I usually love my iPhone dearly. It has changed my life for the better. It’s pretty. It fits perfectly in the palm of my hand. It has all the tools I need to get through the day.
But right now, I wanna’ kick it to the curb. (Hollah!)
My iPhone won’t sync to my computer. Hasn’t for 3 days now. Why is that a problem and why should you care?? Because, my scrappy friends, Mr. iPhone holds photos of:
– The progress I made last weekend on my scrapbook makeover PROJECT.
– New scrappy stuff at Target.
– New scrappy stuff at Michaels.
THAT. Is why you should care. You feeling me now? Good. We can suffer together.
I have tried all the fixes. The last time this happened, it was right after a software upgrade. I did all the fixes and nothing worked. After a day or two, it worked again. Apparently, iPhones are like women…don’t tell them when to do something. They’ll decide their DAMN selves, thankyouverymuch!
But it’s been threeeeeee daaaaayyyyssss…..How much longer must I wait? How much more can I take??? (Sing it with me! “No, you can’t hurry love…).
Yes, I DO love my iPhone. But right now? Not so much….
ETA 10-08-09: Okay, I tried again late lastnight and it worked! I have all my photos downloaded now. I have a zillion other things to do but will get those entries up as soon as I can :)
Since I started writing my scrapbook room makeover posts, some of you lovely readers have been asking questions about certain items. I wanted to catch up on answering those, if you don’t mind. Or even if you do….bwaha!
From the FIRST POST, “Diary of a Scrapbook Room Makeover: A Prologue”…
“My first question for your organizational knowledge is this: What are you going to do with your stickles? I can’t decide how I want to organize mine. I know they should be upside down, but I also like them in a container that I can just grab and go when I get ready to go somewhere else and crop. So, do you have any suggestions for that?”
Answer: Ever since I started collecting Stickles (yes, you are not allowed to own just one Stickle….if you buy one, you will soon find yourself needing more, and before you know it, you have a Gang of Stickles….I currently have 15 bottles)….Okay, so, ever since I started collecting them, Judy, I’ve been keeping them lined up in anal-retentive, ROYGBIV color order on my Making Memories Embellishment Shelf. This is an older photo, from when I only had 7 Stickles, but you get the idea:
I did hear at some point that it’s best to store them upside down to avoid the applicator clogging but, since clogging hasn’t been a problem for me, I totally ignored that suggestion. It reminds of those pesky exercise tips you see bandied about. I mean, exercise??? Doesn’t apply to me, so why would I take note??? But in the interest of helping out my Stickles Sista, Judy, I went and found a couple ideas for ya…
Here’s an economical route from SHAYLA’S CREATIONS. Looks simple, and it’s pretty to boot.
Tons of great Stickles Upside Down Storage ideas here at OBSESSED WITH SCRAPBOOKING. Now, even though the names of our blogs are similar, we are NOT sisters. But I do love her. She shows people who have more Stickles than I do, which makes me feel not so ashamed. I think my favorite idea is the mini-lunchbox, although then your pretty Stickles are hidden away and their bottled sparkliness cannot add extra shine and glimmer to your day each time you glance their way.
At the bottom of her post, you’ll see where TIM HOLTZ says it’s fine to store them either way, but if you store your Stickles upside down, they may glurb out when you open them. {Glurb is not an official word, if you were to ask Merriam-Webster, but it seriously should be. Are you with me? Let’s start a petition!}. So, it’s sort of like the G.D. ketchup that G.D. glurbs out because I store it upside down in the refrigerator because that’s how the bottle is made and I’m just following directions. Yep, your Stickles’ll be just like the G.D. ketchup. Just sayin’….
Judy, I’m sure I’ve answered your question and about 50 others by now, right? So moving on….
Here is a question from my THIRD POST, “Diary of a Scrapbook Room Makeover, Part Two”:
Jkaye asks: “very interested in your JETMAX cubes- do you like them? And are they heavy- as in too heavy to stack on a Rubbermaid like table? I might have to stick with my rubbermaid 3-drawer containers as for the weight is okay for now..I am sure the Jetmax ones would be much heavier..”
Answer: First, let me clarify (see photos below). The stack of cubes I have along the wall (there are 10 cubes plus a half cube) are the heavier duty cubes called Store in Style. As for the Jetmax cubes, which are lighter weight and can be found at Target and Michaels, I own 3 of the 3-drawer cubes. However, I’ve only assembled one and haven’t stored anything in it yet. So I’m not an expert on the Jetmax cubes, but they are definitely lighter and smaller than the Store in Style cubes. I did a weight comparison test of the Jetmax cubes and the Sterlite (like Rubbermaid) 3-drawer containers with the 12×12 drawers. I actually weighed them on a scale. The Jetmax 3-drawer cube weighed 15 pounds, and the Sterlite 3-drawer container weighed 5 pounds. So, Jkaye, I’m not sure if putting the Jetmax cubes on your table would be do-able. But definitely do not plan on putting the Store in Style cubes on a tabletop. They are MUCH heavier then the Sterlite containers.
On that same post, YvetteDownUnder {who has a cute, funky, phresh scrap studio} said: “Can I ask you about the Powersort boxes? What dimensions are they? You guys in the US have an abundance of cube options, but we are more limited here in Oz, so I wonder if they would fit in an Ikea Expedit? Most of my photos of now scrapped in albums :) and I need to downsize those that aren’t from multiple photo boxes. I am tempted by the Power Sort, but not yet 100% sold on it. So fitting it into my storage could sway things.”
Answer: To answer this question, I thought I’d pop my azz right over to CreativeMemories.com and find the dimensions of the Power Sort Box for Miss Yvette. But, no, they aren’t listed on the website. Isn’t that a little weird? I mean, how many potential buyers have NOT boughten them (no, “boughten” is not an official word either, but seriously, if we can make “blog” and “snorkel” and “obfuscate” real words, can we not make “boughten” official? It sounds much cooler than any of those other words. Man, someone needs to have a talk with those dictionary people!). Okay, so how many people have not boughten those Power Sort boxes because they didn’t want to commit without knowing the dimensions?? Oh, I get it! That’s their way of forcing you to speak with a Creative Memories Consultant! Ah, yes, mystery solved.
Since I can’t find the dimensions online ~ and as much as my CMC would luuurrve a phone call from me at 2am ~ I decided to get out of my comfy recliner, put my laptop aside, pause “TMZ” on the Tivo, and go measure my Power Sort Box myself. No, really, Yvette, it’s alright. Don’t feel badly. It wasn’t THAT much trouble. Really. (Man, am I making you sorry you ever asked this question? LOL!). So the measurements of the Power Sort Box are: 14.75″ x 13″ x 5.5″. I don’t know if that works with the Expedit but I hope so. They are crack-a-lackin’. I love how they hold so many photos, are archival safe, and you can pull the little holders out to rearrange how they are in the box, to take a chunk of photos to a crop, or just to your desk to scrapbook.
Okay, I think I got all your wonderful questions answered. Thanks for asking, and I hope my answers were helpful. No worries, the smart-assidness was no extra charge. See, “smart-assidness”….yet ANOTHER unofficial word that should be official! For shizzle….
So the latest scrapbooking industry news is thatAMERICAN CRAFTS purchased PEBBLES INC.! You can read about it HERE on the Pebbles Inc. blog and HERE is a link to the announcement on the American Crafts BLOG. Here is an excerpt from the AC blog entry:
——– We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Pebbles, an amazing scrapbooking brand that we’re certain will be a great compliment to the American Crafts product lines. Pebbles will remain a separate brand under the American Crafts umbrella. We will continue to offer their current products and plan to introduce new products over time. And the core of Pebbles design team will join us to ensure a continuation of their fun, fresh style.
Pebbles was created in 2001 as an extension of the Pebbles in my Pocket retail stores that are located in Utah. They make simple, cute, and easy-to-use products, including patterned paper, craft chalk and stencils, decorative Chips chipboard shapes, self-adhesive Candy Dots, themed die cuts, ribbon and more.
——-
This sounds like a good fit to me. Their product styles are very similar – think bright, cheerful, fun, and the opposite of shabby chic. I wish both companies luck for a smooth transition and much success in the future :)
Speaking of cheerful and fun, did you know Stacy Julian has a new WEBSITE?!? She re-named her blog from “Altogether Too Happy,” (which I’ve always loved because of the little story that goes with it), to “Playful. Productive. Present.” The new website also has her personal music playlists, her teaching/speaking schedule, something neat called “Sprinkles,” an A to Z list of her favorite products, etc. It’s really fun and colorful, just like Stacy herself. You really should check it out :)
If you’re wondering if I got the SHELF, I won’t know until this Sunday. The lady who’s selling it on Craigslist lives about 50 minutes from me. It happens that I’m going to her town on Sunday for an event, so if she still has the stamp shelf by then, I’ll buy it! I’ve just decided that if it’s meant to be mine, it will be. If not, I’ll know it made some other stamper or scrapper as happy as it would’ve made me :)
My-favorite-band-of-all-time-ever-since-I-was little ~JOURNEY~ was supposed to be on OPRAH today. The theme of the show was to be “Don’t Stop Believin;” with the band performing that song. I think the focus was to be the inspiring story of their “new” lead singer, Arnel Pineda. {Some of the Peas have no love for Journey without Steve Perry, and have dubbed the current version, “(un)Journey” LOL! However, my motto is, “Journey without Steve is better than no Journey at all.”} Anyhow, Journey was rescheduled for next week (Oct. 5) and the rumor is that it was because Oprah had more Olympics stuff to do. I mean, really, Oprah??? I love ya, but you need to get your priorities straight. Olympics more important than JOURNEY???? Pish. I’ve lost loads of respect for you, girlfriend…. Oh, and Chicago did NOT get the Olympics after all. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
Speaking of Journey, this is interesting….Thursday night at the Farmer’s Market in a California town, there was a FLASH MOB of people walking through the streets singing, you guessed it, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The story is HERE. Super cool. I keep hearing that song on my favorite new show, GLEE, too. It’s all making this Journey Girl very, very happy :)
I’m hoping to get more work done on my scrapbook room MAKEOVER this weekend. We’ll be running around all weekend, and I need to work some overtime at some point, but I really need to get back in there and make some progress! Thanks for all the great comments, questions, and encouragement you’ve been leaving for me. I’ll try to do a post answering questions soon. Do you have any scrapbooking plans this weekend?
