Scrap your art

So I finally had a night to myself last night, no holiday dinners out, no Knicks basketball games, no cooking dinner for other people, just me, myself, and I.  I didn't know what to do with myself first.  After I ate dinner and caught up on my dvr'd shows I decided I needed to get back into the swing of things and scrapbook a little bit.  Scrapbooking is one of those things like reading a book or exercising, if you haven't done it in a while you find it hard to get back into it, you become lazy.  But once you force yourself you realize how happy it makes you, how much you enjoy doing it or how good it makes you feel afterwards. 

Kodak Gallery finally delivered my photos from Donovan's B-day party and I got the picture of the Candy Bar in a 5x7, I ordered it in this cool high glossy format, never did that before with a photo. 
I used my little red scrapbook November kit http://www.littleredscrapbook.com/.  For those of you who don't know about scrapbook kits, there are these monthly clubs that you can join that send you a kit each month, in this kit are a set of papers & embellishments.  I have always loved getting packages in the mail so it's fun when I get my kit each month.  I don't always have the time to buy new supplies so this is also an easy way of stocking up. 

Anyways, I used a green 12x12 background paper and cut up a 12x12 paper into strips from Crate paper restoration collection.  Added a big red flower in the corner with hat pins in it.  I used the Maya road library card to give the details of the event.  I think it came out so colorful and cute. Titled "Life is sweet"

Happy Holidays!
Scrapaholic

Move over Dylan's

I can't believe I haven't blogged since the end of June.  I have been so bad about scrapbooking and posting my pictures.  The truth is I pretty much left everything in the Hampton's, all my supplies and layouts.  I get kind of down when I think about the fact that everything is there I really wish I had the space in my apartment for everything.  Plus I haven't had a chance to go out there, I've been too busy on the weekends.  But when you can't scrapbook you can always find other things to do.

Scrapbooking falls under the arts & crafts umbrella.  People who like to scrap like to do other things like knit, needle point, card making, cooking, activities to express their creativeness.  I don't knit or needle point but I game for other things like a CANDY BAR. 

My nephew Donovan turns 4 tomorrow, wow has time flown.  He had a karate b-day party on Sunday and since he is obsessed with candy I came up with the idea to do a candy bar.  I enlisted my good friend Michele to help since she had the glass jars, scooper's and she also loves to do this kind of stuff as well.

I started off last week at one of the most ridiculous candy stores I've ever been in, Economy Candy on Rivington St on the Lower East Side http://www.economycandy.com/.  This place is like Willy Wonka meets Dylan's candy but at a dive bar.
They have every candy you could imagine and then some.  I was completely overwhelmed.  I left there with 50 pounds of candy, literally.  I knew I overdid it, but I couldn't help it, that's who I am, I always have to take it to the next level.  I had to make sure this candy bar made a huge splash.

We made a lollipop tree, I bought a Styrofoam cone at Michaels (craft store) and stuck the lollipops in there, it became the focal point of the table.  We had spaghetti licorice, jelly beans, m&m's, gummi bears, gum balls, red licorice spirals, chocolate soccer balls and basketballs, sour patch kids & sour watermelons.  I bought chinese take out boxes at container store, decorated the table with some confetti and Voila! Dylan's who?

PS- I'm for hire :)

ADDICTION

This weekend I completed my first chipboard mini album! I was told by fellow scrapbookers that this would become addictive and yes I see why.  I was able to complete an album in about 6 hours which is way shorter amount of time then a normal 12x12 album would take.  These albums are perfects for gifts-birthday, anniversaries & babies :) Jared and I went to St Barths for our 1yr anniversary, we are completely obsessed with the place now and cannot wait to go back.  I have never taken on a project so quickly after the actual event so this was very exciting for me. 
The album is 12 sides including cover and back.  I used a group of papers by cosmo cricket "ever after" that I love!! The soft colors were perfect for this album.  Then I embellished each page with flowers, butterflies, buttons, and ribbon.  I tried to add a title and description to each page.  The album is delicate but has so much character, I can't wait to make more...

Back to scrapping

Ahhhhhh!! I feel so refreshed after a long weekend of scrapping in the hamptons. I'm very torn because part of me wants it to be beautiful outside and the other part of me is happy when its cloudy. When it's nice I want to be in the sun and swimming, when its crappy out I look forward to scrapping. With that being said the sun did not come out at all this weekend and I spent a good amount of time in the basement with my crafts. The world cup was on so Jared had something to entertain him. Normally he is complaining that I spend to much time scrapbooking.

I was able to do a few layouts plus show my 5 yr nephew Oliver how to be crafty and do his own pages.

