Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Sewing is coming!

Tonight I took out the sewing machine - well I didn't really take it out, it's been sitting on my dining room table collecting dust since I brought it home from my mom's.  I know how to use a sewing machine, but I don't know how to set up a sewing machine. I've never threaded the sewing machine myself.  So my first goal is to learn how to do that. 

I have a fantastic book to work with S.E.W. Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp.  Tonight I took scotch tape and labeled parts of my sewing machine.  I decided to stop after that because I was too distracted by the TV. I think this weekend I'm going to put aside a few hours on Saturday to really sit down, learn how to thread the machine and do a few sample stitches.  

It's also possible that I'll get distracted by something else and the sewing machine will sit on the dining room table for a few more weeks.  That's just who I am.    

Monday, October 22, 2012

Alaska Scrapbook: Officially Completed

As you can deduce from the title of this entry, I finally finished my Alaskan scrapbook.  I added in a last collage page using my leftover materials and did a little trim along the edge of the front and back covered.

The last photo page of the book is our white water rafting trip in Denali. I feel that was really the completion of the trip. It was the last adventurous thing we did and even though we did the oar boat, it still felt pretty hard core going through category 4 rapids.  These photos were taken by a photographer, so they are the best photos I have of the entire trip.  

The last page, I did a final collage using my leftover scraps.  I threw this collage together in 15 minutes. I did not think too much about placement, I just started gluing. I actually really like it. 

The back cover has a little envelope that says "good finds". This holds the business cards I took from various businesses in Alaska. 

Overall, I'm very happy with this scrapbook. When I look through it all as a whole, it is very different from any other book I've done and I feel like the collages added a different touch.  












Sunday, October 21, 2012

Sunday Smashbook: Catching up with apple picking

So I completed my goal (kind of): I finished my Alaska scrapbook......ish.  I did the final page tonight, but I decided I have still have so many guides, business cards, leaflets, etc. left that I want to make a few more collage pages to complete it.  For the most part though, I'm done and I feel satisfied. 

I'll show the Alaska pages later in the week, but tonight I want to go back to my Smash book. I am a bit behind on it.  Tonight, I scrapped our apple picking trip from a few weeks ago.  The patterns in the smash book weren't ideal so I did some reupholstering.  I bought Halloween paper on sale last year after Halloween and used the apple pages for the background. 

I think the patterned scissor I used behind the fall festival picture was a bit corny for the page.     It felt maybe a bit elementary for my taste. I want my scrapbooking to evolve over the years and these two pages don't give me that feeling.  Maybe I'm just too hard on myself. 






Tuesday, October 16, 2012

DEBATING more scrapbooking, see what I did there?

Nothing sparks creativity like watching the presidential debates.  It's like having white noise or static in the background while I work on finishing my Alaska scrapbook by the end of the week. 

Tonight was a quick page again at our campsite in Denali.  We bought marshmallows to roast but the marshmallows were so large.  My travel buddy Risa and I each tried to stuff a whole one into our mouth and eat it.  






Monday, October 15, 2012

Alaska life savers

Tonight I learned how hard it is to glue pictures with a bandaid on your finger.  My finger probably didn't need to be bandaged, but I had a hangnail that was bleeding a bit. Then I had a vision of glue and other scrapbook related chemicals getting into the cut and giving me some sort of rare glue poisoning and on my tombstone it would read  DIed of Hangnail. Better to be safe than sorry. 

I actually really love the page I did tonight. This page is about when we made it to the visitor center in Denali.  There was a bear nearby and everyone stopped to take pictures of it since it was so close. I took the time to sneak off to the bathroom. When I came out, I couldn't find anyone and momentarily panicked that the bus left without me. Then I heard my friends calling, apparently the bear started coming towards them and they all ran into the bus.  We were then told to go to the roof of the visitor center and we watched the forest ranger clear the trails as the bear headed in that direction.   As the ranger was leading people off the trail, we saw a man walking on the trail above the bear, and the bear was slowly headed in that direction. We tried getting the ranger's attention, but suddenly a woman ran forward screaming BRENT! BRENT! Turns out that guy was her fiance.  We all screamed at him until he finally looked over and saw us pointing. It took a while but he finally understood and turned around.  The ranger also realized what was going on.  Life: saved. 

