The first book will discuss techniques to cover chipboard in creating a cloth covered ribbon bound book. Unfortunately the fabric shown in this picture is not available for the class, but you have your choice of three fabrics when you sign up. You are also welcome to bring your own.

The second book is also a cloth covering (your choice of three) to dress up the new Zutter Bind it all Covers. These covers are terrific, easy to use, and hide the metal coils when you want a more finished look.

Both books have an enormous number of pages. Cost for both books and instruction is $39. Class size is limited to 8. Please contact the Cabin at www.nhscrapbookcabin.com or 603-769-3333.

I hope to see some old friends and some new faces! It’s been awhile! CAN’T WAIT!!!

First a freebie to all.  It’s not a giveaway from me, just a really good link that I stumbled upon.  You can make your own font.  FREE.  Seriously.  How cool is that? I made one and it was so much fun!  I can’t wait to make another couple of my own, do Oliver’s handwriting at different stages, etc.  Good times!

Oliver is full of the Christmas Spirit.  He insisted we listed to Christmas music yesterday and belted out John Denver and the Muppets Christmas songs all day long.  Ba-dum-dum-dum…   Wendy will be the only one that appreciates the fact that I listened to that album *4* times yesterday, but I just had to tell SOMEONE.  Oliver decided that we must put our Christmas Decorations up IMMEDIATELY, so we started that yesterday afternoon.  I was unwrapping some ornaments and when I turned around he had his stocking on his head.  Pretty funny, and now I’m thinking maybe it was supposed to be a hat and not a stocking.  That boy does entertain me.  We will be putting our decorations up for the remainder of today and then we’ll have to think when we can tackle my mum’s house. We have few decorations at our house because we really feel like my mum’s is where Christmas lives.  Setting up her house is akin to setting up the North Pole in little under a week.  She needs some elves…oh wait, I think that’s what we are.

Alright, on to the giveaway.  Today’s giveaway is another book.  This one is much plainer, but perfect for winter (if you happen to live in a snowy area of the country — only half-assed apologies to those who have warm winters, because, you, after all, get warm winters.)  There are no embellishments in this book.  It has 6″ x 8″ pages (small clips of pages shown at the bottom of the photo.)  When you leave your comment in today’s post, tell me what you most wish for.  Don’t forget to comment on yesterday’s post too.

Enjoy the remainder of the weekend!  We’re off to sing about Alfie the Christmas tree (my favorite) and Little Saint Nick (Oliver’s favorite) and string garlands all over the place to hide the lack of wall I still have from last Christmas.  I think we might even break out the paint and paint a Christmas mural on the extruded foam insulation – FUN!  Happy Day!

I’m totally stealing Kal’s idea because she got the best comments. 
Today’s comment should be about the best gift you were ever given.  Good luck to everyone!

(Product photos are not my forte….)

Here are some ideas from what I’ve done with my book like this (again, please cut me some slack on my photos…):

I’m posting two of CAMERON’S pictures here (give her credit for both the beautiful jewelry and the photography!) so you can see the kind of stuff she does.  This is the necklace I already have — I get so many compliments on this!  I don’t believe these are posted YET.

This is the necklace I WILL have (though mine will say “Oliver” since that’s my boy.  YES! You can special order them!  HOLY COW, how great is that?!?!

Man that girl is TA LEN TED!  I know from her blog and from talking to her that she has a lot more stuff to post, so please check back in periodically.  And if you’ve seen something on her blog (that’s not in her shop) that you like — let her know.  Maybe that’ll be the next thing she posts.

The only other thing I’m adding to this post is PLEASE come visit me at St. George’s Cathedral in Manchester, NH tomorrow from Noon to 5:30pm for the holiday craft fair that I am attending.  At 2pm NE Voices in Harmony (a Women’s A Cappella Group that has performed with the Boston Ballet) will be performing.  And at 3:15 The Granite State Bell Ringers will be performing.  All the while, crafters will be peddling their crafts somewhere in the background.  And I’m just hoping to meet up with some friendly people to visit with all the while.  I will have both photographs and books that I have made.  And I will have some coupons for photoshoots as well.

Sweet Dreams — I’m off to finish up my stuff for tomorrow!

