I Fell Off The Planet!

I know, I know; I've been a really bad blog host. It's been hectic around here trying to get my son to pass SOME of his classes. No, I don't even have the lofty goal of ALL of his classes right now(he can retake a couple in summer school).

You must live a charmed life if your teenager is doing wonderful in high school. I envy you, I admire you. Secretly, I resent you and would like to hang you by your toes(totally joking!) when you tell me about your perfectly-behaved-well-adjusted-Honor roll student. This is not my world; never has been. And that's all I have to say about that.

This LO was begun a month ago at a crop party. I had NO idea it had been that long till I received a reminder that THIS Friday was our crop night for this month. Shamefully, I completed the LO promptly today! It is of my Grandad from England and part of my continued effort to scrap some heritage for my son so he'll know his roots. I will be back in the swing of blogging in a week or so. I have a lot of projects grinding in the wheels of my little pea brain and so many new goodies to use! 'See' you soon!

End Of The Year Classroom 'Scrapbook'

Quite some time ago, I mentioned this idea. In a way, it's a scrapbook for your classroom. It came to mind as we near the end of the year; even though I don't have a class to do it with now(sniff). I think this is a fun project for the last week of school. It would also work great for an after-school, daycare, or church group. First, we take a giant piece of poster paper to cover the board or wall. The students cut out rectangles at the top and bottom edges...to mimic a film strip. It's time-consuming and ALL of them can work on it while you begin to pack up your room for the summer.

Anyway, next give them each a letter of the alphabet and a template(if you would like my template, email me and I will send it to you). They think of something they learned(or more than one) this year. Students can draw, paint, stamp, or add an actual photo, put the monogram and write a little something about it. Make sure they put their name somewhere so you can look back and know who did it. Fast kids can do more than one. Some kids can glue them on the poster/film strip. Some can create a title. My room is usually organized chaos during projects. I feel creative expression needs less direction and as a bonus, they learn to cooperate like the REAL world. Somehow, it always comes together!

From here, we usually invite the upcoming grade to visit the classroom. We hand out a newsletter/info. sheet of what to expect next year. They get guided tours of the room--show off projects--have a slideshow or powerpoint going on the T.V. and drinks and snacks. It's a lot of fun and my class is so proud and surprised by everything they have learned!

When it's all over, you can cut out the monogram/pictures and put them on a binder ring. Just add the year and hang it with your class photo that year. In the future, other students love to look at them, younger siblings find their siblings' work, and students that return to visit love to look too. And as a bonus, I have a nice little memento from all my students. Love it!

Blog of Shame

Yes, I already mailed this:

I know I have been a bad blog hostess. I really do have good reasons for not posting very often. which I will explain in a minute. Let me show you the cards we made at our Stampin' Up! party last week. Kristi is so good at creating cards! I am terrible at this. I love orderly appearance on a card but for the life of me can't create in an orderly fashion. (no secret)

So my reasons for not blogging often. For ONE, I have been sick for a week. I should mention that this is my own fault, however. You know those 'days of the week' medicine keeper thingies?

Well, I put my vitamins in those so that I know I took them that day. The problem is, I also put my allergy pills in there. But I didn't and I started getting sicker and sicker all week...tired, massive headaches, ear ache, sore throat...you get the picture. It is the height of allergy season. ANYWAYYYYYYYYYY...once I figured it out; it has taken a week to build up the allergy medicine level in my system. I'm about 75% functional today, finally.

SECONDLY, I have made a commitment to myself to lose weight and for the right reasons. I am honing in or the mid-forties and ladies, you know...the weight gain ugh! But, more importantly for me, the hormone regulation. I don't know about you, but these 40 something hormones have been making me very depressed for a couple weeks at a time. SO, I must blog less and exercise more! You'll see I place a ticker to the right, I'm hoping this keeps me honest! I will probably only blog every other week till summer vacation.

THIRD, I got my Mother's Day present early. A Kindle!

I love, love, love, love this thing! I have not been reading much for a while...again...age...it's just hard on my eye. Yes, eye singlular. I've only ever had good use in my right eye, the other is just color and light perception. I am so addicted to reading again! I can't put it down. So, why is the Kindle so GREAT?! I can make the font GIANT and read with absolute ease!

I HIGHLY reccommend this as a special gift(it is a bit pricey, but there are many free and inexpensive books to download, best-sellers are only $9.99) for a loved one who struggles with vision problems even those that are NOT sighted at all! Yes, this will also read TO you if you wish!! You can even get newspapers, magazines, and blogs on it. Amazon should pay me commission. I am telling everyone about this!

