Another "Perfect" Scrapbook Class

Leisa, a super paper-crafts teacher, is doing a series of "Perfect" classes at one of our local stores, Whim-So-Doodle. The first was The Perfect Brew (a beer journal and tasting), and then yesterday we did The Perfect Crush. We made this cute wine journal, then after a break for lunch did a wine tasting at Bella Brava. The bartender rocked - she is very knowledgeable and had us try 6 different Italian wines (with generous-sized samples). I generally don't care for reds - but I loved one we had. Naturally it's pricey at $55 a bottle lol (

Here are some pics of the book I made (mostly Leisa's design).




Here's our group AFTER all that wine!

This and the very first pic are ones I took just playing around.
The yummy, expensive wine!Jenn

Stamp Club Cards - April

Did these a couple weeks ago at our monthly stamp club class at Violette's on my birthday - how fun to have a crafty class on my birthday!
Jenn

Coolest Scrapbooking Class EVER

Saturday I took a scrapbook class at one of my local stores, Whim-So-Doodle. We made a beer journal then went to a local watering hole, World of Beer, for samples!


Here's the book. Design is copyright Leisa Rice, but I put it together and smashed those bottlecaps myself lol. There are supposed to be several pages for rating beers, but I chose to leave them blank for more pics and stuff since I already have a beer rating database on my iPhone that I created.


The coolest thing about the day was that I made three new beer-drinking friends! (Sorry no pics of them, waiting for Leisa to send them to me HINT HINT).


Jenn

Walgreen's

I never used to shop at Walgreen's until I started couponing. Now I love to see how much I get buy for how little! Here's this week's trip:

I got:
5 packages of Oreos (sale)
1 package or Oreo Cakesters (sale and $1 coupon)
2 packages of lunch meat (sale and $1/2 coupon)
4 packages Dole fruit cups (sale and $1/4 coupon)
Cotton balls (not on sale/no coupons)
Reeses' Peanut Butter eggs (sale)
Walgreen's aspirin (free with coupon)
Green nail polish (St Patty's Day! - no sale/coupon)
Soft Soap pump (clearance for 80 cents)
4 Reach toothbrushes (paid 99 cents for all 4 after coupons and sale)
Charmin (sale and coupon)
Excedrin (free w/ coupon)
3 bottles Dawn dish soap (sale and coupons)

Used $11 in Register Rewards from last week, got $5 more that I used (2 separate transactions today).

Spent $21.77
Saved $64.26 or 75%

Also got a prescription transferred there, and got a $25 cert for future purchases on that! Woohoo!!
Jenn

Too Wicked to Kiss - Update

I posted about my friend Erica Ridley's new book, Too Wicked to Kiss, the other day.

I saw her on Sunday and got my book autographed, and had just finished reading it before I went. I really enjoyed it a lot! Erica is a very talented writer, and was very descriptive so you could picture everything in your head. In some cases maybe a bit too much lol, but that's better than not enough! The storyline was enjoyable, and I really felt for the main characters, Evangeline and Gavin. Plus with her writing, Gavin sounded a lot hotter than he looks on the cover lol ;)

You can purchase the book at any local bookstore in the romance or new release section, or here at Amazon.

Looking forward to her next release in 2011, Too Sinful to Deny!
Jenn

Too Wicked to Kiss

My friend Erica Ridley is a published author!!! Today was the release day of her new historical romance novel/murder mystery, Too Wicked to Kiss. You can read about the book at this site.


I picked it up at my local Borders store and plan on having it autographed! I haven't read it yet since I just got it today - but will be diving in soon!

Congratulations, Erica!!!!!
Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 7

Last post on organization in my scrap room! If you missed the others, click here.

Here's how it looks when you walk into my scrap room. Notice I have plenty of room to set up tables in the middle for guests! :)

Thanks for joining me on the tour of my scrap room - I hope you enjoyed it!
Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 6

This post is a fun one since it's all my knick-knacks - not much use other than to make me happy! :)

I had this board made for me at a scrap retreat - it holds four layouts or projects and was just too cute to resist!

I got the INSPIRE plaque at Pier 1 - totally Tim Holtz and the purples matched my room perfectly! Although it's not nearly as girly as the rest of the space lol. Below that is a wood shelf I painted white and display purple things on.

This is a better view of the knick-knack shelf I showed you last post. I made several of the frames and other things on it.

A view above the Expedit - mini albums on end and in the white basket, Christmas and Birthday and two empty Iris cases, and above that shelves that dh painted white and put up and I lined with ribbon for all my stuffed animals. (A couple more Build-a-Bears are shown lol).

The other half of the top of my Expedit (another BAB). Empty mini-albums are in the white bin.

Some Mardi Gras/Gasparilla beads and mask.

My Wall of Fame. CKU tote signed by all the scrap celebs, CKU diploma, Ali Edwards and Donna Downey autographed pics, Club Scrap owners autographs, Heidi Swapp's autograph, and a mini book with pics of me and celebs. The the right of the closet is a 12x12 frame from Michael's painted white and lined w/ thick felt w/ several buttons on it. Below that and below the clock is a frame my dad made me to house my graduation tassels (I don't have as many degrees as it looks like lol, I went to Community College and there's two tassels from one degree due to honor society or something).

Almost done - the last post is a few overview pics so you can see how everything goes together!
Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 5

Here are pics of the other things around my scrap room.

This is my computer setup - we have an old laptop that the router is attached to, and my laptop stays docked down there. All the cords are in the basket. The white wire 2-drawer unit has my Epson Picturemate printer and my dock/card reader in it.

This is the top of the computer cart. My Cricut Expression and phone are on top, and you can see a few of my many Build-a-Bears. It's right next to my desk for easy access.

