Handmade thank you card.

I recently discovered how much fun it is to add Stickles to the edges of flowers!  Now I just have the urge to Stickle every single thing in my house and on my scrapbook pages!  Here’s a card I made recently.  Bright colors aren’t usually my thing, but I think I kind of like this one.

Kindergarten Schoolwork Scrapbook

I realized a while back when I was talking about Noell Hyman at Paperclipping.com and her schoolwork scrapbook video that I purchased that I had not actually shown my project on here.  So here it is!

The cover is my favorite part.  I used American Crafts papers that looked “schoolish.” 

The hardest part was actually paring down all the TONS of schoolwork that I had saved.  I had thrown things away all year long as she brought them home, but I still ended up with 4 binders stuffed full of paperwork.  Ridiculous.  I took Noell’s advice and cut a lot of things up, which makes it easier to fit into the scrapbook, which is made from a file folder and hence can’t be TOO bulky or it will never close!  I also did lots of layering, putting things underneath other things so it’s very interactive where you have to lift to look and see.  I am so thankful to Noell for coming up with this tutorial, because her videos are so nicely done and she explains how to do it all so well.  There are some things that I’m not happy with in my book.  I didn’t concentrate so much on the design of the pages for this first one, just wanted to get everything squeezed in there and get it done, so I didn’t add a lot of decoration inside and didn’t lay out the design the same way I would have if it were a “real” scrapbook page, and I will be focusing more on that for the next one. 

This is what I’m talking about when I say there’s a lot of layering.  See the little tab on the bottom right corner of this drawing?  The one that says lift?

Well, when you lift that up, underneath is where I journaled about my daughter’s love of drawing and bright colors.  And I didn’t have to use any extra space because it’s all underneath her artwork.

I don’t know if Noell did her book this way, but I tried to separate my schoolwork papers into monthly sections.  I tried to spread out the schoolwork so that there was something from every month through the year, and at the beginning of each new month of papers I would put a title on the first page in the section.  Nothing fancy, as you can see below.   

You’ll notice more of the little tabs that say “lift” or “up” to look underneath the top paper also.

I did lots of chopping papers up.  Really, why keep a whole 8×10 sheet of paper full of practice writing when you can just use a small portion and be able to squeeze more into your book?  Lift up this page and see underneath.

I also made sure to do a pocket page.  In her next books I will be making more than 1 of these because I really liked being able to just stick a few things inside there.

And there you have it!  Thank you, Noell, for doing such a fabulous video about how to make this schoolwork scrapbook.  Noell also donated to my auction to deliver Anita’s scrapbook to Canada, and I am VERY grateful to her for that also.  Go check out her website and purchase this tutorial if you’re interested in making this book yourself.  It’s $8 and worth every cent.  I love Paperclipping and Noell’s videos so much that I have a premium membership and I highly recommend it to everyone.  In fact, I’m now an affiliate of Paperclipping, meaning if you click on the Paperclipping ad that’s over there in the right column and buy a membership I might make a few cents!  So what are you waiting for?  ha ha

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone!  I recently showed a card I had made for my cousin Natalie using some plastic packaging that I turned into wings.  Remember that?

Craft Critique is a cool blog that I like to follow and today they’re having a carnival of recycled/upcycled projects.  Mine is included and I wanted to share their blog post with you so you could go see all the other cool stuff that other crafter have been making with recycled stuff.  Go check it out here, okay?

And just in case you weren’t here before, I’ll show you my card again.

Road Trip to Canada Last Day (day 5)

All rightie…..for those of you who are following the story of my trip to Canada, here are the last few hours.  And only 1 more (semi) calamity occurred!  Well, 2 but that’s it! 

