{me}anderings . . .

share your style . . .

 
have you been working out with ella this week?  i have so been enjoying their exercises each day.  monday's was to share your scrapping style.  several of the jbs girls posted about theirs on the inspiration blog.  i ran out of oomph to post mine, so i thought i would share it here.  i often call myself the chameleon scrapper because i love to dabble in so many styles.  you can see what i mean by this in my top ten in twenty ten variety post.  even though i'm all over the place with the look of my pages, i do think there are two aspects of my scrapping that always keep me true to me.  the first of these is theme.  now i don't often used themed product, but i always settle on a theme or themes for my page before i get started.  this helps me infuse it with rich symbolism that might not be obvious, but really sets the tone.  the other big style deal for me is design.  i like to call my pages "structured freestyle."  i love to incorporate fun technique and a relaxed look with lots of sweet details, but i am always careful to have a solid underlying structure so my pages are cohesive with a nice flow.  what's your style?  are you still exploring?  have you settled into your groove?  are you a chameleon too?

 

p.s. i did get a post together for day two of spring training.  it's about one sentence journaling.  love that!

be grateful . . .

 
"happy earth day! always remember to take care of our earth.  recycle. keep her clean. preserve her trees. love her creatures. new is not always better. love the land and sea and be grateful for the gifts they offer."

here it is . . . the may kit peek i promised. i wish i had taken a few process shots for you on this one.  it's pretty easy though.  i handcut a few patterned paper strips to the width of the lines on the notebook paper then stitched them on.  i misted with a little maya road hydrangea to lead the eye through the layout. the little skirt under the photo is a paper border that i pleated. the kraft tags are finger painted with gesso and lemon drops paint dabber and i inked the butterflies with stayzon so they'd show up a little better. oh! and i misted the flower with lemon drops.  tfl!

happy HAPPY easter!

 
it was such an awesome weekend.  perfect really.  as we had good friday off, we went to hang out with tammy and crew after school thursday and then most of the day on friday.  i got three layouts done.  yay!  here's a peek at my layout to celebrate earth day which i think was also on friday.  the 25th is always peek day at jbs mercantile, so i'll be able to come back and share the whole thing with you tomorrow.

 
friday morning i got maya road hydrangea and jbs lemon drops mists on my left hand and teal stayzon, gesso, lemon drops paint dabber, and two types of glue on my right hand.  messy hands are always a good start to the day.  (by the looks of it, dina had an excellent friday as well).  :)

 
 
saturday was low key.  a j's run, chinese buffet, a walk on the greenway, easter egg coloring . . .

 
the easter bunny fell asleep on the job, but luckily woke up in time to get'er done.  there was a definite aquatic animal theme in the basket.  the gman was very appreciative.  we managed to make it to church in time for all the songs.  i love to sing, so i was very appreciative (and should work on bing punctual more often).  and bonus! after church we got free t-shirts for next week's "worship without walls."  i don't know why this thrills me so, but it was more exciting than free t-shirts at the y. 

 
and then we spent most of the day at sherri's.  there were FOUR potato dishes . . . mashed potatoes, twice baked potatoes, hashbrown casserole, and sweet potato casserole . . . truly a little taste of heaven.  the bigs hid eggs and the littles hunted eggs.  the adults chilled.  the preds WON!  sherri and barry are PUMPED!  such a good weekend.  we're even heading to bed with a mostly tidy house.  looks like the start of a good week too!  happy easter everyone!  hope yours was lovely too.  :)

in the pursuit of happiness . . .

 
life hasn't treated me very kindly this week.  some of my problems stem from my own negligence and some are due to circumstances beyond my control.  i will admit to feeling a little droopy around the edges tonight.  but i am a firm believer in choosing happiness.  i think a round of positive thinking will be good for me, so here goes ten random gratefuls . . .

1. the porkchop will be going to school tomorrow after being sick all week.  so happy he's not missing the egg hunt.  :)

2. no school on friday!

3. only 30 school days left this year!

4. and lest you think i don't like me job, i got three new students last week who are all delightful.  two are siblings from peru and the third is from puerto rico.  they have added a fun dynamic to my first block class and i have looked forward to being there each day.

5. we had so much fun on our camping trip.  even though we froze.  we love cub scouts.  love.  what can i say.  i'm genetically redneck and apparently g is too.

6. thankful for good friends who take care of me.

7. looking forward to going to church sunday.

8. had fun chatting with the jbs girls this morning about utee and stamping phobias.  they are all so talented and awesome.

9. the tortilla soup was good while it lasted.

10. so far we've only had the ac on 3 nights this year.

11. enjoying having shimelle in my inbox each morning.

12. looking forward to diving into the may jbs mercantile kit this weekend!

oops!  that's twelve!

scrappy shares . . .

 
i know i already shared this layout here, but I finally edited the background pic and wanted to tell you what i did with that.  it wasn't much, really.  i just swiped a little gesso first up and down and then left to right to make a slight basketweave look.  when that was dry, i misted over the whole thing with maya road hydrangea blue and then stitched on the grid that you see.  fun!

 
i also wanted to tell you about several more scrappy shares that i haven't mentioned here yet.

 
i wrote about my process for creating this layout HERE.

 
i posted a tutorial for creating the background on this layout HERE.

 
and i wrote about creating the cover for this mini-album HERE plus have some internal pages for it posted HERE.  TFL!

gone fishing . . .

 
i feel like there's been a permanent "gone fishing" sign on my blog this year.  i've been such a bad blogger and i hate that.  i love blogging.  it's such a great way to get down all the little day to day details.  hmmm.  i have to make time for me in my busy life.  i signed up for shimelle's "beyond blogging" today.  maybe this will get me back in gear?  on to the daily life . . . this is the gman's first tennessee fish.  he was beyond excited when he caught it sunday morning.  we had another fun cub scout camping trip this past weekend.  happy happy.  but then my boo baby turned up sick last night at 1:00 am.  the washing machine has been running all day.  it's still running now.  we'll be home again tomorrow, but fingers crossed he wakes up feeling better.  sweet boy.

jbs mercantile april offerings . . .

 
i was feeling very artsy the day i got started on my april kits.  i think it is the masks in the add-ons that put me in this mood.  i actually took a couple in progress shots of this layout and plan to share them on the jbs blog later in the month, but i will tell you that i used gesso, dye ink with the blender tool, re-inkers in misters, and paint dabbers.  messy craziness.  love.

 
more messy on this one too.  and i adore those canvas tags.  weren't they perfect for this old ship?  i misted them yellow with lemon drops.  so happy i still have 3 more to use on another layout. i also took a picture of what i did on the background of this one.  i'll share that here once i get it edited.   i only got these two done with the main kit so far because i also had to work with our 2nd quarter dime store kit.

 
the dime store kit has a lot of tangerine dream in it at a great price.  i so loved this release and still do.  we have been bugging jenni to do another orange and/or aqua release.  i think she's thinking about it.  i am so proud of this project.  it turned out so cute and i don't typically do cute or projects very well, so yay me!  the middle framed piece is product packaging, something i do do very well.  reduce, reuse, recycle!  there will be instructions for making this piece posted in the dime store gallery on the 1oth.

 
a layout from the dime store kit.  i used the chipboard backing for my background.  love that color.

 
and here's a little micro mini-album made from a couple of the journaling cards.  the closure is just a rubber band on a chipboard button.  simple and functional.  thanks for stopping by.  we're off to enjoy this lovely WARM spring day.  :)