This was the beautiful view from the house.  I liked the tug boat pulling the other one (two?) in.  There was also a lighthouse out there somewhere and if anyone knows what those odd circular things are please clue me in.  Hello Paulette across the bay!

Although Wendy and I did enjoy the view, we spent most of the time INSIDE and scrapping.  I managed to complete *53!* books to sell or give as gifts.  I actually put another one together for myself but only had a few pictures to include and I did covers and bound a book for Wendy – so I’m not sure if that counts as 55 or not.  My book is definitely together, but since I’m adding pictures I wouldn’t call it done.  There are no embellishments on these books so before you judge me too harshly, they are nicely made but PLAIN.  I shall get to all the other goodies LATER.  Or someone else can love the base book and make it their own.  I was quite pleased with my progress.  Wendy also did quite a bit — I’m sad I didn’t get to pour through her works in more detail, but I’m SURE I can sneak a peek at a later time.  My favorite of what she did was an amazing little castle — wish I had taken a picture — maybe she’ll send it to me to post.  I’m really excited to hear what Chelsea thought of it.

We did make it out every day to indulge my blueberry shortcake obsession (on the most delicious biscuits!  I am a biscuit shortcaker.)  I remember going to this stand two years ago when we did this same vacation.  I love that the sky is the same color as the blueberries, and, although hard to believe, this picture is straight out of camera.  Doesn’t it just look like a cool crisp fall day?  Can’t you just tell by the sky?

Didn’t take many pictures while there, but I LOVE playing “drive by shooting” while in the car.  The rules of the game are:
1) you must be the passenger — I don’t want to be held responsible for anyone who tries to play while driving. 
2) your driver mustn’t stop or slow down. 
3) try to find amazing photos on the fly.  
4) Be quick on the draw and USUALLY shoot through the car window*. 
*This rule had to be bent on the way home as it was raining and the drops on the window made it impossible.  I was more impressed that I got ANY shots as there must be some planning involved — it’s tough to roll down the window and operate the camera one handed while urging that window down as quickly as possible.  I kind of liked this new twist on my game.  But it was TOUGH! 

I had this church obsession on the way home – do tell me which one you like best:
1)  I almost missed this one — you can see the car door in the picture — but I kind of like the way it mirrors the tree. This is before the rain and still through the window.

2)

3)

4)

5)

The tree graveyard makes me cry

I love the next picture — you can tell it’s raining and it’s foggy

And I also liked this poor tattered house — SOOC and I love the colors.

Wendy, thank you so much for an AMAZING vacation, creative energy and inspiration, encouraging my craziness, yummy food, blueberry runs, and dealing with my pouting over “the swamp that got away.”  I am so lucky to have you in my life!

Please go visit Sweet Cameron for the rundown on the project.  She has a link to someone else who started it, but I think she’s got the full deal in her post.  Plus pictures if you go to her other posts.  And her book is FABULOUS.  My book is not nearly as great as hers, though I LOVE my book because it’s a bunch of stuff that I would never think to photograph under “normal” circumstances (who takes a picture of their favorite cereal at the time?!?!)  Or I always just KNOW I’m going to remember what my child’s favorite toy is at the time.  Or my child’s favorite book.  Or my child’s favorite whatever.  I remember a few but I always find it fun when a picture reminds me of something that I had forgotten.  Love everyday moments.  One change I made to the original project…I will not participate on the 25th of every month.  If it’s a work day for me, I can’t have a camera so the book would just have pictures of me getting up and going to bed.  So my project will be to take pictures AROUND the 25th of every month on a day I can have my camera. 

I had a REALLY hard time scanning this project.  There was MUCH swearing.  It wouldn’t fit on the scanner.  I couldn’t close the scanner.  And there’s a lot A LOT going on in the book.  True to form a lot of flips/flaps and extras.  Hard to show in still lifes.  I should video these.  But I won’t. 

In any case, I started to figure that if the pictures weren’t going to be good I should try to be as obnoxious with them as I possibly could.  If you can’t make it good, embrace badness. 

So here they are.  Obnoxious red arrows and all!

Alright, first flap/fold out thing is held with a phototurn.  I can see problems are going to arise with months May-March since I will be putting gromits through previous pages that are already done.  Will have to ponder new and unique ways to do flaps that will not fall apart…  Just wrote on the inside of this book since the photos were too crammed together to journal each one individually.  Although they look odd to most, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the two little charms I made out of his two favorite lego people.  Those silly people go back and forth everywhere with us.  