So we left Anderson, Indiana and I drove this time down the interstate.  The speed limit is 70, so that’s what I was driving so it was too late to avoid it by the time I saw the 5 foot long piece of mangled up metal lying in my lane.  BAM!  Are you kidding me?  Seriously?  Like I can’t just finish up the short 2.5 hour drive to home without SOMETHING happening?  Calamity?  Nope.  I pulled over and Thea jumped out to check the tires and much to my surprise none of them were flat.  Whew!  Cause I just KNEW one was going to be flat, right?  Cause that’s how I roll, right?  haha

Onward we go.  We arrived back at the car rental place and unloaded everything out of the car into my husband’s car and returned the rental car.  Then we returned back to my house and unloaded everything again out of the car and into the house.  I immediately went for my camera for some reason that I now cannot remember, and realized it was gone.  CALAMITY!  My whole trip was on the memory card, so I was devastated that I couldn’t find this camera with all my Canada pictures on it.  We looked everywhere, in all my bags, in all Thea’s bags, out in my husband’s car, called the rental place to see if it was in that car.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  I was so BUMMED I can’t even tell you! 

Then my husband walks out to his car and 30 seconds later walks back into the house with my camera.  Are you kidding me?  It was in the front seat!  HA  I had been looking in the back because I thought it may have fallen out of my bag in the back, but I must have had it in my hand and laid it down in the front seat on our way home where it had slipped underneath the arm rest, which of course I never thought to raise that up to look underneath.  My husband is a lifesaver!  He saved the day!  haha

And I think that’s the end of my Canada trip.  I will be making a new blog post and sharing with you all the companies that helped me so maybe the next time you’re scrapbook shopping you’ll see something and say, “Hey, that’s the nice company that helped Corinna.  I’m gonna buy their products!”  Thanks for reading about my adventure!

**Edited to add:

 As I write this, it is Friday, February 5, 2010.

Anita left this world today at 10 a.m.  I received an e-mail from her friend Becky, who is the reason I met Anita in the first place.  I am beyond shocked.

I am in a state of disbelief. 

I can’t stop crying.  Mostly because I just finished the little mini scrapbook for her children that I showed here about a week or so ago and it’s still sitting in the box on my desk waiting to be mailed.  The title “Remember” that I chose for the cover really strikes a chord with me now.  I thought of her for days while I made that little book.  Along with the journal that I made last October for Anita to write in.  Sitting here in the box.  There’s a card in the box that I wrote to Anita and a worry stone that I had bought her a long time ago.  And the 2-page layout made by Mandy Douglass from the Creating Keepsakes magazine article about us in February of last year.  I always felt that she should have it instead of me, so it was in the box also.  I regret that I never sent it.

Meeting her was a huge experience in my life, and so many people who read this blog (and who don’t) helped me to make the trip to Canada and make my dream to meet Anita and deliver her scrapbooks that we made for her a reality.  I have always been so grateful for each one of you, but now even more so.  You will never ever know what it meant to me, to see all of you strangers to me (and some not) come together and donate your money and bid on my auctions so that I could make the trip happen.  Making those scrapbooks for Anita and making that trip and meeting her in person and corresponding with her via e-mail and phone before and after that trip…..the whole experience……is something that changed me as a person inside.  It’s impossible to explain.  I will never ever forget all of you doing that. 

I will never forget HER.  I am so saddened by the loss of her, I can’t even tell you.  There are no words.

Anita, you will always be a part of my story.

To read days 1-4 of this trip, click on the links below.

Day #1

Day #2

Day #3

Day #4

Handmade card for Natalie.

If you follow my blog at all, you may know that my cousin Natalie has been working very hard at staying alive in the last month.  She was just moved to a facility in Indiana that specializes in getting people off of respirators with good results, and I made her this card to send her.  I used plastic packaging that some sort of scrapbook supplies came in (can’t remember what) and stamped the little bird and then painted on the back side of it.  I used these colors because they’re Natalie’s favorites. 

Under Angel’s Wings.

The inside says “And we’re so glad you are!”

