A Page in Time

Purging

2012-02-11T17:37:00.004-05:00

I am sick of looking at the clutter spead all over my scraproom.

Time to re-vamp!!!

This usually means time to E-Bay, again, too! Every time I do a major clean up I end up doing a major clean OUT, too. What have I not used in at least the past year....
Time to unload it.

So, if you are looking for some bargains go onto E-Bay and do a search for SharonTup. Lots of scrapping, cardmaking, and general craft supplies are up for auction with really low starting prices. Go check them out. I will be posting more items as I get further along in my cleaning efforts.

Look at this mess!

I wan to get it back to looking like this...

While I am trying to clean, I am also in a scrapping challenge to do A LayOut A Day or LOAD. I did great for a few days, but have now fallen behind schedule, so I need to catch back up with that and get cleaning at the same time. Wish me luck!

Smash Book

2012-01-21T22:22:00.004-05:00

It snowed for the first half of the day today, so it was a good day to get some scrapping done. I worked on my smash Book. I had some things glued down but the pages still looked unfinished so I went back and added journaling where it was needed and added more pages today. I completed 13 pages in the book and have 20 pages with embellishments on them. Some more need to get finished but I don't want to rush this project. I am hoping to add to it thoughout the year.

This is my Extreme Couponing page. I gave couponing a go, and was able to save $ 306.06 in three shopping trips. I wish I could save this much every week but to do this is VERY time-consuming with all the research needed to find the best deals. I average between $10 - $40 a week with coupons now.

Cost of Living Page. This is just showing how much things cost now. The right side is a page about my last birthday at a Red Sox game.

a day trip I took with my kids to NYC. We got airfare for only $9 each way. It was a great day even though I was still recovering.

This is a mish-mash of different events from the surgeries I had to scrapping companies I was repping for.

These are my Goals for 2012. the close up of my title and then what I have written so far

two pages of last Saturday's Patriots game against the Denver Broncos.

These two pages are mini postcards of a lot of places I have been to.

More Organizing

2012-01-15T20:27:00.003-05:00

I decided to re-organize my Cricut Cartridges. I had them stored in Snapware ribbon holders, but I had so many cartridged that it took three (3) of these holders to store them all. I did like the concept of using the cross-stitch mesh so I made a bigger one to fit into a 12 x 12 tray from Target. Much like the one I made for my Stickles. and the nice thing about this one is there is still room for expansion. I still have 18 empty slots. When full this tray will hold 119.

Then for the books and overlays I was using two of these drawers that my daughter no longer wanted. The books fit in perfectly, but I needed one more drawer to fit them all. I drove to the Container store and was going to get another whole unit, but found just the inner part of a drawer set on clearance for only $3, so I bought that. It sits on top of the others just fine. These drawers still have a little room for exspansion. Right now I have an empty Cricut box in the back of each drawer to, not only keep the books upright, but to block the back because it is hard to reach the back of the drawers when they are in their containers. But should I get more books, I can take the boxes out and have room to add more books.

The other thing I did this week was to check all my paint dabbers. These tend to dry up from lack of use. After watching a Tim Holtz video, he said to simply add a few drops of water to the bottle to bring the paints back to life. So I did. It took about 4 hours to get through all the bottle but they are all working again and I have moved them so they are closer to my work space in hope I start using them more before they get a change to dry up again.

These ones on the shelf are the colors I may not use too often.

The more popular colors that I do think I will use more often, I put into this Tim Holtz storage tin. These are more of my favorite colors so i plan to place this tin right on my work desk in hopes that by seeing every day I will start to use these more often.

And these are the few bottle of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist. I have not used this very often so I only have a few colors.

Color

2012-01-15T15:33:00.003-05:00

I love color. The brighter the better! I was looking around my scraproom and I love seeing all the bright colors around the room.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-15T14:16:00.006-05:00

OK, I know I am a little late at wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Today is Sunday, January 15th. But a little late is better then never.

What have i been up to lately...

My last surgery was almost 3 months ago. I can honestly say I feel GREAT! Maybe I can go surgery free for 2012. I will remain hopeful.

Last night I spent the evening at Gilette Stadium watching the NE Patriots anialate Tim Tebow and the Denver Boncos. It was bitterly cold but the game was so exciting we never felt the cold until walking back to our car. The Patriots' defense finally woke up and it was the best game I had seen all season. The final score was 45 - 10.

I have been playing with my Cricut machine. I wish i took photos of some of the decorations I made for my class of pre-schoolers. I used the Sesame Street Seasons cartridge and made some of the winter decorations for our walls.

