{me}anderings . . .

july reveal at midnight!

 
chelle and crew came over to hang out today.  we had such a good time.  first poolside, then moving inside for popcorn and scrappies.  i got layout #4 done with the july kit.  i was right; it is my most favorite ever.  i think it is the patterned papers that i love.  they are all just my style.  tight tone-on-tone prints in soft colors.  they seem to have really put me in a color blocking mood.  you'll probably notice that right away when you see them (tonight at midnight cst!).  i was also laughing with chelle this afternoon how things have changed.  i remember when i first started scrapping and met her i would watch in horror at crops as she cut wonky lines in her paper with her gigantor sewing scissors.  back then i would never consider cutting without my trimmer.  now i deliberately cut wonky lines with my little pink cutterbees.  so funny.  :)

back to gallery loading.  be back tomorrow with my july scrappy shares!

photo editing . . .

 
it was just me and the kitties today as g spent the day playing with the twins.  what exciting things did i do with all this free time, you ask?  i spent seven hours editing and printing photos while watching nature shows on nat geo wild.  i know.  craziness.  i can't even explain it myself.  the end result is kinda fun though.  i have 20 sets of photos in a slotted album ready to go.  that means i'm 20 layouts away from being "caught up" for the year.  not that i worry about such things.  but i'm really liking having the pics printed and available for easy viewing.  i haven't printed pics and stuck them in an album in over 3 years.  i kinda wish i had the time to go back and do this for those missing years.  but i don't, so i will be happy with this year.  maybe this will start a new trend for me?  probably not, lol, but i'll keep you posted.

fudge.

 
so, getting back to my system of checks and more checks . . . we did ok last week.  the walking and thank you card making are the two most difficult to fit in.  i had to fudge on both of those categories last week.  on several days, i let g count swimming as his mile while i walked laps around the pool for my three.  i felt like singing "joshua fought the battle of jericho" whilst marching.  you can see on tuesday we missed the walk too as the po po came early to lock up the pool and it was too late and we were too tired from vbs to try anything else.  did i mention we were pulling a vbs double header last week?  yep.  8:30 to noon at the baptist church around the corner and 6:15 to 8:15 at terena's.  good stuff, but hard to work in our work in the middle especially when we added in four play dates.  anyhoo, i still ended up with 21 miles for the week.  go me.  then i got totally miffed when i got on the scale and it said i'd gained 5 pounds.  lying dial.  i put it in the goodwill pile.  you can see that this week we're not doing good at all.  sunday was a fail.  what can i say, i was miffed and unmotivated.  we were headed for a clean sweep today till g fell asleep on the couch while i was piddling on the computer.  oops.  i'm thinking if we finish up our lists in the morning before turning on cartoons it will still count.  i'm totally playing calvinball with myself.  i realize this.

 
here are the only two real thank you cards that have been made here in the last 1o days.

 
here are the other teeny tiny ones from last week.  even though they're small, they make me feel way clever.  we made them for his pm vbs teachers.  the theme there was "mission to mars" . . . ah, yes, those milky ways totally make sense now, don't they?  and the star really works the theme.  and those cute pom poms are asteroids.  yes they are.  :)

 
well, guess i'd better hit the sack so i can get back to checking in the morning.  thanks for stopping by!

jbs mercantile july peeks and NEW exclusives!

 
this is my most favorite kit ever.  yes.  i love the mix of blues and i've had an addiction to yellow for a while now.  throw in a few clouds and i'm, well, on cloud 9.  and to make it extra exciting, jenni is debuting a NEW clear stamp and mask each month that will only be available in the main kit.  the cute folk art butterfly above is the first exclusive mask.  check out the jbs inspiration blog to see the stamp and some more peeks from the design team.  i'm off for more happy creating!

 

g's garden journal . . .

 
i got g's garden journal all caught up today.  isn't it cute?  i'm so excited!  usually i get things done (several months) after the fact, so it's nice to have something that i'm working on that's current.

 
i made it from the 7 gypsies portfolio in the may project kit.  even though i kept all the pages super flat (which was hard for me!), the closure bowed quite a bit, but i found this bull dog clip in a kitchen drawer and it worked perfectly.

 
i thought the seed packet pocket that jenni made on hers was way cute, so i replicated that.

 
all my internal pages measure 6 x 8.5 inches.

 
the pages are loose, so i've numbered each page with a tiny dot black alpha so they can be kept in order.

 
gabriel did most of the journaling and then i've added a bit here and there to tell the rest of the story.  it's been so fun to work on this project together.

 
the pages were made with my leftover bits from the june kit.  when i had scraps that were too small for a page, i pieced them together with old book binding tape from my stash to make them the right size.  i really like the patchwork effect.

 
i think we are done for a few weeks now.  we probably won't have anything exciting to add until more of the vegetables start flowering and then producing.  i hope we have some success stories to record!

 
here are the bits i have leftover.  i'm going to put these in a bag to save for later in the summer when we want to add to the garden journal.  i'm really delighted with the vintage blue horse notepad i picked up for the journaling and i also snagged that vintage watermelon seed packet today, because we have a watermelon planted and really hope we get some fruit from it!

 
and it's a good thing i got that project tidied up and the tray it was on emtied to make room for this beauty.  i am SO excited about the july kits.  it is my favorite color combo - soft blues, greens, yellows, and pinks - and there are clouds!  i also picked up the vintage opera collar supports and have big plans for using them with my paper tray ink tiny tag dies.  happy scrappies tomorrow!

crawdad capers . . .

 
jeremiah's visiting and the cats are way glad the crawdads are in the house as they've hardly been hunted at all today . . .

 
in this particular vignette, the boys had decided to find out what a crawdad pinch feels like.  when this little guy made contact with g's finger he ripped a big one.  i said, "gabriel, did you just fart?"  he said, "yea!  i guess it was self defense!" 

