Weekend Wrap-up

Happy Lunar New Year! We celebrated with a hot pot dinner and lots of Facetime calls with family. We spent the weekend at practices and games yet still had plenty of downtime at home. Here hubby is taking a nap and Diego is in his usual no respect for personal space position. What you don't see is his tail wrapped around his shoulder and his head is resting on Jorge's head!!! Love it!

There was basketball...

and hockey.

Weekend Wrap-up

Happy Monday! I caught completely off-guard by the snow flurries this morning. I do have to admit it was pretty out and the snow covered grass made me think of Nemo and ane-me-ne-mo-ne 😊 I had a wonderful weekend the best of ladies at Cool Crops Nashua...Thank You for your support! Always have to get a shot of a sale in progress.

While at Nashua, I discovered The Pressed and totally wishing there was one nearby. It could be dangerous but everything I tried was delicious and healthy. Looking forward to the next time we're in the area or maybe I'll just have to take a drive up just for a meal, or two!

I had some new products delivered this weekend and the one I'm most excited about is the Chibitronics intro pack. Light-up cards here I come. Looking forward to playing with it and thinking my engineering boys will want to play along.

But first, we need to get ready for Chinese New Year. Stay tuned!

Fave Finds

Changing this post just a little bit. It felt funny posting images that weren't mine even if I was linking back to their owners. Now I'll just tell you why I love it and you can head over to check it out yourself. Also, it's just going to be random stuff I find on the inter webs.

I signed up for this online class over at Scrapbook & Cards Today. Did you?

Great list of fun Chinese New Year crafts to make...I am going to attempt the rooster at the very end of the post.

I've been checking out this SSS Masterpiece Box blog hop and love the cards by Houses Built of Cards. Gotta get my hands on those ninja stamps!

A very useful guide to using heat transfer vinyl. I know it's written for the Silhouette but once you have your image cut, the application tips still apply.

Some of you may not get this but I am absolutely in love with these dim sum themed products. In my shopping cart is this card and this stamp set.

And since no post is complete without a picture, I will share a favorite shot.

Layout Share

Still on that California album...Jori's first ever baseball game. We bought tickets through our Mom's group and off we went to Sacramento for a game.Not sure if he knew what was going on but he had a great time at the game.

I wanted to cut out the Sacramento River Cats logo on my Silhouette and in hindsight should have cut the black as an overlay. Instead I cut out all the little tiny pieces, glued them on and realized I was missing a few. Instead of re-cutting, it was pretty late at night, I just drew in the "pieces" using a black sharpie. Another tip for you...sometimes it's ok to cheat and just draw it in ;)

Weekend Wrap-up

I had the pleasure of spending the weekend at Creative Escapes with a group of the nicest ladies. Shout out to Diana & Michele for a wonderful time. If you're looking for an event in the Peabody area, check them out! Lisa and Kim...thanks for taking time out of your busy days to stop in to visit. The rest of the ladies...thanks for your support and I appreciated the wonderful feedback! I hope to be back for future crops.

Having the crop relatively close to home was an added bonus. Made it home just in time for D's very rare mid afternoon hockey game and got to watch him sit in the box PLUS score the winning goal. Both are really rare for him since he plays defense!

Random Friday

Prepping for class is the part of the job and sometimes it's more fun to bring everything down to the floor and catch up on some DVR'd episodes. If you can't tell, I was die-cutting an in intricate die and having issues with popping the word out after cutting. Frustrating!!!

I jumped onto google.com and looked for a solution. One suggestion that kept coming up was to layer wax paper between my cardstock and thin die. Worth a shot, right?

Yay! It worked like a charm. I did go through quite a bit of wax paper though. I did find that the wax coated the die and my later cuts without the wax paper was a lot easier to work with too.

Note: I used it with the crazy birds and I was still able to line up the dies with the stamped images although they moved more than without the wax paper. Hope this tip helps.

NEW Paper House crafting kits

I have to admit I am not a big fan of photo realistic scrapbook paper and a lot of Paper House lines were photo realistic. They had great themes and I have been stocking their kits in the past few months. The NEW release is a mix of photo realistic and patterned paper and I am in love. Great themes too! Check them out and pre-order today!!!

One Big Family, Baby Boy and Baby Girl

 Travel lines - Southwest Adventure, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.

And two beach lines - Florida and Cruise

Layout shares

I bought these laser cut embellishments way back in 2004 when we lived in California and I had a scrapbooking store within walking distance to our apartment. The boys were little, hubby worked long crazy hours and I only managed to squeeze in a few quick visits to shop. I never got around to using them in the boys' scrapbooks and just last year, I decided to start a California album and pulled these treasures out to use.

I finally got around to the right photos and they look awesome. They're designed by Scrap Avenue and dates back to 2002!!! I'm thinking this year will be the year I complete this album as well as use up my stash...especially the parts that I bought back in 2004 for my California photos.

Stay tuned for more California album layouts! Do you have any layouts you would like to share that you acquired products for way back when and just recently discovered?

Weekend Wrap-up

Hello Monday! How's everyone holding up? It's a tad chilly out there today but I bundled up and survived. This crossing guard gig of mine is turning me into one of those hardy New Englander's that I keep hearing about. 1F...whatever, I'll break out the hand warmers when it's negative temps...Hah!

