Dear Lizzie

If you could switch lives with any person in the world for one day, who would it be?

Elizabeth Kartchner, for sure. She is everything I want to be. She's gorgeous, wears the cutest clothes and jewelry, has two beautiful girls and a hilarious husband. And I love, love, LOVE her scrapbooking style. When I found out she was debuting her own line with American Crafts at CHA, I just about had a heart attack. (The last time I was so excited about a line was back with Making Memories Noteworthy, and even that doesn't compare to my excitement this time. I ordered everything but about 3 things from her line, and since it's American Crafts, that's saying A LOT!) Her home is beautiful and she has the coolest crafting friends. I never buy books about scrapbooking, but when we got in her new book at work, 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges, I couldn't help myself. She has a great blog, and my favorite posts are when her husband takes over on her birthday and posts things he loves about her. Example 1 and example 2 is no longer on her blog, but it's hilariously sweet. Along with Margie Romney-Aslett and Rhonna Farrer, she also planned an event called Spark that sounded fantastic, and they have a second one in the works that I completely plan on going to, no matter what the cost or who I have to bribe to get the time off work.

I'd totally offer to switch lives for one day, but somehow I don't think she'd be tempted! A girl can always dream...

End of an Era

So today I found out my very very favorite online shop is closing. It's called One Hundred Wishes and it's my idea of heaven. One Hundred Wishes helped me find my style, a vintage shabby pink glittery beautiful mess. I've only placed two orders at the shop, but everything I got from there, I treasure. Some of my favorites include fringe tissue garlands, the One Hundred Wishes prize ribbons, lots of millinery flowers, some great vintage paper lace that I use on almost everything, a pink cameo, and ribbon galore. And of course everything comes packaged beautifully in little decorative cellophane bags, with a personal thank you note from the owner of the shop. This is how much of a nerd I am: I still have the box my first order came in, because it has her lovely handwriting on it, and I feel like it's a piece of the One Hundred Wishes life. So, to memorialize the closing of the shop, I placed one last order today, but it was fairly small, because so much was sold through already. While there are other shops like it that I visit, none of them have the same style or grace of One Hundred Wishes.

Fight Like a Girl

I've been wanting to try making a purchase on Etsy for a long time, so I finally took the plunge. I was organizing my scrap stuff the other day and thought for the thousandth time that I needed a pincushion (for my decorative pins, and for straight pins to clean the tips of glue bottles, etc). This is what I bought. I got it in the mail on Tuesday and it's even more gorgeous in person than in the photo. I love the clay rose and the vintage button stack, and it came really fast because it turns out the seller is from Clovis, which I didn't realize when I placed the order. Anyway, it looks great on my scrap table and now I'm sure I have more Etsy purchases that I'll *have* to buy. This, I think, is completely gorgeous, although out of my price range.

Like I said, I've been organizing my scrapbooking stuff. I've gone through a lot of different phases of scrapbook organization and finally have decided that it works best for me to have items out where I can see them, displayed prettily, and as close to hand as possible. I have several different kinds of glass jars, two and three tiered baskets, and I just got a vintage-y milk crate from Target the other day because I've outgrown my old embellishment basket. I love the look of it, althought I'm also considering spray painting it cream, then pink, then sanding it so the cream shows through the pink. (I know, I'm such a girly girl when it comes to scrapbooking stuff, I can't help it!) Here's a pic.

Also very exciting is that Halloween is fast approaching. I have been stalking Michaels for the past two weeks, seriously going there almost every day, waiting for them to have the new Martha Stewart Halloween stuff out. This past year I fell in love with Halloween and especially the MS stuff. Anyway, every day I went in and the stuff wasn't out yet and I was getting so frustrated - I was ready to march in and say, Look, I work for JoAnn's, and I know how to planogram, so give me the darn planogram and I'll set it up for you! Well, finally it was out and I got this punch, which I saw featured on a web site last year and LOVED, but when I went to Michaels, they had already sold out of it. I'm still waiting for them to put out the Mad Scientist 12x12 paper pad, which looks soooo cool. Sad thing is? Don't really know what I'm buying this stuff for, just love it. There's a bunch of other cool stuff, like glow in the dark glitter, cupcake wrappers, and more that I plan to acquire over the next few weeks with coupons.

