Project: Love, Me Book Printed

In 2011 Kami Leonard (Ziggle Scraps) and Suzy Iverson (SuzyQ Scraps) hosted a year long All About Me project with weekly prompts and coordinating kits that you could buy each month. I followed along every week and completed almost all of the prompts for the year.  Well, I finally got around to getting the book printed!

I used Blurb, my favorite printing company.  But I have to say I had a little trouble this time around.  I had a gift certificate from my mom, and I had a 25% discount coupon that I got through Clickin Moms. Blurb's shopping cart treats discount codes and gift certificate codes in the same manner, and you can only use one code in a transaction. In my mind, a gift certificate is like a form of payment, and it shouldn't disqualify you from using a discount code. But I contacted them about it, and they promptly gave me a solution to the problem. In the end I was able to use both codes, just in a round about way.  So I guess I'm still happy with Blurb. But kinda disturbed by them as well.

My overall feelings about the book:

• Easy to put together using Bookify online system.
• Fast shipping.
• Beautiful book with amazing colors.  This is my third Blurb book, and I must say that I was really amazed by the beautiful colors, more so than my previous books. Not that my previous books had poor colors.  I was just really blown away this time.
• Warped cover, as I have seen in my last book. Photo below.

Here are some pictures. Cover.

Spine.

Edge - notice slight warping of cover, as I saw in my last book as well. The warping in my last book has decreased as time has past.

Title Page.

Inner pages.

A couple of close up shots.

I'm really happy to have this project "officially" finished.  This was my first time creating a cohesive album with similar design elements on every page.  All pages used the same white background, and I had three fonts that I also used consistently on all pages.  Other than that, kits and page design vary greatly from page to page.  Another thing about this book is that I included 4 or 5 self portraits taken throughout the year.  That was a new thing for me, but I've become much more comfortable about including pictures of myself in my layouts. I'm really glad I did this project.

Thanks for stopping by!

If I Could Give the World a Gift

I want to share a layout I made back in the fall of 2011. It was part of the Project: Love, Me album I made that year. I believe the theme for that month was "giving," and the specific prompt was "If I could give the world a gift ..."

Simple and Sweet Album Templates by Scrapping with Liz
Bohemian Spirit, My Project V3, My Project Year in Review, I Should Have Told You and Well Documented
by Captivated Visions; Art and Soul Freebie by Sahlin Studio; HoHoHo by Miss Tiina

"If I could give the world a gift, I would give the world a functioning United States legislature."

I don't remember what was going on at that time, but I felt like our legislature wasn't working the way it should work. I still feel that way.

I've been reading a book called Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig about this very topic. The hypothesis of the book is that the people no longer have faith in the workings of our Congress because of all the special interest money that congressmen need to constantly raise.  Huge sums of money are donated to the political parties and to congressmen from a very small percentage of the population. That being the case, can we truly believe that our leaders are responding to the will of the people? Or are they influenced by the money they receive?

This isn't to say that our leaders or corrupt or that they are engaged in criminal behavior. It just means that money has a corrupting influence on politics, and we need to end that corruption now.

I know that politics is kinda taboo in the scrapbooking world, but I feel like I need to do something about this because I love this country. There is an appendix in the book (Republic Lost) called What You Can Do Now.  I haven't finished the book, and I haven't read the whole appendix either.  But Lessig lists the first important thing that I can do right now: spread awareness of this issue.

• TED Talk by Lawrence Lessig: We The People, and the republic we must reclaim
• Rootstrikers is a site founded by Lawrence Lessig to help end the corrupting influence of money on politics.
• I've added a button in my sidebar to The Anti-Corruption Pledge (you can also get to that from Rootstrikers)

That's all for now, but I'll keep you posted on what I do in the future to help end the corrupting influence of money on politics.

Looking forward to DSD!

I'm looking forward to Digital Scrapbook Day next weekend.  For me it's all about the sales.  I usually have some intention of participating in activities, but it's always too overwhelming.  I can't decide or commit, plus I'm always trying to whittle down my shopping carts to what I can actually afford, and it takes time to make decisions like that.  I've tried to save up a little money so I can kinda go hog wild buying everything I want.  Been filling up my wishlists at a few stores. I will have more money to spend this time than ever before, but I wonder just how good it will feel?  It might not live up to my expectation.

I will also be hosting a game with prizes over at Scrap Orchard for Scrapping with Liz.  I'll post the ad here once it is finalized.

Other than that, I don't really have anything new to say.  Just some new layouts.  Oh, I did apply for a creative team but didn't get it.  I guess I should be used to that by now, but it's always disappointing.

I've been trying to scrap some of the photos I've taken in the last few months, getting "caught up" so to say, although I never really like to think that I'm "behind."  It is a hobby, after all.

