what was i thinking . . . .

k . . . have you ever started a layout and then set it off to the side to finish? not such an uncommon thing . . . right? well . . . have you ever set it aside for over 3 years? i found one of these in a folder in my scrap room . . . YIKES . . . it was scary. here is a picture of what i found.

3 year old unfinished mess
by {pam}

all of the pictures and patterned paper had been cropped and corners rounded . . . but i have no idea what i was going to do with them . . . and how scary is that leaf paper. lol!!! here is the new improved version:

thankful
{new improved version}
by {pam}

i got rid of the background paper and the ugly leaf paper . . . added some flowers, buttons and some journaling blocks. not my all time best layout . . . but it is so much better than what i started out with. the flowers were originally white daisy-like flowers. i used my new ctmh "rustic flowers" background stamp and some tim holtz "tea dye" distressed ink pads to tone the flowers down. i love the mottled look from the background stamp (oh . . . again . . . did i say margo rocks?!?!?!) the journaling blocks and the swirly stamp on the photo tabs are from a set of michael's $1 stamps . . . . how rockin' is that?!?!?! and my most awesomest tool of all . . . my cricut . . . was used for the photo tabs and titles. {YIKES just saw the scan of this layout . . . title so does not look that crooked in real life!} again . . . not my bestest layout . . . but passable!

i got to scrap all day sunday . . . except when i had to do the family thing and make dinner . . . sheesh . . . can't they just go graze in the backyard or something? hehehehe! so i spent most of the day finishing layouts. i am surprised how many i had that just needed one or two things added to make them complete.

here is another thanksgiving layout that was with the "ugly" one . . . so it is about three years old as well . . . explains the style! i can't believe this one wasn't finished the whole layout was put together . . . only thing missing was . . . dundundunda . . . the journaling . . . which was already typed and printed out. guess i was too lazy to attach it to the layout after the hard work of printing and cutting it out! hehehehe!!! {i know, i know . . . hard to believe i left off the journaling . . . lol!}

giving thanks
by {pam}

back at the end of march, i started creating a wall decoration for my scraproom. once again . . . i got a portion of it done . . . set it off to the side to be finished . . . and forgot about it. i am happy to say . . . it is now complete. i am really happy with how this turned out. i want to mount it and then hang it above the closet in my scraproom. {the layout was created to be horizontal . . . the flowers on the "A" and "M" don't look so crowded that way.}

PAM wall decoration
by {pam}

this layout of patrick in his last season of baseball at sierra vista elementary school was started when we moved into our house in plumas lake . . . in december. all i had to do was finish cutting out the letters for the title . . . can you say procrastinator?!?!?! the letters were printed from the computer using reverse print. i hand cut the yellow and gold letters to make them look like varsity letters.

play ball
by {pam}

ok . . . i don't feel so bad about this layout . . . it was only started on the 9th of this month . . . all it needed was the journaling . . . but i ran out of time at the crop at the scrapbook store. this is a scraplift of a layout on twopeasinabucket. {i lost the paper i printed of the layout . . . sorry that i can't give proper credit to the original artist.}

V-Day
by {pam}

inspiration from twopeasinabucket

just to show i'm not 100% lazy . . . these last two layouts were complete! just too lazy to scan them . . . hehehehe! i love the left side of the golf layout . . . my two favorite shots of richard playing golf.

drive it chip it putt it
by {pam}

this layout was of national scrapbook day at scrapbook station in roseville from 2006. this is another scraplift from twopeasinabucket but . . . i can't remember the original artist. {sorry about the wonky scan . . . my embellies are too fat . . . oops!}

scrappin luau
by {pam}

inspiration from twopeasinabucket

enough blabbering from me for the day. i wanna go scrap some more . . . i love being a teacher . . . summers off are rockin! catch ya later! {this post actually ended up taking two stinkin' days to complete! can i just say . . . i hate my scanner! i had to rescan several of the layouts because my scanner was doing funky things. and i didn't get to scrap more . . . boo hoo! in the process of scanning and hating my scanner and not getting to scrap . . . i researched a scanner with a larger bed. i found one on ebay that i am bidding on . . . keep your fingers crossed for me!} Read more on "what was i thinking . . . ."!

