The English Geek

March 2013 WCS Sneak Peek

Today I'm working on a project for Write Click Scrapbook, my March gallery contribution. I'm at the stage where I'm thinking gah, this is so not coming together like I wanted it to but I get that way with every project (scrapbook layout, essay, quilt) I make, so hopefully this is just a phase.

Or maybe I'll scrap half of it and go with more neutral tones, and that will be OK too. I'm using scraps for almost all of it anyway!

Here's a picture:

And some other blogs with sneaks:

Christine

Amy

Katie

Aliza

Valerie

Lisa O.

Francine

hmmmmm....seeing everyone else's wonderful stuff makes me think I might need to push myself a bit more!

Happy scrapping!

on my desk (A Sneak Peek)

The night we got the call that Beth was having medical problems, it was nearly 10:00. Kendell was watching TV, Kaleb and Nathan were both asleep, Jake was making his way to bed, Haley was working on homework, and I was in the computer room working on a scrapbook layout.

With everything that happened after that phone call, it was awhile before I got back to my desk to finish the layout. In fact, scrapbooking almost felt wrong somehow. Like I was moving forward too soon. But, you know? One of the most comforting things in the days after she went was looking at the scrapbooks she'd made. It matters, this craft that we do. It makes it so a little piece of you stays around after you're gone.

Still, I'm entering back into the process slowly. I'm thinking more about the best way to use my scrapbooking time. I'm trying to make things count. And I haven't found the old joy in it, yet. At least not at first—but as I let the process work, I find a still space of calm.

In a few weeks, we'll be revealing the new Write. Click. Scrapbook. gallery. (November 1 to be exact.) I haven't gotten very far yet on my layout, but I have found a bit of inspiration:

on my scrapping desk

I'll make sure to include an explanation of these items when I share the finished layout! Can you guess what the theme might be?

Check back on November 1 to see the brand new gallery.

Silhouette

One of my favorite scrapbooking tools is the Silhouette cutting machine. I've had mine for a long time, so it isn't the newest one that will cut 12x12, but I still love it. In fact, I sometimes feel like my layouts lately could all be seen as advertisements for what you can do with a Silhouette!

Here's a sneak peek of my layout for the October WCS gallery:

And yes, it's got a lot of stuff on it that I cut with my Silhouette! I think the reason I like it so much is that it saves me from digging through a supply drawer for the thing (whatever the "thing" is) I'm looking for. Which means I use fewer things from my embellishment drawers but more patterned paper.

Do you  have a favorite scrapbooking tool?

Here are some more WCS October gallery sneaks. Make sure you stop by for the full reveal on October 1. (Well, if you're of the scrappy sort, of course! Some of you are rolling your eyes right now I know!)

Francine
Christa
Monika (who has a give away on her blog today as well!)
Lisa
Kathy
Teka
Paula
Valerie

Write. Click. Scrapbook. Blog Hop

Hi! And welcome to the second stop of today's Write. Click. Scrapbook. blog hop! If you are one of my blog regulars, I hope you'll join in the hop for a chance to win some awesome prizes. Or if you're coming from the lovely Alexandra's blog, welcome to my little corner of the Internet! My blog is bringing you the letter


One of the things I love the most about the Write. Click. Scrapbook. team is the camaradarie of a group of amazing women. When I first started scrapbooking, nearly all of my girlfriends scrapped with me. At least once a month, we'd pack up our scrapping stuff (back when I could pack all my supplies in one Rubbermaid box) and go to someone's house to eat, talk, laugh, and scrapbook together. We'd give each other advice, share and swap supplies, and compliment particular bits of each other's layouts.

For one reason or another, though, all of those scrapbooking friends have stopped scrapbooking. We're still friends, we just don't scrap together anymore. (I try not to hold it against them!)  So one of my favorite things about being involved with Write. Click. Scrapbook. is hanging out with other women who scrapbook. And these aren't just any everyday, run-of-the-mill scrapbookers. They are seriously talented! And seriously kind. And funny. And smart. And did I mention talented?

I mean, really. If you're a WCS regular you know what I mean. The ideas in the gallery and the daily blog posts are always inspiring. There is layout advice there, and technique explanations, and even products to win. And it all comes from scrappers who offer their knowledge, skill, and creativity in the spirit of simplicity. We all really do mean what we say: the scrapbooking is about the stories and the photos and the remembering.

This month, the focus of the WCS gallery was Inspiration—more specifically, finding inspiration in the work of other scrapbookers. I was paired up with Erin and drew some inspiration from this layout of hers:

Erin is a genius at mixing patterned papers so that is where the spark for my layout came from. Here's a little peek:

(Click HERE to see the entire layout, as well as read about my inspiration process and how Erin's layout affected my design choices.)

Now for just a little bit more fun! I'm doing a give away today. Leave a comment letting me know something about your BSF (best scrapbooking friend) and I'll draw one winner. The prize? My current favorite alphabet stickers. (Come on...if you know me, you probably guessed it was likely to be about letters!) You can see them in the sneak peek of my layout—that orange alpha is one I just can't stop using. I'll also toss in a handful of some other surprise scrapbooking goodies.

To continue with the fun, hop on over to Celeste's blog for some inspiration, the next letter, and  a chance to win something else.