I made and sent this to my cousin Natalie who has been in the hospital for the last month fighting for her life.  She’s going to be “okay” they think, meaning that she’s alive, which is a miracle in itself, and that she’s awake, but she’s still hooked up to a respirator and has lungs full of holes.  She survived influenza A and double pneumonia and MRSA in her blood, truly a miracle that she’s still here with us.  The doctors said they didn’t think she would make it through it all.  She’s a fighter!  Right now she’s very weak and has just finished a week of physical therapy.  They’ll be moving her soon to a hospital in Indiana that specializes in getting people off of respirators.  Right now it’s a possibility that she will have to stay on it forever, and she’s not gonna just lie down and accept that so she’s anxious to get to her new hospital and get going so she can get home!  We love you Nat!

Those wings are Heidi Swapp stamps and I used Staz-On ink to stamp them onto the plastic packaging that some other stamps came in!  I then painted them with Natalie’s favorite colors on the back side.  I participated in a challenge from Donna Downey to use plastic of some sort for a project.

***edited to add

For those of you who might be wondering about Natalie now, you can read a later blog post I wrote here.

Road Trip to Canada Day 4.

I guess this part of the story should be called “road trip to back home.”  This was the last day in Canada for us.  We got up in the morning and headed out.  Here’s a photo I love of a windmill just out in the middle of nowhere.  Well, at least it seemed out in the middle of nowhere to me, surrounded by flat country and fields.  It’s so funny how much it looked like where I live. 

THIS PHOTO was taken just for my friend Abby because it made me laugh so hard when I read it and she’s a lover of signs.

Speaking of signs, it was very strange to me how HUGE the stop signs were in some spots.  The one on the top is probably the average size that we have here, and the one on the bottom is what they were in the area of Canada where we were.  Usually it didn’t have two of them, just the one giant sign, so I’m not sure why there were two at this intersection but it made for a good comparison so I took a photo just for you!

I had intentions of going to mapquest and mapping out the route back home the same way we had come into Canada and writing them down, but I forgot to do it.  Yes, I had the directions printed off from home to Canada, but when it comes to going back the opposite way I get confused and apparently so does Thea because neither one of us knows how it happened but we got LOST.  Yes, there’s another calamity for you folks.  (That’s just for you Sandie) 

We literally drove around out in the back roads country area for an hour.  We had no map and both of us had forgotten to bring our GPS, so let me tell you we were so pissed at ourselves at that point.  I tried to just be cool and not let it bother me, but it was hard to do that since it was my own dumbass fault, ya know?  However, this did make me smile.  TWICE.  Yes, because we were lost and drove in a several mile radius CIRCLE we drove past this man TWICE.  But, on the bright side of things, it made me smile twice and the second time I was ready with the camera.  haha  It’s hard to tell because I wasn’t as ready as I should have been but, the man is vacuuming his front yard.  Not kidding.  I seriously wanted to stop the car and ask him if he’d pose for a photo and maybe ask him what the hell he was doing, but the second time only confirmed it for me that it was, indeed, a Shop-Vac and he was, indeed, vacuuming the lawn.  I don’t get it, but hey, it’s not my job to judge, okay?

Anyway, we wound up, twice again, in Chatham (where we had been to the Paper Pickle).  However, it was not by the same route we had taken the day before, just a straight shot from our hotel like 15 miles down the same road, never having to turn off anywhere until we got to Chatham.  This time we were out in the country totally lost and driving around when suddenly Chatham appeared.  haha  TWICE.  The second time around I said Okay, I’ve had enough of this.  Let’s get some directions!  Speaking of signs, we saw this one, which led us nowhere useful.  And yes, I know that because I followed it.  Hey, I needed information!

