While I've been away

I've been making cards. I have a couple of new "tools" and I've been trying them out this past few days. I am in love with the Basic Grey magnetic cutting mat! It helps this girl make really clean cuts and is also handy for holding down things while the glue dries. The mat looks like this

and has eight powerful magnet tacks. Love this tool!
Here are a couple of the cards I made:

And this one, which is a particular favorite of mine.

I have another new tool to share about but that will have to wait for another day. It is late and I have to get up early tomorrow.

Can you backdate these posts?

Okay, so where did the last week go? For someone who always feels so busy, I don't seem to have much to show for it! This week has flown by and the weekend is upon us. This past Wednesday we had some very bad storms and a couple of tornadoes touched down very near us. About 4 miles away, there was a lot of damage and a couple of people injured. Not fun stuff, for sure! The weather has been quiet the last 2 days and I hope it stays that way. Here is a picture of some of the damage.


I had a scary couple of hours with my computer today. When I turned it on this morning (Friday) I got this error screen and it wouldn't boot up. I tried everything I knew to do, then call Dell support. When the tech asked "do you have anything on your computer that you would be upset about losing?" I knew I was in trouble. Duh, of course I do! He was proposing to reformat my hard drive and reinstall all my programs. I just couldn't bring myself to tell him about my thousands of digital scrapbooking files. I just croaked out, "couldn't we try something else first?" I won't bore you with the details but we did get it to boot up. As soon as I got off the phone, I started backing up photos and layouts as fast as I could. Most of them are backed up with Carbonite, but just to be sure I did the photos and the newest downloads I had. Phew!

Slacking again.....

I know, I know, I have been slacking again. Actually, I had a few busy days and a very full weekend last week so I did get behind on the blog posting. I've been crafting a lot though. Last Sunday was my birthday and my DD gave me the Basic Grey magnetized cutting mat, and I gave myself the Scor-Pal so I have been woking them out. I made some stamped cards, and I am working on an interactive accordian card. I have been making the envelopes too. I will post something with the cards soon.
I also got two pages scrapped. The first is for the Bren Boone CT blog challenge asking people to step outside their comfort zone. I used very large patterns and bright colors on this layout.

I also got one done using some of our vacation photos. As you can tell, I never finish I just scrap hodgepodge, whatever I am in the mood to scrap. This layout is for our Williamsburg album. I used the SBG's new collab. Impressions of Fatherhood which will be available June 1. Thanks for looking!

Full credits can be seen in my DST gallery.

I need help...

I really need help! There are so many things that about me that could use some work. I could make a very long list, but that would be overwhelming. I decided to try a little accountability therapy. I am posting a photo today and I am going to take better care of them so that a visible improvement can be seen in one month. That may not sound like a big deal to some but for me, it is monumental. I have a sad condition called "crafter's hands" I always seem to have some ink or glue or dry skin to display instead of groomed nails and cuticles. I have tons of hand creams but I forget to use them. I never wear gloves for cleaning and my nails split and peel all the time. Dr. Phil says you have to acknowledge the reality of something before you can change it. So...




One more...

Okay so the plan is to take another photo in two weeks and then again in one month. Would you like to join the challenge? If you have a blog, post a photo of your hands or nails on it and put the link in your comment to this post. Come on, you know you want to!

Wow, two posts in one day!

I am so proud of myself. I upgraded my laptop all by myself. Well, I did use the Kingston installation guide. I have been thinking about upgrading for a while because my PhotoShop Elements 5 has always run very slow on the laptop with only 1 GB of RAM. Once I got the new PC and saw how fast PSE could run on 2 GB, I found myself working on the PC instead of the laptop. I missed using the LP for scrapping because I like being able to start dinner and work while I am waiting for things to cook and being close by to check on things. I didn't think I could get any more memory for the laptop. I thought it was maxed out, but did some research and found out that I could if I replaced both of the memory modules. So I ordered it from Kingston, 2 1 GB modules and I just followed the directions and voila' I have 2 GB of RAM and my PSE runs seamlessly now. Yay for me!

A pushy friend...

a little furry friend. My husband Don and I have been feeding this little squirrel for quite a while now. She is at the point that he will take the food from our hands. She visits at least twice a day and is now getting a little bold. When she comes to the window, we open the window and go get the container out of the cabinet to give her some peanuts and sunflower seeds. I guess today I wasn't getting the peanuts fast enough and when I turned around she was almost inside the window!

Alrighty....

Another day, another dollar. Well, not really since I am not working. At least not at anything that pays money anyway. If I had a nickel for every file I've transferred from my laptop to my EHD (extended hard drive) this weekend we would be eating out tonight instead of having ham and cabbage from the slow cooker! I wonder, would the world rock if I didn't organize and tag these files? Probably not, but I couldn't find much either. My laptop is very much like an overloaded closet. There is so much jammed in there, I wind up using only the stuff near the door. So in the interest of sanity, I am purging the HD and reorganizing again. Right near the front of the closet was this new kit from Cori Gammon at ScrapArtist and so some of her goodies now grace this latest scrapbook page.
Central Park NYC
My sister, me, my daughter, and my nephew and niece in the back row. A trip to New York City in the early Spring of 1981.