Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Phew!

I'm back!  Well, sort of!  I'm back from Vegas, yes.  It was a whirlwind trip jam-packed with bright lights, good friends, lots of food and drink, and of course... casinos.  What they say about Vegas is absolutely true - it's nothing if not a spectacle.

I had planned on being back with a project post today but friends, it's just not going to happen.  I'm completely exhausted, and need to get things unpacked, sorted, and laundered before piles of "stuff" start amassing throughout my house... and not going anywhere!  I hope you understand!

Sooo... I will leave you with a few photos from our trip, just for fun, and urge you to stop back tomorrow for a very, very special guest post.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, and a great start to the week!

view from the rooftop of our hotel...

pedicures at the Bellagio, and pina colodas at the pool...

Beatles LOVE at the Mirage...

limo ride to dinner at Bobby Flay's MESA Grill at Caesar's Palace...
PS)  If you're a Michigander, don't forget about Sunday's Stamp A Stack!  There are still spots available in class - just e-mail me at joanneroehm@yahoo.com and let me know how many cards you'll be making!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Simple Butterfly & Flower Garland Tutorial

Good Morning, Blog Friends!  I hope that you all had a spectacular weekend!  As you read this, I'm still having the time of my life in Las Vegas, and will be back to the real world late this evening.  I'm extremely behind in everything blog-related, so if I haven't responded to your comment or e-mail, or if I haven't visited your lovely blog in a little while, I promise I'll be back in touch with you later this week!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a quick and easy tutorial for the garland I made for Lily's Bug Birthday Party last week.  You could use any shape and color combinations to make your own version of this garland to fit your party theme - and it's easy enough to do that the kiddos can help too!








I'll be back "live and in person" sometime tomorrow -- looking forward to "seeing" you all then!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Week in Review

Each weekend in my Week in Review post I share with you some of my favorite crafty links, inspiration and projects I've come across during the week, from all over the blogosphere.  ENJOY!
 
Love the simplicity of this - and the use of found boxes.  Has such a unique, vintagey feel to it!

These are beyond cute.  Absolutely going on my list of things to make for all of my friends expecting babies!

These teeny tiny notepads are perfect for throwing into a purse or backpack.  Love!

Cupcake Liner Flowers at Creative Jewish Mom
Two of my favorite things combined - cupcakes and kid art.  So vibrant and fun!

Travel Journal at The Creative Place
This journal is just beautiful, and such a great idea for traveling!  I just adore this.

Have a lovely weekend!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Scrap Every Day in May - Week 2

New to Scrap Every Day in May?  Click on the button in my side bar to get caught up...  --------------->

In the first week of May I got the bare bones of one, just one, scrapbook layout done.  A far cry from one layout a day which was the goal, but an improvement on my pathetic scrapbooking record to be certain.  I've actually spent a great deal of time getting organized, before even attempting to work on my pages.  I got all of the photos I needed for my travel scrapbook printed in the appropriate sizes, and organized everything by page.

My lifesaver this week was the internet.  I'm no expert scrapbooker, and coming up with layouts by myself is intimidating to me right now.  Luckily, I was able to find this site, this site, and this site.  Which all generously provide free layout ideas.  Talk about a lifesaver!

All you scrapbookers out there - do you use any resources to create your layouts?  Or are you a scrapbooking-genius and come up with them all by yourself?  Any hard and fast rules you scrapbook by?

I chose a layout I liked for each page a slipped it in with all of the appropriate photos and such... that way I was ready to go whenever I had a few minutes to scrap.


These are the pages from our trip to Traverse City, Michigan back in (gulp!) June 2007...


efore I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator I really hadn't used stamping in scrapbooking at all, so I am trying to find little ways to use and experiment with my stamps on my pages.  I used the cute little cherries from the "Tart & Tangy" set to add some embellishments to these pages...


I'm still not loving the journaling.  I'm totally tempted to type all my text on the computer and print on cardstock instead of hand-writing my notes!


And this week I actually got two (gasp!) layouts done.  Progess, I tell you!  This one is from our trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan last year for our wedding anniversary...


I used the "Flower Fancy" stamp set to create the flowered background...


...and the Top Note die for my Big Shot Machine to create the border around the journaling...


You'll notice that both these layouts are lacking titles.  I need to get some lettering stamp sets, and some new font dies for my Big Shot Machine to make those... oh, and probably spend some time on my friend Heather's Cricut as well!

I cut these flowers out with my Big Shot as possible embellishments for these pages, just not sure what to do with them...


What I'm going for here is to just create really basic, clean layouts with all of the pictures and journaling in place so that I can go back later and add embellishments to make them a little fancier.  I figure that the initial layouts are the most time-consuming, and if I can get the bulk of those done I'll have a good start on things.

I'm still a little intimidated - I know that my pages are very elementary looking - but I figure the more I do, the better I'll get... right?

What's your favorite way to embellish a scrapbook page?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Las Vegas - 1 Week To Go!

I'm posting this late, I actually mailed these out last week, but wanted to share my final "Vegas gift" that I sent to our siblings and friends... 

(In case you missed it, I'm heading to Vegas for the first time for a long weekend with the hubby, two best friends, and our two brothers.  I'm sending out some little "anticipation gifts" in the weeks leading up to our trip)


I took this pocket map and cut a one inch wide strip of white cardstock to wrap round it, secured with monoadhesive....


I then slid these little 3x3 cards over the "band" I created with the white cardstock...


And of course no Vegas package is complete without a little confetti... I stuffed the envelopes full of it!


So exciting!  Have YOU been to Vegas?  Tell me about your adventures, and what you recommend seeing/eating/doing!