the first book came out so many years ago ....that's when I first started reading the books to my son...he was just 5 at the time...man do I miss those days. The only book I didn't read to him was the last one...by the time Deathly Hallows came out it was 2007 and he was 14 and was so over being read to :( . But at the same time my son was losing interest my daughter...then 10...was beginning her own obsession with Harry Potter...both the books and Daniel Radcliffe...he was her first "poster on the walls" crush. Since we all loved the books we naturally had to see all the movies...and of course we loved them all...I especially loved them because they were movies we all watched together...as a mom you just can't knock anything that gets both your kids in the same room with you! So of course being a family of Harry Potter obsessed geeks we had to see the last movie this weekend...we weren't crazy enough to go to the midnight showing but we did go opening day...I couldn't wait any longer to see it. We loved it ...it was awesome! Already looking forward to seeing it again and can't wait for the DVD release! As excited as I was to see the last movie now that it's over I'm bummed...it's like a huge hunk of my kid's childhood has come to an end. So being a scrapbooker I had to capture a bit of our Harry Potter love so I will always remember what a big part of our lives the boy with the lightning scar was so I did a couple layouts this weekend ...



this first one is of my daughter dressed as Hermione...such a perfect costume for her. I didn't have any Harry Potter themed scrap stuff so I had to wing it to get the feel of Harry Potter with supplies I did have....used a great paper from Colorbok for the background...it looks like Harry himself could have written it with his quill. To bring in the Gryffindor colors I mounted the entire layout on a piece of burgundy Mi-Tients paper. To bring in the gold...the other half of the Griffyndor color scheme ... I used it for my title block and to make my journal block pop. Inspiration for the framed pictures came from the many framed pictures that hang in Hogwarts...love how the super cute transparency frames from Colorbok make the photos just pop. Added a few more embellishments such as the burgundy and gold ribbon and the dangly stars and then I added my favorite part of the whole layout...an awesome embroidered embellishment from Autumn Leaves...totally worked perfectly with the photo of Kay waving her magic wand (a stick ;) ) ...love love love the magical look it adds to the layout!



The other Harry Potter inspired layout I did was about my daughter's love for reading and her favorite books...which of course includes Harry Potter



I chose a simple aged paper from Basic Grey for the background because it reminded me of an aged leather book. Again since I didn't have any themed embellishments I had to get creative and decided to use images of the book covers as my embellishments. I simply googled the books I wanted to use...cut and pasted the images into a PSE file and resized the images and printed them with my photos..voila instant embellishments....totally love how all the covers to the books she loves totally coordinate! To add a little more detail I added a bit of of faux stitching in between the photos and then added some flourish rubons from Making Memories. Since the photos really told the story I opted for no journaling but I did add some great word stickers I just got from Reminisce to carry on the theme and then added a simple but colorful title using some fabulous new Thickers I got.



The plan is to do at least 2 more Harry Potter inspired layouts in the near future..one of me and the kids at the final movie and one about reading the books to my son. Although being the geek that I am I might just dedicate a whole album to the boy who lived.

Clean at last, well mostly clean

I honestly don't want to sound like I'm complaining cause I'm so not but I can't believe how much new scrap stuff I just had to put away!! Seriously straight up a ton of stuff! I had all the stuff I bought from my shopping spree prior to the crop...plus I had an awesome pack of goodies that I got from my buddy Jingle...plus I had all the goodies from my goody bag from the crop...plus the raffle prizes I won...plus I had placed an order online and I had to put that away too!! Seriously a huge stack of stuff! On top of all the new stuff I had to unpack my crop bags from the crop and deal with all the leftover stuff from the crop goody bags and the like. With all that stuff my room looked like someone dumped the contents of a scrapstore in there! So not typical for my room to look that disastorous but after the crop I was just too tired to deal and the last 2 days were ridunkulously hot so no way I wanted to spend any time putting stuff away. So tonight the weather was much nicer and I was feeling properly rested from the big weekend so I decided it would be a good night to tackle the gargantuan mess. It took a couple hours..but part of that time was spent multitasking...I was texting with one friend...another stopped by...then my sister stopped by...then I had to break to see the results on AGT ...but even with all the interuptions I managed to get almost all of it put away. Now i have just one pile left on my desk but I think I'll deal with that manana...there are some fresh baked brownies calling my name...time for another break.

Crop for Tornado Relief done!

