It's disgustingly hot out this weekend - 95+. I don't have air conditioning in my apartment, so it's not pleasant. There are a handful of days that I actually wish I had air conditioning, that's the reason I didn't feel it was necessary to pay for it. I did a lot of cooling activities - walked around the Duane Reade, hung out in Best Buy, hung out in Starbucks, got an iced drink, bought ice cream, took cold shower, etc. The best activity is just sitting on my couch with two fans pointed at me and not moving. Usually I retreat to my parents house on the beach but unfortunately I had some birthday events to attend this weekend. I'll be there soon enough for 4th of July.
Speaking of sitting on my couch, today I watched two documentaries I checked out at the library (I love love love the library). One has no relevance to this blog at all because it was about food stamps, but it was pretty interesting. The other was about art quilting. I mentioned one of my goals is to finally start quilting and this PBS special made me want to start even more. Some of the quilters used unconventional materials like candy wrappers, paper, or construction fencing. Others used the art of fusing to make quilt designs. It was so fascinating. I need to learn basic, traditional quilting first of course. I don't currently own a sewing machine. I'm also not so good at learning things on my own, so I'm going to look into quilting classes in the city.
Speaking of classes, I signed up today for a mixed media - collage and assembly beginners class. It's a one day class and was pretty affordable. The only downside was that it was in Brooklyn but I feel that is kind of inevitable. All the good craft/art classes are in Brooklyn. There is a bigger artist community there. I am excited to take it. Collaging has always been one of my favorite types of art. It's the reason I became interested in scrapbooking after a brief run with decoupage. I feel like a class would really enhance my knowledge and skills. I'm excited for it. It's not for a few weeks.
I think this is the longest entry I've ever written in this blog. I did work on my smash book as well. I made a page with a movie stub (men in black 3, surprisingly good), the cover of my apple manual, and a great quote I found on Facebook. The other side is another "girl crush" page, this time with Emma Stone. I read an interview with her in New York magazine and fell even more in love with her. Still need to find a way to take the photos without the dark shadow of my arm looming over them.
I feel like I'm moving faster on this New Orleans album because of my new computer. Did I mention I, a lifelong PC user, bought my first Mac? I believe I did. It was one of the best decisions I ever made - up there with Lasik surgery and the Bugles I bought as an afternoon snack last week.
Scanning my layouts lately hasn't been too successful so tonight I decided to take a picture of my layout on my cell phone. I actually think it worked out better than when I scan or even take pictures with the fancy camera. The lighting in my apartment is the only problem. It's so yellow in here sometimes I walk out of the house and realize my outfit is completely mismatched. Today for example, I really thought my dress was black but when I walked out it was totally navy..and not a super dark-almost-look-black-navy, a real obvious navy. I can't complain though, I'm one of my only friends I know that actually has overhead lights in NYC.
Anyway, on to the scrapbook pages - that's what you are here for after all (if you are here at a ll? hello? anybody out there?). I actually really like this page. At first I wasn't sure if it was looking too sparse, but I think I am satisfied. I organized all my scrapbook paper last night and realized I had two giant stacks of this odd light blue color so I better start using it. The dark shadow over the page is my arm. I'm still new at these new fangled cell phone cameras.
Back from Alaska!! The trip was fantastic. I've never been on such an adventurous vacation before - biking, hiking, white water rafting, boat tours, bus tours and bears! I actually was smart on this vacation and bought scrapbooking materials in Alaska. It's so hard to find a lot of travel materials for specific places in Michael's. I got an Alaska photo album binder that I'm going to turn into a scrapbook. I also got a bunch of Alaska themed stickers. I get so excited about stickers, maybe too excited?
One of the things I loved about Alaska was all the artisans and small craft stores. Sure we have craft stores and artists in New York but its not the same. It's too expensive and commercialized. Sure, you can find some really interesting artists at our craft and street fairs, but most people go to those for the funnel cake and curly fries. Alaska inspired me to start trying new crafts. Two crafts I've always wanted to get good at are quilting and art journals/book binding. We went to a few fabric stores and I bought two small quilting kits to get started. Actually get started this time, not just stare at.
Anyway, before the new crafts and Alaska book get started, I need to finish this New Orleans album. I don't have very many pictures left so I think I can finish within the next week. That's the plan anyway.
Here is a bit of a page I did before vacation:
One week to Alaska, and a few more weeks until my New Orleans album is finished. I'm working as fast as I can. I know that if I leave it to finish after Alaska, then it will just go unfinished..or Alaska will go unstarted.
Anyway, enough talking. I'm too tired for talking. It's only Monday.
Here is today's page.
I am EXHAUSTED today. I'm surprised I even had brain power to do a scrapbook page. I think the only reason I did motivate is that I printed the pictures this morning while eating breakfast (I made a delish Mexican scramble).
I was inspired to make a grid page after looking through several "day in the life" layouts on blogs. I someday want to do a day in the life page but for now I'm just going to steal the layout. I loved the little captions on each of the pictures. I'm not big on journaling - surprising to most who know me considering I'm religious about keeping an actual journal. I just feel odd writing a corny paragraph about the pictures that I know other people will read. At least no one is reading my personal journal (or I hope they aren't....). I find it difficult even to write these few paragraphs in my blog describing the page. The little captions were perfect, just detailed enough to tell a story.
I did a smashbook page yesterday and a scrapbook page tonight and decided to combine them into one entry. Probably not such a smart idea considering I will probably have nothing else to blog about the rest of the week but...oh well.
First up the smash page. I realized that I completely neglected my smashbook in the month of May....exhibit A: the party I'm smashing about happened in April. It was a Titanic party to celebrate (or mourn I guess?) 100 years since the sinking of the Titanic. Nothing like a party commemorate the sinking of a ship where hundreds of people perished...The movie was on loop and the costumes were..well sort of plenty. Most everyone dressed like Jack, so if you glanced through the pictures quickly, you might think you were viewing a Newsies party. Anyway, here it is:
Speaking of Newsies, the other day I met a person that never saw the movie Goonies. Not only did he never see it, he never even HEARD of it. He wasn't young either. WTF. Deprived childhook. Back to the smashbook...I couldn't scan a double page layout so I photographed it instead. You can still see most of it.
Tonight I worked on a scrapbook page. I think I'm close to finishing the New Orleans album. It wasn't a long trip so it's not a big album. This page is really really simple. It's almost a little boring but that's OK. I'm tired and not everything can be awesome.
