88-in-08 is Over for 2008

Well, we wrapped up the 88-in-08 club last Thursday.

I have to say that I did not come any where near my goal of triple 88, like I did "triple 77" last year. This year has been a lot different, with lots of stress and I am finding that it is telling in my scrapping.

I am hoping now that Pick of the Patch is taking up where Remember Me left off, that I will get back into the swing of things. I really missed the Friday night crowd scrapping - I need my estrogen fix.

So, if I did my reach my personal goal for 88-in-08 - there is always next year - 99-in-09 - maybe I can 'triple' that one??

Happy Scrapping,

Brenda

Scrapbooking through it all

Well, I was reminded over the weekend why it is so important to take the time to take the pictures and write down the stories of our family.

We lost one of nephews in a car accident. He was only 21 and just starting out in life. He was very special to us as we used to to 'rent-a-baby' when he was just a few months old to give his parents a break. We used to take him, his younger brother and our eldest away camping every year with visits to Dinotown and Victoria.

When he was three years old, he was our ring bearer at our wedding and one of the pictures that I love most from our wedding, was the shot of the little boy in a grey tux, standing inbetween my hubby-to-be and his best man - both of them 6'3"+ - so tiny in his matching suit.

So this week, I will be combing through all my photos and pulling out the photos of Ryan Michael Johnson so that we can tell the story of a life ended too soon.

And, in my scrapbook, I will leave a place to put memorial pages for him - so that my children can remember their cousin and the fun times we had together.

Scrapbooking is not only about the good times, it is about the bad times too and everything inbetween - don't forget to include everything as these are the chronicals of our lives. Scrapbooking helps us get through it all.

Take care,

Brenda

Getting back at it....

Well the kids are back in school and the summer is winding down - time to get back into scrapping.

It has been a long time since I managed to sit down and do some scrapping, but last night I had a couple of my buddies over to get going again. We brought out all our stuff, but as we have not seen each other since before the summer, I have to say that we did more chatting that scrapping. It always takes a little while to get back into the groove.

As we no longer have Friday nights are RM, we will be doing our own Friday night crops - just moving from house to house with the occasional store thrown in. Not quite the same, but at least we are still scrapping!!

I need to get some supplies - completely out of Xyron glue and all that I managed to do last night was use my Cricut to cut out a title that I now need to glue down - I guess that I will have to stop somewhere today to pick it up.....

I am looking forward to spending more time doing the hobby I love.

Happy Scrapping!

The End of an Era

The recent news that Remember Me Scrapbooking will be closing down shortly is certainly sad news indeed.

Due to health issues, Dianna has decided to close down to focus her energies on herself and her family. I can understand completely where she is coming from.

Just a few thoughts on things that I will miss and memories about Remember Me:

• the staff - they make it feel like family
• Friday night Free-4-All crops at the store with all the people in the Scrap Loft
• 30-hour crops - you sort of get real silly in the middle of the night with Dianna
• teaching classes at the store
• taking my son into the store when he was young for him to pick out some paper and spending the next hour happlily playing with the die cut machines. Dianna would ask him how much he had spent that day and he would pipe up with something like "$2.93" and he was usually right on the money.
• the people who I have met at the store who have now become good friends - including the staff

All, in all, it is hard to believe that I have going to the store for nine years - the store has been my escape, my estrogen-fix in my testosterone laden world.

My skills as a scrapbooker have grown considerably during those years - from rank beginner to teaching at the store.

I want to thank Dianna for those years and the fun that we have had along the way. Take care of yourself and I will be thinking of you lots. See you in Scrabulous!

Happy Scrapping!

Thirty Years - Very Hard to Believe

This weekend I will be heading over to Victoria to meet up with some of my fellow high school classmates to celebrate the 30th anniversary of graduating. I know that I don't feel like 30 years has passed since that June when I walked out of the doors of St. Margaret's Girls School and into the 'real' world.

I have already packed my camera to document this milestone event and I will be scrapbooking adding this to my personal scrapbook - the past and the present.

I guess you are only as old as you feel - hopefully, I don't look as old as I am!

Happy Scrapping!

The Un-30-Hour Crop

Well, the 30-hour crop did not go off quite as planned. There was not enough people to run it. But thanks to Pam, she and I did our own crop on the Friday night and then on the Saturday we cropped for another 12 hours with a few other people.

I managed to get 12 pages done in that time - 8 in my family albums and 4 in my personal album. Not too bad for a quiet weekend of scrapping and chatting.

Here are some pictures of the layouts that I did over the weekend:

The first one is my youngest son's 8th birthday - had fun with chipboard and paint - I guess spending that much time with Pam had to have rubbed off on me!


The next is a close up of the chipboard rocket with the picture suspended below the rocket.















The next is a close up of the left-hand page - complete with layers of torn patterned paper and chipboard painted stars.

















