LOL

Jason posted this on twitter this afternoon....

April 3rd!

LOL Yeah, I know that today is not April 3rd.. but man oh man I can't wait until April 3rd.

Cropped all weekend at the Serendipity crop - that was awesome. Got a lot of challenges done, really happy with that.

Didn't get to bed until after 4am. Knew I had to get up early because somebody {rolling eyes} forgot to send off the electric bill and it had to be paid by today. So I was thinking what an awful day it was going to be - just enough sleep to not be able to get back to sleep, but not enough sleep to make it through work tonight. Oh, yeah, and it's snowing. Oh, yeah, and the transmission is STILL acting up. Oh, YEAH, and the electric company is 15 miles away. Joy.

So I get the car warmed up and get started on the road - for once, don't have a CD in the player.. and the first song I hear on Kick FM is Josh Thompson's Beer on the Table. I love this song. The first time I heard it {SAW it} was on GAC when they played the video. Was really happy when I started hearing it on the radio.  The song is funny, but oh so true.. Josh is a funny guy too - you can follow him on twitter @TheJoshThompson

Ok. Roads aren't quite as bad as I thought, and the next song on the radio is Blake Shelton's Hillbilly Bone - Funny song. The video is HILARIOUS. You can follow Blake on twitter too, but.. fair warning - he is a potty mouth. @blakeshelton.

Went in, paid the bill, got back out into the snow. Turn on the car. The first thing I hear is someone requesting "where I come from". The DJ says "You mean the Jason Michael Carroll song."  First of all, how cool that the DJ knows who he is, but what can I say - the radio stations around here play a LOT of Jason's songs. So they play Where I'm From. And after the song was over the DJ said "And Jason will be in Quincy on April 3rd for the Firefighter's benefit show...."

WHAAAAAT?? Quincy?! Like, 24 miles from my house WHERE I WORK Quincy?!

Yeah. Big grin on my face. Totally made my day.

So now y'all know why I can't wait til April 3rd. Definitely going to ask for that day off, just as soon as I get to work this evening.

{Oh, yeah, and don't forget y'all can follow Jason on twitter too @JMCOfficial }

CHA preorders @ Serendipity!!

From Kristen @ Serendipity!! 

Some of the NEW CHA WINTER products are now available to pre order in our store!! BG will be loaded tomorrow or Monday- Maya Road may follow when & if image occur.

Please review info on how to order PRE ORDERED items- Some will be in upcoming kits (it is posted on the main info page for the line)

OH DONT FORGET---- 15% off these pre orders with a code: Winterchagoodies This code must be redeemed in the code box at the VERY BOTTOM of the shopping cart.

Make sure you mention the discount and code info when posting!!! P.S if there is not enough of any product or line ordered then we will cancel and refund--- Hence sharing with as many people as possible SOO exciting

Psyko and Paul

This layout was done for the Punk Fashions challenge at the Project Runway Crop. I knew I had this photo - I was originally going to use it for a journaling challenge, but that didn' happen, and it was perfect for this challenge. Michelle was my best friend for junior and senior years of high school. I had transferred to a new school, and Michelle and I had some classes together. Since I was new, and she was a bit of a misfit, we because friends. Michelle's nickname was Psyko, and she gave me the nickname Jewlz. {I remember it clearly - we were in Mr. Kallenbach's Trigonometry class - and I told her Jules was too boring, and too boyish} We devised designs of interconnected letters for our nicks.. I still use mine sometimes.

We used to go out in her tan VW rabbit, and spend all night driving around {she's the only person I knew that would buy 62 cents worth of gas, because that's all she had - but it was unbelievable how far that car would go on 62 cents worth of gas!}. Sometimes we would play a chase game with other people.. mostly we just drove around and listened to music. She is the reason I got into a lot of the music I still listen to {the Cure, New Order, U2, Suicidal Tendencies, Jane's Addiction, Love and Rockets}.  She is also the reason I own pink combat boots, a leather coat, have tattoos and multiple pierced ears.. She wasn't really a bad influence, because we never got into trouble.. But she certainly helped me to be more of an individual, and not such a conformist.

We double dated for homecoming (she lent me an awesome black dress), we hung out at the mall,  we worked together at the movie theatre and the riding stables - we even got our first tattoos at the same time {my unicorn, hers a heart with bat wings}, . I suppose she thought I was a bit of a goody two shoes, or maybe she felt sorry for me, but we had a ton of fun anyway. LOL we're easy to find in the 500+ person senior class portrait - instead of looking at the camera, we are looking to the right. Why? Why not?

I lost touch with her many years ago, but I still think about her almost every day. She is one of the very few people from high school that I miss.

{and if you're wondering, Paul was one of a couple of boyfriends she had}

Project Runway Crop

.. is in full force for the weekend!!

