VT PhD for my Brother

Back in April we flew back to Blacksburg to see my brother receive his doctorate in geology. Don't ask me to explain the details of his area of interest, it has to do with silicon and studying the molecular reactions and forces that cause them to break .... or something along those lines. [He studies rocks.] Last year the events at VT hit very close to home with family attending college there. It was an emotional event even as a relative outsider, and visiting campus a year later was emotional as well. I still want to do a layout in remembrance of April 16th, but that will wait for another day. This weekend I wanted to capture and celebrate my brothers graduation. Ever since my brother made the decision to attend graduate school in Virginia and moved away we have really wanted to visit. This last April we finally had a chance. We decide to surprise him, and with the help of his deceptive wife he was. We had a great visit and got to see him deliver an awesome commencement speech. I am so proud of my little brother.

Craft Room

I've been wanting a real scrapbook room for awhile. It all started with a few supplies and a clear container. That quickly grew to a shelf, then the I quickly decided I no longer needed a desktop computer so my computer armoire was converted to a scrapbook station. Even with this wonderful piece of furniture I was soon lusting over full blown studios. This last weekend hubby agreed to wrestle the futon that had been taking up half the room and see if we could store it in our attic so I could use all of "the cat's" room for my obsession. Later after a trip to IKEA and <$100 I settled (for now) on a computer desk with shelves. We rearranged the room and I love all the space and access to all my stuff. (BTW the boxes under the new desk are unfortunately not boxes of scrapbook supplies, they are part of our downs stairs that is still lacks flooring. I forgot to move them before taking the picture.)

I think I still want a fun carpet. I really like this one in the 5'6" round. And I most definately need a new chair. I'm not sure how the chair will mesh with the carpet... will I be able to roll between to two work spaces... or a stationary chair that I need to move if necessary. Things to think about. But without question I do need a new chair: mine is old (~14 yrs to be exact), not comfortable and totally not cute!!

Card is in the Mail- Happy Birthday Meems

Today is "Meems" birthday and here's the card we sent her way. So really the card is in the mail, if not already there (maybe... if the mail went really fast) Happy Birthday Girl!!

Thank You Card

I recently wanted to send out a thank you for a wonderful birthday gift I received and didn't have any thank you cards that I loved ready to go. So pulling out my studio G stamps and Papertrey Ink - Borders & Corners {Square} stamps along with some scraps from The All Dressed Up matstack by Die Cuts with a View I got to work. I love the way it turned out and I think I might make a bunch more to have on hand.

Perfect Combination

A couple weeks ago I picked up a mat stack at a local store. The All Dressed Up matstack by Die Cuts with a View. It's glittery and wonderful. I loved the combination of these two papers with the addition of a scalloped trim I had to make 2 cards. One with the new doggy stamps I picked up and another very simple card that simply says always. I can tell this is going to be a go-to card stack for quite a while to come.

Girly Birthday Card

I made this card quite a while ago and have been saving it for our nieces birthday. It's in a little less than a week and I'm taking a leap of faith that she's not reading this. It was during a phase when I thought quilling might be fun. It turns out I'm not sure I have the patience to roll and glue all the required pieces of paper... but maybe I'll give it another go at some point. But for now here's my one and only quilling masterpiece.

Guess who has the featured layout of the day?

Featured Scrapbooking Layout of the Day

Yup you guessed it ME!! I was notified on my birthday (Monday!!!) what an awesome b-day present wouldn't you say. So exciting!! I've never been "featured" before.
It was the layout I did for the iscrap challenge #13.

Raining Cats & Dogs

Last weekend we went up to Oregon to visit family and I got to visit 2 scrapbook stores on the way. We checked out Scrapbook King 'N' Stampstruck and Sugar & Spice Paper Company. They were amazing stores well worth the stops. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go back during future visits to family. At the first stop I picked up 2 stamp sets, one cat and one dog set. I'm loving them. I've still got a pile of in progress stuff on my desk but here are the first cards I came up with using my new stamp sets.

I'll probably end up putting these on my etsy site once I finish up logos for the backs of them and get around to listing them.