Mysteries of Me!

Last month, I took an online class with Elizabeth Kartchner. She is an awesome scrapper who has so many great ideas to share. The class was called, "Mysteries of Me." We had to take a vintage book and cut a huge hole out of the middle of it to make a box. I chose Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway. It was one of my Papo's old books. I hope he was not too mad at me, but it still smelled like him so it made me feel really nostalgic. I used rub ons for the cover and added a flower with a key hole. Then we made this little tag book out of cardstock, felt, and tags. The class also came with tickets that expressed different things. First, we had to dye the tags and sew pockets with cardstock and our sewing machine. We then had to choose a picture to match the ticket and journal about each thing. It was hard for me to write some things down but it was such a good way to remember how I am feeling right now about my life and how I feel about the people in it. (Sorry some of the pics are sideways, not sure why they did this, but I wanted to show them.) So turn your head and get inspired to journal about your life. Check out Elizabeth's blog for lots of inspiration.

I am thankful for . . .

I recently asked my students to finish this sentence: I am thankful for . . . They wrote down their answers on whiteboards and I took their pictures and put together a slideshow for our class webpage. You would be happy to know that most of them said their family and friends, although I think Pokemon and Spongebob snuck in there too! (A few even said they were thankful for me!)

Last night, it was my turn to host Bunco for the year. Along with serving dinner, we have to have a couple of gifts for prizes. Most of the ladies love my scrapbooking so I made these two books as prizes. The square one was a chipboard accordion book that I covered with paper from The Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby. It was so easy to adhere using Beacon's 3 in 1 Craft Glue. (You can find it locally here at Crop Girls.) Then I used stickers from K & Company called Autumn Days that I found at Target. They only had one package or I would have bought them all. The turkey on the front was from Animal Kingdom using my Cricut. The second book was a taller accordion album that I covered with the same paper but then I used lots of leaf stickers from Cathy B. I love the fall colors, especially since we do not see those colors here in the Valley of the Sun. (It was still in the 90s last week.) To cover this book, I cut a few hearts out of George, another Cricut cartridge. I think Vickie and Linda were very happy with their prizes. I hope they fill them with things they are thankful for this year and always.

So Hard to be a Scrapper

Don't you just love creative friends? I do, but then the pressure is on. They give you something creative and cute or they help you out and you want to thank them. You want to give them a thank you card but it has to be so cute because they are creative too and you remember the cute cards they have given you. Oh the stress we scrappers cause ourselves! It is a great dilemna to have though! Last week, I was pleasantly surprised by a Halloween treat from a former student whose grandmother makes the cutest cards. Then, I got some help in my classroom from two wonderful mothers who helped make 26 caramel apples for some very hungry and excited third graders. (They are both crafty too!) What to do?! Of course, I used the Cricut and cut out some one and a half inch ovals out of orange cardstock. I stamped a leaf and Give Thanks from a Will N. Way set I had. The ink is Color Box Chalk in Chestnut Roan. I then took one oval as the base and folded the other three ovals in half and glued them together to make them stand out. To give the card some color, I used some chalk on the leaf and quote and used some green fibers before I glued on the pumpkin. Now I hope I lived up to the high expectations - at least until next time! Thank a fellow creative one today!