Crop Production - Part 2

As promised, here are a few more layouts I completed at the crops I attended back in last September and early November.

Our yard backs up to town woods and we are about the only ones without a fence.  We are also the only ones without any plants. The paper came with the trees.  I just added the sticker letters, the string and the tiny little bird houses and butterfly.  Quick and easy.

Piermont is a lovely little town along the Hudson River in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge.  There is a wonderful path that juts out into the river.  Everyone walks there. I used both a stamp and masks from Tattered Angels for the compass image.  The flowers are chipboard from a source I no longer recall.

I used up a bunch of Tim Holtz Grungeboard circles on this one, adding Distress Stain, Distress Ink, Diamond Glaze and Viva Paint to create the grungy look.

Our puppy, Rooney, is no longer this tiny and has turned into a terror, but her face is still as cute as it was back when we first brought her home. I had picked up the ribbon and paw border at the Scrapbook Expo in Edison, NJ, the same morning I did this layout. The tag/card is from 7 Gypsies.  The journaling is under the tag.

Crop Production - Part 1

Back at the end of September and then again at the beginning of November, I attended two weekend-long scrapbooking events. So, I thought I would share some of the layouts I completed. I usually shoot for about fifteen pages.  I remember the days when I would do thirty!  Those days are long gone.  Gone, too, are the days when I got all my scrapbooking stuff (paper, tools, embellishments, cutting mat, etc.) into the space in one trip. I have it down to a science, but five trips is a little ridiculous!

Anyway, here are a few of layouts from the first weekend.  More layouts in the coming weeks.

I used up a bunch of rub-on stitches in this one.  I have been carrying those things around for YEARS!

And I used up a bunch of chipboard on this one. The polka dots on the flowers were made by putting paint on an embossing folder before running it through the Sizzix.  I don't think I will try that again as it was extremely messy and not entirely successful. My poor Fairy Garden succumbed to the elements just this week.

It is hard to see, but the arrow chipboard  and title are covered with Stickles in a very bright red. It took forever to dry.

I really like how this one turned out with the gears and bicycle paper that came in a magazine!

Again, I got to use up a bunch of old metal letters that I got from QVC many years ago.  I put them in an embossing folder and ran them through a Sizzix machine.  I sanded them to highlight the embossing. The paper is one of the last paper packs offered by Creative Memories before they declared bankruptcy back during the summer. The paper edges are highlighted with gold embossing powder. I love the look on my son's face!

More coming soon!

Backstory Scraps: Scrapbooking Backwards - A Different Way to Scrap

Like everyone else, when I sit down to scrapbook, I start with the photos.  Unlike everyone else, however, the last thing I choose is the background paper. I discovered a while back that my wonderful supply of embellishments - from chipboard shapes to charms to beads and buttons and ribbons - was not getting used because I always had trouble finding just the right thing to match the paper.  So, I decided to try something different and pick the paper after I had chosen everything else.

The key to this system was simple - two plastic dividers, the ones that come with the paper holders.  I don't use those dividers so I trimmed two of them to 12x12 and then taped them together with packing tape.  Folded, it is a background for a one-page layout.  Unfolded, it is a two-page spread.

 

 

So, for a change, I thought I would walk you through what has proven to be the best way for me to create a layout and to use my embellishments.  Now, I warn you.  This is hardly one of my best creations, but you will get the idea.

The next photo in the file folder was this one from Christmas, of my two boys and my nephew. 

Since nothing was coming to me, I dove into my file of ideas, going through my collection of single photo and two-photo layouts. I cut photos out of scrapbook magazines and occasionally print ideas I find on Pinterest.  I am hoping to switch completely to a Pinterest Board for ideas since it is a lot easier to carry around an iPad than an idea folder and you can watch videos and read blog tutorials from that site.

 Once I had a vague idea, I started looking through my drawer of Christmas stuff - paper, embellishments, tags, ribbon, etc. I pulled out two tags, three pieces of tinsel, and a bunch of really old Fastenator staples from Making Memories that I had.  I was really digging up old stuff here.

Next, I worked on the title.  Again, these letters are so old that I can no longer identify them.  They were a variety of colors so I painted them with (old) dimensional paint from Ranger and then coated them with Diamond Glaze.

While they were drying, I tried out a few different papers.  That top one got rejected immediately, but the bottom ones had possibilities.

