Humor me for a sec.....

The last day of my bookbinding class we were asked to bring our final project along with all of our other books to display so that everyone in the class and the teacher could look at them more closely and ask questions. My teacher also told us that she and the other bookbinding teacher were putting together a display of books for the Harold B. Lee library in one of their galleries. She told us she would be going around, grading our final project and looking for books that she would like to display.

I didn't really think much about it until she pulled me aside and asked if she could display my brown leather gratitude journal. "Sure" I told her, "No problem." Several days later she e-mailed me and asked if she could also display my final project as well. And again, I said no problem.



The display, called Book Bound started in the middle of January and Scott and I just barely made it down to see the books. Really when will my books ever be on display again? Never.

So here I am in um... all my glory standing next to my final project.



and my other one



Before we went down I looked on the library's website to find out where the display was. I found a link to the display and one of my books as a thumbnail (bottom left). You can see it and some of the other books here.

So there you go. My 2 months of fame. I guess.

And while I am on bookbinding here are my two latest books.

Happy Birthday Amber!



A sketch book for Taylor where he can draw all of his football plays.



Good grief are you still reading this?

By Request

Faux Scrapbooking 101

My scrapbooks are 12X12 and are very 'low-tech'. I only make 1 scrapbook. This is the family scrapbook. The boys each have their own personal photo album, but these are not scrapbooks. All I do is stick the pictures on white paper and write underneath them. You can buy 12X12 albums anywhere, especially craft stores. Mine are 3 ring binders. I also buy 12X12 page protectors.

This is how I do it. Buy lots of card stock of varying colors. Buy some generic scrapbook paper that will go with a lot of different pictures. A lot of mine that I buy are boy colors, stripes etc. I will also buy a few pieces of birthday and holiday paper. I stretch these ones like you wouldn't believe.

Pick out a plain piece of card stock that you like that looks good with the pix add a bit of other paper and you are done.



That little chick picture came from a piece of paper. I used the rest of the paper for other pages. The pictures just have some white card stock underneath.



This is one of my simplest pages. I love when I can find a piece of paper that has a variation of themes. The green leaves came from a piece of paper that had long stripes in a baby theme. I took the leaves, cut it in half and used it in a non-baby page. I probably used this piece of paper on no less than 4 different pages.



The stripes came from the same piece of paper as the polka dots. The 'wild hair' are rub-ons. If you don't have rub-ons you can either print something on your computer (more work in my opinion) or just write it in.



If I have a picture that I really like I will do just one bigger picture on a page, but I don't do this very often. My goal is to try and fit 4 pix a page. I don't like the idea of only scrapping the really good ones and then putting the rest in the "mediocre" album.

If you buy anything, make sure it is generic. I bought a bunch of alphabet stickers and alphabet rub-ons from a scrapbook sale a year ago. These have been awesome, because you can use them on any page and they add just a little bit. If you can find them on sale buy them.

If you write on your pages, make sure the pen is archival quality. You can find these at any scrapbook store.

Now that I have told you to go to a scrapbook store I also need to warn you about them. They are very, very overwhelming. I don't even like to go in them. They can make you give up before you even start because all their example pages are beautiful. They can also make you so dizzy with products that you will end up going in circles, getting sick and then giving up. If you do go in just stick to cardstock and paper.



The best for last. I have found that I spend most of my time trying to figure out where to put the pictures on the page, where to put a title, how to make it slightly different than the last etc. As soon as I figure that aspect out, actually putting the page together would go pretty fast. So several years ago I went through the 3 whole books that I have bought on scrapbooking and copied all of their layout examples onto 3 12X12 pieces of cardstock in a mini version. I lay these papers out in front of me, look at how many pictures I want on the page, pick an option, simplify it if needed and go. It saves me oodles and oodles of time. It is the best thing I have done to cut down the time it takes me. If you want I can take decent pix of these for you.

If you decide to jump into the world of scrapbooking, or in my case faux scrapbooking, good luck!

Poo and Pee Part Dos

No, Chasey is not potty training...at all
No, there is really no fantastic story behind the title. Sorry to disappoint. However the last 2 events in our family seemed to focus on these 2 words.

Taylor turns 10!



In the mad dash to get ready for California I didn't have time to post about Taylor's 10th birthday. We gave him the option this year of having a full on birthday party with a bunch of friends or spending a Saturday skiing with his Dad. He choose the skiing. So we let him invite 2 friends over for a late night to celebrate. So much simpler than a party. Buy them a pizza and they are good for the rest of the night. During their dinner they amused themselves by telling each other jokes, all of which included a punch line with the word 'poo' in it. I tell no lie. All poo and they thought it hilarious. At the end of the night Taylor said "this was the best party ever." Wow! That was easy!

Disneyland



Two days after Taylor's birthday we packed up at headed to California. My attempt at being all organized completely backfired. I bought each boy their own water bottle and labeled them. I thought this was great. No arguments about who belonged to each bottle and I wouldn't have to give them a drink when they needed one. They could drink when they wanted without any help from me. And drink they did. Continually. Guzzling down water. I couldn't figure out why on earth they had to pee so much. I can't tell you how many times we stopped for a bathroom break. There were even a few times when they couldn't hold it long enough to make it to the bathroom. Many a car saw 3 white behinds mooning them as they passed. Next time, no water. Coming home I was in charge of the water and we probably cut off an hour of our time. I learned my lesson.

But the bathroom saga doesn't end there. Taylor and the boys still thought the same 'poo' jokes were still funny so in between us stopping every 20 minutes, they amused themselves by re-telling these jokes.

When we got to California we still seemed to plan everything around the bathroom. Planned breaks, unplanned, and emergency pull them out of the line and run them to the bathroom. Let's see, we missed a shuttle to our hotel for an emergency break, had to re-visit a beach bathroom after we had hiked back to our van for another very, very near accident and we had to run into a local Kinkos and wait for 10 minutes while a slow poke finished his business. I got a kid ready to explode, please hurry up in there!

However, we had a great time, were very lucky with the weather and enjoyed some warmer rain free days. Taylor's favorite ride was Splash Mountain. Bennett is our dare devil and loved every single scary ride he could go on, laughing the entire time. Owen was a fan of It's A Small World and Chasey tolerated the whole adventure very, very well. And you know what? I am now done talking about poo and pee.

'Poo and Pee'

Why on earth would I title a post with those two words? Well I will tell you in my next post.....when I get home from California......in a few days....and I actually have my card reader. Don't worry no actual pictures of the title. But for now I am enjoying some warmer weather.