Besides that I have spent a lot of time re-organizing. If I spent half the time actually scrapping that i do re-organizing my scrap space my albums would be full by now and I would have run out of photos to scrap.

My latest project was re-organizing my Stickles. I loved the CD case I had for storage. It spun around and stored my bottles upside down so they were always ready to use but it didn't even store half the amount of bottles I had so I spent an afternoon making this storage unit using cross stitch mesh I got at Wal-mart and cutting it up to fit into this drawer I got at Target.

I love how many it holds, even though it still was not big enough for all the bottles I had, it still works better.

The drawer slides right into one of the shelves on my Jetmax cubes.

To find the bottles I wanted easier I added a blob of Stickles on the bottle of each bottle so I know exactly what they will look like on my projects.
I can fit 60 bottles in this drawer.

What was left I put back into the CD storage case I had. This storage container holds 36 bottles. I really did like the idea of the double layers of storage on this unit. the top layer lifts up so you can get access to both layers. both layers also rotate around so you can see everything. I just needed something larger. this one is now holding my overflow of Stickles that did not fit in the drawer unit I made. I have 22 bottles in it now.

Still Recovering

2011-11-29T19:29:00.002-05:00

it has been 5 weeks today since my surgery. Still having good and bad days. I thought I was returning to work next week but my doctor's note was not accepted. I need to reach my doctor for a new letter.

I wish I could say I have gotten a lot of things accomplished while home but I have gotten diddle squat done. My house is a mess, The cupboards are bare since no one feels a need to go grocery shopping. I am sick of eating microwavable meals. SICK of them!
Have wasted away the days watching You Tube videos and EBay auctions.

I do get up nice and early each morning and make a list of what I would like to get done during the day. but before I know it the day is half over and I have barely moved.

Sorry for venting!

Looking forward to tomorrow being a good day.

Getting Scrappy

2011-11-01T17:26:00.001-04:00

well, yesterday I was starting to feel like myself again. Thank Goodness! When I can't think of anything else but getting down to my scraproom to play I know I am feeling better. But there were not little portable floor heaters around. At least not that I knew about and it just got too cold. So, I dragged what I could back up stairs. (My Cricut for one thing) and played in the living room. I made two 12 x 12 layouts. 6 cards, and a layer for a Canvas board I started a while ago. I was feeling very productive. but it stinks working up stairs when all my stuff is downstairs. I kept thinking of things I needed form downstairs. Brads, white ribbon, no red ribbon, some stickles, etc... I felt like I went up and down the stairs 100 times. Well, the doctor said I should try to move a little more each day. I definitely got a work out yesterday. I would add photos of all the projects I did but they are going to be samples for upcoming Michaels Classes and i found out I can not post photos of class projects on my blog. Sorry everyone. This morning I was feeling ambitious enough to update my class calendar and demo schedule for the rest of November and December. Starting November 10 I am back on the Class Schedule for the Michaels in North Weymouth if anyone wants to sign up for classes. That reminds me... I heard sad news a few days ago. Dee, from the Crop Shop, Rockland, MA has decided to close her Scrapbooking store on Dec 16. It is so sad to hear of another scrapbooking store closing. The store in Hyannis closed over the summer after being there for over 10 years. Beverly closed Scrapbook Cupboard, E. Bridgewater, Ma just in the last 2 months and now Dee as well. At least she will continue to run her classes and crops. I wish her all the best in that endeavor. The only exclusive scrapbooking store I know of that is still in existence is Right At Home in Attleboro, MA. I am sure there are others out there but I have never been to any other stores besides these ones. It will be harder and harder for new scrappers to find classes with all these local businesses going away. Well, that brings me back to where I was...I updated my calendar and decided I wanted to get it on the store calendar right away. So, I placed a call with the Manager. He says "great! today is a good day to sit with Rita and go over things" I talk my husband into driving me over to the store, only to find Rita is the only cashier on, so she can't take time to sit down with me. I go to the back office to talk to "the Boss" only to find his regional boss is here and they are sitting behind closed doors on a conference call!!! Well, I called to see if today was a good day? Why didn't you tell me it WASN'T a good day.? So I got dressed, put makeup on dragged my husband out and pushed myself a little too much FOR NOTHING! Well, at least I dropped of samples at the store so they will not get misplaced here and I dropped off my November and December schedules. As, to whether I get put on the calendar or not? I guess I won't know until I can make another trip to the store. That will be a little difficult until I get the doctor's OK to start driving again. I did pick up some 3 x 6 tags so I can start working on more class samples. that will be my project for tomorrow.