I really want to finish up my honeymoon album so I can move on to do other fun projects.

I finally bought a small sewing machine yesterday I used to have one many years ago when I took sewing in college but I threw it out when I moved one time. I honestly never thought I would need it. I kept saying I wanted to get another one and Jared was like are you serious, do you really need it? he's like your going to use it once and never touch it again. So basically I need to prove him wrong.

Hopefully the machine actually works I bought it at the 5 and dime store in Sag Harbor and it had dust on it. It probably was sitting on that shelf for a decade. Can't wait to take it for a test drive in 2 weeks.

xoxo

Scrapaholic

Forgiveness

SCRAPPING IN THE CITY (2010)

SCRAPPING IN THE HAMPTONS (2009)
(need to update photo)

I have been feeling major guilt over the past few months for my lack of blog entries. Basically to the point where I couldn't even look at my own blog site, this morning I tried to get onto the blog and couldn't even remember the url. It's pathetic. Hopefully you can all forgive me.

In a nutshell this is what happened. I was scrapping in our 1bedroom apt as I told you. It's not an easy task to scrap in such a tight space, space meaning my dining room table that seats 6 people. Scrapbooking can be very messy, I am a messy person to begin with. I don't mind taking out my supplies as much as I dislike cleaning up and putting everything away.

So, around the my last entry mid march, Jared and I bought the apartment next door also a 1 bedroom. Yes, very exciting! We plan to break the wall and make 1 large apartment. My dream would be to have a scrapbook room!!!!!!! As long as Jared has a say I can keep dreaming.

The most exciting part was I had a place to put all my Scrapbook crap, next door in an empty apartment! So I bought a bridge table which I told myself would come in handy later in life for other things then scrapping. I set it up in the other apartment with all my supplies and shortly we nicknamed it my own studio. It was a blissful time for me, which lasted about 1 month.

Now my "cousin" is living there for a year while we figure out how we want to renovate the place and when we actually want to start the construction.

Fortunately it was summer time! time to move all my supplies out to the Hamptons to my parents house. My mom set me up with some storage and a big table in the basement so I have my own little area. I love scrapping out there, but I feel that I don't have enough time to do it there. I am only there on the weekends, and many of the weekends its nice out so who wants to be stuck in the basement on a beautiful day. Plus the million other things going on around the house, nephews running around, the feasts we have for breakfast, lunch, & dinner, Happy hour, exercising, reading; its a busy life in the Hamptons.

:) Scrapaholic

SONG LYRIC CHALLENGE

So its early in the morning on Saturday, well not actually that early its 10am, but something about it being dark, rainy, and quiet outside makes me feel like its super early. Something amazing has happened to me!! I have figured out how to use my own 8x11 scanner and I can now scan my 12x12 scrapbook pages at home :) I use to have to schlep them into my office and wait until everyone had left for the day before I could go and use the scanner there, very annoying and inconvenient. So now all I have to do is scan both sides of the layout and hit this button STITCH and it basically overlaps the to sides and sews them together, its soooooo cool!!!

I have finally continued doing the scrapbook challenges, this one I really enjoyed. The challenge was to let a song lyric inspire a layout. I used a photo of Jared and I standing in the middle of 42nd st before the wedding. I love this picture!! so NYC and so authentic looking. My amazing photographer Danny Weiss took snapped it. If you are getting married or have children and need a photographer I highly recommend Danny.

In this LO I used this awesome "I do" paper collection, I forget who its by ofcourse. I used my circle cutter machine to make the circles. I distressed all the edges of the circles, the frame of my picture, and the actually 12x12 paper and then used Tim Holtz ink pad to make the LO look vintage. I love love love doing that, its a serious addiction that I have. I added some chip board pieces that match the paper. The song I choose was as you see Billy Joel's NY state of mind. I thought how perfect for this picture. You can't get more NY that then.

Here are some more LO's that I wanted that I have done in the past month.

Thanks for looking!!

xoxo

Scrapaholic

Lavish Lunches

WOW!! I can't believe how long its been since I last wrote on my blog. So much has happened-I've been so busy with my day job no time for fun :( UNTIL today!
Today I did my first charity scrapbook expose/event/workshop for such a GREAT cause. It was supporting the JCC senior adult programs.
There were 15 lunches held at 15 woman's homes in the bergen county, NJ area.
At each house there was supposed to be an activity so Anita Miller asked me to come to her home to show her guests what scrapbooking is all about.
We had such a great time. I brought all the papers, flowers, embellishments etc to her house and we set up all the supplies on long folding tables.
After a short demonstration to show the different ways you can lay pictures with embellishments on papers the woman got to work.
Everyone's projects came out GREAT! Not only did the layouts look beautiful but they had fun doing it too.
All in all the event was a success and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Thanks ladies for making today so wonderful!!

