I am so inspired lately by Jamie Waters...... her recent article in the May CK has been an unending source of ideas for me. LOVE her style!! So pretty much everything I've done this weekend has been with her style in mind. The past 3 nights I have done 1 scrapbook page..... unbelievable for me! 3 pages in 3 nights. What has gotten into me?? Check it out......
Busy. Busy. Busy. Today has been incredibly busy and SO fun......
I think today we had one of the more pleasant experiences that we've ever had in the 3 years we've been going to the CK Convention.... in 2004 it was hot and there was no air conditioning so they had emergency water stations set up at the end of each of the aisles. in 2005 it was so crowded you couldn't move. This year for some reason there seemed to not be as many people there. Which suited us just fine! There were just way too many booths selling $300 die cutting machines. What the heck. Paper and scissors, people!! Keep it simple. Anyhoo, my scores were some Heidi Swapp chipboard, and some Scrapworks "tailored tags" fabric labels that were sooooooo cute. My isolated self has never seen such cute things. Candy went with us but had to separate because she had to leave early--Candy, how did you do? Find anything cute?
Kristi, Karen and I also went in together on a Prima flower special.... buy 6 bottles and the 6th bottle was only 99 cents (we saved $2 each in the end). So we bought one of each color they had, and then afterwards at lunch at the Backroom, we sat there in the middle of the restaurant and dumped out all 6 bottles and proceeded to divide all the flowers up so that all of us went away with 2 bottles containing 6 colors. As we all know, no normal person could use up a WHOLE bottle of one color of Prima flowers. It was a hysterical experience.... somehow 3 educated and intelligent women had a REALLY hard time figuring this out...... we were using our appetizer plates to dump the flowers in, and trying to divide 6 colors into 3 equal parts amongst three pairs of bottles........ yeah, it was a comedy of errors. In the end we were successful, and we even got it all squared away before the food came!! God I love scrapbooking friends......... with whom else can you get away with stuff like this??
So I took Ali Edward's suggestion (March 2006 CK) and created a scrapbook on the road while I was in NC. What an awesome idea. It has become a treasured souvenir of my trip, created in real time, and containing real bits of information. I used receipts, business cards, clippings from brochures, plane ticket stubs, etc. I used a few scrapbooking supplies also, like some K & Company word stickers and Basic Grey travel rub-ons, and some Stampin' Up ink for decoration. Here are a few pages......
Today we enjoyed yet another fabulous crop at Candy's house.... such a perfect day! Gorgeous weather, good company, wonderful food. Candy, you knocked it out of the park today with homemade chicken enchiladas and guacamole. Delicious! I mean, seriously. I can't say enough about how awesome that meal was. I actually feel inspired to scrap today after being around the girls with all kinds of cool supplies and embellishments. Need to get some photos printed, though.
I slept in late today, until 9:30, which I never do. But it was wonderful. Woke up to bright sunshine on the fluffy green grass. It makes me happy! Later this afternoon we worked on more mulch (yep, still not done with it yet) and put down more grass seed. It was a quick thing, because the black flies are out with a vengence, swarming and biting. It just makes being outside such an unpleasant experience this time of year.
Black flies are an interesting thing to me.... we don't have them in NC so they were a new and foreign thing to me. In general, I'd say NH has far fewer bugs and nasty creatures than NC, certainly much smaller ones, but the black flies really make up for it. What the heck are they? They are a blood-thirsty little insect that bites, and they actually hurt when they bite. Not like mosquitoes where you may or may not feel it when they get you. The black flies hurt. And when theyr'e not biting you, they're swarming in your EYES and around your head. It's madness. It will make you crazy in about 10 minutes flat. Most people here have told me you can expect them between Mother's Day and Father's Day. Although in this case, they're already here, in late April. They are so bad. You can't even go outside. This is a nice little article that I found, not overly scientific but yet very informative.
Dave surprised me today with giving me this fabulous gift! An iced tea maker. No North Carolinian should be without one. I was getting a little bit tired of making a gallon of tea every other day or so, and he knew it, so this is a real treat.