We had a pretty busy weekend starting with a gathering of Darin's friends at our home for 3 King's Day followed by some rink time. The girls showed up, spotted some layouts and my sweet teen boy pulled out his baby scrapbooks to share with them. They oohed and awed and tried to pick out friends they knew from my pictures. That's what scrapbooking is all about, eh?

Saturday, the boys started their CYC basketball season and then the snow canceled everything and we had a lovely time hanging out at the house in front of the fire. Actually, it was just me, the husband and Diego since the boys opted to hang out in the man cave on the PS4.

Sunday, we lost poor Tigger, who succumbed to large cell lymphoma in her stomach. We knew it was coming and are loving on our remaining kitty and Diego. We spent the remainder of the day at basketball, hockey and church.

RIP Tigger...the sweetest little furball. You will be missed. Cross that rainbow bridge and look for your sister. May you spend your days eating your fill and laying in the sun.

Winter Wonderland

Rounding up some of the winter collections here and starting with my favorite one, Simple Stories Winter Wonderland collection. Love the contrast of teal blue with coral/orange and the browns. Note to self: Take lots of pictures this winter so I can put this collection to good use.

Another favorite is this I Love Winter line by Echo Park. Looks like they stayed with their blue and red color scheme from their last winter collection. And I have to admit, that penguin is absolutely adorable.

Carta Bella's Snow Fun has similar colors for their winter line although they do look a little more muted and vintage. The snowman is cute and love their skiing, sledding and snowman patterned papers.

This Wintery line by Authentique is not calling my name at all and I will not be stocking it. If you would like this collection, let me know and I'll order one for you.

Photo Play has the most colorful winter line and named it Snowball Fight. Love the colors but not a line I would use with my boys.

Frosted by Kaisercraft is another beautiful subtle line of creams and blues.

Love the name of the Reminisce winter line...Winter is Coming...can you tell I'm a Game of Thrones fan?! These papers would be fun to play with too.

Bo Bunny went in a different direction with their winter line incorporating, creams, grays and pink. Very pretty but not something I would use.

Last but not least, I have to talk about this new product by Nuvo. It's called Glimmer Paste, moonstone, and when applied looks just like snow on cards, layouts and mixed media projects. Jars are $8 each and goes a long way. The paste is easy to handle and dries quickly. I like using it with a stencil on layouts and just laying it on with a spatula on mixed media projects.

Nuvo Products!

I started carrying these NEW Nuvo products...glimmer paste and crystal drops in the fall and they were HOT!!! So much so I sold out in 10 minutes at the first event I demo'd them. They're easy to use and look great on cards, layouts, and mixed media projects.

January special - Buy 5 Crystal Drops, get 1 FREE!!!

While supplies last!

In addition to the colors on the chart, I have white (1st bottle in top picture), silver and gold (last two bottles in bottom picture).

I can deliver to you at an event or mail it to you for a flat shipping rate of $5. Email me sluvs2skrap at yahoo dot com with your order and I'll invoice you.

Layout Share

Trying to play catch up with layout shares from my personal albums. Here is a one page layout that I pulled together for a sketch challenge at our September Just Scrappin crop.

I flipped the sketch to make it fit my photos. I tried to cut out Humpty Dumpty on my silhouette and was unsuccessful so I printed him out (way easier), fussy cut and colored him in.  And if you're wondering, I am working on our 14 months in California album, 2004-2005...way back when the boys were little!!!

Happy New Year!

The holidays are officially over and it's back to work for me...hi ho hi ho! I hope you made beautiful memories over the holidays and are refreshed and ready to tackle 2017. We made our shortest Christmas trip to the in-laws ever, 4 days driving and 5 days in Florida so we could come back and care for our sick kitty, Tigger. She doesn't have much longer and needs multiple meals a day plus meds. We made the best of our vacation time and had a blast with the family.

We spent New Year's with our FRA-MILY here in Massachusetts and are trying to get back into normal mode. I've been thinking about resolutions and goals and intentions. My word for 2017 is Present...to be in the moment and less distracted. I love the idea of picking a day of the week to unplug (baby steps...maybe an hour to start and work my way up).

Goals and resolutions are also good to have as long as they are achievable. My goals for 2017 are...I'll just share a few with you and would love it if you would share some of yours here. Maybe be can keep each other accountable, eh?
1. A family photo once a month. I have an ongoing daily photo project but noticed we don't have many as a family except for out annual Christmas card photos.
2. Scrapbook for myself once a month even if it's just ONE layout.
3. Send out more cards...they don't have to be handmade or perfect but I do need to get more out especially birthday cards to family.
4. Start a "Good Things" jar -  Fill a jar with notes of feel good moments for a year, open and read it on New Year's Eve (or Thanksgiving).
5. And this...yes please!

These goals seem achievable to me as I sit here writing this post on New Year's Day. I'll check back with you from time to time with an update on them throughout the year. Do share your One Little Word if you chose one or a goal/resolution.

Welcome 2017

May each day of the New Year
Bring happiness, good cheer
And sweet surprises…
To you and yours!