Croptoberfest!

I'm not going to

write this whole post in haiku.

It would take too long.

So, I'm back from Croptoberfest, and what a fun time it was! It took less than two hours to drive to Fort Wayne (hint: do not take SR 32 to exit 19, even if it looks like it is more direct)

so I was only a little late. We had the whole day to crop at the huge tables in the back of Luv2Scrapbook, plus tons of food, free goodies, and more! I got a lot done - 2 double-page spreads and 4 or 5 single-page layouts - but I probably would have gotten MORE done if I wasn't having such a good time chatting!

I finally got to see some of the ladies I've known on the message boards for almost 2 years. I'm thrilled that they came into the store because they knew I'd be there! This adorable lady is Sue, a.k.a. Tinkie - I recognized her right away by her Tinkerbell hat and jacket! Her very patient husband entertained himself while we discussed the merits of DCWV cardstock. Gotta love the white core!

And here you see me displaying my usual sense of dignity, along with Mary, one of the ladies who was at my table. We got prizes by completing various challenges, some of which were scrap related, some weren't. This one obviously wasn't.

Since it was a Western theme, one of the challenges was to ride a stick horse around the entire store. It's a lot less embarrassing if you have someone else to do it with you!

Carrie from the Luv2 message came into the store and I got
to meet her too. Dang it! I totally forgot to get a picture! But I did get to see her adorable KI tin calendar project before practically everyone else in the world, and it is adorable!

The fabulous chick in the orange turtleneck is OrangeKrsssh, aka. Susan. I've been dying to meet Susan at least since the Meijer layout, if not longer. We chatted about photos - I got to see themiraculously returned camera - and scrapbooking in general and Hall of Fame and Vegas and sparkly shoes. Took some pictures which she has already scrapbooked (I know, I'm impressed, too).

The last picture is me and Kristy - you can tell it was late in the evening, since I'd pulled my hair back - my friend from the Scrapbook Corner design team. Kristy moved to Ft. Wayne recently (but she still drives down for classes and design team meetings, which is truly impressive) so after joining in the second half of the crop, she not only graciously let me crash at her place, she even shipped her kids off to the grandparents! Kristy showed me all her stuff for the Crop for the Cure garage sale; she made up over a hundred little kits out of her scraps and I feel better now about the amount of paper I have! I got to sleep on Batman sheets, which I'm hoping will give me superhero-like scrapping ability (hey, I'm just covering all my bases here!) It was really nice to sleep over and not have to drive home that night.

But, it felt really good to come home this morning. I swear, the kids have actually gotten cuter.

And, by the way, the shirt? I've had a lot of people ask where I got it. Actually, I bought the T-shirt at Kohls and some iron-on letters at Hobby Lobby, and I did the rest myself. And if you know how much I hate ironing, you know that's a major sacrifice!

It's important to accessorize.

According to the calendar, it's another 5 days until Halloween.

Try telling that to my daughter.

We went to Target today and bought seven bags of candy which I am trying very hard to ignore. Also, I got the treat bags made for the kids. It took me about an hour (and yes Mom, we all know you would have had them done in five minutes) plus Betsy got some accessories made from the scraps. Check out her belt and her little hair tie. Anyway, she knew there was supposed to be a purse to complete the ensemble, so she came in the kitchen and was watching me sew. By the time I got to the last seam, she was so excited she was literally jumping up and down.

I'm glad that it's so easy to make this child happy.

Now we just have to hope it stops raining before Trunk or Treat tomorrow night.

I can't think of a witty title for this post.

I just realized it's been more than a week since my last post. Geez, where does the time go? Let's see... NCIS was a repeat this week, Betsy is still pooping in diapers, and I still haven't finished the baby doll coat. (I'm having to hand sew all that *&^$%& bias tape, which is a particularly grueling and thankless task.) I did go to Joann's yesterday and pick up some Halloween print fabric for 99 cents a yard. I'm going to sew some treat bags for the kids, since they'll fit more easily into storage than the old school plastic pumpkins. (Not that I don't love the pumpkins, mind you.) I'll need to get those done before Trunk or Treat tomorrow night, but I think they'll be easy. I'm using a 12x12 square of chipboard as a pattern... quick and easy, I hope.

