Acrylic class, Flat Milli, and a weather rant

Heather and I have been talking about an acrylic album class at AMR. I am pretty excited about this, for a couple of reasons... First, I love helping corrupt.. I mean.. teach others about playing with acrylic albums! I love being able to promote the Clear Scraps albums, which are truly my favorite. Great designs, smooth edges, easy to alter.. I liked them best before I was on the DT too. (LOL) Second, Heather does an awesome job about picking out the monthly kits, that I am excited to see what she suggests for this kit. The class will be in June, to allow time for me to come up with the original, and for people to pre-order the kit so they can have them prior to the class. I already know which album I'm going to use, but I'm not letting that out yet LOL You'll just have to wait til Heather ok's the previews for it!

Flat Milli arrived yesterday! She is pretty cute, and has a little flower in her hair. We were going to go to town today, but DS wasn't feeling well, so we ended up not going. Tomorrow I will take her to work with me and take a few pictures there... and Tuesday is errand day.


And now for the rant. Who the heck decided it was ok to make the temperature so darned cold?? My redbuds are blooming, as are the fruit trees... I will be so upset if we end up with no fruit again this year because of the stupid weather. At least is didn't rain today.. I can't believe how high the river is. They said on the news tonight that had to put the last two floodgates in at Hannibal to keep downtown from flooding. The little island under the bridge I drive over to get to work every day is essentially gone.. the only thing visible are the trees. I was so sad the other day to see a momma goose on there with a nest.. because the water is not as high as it will get, and there is no way for her to move the eggs. This picture was taken out the window as I was driving over the bridge (took me three days to get a halfway decent one, as I just hold the camera up and snap a photo without looking!) Normally there is a good couple of feet of soil visible. Now, you can't even see the grass.

I won a RAK from Tim Holtz!

The coolest thing...

I check Tim's blog every day - I used to check it sporadically, but once he started his 12 tags of Christmas last December, I added it to my homepage tabs so I go there automatically. Along with posts about his travels and classes, techniques and projects, he often has things to give away. (CKU gave him permission to give away tuition to CKU Houston a few months ago!). I will usually post a comment on these days, but never have won anything... he typically has HUNDREDS of posts on these days.

Well, guess what?

I WON A RAK! woohoo!

Checked the blog tonight, new post about a free class that I can't go to because it is in California. Went to the next one with the winners.. started reading a comment.. gosh that sounds familiar... WAIT that's MY post! And that's MY NAME! WOOHOO I WON!!

LOL Of course this is just at the point my mom is calling me in for dinner (yep, my mom lives with me).

Me: I won! I won!

Mom: Won what?

DD: You won?? Yay! You won!! (she has no idea what, but she comes in and gives me a big hug anyway)

Mom: it's dinner time, come and eat.

So she wasn't too excited, but I sure am! Here is a picture of what i won, and a link to Tim's blog post.

http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/04/got-flowers.html

All Grown Up acrylic album

This album was made using the Clear Scraps arrow album. I wanted to do something a little different, so I turned two of the pages so the arrows pointed up. Made for a much more interesting effect. (and, as my son pointed out, makes the album something of a heart shape if you tilt is just right.)

Supplies used:
Arrow Album, heart shape - Clear Scraps
Patterned Papers, cardstock stickers, letter stickers - Basic Grey (Sugared)
Cardstock - Die Cuts with a View
Rubons - Heidi Grace, Making Memories, American Crafts, K&Co
Flowers - Prima, Heidi Grace
Punches - EK Success (heart, photo corner, buckle), Making Memories (circles)
Chipboard - Basic Grey (photo anchors), misc (brackets)
Brads - 7Gypsies
Ink - Tim Holtz (red), StazOn (black)
Pen - Zig Millenium
Paint - Tim Holtz Crackle Medium (Tattered Rose)
Ribbon - Offray
Metal rimmed tags - Scrappin' It
Rhinestones - Joann's
Cherish Stamp - Heidi Swapp
Tools - CropoDile
Adhesives - Hermafix Dotto, Zip Dry.

(The ribbon looks blue in the photos but it is actually white. i will get better pictures once I get the album back... it went to Des Moines with Janet and Jackie about 45 minutes after I was done making it! Some of the pictures look a little dark to me, so I hope they are ok on your screen!)

PUBLISHED!

I am SOOOO stinkin' excited!!! Janet sent me an email tonight, and it contained a sample from the Pinecone Press book that my EIEIO album was published in. I cannot WAIT to see the book in person.. hopefully I will be able to get one tomorrow!



More good news - I survived the first round of the survivor contest on AMR!!! WOOHOO! I am both please and amazed! The next challenge will be harder - Colors to use are teal, orange and tan (SOO not my colors!) and has to be about something tranquil. ooook... actually I think I know which pictures i want to use.. now I just have to com up with the papers and stuff...

I'll try to blog more tomorrow, there are so many exciting things going on...

