Read to me.

Chillaxin and reading in my favorite spot on the sofa.

FINAL FOUR!

If you are not a college basketball fan, this is probably completely boring.  But, I am, and my alma mater - Michigan State is off to the Final Four again this year.

GO GREEN!


I've kind of run out of scrappy mojo of late, but I hope to order some pictures this week and receive an order full of new scrappy goodies.  I'm also working on a tutorial for the Apron Strings blog.  I should have that written up and photographed later this week.

Alright, I'm off to bed, heading to Lansing with a coworker for a meeting/training (all day) in Lansing.  Leaving wayyyyyyyyyyyy to early for my taste. 

Apron Strings March Projects and a Quick Recap

It's been a week since I last posted, the week has been busy.  We had Alexa's conferences, she's reading well above grade level and spelling words from the next grade as well.  :)  Swimming lessons are going much better, Ava is listening and participating.  We're going to look at getting them enrolled again, if there is a short session before summer, or after T-ball finishes in early summer. 

My March projects -

And a couple of cards:

I'm already looking forward to April's kits, the "smaller" kit has some new Little Yellow Bicycle in it and some Sassafras as well.   But, April's kits are a month away, and I saw one of my favorite lines from CHA available:

And, somehow it made it in my shopping cart.  Hmmm.  I need to go through my pictures and see what would work with this line.  Should be arriving at my door later this week.

Project 12 February Layout

I finally finished this layout over the weekend.  I've had it in progress since the end of February.  I like how it came together, I'm really digging white boarders on all my photos.  All Pink Paislee papers on this layout, some Maya Road chipboard and Thickers.  I stayed pretty true to the sketch this month.

Alright, Apron Strings March kits are up, the newsletter should be up soon.   I'll post my layouts in the next day or so.

Icicles, icicles, icicles...

We just don't get this at the house.

Probably 6-7 feet long.  We checked on my IL's cottage.  I was playing around with the camera.  The textures and crystaline structure in the icicles was fascinating.

I liked the depth of field here. With my point and shoot nonetheless!  Someday I'll have a DSLR...

Alright, I'm off to bed! 

Playing with colored pencils!

Kind of brings you back to childhood.  I've had some Prisma pencils and some Koh-I-Noor pencils for a little while but wasn't sure what to do with them.  Always wondered how people got such cool colors and blends with the pencils.  My images were just...blah.  I saw on Gloria's blog how she used odorless mineral spirits (OMS) to blend the pencils.  And, her cards are awesome.  With Gloria's tips, here is a new and improved use of the Koh-I-Noor pencils.

I wanted my title to mimic the changing color of the Sassafras paper (scalloped border).  I used some Studio Calico stamps (love these!) and then colored the images and blended the colors with OMS.  Really the title is not that crooked.  Apparently, I can't take a straight picture of late.

The title.

And the scalloped border.

All papers and embellishments (sans stamps and pencils) were from the  January Apron Strings kit.  Trying to use up some of my stash!

So thanks for the tip Gloria!  I can't wait to play around more with the pencils.  I've already created a birthday card and used this technique on my stamped images. 

So...Ava.

A little under a week until the kit is live at Apron Strings, and I had the privledge of working with the "Smaller than a Breadbox" kit.  Here is the layout that is up on the ASD slideshow. 

Everything is from the kit, except for the Thickers.  I actually colored them with some Green Maya Mist from the Apron Strings pantry.  This layout highlights Ava's big personality.  She has really changed from the shy, quiet, baby of few words.  Not anymore!

My favorite layout was actually from the Piggy Tales papers, I'll share that layout after the kit goes live later this week. 

We spent a night up at my IL's cottage, I'll upload the pictures of the HUGE icicles  in their yard.  Some were 5-7 feet long!

Good Grief, it's March.

Really?  I just realized school will be out for Alexa the second week in June.   Already?  I can't believe how fast it's gone by.  In honor of the (slightly distant) upcoming summer vacation, I have a mini-album to share.  I started to put this album together when I went scrapping with Jenn.  I kept it simple, as I wanted the wood to show through.  The wood is a thin sheet of balsa wood, I picked up at Joann's.  To give it some color, I used some Tea Dye ink - it works best if you take ink, drop some on to an old cloth and rub the ink over the wood.  The pages are 4x6, and balsa wood is very thin and easy to punch with the Bind-it-all.  Pictures are all from last summer.

The papers, die cuts and rub-ons are MME and the labels are from October Afternoon.

That's it for now.  Layouts are up on the Apron Strings web site, the March kits will go up for sale at the end of next week.