The Other Half of the Scrapbook Page

Here is the other half of the side by side scrapbook page. You see how the picture layered areas are the same size (or very close to it) and positioned in the same spots as the opposite page. It's a mirror image of the other page. They look neater in scrapbooks when you do it that way. Though whatever way you put pages in your book is great as far as I am concerned. At least they are getting in the albums!!

Here is the page I had done at the last DIVA Day event I attended. If you look at yesterday's post and today's post you can see how much they are alike. Just the photos and names have changed.

These two cats are a riot together. K.C. is the gray one, a male cat and Boo is the typical striped tabby, a female. They are 3 years apart and are best friends. They play together a lot and lay together a lot. Boo is usually the one to instigate the playing.

The photo of them with their heads together is one that I caught by sheer luck. They are actually laying on my lap while I was reclining and I happened to have had the camera on the end table. Don't ask why, I never leave it there. I just kept taking pictures and looking to see what I got in the photo area and I continued to take pictures for about 3 minutes. The flash helped them keep their eyes shut and, at this point, pretend they were sleeping. But when I finished with the photo shoot they did go back to sleep.

Isn't that just the sweetest photo. I was told by SO many people to send it to the newspaper under the "pet of the week" category. I may do that some day!

If you click on the picture, look at the top right one on the page. They were "playing" on the chair in the dining room and you can see Boo's little tongue sticking out. He must have tasted delicious!!!! LOL Oh and on the other one on the top Boo has her arm on his shoulder. She's such a riot. These two cats really bring a lot of joy and laughter to our home.

And one word you can not say in our house is "brush." You'd better be ready to brush them, especially Boo. She won't wait for the brush to make contact. Before you know it she's on her back feet and meeting the brush with the top of her head. And the tail shakes like it's electrified!! LOL

I have LOTS more photos on a million other topics to scrapbook. I may try to do at least one a month! It's a good goal to set, it's doable! And even if I only get one set of pages done a month at least it's one more set than I would have had if I didn't try at all!!!

Thank you for visiting today,
Wanda

Scrapbooking! REALLY!!!

Yup, I have done another scrapbook page. I'm on a roll now. There may be no stopping me! I wish! I'm still trying to break into scrapbooking. I have TONS of photos to scrap but I just need that nudge to get me seriously into it. I thought doing a page of my cats might help but it didn't.

A while back at Sue's DIVA Day event I did a scrapbook page and wanted to make a side by side page for my album. It took this long to get around to it. I've had the photos and they layout sitting in an envelope for a VERY long time. When I make the pages I do love doing the side by side pages. They mirror each other in layout form which I think makes a very neat and sharp looking album.

I had read once that you don't need to scrap in chronological order. I was SO thrilled to read that. I think it would get a bit boring doing the pages like that. SO I just took what I wanted to do and ran with that. I do like my pages but I think it's because I like the photo content!!!

This is Millie. I got her in December of 1999. She was born on October 26th. She is a beautiful Ragga Muffin cat. She is a bit of a touchy cat though. She was traumatized at the vet's office and has never recovered. She is fine around us but when anyone comes over she runs and hides. That's ok too, who wants all that hair on their clothes? She does love to be pet but her favorite thing is to lay on her back and wiggle around. Thus creating knots in her hair. UGH. I cut them out in big chunks but because of the length of her hair you can't even tell. She's such a hairy cat!

Anyway, on my page I used the Stampin' Up! "C is for Cat" set. It was one of the first sets I bought when the catalog came out! Me and cats!!! I buy lots of "cat" stuff! I used Garden Green for the background and layers. Very Vanilla is the main color on the top layer. I used a border punch and a strip of Very Vanilla stamped with cat paw prints on it. It's too bad most of it is hidden behind the photos. I stamped some fish at the top of the page using Sahara Sand ink. And I stamped a few fish and cut them out. I also stamped a cat and cut it out too. That was a bit more difficult to do because of the whiskers but I managed and it turned out ok.

I have one of the other two cats I will share with you tomorrow and you can see what I mean by back to back.