I then proceeded to locate the police station because, believe it or not, I knew where it was since I had seen it the day before when we were leaving the Paper Pickle.  I know, ironic, right?  haha  I went in and asked a very nice policeman (whose name happened to be Andrew Zalecki) for directions.  I knew I wanted to be on 401 but didn’t know how to GET TO 401 by that time because I was totally lost.  He was VERY nice, never laughed at me, not even once, at least not on the outside, and proceeded to draw me a very lovely map!  Woo hoo!  I was dying to ask him to let me take his photo for my scrapbook so I could tell the story of how he saved us, but I was too afraid he’d think I was psycho and arrest me.  haha   Of course, I kept the map for my scrapbook! (he even autographed it)

Thank you, Andrew Zalecki, for saving my sanity that day.  I was ready to just sit down on the curb and cry a while. 

And what do you know?  The map WORKED!  Here she is……the 401 we had been seeking.  I love these signs with the crowns on them.

So anyway……that was just the START of the drive back home.  And I wish I was kidding when I say this, but this is the kind of shit that happens to me on an average, everyday, all the time basis.  Nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.  I know there’s supposedly some sort of theory out there about how you attract things to you, so if things happen to you it’s because you actually want them to happen, you want that drama, etc., but it’s not the case with me.  GOOD drama?  Bring it on.  This kind of crap?  No thank you. 

This is probably the last cool photo we took on our trip home.  We had seen it on the way to Canada but this time we were prepared and on the correct side of the interstate so we got a photo.  Isn’t he cute?  I loved the Nestle Quik chocolate milk mix when I was a kid. 

I wish I could say that getting lost was the last calamity we experienced on our trip home, but that’s not the case.  We drove a long time (I was planning to go all the way home, 8 hours) and finally stopped for dinner in Anderson, Indiana at the Cracker Barrel.  This was about 2-1/2 hours from home at this point, so I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I felt fine when we went into the Cracker Barrel, but there’s something about being in a restaurant surrounded by people and eating that just does something to my anxiety disorder, even if I’m not consciously thinking “OMG there are tons of people in here.”  It’s weird and I hate it, but it’s what happens.  Anyway, when I begin to develop an anxiety attack it will make my IBS flare up.  If you don’t know what IBS is, consider your self lucky and just never you mind, and if you do know what it is then you know how horrible it is to be in a freaking restaurant and have your friend and your kid sitting out in the car waiting for you because you’re stucking being sick in the restroom!  Fun times….NOT.  haha  Sometimes I can sort of stop it in its tracks, but sometimes I can’t and this was one of those times, OF COURSE.  Because that just matches the REST of the trip, right?  CALAMITY, Sandie!  So after a while I thought I was feeling better and since I had taken some anti-anxiety medication (trying to ward off a full-blown attack) Thea drove.  We didn’t get far onto the interstate, before the next exit even showed up, before I was feeling that I would be sick again and I told Thea to take the next exit so we could find me a restroom.  After we got off the ramp and were sitting there at the stop sign, we saw a Holiday Inn directly in front of us and just said, forget it, let’s just stop for the night.  I hated to do it because we were SO CLOSE to home, but it was like a sign right there in front of us!  haha  I was so pissed because after 3 days on the road trip and feeling fine I thought for once I was going to be able to go somewhere and get back home without being sick.  But this is my life.  So we stopped for the night and relaxed and went to bed and started out again the next morning for the last leg of the trip.

**To read the rest of the posts from this trip, click on the links below

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 5

Road Trip to Canada Day 3 continued.

Want to hear more?  If not, look away!

The girls at Anita’s house told us about a little town 20 minutes north (I think) called Sombra where we could see a few little shops and maybe Summer could pick up some souvenirs.  It was a beautiful drive along the St. Clair River, which was such a pretty blue that day!  All along the road we drove next to the river were docks and many of them had US and Canada flags, which I thought was really neat.  The US is on the other side of the St. Clair River, and you can take a ferry across.  We thought about driving back to Sombra the next day and taking the ferry across to get back home, but we were afraid to because it would be detouring from the route we took to get to Canada and we didn’t want to wind up lost somewhere in who knows where-ville.  As it turns out, the trip home didn’t have a good start to it anyway and we probably would have been better off to come to Sombra and take the ferry across after all.  Ah, the beauty of HINDSIGHT.  But that would be tomorrow’s story, so back to today…..