Cake Decorating round Two

2011-10-27T12:53:00.003-04:00

I forget to mention, my daughter and I signed up for Cake Decorating classes again at Micheals. New store and new teacher this time. The Weymouth store where I am teaching. Their Wilton's teacher is great, her name is Kim and we signed up just because of her. The first class was just basics. We watched as Kim made frosting, and gave us tips about baking and frosting and then we did basic star on plain sugar cookies. This past weekend was class 2. This time we had to bring in our own homemade frosting and a cake to frost and decorate. We also had to level out cake, put in a filling, I used strawberry jam, while Kelly used a layer of frosting, we learned how to dam the filling so it would not leak out. And then how to make it look all nice and smooth like they do at the stores when you buy cakes. I would have never guessed what the secret for this is. Sorry, you will have to take Kim's class to learn her secret tip on this one. As far as the design for the top, Kim said we could copy a design in our books or bring in a coloring book photo to copy. Kelly decided to make Dori from "Finding Nemo". Here is her cake. Didn't it come out awesome?!!

And for Halloween, I decided to try a Spiderweb with a Spider sitting on top made from a rice crispie treat, some frosting and black licorice legs. I copied the idea from a cake decorating blog "My Cake School". I should have used a different gel pen (I used pink and the pink shows under the black webbing) Oh well, this is how we learn.

This weekend is class 3. We are to bring 6 cupcakes and whatever filling we want to put inside of them. Kelly wants to bring chocolate pudding. I am not sure how this will hold up, but she will give it a try. I was not planning on going due to my surgery recovery but I am feeling pretty good today and class is still 2 more days away, so I may try to go after all if Dad is willing to be our driver for the day.

Post-Surgery

2011-10-27T12:28:00.000-04:00

It has been three days now since my surgery and I have to admit, I am feeling better then I thought I would be. I do have trouble getting up and down but once I am up and moving I feel like myself. Unfortunately, It doesn't last too long before I have to sit and rest but all signs are good that this will be a speedy recovery. It is killing me that I can't go sit in my scraproom and play. I just handle handle sitting in my desk chair, yet. I did go downstairs today to see how much of a mess my room was in. I was on a Halloween Frenzy before my surgery. I was making goodies for everyone, my co-workers, the office staff, my Michaels' students, the nurses at the hospital, etc.... when I get on a creative frenzy my workspace tends to pay the price. I seem to work best in disaster areas. The room wasn't as bad as expected. There is clutter everywhere but not too much that i can't start working on projects again as soon as I am up to it.

This is my room all sparkly clean.

This is what it looked like this morning.

This is the clean version, again

this is all the clutter i have to deal with on the floor and countertops.

This is the other side of my room with everything put away in its proper place.

Here is the disaster area with everything piled high on the counters and bags all over the floor. I can push the clutter to the side for a while, I guess. It will get cleaned up at some point.

More halloween treats

2011-10-27T12:11:00.000-04:00

These are little tissue packages for the girls in the office at the school i work at. The front and back are decorated for halloween. The little travel size packs of tissues fit in perfectly.

Halloween Treats

2011-10-15T14:57:00.003-04:00

I have that nervous enery going. My surgery is 9 days away. So I am getting into "Busy-mode" to try not to think about it.

Today I played with some more of the Halloween goodies I have been picking up at Michaels.

I made some Gum package treats for my co-workers.

These were made using K and Company Halloween embellishments and Halloween mat pad, DCWV Midnight Spell cardstock, and some of the $1 Michaels's halloween stamps and Martha Stewart tape ribbon.

This is a close up of one with a Michaels $1 stamp. I added some shadowing around the skeleton using Copics W1 and BV01

Showing how the package of gum slides out.

And all four with the different packages of gum you can use.

Hope you like these. I am going to start working on some Christmas treats soon.

Pre-op today.

2011-10-03T11:36:00.002-04:00

Well, I had my pre-op appointment today. I got a lot of questions answered and feel much better about my upcoming surgery.

The big day is Monday, October 24. I have to be at Brigham & Womans by 6 am and surgery should last 3 1/2 hours. But, if all goes well I will be home the same day and back to my normal routine in 2 to 3 weeks.

I feel bad that this is interferring with so many other things going on right now. We will be in the middle of my son's football season so I will be missing 2 - 3 games. I have to reschedule classes I was planning on teaching at Michaels. Luckily no one had signed up for these classes so this was not a bad thing. I just moved some classes up to before my surgery.

