Lorado

Hello hello!

Here's a layout I did with stash from We R Memory Keepers. :)  The die cut background, camera, tag, and chevron border strip are all from my cricut. The camera and chevron strip are from one of the newer iron-on cartridges... Boho or Brooklyn... or maybe CTMH Artbooking... can't remember which. (this is what happens when you have too many cartridges) And the chevrons are actually several that I adhered together to make one long strip. Some chipboard letters for the title and date. Ribbon and a turkey shaped button from Charlene's Button Box. I had lots of pictures I wanted to inlcude so I made a flipper book for them.

The pics are from one of my favorite crop retreats! Love this crop.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heritage Days

Greetings!
Here's the last layout I'm posting from cropping at Lorado. I forgot that this one also uses Mamarazzi 2.

We have a little "pioneer village" by our local county park, and they have events a couple times a year where volunteers dress up in period costumes and demo stuff like spinning, weaving, blacksmithing, and they even do a "gun fight".  :)

Most of the layout is made from Mamarazzi stash. The scallop border is made from 1.5 inch circles I punched out, inked the edges and layered to make the scallops.  The horse and carriage are from the Heritage cartridge, and the title was welded from Old West. I just LOVE the horse and carriage!

Thanks for stopping in!

planetarium

Hi hi.
Here's another layout with the Mamarazzi 2 line made at the Lorado crop earlier this month.

My kid found out from his friend that our local planetarium was having an 'open house' that night, and I told him I wasn't sure we'd go, since I was feeling kind of tired that day. He went off and drew a picture of stars, planets and a telescope and told me "mom! this is how much I want to go!"  How can a mom resist that??? So we went. Of course you can't take pictures inside the planetarium or inside the telescope observatory that we visited (we saw saturn's rings). But there was also a geology museum that I did take pictures in.

I used mostly Mamarazzi 2 stash, but there's also a couple buttons from Charlene's Button Box, and a cricut cut dinosaur bone fossil from Dinosaur Tracks cartridge. I really love the colors of Mamarazzi 2.  I didn't use up all the collection yet, so I hope to finish using it up at the next crop I go to.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lorado

Well Hello again!

Here's another layout I made at the Lorado crop earlier this month. I used more Mamarazzi 2 stash!

The pics are from the previous Lorado crop. My cropping buddies and I did a photo with mustaches from the digital CCR images from Mustaches and Glasses. I used the mustache stick from the photo for the layout.

One of my scrapping buddies handed me the sketch from a kit she made, and I used it to inspire this layout. :)

Thanks for stopping in. :)

Cockatoo

Hi all!

Here's the next installment of Lorado crop pages. :)

The next paper collection I pulled out to work with is the Mamarazzi 2 collection from Bo Bunny. I LOVED the first Mamarazzi.  So of course I bought all the papers from this line months ago when it came out. I know... I'm supposed to be using stash, but every once in a while I need to buy something really cool.

One of my coworkers brought one of her rehab Cockatoos into the bus lot, and she was really a sweet bird!

The arrows were made with a leftover cut negative that I saved after cutting out arrows for a different layout. I used Distress Stain to ink in the arrows. The arrows are from the Boho cricut cartridge. I also cut out a polaroid frame from the Brooklyn cartridge. Other than a button made by Charlene's Button Box, a Kaiser filmstrip rub on, everything else is from the Mamarazzi line.

Thanks for stopping by!

2 of Us Together Making Memories kit

Greetings all!

This layout is from a Basic Grey kit of the month kit. I bought it at Lorado for $5. I'm going to put wedding pictures on it.

This last Lorado was 3 days long, and at one point I was feeling uninspired and unmotivated. When that happens, I pull out a kit and work on that, it usually jump starts me! (which it did!)  The kit is pretty but it was not a paper collection I would have bought, which is even better that I only had to do one layout with it. I like the layout and it will go well with wedding pics. :)

Thanks for visiting. :)

Roll Pods

Hello again :)

Here's the last layout I completed with the Prima Craftsman collection and the science fiction convention photos.

These pics are from my favorite room party at the convention. The author guest of honor was David Weber, and his books are some of my favorites. His biggest fan club had a huge presence at the convention, and held the BEST room party on both nights. They created a drink called "missile pods" and a drinking game to go with it. (now you know why it was my favorite! lol)

The embellishment is a manticore, a symbol in the books by the author. Of course, none of the cricut cartridges I own had a manticore on them, nor do I own a cameo.  However, the parts that make up a manticore are a lion body, bat wings and a scorpion tail. So I just used my gypsy to cut out the parts I needed and put them together on the embellishment. I couldn't weld them because I was unable to hide the cuts I didn't want. But it all worked out!