Flap on right — Cameron shows this one way better.  My pages are just way too busy I think?

Booklet held together with a red snap (isn’t it delicious?!?!)

Alright!  April’s done.  May’s pictures are taken.  Just need to print/glue them in.  I’ll post when it’s done.  Don’t hold your breath!

We went picking strawberries on Friday to bring to my mum’s.  Only they weren’t picking so we just bought a couple containers…

…which Oliver finished off before we got to my mum’s…

Okay, so he didn’t finish them both off, but one half a container.  Picked the strawberries out, ate them off their hats, then stuck the hats back in the container.  Nice.  The picture above kills me.  Doesn’t he look so old.  It’s like a teenager way to sit.  Yes, I know he needs a haircut.

I have this thing for puffy things.  I’m sure you’ve all seen my million photos of Oliver blowing puffs.  Someone please tell me what this flower is.  I must have it in my yard.

Weekend was pretty great.  Happy Belated Father’s Day to all you fathers out there.  We celebrated Friday night at my parents’ house.  Since my mum is a night nurse and typically works weekends, we celebrate holidays on all sorts of crazy days/nights.  Oliver is going to be so messed up when he’s older.  After a lifetime of shifting holidays I can never remember what’s when.  “You mean Christmas is not in January?!?!”  It does work out pretty well for catching everyone we need to catch on all the big holidays though.

Anyway, Oliver was a riot this father’s day.  We had gotten two big, hard to hide gifts and managed to THOROUGHLY surprise both dads.  My dad (Oliver calls him Bahpie) got a grill from everyone.  We stored it at our house until the day.  Peter got a kayak (well, it’s a cross between a kayak and a canoe — all three of us will fit in with some squeezing.)  That stayed in my parents’ basement until the big day.  Oliver knew about both and was super excited and managed to keep the secrets for TWO WEEKS!  I was so proud.  Come the day, though, he was ready to burst.  So we drove up to the house.  Oliver ran inside and yelled “BAHPIE BAHPIE BAHPIE!  Come out quick!  The Bahpie’s Day Fairy came!” and then ran back out before my dad could come and jumped into the truck for the presentation.  Oliver was jumping about and so excited.  My dad was laughing so hard I thought he might wet himself. 

One down, one to go….
So the kayak was in my parents’ basement.  How to get Peter down there for the surprise?  Oliver and I decided we would go down there to pick out something for dinner from the freezer.  Then we would start yelling about a mouse.  (My parents have been fortunate enough to NEVER have a mouse in their basement, so I hope this doesn’t jinx them!)  Peter came down and also thought Oliver’s enthusiasm quite funny.  He was sitting in the kayak rowing away.  I didn’t like my parents’ basement in the picture so took some artistic license and replaced it with last week’s trip to the park.  Nice looking, isn’t it?  Can’t wait to actually throw the boat in the water.

Okay, enough of that.  Big news of the weekend was Andy’s graduation from High School.  It was DARK.  DARK DARK.  We were so far away — 500 kids graduating in a hockey rink.  Why didn’t they turn on some of those BRIGHT BRIGHT sports lights?  Pictures are horrible.  And I was having a hard time with my camera that’s been acting up. 

AND! Total dork that I am…. we were in a hurry to get out of there because Andy had an Annapolis information session in Boston a mere 1.5 hours from the graduation.  And we expected it to take us awhile to get out of graduation traffic.  So we were feeling like we needed to go.  Mind elsewhere…causes issues for me.  Left the camera on 1600 ISO with the shutter speed set to 100, so you can guess how all the super bright outdoor sunshiney photos turned out.  TOTALLY not paying attention.  Yes, clearly it’s not my camera that has the problem.  I did manage to fix things up on the camera later though for the Boston thing. 

LOVE this flag.  It’s by the piers and I see it almost every time we go into the city.  Love the building structure and that the flag is always flapping in the dome from the breeze off the water.