I also went to Old Navy yesterday. I got this really cute pair of black crocheted espadrilles for, you guessed it, 97 cents.

On Saturday, I'm heading up to Fort Wayne for Croptoberfest, a massive all-day crop at Luv2Scrapbook. I've been haunting their message board for almost two years, but I've never been there before. Of course, most of my MB buddies won't be there, since they all went to the Anniversary Crop in May, which was shortly before Porter stopped nursing, the little ingrate. But still, I think it will be wicked fun, and I hope to get a lot done on my Hall of Fame entry. As of now I have all of my assignment pages planned, EXCEPT for the 'Original technique' one, though I'm guessing I'm not alone on that, lol! Anyway, I'm staying overnight at a friend's house in Fort Wayne, which will be my first time away from the kids since... hmmm... Time Out for Women, back when I was (barely) pregnant with Porter. (Speaking of which, TOFW will be in Indy in September /07! Way cool!) And as much as I love the little boogers, I really can't wait to get away from them fro a little while.

Self-portrait time

The Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contest rules state that all photography must be your own original work. I want to include some pictures of myself in my HOF entry... thank goodness for the self timer on my camera! These are my favorite two...




The first one is for Assignment C, 'Journal Your Passion.' As much as I love to scrapbook, I have loved to read for MUCH longer. I had to balance the camera on the arm of the sofa! I used Picasa to de-saturate the colors a bit, and I'll probably crop it down a lot before including it in the actual layout. (I have a larger one for the focal point which I took of my bookshelf. It sounds lame, but it actually turned out quite cool.)

The second one is for Assignment H 'Your Scrap Space.' Yep, that's my happy kitchen island. It's not the kind of scraproom you see inmagazines, but it seems to be working for me. And it sure beats living in the apartment, when I had to cram all of my supplies (and myself, if I wanted to get anything done) onto that little stair landing.

It's official: I'm hooked.

I'm beginning to understand why Mom likes sewing so much.

Bolstered by what could conceivably be termed successes with the Crooked Curtains and the Hammer Pants, I got this brilliant idea that my little machine and I could make a doll dress for Betsy's birthday. I picked up the fabric last weekend - on the theory that it would take me weeks to finish the darn thing - a sweet vintage-style fabric to go with Simplicity 4707, a pattern of vintage baby doll clothes.

Much to my surprise, I actually got it done. All it took was 3 afternoons of neglecting the kids, I mean letting them entertain themselves, while I sewed. I ended up hand-sewing the rickrack, due to my terminal inability to sew in a straight line, which didn't take as long as you'd think (although it would have gone faster if I hadn't been simultaneously watching NCIS videos on YouTube). The collar was supposed to have rickrack along the bottom edge, positioned such that only the points are visible, an idea that I discarded after having a good hearty laugh about it. I still want to put some sort of embellishment on the collar, if for no other reason than to obscure the fact that one side is quite a bit pointier than the other. (And yes, I know that it's a Peter Pan collar and they're not supposed to be pointy at all. Shut up.)

I also made a little pair of panties for underneath - remind me next time, leave the casings for elastic a bit bigger - and made significant inroads into the little red coat I optimistically also thought I was skilled enough to make. Actually, the coat should be easier - no gathers - if all that bias tape doesn't slay me dead in my tracks.

The really hard part is going to be putting it away and saving it for the Bets' birthday, which is two months away.

Speaking of which... Happy Friday the 13th! I know a lot of people consider it bad luck, but I never could... I became a mama on a Friday the 13th!

Publication!

Yep, it's finally here. My very first published scrapbook layout appears on page 138 of the November/December 'Simple Scrapbooks.' I picked up a copy at Michaels on the way home from the Children's Museum, and I couldn't stop staring at my layout the whole time I was in line to buy it. What a huge thrill!