This layout started out being about a piece of paper I found on my kitchen floor, with some words that Miller had written at preschool.  And it turned into this - just some cute pics.

Nostalgia by Paislee Press and Creashens; Time Capsule by One Little Bird;
XOXO by Gina Marie Huff and Simply You, Simply Me

These are pictures of Miller waiting outside the door to the preschool building on the first day.  He looked so nervous, but now preschool is his favorite thing.

Trademark by Lauren Reid & One Little Bird; Time Capsule by One Little
Bird; Storyteller by One Little Bird & Paislee Pres

I think this was the first year we've actually carved pumpkins since Miller was born!  He refused to touch the inside parts of the pumpkins.  I made a Spider-Man face jack-o-lantern, and the scientist did the big black widow (in the center of the small photo).

Stitching Fall and Spooky Stitches by Valorie Wibbens; Insta-frames by
Audacious Designs; Retro Ornate Frames by Paula Kesselring;
Photo action by My Four Hens

And a couple Project: Love, Me pages.  The first prompt was to write about something that you cherished but lost, or something that you should have cherished but didn't.

Midwinter's Flight templates by Amy Martin; Snapshots by Karen Lewis
Designz; Sweet & Simple #10 by Gina Marie Huff; HoHoHo by Miss Tiina

And this was about how we can teach others to cherish the things that are important.

Midwinter's Flight templates by Amy Martin; Snapshots by Karen Lewis
Designz; Sweet & Simple #10 and Everyday Life Kit by Gina Marie Huff;
HoHoHo by Miss Tiina

Thanks for stopping by my little blog.

Halloween Kits!

I've never been into themed scrapbooking kits.  I prefer the all-purpose embellisments like flowers and ribbons and buttons.  I don't really use themed illustrations in my layouts.  But I've always had a controlled love of Halloween kits.  I've been listening to The Digi Show, and a couple weeks ago one of the ladies said she really loves Halloween kits and seems to collect them more than anything else.  Well, to show you just how susceptible I am to suggestion, I have not been able to get Halloween kits out of my mind since.  And there are new ones popping up every week in the stores.  My love is no longer controlled.

Halloween is just so fun.  And it can be scary, which is also fun.  Being the boring person that I am, I've never been much of a partier.  But I remember the next door neighbors we had growing up loved Halloween.  They had six kids, and every year they carved about 20 pumpkins, which were all lit up along the covered walk to the front door.  Some of the pumpkins were huge.  They amazed me.  I thought it was so cool.  And their parents dressed up too.  I think they might have had Halloween parties, but those were more for the adults.

Now that I have a kid, I begin to see the value in partying.  And Halloween seems like a great place to start partying.  Probably not this year, but maybe next.  And I'm sure all the Halloween scrapbooking kits that I will amass in the next year will help with all my party planning and crafting.  Here are a couple kits that I've bought, and a couple that I wish I could buy.

October 31st by Valorie Wibbens

Spooky Cute by Scrap Orchard designers

Happy Halloween!! by Designs by Anita

Treats by Wendy Page

And here is a Project: Love, Me page that I completed the other night.  It's about Mom coming home.

Flea Market Finds by ETC by Danyale; Woodgrain Stamp Set by Karen
Lewis Designz; This Moment Elements by Sahlin Studio; Watercolor Splats 1
by mle Card; Sprinkles V.4 by Valorie Wibbens; HoHoHo by Miss Tiina

Adjusting to Preschool

I am getting used to the whole preschool routine, or trying to at least. Despite the couple of hours I have to myself each day, it actually seems like I have less time. Hopefully that is just the beginning-of-the-year stuff and it will settle down soon. Here are my most recent layouts.

This is my new favorite layout.  When I first saw the template by Liz, I immediately though of the lens apparatus on a camera.  The picture of Miller fit in perfectly with the photography theme I wanted to portray.  Normally, he just refuses to look at a camera at all, but occasionally he will give me this fake smile ... which is almost just as bad as far as scrapbooking goes.  But that's my life, and I love how this page turned out.

Recyclables 7 by Scrapping with Liz; Cardstock Stash by SuzyQ Scraps
Cardstock Basics by CafeJ; Froggy's Cardstock by Gina Miller
Storyteller by Studio Baers Garten

These are some cute pics of Miller dressed up in his snow jacket and bike gloves.  He wears the jacket around the house and calls it the Big Strong Woodsman costume (based on a Wonder Pets episode with a woodsman in a red jacket).  I didn't think much as I was taking the pictures, but when I viewed them they reminded me of pictures of Jerry Only from the band Misfits.  I was really into the Misfits when I was pregnant (Graves era Misfits, if that happens to mean anything to you), and we had actually considered naming the kido Miller Only (middle name Only).  I'm not sure how seriously James considered the name, but I actually considered it pretty seriously.  I almost regret not doing it.

