My New Laptop

I finally got my very own laptop that I can use for MY purposes.  Yeah I already had one but when I mysteriously deleted the print drivers and no telling what else from my husbands desktop, he needed to use my laptop to work on.  Still don’t know how I managed to mess up the desktop but I did.  If I wanted to I could still use the other laptop but it’s in my husband’s “room” where he has his stuff.  I got tired of stepping over weights, hockey equipment, boxes etc just to get to the laptop so I went online to Amazon and ordered the cheapest laptop I could find.  It is a Dell and very basic.  It has Windows 8 which is taking some getting used to and I need to get a mouse for it since I don’t like the mouse on a laptop but otherwise it’s just what I needed.

First thing after I set it up I downloaded Cricut Craftroom.  Several of my scrapbook friends used the Craftroom at our last retreat to merge letters together so I think that’s probably what I will use it most for plus very often you can make cuts on new cartridges for a short period of time and that might be fun.

My next thing will be setting up my photo editing software and setting up the printer (may let husband do that) so I can share photos.  I made several new cards and layouts my last retreat that I want to post as well as some recipe scrapbook pages I am working on.

Success or No?

I have had no time to really scrapbook except for getting ready for my first “show”. Okay it was more of a market place but either way I needed samples of my Close to my Heart scrapbook pages.  Shortly after I signed up to be a consultant I got a call from a lady who was given my name by some other consultants and she asked me if I’d like to participate in a little marketplace event she was hosting in the next two weeks.  The other CTMH consultants were not available and she was looking for a consultant.  Other vendors signed up were from companies like Tupperware, Scentsy, Thirty-One etc and it sounded like a great opportunity.  I had not really planned to go all out with my consultant gig. I had mainly signed up to get stuff for myself and sell to my elite crew of scrapbook retreaters but since I had already made my quarterly quota just selling to my friends I thought what the heck!  So I call my upline (the friend who signed me up) and she was excited at this opportunity and even though she lived out of town.wanted to cash in some miles and come down and help…..

The helping didn’t turn out so well and the marketplace didn’t either but live and learn.  My friend showed up late.  Had insisted on her buying some inventory instead of me then she brought it all down from D.C. and paid extra baggage.  She didn’t sell any of it except to me who paid full price to help her out since I felt bad about it when I could have ordered myself.  There was a little competition which there should not have been.  She thought she was sneaky but I did catch her handing out her business card and she didn’t stay but a couple of hours.  Oh and the marketplace….the lady supposedly advertised..saw no evidence other than a couple of hand made signs in the neighborhood.  And what she did advertise she advertised the wrong street address. The location was terrible. It was an old office building with empty space downstairs and the building was across the street from the corner where men stand looking for work which didn’t make me feel that safe.  I would say there were maybe 10 customers other than the other vendors who were just as frustrated as me I think.

I did have visitors to my booth but it was mostly friends I had invited and one really talkative lady who after 30 minutes and several dollars spent at the Home goods booth next to me finally came to my table about 30 minutes before the marketplace ended and bought some scrapbook stuff from me!  Praise be!  Of course, I freaked and didn’t know how to do the order since we didn’t have Wi-Fi but I finally managed to use my iphone and place the order minus the stamp of the month she wanted which for some reason it didn’t take….I think my commission for that wasted Saturday was $10.

I did enjoy the time that led up to the event and the new stamps and papers I used that I had ordered.  I made some really pretty cards and layouts. Here is my booth.

Sorry I have not blogged.  It’s not that I am super super busy.  I just am too lazy to drag out my slow laptop and put my fingers on the keyboard.  Okay and well I’ve been busy too.  My little boy is playing soccer with practice once a week and a game every Saturday and only three more weeks of school.  Things at the office have been super busy and unfortunately stressful on me.  I’ve been worried about my mom whose eyesight is really bad to the point where everything is in a haze so I worry about her.   Life is just busy right now.  But will do better….blogging does seem to help me vent

My New Part-Time Venture in Scrapooking

okay…My exciting news!  Well it is exciting to me mostly because I love scrapbooking, shopping and sharing new products and ideas with friends and this new venture gives me a chance to do all that.  My friend Arabella moved to D.C. a couple of years ago and she contacted me last year about hosting a Close to my Heart EZ Online Party since she knew I had several scrapbook friends and she had recently signed up as a consultant.  I said sure but unfortunately I did it over Christmas and didn’t get very many orders.  After the holidays several friends said they forgot and the holidays was a  bad time to do that so I said I’d try it again. Well Arabella called me and said “Hey listen..I don’t want you to have another party…I want you to sign up as a consultant!”  I said “Oh I don’t know if I have time for that.  Another scrapping friend of mine used to sell Close to my Heart and had to quit because she didn’t have time so surely it would be the same for me since I work full time and have a very active 5 year old child. But she talked me into it…..because during the month of March, if you sign up as a consultant you not only get the consultant kit (which is loaded with stuff) but you also get the Cricut Art Philosophy Collection for free (it is worth $99).  And being the Cricut Queen that I am that was super since you can only get this cartridge through Close to My Heart!  I went online and signed up and paid and got my kit in about a week!  Am really excited to try the products and share with my friends.  I’m even having my own online/book party since the friends who were suppose to order before still have things they want.  I’ve already got a new favorite tool…..it’s a ruler with holes in it for poking holes to do stitching.  This is much cleaner and better than using the stamp set I have that lays out stitching lines for you to stitch.

Anyway, that’s my new adventure.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m already getting orders in and if you don’t know anything about Close to My Heart…check out my link on the left.  Very quality products and even a bargain hunter like me knows a quality product is worth paying for.

