Still haven't found...what I'm looking for

credits: Owlie Loves You from Shabby Pickle Designs, Cafeina brushes by deviantArt, label by Kate Teague for 2peas, staple from jayedid Designs. Font: MV Boli

Some of you may know my past with U2; briefly, I went to Ireland for a study abroad program in 1988 and hung out in front of their Windmill Lane studios, wrote on their fan wall, and watch Larry Mullen zoom out and past us on his motorcycle. I was a fan before I went over, a huge fan, in fact my mother claimed I was going to Ireland just to chase the band (only partially true...the only study abroad programs at Wayne State University were Germany, or Ireland, and I don't speak German). Despite his personality flaws, I still think Bono is one of the best rock singers ever.

Today is a quicky entry; I had this done late last night (11:30p) but soon turned in, I couldn't wait until midnight to post this here but I did get it to Marit so I have two LOs on her entry for today (oh that darn time difference between the Netherlands, and the States). Egor has budget issues with my craft spending that we have to go over (joy) (not) and I need to get to the grocery store before my sister arrives and we head to a kid-friendly party later.

I have no New Year's resolutions, I never do, so I can't promise that I will scrap every day, or post every day, but that would certainly be a dream resolution of mine. Also writing fiction every day, and getting outside to walk, damn the weather. But...baby steps, baby steps.

Have a SAFE NYE...see you on the flip side!

New places to scrap...

Headed to the library late this afternoon, after running to Knit A Round to pick up some more yarn for a felting project (more on that later), depositing some checks from Christmas, and stopping for gas. Again. Somehow I have become the family filler-upper. Eeerk. Either that or I have really bad luck choosing which car to take. Just two days ago, I was stuck with the station wagon, and Egor informed me that (a) it had no gas and (b) oh by the way, it was out of windshield fluid. And it was snowing. Double errk.

Anyway, this morning I went through the Top 2000 list first thing, and actually had several choices. I have always wanted to use lyrics from John Mayer's Daughters, though, and took this chance to do so.

credits: Ruby Rhynne designs: freebie Boho kit, full kit no longer available but plenty of other beautiful kits are!

I had most of it done before I headed to the library, but while there I went through Cassie Jones' lesson on distressing fonts from Designer Digitals for the title letters. I'm (almost) sure the library has Wi-Fi (I still giggle when I think of my mom's recent confusion over Wi-Fi and Wii) but I didn't have the patience to figure it out. I had Ben with me, so I had to pay attention. Somewhat.

My first Studio Calico kit (December's) came yesterday, and I have an idea...but no time to do more than print out a collage of photos for it. Pretty soon my January kit will be here, and I'll have even MORE new stuff to work with.

Back to my felting project. I'm working on a bag...based on the clutch(es) I made for Creative Escape...I couldn't find the instructions to save my life, but having made 6 or 7 of them, I decided to wing it and just cast on. Well, given how felting shrinks (by about a third, I hear), I have to add quite a bit of depth to this one to get it to work. So I knit to the end of one of my skeins, only to realize I'd need QUITE a bit more to finish this up.

Now that I have that extra yarn, I'm hoping to finish it and have photos in the next week or so. Well, by January 7th, for sure, because the weekend of the 8th is my first-ever F52s retreat...F for Fridays, 52 for the number of Fridays in a year, that is how many Fridays we scrapbooked when Scrapbook Memories was still opened...I just became a member of this local scrapbooking group, so I wanted to make a gift that would make an impression for the gal whose Secret Elf I am...did you follow that?

First Challenge...Marit's Top 2000

I've been tinkering with this all day. The beauty of my laptop is that it is right on my kitchen table (or dining room table, or couch...just not in bed...yet...) and I can get to it whenever I have time...or hubs takes the kids off to the health club, LOL.

(credits: the alegria collection from Little Dreamer Designs - except for the All Grunged Up Kraft bg paper by As You Wish ... and the journal spot, a freebie from the Happy Father's Day kit. Font: American Typewriter Medium)

For the challenge, you pick a song off a list published by a Dutch newspaper (a radio station there plays a countdown selection each day). This song from the Rolling Stones was #874 on the list for today. The second I saw it I knew I had to scrap it; it was the title of the blog entry when I first met Egor. You see, he ran a fan site for a group of Russian artists called the Mitki (uh-oh, here come the search hits. Those are some RABID fans, I'm telling you!). I used this painting (by G. Semich...well, that's all I have for credits. Feel free to correct me) on that entry, wrote to Egor asking permission (I was learning HTML at the time and wanted to be sure I used it correctly). Well, I noticed that his email was "(at) umich" (University of Michigan) dot com, so I started a friendly (really!) email conversation with him that lead to our meeting and, well, so much more ;)

So the song (written at the time for recently deceased band member Brian Jones, as I recall) and the painting that accompanied that long-ago blog entry were the inspiration for this. Turns out both helped me meet a life-long friend...and at the time (1998), I really needed one.