Here are some shots of the beautiful river.  I wish the photos showed how bright blue it was. 

I loved this dock with the 2 flags blowing in the wind (and MAN was it windy that day!)

This is what we called Thea’s summer home.  haha 

Here’s Barnacle Bill’s right across from the ferry station on the river.  The girls at Anita’s had told us about this place for souvenirs.  The place was stuffed full of clothing that was WAY expensive for me, but at the same time they had little trinkets for next to nothing.  Summer used her “souvenir money” to buy a cute little satin-ish fabric coin pouch with a pretty floral pattern on it for $2 and a pretty shell necklace for $5 and a pretty green necklace made from a shell for $6.  As far as souvenirs go, it was very reasonable.

I loved this colorful little shop called Three Sisters.  There was artwork inside and it was full of handmade items. 

Summer used the rest of her money to buy a lovely little handmade Indian doll in a little papoose thingie that was also handmade.  She fell in love with this little doll.  Her name is Kitschy, which means brave, and that’s why Summer picked her.

After an hour and a half I think we headed back to Wallaceburg and were starving so we hit this place for dinner.  Crabby Joes! 

We asked the waitress what’s Joe’s problem?  Why is he so crabby?  And if that’s not enough, they have to add “bad temper” onto the sign and on the menu.  What’s up with that?  But she didn’t have a good answer for us. 

Let’s see…..after dinner we took a trip to the local Walmart and I picked up some fun stuff like cereal that was written in English and French on the box.  And I saved the box so I can make a scrapbook out of it like Julie!  Hi Julie!  You have inspired me! 

Then back to the hotel and in for the night.  Until tomorrow, my friends…….

Handmade Wedding Card.

We attended a wedding last month and since it was my husband’s friends before we were married he was in charge of the gift.  Does anyone else do this?  If it’s my family/friends, I’m in charge of the gift and if it’s hubby’s then he is.  But anyway……of course 2 hours before we are due to leave he says, “Oh, can you make me a card?”  Sure, DEAR.  I have nothing else to do, like get dressed, fix hair and makeup, get our daughter ready, etc.  I have PLENTY of time for that.  haha

What I’m getting at here is this was a quick, on the fly project that I whipped up in a hurry.  If I had to do it over again, I would take more time to find a ribbon that would be the same color pink as the cardstock I put behind that cute little wedding tag.  But still kinda cute anyway, right?  I love the little tag from Shabby Chic Crafts.  They also have a blog here.  Veronica was very generous and donated a bunch of tags to my auction for Anita.  Thanks again Shabby Chic!

Handmade Ledger from Italy.

I have been wanting to tell you all about this AWESOME etsy shop for a while now and finally have found the time to tell you about it.  I discovered Paola by accident I’m sure and profiled her on the etsy shop blog where I’m the paper goods editor and when I saw this ledger I had to buy it for my husband for Christmas.  It’s made from a map of Italy, and my husband is Italian.  His grandparents were from Italy.  Paola actually adjusted the size and made me a custom ledger and it turned out absolutely beautiful.  Little did I know that she was also an AMAZING artist!  I’ll share some of her artwork that she gave me permission to show you, but first check out the ledger she made for my hubby.

Here’s some of the other things in her etsy shop REphilosophy.  She is SO creative!  I like this stuff because she takes old things that others might throw away and makes new beautiful things from them. 

Envelopes made from an Italian history book.

Envelopes made from an Italian cookbook.

A cool upcycled notebook and upcycled matchbook from maps.  How cool are these?

Okay, and if that weren’t enough, she’s also an amazing artist.  Here is a sketch of hers that she showed me.

If you like this one, go check out her artwork on Flickr here.  BEAUTIFUL drawings.  Paola, you are wicked talented!  I especially love the one with the beautiful different colored houses in a row.