I had a hard time settling in this year. I was better prepared than I have been the last two years especially emotionally. But still I had distractions to deal with. The biggest of which was my fault... before I left home I sent an order of pictures to Target in the town where I was meeting my sister-in-law. The only problem is... they never received the order and I didn't have those pictures. Now I had other pics to scrap but for some reason I just kept letting that plague me. It got to the point on Saturday where the ladies convinced me to have my daughter at home resend the pics to the Target and I would drive and get them. It was a 45 minute drive one way and shopping time... I spent/wasted 3 hours on it. Maybe wasted isn't the right word for it... I did get 4 layouts done out of those pictures... which was just about half of my production. Nine layouts for a full weekend of scrappin'. It just seems wrong.
There were other minor distractions. We had four cricuts running that weekend and in some ways I am the most knowledgeable about them... which isn't saying a whole lot. And there were questions to be asked and answered. This I honestly didn't mind. These machines do so much more than just cut paper and I have so much to learn about all that they can do. I love sharing what knowledge I have. Plus, I get to share a table with my SIL. I love her to death but she needs to trust her own judgement more on her choices. She's putting together a really cute 8X8 album on Lions Sculptures that her town had out one summer. But she questions and wants opinions on each detail of each page. I've tried telling her that there's no wrong way to scrap and what I might like, she might not. Now this doesn't mean that I don't want to offer any opinions at all... I know when I get stuck it's great to have someone to bounce ideas off of... so I need to keep quiet. But truly her book is looking great!
Here are the layouts that I managed to get done at Craft Weekend '09...
This is my daughter at Halloween when she was in 2nd Grade. I love these pictures of her. The paper is from Once Upon a Time by DCWV. Love those papers and they seemed to be appropriate for this. The title and the frame were cut from Storybook. (Ooops, just realized I didn't put the date in the frame).
This is a layout of my son and his girlfriend from Homecoming this year. I don't know what the pink paper is but it was a slick shiny coated pink (of course, it doesn't show up in the picture). And I have to double check the font it was either Jasmine or Ashylyn's Alphabet (neither of which I own). My SIL, Amy, owns them. I've always liked Jasmine but that weekend AA became a new favorite... trying to convince myself that I don't need to have it.
The next two layouts are of my daughter at her first Homecoming. She's a freshman this year. She did a great job of picking out a dress that completely fit her personality. After looking thru all the local malls, she finally found this one on Ebay. It was a Jessica McClintock and I think it cost us $55 (40 of which she paid). Since I had to convince her to get her hair done I paid for it ($35 plus $15 tip) but we were both extremely pleased with the results. The embossed pink paper on the first layout was really difficult to work with... no adhesive sticks very well to it. I cut the frames from Storybook... the first at fit to page and the second at fit to lenghth. I added Stickles and Jeweled brads to the first page for some bling.
This next page isn't done yet since I never added a title although it's pretty self-explanatory. The pictures I had were really dark but I had bought the Disney Dreams Come True cart before I left that weekend solely because of Ariel (Kaitlyn's absolute favorite). All weekend long I wasn't sure if I was going to keep the cart until finally the last few hours of craft weekend I finally just ripped open the packaging and decided to keep it. (I had already bought and returned the cart once before). Ariel's tail, her top and the seaweed were all from the DCWV Glitter Stack. This was my first attempt at one of the Disney characters. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.
This one was just a quick, fun one to do. I really liked this picture of my kids with one of their cousins all wearing 3D glasses so I had it blown up to a 5X7. The bacground was a frame from Accent Essentials (I believe) cut at fit to page (that weekend was the first time I had used that function key and I had fun with it). The title and subtitle are from Graphically Speaking.
This is one of my favorite layouts, even though it is so simple. Just before that weekend I had bought some carts at Michael's buy one/get one sale. I needed another cart to even it out and couldn't decide which to get. I finally settled on A Child's Year, not sure if/how/when I would use it. Ha! That turned out to be the most popular cart that weekend. Even though it is primarily silhouettes, just about everyone found something to use on it. This layout is of my daughter and her best friend, Maria. They met in Kindergarten when Maria came up to her and asked Kaitlyn if she would be her best friend... and still are to this day. The two pictures signify there personalities so perfectly as Kaitlyn and Maria and as their alter egos, Gilda and Erma (I have no idea where those came from but it fits).
The next two layouts are from our Agency's anniversary party held at a Brewer's Game at Miller Park (my first time in the new stadium, even though it's been open for quite a few years). We had a blast! Our seats were in the Toyota Tundra area where we got to sit in full recliners with tv screens in front of all the chairs. It was a great time!
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And this is a saying that I put together for my husband's grandmother. I had played with a co-worker's Happily Ever After cart a few months ago and made the pumpkins (which really are gorgeous close up). I wasn't sure what to do with them and had plans to put them on a Thanksgiving present for grandma. Well, it didn't get done for this past Thanksgiving but I'm sure she will put it up anytime. I don't know which font I used as it was done using my SCAL, where I welded letters for the first time.
