To Clip or not To Clip?

If you're wondering whether a Clip It Up is a great purchase, my answer is a resounding "yes"! My sweet hubby bought mine at Scrapalicious for my birthday in 2008. I'll admit, I couldn't find the right spot to put it in our former house, but since I didn't have a dedicated scrapbook room then, getting it up and running was harder. Now almost all of my alphas are stored on it. It's so easy to spin it and locate my beloved Thickers or Heidi Swapp chipboard alphas or MM tiny type (yes, I have a few of each of those)! It holds so much product, and I love seeing what I have at a glance. It makes me feel so organized, and it fits so perfectly on an art cart that I made in college.

On the topic of clips, I had a little clip done to my hair now that the warmer weather is here. My shorter do is so much fun, easy to care for and dries so much more quickly. Time is such a rare commodity at our house, I have to save every minute that I can. Like it?


For those of you waiting for RAKs from me, I sorted all of the goodies this weekend and will be getting boxes into the mail for you this week. If I'll be seeing you shortly at Scrapfest, and you're willing to wait, please let me know and we can hook up there, rather than worrying about shipping.

Speaking of Scrapfest, I'm so excited to be attending the crop there for the first time. I've attended in past years, but this is the first time I'll be staying overnight and cropping there. I'll be with Sue and looking forward to meeting Nancy too. If I haven't been posting layouts lately, it's because I'm a busy bee at home working on Scrapalicious projects for Scrapfest that I can't reveal until that weekend. So yes, I'm still scrapping. I'll have new projects to add to my blog coming up soon.

Peace in my Scrapbook Room

I love altering clocks! My latest project is this clock for my scrapbook room. In keeping with my OLW for 2010, peace, I wanted peace to be the theme for this clock. When I saw this clock in the store, I loved that I could alter both the inside and the outside of it. I can't wait to see it hanging in my scraproom.

The sentiment says "grow in peace and love". I absolutely adore BG's Wilma chipboard alphas, don't you?

When I was designing for Just Cre8 before the kit club folded, I wrote an Altered Clock tutorial for their blog. Unfortunately those links don't work anymore, so perhaps when I get a chance I will re-post the instructions in a future blog post. Altering a clock is so much fun, and they make such memorable, personal gifts.

You can see some of my previous clock projects here, here and here.

The draw date has come and going for this RAK, and since I haven't had a moment to spare to draw a winner, I'm going to send something out to each of you! Please be patient with me, though; your goodies will be in the mail sometime soon!

LOM Clipboard

I'm still caught up in my LOM class, believe it or not! Here's my clipboard, which - OK, I'll admit it - I received when I first took this class in 2007, finally done! Back then, I chose the papers to use for this project, and I still love them! I also used them a while ago in this layout of my Grannie, which I cherish so very much.
The papers are from a Wild Asparagus release by My Mind's Eye. I used Thickers for the title, and lots of Tim Holtz crackle paint on the clip. Now that it's finally finished, (you can see my hubby re-attaching the clip here)
:-P I'm so happy with it. Now it's time to get some pages scrapped!

Wrapping Up Round One

I had a wonderful month of giving away 29 gifts in 29 days. So many members of 29gifts.org say that after a first round, they are so fired up that they start Round Two immediately. Whew! I'm too busy scrambling to get caught up now to try that right away, but I do know I'll be doing it again sometime!

Thanks so much to all of you who sent notes of thanks, e-mails, PMs, and even flowers! I appreciate it so much, but additionally, I appreciated the chance to brighten your day just a little, and to share my OLW for 2010, peace.

The papers I used for this project were oldies but goodies from 2004. Sue answered correctly that the manufacturer was Creative Memories, but no one knew that the Pink Passion paper collection was from their Jumpstart January product line. It's sweet, isn't it?

Since Sue was first to come up with the paper's maker, I have an extra RAK for her, but guess what? Everyone wins! I have a little something going out to each of you who posted a comment on this post before March 5th. Congrats to all! I hope to have your RAKs in the mail later this week (but please be patient with me; I'm a bit behind right now!)

Giving 29 Gifts in 29 Days is a concept that anyone can undertake at any time. For more information, I encourage you to visit 29gifts.org.

Another Year...

. . . and another RAK!

Not only did our girls' 7th birthday just fly by, but my blog turned 3 years old yesterday too. Wasn't that fast? Plus my blog just passed its 15,000th view! Wow, thanks so much to all of you for spending time here. I appreciate it so much! Since I'm late in having RAKs for each of those events, how about I just give out one big one?

Remember this post when I mentioned that after sorting all of my scrap supplies, I wanted to give some stuff away? Well, the time has come! Tell me what scrap supply you originally thought wasn't all that interesting, and now you can't live without it. Maybe you thought glimmer mists were passé, but now you don't make a layout without them? Or perhaps you didn't see yourself using bling, but now you love it! Leave a comment by March 14th, and I'll include your name in a draw for a kit of scrappy goodies I've put together.

Better yet, become a follower of my blog, and I'll throw in an extra entry! :-}

Oh, and I haven't forgotten this RAK! Details are coming soon. Have a great week!

Photo Connections

I'm so happy with my progress to date in the Library of Memories class I'm taking with Stacy Julian. I've never really felt tied to chronological scrapping, so I'm already on board there. Stacey's photo triage process, though, has really helped me to get (most of) my photos from a mess to organized!!
All the photos that friends and family took at our wedding. Sorted. Those Sears portraits and kids' school pictures. Filed. Most of our digital files, too. I still have old prints to sort, but the latest 5 years are done! I'll get photos of my system up soon, (once I've had a chance to take some!)
Here's a really simple example of a photo connection I found while filing photos. When Evan made his Swiss Chalet for Social Studies at age 6, the girls were only 3 years old. We were in our previous house (and yes, I actually miss that wallpaper!) See how young Evan looks? Now the girls are in grade 1.

They're at a different school than Evan was for grade 1, and we live in a different house, but they are studying the same curriculum, learning about the foundation of our community (ironically, it seems to include many fast food restaurants!) They're studying in French, just like Evan did. I realize how much alike they are in appearance, although Vanessa is miles ahead of both her siblings when it comes to missing teeth for her age!

This connection is so much fun, and I am looking forward to creating a layout about all three of our kids and their collective experience with this project, which they all loved doing. I've seen much more complex connections too, including ones that link my kids' childhood experiences to my own. Places - for example my aunt and uncles' homes in Montreal. Activities - like camping. Music. Outdoor play. So much more. It makes scrapbooking so much fun.

I'm still planning to do annual chronological highlights albums about our household each year. But other than that, chronology definitely doesn't live in my scraproom!