Calling All Locals!

 
I'll be teaching a layout class on Thursday, July 19th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at The Scrap Room.  While this is a one page layout, I'll be bringing enough supplies for you to create a two page layout.  I think the two pager could easily hold 8-10 photos!  Actually, when I envisioned this layout in my mind I thought it would be perfect for birthday party photos.  How fun would it be to use the pennants as decorations at a party and then create a layout with them later?!

 
This will be a very low stress class as it will be mostly about playing and experimenting with product.  We'll use Jenni's Pennant, Receipt, and Butterfly stamps with her inks and acrylic paints, some sharpies and embossing powders, and a variety of patterned paper.  If you're new to scrapbooking, it will be a fun way to learn a few simple techniques in a friendly environment.  If you're interested in signing up, call The Scrap Room at 615/758-9596.  Hope to see some of you locals there.  :)

public service announcement . . .

 
i have found the cure for the common card!  pop dots!  who knew?  lol, i'm sure many of you did.  i'm not a big pop dot user and i'm not a big card maker.  i'm sure many of you have heard me moan a time or two about my lack of card making skills.  this past week though as i was throwing a card together every day for my son to send out i found that a few pop dots make a world of difference when making cards.  i am so relieved to finally figure this out.

 
these were mostly made from june leftovers and a little boy product (like the k&co alphabet animals and the sassafras lass monsters) that i dug up out of my stash.  if i am going to be making many more cards for g to send to all the men and boys in his life i am going to have to invest in more all boy stuff.

 
which is your favorite?  i'm really partial to the last one, "true friend," and love that am loving creating on that 4x4 inch size.

 
this is my other favorite.  i am in love with those hambley frame rub-ons and will be hoarding my last few.  i'd love to do this technique on a layout.  i just put the rub-ons on some vintage dictionary pages and then painted the interior with gesso.

 
and here is the interior of one of the cards.  this one is to papa, so g drew a couple creatures he wants papa to find for him when we go to florida in a couple weeks.  i'm having g write captions to his pictures, then i write what he dictates to me and have him sign it at the bottom.  happy thank you cards.  :)

daily success . . .

 
our first week with the "do it daily list" was a resounding success.  i logged 23 miles and g logged 10.  we have 7 thank you cards ready to go in the mail.  the garden journal is almost caught up and i even blogged every day.  oh! and i read an entire (quality) book!  g and i both got clean sweeps for the entire week.  yay!  today we almost got lazy and thought to blow it off, but at 9pm we got serious and began knocking it out.  we just got back from the pool where g swam laps for his mile while i walked laps around it for my three.  currently i still have four checks to go and g has three, but i think we just might pull it out.  and we were rewarded for our hard late night work at the pool by a pretty luna moth dancing under the pool lights.

 
besides the actual "doing" of all these things that are good for us, there has been another awesome side benefit of our daily goals.  g and i are spending extra quality time together as he needs help from me to complete several of his goals.  this is really such a wonderful investment in his future and in our relationship.  i'm so glad i thought of it.  :)

saturday . . .

 
we finally had a day with no camps and no playdates.  the kitties were happy to have us home for a change.

 
i, unfortunately, awoke before 7.  g, the lucky dog, slept till past 9.  while he was sleeping i worked on tidying up my scrap table and getting all my jbs kit stuff under control.  these are the last of the "haven" scraps from last month's kit.  i normally would throw these littlest bits away, but i think they will be perfect for g's garden journal.  hopefully, i'll have that to show you this week.

 
we did have a lunch date with melissa.  this is the card we made for her.  melissa and i have known each other since the 2nd grade.  it was neat to realize that in a few more months g will be the age melissa and i were when we first met.  this really reaffirms how important it is to cultivate g's little friendships.  a true friend from childhood is something very dear.

 
after lunch we ran next door to hobby lobby for a few necessities.  i happened to find this little table file on sale for half price.  i had coveted it last month, but wouldn't have paid the $40 for it even if i'd had the extra money to spend at the time.  today i serendipitously had a little extra cash and could take advantage of the sale.  it fit right in today as i was doing table tidying anyway.  it nicely holds my masks, clear stamps, and foam stamps.

 
after all that tidying i took a nap on the couch with chichi.  when i finally made myself get up chichi, being a cat, moved to the bed and took a 2nd nap.

 
while we were napping, g watched jurassic park lost world and reinacted it with his dinos and palm trees.  he rarely just sits and watches tv.  he's gotta get involved in it.

 
then we managed to get another 3 miles in on the greenway.  we started from the opposite end this time and found some blackberries along the way.  g was excited to realize he could mark fruit off his to do list.

 
we then stopped at target on the way home to get some more needed items.  g got a couple pirates of the caribbean lego sets i'm sure he felt he needed those to go along with the dsi game melissa gave him at lunch.  they are his treat for getting 100% every day this week on his do it daily list.  and now that i have finished off the last item on my do it daily list i get to go put together the rest of his new legos.  wheee!