Scrapz

Cute name for a scrapbook, isn't it? I used it for a recent project, an album about myself, so "Scrapz of Me." Here are some of the layouts in the album... and if you notice that some look familiar, there is a reason. These are layouts I did for my Outlaw cj group, but some were modified enough that I thought I'd put the new, not necessarily improved, version out for viewing.

fyi - the ribbon you're seeing along the top is from a layout inside. Nice that the colors just happened to match the front of the album too!

The right side explains about the album, and has a list of layouts.

I added crystal flourishes to the favorite jewelry layout, thinking it tied nicely to the diamonds in the ring.

This one I basically flipped upside down... instead of the arrow on bottom and items on top, I switched it, because I thought the original way looked kind of top heavy.

This one I didn't have the same paper for the background, so I used a similar color and added felt flowers.

And this one I don't see that I ever showed off on my blog!

I also put together a Book of Me from the layouts I did for the CKU-Chicago dorm cj group, and here are the "bones" of that album:

Cover - lovin' the bling and the glitter and the flourishes and the ribbon!

Explanation of the album.

List of layouts and dormie who requested each topic.

And last but not least, I thought I'd show off my studio, as it is currently. I've added a little storage, moved stuff around a little, since my last photos. And yes you see Henry (kitty) in the chair in this first photo, and Alex on the floor in the 2nd.

The drawer units closest to the window hold arrows, flourishes and flowers of all sorts. The little drawers in the shelf area under my stand-up counter hold embellishments sorted by color. That shelf also holds my floss boxes with lots and lots of fiber, metal alphas, inkpads, eyelets and brads, photos to work on. The big drawer units underneath hold themed embellies, mini albums, chipboard, Tim Holtz products, punches, acrylic stamps, adhesives, etc. Oh, and the rotating thing that Alex is in front of holds all my alpha stickers and rub-ons.

The closet holds lots of trip albums, finished and unfinished projects, some cd's, and my fave stuff: paper. Lots of paper!! Pretty paper!! lol I had the hardest time figuring out how to organize my patterned paper, and finally decided to do it by style (clean vs shabby), then by color combo within style. I want to do some cleaning in the closet - box up most of the stuff in the bins on the bottom and move it downstairs. That would give me room to just spread my stuff out, so it isn't so crowded together. All in all, I still LOVE my studio!

life is passing me by

Another year gone by. {sigh} But yes, it was a great year, a fun year. As has become tradition the past few years, we celebrated my bday weekend in WI Dells with folks from our bike club. And no, we don't go because it's my bday - our club has gone to the Dells that specific weekend since before we joined.

And, as usual, we went downhill skiing in northern WI / U.P. in mid-Feb. It was such great fun - I totally felt more confident on the slopes than I ever had. I did black diamond runs, moguls, tree skiing, and even did some tricks in the terrain park. Here are a couple quick photos from that trip:

the gang's all here (well mostly!)

yep, I did that black diamond!

one mogul run - not so bad...

oops, this mogul run wasn't so pretty. I didn't turn quick enuf, and ended up skiing partway UP that slope.

Vakay part V

On Wed Jan 30th, we were at the beautiful island of Barbados. We had been there at least twice before, so again we opted to do some things off the beaten track. We lucked out at our first 3 stops; there were no other tourists around when we were.

We went to a mahogany carving "factory." We had no idea what to expect... the factory was basically a large house with a few workers. The owner showed us how he (and his workers) carve the mahogany. Instead of using chisels, etc., like normal carvers do, they use power tools such as grinders and sanders. wow! He apparently figured out how to do to this, and has been so successful he has hired others to work with him. They create mostly basic pieces, such as fish and birds and vases, etc., but because the wood is so beautiful, each piece looks great! And they do make some more detailed pieces too. The owner uses the root of the mahogany to create amazing one-of-a-kind pieces.
We then headed to a pottery factory. Again, all work is done by hand. The pottery is made using forms, and then various people have their part of the job to finish off the work: cutting off the excess and final shaping, cleaning off the nobby and gritty yuck, painting, etc. The workers were very nice and helpful. We literally just wandered around, watched, asked questions... - very cool!

We talked about the firing process with one worker, who showed us this rack of pieces that had been taken out of the kiln the prior day - the pieces were still hot!

Then we walked over to a batik studio. Again, very cool! The artist was on break, but the worker who was there explained the process of creating these beautiful pieces of art, as well as the more well-known batik clothing.

The batik studio had this very helpful display that showed the steps of the process clearly.

We drove to an overlook that is apparently pretty well-known. There is a bar at the overlook; lots of folks were there, and there were a couple green monkeys on display.

We went to a place called Welchman's Gully. It sounds neat, and would be a nice place to visit if you stay at Barbados for a few days. The Gully is filled with non-native plants, and actually was rather interesting. But I don't think it was a great choice for a one day cruise stop, as it is time-consuming. The tree pictured below is one of the more intriguing specimens in the Gully - neither Greg nor I had seen a tree with needle-like spikes coming out the trunk like this.

We stopped at the Morgan Lewis Windmill briefly. If we had more time to explore, it may have been worth the admission price. Since we were running short on time, we opted to just stop for a quick picture. The Windmill is currently under renovation and not working.

Barbados is really a beautiful island. There is a great mix of tropical and arid, rocky and sandy shore, evergreens and palms, etc. It is definitely another great place to visit in the Southern Carib. The photo below is of Bathsheba.

This next photo was just a view along our drive, I asked our guide to stop so I could snap a picture.

Our tour this day was with Cameron Reid, website: http://www.scenicbarbados.com/ He was a great tour guide; we had a totally personalized tour, just Greg and I. We told him the places we really wanted to visit, and some that sounded good, and he worked the tour around that. He was very interesting to talk with, he talked about current events as well as historical and cultural.