“Fabulous shelf to store your rubber stamps or ???? 48″ high 29″ wide and 5″ deep with 10 adjustable shelves. Painted Red. $20.00 (you can’t even buy the lumber for that)”
Do I need this?? Should I get it??
The red is super cute but it wouldn’t fit with my scrap room colors. I could easily paint it white or some great color. I don’t have a ton of rubber stamps, as I mostly use acrylic, but do I still need it anyway??? It’s so stinkin’ cute and I love that the shelves are adjustable. I have plenty of free wall space to hang it in my scrap room. But I already have the MM embellishment shelf and it’s full of Stickles, MM embellishment jars of felt flowers, etc., and MM paints. Here is a picture of when I first got it; it’s now more “fully loaded.” I put the dowel rod in the bottom section and have ribbons spools there, I have more Stickles, etc.
See, I don’t really need that cute red shelf, do I? What else could I put on it? I actually love the red color and it would go with the red accents in my kitchen, dining room, and living room. I wonder if I can think of some way to utilize it in one of those rooms?
Ack! I just hate to pass up such a good deal on an adorable shelf. I e-mailed to poster to get the photo, then wrote back to say I’m interested. Will let you know when I hear anything! {{fingers crossed}}
I’m slowly making progress on the big overhaul of my scrapbook room. If you’re not caught up, you can read the PROLOGUE and PART ONE, if you like :) But the Prologue is important reading; it’s where I tell you what happens if you make a smart ass comment about how much crap….erm, STUFF I have. Yes, I have a lot of paper. No, you can’t shop here. Yes, I have a life. Blah blah blah….
So, I’ve done lots of furniture moving. This is going to take awhile, so get comfy…
1. Unloaded everything from the desk – underneath, off the top, and in the drawers – and moved it about 2 feet closer to the sliding glass door. I didn’t repack the office supply and computer-related stuff I had in the desk cupboards; need to find a new home for all that. It’s in a pile here somewhere…
2. Unloaded all the DVDs, videos, and board games from the oak cabinet and moved them into a cabinet in the guest room/new play room. Moved a bunch of toys that were along the wall into the new play room. Moved the oak cabinet to the wall where the toys had been. Moved the Scrap Rack to the oak cabinet (temporarily, I think…). Moved office supplies, and office machines (fax machine, transcription machine, etc.) from guest room to bottom of oak cabinet (where movies and games had been). This cabinet is going to be Office Stuff Central…unless I change my mind.
3. Emptied out the legal filing cabinet, moved it from a back wall to align with one edge of the L-shaped desk, and refilled it with the same stuff I had in there before, which are greeting cards, school supplies, and more home office stuff. I gathered scrap magazines and idea books from various places around the house and piled ’em up.
As you can see, it’s time to purge these again. I usually do this about once a year but, yeah, it’s been awhile. A friend that I scrap with recently finished her project of pulling pages and ideas from her magazines and organizing them into page protectors in a binder. I’m so jealous….it was great! So I’m deciding now if I have the time, patience, and devotion to do the same thing. Purge or make “the perfect idea binder,” THAT is the question.
As for all those idea books….I don’t think I’ve EVER gotten rid of an idea book. Something about throwing away a book that I paid $15 to $40 for is much harder than a $5 magazine. But I should look through all my idea books and maybe toss some older ones. I’ll bet I don’t even “scrap like that anymore” for some of them, huh?
4. Moved the table that I’d been using for scrappy stuff (okay, to dump things on…) over to the area by the storage cubes. This will be the famous Homework Table.
5. Moved the couch and coffee table from in front of the desk to behind the desk by the back window. The original plan was to put it flush against the wall and lined up directly under the window (I’m all about symmetry, baby!). But once I got it there, the couch seemed kind of squished over into the corner and the coffee table was somewhat blocking the walkway to the back part of the room. So I tried the couch at an angle, and I liked it. Bonus: It creates a hidey space behind it for ugly stuff, lol. And I felt so “HGTV” about it, too.
6. Unloaded just about everything from 10 Store in Style cubes (see couch pic above), moved the cubes to the opposite end of the room, and reloaded them pretty much the same way. The SIS cubes are now on the wall that the oak TV cabinet used to be on. This is the area I talked about where I have to keep a walkway to get to the slider, so the cubes are a good thing to put here. They fit nicely and I can stack more on top someday if need be (God forbid!).
I first thought about configuring them like this, with a kind of “turn the corner” at one end….
…but decided not to. The positives were that it would be a little different-looking, and it would create a handy little empty space back there in the corner to store crop totes or something. But the negatives were that it made the walking path a bit too slim, and put the cubes right next to the cord for the blinds. And when I put embellishment jars on top of the one by the door, they would block the light switch. No super big deal, but I just decided to go with putting them all flush against the wall, like this…
All this furniture moving happened way back on 9/10 (it’s now 9/27!), so when I say “making slow progress,” I’m not exaggerating. It took me awhile to remember and write all this down, the order I did things in. It was quite the feat of engineering to move things AROUND the room while still having everything IN the room. I apologize for any dark photos but most of my madness occurs late at night after everyone has gone to bed. Man, you should’ve seen the wide eyes of my husband and kids when they came out the morning after all this! They were like, “You moved ALL that by yourself!?!? The couch???” and I’m all, like, “Desperate organizers take desperate measures.” (Like, totally…I did all that “like” stuff just to annoy you). Then the daytime photos are overly bright because of the sun coming in all the windows, so I can’t win, lol.
Once the furniture was in place, I’ve just been slowly putting things away, whether within this room or the other parts of the house where they belong, and below is what the room looks like as of today.
Down there is the new back half of the room, with my cool slanty couch, and my corner of chaos. The couch was my dad’s before he passed away so it’s sentimental. Luckily, it’s also functional so I have an excuse to keep it always and forever. That big tub is all the paperwork from my two scrapbook businesses, MEMORY WORKS and Calla Memories. I can get rid of most of it. I just need to go through it and save some paperwork for tax records and such.
The white shelving unit has all my mini album stuff – supplies and some completed albums – but I want to get rid of that shelf and find another way to store my mini album kingdom. That’s actually a shoe shelf so I’m hoping to then move it into my closet and use for, oh, I don’t know…..SHOES???
The basket on top of the white shelves contains letter stickers, which were all nicely sorted by color at one time, and easy to thumb through when I scrapped. Then….I discovered THICKERS. Dun dun dun dunnnnnnnn! I use Thickers lots and I buy Thickers lots. I have a Thicker addiction and I hope there ain’t no cure! But, yeah, I need to go through that basket and purge some old alphas I’ll never use. Like the first major set I bought oh so many years ago, of punch out alphas (I think they were by COLORBOK) in every color and pattern known to man (including plaid and leopard!), in a bubble font, a lollipop font, etc. Eek. Perfect for the kids to use on school projects but NOT for my scrapbooks).
The black boxes are POWER SORT BOXES from CREATIVE MEMORIES and that’s where most of my printed photos are. But photo and memorabilia organization is an ever-changing and never-ending project/battle for me. I’m not even gonna’ GO there right now. The white cubes they’re in are ITSO brand from TARGET. As you can see, I had more photo boxes than Itso cubes, so I bought another Itso from Target when they were on sale recently. (If I remember right, I paid $12 instead of $20). You can see it on my desk in the next photo.
Below is my mess of a desk, and my flooded floor (flooded with scrap crap, that is). There’s the new Itso cube, and one of my new 3-drawerJET MAX cubes. Actually, “new” is relative since I’ve collected 3 of these units over time from MICHAELS using 50% off coupons. I’ve just never put them together, knowing I had this big re-org project coming up. Recently I assembled one and, man, are they a pain in the asset! Don’t get me started. If you’ve put these together, you know what I mean. (I feel sorry for THIS poor scrapper!) I’m dreading the assembly of the remaining 2 but I shall do it, I shall.