The Annapolis information night included a tour of the USS Constitution.  I took a tour EONS ago when I was in school.  It was nice to have a refresher course. 

yes, I behaved myself and did not climb any ropes, but they do look like fun, don’t they?!?!  You think this looks like fun, you should see the ropes course at Annapolis.  Course, I just want to play on it.  I don’t want someone screaming at me to do it. 

The Commander of the Constitution (please excuse my non-knowledge of Navy speak.  I am truly sorry if I give anyone the wrong title!) gave a little talk that was really wonderful.  One of the things he spoke of was that Andy’s class year is pretty exciting.  He is the class of 2012.  The American Navy really started in the War of 1812 so the Navy is making plans for it’s 200th celebration in the year Andrew will be commissioned.  So it should be a pretty big celebration (not that it isn’t already!)  The information night was so great.  Got to speak with a few AMAZING men who are at the Academy now (midshipmen) and their parents too.  They broke us up in Parent-parent and kid-Midshipmen groups later so that everyone could voice their concerns to their own group.  So thankful for that parent’s group. 

Alrighty then…marathon post!  Hope y’all are good and tired now and ready for bed.  Sweet dreams!

My grungy book in all it’s grunged-out-glory — I just love things sticking out all over the place!

Photo-transfer onto packing tape.  Picture on left is stuck to a piece of clear plastic with another photo transfer on the back…

photo-transfer that was on the back.  It was kind of cool how they didn’t interfere with each other as much as I thought they would.  I LOVE phototransfer for sports especially.  Think that it gives the pictures a raw feel.

Obviously it’s difficult to see clear plastic effects in scans.

Photo transfer using paint:

And last one – really like how it turned out in person, not as good in the scan.  Photo-transfer to tape on a clear sheet of garbage.  Used Stayz-on to add visual-texture to the paper and stamped a tree on the bottom.  Words inked.  Again, you really lose that clear plastic look in the scan.  If anyone knows how to show that, please educate me!

Have not finished the book, mostly journalling left to do.  It’s always the thing I leave until last.  MUST stop doing that!  But it’s not happening tonight…sweet dreams!

Seriously, I know I shouldn’t take a baseball bat to the mailbox personally, but….I can’t help it.  In my brain, someone took aim at a random mailbox, however, in my heart I wronged someone and they are mad and swinging.  I’m sorry to those of you I’ve wronged this week.  Most especially to Denise, who had surgery on Monday, and was the first to let *ME* know how she was doing.  Apparently my phone didn’t dial out this week.  Inexcusable.  Denise, I’m so pleased to hear you are doing well (and making it out of the house!)  xo

My weekend started Friday after I finished my final presentation (YUCK, YUCK, DOUBLEYUCK!  oh wait….YEAH! I’m done!) and rushed rushed rushed to make it to the movie theater to see “Horton Hears A Who” with my child who grew two years while I was an absentee-mother this week and my mum who watches Oliver all the time when I’m busy and provides him with as much love as I can give.  Fortunately this started our weekend on the right track. And I decided that I would take pictures all weekend of all the fun things we do as a family.  Celebrate family this weekend.  So I know I’ve been really horrible at posting work your art series, but this is this “weeks”.  Photo journal every day things.  They don’t have to be good pictures.  Just things you do everyday.

The weekend started off with snowstorms.  Friday AND Saturday.  We have a TON of snow, but did notice that our lilacs are in bloom.

We got back to our weekend routine….
1) Dump — love the look of this building.  Not sure what it is, but it brings character to the dump’s landscape.  Love the snow sliding off the roof.  Love sorting recycling as a family.  Crazy, but true.  Every task can be fun if you try to make it fun.

2) Weekly trip to the grocery store — Oliver appealing for a cookie

3)  A little Cargo and Woot — Favorite book these days.  uh, favorite LIFESTYLE these days….

4) (yesterday and today) Playing legos (one of my “stock” lego photos — too busy playing to snap!)

5) (today) Tempura lunch lovingly prepared for me by Sweet Peter to celebrate a (hopefully) less hectic CUBBYFARM.

6)  Eating ice cream OUTSIDE it was so nice.  Too bad it was in a parking lot, but we couldn’t pass up the outside table today.  Soon it’ll be picnic weather!

7) Andrew’s award ceremony for wrestling.  They only said “bowling” — wasn’t it just grand that it ended up being GLOW BOWLING!  Because of Cargo and Woot, Oliver was overjoyed.  I know the picture is blurry — I have some that are not, but this is my favorite picture.  deal.

