Blog Archives November 2007

I have one more layout to share with you from my recent scrapapalooza. I don’t normally advertise difficult times or record them for posterity. If you looked through my albums, you would see that I am a “sunshiny scrapper” – I record birthdays, milestones, funny things my kids say, our quirks…but I rarely talk about how their bickering makes me bonkers, or how my husband’s coaching career is taxing, or how my house is a cluttered mess. But, every once in a while, it’s good to get real and make note of the tough times.

I was flipping through photos and came across a photo of me that I really didn’t like. My husband took it when we were on a recent family outing. It wasn’t the typical things that I would normally dislike about photos: a double chin, a raging zit, or spinach in my teeth. The thing I disliked most about the photo was that my face was pinched. Stressed out. Unhappy. Annoyed and aggravated. So un-me. I am typically the mouth-wide-open-tonsils-showing-in-laughter kind of photographee. But, in this photo, I wore my stress and displeasure of recent weeks on my sleeve. I was completely unable to hide my emotions, even though I was spending time with family and actually enjoying myself. Funny how stress and distress can permeate your expressions and completely give you away (no matter how well you think you are hiding it).

So, instead of ripping the photo into shreds, I decided to create a layout about how unhappy I have been. The picture was the perfect catalyst for this creative (and cathartic) burst. The page is aptly titled “It’s Been a Rough Patch.” My oldest daughter saw the finished layout and kept asking me why I put the words over my face – she was really bothered by it. I told her I thought it was cool (and I do), but you don’t have to be Freud to also decipher the symbolism in that artistic stroke of realism.  The journaling that surrounds the page talks about how difficult things have been.

And you know, once I finished the layout, I felt better. Cleansed. Relieved. It wasn’t the answer to my problems, but it helped me to put them in perspective. And I truly believe it will be good for my children to have cold, hard proof that we all get down sometimes – but we need to pick ourselves right back up and keep on keepin’ on.

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Today’s my husband’s birthday.  We won’t get to spend much time together today, but I just wanted him to know that he is the peanut butter to my jelly, the rainbow on my cloudy day, the seaglass on my seashore, and the love of my life.

Happy birthday, sweets. I love you!!

So, back to my therapeutic rainy day crafting.  I also did some scrapbooking. Scrapbooking just for scrapbooking sake. Going through some old photos, seeing if anything would speak to me, and working with the photographs that jumped out of the stacks at that particular moment. Most of the images I worked with were from happier times – a lot from over the summer when things were less hectic and life was moving at a slower, more manageable pace.

That’s what I mean about therapeutic. All I needed was to look at photos of some memorable moments and I was soothed and transported back to lazy days on the beach, a happy occasion with my husband, watching my sassy three year old strut her stuff, and a traditional antiquing excursion that occurs a couple times a year. Thinking about those times and recording those memories really helped boost my disposition.  Amazing what a couple photos and some craft supplies can accomplish!!

Here are the layouts. Enjoy!

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I’ve been putting in some serious overtime at my day job lately. There hasn’t been much time to fuel my passions and the things that nourish my soul. However, my psyche needed a break so I finally made time to nurture my creative side. I took some “me” time while the kids played (and occasionally pestered and bickered) alongside my craft table on a rainy weekend day. Nothing earth shattering or stressful. Just enough to get me back in the groove, get the creative juices flowing, and lower my blood pressure a bit. ha!

Here’s a peek at a couple of my projects.

• An altered rusty tin hand: This little beauty has been gathering dust in a corner of my family room for quite a while.  I’d look at it from time to time and think, “I should really make something with that.” Well, I finally did.  All I did was glue the sepia picture of my husband and me to the back of the hand, add some vintage buttons, a lacey flower and some rub-on letters from Heidi Swapp and there she be. Cute, huh?

• A mini-book about our fall apple picking excursion: I used a Kolo matchbook album and kept the embellishments to a minimum. The whole book featured a bunch of 2×2 photos I ordered fromwww.scrapbookpictures.com (love that site!), a double sided border stamp and felt bird from Jenni Bowlin, some rub-on letters and designs, and my journaling. That’s it.  I created the whole book in about 2 hours…not bad for a whole book, especially when a single page can take me upwards of an hour. But, again, the idea was to keep it simple and just get back into the groove. Here are some more photos of the project. I love it!

And, that is also the end of this post. More projects in my next post. I sure was busy on that rainy day.

Yes, 20 days. That’s how long I’ve been away from my blog. I apologize. But, I am on vacation this week and have a bit of time to download some images, organize my thoughts, and compose some blog-worthy material.

First order of business during my vacation was some family time over the weekend (family first – always family first), and then a day of Christmas shopping and catching up with my good friend Linda while the kids were in school. Now that I’ve had a couple days to decompress and de-stress, I am feeling a bit better and am ready to devote some much-needed attention to this blog and Web site. I need to upload some of my Christmas/holiday items that are for sale, refresh the homepage, and update some out of date material.

As always, if you are interested in anything, but the content seems out of date – please call or email me (info can be found on the Contact Us page). I am always available and I do take inquiries for custom orders.

More to come…