Better with wine!

I really like Art Impressions Stamps and I added a bit more to this page. The Girlfriends are at it again. This stamp is the Girlfriend Blend Set, which is the girlfriends stamp and  3 sentiments. I purchased my set at Archiver's with a coupon there. I stamped the Girlfriends on cream paper, using the black gold ink by Memento Dew Drop, and then I colored it with colored pencils. I added the sentiment from another set.about getting better with wine. There are actually 6 of us in Table 7 but the Girlfriends stamps do a good representation of us collectively.

Scrapbook Journaling Made Easy

image from Amazon.com

Review of Scrapbook Journaling Made Easy

 
    I checked this oldie but goodie book out from the public library. It is an older book, published Sept. 2002, so the layouts were simpler and plainer than many layouts seen in 2012's current magazines and books. The book was written by the Editors of Memory Makers, whose magazine ceased years ago. The book presents many ways to journal such as by ink or computer, simple paragraphs and sentences to comic book style or newspaper columns.

      I usually journal on my layouts, even if it is just date, location, and names. Some of my journaling is too big for my layouts so I attach it to the back of the layouts. I try to leave some space for journaling as I make the layouts and then add the journaling  later before I slide the layout in the album. Many times, my journal blocks are not quite big enough for all the journaling I want to add. In this case, I print the journaling on my computer, using a text box and the smallest font size as is readable. I try to handwrite journals but I do use a lot of computer-written ones too.  My scrapbook buddies hate to journal but they like to add titles to their layouts and I may or may not use a title.

OWH box

Finally, I have a box to send to OWH this year. The box had been collecting cards for a while but I finally finished the tucking, the stamping, and the counting. I had to take out the

Christmas cards to get all the other cards in the box,

which has a little bit of everything in it. Birthday, Missing you, Love, Thanks, Disney, florals. The box is quite stuffed.

Off to the Post Office now to get this box of 330 cards on its way to the OWH shipper.

Checklist needed

I ordered some more Rileys from the recent May 2012 release and blog hop.

Check out the 14 new Rileys of the May 2012 at http://www.rileyandcompanyonline.com/___new____may_2012_release_.

Then I learned I had won a stamp from one of the blogs on the hop.

Thanks to Joy at http://daiseyfreak.blogspot.com/.

I'm so excited!

I got the Parade stamp and have "I Love a Parade" stuck in my head.

Here's the lyrics. I know I have heard it on some show but I don't know what one.

I Love A Parade:

I love a parade,the tramping of feet,

I love every beat I hear of a drum.

I love a parade, when I hear a band

I just want to stand and cheer as they come.

That rat-a tat-tat, the blare of a horn.

That rat-a tat-tat, a bright uniform;

The sight of a drill will give me a thrill,

I thrill at the skill of everything military.

I love a parade, a handful of vets,

A line of cadets or any brigade,

For I love a parade.

Maybe I'll use the lyrics on the card I make when I get my stamp.

Today, I opened the Riley stamps I got in the mail from my order. The order came while I was at my sister's for the weekend. Fortunately, my hubby didn't open the package. :) Riley and Co. is very quick at getting your order to you. I love that!

Anyway, I start a list of the Riley stamps I have as I have almost ordered a couple of stamps I already had. I just made an Excel sheet with the stamp's name such as Princess Sophie and the type of stamp such as unmounted. I need to add a column for purchase date too. I want to store the Rileys in something different too. I have them here and there. I want to get a binder with baseball card sleeves so I can slide a stamp in place of a card. Some of the bigger ones won't fit in the sleeves but maybe they'll fit in a 4x6 refill page. But I need a checklist for all the Rileys so I can make a list and keep a wishlist going too.

There's a "nap" for that.

I couldn't resist this stamp the other night at Table 7 night. It is one of Art Impessions stamps (http://www.artimpressions.com) I purchased at Archiver's. I tried something new to me by fussy-cutting the stamped chair. I stamped and embossed the image on paper. Then I stamped the image on the green plaid scraps in my bag and cut out the recliner. I used some markers (Zig, and others in my crop bag) to color the rest of the image. The green plaid paper was double-sized so I flipped the paper to the other side and mounted the completed image on it. I used some green and white twine of my baker's twine stash on the mat. I stamped the sentiment and added it to the bottom of the mat. I need to add the finished design to a cardstock base.

I should be able to get the card to my dad before Father's Day.

The Bloghop OWH had on Memorial Day weekend

I was at my sister's for the Memorial Day weekend so I didn't complete the bloghop of 120+ blogs while I was there. It was a bit rude to be on my computer while everyone was chatting on the deck. :-) Plus I had to move the computer off the table so we could eat dinner. So now, I'm back home and I am spending this morning checking out the rest of blogs.

I loved how the bloghop used the 120+ sketches OWH has. I will have to use several of the sketches to get some cards made and to use up the scrap pile.The bloghop had sooooo many great cards of so many different styles, papers, sentiments and ideas. It was fun to check out all the card. Most bloggers kept their posts short but it still took a while to look and comment on the blogs of the hop. My brain is on overload with so many ideas to use, so many stamps on my new wish list, and so many papers to go in my stash.

So, I'm off to my room. I want to close up a box and get it sent to OWH today before I do any more cards. That's the Plan A for the morning. I loved the saying at Create with TLC the other day. "If Plan A fails, remember that there are 25 more letters."

Here's the link to go to OWH's sketches.

http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org/p/owh-sketch-collection.html

2 New Books

I love Amazon! I can look for new books and order them right away. Of course, I have to wait to the books to be published some times. I got these 2 books just today on my front step. : )

The books were much bigger than I thought they would be. I was expecting books of about 50-60 pages and they are both over 200 pages (Sketches is 288 pages and Cricut book is 210). I'm excited about both new books. I have been making lots of cards lately but I am tending to use the same design over and over. Hopefully, the Sketches book will help give me new ideas for new designs. The Cricut book looks like it is filled with lots of ideas too. I have an Expression and recently bought an Expression 2 and the book will help me learn more about the new machine. Each design has the elements in a chart so you cut by the recipe to get the size of the cuts right in the right colors. With school ending soon, I have my summer reading list ready with these 2 books.