I'm having way too much fun with this website, the Chili's Margarita Madness artwork. Design your own! So much fun to play with, you can choose your own background, glasses, garnishes, etc.
I spent some time earlier this week submitting a bunch of layouts to various magazines. I am bummed and discouraged. I've only had one layout picked up since PKPT and the whole crash-and-burn thing. I feel cursed. I haven't been happy with anything I've been creating lately, which has sadly, been not much. Especially not since my 10 HOF layouts that I made. I only really loved about half of those. I just don't have the ideas that I used to. Maybe my brain is just taking a little break. I don't feel like I've spent enough time zoning out, which is when I get my best ideas. Not that I haven't had the opportunity, I guess my brain has been filled with "busy work". Like too much TV, too much blogging, just stuff to do. All bad for creativity!! I can't wait to start mowing the grass again, that's always good for some uninterrupted time alone to think. :) It just forces you to shut up and think.
Things are on. Sometimes I forget that spring is here and it is time. I need to get my pansies in this weekend to stay on schedule, and mulch and lawn fertilizer the following weekend. Things are popping, and I gotta keep up! Thank goodness for my garden journal, it keeps me on schedule. Funny how everything grows like clockwork after you've written down dates for a few years. The plants are never late! Luckily for me my dianthus that I planted last year has come back, so that's one less annual I have to plant! :) Woohoo. The countdown is on!! Two weeks till hostas come!! I can actually say that with some measure of confidence. We are just a sunny day out or two from my first daffodil. Won't be long.
Today we had a great time at Karen's for the March crop..... good company, yummy food!
So later in the afternoon, the weather was not especially nice or warm, but I spent a good solid two hours working in the yard.... times like these I realize what a monster I have created. I have plants freakin' everywhere. Everytime I turn a corner, I find something else I forgot about, something else that needs to be cut to the ground and/or have the leaves picked out of it. Man. Spring cleanup is so time consuming.
The bulbs are really coming along, especially since I've been watering them a little bit. There hasn't been enough rain. It's really fun at this point, in my fourth spring here, because I have finally gotten to the point where I can't keep up with where everything is and how many there are, there are too many. Everytime something new pops up, it's like "oh yeah, I forgot about you!" Love to see what has multiplied since last year. My Gladiator alliums have doubled.... had 3 last year, now I have 6 sprouting.
So I know part of the unwritten contract in entering the Hall of Fame contest is that there are no LOSERS. Everybody is a winner. It's a really intense (as intense as you want to make it, anyway) competition that takes a little piece of your heart and soul. But in a good way. I don't know what I expected..... of course I hoped for a minimum of a HM. But I suppose it builds character to get kicked to the curb every now and then........ everybody who entered and won (25 winners + 50 HM) certainly deserved every bit of it, there is so much amazing talent out there! This is my favorite page from my entry. (Me Gusto means I like it in Spanish) I wanted it to say Me Gusto Mucho (I like it a LOT) but it didn't really fit.
Things are unsettled right now. I'm one of those people who is heavily influenced by the state of my surroundings. Half our house is torn up at the moment, in the process of tearing out old carpet to make room for new carpet to be installed. A messy kitchen, cluttered house, messy surroundings..... all this means a cluttered mind for me. Can't wait for all this to be over with!
Ahhhh..... today was 40 degrees and sunny which meant if you're outside working and moving around, you feel pretty warm! LOL! I took the opportunity to get outside and do some work on the flowerbeds like pulling out old wet leaves, and cutting down last year's growth. I'm always amazed at how much is going on under there! I have new tiny growth coming up in the daylilies, mums, hydrangea, silver mounds, sedum, and another daffodil sprout or two every day. I raked up leaves and sticks and winter debris, and slowly things are improving in looks. A few more days like this and maybe we can get rid of the rest of the snow hanging around.
Last night I threw together this layout...... I loved playing with that foam stamp which I got in the Feb kit from Paper Posies, and paint. The rub-on letters for "Makris" are by Heidi Swapp, and I love that font, although the rub-ons were pretty hard to work with. They didn't go on too easily, or evenly.