This layout for Canada Day was one that I had seen in a magazine somewhere - what to do when you only have two pictures of a whole event. I am quite pleased with how it turned out.


All, in all, we had fun - lots of scrapping time!

Happy Scrapping!

Brenda

April 30-Hour Crop

I am starting to get excited about the upcoming 30-hour crop at Remember Me on the weekend of April 18th and 19th.

This is the same kind of crop that I went to in November - starts at 6:00 p.m. on the Friday and finishes at midnight on the Saturday!! Certainly not for the ones who need their beauty sleep!!

I am starting to line up all my photos and put together the page layouts that I might need.

I hope to get a whole lot of pages done!

There is still space - so if you are interested - call the store and save your space!!

Happy Scrapping!

Memory Lane

In working on my March 30th class for Remember Me, I was wandering through the store one day and spotted the new stitchable Bazzil cardstock and I knew immediately what pictures I wanted to use with it. The paper just called to me to use pictures of my sister and me at various times in our lives - from about age 5 and 3 to present. Looking through all my childhood pictures in search of the pictures that I wanted for this layout was a definate walk through memory lane.

In speaking to my sister about the project, before I could even tell her which pictures I had choosen, she told me that her favourite early pictures of us were two of the three ones that I had already printed!

I chose the daisy design in the spring green colour and then added a couple of other papers - some Bazzill and some others.

This new cardstock comes in a number of different variations - with punched hearts, stars and daisies along the one edge - just begging to have different treatments done to enhance the designs. Each design also comes in a number of different colours - so the project ideas are endless.


I had fun experimenting with all the different things that you can do with this paper - you can embroider or stitch using the punched design; you can use ribbon or yarn or embroidery floss; you could do the 'string art' type of treatment; you could just put a contrasting paper underneath for a subte design; and on and on!

As much as I love working on my chronological family albums, being able to do a layout like this that just 'speaks' to me and inspires me to try new things is great too! I have recently started another album that is 'All About Me' - this album will have many different layouts in it - some might be in chronological order, but others will walks down memory lane that encompass pictures from all different times and reminds me that I still have lots and lots of pictures to capture in scrapbooking.

Happy Scrapping!

Classes at Remember Me

The class for "My Loves" went off today - had fun and the person who attended the class really enjoyed the class and the layout - she has plans to do another layout based on it.

I am working on my next class for either March or April - depends on conflicts, etc. as to when it will be - with the new Bazzil hole-punched cardstock. It comes with holes punched in the shapes of hearts, starts and daisies.

I was in Remember Me the other day and one of the clerks showed me the new stuff and I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it. This paper is just crying out to be threaded with ribbons or embroidery floss or even yarn. I was playing with it this morning to see which I wanted to do.

As soon as I have the layout finished, I will post a picture here for everyone to see.

Happy Scrapping!

88-in-08

Well the "88-in-08 Club" has started for this year. The goal to try to do 88 pages in 2008. (Last year the club was "77-in-07" - you get the picture.)

Last year I managed to do "Triple 77" to reach my personal goal. I wonder how many I will get done this year?

So far I have done 28 pages - so I am a little over one third the way to the first 88. Can I make "Triple 88" this year?

Now that I have my scrap room and I am not using the end of the dining room table - maybe I can get even more done as I can leave things in progress and just come right back in and finish without cleaning up every night.

Santa was very good this year and brought me all sorts of things to add to my scrap room. I love my new paper filing cube - now I don't have to fight to get a piece of paper either in or out of my overstuffed Paper Taker - I just pull out the folder and open it up. When I go to a crop, I still use the Paper Taker, I just put the whole file folder right into the Paper Taker and it goes with me. I just have to be a little bit more organized for a crop to pull the papers I might need before I go - I don't travel with all my papers all the time. I also got a small folding table that actually can half 'sit' on the bed and half on it's legs so I can have a little more floor space when needed.

I also love having my own Cricut Personal Cutter - no more waiting until I hit Remember Me to do any titles (I still use my Sizzix, just not as much). I just need a few more fonts to add variety (can I wait until my birthday??). Maybe not....

Happy Scrapping!

Welcome 2008!

I can't believe that we are half way through January already - the time is going way, way too fast and I was reminded that I haven't posted anything since before Christmas. So, Pam, here you go - a new posting.

Upcoming Classes

I have a couple of classes coming up in January and February at Remember Me Scrapbooking.

JANUARY:

On Sunday, January 20th class will be a repeat of the calendar class that I did back in November - so if you were too busy to do in then, here is your chance.

FEBRUARY:

On Sunday, February 17th, I will be doing a 2-page layout class called "My Loves" - this uses some black and white photography and some of the new Grunge board that has just come into the store (was a lot of fun to work with - feels like leather).

Here is a picture of the layout:

I am not sure what I will be doing for March - you will have to wait and see. Check back to see what I have come up with.

Happy scrapping!