Thanks for coming to see my work!

arrested

Hello!  Here's another layout I did at the Lorado crop. :)

I also made this with Prima's Craftsman collection papers. More pictures from the science fiction convention too. The folks in Klingon costume were doing a charity jail, so I had my friend Steve arrested. muahahaha.  Anyway, I'm a fan of Star Trek and the Klingons in particular.

I made the Klingon symbol on my gypsy! I thought it turned out kind of awesome. lol

Thanks for visiting!

Demicon 24

Here's another layout I did at the Lorado crop. At the Lorado crops Sue (the organizer) lets us pick the parts of our goodie bag. At the previous Lorado crop I picked this paper line from Prima, the Craftsman collection. I have no idea when it came out, but it seemed like something I could use. :)

So I used it up at this last Lorado crop! This is one of the layouts I made with it, pictures from the last science fiction we went to. I had lots of pictures so I made some "flip books" to store them on the layout.

I used the cricut cartridge Mini Monograms on this layout, totally an oldie that I have never used. I also used up some stash rub ons. Love that I'm using up stash, even the "new" stash. ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Lorado Scrappy retreat!

Hello all!  This past weekend I went back to the Lorado Taft Crop located in Oregon IL, at the Lowden State Park.  The Lorado Taft campus in the park is just beautiful! It's so relaxing to be there. No stress! The food is wonderful. Granted, the sleeping arrangements are dorm rooms, but hey, who sleeps at a crop retreat?? ;)

All those lovely scenery pics... wait what's that at the top? that would be the snack table in our cropping room that my friends filled with every sugary treat imaginable... I could have none of it! ugh, lol. ;)

I got lots of scrapbook pages done! You'll be seeing them soon! I will start writing the posts now so they will go up automatically the next several days! Also, there was a name tag contest, and normally I don't do the contests but this time I had an idea, and ran with it. This is what I came up with:

Since I used to teach belly dance I thought this was appropriate. :)  I even made it so her hips would wiggle! I wish I looked as good when I was dancing! LOL!  Oh, and I did win the contest! $25 toward my purchase at the crop store. :)  I used my cricut (Rock Princess) to cut the dancer, but altered the clothing cuts to make her costume.

Come back soon, I will have lots of layouts to share! Thanks for stopping by!

(oh and if you are interested in the crop, contact the owner of this store for more info http://www.etsy.com/shop/itsalwaysfabulous) 

Lorado/Taft Scrapbook Retreat

Since October 2011, I've been going to a scrapbook retreat at a state park in Illinois in the spring and fall. It goes from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, and it's the best, funnest, most relaxing crop I've ever been to! I would have to be on my deathbed to not go to the future crops!

So I thought I'd share a few pictures of this year's crop. :)

Here's me, at my scrap table. The view out the window behind me is pretty much what the whole site looks like. :)

a froggy friend outside our scrap room. We also saw turkeys and other wildlife. No bears though. ;)

These are my scrappin' ninjas. :)  We like to go to crops together! We are standing next to the building that was our dorm and our scraproom.

There are several building, and one might be scrapping in one building, and sleeping in another. It all depended on how far you were from the dining hall. Our building was farthest from the dining hall, so our sleeping and scrapping were in the same building. The meals are provided by the Taft staff, and are wonderful!

there were a few scrappy contests, and my friend Katie won best name tag - a crown of course!

Someone made crown cookies with our names on them, one for each person in our scrap room!

Lots of shenanigans went down in our scrap room... and I can't post most of the pictures or I might discover some nasty pranks in my scrap gear... so this is all you get. ;)

I used my iphone to take a panoramic shot of our scrap room. We had 14 ladies in this room total! There were 70+ at the crop.

My sweet hubby schlepped all my stuff in from the car while I watched from the couch.

I slept a total of 2.5 hours Friday night. That was IT for the whole weekend! I pulled an all-nighter on Saturday. I barely made it home... I think the only reason I did make it home is that we all drove home through a storm, and I SWEAR I drove under a funnel cloud on the way... so half my drive was adrenalin and fear keeping me awake!  Next time, if I want to pull an all-nighter, it will be on friday night... I have decided that I need at least 4 hours sleep the night before driving home!

Oh, and did I get anything done? why yes, yes I did. :)  Here's a sneak peek... you'll see more of this stuff in future posts!

Thanks for stopping by to visit!