Well Saturday was the day of the big Crop for Tornado Relief and I am happy to report we raised a whopping sum of money for Tornado Relief! I would've reported sooner but I needed a couple days of hardcore relaxing :) to recover!!
Before I tell you about Saturday I should first tell you about Friday and all the prep work that went into this crop...I should also warn you this post will be long...so get comfy.
So Friday...since the inception of this crop my buddy Jingle has been helping me out from her end of the state getting mega amounts of donations for this crop...well seeing she lives an hour away and gas is just a tad pricy ...we had to wait until the day before the crop to get together and go through all the packages she had received and the ones I had received. We met up Friday at my house around 1:00 p.m. and got right to work. It was both completely awesome and totally overwhelming to go through the huge stacks of scrapping goodness! The amount of stuff we had was just mind boggling! We quickly oohed and aahhed over each others stack of goodies...and of course we made notes of all the stuff we personally were hoping to win which was a lot! After a quick sort we packed it all up to deal with later leaving out only the goodies we needed for the goody bags. We then got to work putting together our amazing goodie bags which involved lots of measuring and cutting of ribbon and twine and endless counting of buttons and brads but it was all worth it because they were completely drool worthy. We couldn't finish them until we got them to the hotel because transporting them all full was going to be a real issue...as it was transporting them only 1/2 full was an issue and some of them got dumped more than once. After we had the goodie cans well on their way we had just enough time to get the van packed and get to the hotel. And when I say packed...I mean packed ...as in stuffed...crammed even. I still can't believe how much stuff we hauled...if we had any more I would've needed a special permit to cross city lines.
So me, Jen and my daughter set off for the hotel and on the way we stopped to pick up reinforcements ..my niece Laura. Once we got to the hotel it was time to unload...thank god for those luggage trollies at the hotel! We had so much stuff on one of them we gave it a flat! We made so many trips back and forth we got tons of odd stares from some of the hotel guests and the 2 clerks working the front desk just kind of gasped in awe with each successful load we hauled in.



Luckily waiting at the hotel was even more reinforcements...my good buddy Tina was there to lend a hand with all the chaos. After we got everything unloaded we set about the heavy duty work of setting up tables. We had to work with 4 different size tables and had to accomodate several different size groups of scrappers ...figuring it all out was like trying to solve the worst geometry problem evah! After some seriously heaving and hauling, we got it all set up the way we wanted.



Even though the heavy lifting and mathmatics were done we still had tons to do. I had to do some running around to pick up some last minute donations (cause we obviously didn't have enough stuff) so I left Jen and Tina to work on the goody cans. They had to finish stuffing the cans with goodies and then add the flower and ribbon. They were totally awesome when they were done..each goodie can had a bottle of Un-du (awesomeness in a bottle), a bottle of Plaid Paint, 9 yards of twine from Whisper Graphics (love!) , 2 yards of ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon, a catseye ink from Clearsnap, 12 assorted brads donated by Robyn from ClubCK and an assortment of buttons from Creative Imaginations. Like I said ...drool worthy!



And because all that scrappy goodness wasn't enough... they had to assemble the 2nd part of the goodie bags...yep there was more ...because we had stuff that wouldn't fit into the cans so we had to bag the rest so they set about making 60 piles of assorted goodies to put in the large bags to give to everyone. Those bags had Canva-Paper, Mi-Tients and Bristol paper from Canson (all provided by my rockin hubby!), a sheet of lace cut paper from Creative Imaginations (sweeet!), chipboard shapes, die cut shapes that Robyn for ClubCK donated, a border from Creative Memories, coupons for a local scrapbook store and discount codes for online stores. By the time I got back they had all the goodie bags under control and I had even more goodies to add to our humugous pile of door prizes!
Since the goodie bags were done it was on to the overwhelming task of deciding which of the amazing scrap goodies would be raffle prizes and which would be door prizes. It was seriously a daunting task! We finally selected our 50 raffle prizes...yes thats fifty...five-zero...and set them out on the prize tables ...our big prizes...a Sizzix Big Kicks and a Scrapping Easle from Contain-ya Crafts...



It was totally exhausting...Jen was whooped...



We finally decided we had done as much as we could do we set off for home around 11:00. Once we got home we had to finalize the seating chart and make sure we had all the sponsors listed on our brochure. Plus we had to finish some last minute food prep and Jen and the girls made pretty table numbers for each table. Finally we finished all that but then I still had to pack my own scrappy stuff for the crop...yikes. I had considered not packing at all since I was predicting I'd have very little time to scrap but I got talked into it and hastily packed 2 big crop bags. Finally we got to bed around 1 a.m. with plans to get up at 5 a.m.! Major yikes! Unfortunately with only 4 hours to sleep I spent about 3 hours of that time fretting about what I had forgotten or still needed to do. :(
So Saturday morning Jen and I were up bright and mega early ...we got ready and packed what was left to be packed and headed out. We had to make a quick stop at my office to print out the brochures and then we hustled to the hotel to finish set up. We double checked the seating and then set up for breakfast after a quick last minute trip to the store for some juice and a dash to Starbucks to pick up the coffee they donated.
By the time we opened at 9 a.m. we were ready to go...my hubby had dropped off my daughter and my niece and they were put in charge of checking everyone in and they did an awesome job!