I will have to have a sub fill in for me at my pre-school job. Hopefully, how ever is filling my role for this time will get along with my one-on-one student.

On a brighter note. My wieght loss is going better then expected. I am up to 20 lbs lost now. Yes!!! Still have a long way to go but this is a great start.

This past weekend I was hired to put together wedding favors and other items for an upcoming wedding. I was a little stressed over this. I had 5 days to make 105 favor tags, 70 hand-written place cards, 30 hand stamped and inked menu cards. But due to a cold I had yesterday and no ambition to leave the house, I got everything done in one day and the Bride-To-Be was thrilled with everything!!! She even asked if I could do a few more things, but considering her last day of work in the day after tomorrow and I have classes between now and then, I gracefully declined.

I have been playing with halloween and christmas stuff. If I could figure it out I would love to put a video on here of the little treat bags I have been making. I have no idea what I am going to do with them, but I think they are so darn cute.

More medical issues!!!

2011-09-21T16:51:00.003-04:00

Yikes, It feels like I finally get one problem solved and something else starts acting up. On the plus side, I have lost almost 16 lbs, but I have pain every single day. So my plus side has its sacrifices, too.

Yesterday was my 20th wedding anniversary. I got the joy of spending at the doctor's office getting another ultrasound done. That was fun.

On to more cheerful things....

I am LOVING my job at Michaels Arts % Crafts!!! I taught a class last night to two wonderful ladies that make me feel so great. I hope they are enjoying this four week class as much as I am.

I hosted a Crop Night last weekend, but only had one cropper, I am hoping more people will become aware of our $5.00 Crop days and start coming on a monthly basis.

The school year has started and the kids are back to their daily routines. Timm with football practice every day. Kelly is loving her teachers this year which makes it a great year for her.

Pick up her uniform for Culinary classes and I wanted to cry. My little girls looks like she is about 25 dressed in her uniform.

She wants to sign up for Cake decorating classes again at Michaels. They start in mid October. I will have to wait to see if I am going to be getting scheduled for surgery or not. Once my doctor ever decided to return my phone call.

A*muse Studio Cards

2011-08-15T08:15:00.005-04:00

These are all photos of cards I made at a class on Sunday. Yes, I still like to take classes, too. There is always room to learn something new.

Anyway, the class was held at a hotel in Nashua NH and the company hosting it was A-muse Studios. These are beautiful rubber stamps that were available in select card and scrapbook stores or at online stores.

The company has since changed that and now the only way you can get these are through home workshops very similiar to Stampin Up! or Close To My Heart. The owner, Linda Hartwich, was there and explained the change. With the economy as it is, there were so many small scrapbooking stores that carried her line of stamps but due to financial reasons have been forced to close their doors. Rather then making it more difficult for her customers to find stores still carrying her line of products she restructured her whole business so everyone can get them.

My first impression of the class was that it was a little pricy for the projects we made, but then, all of us attending the class received a free stamp set listing for $21.99 in the catalog so that made it well worth the drive. Plus we each recieved a full line catalog along with the winter catalog that is not even available, yet.

i just thought I would share with you this cute little cards.

Martha Stewart Card Classes

2011-08-13T20:03:00.010-04:00

I have been working on putting together samples for 2 Martha Stewart card classes I hope to teach at the Michael's stores in N. Weymouth and Braintree.
The first class is The Punch Around the Page class.

These cards are surprisingly easy to put together. There are enough supplies in the class kit to make these 6 cards. It took me about 40 minutes to assembly all 6 cards.

Here are close ups of the cards.

These 2 cards are Project 1. This first project gets you familiar with the whole process of how these punches work together.

Project 2 has two cards, as well. These show you a second option using these punches. And yes, I just realized I posted these two cards upside down. I will have to go back and fix that. (sorry)

Project 3 teached you how to get a mirror image of the punch.

And Project 4 shows you a neat little trick with using a corner punch on cards.

The next class is the Martha Stewart Glittering Techniques Card Class

This class is a more time intense class but the results are beautiful

Again, I added close up photos of these cards:

Project 1 - Learning the basic steps of adding glitter to an embellishment.

Project 2 other ways of adding glitter to your projects.

Project 3 - Getting into the little detail work of how to position different colors of glitter.