I trimmed and then tore the red paper, inked the torn section and then added silver embossing powder.

I added a second layer of paper (Coredinations/Tim Holtz), sanded the edges and added silver Distress Paint.  I put a color wash of the Distress Paint on the tag by spreading a thin layer of the paint on with my finger, spritzing with some water and then blotting with a paper towel.

Finally, I picked the background paper (Creative Memories).  I laid everything out one last time to make sure everything worked before gluing and stapled everything down. 

(One quick note - I do not have the Fastenator stapler.  I sold it ages ago because I found that it was much easier to poke holes where the prongs would go with a paper piercer and push the staple through than to use that hopeless tool. My method allows you to put the staples wherever you want.)

 

Like I said, this isn't the most successful layout I have ever done, but it was definitely good enough. 

 

So, if you find that you aren't using your embellishments because they never quite match or work with the papers you have chosen, try scrapbooking backwards - starting with the title and the embellishments, the paint and the ink, and ribbons and buttons - and picking the paper last!

Thirty Years and Counting

This posting has nothing to do with scrapbooking, but it has everything to do with memories and the past. So, please, bear with me this one time.

I returned from my college reunion a few days ago, excited, energized, renewed and full of affection for friends new and old. My hometown friends and family do not understand what it is like to be part of a sisterhood born of living and learning with women for four years. It is a bond that lasts despite separation, both of time and place. It is a bond that is renewed every five years at a place called Mount Holyoke.

Mount Holyoke College is the oldest continuing institution for the higher education of women in America. I did not care about that when I applied back in 1977. All I saw was the gorgeous campus nestled in the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts. All I saw was the enthusiastic admissions counselor who interviewed me. All I saw was the cheerful and happy student who gave me my tour of the campus, a girl comfortable in her own skin. I was hooked and I never looked back. I applied early admission. I was admitted right after Thanksgiving.

For four amazing years, I enjoyed stimulating classes in History and English and Music. I endured and survived Biology. It is not those classes that were the turning point in my life. It was the girls I entered with in the fall of 1978 and the women I graduated with in the spring of 1982 that made the difference.

We ate breakfast in our Lanz nightgowns in the dining rooms in our dorms. We watched Bucky Dent hit the home run for the Yankees that put them into the playoffs - some of us with joy and others, Red Sox fans, with anguish. We watched as the Iranian hostages were released. We gave gifts to the freshmen as Secret Santas and made air-popped popcorn in the hallway of the fifth floor during sophomore year. We agonized over the dorm and room lottery each spring, not wanting to split up our groups of friends. We selected and changed our majors and then changed them again. We sang in the Glee Club (after trying out three times) and performed in NYC every December. We rode the Five-College bus to Amherst and went to Judie's for popovers. We climbed Mount Holyoke on Mountain Day, brown bag lunches in hand. We posted grad school and job rejection letters on the walls of our dorms. Some of us pulled all-nighters to finish our papers and theses.

We laughed and cried and rejoiced together.

And we graduated outside in a magnificent amphitheater in a magnificent rain storm, holding umbrellas that made for colorful photos and masked our tears. Then we parted.

Sometimes our paths crossed as did mine when I roomed with a sophomore pal while I was in law school and she worked for a publishing company. Another classmate was a law school colleague. My sophomore and junior roommate was my maid of honor when I got married. We exchanged letters, talked on the phone and, much later, e-mailed and reconnected through Facebook.

And we went to a reunion every five years. I attended all of them but our twenty-fifth. I regret that. I almost did not attend our thirtieth, but because of a Facebook page that generated enthusiasm and excitement, I decided to make the trek from New Jersey to S. Hadley. It was hot. It was very hot. And it mattered not one bit.

We rekindled friendships and made new ones. We laughed about college exploits and despaired over lost classmates. We shared our very different lives and discussed what would come next for us as our children moved on, as we became caregivers for elderly parents, as we approached retirement, considered career changes or were forced into them by the economy.

For me, though, I was reminded not only of the fun and carefree days of my youth but of the gift that Mount Holyoke gave me. It is undefinable and unexplainable, but, as Oprah would say, this I know is true. Those four years and those girls, now women, were the turning point. They made me who I am. I would probably change a great many of the choices I have made over the last 35 years or so, but the spontaneous decision I made as my father drove up Route 116 in S. Hadley in the fall of 1977 would never be one of them.