Sunday, January 29, 2012

Sunday Smashup: Quotes and Horoscopes

I should start taking pictures again. I took my camera out the other day and totally forgot that it was in my bag.  Oops.  At least with the smash book I still have stuff to post about.

This week was "makeover" week for me.  I got a haircut, my eyebrows done, dyed my hair, finally shaved my legs (no judgement - it's winter).  I needed a little boost because I was down in the dumps..and it worked!  I didn't take any before/after pictures of myself, I still look the same but it did remind me of a quote from Clueless, "Cher's main thrill in life is a makeover. It gives her meaning in a world full of chaos". I wrote it down on the smash quote pad and pasted it in there, along with some other great sayings/quotes from newspapers and magazines. One was a horoscope that made me laugh because it said at  the end "hot chocolate might be nice" (it was nice by the way).  Another is from an article about the internet protest from that anti-piracy law that was on the Senate floor, that said "we will fight for our right to rick roll". All things that made me smile a bit this week.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Scrapbook Page: France - Moulin Rouge

Sad news, my favorite photo editing site picnik is shutting down in April.  Since I lost photoshop when my last computer kicked the bucket, I've been using the site to do simple edits to photos..especially all my scrapbook photos (I try to counteract some of the yellow lighting from my apartment).  I'll have to search for another free site.

I've been really focused on my smash book lately. I'm trying to find at least 1 thing from each day to put in there - whether it's a cut out from a newspaper/magazine or just a quote I heard or was thinking about that day.  I don't have a page ready yet to share with you so instead we'll continue on with my vacation. My next vacation is to New Orleans in March, so I need to share all these pages before then. I'm thinking of doing a mini album for my New Orleans page...Last time I went large, using the 12x12 size paper, now I want to go small.

This page is from our trip to the Moulin Rouge. You weren't allowed to take photos inside of course, but I have one picture from the outside and one picture of us at the bar beforehand.  I did take the playbill of sorts from the theater. I wish I took better pictures of this page for you..but..I didn't..

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Sunday Smashup: Tickets and Wants

Right now my neighbors probably think I'm having a football party but in reality it is only me in here yelling at my television.  Championship games are intense. To relax myself I worked on my smashbook. 

This week I went to the movies to see "Carnage" (eh) and to see a broadway show, "Sister Act" (excellent).  I randomly had a bunch of theater stickers lying around that I finally used in this little smash page.  I also had a pile of fashion magazines to go through.  One of my favorite things to do is cut out images of stuff that I like (and absolutely can not afford) and paste it into a book. I like to think I'm channeling the power of the Secret. Maybe the $4000 dress will magically appear in my closet..afterall that is what the Secret says right? If you think about it hard enough, you'll get it.  If I watch Charlie Chaplin movies I can cure cancer. Something like that...

Page 1:
I actually scanned these in so they are easy to see. Also I was too lazy to load pictures onto my computer (I have a game to watch afterall..a really really nerve-wracking game).

Page 2

Those "want it", "love it" stickers are part of the Smash book collection. It's actually a roll of tape with different saying like that. I'll probably use them everytime I cut items out of magazines. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Paris: The Quick Pages

This week is one of those weeks where I'm actually popular so I will not be doing anything new creatively. However, I made a resolution to write in this blog more often and I intend to keep it...at least until February.

Still got all those Paris pages left to share.  Since I was determined to finish the vacation scrapbook before the New Year (challenge completed!), most of my Paris pages took less than 30 minutes to do.  Surprisingly, I actually liked a lot of the quick pages better than the pages that took me hours to do.  I guess there's something to be said about not thinking too much.

This page was to showcase a few pictures I had on the bridges in Paris. There was one bridge that had all these locks attached to them with couple's initials written on them. It symbolizes everlasting love or something equally as nauseating..however it made for great pictures. 

Monday, January 16, 2012

The Weekly Smashup: I heart NY

Time to share my weekly smash book entry. This week wasn't too full of excitement so there's only a one page entry.  This week my former boss had a goodbye party because she decided to move back down south.  The party was appropriately at a southern themed bar -one of the reasons to love New York so much- there's a bar for every kind of person or theme.  I never understand why people leave. I love New York so much. I get New York magazine, Time Out New York, the New York times, I watch NY1 and if someone says they are thinking of moving my first question is always "why?".

With that in mind, this week's smash page was devoted to NY. I'm probably going to add some more to this page as I find New York themed pictures/stickers, etc. Oddly enough, US weekly happened to have a "25 celebrities who grew up in Manhattan" feature so it went in perfectly.  I also got a new ipod and put the random apple sticker that comes with it in there (big apple - get it..also everyone in NY has an ipod so its duel purpose). 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Finally a Paris Page

I've done nothing too creative lately but lucky for you I have half of my vacation scrapbook waiting to be shared with the world.  Tonight I will share my first Paris page.  The first night in Paris we visited the Eiffel Tower. It was beautiful all lit up at night. Included in the trip were tickets to the top of the tower so we were able to get a view of the city at night.  The next day we went back to the tower to take our group picture. Unfortunately it was increedibly foggy that day so the top of the tower disappeared into the mist.  I wanted to showcase how the city changes from night to day so I made a two page spread "Nights in Paris..Days in Paris".  I printed my best pic of the tower lit up at night as a full sized picture and used it as the background for nights.  The daytime pictures weren't as impressive printed out large so I used the space for some journaling.