And Project 4 teached you how to gradually change to the color of your glitter on a project. 9 yes, I know, another upside down card. They show the correct way when I save then, then somewhere along the line they flip. I will figure it out. sorry, again)

So these are just 2 classes I am working on. The cost of these classes are $10 plus the supplies. Each class kit is sold as a kit in the Martha Stewart aisle. I used a 40% coupon to purchase the kits. so use your coupons ladies if you would like to take these classes.
While you are Michaels please let them know you are interested in these classes.

Along with the kits you also need a basic class kit of supplies. If you make cards or scrapbooks you more then likely have these things already.

Basic Class Tool Kit: ( ) items are my recommendations you do not need these brands, simply what I like to use on my own projects.
12 inch paper trimmer (Fiskar)
Scissors (EK Success Cutter Bees non-stick)
Dry Adhesive (Tombow permanent tape runner)
Liquid Adhesive (Beacon 3 in 1)
black Journaling Pen

for the glitter class i also recommend 2 paper plates, a couple of paper towels and some scrap paper, notebook or computer paper is fine.

This is going to be a Great Week!

2011-08-08T11:36:00.004-04:00

I did my Demo at Michael's yesterday. I really enjoyed it. The store felt like 120 degrees and I was probably dripping wet from the heat but I met some wonderful ladies and got to share a little of what I LOVE!!

I was scheduled to do a 2 hour demo on the features of the Cricut Expression machine. Shortly after arriving, way before the store even opened, I found the brand new machine the store had for my demo was defective. It had power and all the featured seemed to work but the little screen did not work. This made it impossible to use for a demo. The screen is what shows all the features the machine can do. So after some scrambling and maybe a little begging, I was giving a brand new exclusive pink edition of the Cricut Expression. I was so excited. Not only is this machine my favorite color!!! PINK, but, it also comes with an extra cartridge (3 in all) that cannot be purchased any other way, other then with this machine.

My demo was scheduled from 11:00 am - 1 pm. We had a ribbon Cutting Ceremony at 9:45, the doors opened at 10 and by 10:05 I had already sold the first Cricut machine. The store only had 3 personal cricut machines in stock but all 3 were sold out within 30 minutes of the store opening it's doors. WOW!!! But it was an amazing deal. The personal cricut that has a retail value of $199 was on sale for $49.00. Even on a Black Friday deals I have never seen this sold for less then $79.00

Anyway, I had people in front of my booth from the time the doors opened until about 1:00 when the prize wheel was started at the back of the store. Congrats to the ladies that won some incredible prizes. I had a few more customers for the next hour and then decided to clean up my booth.

Next on my schedule I will be doing a demo on the Martha Stewart Punch Around The Page punches. This will be Tuesday evening from 4 - 7 pm. I have been playing around with my punches to put some samples together for this.

Wednesday, August 10 from 4 - 7 pm I will be doing a demo using Bazzill cardstock. This is by far the best quality cardstock on the market and I am thrilled that Michaels carries it.

August 25th from 4 - 8 PM is Crop Night. Only $5 for 4 hours of uninterrupted scrapping. Oh, life is good! There are still a few spots left for this so get on over to the store and book your spot. If you want to call and confirm space is still there call. 781-335-0456

I will be siting with the Manager some time over the next few days to schedule classes and I will post them here as soon as I know.

Instructor for Michael's in Weymouth

2011-08-06T20:53:00.002-04:00

Good day today. As I was writing in my daily planner I noticed the date. August 6, the new Michael's should be open today. i photo copied my scrapping certificates along with my Michaels' pay stub from last summer and went to check out the new store with hopes of getting a job. I walked in and looked around. The store is Beautiful!! The class room in to die for! So I asked a clerk if they were offering scrapbook classes. She wnt to check and said they will be but not yet. I then asked if they had a teacher, she said not yet. That was what I was hoping for. I asked to talk to the Manager. I told him i would love to teach for them. He asked if I was SDU certified, and I was glad to say "Yes. He stopped talking midstream and said "follow me" He pulled up my info on his computer and said "You are hired! Can you start tomorrow?"

I report to my new job at 9 am in the morning. I am so excited.

I have decided to change my blog to be class oriented. I will post class information here along with any demos I put together.

So for anyone reading this blog tonight...

Michael's in Weymouth is having their Grand Opening tomorrow, August 7. There will be a ribbon Cutting ceremony at 9:45 am. the first 200 cumstomers will each receive a free tote bag. (one per family)

There will be free demos all day long. The Crciut Expression demo is from 11:00 - 1:00 PM. This is what I will be demonstrating. And get this...The first five people that sign up for my Crop and pay for it while in the store will get a FREE Fiskar Paper Trimmer!!!