Cardstock Stash by SuzyQ Scraps;
Summertime Solid Papers by Cheeky Monkey Designs

In the month of September, I didn't do any Project: Love, Me pages.  I think the iInspire prompts just didn't speak to me.  So this month, I am trying to get back on track.  I think I will do a single inspire-themed page for September, but I won't worry about every single prompt.  The October theme is iCherish.  This prompt was about what/who you cherish, and I decided to write about how I cherish rainy weather.

Traditional Temps I by Scrapping with Liz; HoHoHo by Miss Tiina;
Emporium DigiChick collab; Insta-Frames by Audacious Designs
Photo by Horia Varlan - Flickr Creative Commons

This page goes along with my idea of taking some self-portraits every once in a while to include in my Project: Love, Me album.  I think I will turn it into a 2-pager, with the opposite page just being some text about how I cherish my alone time.

Fun Fades, Fun with Opacity Masks & Misc Temps II by Scrapping with Liz
Paper stamp and ribbon by Vera Lim (freebies); Decorative Stitches and
Sprinkles V4 by Valorie Wibbens; Flowers by Wendy Page

Well, I think that brings the layouts all up to date.  I don't even have any in-progress at the moment.  But I do have photos on my camera that I need to get on my computer, so that's what I'll go do now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Mini Quiches, New Layouts - August 24, 2011

A while ago I wrote about my new technique of making large meals, and then freezing a portion to keep as an easy meal in a few weeks, instead of eating leftovers in a few days.  One of our favorite meals is a broccoli & cauliflower quiche.  It's delicious, but the leftovers usually don't get eaten, which is a real shame because the recipe makes a lot of filling:  it fills a big 10 inch deep-dish pie plate.

So, I thought it would be great if I could work out a better end for this quiche by freezing it in small portions before the final cooking step.  It worked!   Instead of making one large quiche, I can make 6 small ones.  I use 5-inch pie tins.  I fill them with crust then spread the filling between them all, and then slip 4 of the pies, uncooked, into the freezer.  I cook the other two right away for dinner that night.  Here's a picture:

How do the frozen ones taste?  Pretty darn good.  I would have to say that they are not quite as awesome as the freshly baked ones, but the difference is minimal.  Since I can make 6 (possibly even 7) small pies out of this recipe, that means I can get THREE meals out of this one!  ... Until Miller starts eating quiche.  But even then, I'll still get two meals out of one prep.

Here is my recipe.

To fill the 6 small pie plates, I use 1.5X the recipe for a single pie crust.

• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 4 Cups total broccoli & cauliflower (2 cups each), chopped small
• 3-4 green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 oz. cheddar cheese (1/2 of a block)
• 6 oz. mozzarella cheese (1/2 of a block)
• 4 eggs, beaten well
• 1 Cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (or less)
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Melt butter in a pot then cook the veggies in it until soft-ish, stirring once in a while.  While that is going ... Shred the cheese. Beat the eggs and then add to them the milk, salt and pepper and mix well.  Get the pie crusts all ready. (I would have made the crust earlier and just need to roll them out.)  By now the veggies are ready, so distribute them among the pies (about 1/3 Cup each), then top with cheese, then pour on the egg mixture (about 1/3 C each). Bake at 425 for about 25-30 minutes.

The mozzarella cheese in this recipe really is good.  When I first found the recipe, I thought it was weird to have mozzarella cheese in it, so I substituted cheddar.  But then one day I tried a mix of both, and discovered that the firmness and chewy-ness of the mozzarella was really quite nice.  The original recipe also had more milk, and I found that the filling was often too wet.  I've made enough substitutions that I think I can call this recipe my own.  It's one of our favorites.

Here are some more layouts. This first one is about a trip to a local amusement park with  my mom's group. The funny thing about this day was Miller's outfit. He couldn't let me be prettier than him, so we were both wearing necklaces when we left the house.  Plus, he had on some REALLY baggy pants.

Postage Frames by Amy Martin
Boy, Oh Boy by Designs by Lili and Leora Sanford

Just a little summary of the preschool summer camp Miller went to.

Froggys Cardstock and Stitched Alpha by Gina Miller
Stand Tall Alpha by C.D. Muckosky; Template freebie by Miss Tiina

This is a Project: Love, Me page about a relaxing activity I would like to start doing: gardening.

Sketched Frames by Scrapping with Liz; Froggys Cardstock by Gina Miller
Vingtage Vogue Elements by Sahlin Studio; Unique by Designs by Anita

That's all for now! I'm itching to organize some templates while Miller and the scientist are at the park.