Sweet dreams!

Has been a very strange, do-a-lot-of-stuff, get-nothing-done kind of day (see above email purge!)  My mum and Oliver dropped my book off to The Paper Tree for class next Thursday earlier this week so should post some pictures — the 13th if any of you care to join us.  It’s a SIMPLE class.  Not so many embellishments.  I would like to teach a class, at least once, where everyone can finish IN CLASS.  It kills me to see or hear about people taking class and never finishing the projects (who’s still working on their advent calendars?!?!)  Time is too precious to spend 2 or 3 hours on something and then just let it sit.  ENJOY YOUR ART!  Finish it and display it!  So, in this class you’ll learn how to construct the book, add a few MINOR embellishments, and it will be ready to hold pictures without any extra work.  If you choose to embellish it further, you can do so from the display position in your house, not from the unfinished scrapbook bin in your studio.  It does not require embellishment to display.  SIMPLE.  It will be a record class where you get THE ENTIRE BOOK DONE IN ONE CLASS!  A novel idea for me I know.  Pictures of the project are horrendous, for some unknown reason (small point and shoot digital camera that I REALLY dislike?) but here’s a couple…File folders and envelopes.  Two of my favorites!

Pictures just plunk in the file folders and envelopes, so you really will be finished at the end of class.  No cropping, pasting, etc. If you WANT to do this, of course you’re welcome, but every once in awhile you need a quick project that can be done in one sitting.  (THINK GIFTS!)  So that’s that.  I’m off to finish up a couple things before I go to bed.  I shall leave you all with a funny story thanks to my friend’s daughter.  Oliver and I went over to my friend’s house to play on Friday.  Her daughter (knowing that she probably SHOULDN’T mention it since we just had lunch) sends Oliver into the room her mum and I are in to mention that she’s hungry.  Mother beckons daughter and explains that she should have made better decisions about eating at lunchtime and that now she’ll have to wait for dinner.  Daughter proceeds to whine it up about how hungry she is.  Mother asks daughter what she’s doing (CLEARLY in reference to the whining.)  Daughter says “I’m hungry-ing!” at which time Mother and I are totally cracking up.  It’s so hard to stick with your guns and be serious about your lessons when the kids are so darn funny.  Enjoy your evenings and stay un-hungry!

Above was a home meet — Central I think?
Below was at the Div I finals — of course Andy always wrestled on the mat furthest from us under NO lighting.  Phooey.  They really should be more considerate of the snap happy family members!  And the boys should be more considerate too — if you’re going to pin someone, at least do it facing the camera and smiling! And kick the ref out of the way!  Well, I guess, while we’re at it, if the world could just spin around me and my camera, that would be fabulous. 

Alright, I’m really posting because a couple people emailed and wanted to see what the project REALLY looked like for Tuesday at thepapertree.  The thing is….everyone’s will look different.  I have a bunch of different envelopes for people to chose from and a TON of ideas for things to put on your pages.  Mine was so full I had to make it a belt to stay shut (I will have belt material for those of you who take a million pictures a day, like I do.)  Here are some pictures of my book, not totally finished — head down to the shop if you’d like to see it in person, and mostly finished.  I have a hard time taking pictures of my stuff because I’m totally into the interactive stuff.  and textures.  how do you take pictures of textures?

I love using junk in my projects.  Recycling is always good.  Above are pieces of plastic from some action figure or something.  Plastic is fun to sew….I might have a new favorite thing to add to scrapbooks!  AND!  i just got some fantastic new pens yesterday that draw on anything.  The white one above only did so well….now, with the new pens, life is good.

My 7 Gypsies tab has a 7 gypsies typewriter word on it now.  Had to pick it up at the store last night.

This page is missing a couple labels I added to the tabs.  Use your imagination — it has two folders, one left that opens down and one right that opens to the left.  Pictures shown open below.

I just love envelopes — this is a library pocket, which is fabulous, except that my stuff kept falling out, so I added a belt buckle on a hinge for easy access and a ribbon with a phototurn to go through the belt buckle more easily.  Buckle hinged up below.

Alright, Oliver and I have a date, so I’m off and running!