The Booya Girls are at it again

Four SUPER new articles up at Busy Bee this week...check them out. I swear my acrylic album addiction is getting bad! They are just so much fun to create. For this one I photographed some of my children's school art, printed it on photo paper, and um, archived the originals.

Scrappin' and Travelin'

Hello! Happy Friday! In just a little while the kids and I are going to head down to see my parents in North Carolina and we'll be there until Tuesday. I have neither packed nor showered, and I have to pick Annamarie up at camp in oh, an hour and 45 minutes. To answer your inevitable question, no, we don't ever stay home. My mom and dad are celebrating their 45th anniversary this weekend, and my sister-in-law was thoughtful enough to arrange a small gathering of friends and immediate family at the fish camp. (If you're not from the South, suffice it to say that a fish camp is a particular type of seafood restaurant. It's a southern thing...you wouldn't understand. ) Mmmm mmmm, I will be clogging my arteries with some hush puppies tomorrow night.

I have been scrapping the past couple of days and I'll share a couple of layouts. They're nothing fancy, but I am in git 'er done mode again and just want to get some events and photos scrapped and in albums. OK, in a stack over there in the corner, but it's a step closer to being in albums.







A couple of people asked about my Alaska album layouts. I didn't scan any because they are so incredibly simple, but this is the first two-page spread in the album. You can click to see it bigger if you're so inclined.



For each place we visited, I had one of my favorite photos printed in an 8x12 size at Scrapbook Pictures. Their prints are gorgeous, they ship fast, and their prices are very reasonable. I added a title to each big photo in PhotoShop before I uploaded them. Then I printed out Ron's lengthy journaling on vellum, cut it apart, and stuck it with the appropriate photos. Very simple, as I said, but I would be crazy bored with the project if I tried to do an embellished page for all the photos I want to include.

Now I am starting to panic about the packing and the showering. Have a great weekend!

Don't be doubtin'

Aha! Y'all didn't think I did any Alaska pages, did you? I actually got 32 mostly done, except for journaling. This album is going to be super simple, just photos on white cardstock. I know, right?? It's a scrapping travesty. But it will be done and I can move on with my life. Speaking of the white cardstock, I ran out and drove 75 miles to the scrapbook store today to get more. Naturally, they were out too, since white Bazzill is such an esoteric item and nobody ever asks for that so why would we keep it in stock?? I ended up buying a pack of cheap white cardstock at Michael's but I feel sure it is going to be an unsatisfactory substitution.

About the journaling. Ron and I were determined to keep notes about the trip while it was happening, so we summarized each day on the laptop. Ron did most of the typing, and his writing style is, shall we say, very detail-oriented. Here's an actual excerpt from his recounting of our first evening:

"We were pretty hungry, so we asked at the desk for a casual place to eat and they suggested Keg Caesar’s, which is a steak and ribs place a block from the hotel. We hiked over and had a wonderful meal, along with several glasses of water and half a liter of red wine. I had roast beef; Cyndi had a grilled chicken and seafood dish. We walked back to the hotel and turned in."

Several glasses of water?? I would have written "We had dinner and went to bed." Something in between the two is what is required, since my style is boring and Ron's would require several volumes. So that is my current challenge, editing the journaling to something manageable and hopefully maybe even interesting.

I was a bad, bad scrapping mom in Knoxville and didn't take a single photo. We took the kids to tour a local dairy (very cool) and Mary Beth and I went to see Mamma Mia (LOVED IT!) and had a kids-free dinner thanks to MB's sweet husband Brad (who also won Annamarie over by showing her surgery photos on his iPhone). Mary Beth, I have just three words for you: MOVE BACK HERE. What were you thinking moving so far away?

Michele has asked me if Annamarie drove me crazy talking on the 7-hour drive, but she is a surprisingly good traveler. She brings her iPod and a big bag of jewelry, hairnets, a stethoscope or two, a stuffed horse and wolf, 64 ink pens, and she entertains herself. I won't say that I never ordered her to please just stop talking until the clock says 7:15, but mostly she was great. It helped that there was no brother to fight with, but she missed him too. (Michele, I am too old to text with one hand so I couldn't respond to your texts well while driving 80 65 on the interstate.)

Mixed Up Mini Album

I bought this cool Mixed Up album from Magistical Memories a while back and finally got around to creating something with it. I used photos and MOO cards from three years' visits to the Virginia State Fair. My favorite embellishment is the star tag on the cover, which came off a pair of Converse sneakers.