The crop is scheduled for Thursday, August 25 from 4 pm to 8 pm.

I will also be doing demos on Tuesday and Wednesday evening as well from 4 - 7 PM. Tuesday evening with the the Martha Steward Punches and Wednesday will be Bazzill Card Making.

Hope you can make it to the Grand Opening. If not contact the store for upcoming Scrapbooking classes and/or Crops.

Michaels is located at 729 Bridge St. This is the plaza where Lowes and Staples are located. the phone number is 781-335-0456

Smash Books coming soon

2011-05-18T14:23:00.003-04:00

EK Success has come out with an awesome new kind of Art Journal/scrapbook. It is called a Smash Journal and they should be available for purchase starting May 20th. Only 2 days away.
Go to http:/APageinTime.memory-works.com and search for products under K & Company

Scrapping Challenge

2011-05-03T22:07:00.008-04:00

I over did it a little this month...

I signed up for May 2011 LOAD by ScrapHappy.com (a layout every day of the month)

Spring Training by Elle Publishing

A two week organizing class by Simple Scrapping

A weekly challenge with my sister. A Mother's Legacy, A hallmark journal I purchased and each week present another page of questions we have to scrap/art journal about.

3 All Day Crops - A Page in Time, May 7th, 10 am - 5 pm
Michael's Crafts Crop, May 14th, 9 am - 9 pm
Cyber Crop by Creative Memories and Big Picture Classes
on May 7th from 9 am - 9 pm.

Somewhere along the line I also have to go to 9 of my son's baseball games, 8 of my daughter's softball games, 4 Dentist/Doctor appts, 1 Birthday, and who knows how many practices I will be dropping off and picking up from.

This is going to be a busy month.

Oh, am I supposed to be cooking, packing daily lunches, housework, feeding the dog, taking showers, going to work, typing up my husband's business proposals and invoices, etc..?

Lets see how this month plays out.

Though, I have to admit, I am excited at how it is starting.

Day three into the LOAD challenge and today I found out I won for Day Two's challenge. And I really struggled with what I was going to scrap about. The challenge was Contrast.

Huh? I never thought about contrast in a layout, so I had some photos from last fall of my son's football team lying near my scanner. I took my favorite and blew it up, cropped the other two photos down some, added some little scraps of paper, a sheet of background paper, finish. And shockingly, I won!

For Day One, the challenge was Keep It Simple. This was a big relief for me. I have been looking at a photo of Kevin and I for weeks. I loved the photo. It was taken last October on a Cruise ship. It was a big 8 x 10 photo that I really wanted to scrap, but I had no clue how to embellish it. For this challenge, I simply painted some white gesso paint on some heavy green backgroud paper, added a sticker title I bought out of the clearance bin at Michael's and hand wrote a little journaling. Done! And I really like the results.

Day three, I thought was even more difficult. Emphasis! How do I do this. I went flipping through some old layouts. Many of my old layouts use 4x6 photos and have no journaling on them. I saw these photos the day my son got his arm casted and immediately remember the story that went with them, but I never wrote the story on the original layout. It was a plain piece of 12 x 12 green cardstock with three photos mounted on more green paper and some Jolee stickers. So, I tore the photos off the old layout. Found some new cardstock and background paper that I thought went well,and typed up the conversation I remember my son and I haveing. It was too small, typed at again even larger, still too small. Emphasis...Typed it up a third time really big, Yes, this is what I want. Added our conversation to the page. Done.

I am looking forward to tomorrow's challenge.

Cake Decorating

2011-04-17T09:06:00.003-04:00

I am back tracking. This post should have been typed up Monday April 11. I wrote it up but didn't get to post it until this morning.

My daughter and I decided to take a Cake Decorating Class at our local Micheal's Craft store. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! Cooking has never been a talent of mine. I have been married nearly 20 years and this is still something that just does not come easy to me. I try and I try, but my family has just come to terms that I burn everything I cook.

My children will actually cheer when I choose not to cook and order a pizza instead. Obviously if I can't cook, I do not even attempt to try baking.

But... my daughter took a baking class at school and really enjoyed it. I offered to sign her up for an evening cake decorating class. Since she is only 14, I had to sign up, too.

So our first class is tonight. We got our instruction booklets on Friday. I thought we could make a boxed cake mix and bring store bought frosting. No way! The boxed cake mix was fine, but we have to make our own frosting from scratch. The recipe is in the booklet. I was told it is a very simple recipe. I have never made frosting in my life! Then not only do we have to make this recipe from scratch, but we have to double it and since two of us are going, we have to double it twice. So now I am doing chemistry and math along with cooking. Yikes!