Come and join us, and have some fun!!

{keep in mind, you will have to join the forums, but it is free!}

Hottie challenge

So... there was a crop at Scrap Sisters last weekend. While I was at work, Marilyn and Gay got into a friendly discussion about about could make the most layouts about there particular hottie.. and as a result the Rob vs. Gerard challenge was born. Not being on the boards at the time, I wasn't able to pipe up about mine {Mr. Carroll, of course}, and ended up being left out. At first I was a little depressed... even a little miffed, because I have posted more layouts about JMC there than have been posted about Mr. Butler and Mr. Pattison COMBINED. But, whatever.. not worth getting mad about - Gay's purpose for the challenge was to inspire mojo-deprived Marilyn to get scrappy for the weekend, and that worked very well.

I did, however, challenge myself to see how many JMC layouts I could get done during the crop - which started friday, with layouts to be posted by midnight PST on Wednesday. I had crop challenges for SSS, and also for the Scrap Attack Black Tie crop, and I was hoping to get a few done in between working. My car has been acting up though, and I ended up spending Thursday through Saturday night at work. Lovely. Luckily I planned ahead and had scrappy stuff with me.

I only use DCWV RockStar papers for the JMC album, and I keep the embellies I want to use {DCWV and others} stored separately, so it was easy to pack LOL.

A note on the photos: None of the photos used on the layouts were taken by me. About half of them were sent to me during the jasonmichaelcarroll.com Christmas card exchange, and most of the rest were posted by Jason on twitter. I also have a few that were posted by other Honky Tonk Friends {HTF's} on Twitter. I have tried to make a note of who sent what, but don't have that info for every photo right now, so I'll update the blogpost once I figure it out.

Here is what I managed to get done for the crops:

Scrap Sisters:

Erika's 2 page, multi-photo challenge

A Merry [JMC] Christmas

This layout uses most of the photos that had been made into Christmas cards. The black scallops have the names of the people that sent them {Jeff and Elizabeth Cockrell, Jean Walker, who is Jason's fan club president, and Cindi Tittle}{I didn't have a name on the other photo, and my daughter took them out of the envelopes and mixed them up, so I don't know who it is from.}

Chris's Bracket Sketch challenge

The sketch required the use of three bracket shapes. I had.. um.. chipboard.. LOL so I made my own. The grey piece I drew on the back, and cut freehand. The edge at the bottom was made by tracing the edge of a non-JMC paper onto the RS paper and cutting it by hand. The leather flower was part of  a belt I bought on clearance for the sole purpose of taking it apart and using it on pages {yeah, I'm weird like that!} The photo on the layout was taken by Jason.

My "use your stash" challenge

Everything used had to be at least 6 months old.  I chose that RS paper, because of the graffitti on the wall in the photo. Colored in the hearts and outlined the stars with Sakura gel and stardust pens.  The chipboard letters are from Lil' Davis, and the acrylic pieces are from Tim. The gem heart was picked up the the LSS before they closed. Photo was posted by Jason on Twitter. 

Marilyn's Christmas Goodies challenge

One of the hardest to do over the weekend LOL not because of the subject but because I left most of the Christmas goodies I had gotten at home. Luckily I found the rubon flourishes, which were sent to me by Jana from SSS.  I don't know who took the photos, but they were all taken by the same person and sent for the Christmas card exchange. The bits under the title are DCWV RS self adhesive ribbon {found at Big  Lots for $2 a package- I bought several!}

Abby's holiday challenge

Scrap any holiday photos that haven't been scrapped yet. We also needed to use something really old from our stash - which is the metal rim tag. I've had those forever. Jason posted these photos  on Twitter right after Halloween.

Scrap Attack Challenges

#7 - Use black or white cardstock for the background

Easy enough.. LOL. Music Man - This is one of my favorite pictures that Jason has posted. The guitar and stars were cut out, added stardust strings to the guitar. and the chipboard letters were sent by a secret santa.

#1 {Pre-Crop} Menu challenge

Pick things from a menu, and receive a list of what you have to use on a layout.

Here's my choices and list.. and then my layout.

Beverages -Martini - floral print
AppetizerBacon wrapped shrimp - flowers
Main Dish -Filet Mignon - 3 photos
Side Dish -Caesar salad - ink
Dessert -New York Style Cheese Cake - handwritten journaling
***Mandatory Champagne Toast to Ring in the New Year*** - something black

The photos on this page were taken at an acoustic charity concert in PA. The microphone photo was taken by Jason onstage, at the same time my HTF Teri took the lower photo of Jason. The floral print is hard to see in the picture, because it is a very subtle print on the light green paper. But I didn't want to stray { LOL} from the RS papers

  #4 - Make a layout {or 2 cards} with a party theme.