I’ve done a little more work on the Wall of Cubes and this is how they look as of now…
The cubes themselves were already pretty organized before I started this crazy project, as they contain the staples of my scrapbook world: Bazzill cardstock sorted by color, die cut/shaped papers, extra page protectors, scrapbook projects, etc. Most of the vertical files by CROPPER HOPPER are sorted by manufacturer and include patterned paper and all embellishments from that company. They could use some tidying but for the most part, the vertical files are good as they are. The gingerbread jars on top, however, are another story. When I first got them way back when on Craigslist (read about it HERE), I had them organized pretty well, but over time I lost control and just started throwing new things in with no rhyme or reason. I’m going to do a post soon about using 2 of the jars for my chipboard letters. There’s one full of flowers, and the rest I plan to use for random embellishments by color. I also put my ribbon jars back on my cubes…ribbons are sorted by color. I love my cubes and jars…they’re my favorite part of my scrapbook room. Can’t wait til I get this part totally done! My pretties, LOL…
So, that’s where I’m at for now. Thanks for sticking with me. I promise I’ll get done eventually, but real life has to come first, so it’ll continue to be slow progress. But progress is progress, right?
Okay, so I’m doing a BOOK OF ME, thanks to my friends at AMR. I only have a few pages done but this is definitely a project I’m going to continue with throughout my life. I’ve been putting my completed pages in a 12×12 postbound album I had already, an older one by Chatterbox. But … and I’m peeved … the album cover is warped even though it’s been stored properly since I bought it. So I need something else to use.
ETA 9-27-09: Okay, I finally took some pictures….
It’s hard to see in a photo but look at the top 1/3 of the album. It’s all wavy. Here’s a little better view.
Let me just say it looks much WORSE in person.
I’ve been thinking about going D-ring for this album, even though I’m pretty firm on sticking to Snapload for my everyday family albums. I hate the D-ring “interruption” in the middle of 2-page layouts, which is what I mostly do in my family albums. But so far, these BOM layouts have been 1-pagers and most will probably continue to be. So why not get a D-ring, right?
Well, the other day I was placing a MEMORY WORKS order for a friend from the crop I went to last Saturday. Tangent: She is getting these, from the Fancy Pants “Christmas Magic” line……sooooo pretty:
Anyway, I thought what a shame to pay $8.45 for shipping for just 2 little things, and have all that empty space in the box, right? I mean, it’s a travesty of some sort, yeah? So I’ll just search around the sale items at Memory Works and see if I can find something to add. You know, something I NEED not just want. I opened the SHOP OUR PRODUCTS section and noticed there was a new section called “Limited Time Only,” which are products they now have a limited quantity of and won’t be able to get more from the manufacturer (I tell ya, girls, it is SUPER hard to stock a scrapbook store or reselling company these days, with the limited and unpredictable quantities being released by manufacturers…not their fault, “it’s the economy,” right?).
So what do I see but this! The perfect color. The perfect design. THE PERFECT D-RING ALBUM!
It’s the Making Memories 12×12 embossed leather D-Ring ALBUM for only $20!! Yep, 20 bucks and with my consultant discount it’s only $16. It’s hard to see in this pic, but it has a pretty embossed design on it. They have several colors….light blue, mocha brown, red, pink, black, and yellow {you can see them all HERE} and it was hard to choose. But I went with pink since it’s one of my favorite colors, and it’s girly and “all about me.” LOL I also got some extra pages ($6 for 10 minus my discount).
If I can order one (or several) for you, please let me know. Just click HERE for info, or up in the top right where it says “I’m a Memory Works Consultant.”
Anyway, I’m so very happy…only $16 (plus $4 to split the shipping with my friend’s order) for a leather, embossed, D-ring album…I’m still in shock, but happy. And pretty in pink! Have a great day…
ETA 9-27-09: My new album is here!! So pretty….. and not warped, LOL!
Gypsy, Gypsy, Gypsy! I’ve been hearing this name for months, and I have purposely ignored it. Like a 2nd grader with my fingers plugging my ears while I sang, “La la la! I. can. not. hear. yooooooo!” All I knew was that it was some kind of handheld gadget that interacts with your CRICUT machine. I “only” have a first-generation BABY BUG…
So I figured this Gypsy thang didn’t even apply to me, that it was for the fancy dancy EXPRESSION.
And I figured if the Gypsy DID apply to the Baby Bug, I would still ignore it til it went away.
Do not. Need. More scrapbooking gadgets.
I tell ya’, it was hard to resist researching the Gypsy; I like to talk about new products here so we can all be edu-muh-cated together. I successfully avoided knowing what a Gypsy really was for a long time … until tonight.
As always, I recorded HSN SCRAPBOOKING and it happened to still be on when I turned on the TV tonight. JINGER ADAMS from ProvoCraft was presenting…
They had me at “hello.”
So let me tell you what I learned by watching the Gypsy demo on HSN tonight:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s a little handheld thing that you can carry in your purse, and “design on the go” … sitting at the doctor’s office, whatever. You save your designs, then cut them when you get home.
Yeah, it’s expensive … freakin’ $300 even on HSN. The price during the “World Launch” is $299.95 and the regular HSN price will be $349.95. But you get a bundle that’s worth $483.96, with a sleeve, carrying case, stylus, AC adapter, car charger, cartridge connect card, 2 cartridges pre-loaded (Gypsy Font and Gypsy Wanderings), and a Don Juan cartridge. And they have free shipping tonight. And 5 flex pays of only $60. They couldn’t make it more tempting if they tried.
HSN hostess SUZANNNE RUNYON pointed out that “craft stores” (we know she means Michaels) will sell the Gypsy for $299, with no extras, and you CANNOT use the coupon. Just so ya know…
On the screen, you can view and layout a mat that is 6×12″, 12×12″ or 12×24″, just like the mats for the different Cricuts. Yep, I can use it with my Baby Bug, after all. Curses!
ALL available Cricut cartridges can be viewed on Gypsy, but you can only cut from the ones you actually own. It’s a great way to preview what’s on each of the cartridges to see if you like them and would use them.
You can update your Gypsy via your computer, so the cartridges and features will always be up-to-date.
The sizes you can cut things are not restricted by the 1/4 inch like on the Cricut…you can get them down the decimal. For instance, Jinger designed something that was 2.14 inches or something.
There is a Search function. Jinger did a search on “flowers” and it pulled up every flower from every Cricut cartridge ever made.
——– You can weld words. ———–
You can drag and drop your design all around the “mat” so it cuts where you want it to.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Then I started searching around online and found some more 4-1-1, like this:
You can buy Gypsy accessories beyond what comes in the HSN bundle:
Silicon Skins in many designs
Screen protectors
Colored styluses
Colored lanyards
So, yeah, now of course, I want a Gypsy.
Crap.
My last concern, my last saving grace, was the fact that Cricut has not been overly Mac-friendly (i.e., Design Studio is PC-only), and I have a Mac so I’m safe, right? The Gypsy prolly doesn’t work for us Mac Girlz {fingers crossed, oh please please please please…). So I went to the Gypsy FAQ PAGE and here is what I found:
——- How is the Gypsy™ updated/upgraded?
The Gypsy™ is updated by connecting it to a PC or a MAC with an Internet connection.
Does the Gypsy™ work with Macintosh computers?
Yes, the Gypsy will be compatible with MAC OS10.
——-
Well, there goes that!
Okay, one last ditch effort to NOT want a Gypsy, although I admit it’s weaker than Denny’s coffee: The Gypsy fonts probably suck so THAT will be the reason I can say no this gadget. I found the images for GYPSY FONT and GYPSY WANDERINGS. And I saw them on the display boards during the HSN demo, where they’re all cut out with colored cardstock and you can see them much better. Guess what? Yeah, LOVED them! And the DON JUAN font, too, which you can normally only get when you buy a Cricut CREATE. They’re all very versatile with cool images that I would definitely use.
I couldn’t copy a Don Juan sample here, so click THIS to see one, please.
HERE is the link to all the Gypsy information by Cricut. HERE are a bunch of demo videos. You gotta check out the ROGUE GYPSIES … too funny!
If you’d like to see the HSN presentation, check out the rest of the HSN Scrapbooking shows I see on their schedule.
5-6am
8-10am
1-2pm
6-7pm
These are PST; look HERE if you need to run another time zone.
If you want the Gypsy now but, like me, can’t afford it and really shouldn’t get it, check HERE and see if the Peas can talk you down off the ledge. They make some good points: Use an iPhone app to do the same thing. Use all that money for other scrappy stuff, SCAL, or Design Studio. For a bit more, buy an Expression. Use a coupon code, try to win one, or wait for the price to come down. You know, that kind of thing…
ETA 9/24/09: I very much WANT a Gypsy, but I’m not getting one anytime soon. Not in my budget :( And I can’t ask for it for Christmas, as my big-ticket Christmas gift has already been purchased by my DH and mom….I asked for a new set of crop bags. Will do a post on those soon…
So, what do you think about the Gypsy? Is it a “must have” or can you resist it’s magnetic pull?
Okay, time for Part One of hopefully many posts in my scraproom makeover diary. You can read the Prologue HERE about why I was skerred to write about this in the first place…
I suppose I should start by explaining my current scrap space situation, and why it was time for such a major “makeover.” For about 6 or 7 years now, my scrap space has been shared with my kids’ play room, which consists of the majority of their toys, games, and puzzles, a TV with VCR and DVD player for watching movies, and a couch. The couch is perpendicular to the wall and kind of splits the room in half. Behind the couch is where my scrap space is. I have a large, L-shaped office desk and matching file cabinet, a table, and 10.5 STORE IN STYLE cubes like this….
