A Taste Asia

I must have been in the mood for Lo Mein and Spring Rolls. This is another birthday card with a bit of an Asian look. The background is a dark chocolate brown cardstock with a wide red ribbon running along the left side. I used a credit card (the kind that comes in junk mail) and covered it with this gorgeous red Asian print. I have had this paper forever...it came from Memory Lane, which hasn't existed for a while. The ladies have moved on to other creative endeavors. The "Happy Birthday" is a strip of vellum run through a label maker, then matted with gold tissue paper.
I still have a few more birthday cards to create, I'll keep you posted.

Another OBLW:
I will be teaching a Heritage Scrapbook Workshop this Saturday the 19th of September - 3:30 to 5:30. Bring a project to work on and join us downstairs at Mystic Paper. You say you can't make it that day, but you really want to join in the fun...no problem...There will be another Workshop Friday the 25th of September -
4:30 to 6:30. Give Mystic Paper a call and sign up.

How to get Grandma out of the box

It is no secret that I have a fondness for old photos, family history, and genealogy. It is a wonderful journey to take vintage family photos, ephemera , stories and design an album that can be passed on to your children and grand children. Heritage albums can take on many different themes. Albums using faded family recipes, or long ago written poetry and pictures of the loved ones who wrote them. An album from a recent trip to where your family came from along with old photos of the ancestors that lived there. These are albums to be cherished for generations. If you have wondered what to do with all those old family photos and other bits and pieces that are still sitting in a box since the day you got them,
now is the time to get started. I am teaching a Heritage Scrapbook class at Mystic Paper.
We will start with a class on how to get organized, copying photos, what to do with ephemera and many more questions you may have. In the first class we will cover all your question. You will receive a note book full of information to get you started. This first class will be June 24th 3:30 to 5:30. You can sign up by calling Mystic Paper, or if you are in the neighborhood...drop by.
There will be follow-up workshops with coaching and advice to help you to move your Heritage album along. We will focus on building upon your ideas to draw out your creative genius. The first follow up class will be July 8th 3:30 to 5:30. Your can sign up for this class by contacting Mystic Paper. Get those photos out of the box and into an album you can show off to your family. Your album can be big or small, a whole family or just one person...haven't they lived in the box long enough?

Travels with my Aunt

I received a package in the mail from my Aunt Mary. She lives in Texas, and is my mother's older sister. Aunt Mary, mom and I have done some serious traveling together. The summer of 2007 we all met up together in London and had one adventure after another. We took tons of pictures, and made disks for each other. The package she sent me had the photo disks I had made for her of the pictures I had taken...which I intended for her to keep. Aunt Mary had also had copies made of all the photos on the disk and sent those too. Which only increased the guilt I have for the fact I haven't "scrapbooked" that trip yet. Yes I know it's was way back in 2007...I've been busy! It was fun to see the pictures again, maybe it will kick start me in to getting them in a book.
Aunt Mary knows I love old photos. In the package there were wonderful photos that had belonged to her friend Helen.
Apparently Helen was going to throw them out and Aunt Mary rescued them for me. These pictures are just too fun. I will have to come up with some clever project to use them on.

Working Title..."Summer Book"

I have taken a trip every summer for the last nine years ...big trips, sometimes more than one. The kind you really diet, scrimp, save, bring sack lunches to work, look up on the Internet all the wonderful things you are going to do, find it all on a map, kind of trip. When I come home I scrapbook them all. In fact trips are of my favorite things to scrapbook (next to my grand kids). Places like Scotland, Ireland, Shetland, England, San Francisco, New York, San Diego and last summer I even dipped my toe in Paris (which means it was a really quick trip). This summer there wasn't a trip. None, Zilch, Nada, Zip. Despite the fact British Airways taunted me with their fabulous "low" fares. This summer I had to use my imagination to run away from home.

Now I told you that story, to tell you this story...

I was helping my grandson open a toy he had gotten for his Birthday. I started complaining about the over packaging. Thick sheets of plastic acrylic, book board weight backing. There I was holding the pieces in my hand, getting ready to toss them in the recycle when the creativity began. I measure and cut until I had 2 pieces of acrylic and 2 pieces of backing the same size. They sat on my work bench for about a week waiting for me to get inspired.

While shredding the junk mail I came across some envelopes with large velum windows that were the same size as the acrylic and the backing. A design for making a book was coming together. The book would be my summer get away. I didn't design the pages in any kind of order. I only set two boundaries for myself. I had to use supplies I already had and the pages had to be about the summer of 2008.

As of today, this book still doesn't have an official title.

To be continued...

Winter Wonderland

Back to Mystic Paper and the Design Team. The "hopefuls" needed to submit one 12x12 layout and one project of our choice. I entered a very large ( 10 pounds, 5 inches thick, about 13x13 and over 20 pages) interactive family history album that took me nine months to design. And if I can ever figure out how to photograph the pages so they will show up on the blog I will post them. Until then...the 12x12 layout I entered was one of my granddaughter playing in the snow in my mother's back yard in Flagstaff. It was so cold out, I watched the grand kids from mom's dinning room window. I was able to take this picture through the glass by turning off the flash and using the zoom. The patterned paper is Basic Gray. I stitched a piece of sparkly organza to the page create the winter wonderland effect.