Love you, honey.

Top Ten

My biggest challenge with scrapbooking this year was catching up with my attempt at Project 365 in 2008. I was so busy uploading my daily photos to Flickr (so sad...I hardly EVER go there anymore) and I had SO MANY photos to scrap, that I got behind early on and couldn't keep up, even though I quit 365 in October 2008.

Once I knew I was going to Scrap Camp {{shudder}} I started saving LOs to do there. Most of my work through the year was either catching up with 2008 or trying various challenges to get my mojo going (having a backlog of 220+ photos was quite the load on my scrapping mind all. year. long.) So when I present my Top Ten layouts for 2009, don't be surprised to see a lot of 2008 subject matter and odd bits of info about me. That's just how I was rolling in 2009...

One thing I did a lot of this year was use sketches and scraplift. This was a lift of a LO from CK magazine; the circles were originally buttons. Watch that rainbow paper; it crops (haha) up on a LOT of my LOs this year...

Let me just say...THICKERS. Yeah, I have quite a collection now. And I have become quite fearless of my handwriting, although I still think it sucks and I could do a better job with some pre-planning. Only all that pre-planning of my journaling tends to suck the life out of my writing.

This kimono one got me Jeanette's pick of the week over at SIStv in April and a $20 GC to their boutique. It's not my favorite because it won, it's a favorite because it was LOTS of fun to work on! One thing I'm going to miss is Scrap in Style collection kits...sniff.

This was from a scraplift challenge over at SIStv. I like mine better than the original. Just sayin' ;P

This was one I did after raiding the SIStv boutique at SISiversary in late June. I am not yet tired of October Afternoon! The photo was also one of the first that I altered (made it "vintage") after I got PSE7 for Mother's Day.


















Retro Modern was the first kit I purchased from SIStv, early in the year. I really held my breath because it was so not me. But I ended up having a lot of fun with it. I love that I chronicled our (hub's and my) mutual love of Big Bang Theory. Another one that was just plain fun to do!


















AGAIN with the rainbow paper! This was the first challenge over at Kiddie Lit; the Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite books. I love that I had some old blue gingham paper that I managed to dig up and use on this LO! ;) This was also the first LO where I reeeeeeaaally distressed the outer edges of my LO. I need to scrap about my first house some more...this is the only photo I've scrapped of my first house; I need to do more...I bought it myself and lived there six years, after all!

















This was a handwriting challenge at Creative Type. I cannot for the life of me remember where I came up with the spiral journalling strip; I know it took me three tries to cut it right! I think the spiral was inspired by my handwriting analysis. Oh, and I used more ancient supplies...the letter stickers are circa 2000 or so!
















A color challenge from A Few of my Favorite Things. I keep saying "I don't do collage," but I sure as heck had fun slapping down everything orange in my stash!

















Back to simplicity. And lots of stash-raiding. I hope to never buy another tennis embellishment ever. again. LOL. And again with the PSE7 artistry...this time a sepia-toned photo, where everyone was orginally wearing really clashing colors.

Pretty eclectic, huh? I was really scattered, style-wise, this year. I think perhaps that IS my style...all over the place. I love a great variety of color (ahem...not just orange...) and the challenges I participated in really helped me raid my stash and use what I had...which I had to do after the SIStv boutique closed down.

Don't get me wrong, I love my LSSs (although 3 of them closed this year...and one re-opened) and try to crop at one once a month or so (more now that my mom is back in town).

I miss our Friday night group at Scrapbook Memories, although she never had new stock, because her crops were only $5. I have to choke at paying $12-$15 now (Scrappy Chic and Scrapbook Zone prices), especially considering I can't get there before 7p, and so the bonus of dinner is lost on me. I could make it a bit earlier to Scrap Tales, but they haven't done Friday night crops since they re-opened :(

I did subscribe to Studio Calico kits starting this month; they have new and unique treasures that I grew to love in the Scrap in Style kits. A lot of buddies from SIStv are there on the message boards; it's so nice to see familiar names and faces! I hope to keep searching for and growing my "style" in 2010, whatever it may be. That's about it for scrapbooking resolutions.

Welcome!

If you've come from PhotoPaperScissors (my former site), make sure you follow me here now. Just wanted to link my blog to my email. Will update soon with Sasha's end-of-the-year challenge. Because I do whatever Sasha tells me to ;)

Thanks!