…mostly open cubes but a few with doors or drawers. Then I have 2 of the 4 sets of shelves along the wall (some of my books [yeah, the other thing I hoard] and the kids’ stuff is in the other 2), and various Iris carts, containers, and mish-mosh storage items. I also hide a lot under my mondo-desk (wink).
As you can imagine, this was already a lot of stuff and two busy purposes to fit into one room, even though it’s good-sized. I have always liked sharing my space with the play room because the kids and I hang out in there a lot together. Or at least we did, until it also became “the dumping ground room.” That was not supposed to be the plan, LOL! Look, I’m a busy mom. Due to this stupid economy, I’ve been working 50-60 hours a week. The kids do sports, I do Bible study, I sell Memory Works, clean, do constant laundry, take care of a puppy, blah, blah, blah. Not making excuses, just explaining how this all got out of hand. I simply haven’t had time to focus on an organized home, as I can barely function on the 4-5 hours a sleep I get per night as it is. So anytime something new enters the house and I don’t have time to make room for it in a closet, or get rid of something else to make room for it, it gets dumped in the scrap room/play room. Ugh. (Hint, I’m preparing you for the photos so you don’t go into a horrible shock).
Here’s my other problem…I’m an admitted pack rat. I’m trying to reform and I certainly don’t want an intervention by my family, so I’m always working on it and fighting it. I get occasional bursts of energy where I purge the pantry, clean out my bookshelves, fill garbage bags with old clothes, etc. But admittedly, things have gotten out of hand in the last year or so. Well, I’m plenty sick of it and it’s time to make it right. Other than the sheer clutter, one thing that really bugs me and has to change is that the kids play area has to be moved. You have to walk through their area to get to mine, and to get to the sliding glass door to the backyard. No matter how much I nag, a fact of life is that they WILL leave toys, books, puzzles, etc. on the playroom floor…right in the path to those two places. And it’s their play area, ya know? They should be ABLE to leave out projects they’re working on, Monopoly games in progress, or art work interrupted, right? I’m just tired of stubbing my toes on all of it. If I step on that little shoe from Monopoly in my bare feet one more time…why I oughta!…..
So I had the bright idea to not only purge and re-organize my scrap space, but to move their play space to the guest room. We’ll move their toys and games, and get rid of some along the way, too :) Their TV and movies can also be moved, which will at the same time provide a TV in the guest room for my mom to watch when she comes to stay with us. This is a semi-tangent…but the way it is now, their playroom TV is about 15 feet away from the living room TV, so when the grownups are trying to watch something, we’re often competing with the kids’ TV. It’s kind of funny, the battle of the dueling remotes…we can’t hear, so we turn up our volume. Then they can’t hear, so their TV goes louder, and before you know it, the house is very LOUD. Now their TV will be farther away and behind a door, so we can now watch R-movies with “the language” and not constantly have to push mute for fear they’ll overhear, and they can watch SpongeBob and his annoying, nasally laugh to their heart’s content, LOL. By the way, I {heart} Patrick….
So. Decided. Playroom stuff moving to guest room. which means that my scrap space has room to expand and breathe. However, as much as I want the kids to have their own place where they can shut the door and watch a movie, or be able to spread out with their games, I also want them to still “need” to be in my scrap area sometimes so we can spend time together. And wouldn’t it be nice to have somewhere else for them to do homework, etc. other than the nice, oak dining room table? Why, yes. Yes, it would! That’s why I’m going to repurpose my scrap table into a Homework Table for the kids, and keep it in my scrap room. They’ll still have a place and purpose in my area, which is really cool. Also, I’ll still have the couch in my scrap room (erm….the cleaned off, easy-to-lie-down-on couch…) so they can come and chill, read a book, tell me about their day, whatevs.
I think I’ll utilize what used to be the DVD/game cabinet (see pic below) to store office supplies, etc. and free up more room in the guest room, where all that stuff currently resides. I used to keep this kind of stuff in a cabinet in there, which will now house the TV and games. Make sense? Just a straight swapperoo!
Being the anal, plan-ahead, worrier type that I am, my wheels are turning about what furniture to move where and how to store what. I pull out some graph paper and draw a diagram for my “new” scrap room. See, I’ve always had to call it a “scrap space” before, but now I can say “scrap room.” Yeah! There are two things I need to work around initially. The sliding door to the backyard means I have to keep a decent walkway available in that area of the room. Also, there are four 5-shelf cheap-o bookcases lining one wall and they need to stay put. They’re mounted to the wall with brackets, as we’re in earthquake country, and I’m not in the mood to unmount and remount those stinkin’ shelves. Besides, this room has a vaulted ceiling and the shelves are on “the tall wall,” also a long, solid wall, so that’s the logical place for them anyway. The best part about the shelves is that by moving the toys and stuff off of them, I’m gaining almost a whole shelf unit for my scrappy stuff….niiiiice. I’m going to move some of my books out of the guest room, and make one whole set of shelves for my books, too.
After 2 tries, I come up with a good room diagram for how want to arrange things. Now, I can drift off to sleep, and dream about someday scrapping in a more open and organized space….Oh, wait, I can’t sleep yet. I have one more thing to do and I can’t procrastinate any longer…
I guess now it’s time for the thoroughly embarrassing photos. I needed DH to move the TV for me when he had a moment, so that’s the only thing missing from the original (highly cringe-worthy) status of this room. Gulp! Here you go…
This is the wall to your hard left as you enter the play room area through the open doorway from the dining/living rooms. You can see the slider I’m talking about to the far right. The TV sat on top of that oak cabinet, and it’s filled with games and DVDs. All those pieces of stacked wood are to construct the hutch that goes with my desk, but I decided not to use it after all, so all those pieces are going in the attic. Those old toys are trash and we’ll see if we can use the plastic baskets for toy storage or something, or maybe to hold outdoor toys in the garage?
As you will see, this is the room to dump plastic containers that have rotated out of use. And I don’t know if you can see them, but behind the hutch pieces and then leaning toward the door frame, there are pool cues. Yes, pool cues. Growing up, my grandparents had a pool table in their rumpus room. Every time we’d visit them, all the kids would play pool. When my grandpa, then grandma, passed away, my mom asked what I wanted from them to keep I chose were the pool cues, among some other things. We had a pool table at the time (in this room, in fact) and I wanted to remember my wonderful grandparents and how much fun I had at their home whenever WE played pool. So, even though I have no practical use for pool cues now, I haven’t been able to get rid of them. I have such a hard time letting go of sentimental things like this. But I will. I’ve decided to take photos of them, and scrap this little story about them….and let them go. See? I’m learning…. Okay, time for another upsetting photo…
This actually disgusts me to look at, how ugly and horrible this room is. Here’s the couch we can no longer sit on, because things just get dumped here: A box of wedding china, a globe, boxes of toys given to us, pictures that need to be hung, a box of sentimental baby items I want to keep, newspaper with an article to scrapbook, a DVD to put away, another empty plastic bin, an empty Memory Works box to break down and recycle, etc. Behind the couch is my L-shaped desk with an over-full ScrapRack (major purging will happen there!). Man, don’t be surprised if I delete these photos from the post when I panic…this is TOO embarrassing!
Okay, deep breaths, deep breaths! It’s going to get all better, with time, hard work, and patience. Someday soon, I’ll look back at these photos and laugh. Right?
As I talked about HERE, I was contacted by WeTV to participate in a conference call with none other than Troy Dunn from their fabulous show, “The Locator.” I’d written about the show on my blog in the past HERE and HERE because I love it so very much. I thought it was so cool that not only did Troy come and leave a comment on my blog, but his mom (you see her on the show, too) did as well. One of the coolest things is that they sent me the link to a sneak preview of the new season of The Locator that only a special, select few IN THA WORLD get to see. Well, I don’t know that for a fact, but to make my ego supersized, let’s just assume that’s true. C’mon, play along with me….
They also sent me this picture to use in my article, which is from the new season and has NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE on the face of the earth. Exclusive to ME!! Bwahahaha. Okay, I’m totally lying again. I’m apparently at an insecure mood at this point in time and have a need to feel important and much, much better than you. I promise, I’ll get over it. But cool photo, right?
Did you know that one of Troy’s sons (Treston; LOVE that name!) keeps a family blog? Why don’t you go say “hi” right here to THE DUNN FAMILY.
Anyway, the date and time to speak with him finally arrived, which was September 3rd at 8am my time. That worked out well because, even though that’s a work day for me, I start at 8:30 (and I work from home as a medical transcriber so it’s a short commute). I told the gal who was coordinating everything – Katrina from WeTV – and she allowed me to ask my questions first in case I had to cut out early.
The two other bloggers who were also on the conference call with Troy (yeah, I get to call him that, ‘cuz we TALKED, you know?) were Gina from the THE CLAN McCLEOD blog, and Jill from the OKLA-HOME blog. Go check them out…both are really great blogs.
So, back to the call…Troy came on the line and everyone said good morning and where they’re from. I was able to go first and started off by reminding Troy that I was the one who had blogged that he’s a hottie. Again, like the comment he left on that post, Troy (or, as I sometimes call my new BFF, “T.”) was very modest and we joked about things like that scoring points with his wife.
My first question was: You talked in the comment you left (on my blog) about scrapbooking and the role it plays on your show. Can you please talk about that some more?