A month ago or so I was cutting some fabric for a couple at work and asked them what they were making. They said they made wall hangings with large crystal appliques on them, and they sold them at the Paris Flea Market in downtown Visalia, and that I should check it out. When I was downtown last week, I was driving home and suddenly I saw it, so I pulled over and went in. While there was a lot of stuff I wasn't crazy about, I scored some great finds. A vintage sewing pattern for 25 cents, an old record with the coolest record cover, a great vintage picture, and a "bake-o-meter" spinner card that shows you how long to cook meat for, but that I think is just gonna be a cool accent on a project. Also there was this great vintage hat with flowers which I lusted after, but didn't get because it was too expensive. Thanks to www.onehundredwishes.com I love anything vintage millinery. I think it's incredibly ironic that I've ended up loving vintage crafty stuff.

My new favorite song is "Fight Like a Girl" by Bomshel. Inspires me every time I hear it, so here's the lyrics.

Little girl alone on the playground
Tired of gettin' teased and gettin 'pushed around
Wishin' she was invisible to them
She went home cryin', why do they hate me?
Mama wiped her tears and said, baby, you're brave and you're beautiful

So hold your head high
Don't ever let 'em define the light in your eyes
Love yourself, give 'em hell
You can take on this world
You just stand and be strong and then fight like a girl

At 31 she was wheelin' and dealin'
Kept on hittin' that same glass ceiling
She was never gonna be one of the boys, no
She coulda gave up on her ambitions
And spent the rest of her life just wishin'
Instead she listened to her mama's voice sayin'

Hold your head high
Don't ever let 'em define the light in your eyes
Love yourself, give 'em hell
You can take on this world
You just stand and be strong and then fight like a girl

Oh, with style and grace
Kick a** and take names

Ten years of climbin' that ladder
Oh, the money and power don't matter
When the doctor said the cancer spread
She holds on tight to her husband and babies
And says, This is just another test God gave me
And I know just how to handle this

I'll hold my head high
I'll never let this define the light in my eyes
Love myself, give 'em hell
I'll take on this world
Yes, I'll stand and be strong
No, I'll never give up
I will conquer with love and I'll fight like a girl

In Which I Speak of Eggs in a Basket

So maybe I'm the only one late to the game, but for ages my boyfriend has been talking about "eggs in a basket" (as in, my brother made me some eggs in a basket this morning). First time he said it, I was like, eggs in a whaaa? Turns out it's when you take a slice of bread, cut a hole in the middle (using either a cookie cutter or drinking glass) and then cook an egg in that hole. Well, I've been bugging him for a long time to make me one, but since our schedules rarely coincide, and when they do, we're both exhausted, it hasn't happened. This past weekend I was at his house in the (late) morning and he said he'd do it, but ended up getting his mom to do it instead ("but she makes them better!" he said...huh, didn't fool me). So you put some butter in the pan, start frying your bread, then crack the egg in the center. You also take the circle you cut from the middle and fry that too. Then you flip the toast till it's done and you've got yourself an egg in a basket. You can do the yolk hard or soft, depending on whether you break it up, and if you do it soft, then you use the circle you cut out to dip in the yolk and eat it up.
Anyway, it was incredibly good and now I'm hooked. I've made them for myself twice this past week. I've just got to go buy some more baskets, as I'm going through them at an alarming rate...
Off to do some creating on this Friday night! New products to inspire me, and I finally got the kit of the class I ordered. Kits are always fun, because you feel creative but you don't have to put as much brain power into it because someone else has already thought it all out for you.
(Oh, and there's this website called Two Peas in a Bucket, a scrapbooking store + community. The community manager, Mellypea, has weekly "Ask Mellypea" video segments. Because I've been dying for a couple of things to come into the warehouse, I emailed Ask Mellypea to inquire when they were coming in. Well, the segment went up this week and I was kind of bummed that my question wasn't in there, but today, when I was on Two Peas, I checked my peamail, and she personally responded to my question! It was so freakin cool, like I got an autograph from a rock star. And speaking of rock stars, there is this hilarious new commercial from Intel. Click on this link and then select the "Rock Star" TV commercial. Especially you, Dad, you'll definitely enjoy it.)

In Which I Continue My Earlier Post

Okay, well I couldn't figure out how to continue my post after all those pictures (the formatting was really weird) so I decided to start a new one.

Anyway, today I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself because I'm sick and being sick sucks (the runny nose! the raw, red nose! the coughing! the ickiness!) and decided to see what I could whip up. This was the result.