We had 56 people attend ...which is considerably less than the 90 I originally planned for ...but it was still a very respectable number and it made for much more spacious cropping for all. Once everyone got settled we welcomed everyone and it was time for breakfast...lots of delicious yumminess provided by Panera and coffee provided by Starbucks. After breakfast the girls set about selling raffle tickets...with all the great prizes we had ...they were pretty busy! Around 10 we started pulling names for the 1st of many door prizes. We handed out about 10 an hour!!! While I was managing all that the fabulous Jingle was busy on the other side of the room doing a make and take with some beautiful ribbon provided by May Arts.
The time was really flying by before I knew it it was already time for lunch...we had a beautiful and tasty pasta salad from a local caterer, pizza from Dominos and subs from Subway. My hubby and son took care of getting all the food for lunch picked up for us and getting it to the hotel. After lunch it was time for more door prizes and for my favorite part of the day...at 2 p.m. we had a masseuse show up!! She was fabulous and I was her very 1st customer of the day! I so enjoyed every minute!
After my massage it was back to work...we gave away tons more door prizes. In between I did manage to find 15 minutes to sit down and try to scrap but didn't get much more done than getting stuff out of the bag but I did have a chance to chat with my friends for a bit and get some pics...unfortunately like the ones above they were all blurry.



I did get some time to check out the make and take offered by the Stamping Up rep and to shop with the local scrapbook store, Paper, Paper. Bought 4 packs of journal spots...cause I needed more LOL. After that it was back to more door prizes and then it was dinner time.
Dinner was amazing...a local caterer donated roasted chicken and potatoes and we had bread from Panera and my sister made us a garden salad. My sister and my mom took care of dinner for us which was great. We did have a little issue and ran out of chicken and left 8 people without dinner but luckily we were able to get more from the store next to the hotel so it was all good.
After dinner we stepped up the door prize drawings. Even with all that we had to give out we still had some ladies who hadn't won anything so we made the executive decision to pass out prizes to anyone who hadn't won. Even after that we still had more to give out!! After the door prizes were finally all gone it was onto the raffles!!! We had lots and lots of happy winners ...including myself who won an awesome prize pack from EAD designs and a fabulously awesome kit from Front Porch Kits. I shared my prize pack from EAD designs with Jingle but the kit from Front Porch Kits was all mine!!
After the raffle we had a small tag sale of sorts...we put out some previously loved scrap supplies that were donated to the crop as well as the extras from the goodie bags and sold it all to make some more money for Tornado Relief.
Before I knew it it was already 9 and time to call it a night. I was thrilled to hear lots of great comments about how much everyone enjoyed the crop which just made my night! I was thrilled everyone had a great time.
Of course once it was all over we still had to clean up and pack up and get home...it was grueling because we were all so tired but we got through the mess in pretty good time.
It was all worth it though...when we got home I tallied up everything and after our expenses we made a whopping $2500 for Tornado Relief!!

Dear retail employees everywhere...

I worked retail for a lot of years and I know that working retail is a hard job and often a thankless job and I know when you work in a big store like AC Moore or Michaels it's pretty much impossible to know everything about every product but if a customer asks a question and you don't the answer then just say...I DON'T KNOW!!! Seriously! I went to AC Moore tonight to get glue I needed for the crop on Saturday ...while I was walking through the scrapbook department I noticed that they reset the albums and I couldn't see any of my favorite albums from We R Memory Keepers anywhere! I was freaking out a bit because I really love those albums and from what I could tell it looked like they wouldn't be carrying them anymore...so dissappointing. I checked the labels on all the outs and no labels at all for any WRMK albums. :( But being an optimist I figured since they just reset the planogram the albums must be somewhere in the store...hopefully in a new home somewhere or maybe in clearance. So since I couldn't find them on my own I sought out a clerk and thought I got lucky when I found the manager on duty was in the next aisle. So thinking he might actually know something I asked him if he realized they just reset the album wall and did he have any idea what would've happened to the albums that were no longer out. His brilliant answer...we must've sold out. That answer came without even asking which ones I was looking for. So I said there were several left last week before the new planogram and asked if it was possible if they were in another part of the store or in a clearance section somewhere....instead of just saying I don't know and telling me where the clearance section was the manager told me that nope the albums wouldn't be in clearance because nothing from that department made it to clearance. At this point I was quite annoyed because he never even asked about the albums I was specifically looking for or offered to help me look...just gave me his BS line and left it at that. Talk about horrible customer service. I was so annoyed. So I went and found the clearance section myself. No sign of my beloved WRMK albums but I did find another album in the clearance as well as other scrapbook stuff. Honestly it was just ridiculously irritating. How hard is it just to say I'm sorry I don't know but clearance is over there and if you want I will help you look. Geesh. Unfortunately I still had to find the glue I went there to get in the first place and of course I couldn't find it at first but no way was I going to waste more time asking for help...goodness knows what I'd get for an answer. Luckily I found them on my own. Now I am going to have to start stalking AC Moores trying to find my albums....hopefully I can find a clerk that has a clue and if they don't they will just say so.

