Tornados and Challenges

Last Wednesday we had torrendial downpours while I was working in Hartford. On my drive home I saw lots of downed trees and there were many closed roads. It turns out a few miles away, a tornado touched down in Bristol. I was feeling very fortunate that all we suffered was one ruined ornamental pear tree. Somehow the branches managed to come down without distroying our fence or ruining our neighbor's yard. What a mess! I took a few pictures to share.

On a more cheerful note...I finished this card for BoBunny's Tuesday Card Challenge. Cute!

Proms and Challenges

This is the first time entering a challenge. OTWC #16's inspiration colors for this weeks challenge are gray, pink and white (or cream). When I think of those colors I think of weddings, prom and love. This layout of Mike and Melinda came to mind. This is a layout from her prom this spring. They had a great time at the prom and a weekend at the shore with their friends. I used basic grey papers and tried my hand at crackled paint to create the heart diecut. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy my layout. I also am posting Kim's inspiration photo. So creative. I love the typewriter--who has those anymore? I'm not even sure if my kids know what one is!

I AM ORGANIZED--FINALLY

Ok for most this is probable not a big deal but you need to understand that I am a creative scrapper and one with a lot of "mechandise". Scrapping had become an adventure in my scraproom. I was always in search of something I was sure I bought. Or better yet when I found it, I discovered I liked it so much I bought it twice. Creative Keepsake once had an article on the different scrapbooking styles and I fell into the category of "creative chaos". They said this style is the only style that cleans up to scrap and has 6 or 7 projects going at once. I chuckled and counted in my room that I actually had 11 projects in motion. My friend Christy, who is the Creative Director for New England Scrapbook, asked me in December what my New Year's resolution was and I flippantly said "to get organized". I never thought I would actually do it.

In the past I had made attempts at organization but I would buy organizational units that would solve a problem for a moment. I ran across the Scrap Rack and their organizational system which has now solved my problems. I won't go into all the details of their system but they have great suggestions on organizing all of your products including diecuts, stamps and punches so take a look at the suggestions on their website. It has been absolutely the best thing for me. The nice thing about their system is that it is a system and not an organization unit which you outgrow. You can add and subtract as your inventory changes. I can find items in less than a minute and I am using items that would have been buried in the past. It took 6 months, but I am scrapping stress free now. I included a couple of photos of my scraproom to give you an idea of the difference it makes. Unfortunately I did not take before and after pictures. Just imagine piles of paper a few inches thick across 2 banquet tables--trust me it was very ugly.

My First Blog

As you can tell I am a real novice at blogging, but here we go. I am off from vacation this week and spending time with the family and getting caught up on chores. We finally got the pool open and cleaned. Not a moment too soon since we are having a scorcher of a heat wave this week. I also managed to get some weeding in on the garden. Sadly enough the weeds go faster than I can weed :( Tomorrow, we are having a celebration with Mike's girlfriend for her graduation. She is on her way to University of New Haven and Mike has 8 months left to finish his electrician degree. It seems like only yesterday, I was on maternity leave with him. It is amazing how quickly time passes.



Of course, we can't let a day go by without some quality scrapp'n time. Here are a few layouts that I've been working on. The first layout is set for a barbecue if we ever get the grill fixed! The second layout is with one of Bo-Bunny's new line--terrific papers for teenage pictures. These were photos that Kristin took herself with my camera one night with her best friend, Margaret. I think she is going to be a better photographer than her Mom!



I also added music and a gallery of some of my scrapbook pages for your enjoyment.