AMR Crop

Last night we had an online crop at AMR. (AMR has one every month). Lots of great challenges, and we had Karla Dudley come as our guest designer. Very cool. I love Karla's work.

We were able to ask her questions, and mine was (of course) about acrylic albums. (Responses were copied and pasted directly from the board)

ME: Karla, have you ever done an acrylic album? If so, what is you favorite embellishment/papers to use with the acrylics?

KARLA:I have actually! And I know what you mean about it being a bit overwhelming. I did this one recently using CK's April Kit of the Month and adding my own acrylic pages...http://karlastudio5.typepad.com/karla/2 ... vecto.html ( just scroll down a bit And I started on this one but didn't finish it yet...http://karlastudio5.typepad.com/karla/2 ... -mood.htmlI hope to do that one sometime And so yeah...I just come up with a plan. Like how many pages I want and what I want on each one. I tend to make it very uniform with elements that repeat throughout the album. I like to have pictures, envelopes etc. in between the acrylic pieces. I never officially bought an album. I just go to a craft store like Hobby Lobby and pick up acrylic sheets. They come in 8.5 x 10 and bigger. They're easy to cut and punch through with a Crop-a-Dial. Love that stuff and it's CHEAP!!!!!! That's always good because you can mess up royally and not feel the least bit guilty about it!!!! LOL!!!!

O...and I LOVE LOVE rub-ons with them. PERFECT!!!! I also like to put pictures on one side and pics/pp on the other. Bling and pearls would be great too on the cover.

So then I posted three of mine (Rhi, Snow Day, and TKD), and she replied:

KARLA:
WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT???????? Those a AWESOME!!!!!!! Girl you need to be teaching classes!!!!! Absolutely stunning!!!!! And good for you on the DT gig! That's wonderful!!!!!!!! I love that winter one...so sparkly ^----^And I never thought about double sided paper ....duh!!!!

ME: ThanksI have a couple that I actually like even better, but they are getting published, so I can't post them

KARLA: Congratulations Girl that is freakin' cool!!!! I know you will do great things with those skills honey! Keep it up!!!!!!!


Very cool, in my book.

I'll make another post later that shows my challenge pages. I got 3 and 3/4 layouts done before the end of the crop, and finished 5 of the 7 challenges. Still need to finsh the 4th layout.

April Photo of the Day

Another challenge at AMR is the April Photo of the Day (POTD for short). I'm a little behind on posting them, but have been participating in this as well.

April 1 photo is my stickles and paint storage.

April 2 photo is Flat Scrappin Princess looking at my stickles collection.

April 3 photos - One is my desk when I was finished with the Survivor challenge LO. I am thinking about doing a desk photo everyday... might be interesting.

The other one is a photo of the flowerbuds on the lemon tree. Am thinking about taking those photos on a weekly basis to see how things change.

I Wish...

Started a new Challenge on the AMR board... We are playing a Survivor type challenge. Each week we will have a new challenge - some will get voted off - some will continue on to the next weeks challenge...

For more information, or to join the board and play - go to allmomentsremembered.com

The first challenge was to make a 12x12 page layout with either concert photos, your favorite band, or including the lyrics to a favorite song. It was particularly difficult for me because I have no concert photos, I have a lot of favorite bands, so it is hard to pick just one, and most of the songs I like, really don't make any sense if you just read the lyrics (TMBG anyone?).

I finally decided on the Rascal Flatts song "I Wish". I have wanted to make a mini-album with this song for some time, though I think at age 7, it isn't yet appropriate for my DD (seems more like a going to college/moving away/getting married type of album). But every time I hear it, it makes me think Rhi right after my dad's funeral... she had walked outside the cemetary and was sitting on the hill next to the fence, just staring off down the road. I don't know what she was wishing for..

I started the layout late at night, as I often do.. printed the lyrics on vellum. Matted the photo on cardstock. Chose the Basic Grey paper ( love love love Basic Grey ) and it just kind of took off from there. Made a few additions/changes during the process, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even if I don't move on with the contest, I am glad that I finally scrapped this photo (almost 2 years after it was taken).

The title was made by stamping on cardstock, cutting out, and distressing the edges with scissors. Each letter has small strips of foam tape on the back to make it pop up.. see the closeup photo for a better look.

The inking was done by inking up a foam paintbrush and then brushing it onto the papers and lace. I used StazOn ink (stamps the best on textured cardstock, IMO) which can be very bright in color, and I wanted it more muted. Worked very well.

Supply list:

Cardstock - DCWV

PP - Basic Grey

Ink - StazOn

Punches - EK Success

Stamps - Letters - Technique Tuesday

Stamps - Words - Will 'n' Way

Stamps - Flower - Inque Boutique

Lace - Wrights

Flowers - Prima

Font - 2Peas Bad Hair Day

Vellum - the Paper Studio

Pen - Zig Millenium

Chipboard

Jewels