Comedy of Errors

Well, finally I have finished my Mother's Day heritage album. It took a week! As some of you know, I have not done an acryllic album before. Let me tell you...girl, this was such a comedy of errors. I had WAY too many ideas that I wanted to try and it got a bit out of control. Although it was a potential disaster, I think I salvaged it. Anyway, mom is not a connoiseur of scrapbooking and has not seen an acryllic album so I think she will like it for two reasons:

1. I made it.
2. She doesn't know any better.

I feel that I must share things that I learned during this process:

1. Don't go crazy with the alcohol inks. I stamped the script and loved it. But then I thought I'd add color to the other side. It was too much and an ugly yellowish color.

2. You can remove said baby-poop color with the blending solution.

3. You can also remove your carefully stamped script if you are on the wrong side of the acryllic. One of the pages has no script. So much for continuity! See my 'M' page.

4. If you should happen to knock your paintbrush from another project out of the water jar and splatter bluish paint all over a page...it is not necessarily a good idea to splatter ALL the pages to match! But now I'm stuck with it.

5. I should have just wiped the paint off. Sighhh. Now I will just act like it's some cool artsy thang...

6. If you mix acryllic paint AND Crackle Accents it does NOT kill two birds with one stone. It doesn't crackle when it dries. It looks like drywall spackle. Kind of dull, lumpy and lifeless.

7. Adding Glossy Accents over the top of the above-mentioned mess, along with Stickles improves the situation somewhat. See below. Again, I will claim artsy-fartsy on this accidental technique.

8. You should practice using Liquid Pearls if it is the first time BEFORE doing it on your project. Mine are not pearls, they are Hershey's Chocolate Kisses...only not delicious to eat!(no i did not actually taste them)

9. Don't close the pages till Stickles and Liquid Pearls are thoroughly dry. Apparently, this is longer than a couple hours. My poor grandad has spots on his face(not shown, I messed that picture up)


10. Nine is enough. There is no 10.

Believe it or not, I had a ball doing this! I shall try it again in the future armed with my new knowledge, patience, respect, and editing skills for acryllic!

Rock-A-Bye-Baby!

Yes! Another half-done project completed! I'm getting very close to done with everything---well, everything I decided not to just throw out. It was brutal, but I had to face reality. Some of those projects were so far beyond my interest level. They had to GO.

Anyway, I started this a year ago just because I like the fabric. Ok, that is a LIE. It was 2 years(hanging head in shame). Back to the story: I found the pattern in a waiting-room magazine and stole it. Not really; but I was considering it if the nice receptionist wouldn't copy for me. But, as I said, she was nice and did that for me. It's a bassinette-- obviously--sometimes I say dumb things(*son says WAYYYYYYYYYY more than sometimes).

Nice kid. You should get one if you don't have one. Really. Teenagers: Better than root canals. Nothing wrong with being positive, I say. Onward! Peek at the baby in it...hee, hee! No need to be quiet, she is terminally sleeping.

And here she is. Should I name her? Hmm...I'm open to suggestions.

Don't you just adore the sweet pillow and blankie? Again with the whole 'mini' thing.

And no, I don't have a daughter, or even a grand daughter. I made it for me. It appeals to my inner child, what can I say? She sits in my bedroom now. Maybe one day I will have a grand daughter that can't wait to come and play at my house! And I can make little mini clothes for her and we can have little mini tea parties...Whee!!!

Giveaway Results

Teacher Jessy and LaaLaa please send me your mailing addresses and I will send you the stickers on Monday! Thanks for playing! nessasnews@yahoo.com

A Couple Mini-Albums

Anything mini is cute, isn't it? Such a girl thing! Ok, wait. Chocolate. NOT so good in mini. Are you with me girls?

Rarely do I make mini albums even though I think they are simply delightful and charming. LOVE looking at other people's on their blogs! This one was a cute kit from KC & Co. that caught my eye.

This other one, I made myself. It's not very exciting inside, so I really just wanted to show you the mechanics. In a pinch, you can make this easily. Simply layer cardstock at gradient lengths.

Attach a book plate to the last page, then place a large brad or button on the front cover and you can simply slide the book plate to open and close. Oh, and mini skirts...not so much for me anymore. There was a time...long ago and far away...If you still want some Jolee's stickers, scroll down to my Earth Day Giveaway.

Baby Tomatoes!!!!

I'm thrilled! I have baby cherry tomatoes already! Now, you may wonder why I am so ecstatic over a few tomatoes...Well, I used to grow a garden, but since moving here; I have no room. See for yourself.

Mostly hard-scaped yard like everyone around here(water conservation and all). And the border beds are full of bushes and flower--and a few little gnomies(see 'em peeking?).

So, I have two pots with the tomato plants in them. My little treasures. They make me happy. Soon we will plant herbs in the planters on the fence. Isn't D a sweetie for attaching all those to the fence and rigging up irrigation? He is, for sure. So that's my garden folks. Tomatoes and herbs. I can live with that. If you want some Jolee's stickers, scroll down and leave your comment here.