He said that scrapbooking is very much a part of The Locator. One thing is that many times, people who participate in the show immediately scrapbook their experience. He says that by what his show does, they allow people to have another 10 or 20 years of their lives to make the memories to fill up more scrapbooks. T. also said that his family has scrapbookers and they give and receive them for gifts. On his coffee table near him while we spoke, was a scrapbook that a fan sent him, all made up to honor the show, The Locator. The person had taken photos from the show, newspaper clippings, and letters from the website. {This reminded me of the album – or is it albumSSS – made by my Scrap Pal, Gay to honor her fascination with….er, lust for….I mean, um, admiration of the acting abilities of Gerard Butler. But that’s a whole ‘nother story I can’t get into right now}. Anyway, so then Troy said, “I have nothing but love and respect for scrapbooks and if I can help people fill the pages of them, fill their lives, then I’m totally jazzed about that.” See, not only handsome, but wicked smaht.
Then he said that he keeps waiting for a scrapbooking company to contact him, that he’d love to do a whole “Locator” scrapbooking line. I joked that maybe I should put some bugs in some ears in this industry about this great idea. As it happens, I’m having lunch later this week with STACY JULIAN, KELLY GOREE, CATHY Z, and LISA BEARNSON, so I’ll probably bring it up then. Nah, you know I don’t really know those ladies. Well, unless you count years upon years of drooling over their work in magazines and stalking….erm, I mean… leaving (perfectly harmless) comments on their blogs as being friends. Because I do. I consider them my friends.
My second question was about photographs, and how important those are in our lives; his thoughts on that, maybe reactions he’d seen from people he reunited when either they were shown photos of themselves they hadn’t known existed, or the opposite, when no photos exist and how that impacts them. (Crikes, didn’t realize what a long-winded question that was til I had to type it out and got a case of carpal tunnel while doing so… Sheesh, Erika, brief much?).
This was one of my favorite parts. Troy said that one of the greatest myths about photographs is that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” He said that a picture is worth a million words. He said photos are so extraordinary because of how close they come to “bringing a real person to somebody.” He said he often gets the same reaction from showing someone a photo of their long lost loved one, as he does from showing them the actual person. I find that amazing and, yet, totally relatable and I’ve seen it many times on the show, the profound reaction people have when seeing a photo of their loved one for the first time. The other amazing thing Troy had to say about photos is they he tries to never go into a reuniting situation without one because they make great transitional objects. We talked about how, for instance, a mom who hasn’t seen her missing son since he was four months old. In her heart and head, she may largely picture her son today as still being that four-month-old little baby. What a shock it could be if she first laid eyes on him again as an adult now. So by exposing her to current photos of him beforehand, she can start transitioning herself mentally into “This is what he looks like now.” He compared it to a situation in his own life, and a daughter (one of his SEVEN children with his wife) who battled cancer. Friends that hadn’t seen her in a while would’ve been quite shocked to then see her bald, so he used photos as a kind of transition so they could wrap their brains around how she looked currently, instead of revealing a shock or a sadness upon actually laying eyes on her. As I told Troy, I’d never thought of photos as that “transitional object,” but how very true and powerful that is, don’t you think?
So, those were my two main questions. Troy next answered questions from Gina and Jill, which were great to listen to. I know Jill has blogged about her experience speaking with Troy on her blog listed above, and I hope Dena will post about her take, also.
Then we got to ask a third question, since there was still time, and I asked him a question that had been posed by one of my kids when they found out I would be talking to Troy. {The Locator is a wonderful family show and I watch it often with my kids, so they’re Troy Fans also}. The question was about all the travel he does for the show, does he like it or not? Troy’s answer was what you’d expect from the true family man that he is….that while he’d gotten to go places he’d never have gone otherwise, that nothing was better than being home with his family. Shoot, with a wife and seven kids, imagine how many events you could miss in just a few days, LOL!. He talked about the toll that reality shows seem to be taking on the families who participate in them lately, and how family must remain the priority above all else. We also learned some “show secrets” such as the getaway car, and Troy’s favorite getaway meal. You know, things Troy only tells his “good friends,” of which I am clearly one. {Ahem}.
So that was my wonderful experience talking to Troy. He said if I contacted his staff, he would send a photo to my kids and I’m still working on arranging that. Sorry this is so long, but I had to capture all the details while they were fresh in my mind ‘cuz you know I’ll be making this blog entry into the journaling for my scrapbook layout, of course. Now, if only I could find some Locator-themed scrapbooking elements to jazz up my page, I’d be in business. Lisa??? Kelly???
PS: A reminder that the new season of THE LOCATOR starts soon! Put it on your calendar or set your DVR now...This Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 9pm PST (check listings for your own time zone).
If anyone was waiting on the article I said I would post today about my phone conversation with Troy Dunn of The Locator TV show, I apologize it will NOT be posted today. Me and one of the kiddos ended up with the stomach flu so my weekend didn’t go as planned. My apologies, and I’ll get it posted as soon as possible. I still can’t believe I was blessed with speaking to him! To hold you over, I’ll post a photo. Trust me, it will help your day immensely… :)
You can see Basic Grey ~ Indian Summer, Eerie, Eskimo Kisses, and Nook and Pantry HERE. {As of this writing, the Nook & Pantry still shows out of stock, but I’m sure we’ll have it soon}. I’ll give a taste of each by showing you the Theme Sets of paper, but we have a bunch of stuff from each line.
And here is Fancy Pants ~ Rough and Tough, Dancing Girl, Little Sprout, Trick or Treat, and Christmas Magic HERE.
Instructions on how to order are HERE. Would love to hear from you :)
O. EM. GEE! Have you seen this batty lace doily by Basic Grey?!?!?! Must. Have.
Okay, now I can’t wait to shop. I’ve been holding on to some Product Credits for a while now, waiting for all the CHA stuff to roll in. We’re still waiting on the new Doodlebug, Sassafrass, and We R Memory Keepers, but I can’t wait any longer. Now that the BG and Fancy Pants are here, I’m going to order before it’s gone. I also want this “Take Note” from the BG Eerie line, among other things:
HERE is the September Newsletter from Basic Grey, if you’d like to see some great layout ideas with these new lines and some past ones. What new CHA Summer stuff are you excited about or going to order?
Just wanted to tell you about the crop I went to on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and I got 9 pages done in about 11 hours. That might be a record, LOL. Granted, I need to add the journaling on most of the layouts so they’re not complete quite yet. The crop was from 9 to 9 and I said I was going to get there right at 9, to take full advantage of my crop fee….cuz I’m stingy like that. However, I didn’t end up leaving the house until 9, then went to Michaels and Starbucks on the way (which were both right down the street from the crop).
At Michaels, I learned two things from the employees while I was there. 1. The beading area (at least at our store) is expanding, and 2. No more Michaels coupons via Sunday paper flyers. Yes, I’m bolding that…it’s big news!
So I was cruising the scrapbooking area, looking for something worthy of my 40% coupon, and coming up dry at that point. I went to look in the center aisle sections, desperately trying to find the load of new Sassafrass product “mah people” told me was at Mike’s these days (no luck). The next aisle from scrapbooking is beading and there were two employees resetting the aisle. I said, “Hi” and one of them asked if they could help me find anything. I meant to ask about the Sassafrass but my eyes were blinded by the dizzying array of new beads they were hanging. Like, row upon row upon row of beads! My jaw dropped and she goes, “Yeah, we’re expanding to three aisles.” I said, “I used to make beaded jewelry but stopped for scrapbooking. Maybe I’ll have to get into it again!” and we laughed. Then I said, “You know, I’d better just not look,” and she said, “Yeah, bead shopping is pretty addicting.” She paused and said, “And I hear scrapbook shopping can be pretty addicting, too. Is that right?” I said, “Oh, you don’t know the half of it!!” And we all laughed. I complimented them on all the new scrapbook stuff they’ve been getting and told them to keep it coming. {I realize they’re employees, not buyers, but it never hurts to put in a good word, right?}.
I ended up grabbing a paper pad from We R Memory Keepers with sport stuff, called “MVP,” for $12 instead of $20. I would link you the whole line on the WRMK site, but I couldn’t find it there. Gotta’ say, I’m not a big fan of their website, the way it’s organized and the lack of information. But I copied this from an online retailer.
When I was checking out, the cashier told me that Michaels would no longer have ads in the Sunday paper, and that coupons would be strictly from the mailing list/website. She gave me a cute flyer explaining how to get on the mailing list, and I told her I was already on it, so I’m good to go. I asked her why did she think they were doing that, and she assumed it was due to cost, but had not been told that. So, more things changing due to the economy, I guess. I enjoy looking through the Michaels ad on Sunday mornings, along with Target and a few others, while I drink my coffee. Then I go right to the cupboard for my scissors, cut the coupon out, and stick it in my purse. So now my routine will change and I’ll have to remember to print the coupon out from the computer, but whatevs. I’m cool with it. Can’t blame them for having to stop the ads; they must be really expensive when you imagine ALL the newspapers they’re in. Some Canadian Peas said they’re doing the same thing up there. I do wonder if it’s a good business move though, don’t you? Do you think having the ad right there in your paper entices crafters and non-crafters alike to buy when they normally wouldn’t? I mean, you and I who are computer savvy (and on this dang thing all the time) have no problem just getting on their e-mail list and checking the ad online. But what about Nancy Sue in Kalamazoo who browses her Sunday ads, sees silk trees or Christmas decor on sale at Michaels, and thinks, “Oh, that’s a good price. I should go check that place out.” KWIM? Without the ad, I could see Michaels losing a lot of business. Anyway, us Mike’s freaks can view the weekly ad and sign up to receive printable coupons via e-mail HERE.