It's a layout about the first time I got to visit the JoAnn warehouse in Visalia. The copy's kind of nerdy but I'd rather have funny copy (okay, just realized I'm calling it copy...further evidence of my yearbook background) than boring copy.

It's kind of funny, because there's always this big debate in the scrapbooking world about why and how you scrapbook. For example, Ali Edwards (big scrapbooking personality) is big on words and photos and telling stories, not letting other things get in the way. Other scrapbookers are very chronological and feel like they have to get "caught up" and scrapbook every picture. I'm not like either of those groups. Mostly, I just love the pretty scrapbooking stuff and want to create something with it. Almost always, my process starts with a new scrapbooking goody or technique I want to use, and then I adapt it to a photo or project. Every once in a while I come across something that really makes me want to "tell a story." A good example is this next project.

I was organizing some papers a couple of weeks ago and came across this copy of a note my (recently passed) grandfather wrote my grandmother a while ago. (My grandfather was a carpenter and so to explain his absence one day he left this note.) My grandmother gave us a copy of this note at Christmas as a promise of a book she was writing about our grandfather that wasn't done yet. This note was to be the cover.

Anyway, I found the copy of this and suddenly I just had to do something with it. (Don't worry Gran, I didn't cut up your book.) It took me a while to come up with something, because my normal style (frou frou, girly, pink) just didn't fit. Finally I came up with this and am really proud of it.

The flip side.

Anyway, that's my musings on the whole scrapbooking process and all my current projects. I just ordered a brand new album online that I can't wait to get my hands on. I have so many ideas, mostly inspired by this album that I love. And this baby I just saw online a couple days ago-beautiful!

In Which I Return From A Long Absence

It's been a while and I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that my internet, which I got back in February, is now finally, FINALLY reliably working (and wirelessly at that!). It's been very exciting-lots of catching up to do, and tv episodes to watch on Hulu. (Now I will never be separated from The Office again. Loved the bit w/ John Krasinski in a tux talking about what is "classy". It's the first two minutes of the episode, watch it and love it.)

I've completed a fair amount of projects lately and am so excited to have a blog to show them off in. First up is my Valentine's Day present to Jeremy, my boyfriend. (Yes, I am aware that Valentine's Day was in February and it's April, but hey, he STILL hasn't gotten me a present.) I made him a mini book.


The cover was the hardest part. I really wanted to make the top look like frosting, and I had my material and stuffing and I tried a bunch of things. I tried (on another piece of chipboard) punching holes in the edge of the chipboard and sewing through those, but it looked really tacky. Then I traced the shape onto fabric and sewed it like a pillow, but of course, it ended up too small because I traced it exactly and stuffed it. Finally, inspired by a post of Ali Edwards referencing a project by the Purl Bee, I came up with this solution of stitching around it and trimming the edge with pinking shears. I really like how it came out.

It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but this "love" doily is actually a pocket and then I have pictures of him sticking out.

If you can't read it, it says "all I refuse and thee I choose."

Introduction (or, In Which My Blog Comes Into Being)

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? *Taps mike*

That's what blogging always feels like to me. Nevertheless, here I am, mostly for my own sake. Throughout junior high, high school, and college, I was an avid and obsessive journal keeper. I think at last count my journal was about 2,000 pages single spaced, typed. (Yeah, I know. Get a life.) I haven't kept a journal (apart from a few entries on momentous occasions) for years, mostly because I don't feel like I have that much to write about anymore. This blog will in no way be a replacement for that kind of journaling, to me the whole point of a journal is to write down stuff that you can't tell anyone else. This is going to be my chronicle of the more shallow things in my life, mostly about my creative side.

I love, love, LOVE creating stuff. Scrapbooker is probably too narrow a term for me, since I've only ever created maybe 15 layouts. Papercrafter is a better fit, but most people don't know what papercrafting is, so to the non-initiated, I am a scrapbooker. I don't really have any scrapbooking buddies so I fill that void in my life with blogs of amazing creative women. Even though most of the followers of this blog will probably just be my family, in my dreams someday I could be one of those artists who inspires someone else. Also, this way I can have a record of all my creative projects and musings. As one of the blogs I follow puts it, "musings of an artistic girl in her visual world."

Well enough of the intro. More to come later, like the couple projects I just created over the weekend and links to some of my favorite and why I love them.