Heading Home for the Holidays

I fly out this Thursday afternoon heading to stay with my family in Wisconsin for the holidays.  One of my favorite parts about going to my parents home is the boxes and boxes of photos they have for me to look through and sort.  They have some really great old ones of grandparents and great-grandparents from both sides of my family.  Take a look at this one:

This is my great-grandmother (far right), my grandmother (third from left) and the rest of the Gerber sisters.  I had my mother write down what she knows about the photo (for example: the names of the girls, where it was, and when it was) or anything else she could tell me about the photo.  I think it is so important to get this information written down in some way so that we don't forget about our heritage.  If I didn't have my mother to remember and tell me about this great photo, I would have only recognized three of them even though they are all my great aunts.  I think that is what makes scrapbooking so important!

I'm just starting a page with this photo, and have no idea how it might end up looking, but I think I'm going to be using the BasicGrey Curio collection that I bought two weeks ago.

What do you think?  I love the colors - just not sure where it will end up from here.  I'll share the finished product after I return from Wisconsin.  

Happy Holidays everyone!

What I came home with from my LSS - 12/4/2010 edition

I am so lucky to have the best local scrapbook store (ever!) just a short 20 minute drive away.  I have been to scrapbook stores in five states (MA, VT, NH, TX, and MN) and Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA, is by far the best!  I'll admit that I do some online shopping and I do use my 50% off coupons at Michael's, but I spend most of my money at Absolutely Everything.  I'm single handedly trying to make sure they stay in business!

So here is what I came home with last Saturday:

These Christmas Chestnut Journaling Sprouts by Jillibean Soup were just too cute to pass up.

I couldn't wait to see this new line from Cosmo Cricket, Circa 1934, in real life.  I loved it.  Had to have all of it.  

Same with the new line from BasicGrey, Curio.  Had to have the WHOLE line!  Just my luck, the January 2011 Studio Calico kit is going to have some goodies from both these lines.  That just confirms that I really needed them!

The Christmas line from BasicGrey, Jovial, is beautiful.  This is the first Christmas line that I have loved in a couple of years.  The colors and patterns are gorgeous!  I chose a few of my favorite papers from this line.

I also came home with this random piece of paper from Graphic 45.  I just thought it was too pretty to pass up!

I justified this rather large purchase with the fact that I had a $20 off coupon.  At Absolutely Everything, for every $200 you spend, you get a $20 off coupon.  So, technically, the entire store is 10% off of everything, all the time.  (If you want to think about it that way, which I do!)  

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Camp/fish/canoe/bike/swim

I've been  wanting to scrapbook this photo of me that I found for quite a while now.  The photo is of me canoeing in 1985 (yikes! only 14 years old then!) The colors from the November Studio Calico kit were perfect so I finally have the page done!  I used my Making Memories Slice for the camper cut out.  It was perfect for the theme of my page.  Journaling reads:

 I can’t look back on my childhood without remembering all of the time we spent camping. We would pack the camper up with food, bikes, and fishing gear and head “up north” for the weekend. We always cooked over a fire so that meant a lot of brats, hamburgers and hot dogs.  We would spend the days swimming, fishing, canoeing, tubing or riding bikes.  The nights were always spent sitting around the campfire, listening to the adults talk as they drank beer, and making s’mores.

Unfortunately, my sewing machine died during the creation of this page.  I had to hand stitch around the entire edge of the brown cardstock around the camper!  (Well, didn't really HAVE to, but did anyway.)  I'm going to have to get my sewing machine fixed SOON!  TFL!!

Tim Holtz at Absolutely Everything

My first class ever, EVER was taught by none other than Tim Holtz.  I was in my LSS, Absolutely Everything, in Topsfield, MA and I was asking about a Jenni Bowlin class that was being taught in May.  The class ended up being canceled, but when I was asking about the class, the owner said that she was hoping that she would be able to get Tim Holtz in to teach a class in October.  TIM HOLTZ!  I pretty much stalked the AE newsletter and website after that waiting for details.  I wanted to make sure that I was signed up for the class before it sold out - and sell out it did!

Two friends took the class with me and we started the day early with eggs in hearts at my favorite breakfast spot, Aroma Cafe.

I was really kind of nervous about the class - it can easily take me a week to create a scrapbook page.  How could I finish an entire project in a couple of hours?  I didn't know how I'd be able to create anything under the pressure of being in a class with 99 more people!


Tim was awesome.  He was so nice and so fun.  He made the creating part so easy - you basically had no time to 'think,' you kind of had to grab whatever struck your fancy at the time and go with it.  It  was so different from the way I usually work!   This photo shows my completed project - I think it turned out pretty cool.  I learned some fun techniques in the class and had a blast doing it.  (And best of all, I got to meet TIM!)

Enjoy your day, everyone!