Of course, the non-baker that I am, I did not have any of the ingredients, so off to the store to buy everything. I got home, mixed the ingredients EXACTLY word for word, measurement by measurement as the book instructed. I ended up with the largest batter of sweet cement you could ever imagine! My mixer motor was burning up just trying to turn this stuff in the bowl. This was not turning into a good day.

First order of business, My darling husband fixed me a tall Margarita, then I texted the only baking friend I could think of that actually does make all her own frosting. She texted back "Relax, just add a little more milk." This seemed to work. The batter definately looks creamier now. I think I am OK. Tim, My loving 16 year old teen tasted it and in that loving caring way only a teen can say it, told me "This tastes like Crap!" Great! What do I do now. I added some more vanilla extract and that seemed to make it taste a litle better.

Whew! The cakes are all baked and came out fine. The frosting is in the fridge and ready for class. Now I can relax a little. I start reading my class book to see what else we need to bring...

You have got to be kidding me! The frosting I just stressed over is the wrong thickness! Half of our frosting should be thin for the cakes themselves, and the other half should be medium for the decorating.

Time for another Margarita!

So now I dump half the frosting back into my freshly washed sparkling clean mixer, again. Add a little milk until I think it is "Medium". Believe me, if you are not a baker you have no idea what Medium means, I know I have no clue. I added too much milk, so now I have my "thin" frosting. I have one shot left to get the rest correct. It is a little on the thin side but I am going with it.

This whole Cake Decorating was supposed to be fun. I am already thinking...my frosting will be the worst in class and I'll get kicked out of Cake Decorating for Beginners. Alright, maybe that is a little extreme but somewhere along the line I have lost a gene or two I should have been born with. Women are supposed to be born with Motherly instincts, this I do have, but I thought they should also know how to do simple things like cook food for their families and whip up a batch of frosting when the occasion called for it.

Tonight we shall see. The class starts in about an hour. Maybe if I take a shower, dress nice, put on some makeup, no one will notice my awful, tastes-like-crap, too thin to frost, frosting.

Tuesday - Arpil 12

All that stress for nothing. The class was actually fun, though I missed the part that we were supposed to already have our frosting colored and in their frosting bags, ready to go. After spending the first 30 minutes of class getting caught up, we actually enjoyed the class. Of course my daughter's cake actually looked like the design she was going for. She had to go over the top and add all these extra swirls and dots and swiggles just to rub it in a little that she did get that gene that passed me by.

Next week we need to bring cupcakes and MORE frosting.

April Vacation Yah!!

2011-04-16T22:03:00.004-04:00

We are off for April vacation. Thank goodness. I so need a break. I am not expecting this week to be too relaxing, though. Both kids have practices and games for baseball and softball. Tim starts his new job this week, so I am sure I will be getting up early to drive him to the train station. The bus stop is 2 houses away but why take this bus when he can guilt his mom into driving him.

Kelly and I have our next Cake Decorating class this Monday. That is a whole blog post in itself.

Celtics are in the play-offs so we will probably get tickets for at least one of the home games.

I was hoping to take a trip out to Six Flags but our schedule is closing in on us.

I have been putting page kits together hoping to get in some scrapping time this week.

Last weekend I did an online scrapping retreat. TRUE SCRAP. It was excellent and I didn't have to pay for a hotel room or meals. I even got to take a could classes still in my pajamas. There were 12 classes in all and a few make and takes, I still have not tried the make and takes yet.

All the classes were very well done, but I think the one I got the most from was a class called Stash Diving by Shimelle (sorry, I forget her last name) Her main emphasis was to stop saving your favorite paper for that elusive lay-out idea that may NEVER come. Use your paper when you buy it. You loved it enough to spend your hard earned money on it, so use it! I have done that some thing so many times, not only with really cool paper but those expensive Jolee 3D stickers. I love them, buy them then don't want to waste them because of what I spent on them so they sit on my Clip-It-Up for years and just look pretty.

Since taking this class, I have been doing just as she suggest. Putting kits together and cutting up my paper! Yes, before I even have a photo selected to go on the paper, I am cutting all my new paper up, matching it with cardstock and putting it aside until I pull out some photos and scrap them. Just today alone I had to have made about 30 kits ready for photos and journaling.

