Amongst my crazy schedule...

Amongst my crazy schedule I finally made my way back to a scrapbook crop!! My long time love affair with Creative Memories has come to a crashing hault as the news that CM is going out of business. However God is good and just happened to place me under a Close to My Heart consultant, LaJeania Hicks, at my new job this year!!

So feeling slightly out of place but accepted all the same I entered a new dimension of scrapbooking tonight. We shall see where this new journey takes my crafting but in the meantime I wanted to share a couple layouts I completed tonight.

The first was the "teach" the consultant did and she had the kit all cut and ready for us to attack:

You can find a better picture of this layout and follow her amazing blog chock full of ideas and beautiful designs at "Scrap Till You Drop".

The second one was a layout I did for an album my mom is actually working on:

Until next time...

Scrapbook Retreat Accomplishments

Now after looking at all those wonderful pictures of the retreat location it'd be nice to show you I did actually get something DONE!! So I'm going to share just a couple of the pages I completed. First of all I completed start to finish my baby girl's 1st Birthday 8x8 album. It is SO cute and was a Princess birthday. And as I started this post I asked myself: "Why don't I have a picture of the album for this post?" My answer: no clue. Sorry.

But when I was done with that project I moved on to a BIG project: my FFA album. I was in FFA throughout high school and since I love photography have WAY too many pictures for my own good! So I started in on that massive album, which will be in a Creative Memories 12 x 12 album.

Here was one of my favorite double page layouts from the FFA album thus far:

I'm also realizing these are pathetic pictures and don't show the details such as that tiny strip of black paper on the 2nd page is folded like an accordion - or that the title square on the 1st page is a shiny metallic "F". Guess I'm already owing you one with this post but at least you'll get the idea right?

This was a close second because it was fun to make these little arrows on the Cricut (which if you are a scrapbooker and have not tried one -you MUST!!!) and put #1, 2 and 3 like a kids page! Hehe it was fun!

This was our camp group photo - so I decided to whip out all my scraps to create a funky background for it.

Now these next two are from my hubby and mine's "Dating Album" but I didn't take very many of the other albums (none of the birthday one) so I picked a couple of my fave pages and randomly stuck them in here too!

This was my husband's bull riding group at a Jr. Rodeo Bible Camp of which he was the Bull riding instructor. These lil guys were adorable and since I didn't enlarge the group photo needed some pizazz to make the page special. I'm a fan of the swirly's so they won out!

Here is a good scrapbook idea - that journaling box on the previous picture - see how it's worn out looking on the edges? Take a nail file and file the edges of a paper you're using to give it the natural "worn" look. Makes GREAT pages!

And this page was especially fun because it was the first time I purposefully crumpled a scrapbook paper! See the heart? I crumpled it to pieces, then flattened it back out. Gives the page some texture and depth to it.

Happy Scrapping!!

Scrapbook Retreat Part 1: The Town

At the very end of February my mom flew over to Texas so she and I could go to Kathy Anderson's, Creative Memories Unit Leader & Consultant, scrapbook retreat in Round Top, Texas. We had an absolute blast! It was gorgeous spring weather with the nights still cool and we stayed in "the House" and were blessed to have the MAIN ROOM of the House! It was FAN-TA-BU-LUS! We are talking HUGE king size bed with the comfiest bedding, antique porcelain bathtub which allowed for some great soaking after our massages (oh yes, Kathy brings out a masseuse!), and the quaintest vanity. But to move away from talking so much about the bathroom, I'd like to take you on a journey of our weekend through 3 separate posts. And they are actually in the exact order I took the pictures! We first start with a walk my mom and I took right before lunch on Saturday. We chose to go into downtown so I could take my camera along and snap pics of the local scene. This town is so...what's a good word...unique. It has loads of character and is a photographer's dream! Although our walk was a lot of stopping instead of walking, lol. Anyways let me show you around:

This was a building right by our Bed and Breakfast and I LOVED the sign! HOW I ROLL!

Everything about this town was antique and had a lot of heritage to it.

OOH I fell in love with the wooden water fountain. If that ain't vintage I don't know what is!

Famous for their fudge. And it's good - I've had some!

Can you tell cool signs and unique things jump out at me. Or maybe I should just say weird things.

No sadly we didn't get to explore the inside of the pub - but mainly because our Bed and Breakfast serves us all 3 delicious meals plus dessert and snacks!

This was a very fun shopping square!

I really liked the mixture of old with new on this fountain. So modern yet so old-timey cowboy too.

This actually reminded me of a building that used to set behind my grandpa's house.

What I thought was just a long store name - "Crazy Emma's Cowgirl Junkies" turned out to be two stores - "Crazy Emma's" and "Cowgirl Junkies" both of which had cute stuff in it!

Now don't you just want to come visit Round Top?? If you are a traveler and don't mind crowds at the end of March and beginning of April right here in Round Top is one of the largest (maybe the largest but I don't know) Antique Shows EVER! Antique junkies from ALL over come in and set up shop for the biggest antique farmer's market type deal! I've heard it's a blast and you can find GREAT stuff - I plan on going one of these years!

LSCC Scrapbook Crop

Last night I went to our church's monthly scrapbook crop! A wonderful lady in our group has recently taken over "Director" of the scrapbook group and she is already doing a fabulous job. I wanted to show you what you will now get for FREE every time you attend the LSCC Crop:

A Scrapbook Page Kit

(already all cut out and ready for you to just glue it all down!!)

And don't worry it comes with step by step instructions! Look at this GORGEOUS page that would usually take you forever - Anna does everything for you but glue it down so that you can have this beautiful page in your personal family albums to cherish those cute pumpkin pictures forever!

Now seriously why would you want to miss this?

So come join us! We meet every first Friday of the month from 5-10 p.m. in the room adjoining the toddler nursery. And YES nursery is available! The entire crop is only $10!! Can't wait to see you next month!