So, I left Mike’s, grabbed my sugar-free latte from StarCrack’s….erm, I mean…Starbucks, and got to the crop by about 10. There ended up being nine of us there. The hostess gave me a goodie bag with 3 sheets of Scenic Route 12×12 paper, all of which I ended up using on a “Back to Skool” 2-pager. The hostess had some things for sale (I bought 2 packs of Thickers….finally found one pack I’d been looking for….some Daisy D rub-ons, and a few other things).
There was a Creative Memories rep there taking catalog orders and I spoke to her about getting the new crop bags that are coming out….have you seen them? OMG! So so so cute! The whole set is black and white with a subtle daisy design and the interior of all the bags are pink polka dots. I love having a light-colored interior as it’s easier to find things. I can’t find a photo online or I would show you. I’ll go on and on about these bags in another post when I can find a photo of them. But I told the CMC that I was going to ask for the large bag (like an XXL) and a couple others for Christmas from my mom and DH. The bags I have were purchased piece meal. They’re old and they don’t match…some black, some navy, some blue. I got her card and will contact her when the time comes.
There was also a crop friend there selling Memory Works. She is a really sweet lady I’d met before through the crop hostess. We got to commiserate about being Memory Works Consultants and compare notes, so it was great. She had some Scrapbook Trends magazines (well, they’re like books really) for sale for $8; I think they’re usually $15. I don’t ever buy ST because it’s so dang expensive plus ~ I guess I’m a weirdo ~ but I like the ads so an “ad free” magazine isn’t a good thing to me, LOL! But I bought this issue called, “TrendSetters” which showcases 15 top scrapbookers; it’s from 2006. I love reading profiles of scrappers and seeing their work.
I couldn’t find this issue on the SCRAPBOOK TRENDS website but an online retailer sells it for about $14 (discounted), so I did get a good deal.
So, shopping and cropping all day. Couldn’t have had a better day if I tried. Hope you got some scrappy time this weekend as well. What do you think about the disappearance of Michaels ads in the Sunday paper?
Absolutely nothing except that they both have upcoming shows I’m excited about!
Okay, LISA BEARNSON…Nope, unfortunately she’s not on QVC SCRAPBOOKING anymore :( Btw, I REALLY miss her on that show, don’t you? The other hosts try really hard but they just don’t have Lisa’s superior knowledge of scrapbooking products and how to use them. Plus, I miss her playfulness with David Venable.
Here she is with one of her daughters showing their seat belt burns from an accident they were in recently ~ thank goodness they were okay! Something tells me that without those seat belts, they wouldn’t have been….
Anyhow, I found THIS show that she’s going to be on (September 2 and 9, 2009), if you happen to get BYU-TV. You may not think you do, but look through ALLLLLL your cable or satellite channel listings and you might find it. On my Dish Network, it’s on Channel 9403….yeah, it’s way down there. It’s the same channel where I watch SCRAPBOOK MEMORIES, which has some new 2009 episodes. I haven’t watched in a while because I kept getting reruns of older shows but today I checked and am recording an upcoming episode that says 2009. Yippee skip! Love that show…
Okay, back to Lisa. The show is called “Latter Day Profiles” and the info says, “The co-founder and editor of Creating Keepsakes scrapbooking magazine, Lisa Bearnson.” Info also tells me this show originally aired on 6-24-09, so it’s fairly recent. Let’s check it out and then come back and compare notes, okay?
While searching around for shows to record, I also found something for fans of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. On Wednesday, 9-2-09, Fox is showing a special episode with “fan fave routines from previous seasons.” The only bad thing is it’s a mere 1-hour long. WTH? I can’t wait to see it and hope they show some different routines than what were on the SYTYCD finale. There are SO many past routines I love. I could watch them over and over. Then the following Wednesday, September 9th, the new season of SYTYCD premieres, followed by the long-awaited second episode of GLEE! This is a show that won me over the first episode when they performed “Don’t Stop Believin’,” by Journey, my all time favorite band. {If you see me on the scrapbook message boards, I’m always “journey fan.”} Check out a Glee preview HERE; the Journey song starts around 2:45.
So, ya gonna try and catch Lisa B. and/or the SYTYCD episode?
I’m so happy that Michaels is turning over their stock much more quickly than they used to. Just about every time I go into Mike’s, there is something new. Here are some photos of things that were new ~ to me at least. These photos were taken on my last few visits to Mike’s.
Making Memories alpha stickers
They had several colors. The font is cute and I love that there’s an little crystal on each letter.
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A bunch of new bling…
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Journaling tablet stickers by Die Cuts with a View. There were 5 different themes, like Travel, Love, and Family.
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Your eyes are not deceiving you…Those are Thickers @ Mike’s!! The choices are kind of slim so I hope they offer more style and colors in the future. Check out those red, yellow, and blue letter stickers. I swear those have been at Mike’s since 1996. C’mon, Mike’s, just toss them. If they haven’t sold in 13 years, they’re not going to sell now, LOL!
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I’m so bummed this photo didn’t come out! I wanted to show you all these cute little epoxy stickers by Recollections…arrows, flowers, and my favorite, rainclouds and raindrops.
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Blingetty bling bling!…
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I love this K&Co. album from the Cut ‘n Paste line. It’s pricey but maybe someday I can get it with a 40% or 50% off coupon. Yeah, yeah… a 50% coupon! When’s the next holiday?? Oh yeah, Labor Day is right around the corner…
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An overview of a lot of their new albums. The solid colored Recollections albums are on the top row. The ones below are so pretty/cool/cute; there are a couple albums there I would love to have.
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My Minds Eye paper stack, called “Complete Boy”
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My Minds Eye paper stack, called “Totally Girl”
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Cat’s Eye chalk inks ~ my ink of choice ~ and lots of Staz On inkpads.
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Brilliance “Dew Drops” ink pads and Tim Holtz Distress Inks in 6 colors! We’re big time now!
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Cute-alicious cupcake stamps…
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So, here is what I ended up with on trip #1: Some black Thickers. They are the puffy ones, black cursive font, called Rainboots. Also, a pack of American Crafts Slick Writers in black. I really only wanted the fine tip but they didn’t sell them separately in fine tip, only bold. Oh well, won’t hurt to have extra Slick Writers anyway. Used a 40% coupon on the pens.
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On trip #2, I got two of the Journal Stickers Tablets ~ Travel and Family, and some Recollections pearl bling strips in green and teal. Used a 40% coupon on one of the sticker books.
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Here’s one sheet of each of the Journal Sticker Tablets, just so you can see how cute they are. My Slick Writers will be perfect!
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I’m so impressed with Michaels lately. With the demise of so many LSS’s, maybe we’re giving them enough scrappy business to keep that part of the store going strong. I sure hope so….Mike’s is my main source for Scrap Crack….erm, I mean….scrap supplies. What new things have you seen or purchased at Mike’s lately?
I know, I know, I need to BLOG! It’s been too dang long. We went camping at the beach last week, and I spent the weekend recovering, LOL! Laundry, unpacking, etc. and then finalizing the school shopping, getting backpacks together, and, oh yeah, it seemed like a good time to shop for a new theme for our kids’/guest bathroom ‘cuz I didn’t have enough things on my plate {insert sarcasm here}.
Well, at Target the other night, I got some fun (non-SBR) stuff including a DVD of the classic movie ROMAN HOLIDAY…
that I’ve been dying to see ever since I read this novel, “ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS” by Kristin Harmel….
SUCH a cool book! It was set in Rome, which is my favorite city EVAH! And it references “Roman Holiday,” which I can’t believe I’ve never seen. I could go on for days about how much I LURVE Rome (or Roma, as the Italians call it), how great this book was, or how I couldn’t put it down the entire time we were camping, but that would bore you to tears. Well, I put it down to play in the ocean and stuff but that’s about it. At Tar-Jay, I did NOT find a copy of the new Colbie Caillat “BREAKTHROUGH” CD I was planning to get; on sale for $10 vs. $14…shoot! They sold out by the time I got there.
Then in the computer aisle ~ where I debated whether I really need to lay out 30 bucks for a laptop cooler fan lap fan thingee (I mean, are they noisy or what?) ~ I saw this little cutie-patootie and had to have it…
Idn’t it little and key-ute! If I’d ordered from the LOGITECH website, it would’ve cost me about $36 with shipping, but at Target all it cost was $25 and the instant gratification was free, baby! This thing rocks. It’s Mac compatible. It’s small and has a little USB plug that pops into the bottom of the mouse when not plugged into your lappie. It’s a big improvement over my current wireless mouse that has a big white contraption with a cord that I have to drag around the house with me if I go mobile. Anyway, this little red mouse will be a great replacement. The scroll button not only goes up and down…it goes side to side! So totally rockin’!! And I adore the pretty red color. After seeing some other fancy ones on their website, like this….
…and this…
…I’m thinking I need to break out some rub-ons, maybe some Basic Grey or Fancy Pants swirly ones. What do you think…should I go for it? {See, a mouse CAN be scrapbook-related, LOL!}
Okay, well I’ve got to work tonight but I’ll start writing up some blog entries for later this week. I haven’t posted any shopping reports in a while, so I’ve got several to give ya’. And some other goodies, too. Stay tuned, homies!