Sorry, laziness forced me to take these pictures in the album so the pages have some reflections in them.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Smash Book Update Jan Wk 1

I'm trying to update my smash book at least once a week. Unfortunately by this morning, the only thing I had from this week was a fortune from a fortune cookie from Saturday night Chinese dinner. I don't even like Chinese food so that was kind of disappointing. However, this morning I made my way to the store to get the paper (ps. I added a resolution: to leave my apartment at least once a day every day). I picked up the ridiculously expensive Sunday NY Times and read it cover to cover and was totally moved by one personal essay about a single woman living alone. Instead of it being all about feeling lonely and isolated it was about how much she loved being single and being alone. It also pointed out that single woman do better living on their own than single men do. I loved it as I do live alone, I am single and I love it..but when you tell people that they think it sounds sad. I cut out the image from the article and one quote and smashed it in.  Now I'm satisfied with this week in my book.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Last London Page!

I'm trying not to collapse on the couch when I get home from work but man it is hard. This couch is so comfortable and I'm so tired, especially by Thursday..but I plan on watching project runway all stars (I'm not sure how good this is it doesn't have tim gunn, wtf) and getting some creative inspiration.

Good thing I have all these back scrapbook pages to blog about otherwise I'd be doing really shitty on my new years resolution.  I can't fail on a resolution after only one week.  It takes until at least February to start going back to old habits.  I think I'll maybe work on my needlepoint I've been trying to finish for the last 2 years while I watch this show.

Anyway, our last night in London we went to the west end to see a musical, Legally blonde. I'd already seen it in New York but it was still good. Even though all the guys came with us, I felt like the play is so girly, it deserved a girls night out themed page...and for some reason I own a lot of girls night out embellishments. Secretly I think I'm going to go out with all my girlfriends dressed up and drinking martinis, when in reality we'll be in jeans, on someone's couch, drinking PBRs.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Keeping My Motivation Going

I wish I could feel this motivated all the time.  My dishes are clean, I've already made my lunch for tomorrow, my clothes are picked out, I went to the gym, I got to work on time. I love January! There's something about the new year that just makes you want to get organized and start exercising and be a new person.  It's a great feeling but unfortunately within 6 weeks it starts to end. I don't want to be pessimistic but I know eventually I will be too tired to make my lunch...the couch will be increasingly comfortable, I will sleep through my alarm...and the second alarm..

But I'm hoping I can keep this motivation going for as long as possible...hey, who knows ,maybe it will last an entire year.   I'm still keeping my resolutions, still writing in my blog.

I didn't craft anything tonight so I thought I'd share another vacation page.  This one is from London. I didn't want to create an entire layout for each site we saw (buckingham palace, westminster, etc.) so  I printed them all out wallet size and highlighted the photos with different shaped paper frames.  It was a quick page but I liked the way it turned out. It has that messy yet neat collage feeling that first drew me into scrapbooking (and the reason I wanted to start on the smashbook project).

Monday, January 2, 2012

A Glimpse into the Smash book

As promised, I bought some printer ink and was able to get started on my smashbook project. Things got off to a bad start when I realized that one of the cartridges I bought was a dud and printed yellow as green.  All of my pictures looked like we were all hospital patients partying for the last time.  Once that problem was fixed, I finally printed out the new year's pictures and jumped right into the book. It's so easy and relaxing because it doesn't have to be perfect. It's supposed to be messy and unplanned. I like it..so far so good on sticking to my resolutions...

Here are the first pages of my book:

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!!

Happy 2012 reader(s)!  I love the start of a new year.

Good news, I was able to finish my vacation scrapbook just in time for the holidays. It feels good going into a new year with no unfinished albums. I will be sharing the rest of the pages in future entries. 

I haven't completed my resolutions list yet, it's always a large list. Every year I like to think I can become a new person. It never really works that way but I think it's important to keep trying to improve yourself. I originally had a resolution to do a "project life" style scrapbook for the year. For all the non scrappers reading this (basically all my readers) the project life scrapbook is a simple way to keep scrap every day events in your life by using a binder and different sized page pockets to just stick things in the book rather than planning out complicated scrap pages for every thing.  (see it here: http://www.beckyhiggins.com/products/).  I looked into buying the project life kit but instead decided I could make my own...

So I went to Michael's, the most poorly stocked  craft store there is, and picked up a binder and some page pockets but just as I was about to pay, I saw this display for a smash book.  It's a sprial book, filled with different patterned pages and it comes with a glue-pen (one side is a pen and one side is a glue stick). It was exactly what I needed..so I bought two of them. (see it here: http://www.eksuccessbrands.com/kandcompany/SMASH/

I'm so excited to start gluing stuff in...I was going to start with some New Year's Eve pics but unfortunately my printer ran out of ink (all the last minute vacation album printing). So once I pick up some ink tomorrow I'll be in business.

Another resolution? Write in this blog more consistently...