This unit is from Target and holds my idea books.

Behind the door - ribbon hung on the ribbon tags from Ribbon Ring. The over-the-door hanger was a steal at Big Lots for $3! I keep a spare folding table behind the door for when friends come over to play.

This is on my knick-knack shelf - brads and eyelets stored in a Craft-Mate organizer, the SDU binder I got free and use it as a swatch book (in progess) of pens and inks and Stickles (oh my! lol). The purple notebook has stencils. The cute ribbon-tied box I made at the Club Scrap Rolling Retreat a few years ago and use it for my spare printer ink. The shelf was originally an ugly fake-wood brown, so I painted it white and ran ribbon along the edges (you can see a bit at the bottom of the pic).

Next post is just general decor in my room!
Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 4

Welcome to the next installment of my scrap room pics! This post shows you my desk area. Our good friend Dave gave me the desk and it's PERFECT! I wanted something that could be used for both my computer and scrapping, and this one works great.

The desk is an L-shape with 2 shelves (not attached) and a keyboard drawer. The below pic shows the corner. You can see my bulletin board full of fun things, my inkpad holder (shown in more detail in my post about stamp storage), my Making Memories carousel (LOVE that!), a glass of my ever-present sweet tea, and some other misc. things.

These next few pics show the shelves.

I got the cute unit w/ the pink and green drawers from Michael's on clearance. The white thing on top is the Slice desktop storage unit.

I use these 6-section Art Bin boxes for my Cat's Eye inks, journaling blocks, Smooch, gel pens, and Sharpies.

I keep my adhesives handy in a cute white metal colander and you can see my self-healing quilting mat and my trimmers.

This pic shows how big the drawers area - I keep my Xyron X machines (one for repositionable and one for permanent) in one and my acrylic blocks in another. You can see I have double-stick tape with the blocks - rather than putting Tack-It Over on all my unmounted stamps, I just attach them to the blocks with the tape. Much easier!

A third drawer holds date stamps and embellishments - anything having to do with time.

This is a view underneath the L of the desk. Paper shredder, specific projects in the black unit (with larger things like my Scor-Pal on top). The white drawers (from Joann's) hold my bills, candy (yes, that warrants an entire drawer lol), techie stuff, and misc. stuff.

Since paper towels are a major need when crafting and making messes, I got a cheap plastic paper towel holder and attached it underneath the desk using strong Command by 3M strips. LOVE those things!

You'll see a pic later of the whole desk, but for now I hope you enjoyed looking at the things I store on and under it!

Next post is other miscellaneous storage in my room.
Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 3

This post is about my stamp and stamp supply storage.

The first pic is how I store my wood-mounted stamps. I don't have too many, since a lot of them I've removed from the blocks. I use plastic boxes from Joann's (which of course I can't find online now that I need to lol).

All of my stamps are cataloged in this notebook by theme, with their location listed.

This is the top drawer of my IKEA cd holder, that you saw in a previous post. It's two drawers, unfinished wood. I keep some of the cd cases holding acrylic and um stamps, my pre-inked stamps, and other misc. things in here.

The bottom drawer. CD cases holding um and acrylic stamps (not CTMH; those are all in a fabric drawer elsewhere in my room). I try to keep sets together, but there's no rhyme or reason as to which case gets which stamps since they are all organized in my catalog.

My wonderful CTMH ink tower. The pink basket on top is from Joann's last fall and holds mists. I used SU rubons to decorate - is that wrong lol? The other side, not pictured, has my color wheel velcroed to it.

This awesome unit houses non-CTMH inks, my glue pad, reinkers, texturing tools, misc. specialty pads, all silver/gold inks/pens, and swatch rings. The drawers are all sold separately, so you only get what you need. I got the cute little shelf it's on at Michael's and painted it white.
Thanks for looking! Next post is my desk.
Jenn

Stamp Club Cards - February

Here are the cards we made at Violette's stamp club earlier this month. My niece got the bumblebee one for Valentine's Day. :)

Jenn

The Latest Incarnation of My Scrap Room - Part 2

Next up is my Jetmax cubes from Michael's (Target and a few other stores carry these as well). They were so easy to put together and are pretty sturdy. And they hold a TON of stuff!

The first pic is an overall view. I have 8 cubes total. I would have gone higher on the stack of 3, but the darn lightswitch is there :) The ugly wood thing on the bottom is a CD case holding stamps - coming in a future post.

Two cubes are the ones with shelves, holding all my 12x12 non-themed paper, solid and patterned. The purple box on top holds pics.

This cube had two shelves (notice the paper sample inside, as if I couldn't tell what color it was lol) and two large drawers - perfect for mats, including 6x6 and 5x7!

I have three 3-drawer cubes. The dividers in this one came in the one shown below w/ the shelf and larger drawer, but they made more sense to me in a shorter drawer. I have flock, glitter, microbeads, Flower Soft, daubers, wax thread, binder rings, adhesive refills, and a couple other things in here.

This drawer holds my Staz-On inkpads, Distress Crackle Paints, Stickles, and Alcohol Inks.

Here are my chalks, pastels, colored pencils, watercolor crayons, and Pearl-Ex/Perfect Pearls.

This is the "Naked" drawer - chipboard and acrylic mostly.

My Spin Art machine (that is over a year old and never used, shame on me!) and Bead Spinner.

Paints.

This is the cube the dividers originally came in. The shelf holds two Xyrons and my Scrapcessories Cricut cart holder. The drawer has misc. tools.

The final 3-drawer cub. A drawer for new purchases that need to be filed away.

A drawer for page protectors.

Black letters. Not really sure where all these came from lol!

That's it for the Jetmax cubes. Next post will be my stamp storage. Thanks for looking!
Jenn