This is the page about the event. I don't generally do journaling because I find it a bit corny and forced, but this story needed to be told.  So I took a design I actually used earlier in this album and made it better. The captions and title of the page are all typed using "felt marker" font.  I also had this "wild bear: danger" sticker that worked perfectly with the page.  I really like it. 








Sunday, October 14, 2012

Not Meeting Deadlines and other things

I didn't make my Alaska scrapbook deadline because I pretend I'm still 21 and go out 5 nights in a row.  I did do two pages in it today though and I only have a few more left so I think DEFINITELY by this weekend. Then I can finally get around to learning to slow.  So much to do, so little time.  Damn having a job. 

These scrapbook pages are  a little plain but I think they work.  It is a double spread with all the bears we saw while on our trip.  The rangers told us ahead of time that it was really rare to see bears, especially up close...but we ended up seeing a ton of bears, one of which we had to run away from. 

I also did a smashbook page tonight but I'll save that for later in the week. 




Monday, October 8, 2012

Alaska Scrapbook: Denali bus trip part 2

I took the day off from work today.  I like to say its because I'm Italian and today is Columbus Day so I should celebrate my Italian heritage. Really, it's because I had so many errands I needed to do and I've been too busy to do them.  I thought I'd get more crafting done today but I only did one scrapbook page. I need to clear my head and get the ideas flowing. There's only a few more pages left in this scrapbook, so new goal: I will finish this scrapbook by Sunday. 

I opened up a scrapbooking idea book today and on the first page was a layout that immediately inspired me to do this page. I loved the layout of the photos.  For the background, I used the back of the map that had a great page title on it, then a piece of the map at the bottom.  

I wasn't sure if I'd ever get around to using this moose embellishment. We saw moose only 1 time on the trip and I didn't have my camera with me since we were riding back from white water rafting.  The embellishment ended up working perfectly in the corner of this page. 


Sunday, October 7, 2012

A Scrapbook and Smashbook

I felt a little more inspired this afternoon so I made both a scrapbook page and a smashbook page.  I love the smash book page that I made, I'm eh on the Alaska page.  It looked different in my head.  Oh well. I took the day off tomorrow and along with a bit of shopping, I'm also planning on doing a lot of crafting. Maybe I'll even start exploring my sewing machine.

The scrapbook page is the beginning of our bus trip through Denali National Park.  I used the map as the background but I think I needed a bit more embellishment. 

The smash book page is my night out Friday. When I went to Michael's the other day I bought a few kits that have complimentary papers. Makes it a lot easier to scrap quickly.  




Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Alaska: Sleeping in a tent

Another page that feels slightly empty but I'm leaving for fear of overdoing.  I've been extremely tired the last 2 nights but I'm forcing myself to work on this album.  Tonight I'm going to bed early..although I'm going out tomorrow so I won't even be using the extra sleep for a good creativity moment. 

Anyway, I don't feel like typing much. Here is the page:


Monday, October 1, 2012

Alaska Camping (so close to finishing...)

My goal for the Alaska scrapbook was to finish it before October. Well, it's October 1st and there's still quite a few more pages left.  Unfortunately the last week or so I've been lazy and down on myself and just a big old grouch face.  Scrapbooking doesn't happen when I'm a big grouch face.  

Back on track this week though, pushing myself to do at least one Alaska page - even though I'm exhausted.  Staying up late for football is a killer (but I love it - except when the Giants lose, then I get sad). 

I'm stretching out the Denali pages out as much as possible. It was the biggest part of our trip and I still have lots of album to fill.  This page is us roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.  It's pretty simple. I feel like there's something missing to it but at the same time I didn't want to overdo it.