party was soooo much fun!

today i hosted a close to my heart (ctmh) party at my house. it was the first time any of my friends had been out to my new house. it was sooo awesome to have all of them here . . . lisa, linda, carl, nadine, jeri, pollee, kathy, sue, cathy, teresa . . . and family too . . . jaycee and lori! we had so much fun!!! my ctmh consultant, margo, was awesome!!! {justmargo} she showed us how to make two cards and was oh-so-patient with us! you rock, margo!!!

the first card we made was a masculine birthday card. this is the first time i did multi-step stamping with clear stamps. i had used stampin' up rubber multi-step stamps and was frustrated because of not being able to accurately place the second stamp. (the perfectionist in me is not happy unless everything is lined up perfectly . . . LOL!!) the clear stamps make lining up the second, third . . . even fourth . . . stamps so much easier. with this card . . . we first stamped the base, then the solid cake color, then the wavy words across the cake, then the yellow candlesticks and flames, and finally the green candlesticks . . .whew . . . makes me tired just thinking about all the steps . . . hehehehe! anyway . . . i am sooo lovin' the clear multi-step stamps.

ctmh bday card
as demonstrated by margo

the second card we made was just toooooo stinkin' cute!! i love this card so much that i have to buy the stamps! there were a couple new techniques that i learned on this card. first . . . i learned to distress the edges of my paper with my scissors . . . lovin' the thick torn up look of the paper!!! i have a distressing tool to do this with . . . but the scissors are soooo much easier. margo also showed us how to mask one image so we could stamp a second image without ruining the first image. the technique i thought was really cool tho was stamping an image on two different pieces of paper in order to layer them. makes the image look so much more 3D. i have cut stamped images out before but never woulda thought to layer another image on the base of the card and then place the second image on pop dots directly over the first image. we did this with the flower, the vase, and the leaf. tooo stinkin' cool!!! oh . . . another thing i woulda never thunk to do is build the base of my card on a separate sheet of cardstock and then tape that to a pre-made card base . . . so simple and a huge duh . . . don't ya think?

happy everything card
as demonstrated by margo

oh . . . i could never figure out why i sometimes had partial images when i stamped with clear stamps on acrylic blocks. problem solved now! margo taught us to stamp on a thin foam pad . . . made the image soooo much crisper! (found this out the hard way when i accidentally forgot to use the foam and my image came out all tweek'd . . . thank god for the back of paper . . . LOL!!!)

margo was sooo awesome . . . not only did she teach us how to make two rockin' cards . . . she also gave me two stamps sets. and as if that wasn't enough . . . she also had prize drawings for us. i won some toooo cute flower shaped bling! ok . . . have i already told you how awesome margo is . . . hehe!

flower bling
{toooo cute . . . huh}

ctmh wishes stamps
thank you margo!

ctmh rustic flower stamps
margo rocks!!

k . . . wanna hear how much of a complete dork i am. i was looking at the rustic flower stamps thinking . . . if you stamp the large square shape . . . how are you going to see anything that you stamp on top of it! (it doesn't stamp in black ya dork!!!)

it's been a really long day . . . couldn't sleep last night . . . was like a kid at christmas too excited about the next day . . . what a dork huh! i'm gonna go be a lounge lizard now . . . so i'll catch ya later! oh . . . huge thanks and love to richard and ryan for spending the day away from the house in blistering hot heat so i could have a house full of women scrappin'! love ya guys!!! and thank you to all of my wonderful friends who drove all the way out to bfe just to hang out and scrap!! i have such rockin' friends!! Read more on "party was soooo much fun!"!