It looks like in about a week my blog will be reaching the One Million Hits mark!!!! How cool is that? I have some fun blog candy ready to celebrate this milestone and I'll be posting that in about a week!!! This is SO exciting!

Thank you SO much for visiting today,
Wanda

Scrapbook Page

I'm on a roll here. It's my second set of scrapbook pages. I had scrapbook night on Friday evening and I played along with the other gals. I think I will be getting a lot of scrapbook pages done this year as compared to the one set last year!!! See, I'm on a roll.

In December I told you about a snowman I had made and was a bit embarrassed to talk about it. Well, I scrapbooked it. Maybe it will be my "scrapbook" of shame! Actually I'm not ashamed I'm just a bit embarrassed. It was all done out of desperation. We were not getting snow and then when we finally did get snow it came in the form of that fluffy dry blow away stuff. Well, how can you make a snowman with that? I'll tell you how!

First you take some snow and bring it in the house. You fill up hour kitchen sink with it and wait about 45 minutes for it to begin to melt. It's got to form a ball and you know it's ready. That does not require a thermometer, it's just the chilly ball stage! I actually stuck one of the balls in the freezer. It was the head ball and after a few minutes of thinking of the snowman head in my freezer I put it outside on the deck and I brought in some more snow for the next ball. I am the traditional 3 snowball snowman person. SO after making the three balls it was getting dark outside so I waited until the next day to make the snowman.

The next day came and with the subzero temps here the balls were hard as rocks. But did that stop me? NEVER! I got my coat and boots on. I took with me the scarf I crocheted and one of hubbies winter hats. I took some raisins for the mouth, a baby carrot for the nose (of course) and some malted milk balls for the eyes, buttons and smile. Oh and I took out the tea pot with boiled water in it. I needed to use it like a glue for the balls and to melt holes for the eyes, nose, buttons and mouth.

I got him all together and set him on the ledge of the deck. I took some photos and was going to leave him there but thought he would last longer if I set it on the deck. Plus I knew if I leaned him against the deck he would stay together longer too. It was a bit more shady and protected there for him.

So there's my sad pathetic story. On December 10, 2000 I brought snow into my house so I could make a snowman. I was having withdraws, what can I say? Those of you who love to make snowmen will understand the desperation. And those of you who don't like snow will know now that I'm officially crazy! Hubby and a few close friends already knew that!

And onto the layout. I found the layout at Stacy Cohen Designs. My scrapbookers like to have pages that are designed for more than one photo. SO I am on a quest to find some fun layouts to fulfill their wishes! I suppose I could actually sit down and draw up a few pages myself. How original would that be? I could give it a try. I mean if I can scrapbook I should be able to come up with a layout, right? I'll let you know how that went next month!

The embellishments here are from Sizzix dies and Cricut cartridges. Yup, I got a Cricut for Christmas and I am finally using it.

Thank you SO much for visiting today,
Wanda

My First Official Scrapbook Page!!!

Yes Sharon H., I have finally done my very first Scrapbook page!!! I have had my scrapbook since January. It took me this long to get my nerve up to try a page!!! I did a back to back page which really means I did two pages!!! These pages are 12" x 12".

It was a lot of fun (after I figured out what photos I was going to use and where I wanted them!). It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to and I am not going to tell you what I had originally drawn up for the pages!! It's close but not exact!!

I used 2 sheets of 12" x 12" Very Vanilla card stock. Those adorable leaves on the background are from the Stampin' Up! "Autumn Days" set. I just LOVE the leaf in that set. And as you can see, I did use it a lot on the background. I also had a tiny leaf paper punch so I punched out a bunch of little leaves and taped them in place on the pages. My main colors of card stock here are Brocade Blue and Not Quite Navy. The wording was all done on the computer. I thought it would be easier, quicker and neater if I typed it out instead of writing it by hand. It took long enough to figure out the layout, cut the pieces and tape them in the right places. So using the computer saved me some time. I am not a big fan of typing so I just went online to find the information about Enger Tower and I did a cut and paste. I did edit it for content because there was some information I didn't want on there, like dates and times, etc. I just kept what I needed for the information on the page and printed it out. In the future some of my pages will contain my own personal comments (where I feel they are needed!). I will be doing more pages but it will be slow going, I'm thinking it will be. It may go faster than I think it will, who knows. Only time will tell on that one!!! But the important thing is, I will be making more!!! I have HUNDREDS of photos to put in the book and I'd like to try to make a set of pages a week!!! Nice goal, lets hope I can do it!!