In case you can't squint to read the blurb (I have a blurb! Me!) this is what it says: "As Joni knows, never underestimate the power of a good hairdresser. And it sure doesn't hurt if that hairdresser is your little sister! This page was the result of a must-scrap self-portrait and a happy marriage between the color of Joni's sweater and some gorgeous Chatterbox paper."

So, kudos to Em for all the free haircuts! (Speaking of which, Mrs. B., don't forget to bring the scissors when you come next month...) They have a very good blurb writer at Simple Scrapbooks: they managed to cram in a nod to my sister, my own photo credit (I really did take that photo with the self-timer, and if you think it looks good, you should see the 56 others that I didn't scrap) and of course a tribute to my favorite papers of all time... Chatterbox!

So, I figured I was going to be a one-pub wonder (which I was okay with) but continued to submit my pages. Lo and behold, I got an email from Scrapbook Trends requesting my 'Rough Life' layout for their Baby column! And when I was done squealing and calling Matt, I checked my email again and they wanted ANOTHER layout as well... 'Doesn't Everyone' for the Simple Things call! WOW!! I never thought I would actually see my work appear TWICE in the same magazine... So I will be mailing those two layouts off tomorrow. My album will have a lot of gaps until I get 'I Feel Pretty' back from SS!

Patio pictures

Mom wanted to see some pictures of the new patio. So here you go... the patio is in there somewhere behind the kids... if you squint.

It was nice tonight so we ate outside again. I made what was originally intended as chili, but I didn't have any ground hamburger, so I used chicken breast, and I didn't have any tomato sauce, so I just used 2 cans of tomatoes, but it was really soupy, so I used smashed up tortilla chips to soak up the juice... So I guess what I made is Chicken Tortilla Soup.

I wore one of my new linen skirts to church today. Did I mention that I went back to Old Navy, and got two long, bias-cut linen skirts for 97 cents each??!! Yeah, it's a sickness. One is white, so I can't wear it for a while, but the other is a sort of plummy-raspberry color, so I wore it with my white Wal-Mart blouse and looked very hip. Man, I love the 97-cent stuff.

Scrapping again

Two things I pretty much never do: I don't scrap photos that are more than 1 year old, and I never buy Basic Grey! I've actually broken both of those barriers this time around. This is a photo that Julie Blasini took when Porter was a baby, that I somehow missed the first time around. And the papers are from BG's new LilyKate collection, which I actually really like. I think they worked well for the mood I was trying to convey.

I got 7 new papers today and it was mostly brands I don't usually use: K & Company, Fontwerks, 3 Bugs in a Rug, and the aforementioned Basic Grey. Plus Chatterbox. I think I need to stop buying patterned papers for a while! They're just so pretty... I'm starting to understand why my mom has such a stash of fabrics! (Speaking of which, Mom, I also got the fabric for Betsy's baby doll dress today, and it is gorgeous.)

It was a really nice day today, so we had dinner (taco salad) out on the patio. It's funny, our sad little patio table looks really small on the new patio, which is quite a bit larger than the deck on our old house! Which is good - we will have plenty of room when we get around to buying a nice set of outdoor furniture.

Feeling fall

On Wednesday, the weather was really gorgeous. We spent most of the day out on our new patio - Betsy amused herself with the pile of sand that was left over from its construction. I gave her one of our brooms to play with, because hey, it's never too early to learn right? The temperature dropped thirty degrees overnight, so I guess summer is really over and it's fall now. Time to get out the long sleeved shirts and the sweaters and the extra blankets for all the beds.

I'm having some women from church over tonight, which means I have a long fun day of cleaning ahead of me. (Especially with all the sand that's been tracked into my kitchen.) Last night, I made - or tried to make, anyway - a Pumpkin Cake Roll but the cake sorta collapsed, so I ended up having to glue it back together with cream cheese frosting and hope no one will judge me. ;-)

Porter's arm seems to be doing fine, thank goodness.