Serious Scrapping

I haven’t posted since my retreat because my laptop has been causing me some serious problems…way too slow and keeps messing me up. I finally think I have fixed the problem for now so back to blogging. We had a great time at the retreat as always. Unfortunately, not all our ladies were able to make it. While those of us who were lucky enough to arrive at the retreat on Thursday were in the throes of scrapping on friday….our friends and family back home were experiencing some severe weather. The unstable weather had us all glued to our computers and iphones watching the radars and listening for the latest reports. Although the retreat location is only an hour and a half away, the cable there did not pick up our local weather so we were only able to get bits and pieces from there. Tornadoes are a usual occurence in our area about this time of year and I’m sad to say many homes were destroyed during this out-break. One of the scrappers ended up not coming because part of her neighborhood was destroyed and she wasn’t able to get out. Others waiting till the storms to pass before they could come which cut their time in two. Thankfully everyone was safe and we were able to continue with our retreat. We still pray for those whose homes were destroyed. Some of which had just started to rebuild after a tornado that hit this time last year.

I can honestly say I didn’t get much done this time but didn’t care. I was able to try some new techniques and actually made cards this time instead of scrapbooking pictures. Really had no choice. Since I’ve been having problems with my computer I was not able to print my latest pictures so I just made cards and a couple of recipe pages.  Here are a few examples of the projects I worked on.

This first card, I used my new Peachy Keen stamp of the month club stamp for March.  I’m still learning about stamping and the techniques used in coloring them in but it still turned out okay. I love Peachy Keen faces!

This next card I made for my mom and may put a Mother’s Day sentiment inside. I used the Cricut cartridge “Nifty Fifties” to make this very pretty dress and dress maker stand. You can’t tell but there is some dimension on this card. I love the colors!
This next card is not finished but I loved how the flower pitcher turned out.  I even made a couple of these pitchers to use on other cards.  I used the Cricut cartridge “Country Life” which is one of my favorite Cricut cartridges. Doesn’t this paper really look like an old crackled pitcher?

That’s all I have for now. I have not even unloaded all my scrapbook supplies from the car and have my craft room full of clothes as I purge my closet so I don’t anticipate getting time to scrapbook in the next couple of weeks but I will have some exciting news next time so stay tuned!

Ready for my Scrapbooking Getaway

It’s that time of year again when me and some friends drive 2 hours away to the lake for our bi-annual scrapbook retreat. Everyone is so excited to get away for a few days, lounge around in our pj’s, no make-up, no kids, someone else cooks for us (all from scratch and delicious) and we scrapbook all day and late into the night. And YES we really do scrapbook! It is a blast to get hours and hours of straight scrapbook time. I am in charge this time to send reminders (like they need one), collect deposits and lay out the sleeping and scrapping arrangements for everyone. We have a total of 17 going this time. Not everyone will stay the whole three nights but we’ve got a good group going.

I decided to do little gift bags for everyone and play to our theme. We call ourselves the “Scrappy B’s”. I’ll admit the B does not stand for anything nice but it’s all in fun. I thought about stuffing the bags with some type of scrapbook embellishment but that would get too expensive for 17 people so I went with candy.

I used the Cricut “Create a Critter” cartridge to cut out these cute little 2 inch bee’s since we are the “Scrappy B’s”.


“Close to My Heart” stamps carries some really cute scrapbook sentiment stamps that also went perfectly with the theme.

So bags are all made and now it’s time to start getting all my supplies organized and packed up for the retreat. Just a few weeks to go until “Scrappy B time!!!!

Friday’s Recipe Scrapbook Page – Campin’ Critters

It’s friday so I thought I would post another recipe page that I’ve completed. This one I used one of my newer Cricut cartridges…”Campin Critters”. That cartridge had some really cute critters in it and what is one of the fun things to do when campin….cooking! I thought the bean pot would be perfect to highlight my mom’s Sausage Bean Chowder.

I’ve been under the weather for the last couple of weeks. Fighting a cold or sinus issues so I have not been motivated to do many things. I have a scrapbook retreat coming up in a little over a month and I have not printed out any pictures to scrap nor figured out why my new printer will not print with our wireless network. Makes it very frustrating when you are trying to print pictures or journals for your scrapbook pages. I did have a chance to play with the blog as you can see by the new blog header. I don’t like to read instructions so I just kinda wing it when figuring out that kind of stuff. As I play with it more I will be adding things to the blog to maybe jazz it up and make it more interesting.

Valentine’s Day Card

One of my favorite things to do is search for scrapbook bargains.  Yes it’s good to buy the “good stuff” so you can get a good quality product ( and your scrapbooks last longer) but I don’t see anything wrong with hitting a few “dollar bins” especially for beginning card making.  One of my favorite places to find this bargain paper is Target.  Their dollar bins usually have some really cute paper etc especially holiday papers.  I usually pick up a couple different packs every holiday.  This month’s they are featuring Valentine’s and St. Patricks Day scrapbook supplies for $1.00 each. The paper packs usually have about 6 papers so that’s a pretty good deal when you are still learning new techniques.

Now let’s talk about the “good stuff”.  This month I decided to join the Stamp of the Month Club on PeachkeenStamps.com.  The subscription is for 6-months and my first stamp is Valentines Day.  I love Peachy Keen Stamps and they are really good quality.  My first stamps where for the cute little faces which I used on my EveryDay Paper Doll people I cut out with my Cricut.  I’m now really liking their other stamps too.

This card is made using one of the Valentine’s Day cupid stamps and the rest is all Target bargain paper.  It’s one of my first cards using stamps but I think with practice I will get better.

Outside:

Inside