So in between my taxi service this coming week I may get more pages done towards my 2011 challenge of a page a day.

I hope everyone else that is off this week gets to enjoy their time with their kids and even by themselves, if they prefer.

Happy Scrapping!

11 Days and Counting

2011-03-17T08:07:00.003-04:00

I still have the Respiratory infection, but I am finally breathing a little easier. I went and saw a different Doctor this week and he didn't say the other Doctor was wrong in her diagnosis, but this Doctor has Asthma, as well, and knew exactly how I was felling. He said I would not get better until I got on steriods. So I have been taken pills like every 2 hours but can honestly say I am starting to feel a difference.

The worst part about breathing problems is even though I am home I am useless. I can't do ANYTHING without aggravating my breathing, so I sit and read or watch movies.

That gets really boring by day 11!

Last night I was feeling up to a little project. My daughter's history class is discussing ancient architecture, specifically old Cathedrals. For a project she has to make a poster board with questions and answers. I cut out this Stain Glass Window for her board. It was tedious as I had to figure out how to cut out the transparencies for the colored glass but I am happy with the finished results. I cut it using Make The Cut software. She still has to do the whole rest of her poster board but this little extra should help.

I think my son was a little upset that I was helping her with her project. I tried to explain the difference. My daughter gets a project with a three week window to complete. She tells me about it right away, She is excited to have a project to do, she jumps right into doing the research on it, she like to get it finished early, maybe score some extra credit, and be done with it.

My son can have the same window of time, he will never mention the project to myself or his father, then wait three weeks and start it at 10 pm the night before it is due and wonders why I can't help him at that point?

This makes me think, I should find out if he does have any projects coming up. I'll have to ask him.

So Much For The Flu

2011-03-10T16:07:00.002-05:00

I gave in to my hubby's request and went to the Doctor's. It's not the flu, I have a respitory infection along with a bladder infection. I am on temperature watch. If it hits 101 call the doctor but otherwise stay home, take antibiotics, excelerate my asthma medicine dosages and drink lots of fluids. So to read between the lines is, I feel too crappy to lay in bed, laying flat makes my breathing worse. But I don't have the energy to scrap either and my workshop feels too cold anyway.

So I am bumbling around the house feeling awful. I have been sick for 4 days now and it shows. The house looks like the seven dwarfs have been staying here. Hubby and the kids tend to leave things were they fall. I tried to straighten up a little, then I can't breath. So I watch movies. I just watched Namesake. This was very good. A grown man learned about his Indian background and culture. I know I watched others but its a blur now. I don't even remember what I watched. I did see an old Alfred Hitchcock movie this morning about a woman that kept moving around and robbing from big corporations but I fell asleep and missed the ending.

Well, that is about it for my boring day.

recent layouts

2011-03-09T12:51:00.003-05:00

These are the layouts I done since Saturday. As you can see I jump around to different years, themes, whatever Ifeel like working on.

This was a monthly kit from Basic Gray. My daughter and I went to see Mary Poppins in Boston over February vacation. The play was incredible!!!

This layout was put together using older supplies from my scrap room. This and the next layout were of photos from a cruise back in 2009 my hubby and I took without the kids. It was great and we are so overdue for another one of these.

While on the cruise we were picked to be on a game show. Love and Marriage, think The Newlyweds, It was very embarrassing with the questions we asked but we won!

This layout was a kit by Out On A Limb Scrapbooking. I order from them all the time. The best quality page kits and the lowest prices.

This layout was of snorkling photos of my daughter on a Disney Cruise. At the time my daughter wasn't 4 or 5, she was nine years old and already almost as tall as I am. She did great all the way out until we saw a large submarine submerged at the bottom. She was so done with snorkeling. She was afraid a shark or something would swim out of it. She climbed up onto my back and had me swim her all the way back to shore.

Another Out On A Limb Scrapbooking kit. This was a scrapping retreat from January of this year. The most pages I ever completed in one weekend - 49 pages. I think that is a record for me.

Home sick with the Flu

2011-03-09T12:41:00.002-05:00

Well, Kevin had it to start with and was nice enough to share. Now I am home sick with the flu. Can only lay in bed for so long when my asthma kicks up and have to sit up again for a while.

This makes for guilt free scrapping time, though. I finished 4 pages in between fits of coughing.

Now it's time to head to the Doctor's office to see if there is anything else I can take to help my breathing.

I am so tired of being sick this year. Enough Already!! I am healthy and happy, I am healthy and happy. I love my life. Now to repeat that about 100 times.