New Layouts August 19, 2011

I haven't been making a lot of pages, although the length of this post may indicate otherwise. In reality, I'm behind getting them up here on the blog, so they have piled up. What have I been doing instead of scrapping? Giving myself a little creative break, doing some file organization (photo actions), trying to spend more time playing with Miller. I did open up my Wacom Tablet that I got for Christmas and plugged it in to the computer. I think it will be fun, although Miller has actually used it more than I have so far!!

This first layout has pictures from the State Fair. It explains why Miller was begging to be carried so much - he literally had handfuls of corn kernels in his shoes and never thought to dump them out!

Sunday Afternoon Elements by Kelly Schmidt; Ten Things Papers by
Baers Garten; Color Swatch Templates by Sahlin Studio

This is a little spider that we found while he/she was making his/her web. It was interesting to watch it go round and round so fast. I kept calling it a "he," and every time the scientist would say, "I'm pretty sure it's a she." And I just stood there wondering why that mattered so much.

Ten Things Elements by Baers Garten; Sunday Afternoon Elements by
Kelly Schnmidt; Pumpernickel by Valorie Wibbens; Painty Frames by Amy
Wolff; Sewing Table by Gina Miller Designs; The Wolff by Heather Hess

This is just a picture of Miller when we were visiting my mom.

Snapshots by Karen Lewis Designz

This is my ode to templates. It was inspired by a layout I saw in a gallery, and the scrapper had left the default journaling guides on when she saved for web (instead of toggling on her actual journaling layer). So the layout had these columns of text saying "journal here ... journal here." But I thought it was a neat idea for celebrating templates, which I really like to use. So I left the title as "title," and one of the journaling boxes has the pre-typed text from the template, although the font I chose probably makes it hard to read.

Recyclables IV by Scrapping with Liz; The Everyday Papers by
Valorie Wibbens; Your Day Solids by Rachel Young Designs;
Free Spirit Alpha by CD Muckosky

Just me and Miller being silly.

One Fine Day by Amy Wolff and Valorie Wibbens; Simple Journalers 1 by
Gina Miller; Photography Frame by Joanne Brisebois

A Project: Love, Me page about how I relax.

Froggy's Cardstock by Gina Miller Designs; ever+always by Lauren
Reid and Micheline Martin; June Bliss Templates by Amy Martin

I actually have more, but I figure this is long enough already. Hopefully I'll get them up in just a couple days.

New Layouts - March 5, 2011

Guess what!? I got a guest CT spot at the digichick for the month of March! I can hardly believe it. I applied totally in the spur of the moment, and based on past experience with CT calls, I didn't expect to be chosen. But I was! I've already been busy making pages.

Here are two pages for my Project: Love, Me album

Destination April by Kellie Mize

Fun with Photos Templates by Scrapping with Liz;
Destination April by Kellie Mize

And here are some more pages, documenting every day life.

Everybody Skate by Danielle Engebretson

 

Template by Scrapping with Liz;
It's About Him and It's About us (alpha) by Captivated Visions

XOXO by Gina Marie Huff and Simply You, Simply Me Design
elements from Sweet & Simple Life Kits #2,#8,#11 & Life365 by Gina Marie Huff
Photo action by My Four Hens

New Layouts - Feb 19, 2011

I'm so excited because I just finished placing my order with Blurb for my 2010 photobook of scrapbook layouts. It should be hear the first week of march!

Here are the layouts I've finished this week.

Fun with Opacity Masks by Scrapping with Liz; Everyday Snapshots by Kasia
Designs;Cardstock by SuzyQ Scraps

Fun with Opacity Masks by Scrapping with Liz; Cardstock from HoHoHo
by Miss Tiina; The Little Bird Said by Kasia Designs

New Layouts - Feb 12, 2011

I'm getting caught up with the last of my 2010 scrapping. I'm almost ready to upload and order.  Just a few more pages to finish up.  Here are the layouts I've made in the last week or so.

Everyday Life Kit & Templates by Gina Marie Huff and Cinzia Designs

Nostalgia by Paislee Press and Creashens; Journal tab from The Sunday Edition
by Paislee Press; Button from Moments by Cinzia Designs; Stitch from Innovative
by One Little Bird; Doodles and epoxy buttons from Conversation Pieces
1&3 by Paislee Press and One Little Bird

And here are the front and back covers I made for the outside of my 2010 photobook.

Sweet & Simple Life Kits #4 and #8 by Gina Marie Huff

Sweet & Simple Life Kit #9 (recolored) by Gina Marie Huff

And two more for my Project: Love, Me album

Photo Tints action by CoffeeShop; Template by Joey Lynn Designs;
Dreaming of Spring kit by Captivated Visions & Studio Flergs

Cardstock from HoHoHo by Miss Tiina; Moments by Cinzia Designs;
Template freebie by One Little Bird (modified)