Thank you SO much for visiting today,
Wanda

The Best Christmas Present!!!

Something wonderful happened to me (us) last Saturday. We had gone to Perkins for dinner and we were seated in a large booth in the corner. My son looked at the guy in the booth next to us and said, "He looks like Louie Anderson." I look over there and sure enough it was!!! I have always loved his humor and I REALLY just wanted to jump over our booth and slip right into theirs and visit with them!!! LOL But I remained calm and tried not to look over there too much. It was difficult to do. The manager was chatting with him several times. I thought that was unfair but then again I wasn't the manager. The last time the manager went over to talk to him he said to us, "Is this guy bugging you?" And I said, "No but the lady there is in the way and I can't see him very well." We got to chat with Louie Anderson for a few minutes and then he said, "Come on, let's get a picture." My son had is photo phone with him and we got our picture taken with him. How cool is that??? Isn't that just the best Christmas present??? I just LOVED it and I was SO thrilled. I couldn't wait to see how the photo turned out. Wishing I had my camera with me. But the cell phone took a pretty good picture. And let me tell you, Louie Anderson is the nicest, sweetest person you'll ever meet. I would have loved to have been able to sit there and have coffee and chat with him for a while. I did ask him what brought him to our neck of the woods. We're about 30 miles north of Minneapolis. Blaine is not known for it's celebrities!!! Well, other than me!!! LOL Still laughing at that one!!! LOL He said he was here visiting relatives. We were at the right place at the right time. How often does that happen??? Not very often in my life. SO I thought I'd make a couple of 6"x 6" scrapbook pages with the photo. Now on the ones I'm putting in my book I have another photo of Louie that I got off the Internet Movie Data Base (if you've got hours to spend go there and check it out. One thing leads to another on that site and the next thing you know the sun is coming up!!! LOL It's a fun website). Anyway, I printed of a picture on there and added it to my page but since it wasn't my picture I didn't feel that I could legally post it with it on my page so I put "Louie Anderson" in the square where the photo goes.

I love these "side by side" scrapbook pages. They allow you to smoothly go from one page to another and in keeping the same theme you know you're still looking at something from the same event. Plus it is very appealing to the eye to have them both compliment each other. If you click on the photo you can see a closer view. Don't look too close though, I HATE having my picture taken.

So there you have it, our very fun adventure last Saturday. Oh and I'm suppose to give my son the credit for this since it was his idea to go to Perkins. I was happy with going to Subway, as long as I didn't have to cook anything I'm happy!!! LOL

Are you all ready for Christmas? I did finish wrapping the gifts. I'm done shopping and I'm also done baking. And even if I weren't "done" baking I am DONE baking. My fingers don't hurt so bad now but they do feel like leather and the look of and orange rind with the little dents in it. NOT pretty but at least I don't have the pain anymore. I do have about 5 or 6 more Christmas cards to get out and then cleaning the house and I'm ready. That is not like me to be ready this early!!! I haven't been this organized with the Christmas in years!!! Maybe it's a sign of things to come!!! One can only hope. Now if I could get my workroom cleaned up and organized I'd be one happy camper!!! I don't think I would know what it's like to find the things I need or am looking for!!! LOL

Thank you SO much for stopping by,
Wanda

Scrapin' & Strugglin'

Did you ever have an idea in your head and once it was down on paper you stopped and asked yourself, "What the heck was I thinking???" LOL Well, here is a perfect example. I had this wonderful idea in my head for a pair of 6" x 6" scrapbook pages and I just can't get it down on paper. The page on the right has a pocket. I probably should have put something in the pocket so you could see it but I was just not happy with the whole thing so even trying to dress it up is out of the question.

I don't make many scrapbook pages and it is a challenge of mine to work on more of them. I signed up to be in a scrapbook page swap and since what was in my head isn't on paper I'm going to have to switch gears and try to find another idea and run with it.