Blips and blurbs

don't have a lot of time for blogging so I will be doing some speed posting tonight...just some blips and blurbs about the big fundraiser crop...
One month sure goes by ridiculously fast when your trying to plan something....like Han Solo in warp speed fast.

So excited that in a few short days I will get to meet lots of new scrappers and even more excited that I get to spend 12 hours hanging with some of my favorite people!
Waiting for the UPS man is a like an emotional roller coaster ride...1st i'm anxious to see if he comes, disappointed if he doesn't and super excited when he does!

The peeps over on ClubCK are ridiculously generous ...which I already knew...but now I have proof...package after package of wonderful scrappy goodness donated for our raffle!
A box full of 100 bottles of Un-Du is an awesome site to behold...makes me happy happy happy!
My boss drives me so crazy I want to drink heavily on a regular basis but sometimes he comes through when needed...after a little arm twisting he generously donated some $$$ to cover expenses for our big event.

100 accordian flowers is a lot...just say'n!
And if your making 100 accordian flowers...I highly suggest getting a scor-board. I did not have one and I spent every minute this weekend wishing I had one.
100 cans makes a ton of noise when they all fall out of the box. Note to self...need better box.
My daughter is amazing...if not for her help this weekend I'd still be on the 4th flower.
When it's necessary to pack tons of stuff...make a list and check it twice...lest ye forget stuff...like I did this weekend.
Oh and if you watch hours on end of the mini series on John Adams while you make 100 accordian flowers...you will say things like "lest ye" for a few days LOL

Old paper and recycled cans

That's what I'm using to make all of the fabulous goody bags for our big fundraiser crop! Of course I know the words old paper and recycled cans don't create visions of fabulous in your head but trust me ...they are fabulous (if I do say so myself LOL)! Want proof...here ya go....



I pulled out some really old My Minds Eye paper to do this project and I love it!! I got this huge stack of MME at Costco like 5 years ago and it was a total steal...maybe cost me 19.99 for 200-300 sheets and I've only used a very small portion of it...it's great paper but unfortunately ...or fortunately depending on how you look at it ;) .. I have lots of great paper ...but alas only 2 hands and so very little time to play with it all...sigh! Anyways...back to the MME paper...so because it was a bulk paper pack it's thinner so it was perfect for this project because I could score, fold and punch it easily. Thank goodness to because I gave my apron lace punch a serious work out last night ...not to mention my aching wrists...who knew punching was such hard work! The other great thing about this paper pack is it's got lots of great coordinating papers so I could use one for the base and one for the flower...only tricky part was trying to decide which of the beautiful patterns to use for which! Oh and speaking of the base...that is where the recycled cans come in ! As luck would have it I just happened to have about 100 cans laying around that worked out perfectly for this project. And before you all going thinking I'm some kind of crazy hoarder holding on to 100 cans and wondering what other piles of stuff I keep lying around let me set ya all straight...I am no hoarder or junk collector...just so happens these are some fabulous cans and I've been collecting them because I just knew someday they would be destined for greatness! The cans are actually from blue diamond almonds...and yes I ate the contents of each and every one of those cans...I eat plain almonds every day...best snack evah! Anyways the cans don't have any sharp edges and they only had almonds in them so they were easy to clean out and as an added bonus the labels come off super easy. So to make these awesome cans look more awesome I just inked the edge of a strip of the old fab MME paper and wrapped it around and voila ...a pretty can for our goody "bag". Of course since we are getting some super amazing goodies to put in our goody "bags" I wanted to ramp up the ooomph factor of these bad boys and decided to add a coordinating flower. Took me a bit to get some moojo flowing and figure out exactly what the flower was going to look like and how to make them but by midnight I finally had a prototype done and I lovvvvvve it! It's just a simple accordian flower...easy to make...punch a strip of paper on one edge...trim strip to 2 inches...score and fold...and again voila! The center of the flower is more recycled goodness...I used old chipboard I saved from backs of notepads we use at work...and the "stems" are actually wooden skewers I had leftover from a dinner party ...unused of course! I found a roll of green tulle laying in my craft stash in the cellar from like 6 years ago and used pieces to create the "leaves". Dressed the whole thing up with a little ribbon scrap on the stem, a punched butterfly from scrap paper and added a touch of sparkle with some stickles...and presto...one amazingly awesome goody "bag".......



Just imagine just how much more awesome they will be when I fill that can with all sorts of scrapping goodies! Can't wait until everything arrives so I can get to filling em! Guess while I wait for the UPS man I'll have to bide my time making more of these little beauties...1 down...99 more to go! LOL. Good thing it's a long weekend!