Earth Day Presents For YOU!

Happy Earth Day(belated). I am celebrating by recycling some of my stash. Recently, I had cleaned out my craft space and have tons of these Jolee's stickers. At one time, I got a box of about 200 of them on clearance for 10 bucks.


Anyway, this is just one group of them. I have FOUR packets like this to give away to anyone that wants them. There are about 15-20 pieces in each. Just leave a comment and I will randomly pick 4 people to send them to on April 30th.

Mother's Day Card

Just a little card for mom. I'm still working on the acryllic album for her too(ups and downs with that one!).

And peek inside...MORE flowers that pop up!

I just love that---never tried one before. You'll notice how my 'disappearing' blue glue stick, did not. Oh welllllllllll! I only used it out of desperation because I was leary of it---apparently, justly so. Note to self: Buy more white glue stick.

Hide and Seek

My camera is currently on vacation in New York. D went to see Opening Day at the new Yankee's Stadium. Anyway, since I can't photograph anything new, I am reposting one from my old blog and I'll be back with new goodies next weekend!

This will bore seasoned scrappers, but perhaps will be helpful to newbies. I know when I started a couple years ago; it was a bit of a mystery. Everybody finds their own way eventually. Here's mine.

I was thinking about my process so that I could apply it to mixed media art, that I so desperately admire on others' blogs. I don't know why I am timid and drag my feet to experiment on that!

Anyway, I guess I look at my pictures and pick a few. I already 'see' a story that I want to tell for my family. I know this top photo is what I want to emphasize.Then, sometimes I go to idea books and mags for layout ideas. In this case, I was not able to easily see what would be a good balance for 3 photos.This part takes the longest for me. Probably it takes me half an hour to pick cardstock and patterned papers. Do I want to match the photos? Do I want to go neutrals that go with any photo? What 'feel' do I want? In this case, I wanted the feel of summer but it looked too 'girly' to pull colors from the photos. That's why I chose a neutral brown as my background. Luckily, I had some 'summer' patterned papers that went with the brown.This main photo is the only one I will mat for emphasis and I chose yellow as yellow is in the photo and it helped it pop.I cut up pieces of patterned paper and made an arrangement. Also, I decided to crop the other photos smaller and stick them together as one.Next, I thought the word 'hide' should be partially hidden. Oh, I already knew the title and theme would be 'hide and seek' from my first step of choosing photos. So, I got some memory glass and inked it with alcohol inks. This was the first time doing this and I just love the effect, and it was SO easy!I put black vinyl letters under them.After that, I decided the patterned papers needed to have the edges inked to tone them down a bit and to draw the eye across the pages spread.I finished the title...this took a while, several experiments with letters. I decided 'seek' should have eyes. It looked a bit off-kilter. I added some subdued stamped swirls and I put photo corners on the top left to solidify the two photos together. I tried to use a visual triangle with the yellow patterned paper on the right, the '&" sign and the photo corners in the top left.To really balance this, I added written journaling and stretched it across both pages. Plus I put their names and the date and place on the right. Writing the name of the place is something I just recently began to do. I think this will give more of a 'picture' of our life for those that recieve these scrapbooks one day. I don't spend much time on my journaling, it's just 'off the cuff'. This took about 1 minute. I just put enough to allow the reader to 'fill in' with their own experiences. Personally, I don't like to read long drawn-out explanations, so I don't like to write them either. I know a lot of people agonize on what to write---my mom being one. As I said, the story is already there when I choose my photos. Have a nice day!

Picnic Time!

Ahhh! I love the feel of cloth napkins! Here I've completed a set of mix-and-match placemats and napkins.

Some of you know I've been spring-cleaning my craft space (half of our office----ok, MORE than half! Hee hee!) Along the way, I've unearthed many half-done projects. I plan to complete them or throw them out before I begin new ones! Ok, AND scrap in between. I made these placemats double-sided.

And then an assortment of napkins to coordinate with either side. Don't you love options?!

Here's my tip for making perfect corners on the napkins---for any right-angled item, for that matter. First, I iron about an inch corner of all 4 corners. Make sure it is at right angles to the sides of the napkin.

Next, tuck under the corner and finger press for each corner.

After that, finger-press about a 3/8 inch seam along one side---I recommend doing one at a time.

Fold that over one more time to cover the raw edge and iron flat. Repeat with each side.

Voila! You have a perfect corner. Simply stitch around the entire napkin in whatever stitch you choose.

Now, don't you just want to go on a picnic? We had a BBQ in the back yard with my sunny set!

P.S. I still need your advice here. Thanks!