SO this post tells you that I will be making another set of pages and adding them to the blog. Hopefully they will be better than these are. In many aspects of life you should stick with what you know and like. Well, I REALLY like snowmen so I may have to run in that direction. And I'm off to take a stab at some new pages.

Don't forget to enter (click here) in the Anniversary Blog Candy!!! One year!! I'm SO thrilled!!!

Thanks SO much for stopping by,
Wanda

Scary Monster!

Switching gears a little here. I mostly do cards. But when I think about it, there's probably as many cards on here as there are little gift items, etc. But I can say I don't do a lot of scrapbook pages and that is something I am going to be challenging myself to do. I need to keep a good balance of stamp crafting, cards and scrapbook pages!!!

This set is SO adorable but not as cute as the "Best Fiends" set was. But this will still do for this 6 x 6 recipe swap card. I LOVE making these for my recipe book. I have been collecting recipes since I was 16 (A VERY long time!) and I want to put my favorite recipes on these cards. It really dresses up a recipe card now doesn't it? These make great gifts too.

You set up your computer to print out your wording within a 5" x 5" space. You want to have some room on the sides for layers and sponging and just space to make it look even. I typed in my recipe and I printed out about 6 of them. I plan on keeping 4 so 6 is usually pretty close! I lose one or two with experimenting. And when I don't I have an extra for a gift for someone special!! Now once you set up your page, save it. This way you can just go in and make the changes for another recipe and do a "save as" for it and you've got another page saved. Though I usually just do a regular save since I REALLY don't want to make any more of the pages I've already done. They never turn out the same anyway. I just make the amount I want with the first run and that's it.

Once you print your recipe on card stock cut it to 5 3/4" x 5 3/4", enough room for the 6" x 6" piece of background layered card stock to go behind it. You don't need to do a layer but it does make the card look better. Stamp your images on the recipe and color them in as you like. For this one I used googly eyes on the spiders and Frankie. I glued them in place with Crystal Effects. I didn't want any glue to show. Once it dried and my layering was done I slipped it into the 6" x 6" scrapbook sleeve along with the other recipes! Eventually my book will be full of cute little recipe cards that are also fun to look at. And the bonus to doing this is that each page is in a plastic sleeve so there will be no sticky recipe cards!!!

Thank you for stopping by,
Wanda

Now for Something Really Different!

I don't do a lot of scrapbooking. It doesn't mean I don't know how to scrapbook. I don't know why I don't do it more. I really enjoy it. Maybe it's because I did my son's 18 years of his life in 6 months Scrapbook and I am still in shock! Now WAY back then it wasn't a popular thing to do and I had better things to do with my time. I was very faithful about keeping up with his baby book *patting my back* And I kept up on his shot! LOL I did keep a photo album for him which made it easy to do the scrapbook pages. I think it's that time you have to spend putting the photos in chronological order that slows us all up. Well, that and hunting the photos down! A lot of my favorite photos of our son are on slides. Yes, slides. I took them to the drug store to have them developed into prints and the kid (looked all of 12 years old!!! LOL) said to me "what's a slide?" Can you believe that? Am I that old? I'll field that question before any of you do!!! I must be old if I think the kid at the drug store looked like he was 12!

Ok, enough rambling. I had gotten out some photos of the cats I've had in my life. The center of the page reads "Every life should have nine cats!" I saw that saying a long time ago and just loved it. I actually stopped to see if I even had the unwritten quota of 9 cats in. I did and then some. I had several cats that I do not have photos of. It wasn't the "thing" to do as a child to waste film on a picture of a cat. They probably would have been black and white anyway! Again the cat stamp in the middle is "Cool Cat" and is retiring. The words in the background card stock was done using the Stampin' Up! fonts disk and printed out. I used the word window punch for the names and the two circle punches for the photos. It was SO much fun to make this because it brought back SO many good memories of my sweet kitties. I still have Boo, K.C. and Millie.

Pets are a part of your family too and I firmly believe they should be included in the albums.


Thank you for stopping by!
Wanda