Challenge #2

Woah! Seriously what am I thinking?? I am sooooooooooo busy, but isn't that everyone's story. I wish I had more time at work to think about scrapbooking or my blog. I guess one thing is for sure, the less time I have to scrapbook the more money I save, considering I don't know how to stop spending on supplies.
Okay on that note, I finished challenge #2 the 2 weekends ago but never had a chance to post it. Not sure if this one came out that great. The challenge was to be inspired by media, so I looked around my apartment, looked at the book covers- nothing interesting. I have no CD cases anymore, who using cd's these days. I barely own any DVD's, except for one. Those of you who know me can probably figure out what it is in a second. Troop Beverly Hills of course...Shelley Long was amazing in her role as a troop leader. I never wanted to be a girl scout, but if I was there would be no other troop I would want to be a part of; "beverly hills what a thrill" sing it with me, lol.
Okay enough of that...
Do you see that Palm trees on the cover, that was basically my inspiration for this Layout. Photos were taken of my nephew Oliver on our most recent trip to Florida. This is the 2nd time I ever hand sewed on a pg. I'm not much of a sewer but I had a fun time doing it. It doesn't have to be perfect, that the nice part about scrapping, you can do things free hand, no one will ever notice if you mess up (for the most part). I also used the new inks I got from Tim Holtz collection, very cool, makes the page look old. Kinda going a little nuts on my pages with it.

Another thing...I really don't like blogspot, its supposed to be easy to use but I find it annoying.

I might be searching for another blog site, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

I have some new layout to post...need to upload them- STAY TUNED.

xx-Scrapaholic

Challenge #1

Finally!! I get to blog, if I didn't have a job I would be doing really well, but unfortunately one must work in order to shop.
This past Friday I was home with a major stomach virus, yes I'm all better thanks for all your concerns. Thankfully I found the energy later in the evening to start my first challenge. The challenge was to be inspired by something in your closet. Now you would think this task would be easy for someone who has a lot in her closet, fact is I think I have too much. Deciding what to use was VERY hard. I found a dress which sorry to say still had tags on it (ooops) sorry I felt fat, can't wear everything. I made Jared snap a photo of me in it, although he cropped my face off, guess he thought I was having a bad hair day, let's just hope thats the case :)
Here is the challenge...you can click on image to enlarge

Here is the results...

Here is the inspiration...

Let me know what you think? I think it came out really cute. The photos were taken this summer at the beach in the Hamptons, its of my neice Madison and nephew Oliver playing in the water. I am really obsessed with the antiquing technique that I learned at Portrait Bug, I can't stop doing it. It really softens up the layout.

Valentines day is coming up...if anyone is interested in giving a handmade gift like a picture frame or small album, let me know, I can definitely help out :)

xoxo

Scrapaholic

Bugging out

Happy New Year!!! 2009 was a great year for me, so many wonderful things happened in my life like getting married to the most amazing guy. Thanks Jared for supporting my scrapbooking habit, allowing me to make a mess in the apartment and spend so much of my free time scrapbooking instead of laying on the couch and watching tv with you :) My new years resolution is to find a good balance of my time so I can do all the things that make Jared happy as well as do the things I enjoy too.

My best friend Marisa came up with a great idea for a birthday gift for me, a gift certificate for a private scrapbooking lesson at a scrapbooking store called PORTRAIT BUG located on the upper west side. My birthday was back in October but I was waiting to get all my supplies that I left in the Hamptons at my parents house so I finally went today.

This place is so amazing. They have tons of scrapbooking supplies as well as a potrait studio and a room where you can actually sit down and scrap right there.

My lesson was with a very talented girl named Harmony. She taught me a few techniques that I had been so curious about. We talked about how to journal, antiquing, and worked on a new layout. I got a lot of new ideas from our session and can't wait to put them to the test.

(I wanted to finish putting up layouts from my wedding album since its seems to be taking me a lot of blog entries to accomplish this)

I have a new project or challenge that I am going to do for 2010. For Hanukkah my mom gave me a book called 52 Scrapbooking Challenges. I had a great idea, just like Julie was inspired by the Julia Child cookbook to go thru the entire book and make every recipe. I am going to go thru this book and do every challenge. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, I figure what better then to give myself 1 year to finish this book. I will try to do 1 layout a week and upload the challenge when I'm finished.

I am so excited to get this started!!

Stay tuned...