I found this fun survey HERE and decided to copy it.
1. What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now? Dove and Irish Spring
2. Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator? No, but I wish I did. Had some at a BBQ yesterday and it was guuuud.
3. What would you change about your living room? I need new furniture in such a bad way! It’s old and faded, but at least it’s comfy.
4. Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty? Clean!
5. What is in your fridge? Milk, coffee beans, yogurt, leftover pork carnitas and tortillas, a bag of tomatoes, and lots more.
6. White or wheat bread? 100% whole wheat
7. What is on top of your refrigerator? Boxes of cereal and crackers
8. What color or design is on your shower curtain? In the master bath, nothing….there are doors. In the kids’/guest bathroom, it’s plain white. We’re getting ready to re-do the theme from police/fire to maps! Something to look at while you’re “occupied,” LOL.
9. How many plants are in your home? Six, I think. That I haven’t managed to kill. Yay me!
10. Is your bed made right now? Yep, I make ‘er every day.
11. Comet or Soft Scrub? Soft Scrub. Works great on my Corian kitchen sink.
12. Is your closet organized? Yes, but it’s full. I need to do some purging. And let’s not talk about my guest closet. (I totally copied this answer from JEN.)
13. Can you describe your flashlight? A big, black MagLite. It’s the one cops use. Don’t mess with me…I will hurt you. Really.
14. Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home? Plastic, unless it’s wine.
15. Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now? Two, actually ~ pomegranate and mango herb teas mixed with Lipton. Love it unsweetened with a buncha ice.
16. If you have a garage, is it cluttered? I like to call it organized chaos. It looks messy but there’s room for my car, and we know where to find stuff.
17. Curtains or blinds? Blinds in every room. I keep meaning to get at least some fabric valances, but I’m not very motivated. Just more things to dust.
18. How many pillows do you sleep with? Two or three.
19. Do you sleep with any lights on at night? Yes, I have to have a night light. I skerred of the dark! I also wake up during the night to check on everyone so I need to be able to see.
20. How often do you vacuum? Once or twice a week.
21. Standard toothbrush or electric? Standard.
22. What color is your toothbrush? Pink. Very cute, dahling..
23. Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch? We did but the puppy took off with it. See, he even looks guilty.
24. What is in your oven right now? Nothing.
25. Is there anything under your bed? Winter comforters in Space Bags. On DH’s side, his shoes. On my side, that huge MagLite/weapon I was telling you about.
26. Chore you hate doing the most? Anything having to do with the hardwood floors…dust bunny retrieval, sweeping, mopping, Dust Busting of random messes.
27. What retro items are in your home? We have a cool, old metal fire engine from the 50s that DH’s dad played with when he was little.
28. Do you have a separate room that you use as an office? Yes, it’s a combo guest room/office. We call it the Air Bed Room because when the kids were little, all we had in here was an airbed for when my mom would stay with us. We now have a proper bed and some office furniture, but it will be forever called the Air Bed Room.
29. How many mirrors are in your home? Five? Three in the bathrooms, a decorative one in our room, and one by the door for those moments of “Oh crap, someone’s at the door. Do I have make=up on?!”
30. Do you have any hidden emergency money around your home? If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.
31. What color are your walls? The living room, kitchen, dining areas are all connected and painted a light golden yellow. The playroom/scrap room that is open and directly off the dining room is the same color, but a shade darker. The bedrooms and bathrooms are varying shades of green and blue. Yeah, we’re not real adventurous with paint colors….
32. Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home? Oh, yeah! But they are safely stored, accessible only to the grown-ups.
33. What does your home smell like right now? Same as Jen….Glade Plug-Ins. They make it smell so nice. And DH made pancakes for the kids this morning, so it still kinda smells like that, which I hate. I’m burning a Citrus Sage candle in my office right now.
34. Favorite candle scent? Anything citrus.
35. What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now? I think a jar of dill and a jar of sweet.
36. What color is your favorite Bible? Maroon.
37. Ever been on your roof? No, never will. A guy I used to work with fell off his roof and is now paralyzed. I’m terrified of roofs. I about have a panic attack whenever DH goes up there.
38. Do you own a stereo? Yes, I have my Dad’s old stereo from when he passed but it’s not hooked up. Just sentimental. He was a HUGE music lover.
39. How many TVs do you have? Play room, living room, master. The play room one has no satellite and no channels, it’s just for kid videos and for me to watch videos when I scrap. I just watched Dead Poet’s Society for the eleventy-billionth time the other night.
40. How many house phones? Five. Kitchen, living room, office, bedroom (all cordless) and a corded phone in the garage for when the power goes out.
41. Do you have a housekeeper? I have three! Me, myself, and I.
42. What style do you decorate in? I’d call it a combo of Comfy, Simple, Durable, and I’m Broke.
43. Do you like solid colors in furniture or prints? Mostly solids.
44. Is there a smoke detector in your home? Yes! And lots of Defensible Space. We’re in California Fire Country.
45. In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip? My laptop, my purse, scrapbooks, photos, baby and school stuff of the kids.
Isn’t it interesting the way God times things in our lives? Giving us just what we need, just when we need it…
I recently posted this layout on my blog, about my Dad who passed away 16 years ago.
In case it’s too small to read, the journaling is simply the lyrics from “THE DANCE” by Garth Brooks:
Looking back
on the memory of
the dance we shared
beneath the stars above.
For a moment
all the world was right.
How could I have known
that you’d ever say goodbye?
And now
I’m glad I didn’t know
the way it all would end,
the way it all would go.
Our lives
are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain
but I’d have had to miss
the dance.
It’s only the second layout I’ve been able to complete about my dad, even though I’ve been scrapping for 8 years. Doing layouts about him is such a struggle for me. The first one I did was for a Father’s Day challenge at AMR, and the second one {above} was recently done for a Book of Me challenge, also at AMR. Are we seeing a pattern? LOL I only seem to force myself on this issue…if I’m challenged. I’m one of those who didn’t really allow myself to go through the whole grieving process as I should have right after he died. So, here I am 16 years later, STILL kind of avoiding the feelings most of the time. The strange thing is that when I force myself to do these challenge layouts that involve my grief over his loss, I DO feel better afterwards. Part of that is the relief of getting some long pent-up feelings out on paper, and part of it is the encouragement, sympathy, and other heartfelt comments my fellow scrappers make about the layouts. Which I realize are the works of a mediocre scrapper, but do come from an honest place in my heart.
That said…I honestly don’t know when I would’ve done another “Dad” layout in the near future. I’m tellin’ ya’….PAIN. FULL. Full of pain. Right? And Avoidance is my middle name, baby!
Then along comes my homegirl EMILIE at the SCRAP REVIEW {love her for so many reasons; hers is one of the only blogs I make sure to read on a daily basis} to help along with some divine intervention :) She posted THIS about a new blog called GOOD GRIEF. Here is what it’s about, taken from the Good Grief blog:
We here have all experienced a loss. Together, we hope to heal. This site is intended to help in that process…to be a source of inspiration and motivation…and to simply be a place to share and know that others understand. To that end, we (the contributors) have created these scrapbook challenges. For us, scrapbooking about our lost loved ones is therapeutic on many levels. Challenges are completely open…anyone can participate and challenges are very much open to interpretation…take from them whatever helps YOU. Tackle them in whatever format suits you (layouts, mini albums, home decor, anything!). No rules…New challenges and examples will be posted on the 1st and 15th of each month. Between challenges, more in-depth looks at the contributor layouts will be posted. As this site evolves, we hope to add more content between the challenges and will look to you for ideas and suggestions.
And whaddya know? Their first challenge is….USE LYRICS. Bla-dow. DONE. Mwuh. Meant to be. Am I right? So I’m taking this as a sign: My angel, Emilie, was sent to give me the message about Good Grief. And me not being one to ignore angel messages, I will be entering my above layout in their first challenge, and plan to enter more challenges in the future.
Those Good Grief girls are just what I need. Challenge, inspiration, and the knowing of true grief. AMANDA PROBST started the blog ~ You may know her from CREATING KEEPSAKES. When I used to hang out at CKMB, she often posted and I remember when her dad died because, boy oh boy, could I relate to the feelings she was expressing. Like her, I lost my dad suddenly due to an accident, while he was in his 50s, so we are both raising children who are growing up without a Grandpa who should, mathematically speaking, still be here. Amanda was also sweet enough to join us once for Scrap Chat Hour at AMR, back when HER BOOK came out.
So, yeah, it all comes full circle, doesn’t it? I love this online scrapbooking community. It’s full of wonderful women whom I’ve never met in real life, and probably never will, yet they touch my heart in their own little way, at just the right time, with just the right inspiration. God bless them.
As I mentioned HERE and HERE, we had a member-hosted, online crop this weekend at the All Moments Remembered message board. There were loads of fun challenges, some RAKs, lots of chatting (some topics of convo: rum, margaritas, and hot men), and a fun and crazy scrapbook bingo game…which I actually won! Kind of by default but you had to be there, LOL! I had a lot of fun chatting, laughing, admiring the wonderful work of other scrappers and cardmakers, and I even got some scrapbooking done! Here are two of the layouts I completed:
** I apologize in advance for the poor quality of my photos. My “real” camera is out of commission, so all I have is my iPhone and they all look blurry….