Make that a Black Tie party them.. LOL Jason posted this photo too.

A simple page.. but I was working with a deadline.. LOL.

The rest of the layouts:

No challenges used for these... they just came out of my brain.

My favorite?

Hard Rockin' Harley Man

Both photos were sent in the card exchange. The concert photo had place/date, but not a name, and the motorcycle one was in my mailbox the day I was working on the layout. I knew what I wanted, but didn't really have enough pictures.. pretty much had it planned out, but was going to do a larger title.. when in the mail comes Janine's Christmas card with the photo. Perfect. Thanks, Janine!

The bike sticker is from Jolee's, and yes, it's a Harley.

Stray

This layout contains the lyrics to my favorite song. The photo was taken by Cayce Nobles in Greenville SC, and sent in the Christmas card exchange.

Nashville Airport.

Photos were posted by Jason on Twitter.. he was excited that he and the guys ran into Chuck Wicks at the airport. Well, after seeing the pictures, some snot tweeted a comment about Jason being short. His reply was that he didn't have his boots on, and he included  photo.

Fly Me Home

 Another photo posted by Jason on Twitter. Jason spends a lot of time away from his family. So he goes home whenever he can.

 

On Tour

More twitter pics. They make me laugh though, because the guys are having so much fun travelling to shows. It's a fairly simple layout. The journaling around the photo mat is part of the lyrics to "Home".

 

LOL Jason has posted a couple of photos of Bojangles sweet tea, since it is his favorite.. One of the things I like about this photo, is that if you look close enough, you can see Jason's reflection in the sunglasses. Kinda cool. 

self portrait

Another of my favorite JMC photos. A fairly simple layout, though I added stardust to the stars on the background paper, and then little metal stars on top of that.

Now I need to get more page protectors and album extenders for the JMC album.. LOL Otherwise, the layouts won't all fit in the album! Hopefully I'll be able to find another Rock Star album.. would really like to keep all the JMC layouts in those...

Serendipity's Project Runway Crop

From Jennifer: 

Happy New Year Everyone! Serendipity Scrapbooks is starting this year off right with one of our amazingly fun crops. Come join us January 22nd-24th for a crop unlike any other we have had before. The Design Team has once again worked hard to bring you some totally hip and fashion inspired challenges that will get you strutting your scrapbooking skills. Our "Fashion on a Dime" Challenges will help you use up some of that not so new but still fashionable stuff in your stash. Pre Crop Challenges will be posted Jan 14th and Crop Challenges will be posted Friday and finished projects loaded by noon your time Monday, the 24th. See you on the red carpet!

If you have never been to a crop at Serendipity, you are in for a treat. The challenges that the design team come up with are always amazing, and while some are fairly easy, most are definitely challenging. I am really hoping to have this weekend off so I can play.

Kristen generally has blue light specials in the store as well, which are only available to those participating in the crop. Lots of great goodies on sale {which I unfortunately won't be able to get this time around, but believe me, they are a great deal!}

So set aside the weekend of the 22nd, and join us for the crop! 

p365

First two photos are loaded onto the p365 blog - click HERE

So what is the P365? It's simple - take a photo a day of things in your life. Can be family members, things you like, things you do at work, etc.

The hard part?  It sounds a little overwhelming at first, but honestly, don't most of us already take photos practically every day?

Some brave souls actually scrap that photo every day - but not this one. {firstly, I don't have time for that, and secondly, where the heck would I put all those pages??} Mostly people scrap by the week - and that is how I will likely do mine.  {I had found some calendar pages that were pretty cool, but really too small to make the photos big enough to see}. I am not planning on buying anything new - my album will be made using Basic Grey papers, and embellies in my stash.

Off to a good start this year - it's day 2, and I have 2 photos done..

A not-so-happy new year so far...

... which is really sad to say, because it's ONLY January 1st, but geez, I hope this won't be an indication of how things will be all year.

Didn't even spend new year's with my family - on call for the holiday, and my road is icy enough that I was worried about getting out in the middle of the night, so I ended up staying at work. Still there, actually.

Tim announced the winner and several artist choice winners on his blog today - naturally, I wasn't one of them. Rather disappointing - but I guess not surprising - he had over 300 entries for the contest.

And whoopie - today is my 10th anniversary. The last time I talked to my husband, he made me cry. He hasn't even called me today.

Today is the beginning of the new Project 365 - Going to take a photo a day for the whole year. Hopefully, anyway. Will be posting those photos on a different blog - scrappin{jewlz}365 . {No, don't check it yet - there isn't anything there.} A group of us at Scrap Sisters Studio  have decided to do this project, and will have a forum for posting photos, ideas, and encouragement.

At least I have a little money in my pocket - if you believe in that kind of thing, at least I should have a little money the rest of the year.