“Sculpterra” for the “Let’s scrap bingo style” challenge hosted by JULIE aka Scrappin{jewlz}. You probably can’t read the journaling but Sculpterra winery has these amazing sculptures outside by artist JOHN JAGGER. They are made of bronze or granite, and are simply amazing..
2-page layout (sorry it’s so small…if I enlarge it, it gets even more blurry)
Left page…
and right page.
Close up of my favorite flowers, which are 2 layers of shiny silk and then chiffon, with seed beads in the middle. They came in a Memory Works kit last year. I need to look up who makes them and get some more if they’re still available. Love!
I mostly used COSMO CRICKET “Fleuriste” that I’ve had for a while, and stamped the title with a cool new font I found at Walmart by AUTUMN LEAVES. I layered two different colors of COLORBOX chalk Inks.
For the bingo challenge, Julie provided a bingo card you could print out that looked like this:
You then picked 5 boxes in a row – up, down, or diagonal – as requirements for your layout. So, for “Sculpterra,” I used the far righthand vertical row.
3 different stamps: Title, hummingbird, and circles
Journaling strips: To label the photos
1-word title: “Sculpterra”
Ribbons or fibers: Black ribbon under teal flower
At least 5 photos: I’ve got 8!
This challenge was fun to do. The first thing I did was go through the bingo card and cross out things I was NOT going to do (like use butterflies, use only 1 photograph, use paint, handstitch, etc.) and circle anything I for sure wanted to include. In this case, I knew was starting with 8 photos, so I circled use at least 5 photos. Then I just picked the row that made the most sense for this layout. Super cool and creative. Thanks, Julie!
So, that was all I got done for crop challenges so far. The deadline to post layouts/cards isn’t until Wednesday night 8/12/09 at 12 midnight PST. I had to work tonight, but I’m hoping Mon/Tue nights are quiet and I can get some more challenges done. There is one about scrapbooking/you and one about using a neglected stamp that I’d really like to try :)
I decided to use the some of the AMR crop time/motivation/mojo to straighten up my scrap space, and to work on some other layouts. This layout was not crop-related. It was actually to try and get caught up with my Book of Me challenges, like I talked about HERE, {an ongoing challenge also hosted at AMR}. Here was the challenge from ABBY aka ScrapbookFrenzy:
The challenge is to scrap a time in your life or in the span of life in general that you’d like to go back to. You can do it on being a child, about your children like she did, or if you wouldn’t like to go back at all for any reason, scrap about why. Build on this challenge any way you’d like. It’s YOURS and for YOUR album….not mine or any other person’s. {You can read the entire challenge and see a sample layout by STEPHANIE HOWELL right HERE}.
So, here is what I came up with. “Oh, to be….his girl again.”
Almost everything is Pink Paislee from my GRAB BOX (except for some old Scrapworks black letter stickers, and Heidi Swapp white chipboard letters that I used green then turquoise chalk ink to color). Oh, and the “J” is Jenni Bowlin, and the Don’t Forget tag is MME. The Pink Paislee silver rub-ons don’t show up well in photos, so here’s a close-up of he silver border…
… and silver letters that say “Cheated of…” (time).
Here are the lyrics up close so you can read them….
My dad died in 1993 and I still miss being his girl. There is just no one like a girl’s daddy to love her unconditionally, protect her, and be on her side. This is only the second layout I’ve done about my dad since he died 16 years ago, and it was done through tears. {Yep, crying as I type this, too. Crap.} So, I didn’t have it in me to write original journaling this time. Instead, I used song lyrics from a Garth Brooks song that was actually a favorite of mine at the time my dad died. Who knew it would end up applying to me? But I’ve always meant to do a layout about my dad using these lyrics, because every time I hear this song, I still think of him. Every. Single. Time. Oh, to have him back again…but I wouldn’t miss the pain if it meant missing the dance we did share for those years. Miss you, Hippy Dad. Miss you so much…. {Crap, so many tears I can’t see to type…brb}.
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Okay! So, moving on… Hope you had a great weekend and not a super soppy, nose-runny one like I did, LOL! How much scrapping did you get done? Did you join us at the AMR crop? And if not, for God’s sake, WHY??? :) :) :)
Like I told ya’, there’s a fun online crop going on all weekend at my scrapbook message board home, ALL MOMENTS REMEMBERED.
As part of the crop, I took this photo and need to go post it over there. Please forgive very much the frizzy, windblown/flattened bangs and tired, “thank GAWD it’s Friday!” look on my face.
Are you wondering why I have to take a photo of myself for an online crop? Guess you’ll just have to come find out, won’t you?
I was “oot and uh-boot” Friday evening and did some fun shopping in between the grocery shopping and getting gas drudgery. Here is a report on my adventures, as far as scrappy stuff I found….
Target: Nothing. Same old stuff they’ve had for a while. Nothing on sale. Nothing to report. Oh, except I got the new CK there.
Been chillaxin’ around the house this weekend with it, and am LOVING IT! Such a great issue, chock full of layouts and techniques, as a SCRAPBOOKING magazine should be (unlike….cough, cough….SCRAPBOOKS ETC…..traitor….cough, cough)…
Walmart: Still have a lot of stuff on Clearance. The Cricut carts for $30 each were pretty tempting but I resisted. Not that flush right now. But this is what I bought there on clearance a couple weeks ago and they still have pretty much the same stuff as when I shopped then….
Michaels: So I had two coupons in hand: a 40% off that expired that day, and a 50% off that expires Monday (which is odd, but who am I to complain?). I cruised the aisles quite a bit trying to find something coupon worthy.
There was some new (to me, at least) bling kits, the I-Top brad maker by Imaginesce, and some metal embellishments by Making Memories.
I had the metal snowflakes with bling in my hand, but put them back. Maybe another time, another coupon…
As much as I loved all these new acrylic stamps,….
… and they weren’t on sale so I could’ve gotten a set for 1/2 off, I resisted their magnetic pull with some motivating self-talk…”Just snap some quick photos for the blog. Remain objective. You do NOT like acrylic stamps. You do not NEED acrylic stamps. They hold no meaning for you. No, Erika, not even that adorable set with the butterfly. And, no, you don’t need any more alpha stamps….the 170 sets you have at home are quite enough. Okay, you took the photos, now keep walking. No, don’t pet them. ERIKA!! Hand off the pretty stamps. Good. Now walk away. Dit! Don’t look back over your shoulder. Look! Pretty bling! Let’s go over there!” See, my friends, THAT … is how it’s done.
I found this endcap full of cute, 12×12 postbound albums by Recollections (the Michaels brand).
There were some really cute styles to choose from. They were jam-packed on the shelves like 20 circus clowns in a Mini Cooper. It was hard to get a good look at them all without a struggle, pulling out the first 2 or 3 in each row to see what was behind them. {I tried to peek in the sides but there were other racks blocking my access…hmph}. Many albums that I pulled out had bent corners on either the album itself or the pages (I assume, the result of beingsotightlyshelved….poor babies couldn’t breathe…). I made sure to pick out two unbent ones :) {I get doubles to use as yearly family albums because I scrap too much to get everything into one}. As you can see, the shelf stickers said $9.99 and a sign up top said 40% off. I asked myself, “Self, does that mean they are 40% off of $10, making them a mere $6 each?” And then I answered myself with, “Oh, Self, no! That would be too good to be true. Even Michaels wouldn’t run a deal THAT good!” But I, myself, was …. WRONG! Cuz they rang up at the register as 6 bucks, baby! Did my everlovin’, deal seakin’, penny pinchin’ heart good, it did.
Right inside the front door, they had the rack that usually says “Designer Scrapbooking” but it was full of Clearance items.
From there, I got these Making Memories “Black Tie” white pearlized letter stickers for $2 marked down from $4. For full coupon maximization, I grabbed these Martha Stewart chalk inks from Clearance (for the 50% off) and some Herma tab refills (for the 40% off). However, the register wouldn’t allow the coupon to be used on the inks because they were already on sale. I said, “I thought you just couldn’t use coupons on weekly sale items, but it’s okay if they’re Clearance or Reduced or whatever?” and she thought so too, so she read the coupon. Yep, there in the teensy weensy fine print it said something like, “Not for use on previously marked down items.” Crud. Oh well, I took the inks anyway…they were still 30% off. And the 40% off coupon worked on the Herma tabs.
So, I got two 12×12 albums, Herma tab refills, a stack of chalk inks, and two sets of letter stickers for $30, which I could’ve paid for just one album. Happy me.
Big Lots: Happy? Not so much. When I first turned into the scrapbooking aisle, my eyes lit up because I immediately noticed that the inventory of Thickers had gotten much larger. Yippie skip! (HERE is where I talked about my bad luck with Thickers @ BL). But I was to be disappointed again. There were tons of the shapes ones, one pack of red felt and tons of the naked chipboard ones (which I already got last time), and that was it. They had the K&Co embellishment stickers that the Peas were talking about HERE, but none I had to have.
I thought some of you might be interested in these, so I took a pic for ya….
Great deal and very cute! I love the prints on the inside, don’t you?
Well, those were my latest shopping/window shopping adventures. What kinda scrappy stuff have you found lately at Target, Walmart, Michaels, and Big Lots? Would love to hear in Comments, and feel free to link to your blog if you’ve posted about ’em.