Make sure to visit all the blog-hop stops (there are some awesome prizes along the way!) and then stop by with all the letters you've collected at the WCS blog for another win-something opportunity.

And as always, happy scrapping!

PS: A big THANKS goes out to my friend Marnie, who revamped and revitalized the WCS blog for our third birthday. She's amazing & awesome & wonderful! (Plus we were once at the same Peter Murphy concert, 20+ years ago. We didn't know each other then, but that we are now friends is one of my favorite bits of scrapping serendipity!)

Gratitude Gallery

April's Write. Click. Scrapbook. theme was gratitude. I made this layout for the gallery:

It's about Kaleb's friendship with our across-the-street neighbor. I love this family so much! (Does that sound weird to say about your neighbor?) They all do different things that make our lives easier, and they get our sense of humor!

And, dare I confess: I love the way this layout turned out. I usually start working on a layout with some sort of idea in my head, but most of the time the vision and the reality don't coincide. That's because I usually underestimate the space the different elements will take up, or I write more than I thought so I have to switch things around. (Usually, of course, it's that I wrote more than I expected!) This one, however, came out nearly exactly the way I had imagined it. I love it when that happens!

If you're of the scrappy persuasion, click HERE to see the rest of the gallery, and then check back on Saturday for my write. post.

Trek Photo Album: a little teaser

 finally got some of my photos from trek scrapbooked! Rather than just making a layout, I made a mini (8x8) album. Here's a teaser:

Go HERE to see more details!

I made this album for Jake. One day soon I'm going to make one for Haley and one for myself as well.

One thing that this album reminded me: big projects come together so much faster when the journaling is already written! I just had to tweak a little bit, and proofread, and then the journaling was done.

One thing that this album taught me: how to print small, double-sided booklets full of journaling without using Publisher. (As I don't have Publisher on my computer at home!) It's a little tricky and involves some cutting and pasting and some strange arranging of pages, but it can be done!

Another thing this album reminded me: I really, really loved going on trek, despite the cold.

And: despite my insecurities over being the historian, I did get some good photos.

Oh! And it also taught me: 6x8 prints are an awesome size!

Anyway. If you also went on trek, or know someone who did, you might hop over and see the rest of the album!

WCS Mini Gallery

(Thank you for your kind comments about yesterday's post. I'm still processing. I imagine I will continue processing for awhile.)

This month's WCS gallery is up and it's full of mini albums. For my contribution, I finally got around to making an album with my hiking boot photos.

Ever since the fall of 2008, I've kept the tradition of the Hiking Boot Photo.

On the top of every peak, I make all the people who are with us pause for a photo of all our hiking boots.

Sometimes I forget and then I have to improvise. Like, this counts as a hiking-boot photo, right?

As does this one, which only accidentally got my boot in it:

I am happy to say that I now have all of my hiking-boot photos from the past 3 1/2 years in this little 5x7 album. It's nearly full, though, so I need to get another one for our next years of hiking adventures. I kept the mini totally simple: the 5x7 photo on the left with the location of the hike added before I had the pictures printed, and a journaling card on the right with the details:

If you're of the scrappy persuasion, you should go and see the other minis HERE!

Write Now!

Next Thursday, on August 4, my Big Picture Classes workshop, Write Now!, starts up again. This class is perhaps my favorite class I teach at Big Picture, and here's why:

I think all scrapbook layouts deserve some journaling. That isn't an altogether popular point of view; for plenty of scrapbookers, the journaling part is sheer, frustrating drudgery. Or something that just never gets done but then makes the guilt flare up. That's one reason I wrote the class: to help scrappers feel confident about their journaling and to enjoy the process.

But I also think that if you're going to write some journaling—or any sort of writing, really; you could easily apply the techniques in Write Now! to your blog or your private journal or that personal memoir you've always wanted to write—you might as well write it well. The cool thing is that it doesn't have to take a long time to write it well. That's why the class's subtitle is "A Speedy Journaling Workshop." It teaches you how to write well and how to do it quickly.

Also, it's my favorite class because I deep-down, to-the-tips-of-my (blistered and toenail-less) toes believe that everyone can write well. Yeah, sure: not all of us can write good novels, or poems, or short stories. Not everyone has it in themselves to be the next great and famous Writer. But we can all write about our lives and our kids' and friends' and pets' lives with authenticity and significance. It takes a combination of things: knowledge (the techniques that writers use to make their texts come alive), confidence (which comes with practice and with never getting out of the habit of practice), and desire. Write Now! will help you with the first two. The desire part has to come from you.

Here's what I mean by that. This morning, I did notwant to do my scheduled 7 mile run. My back hurt and my right foot has been having this weird, inexplicable pain. (I even had an x-ray to make sure it wasn't a stress fracture. Which it isn't.) But when Kaleb asked me why I wasn't in my running clothes, I knew I had to put them on and put in my miles anyway. After I'd finished, when I was walking up my driveway, one of my neighbors stopped to chat with me. She told me she admired me for running, and that she wasn't sure how I did it, because running is hard for her to do. Her comments added to my post-run exhilaration, but I also had to chuckle a bit, thinking about how hard it was for me just to put my shoes on and get out the door.

Writing good journaling is exactly like that. It seems like it's too hard to do and that only a few people can do it. But if you do it every day, it becomes easier. With running you learn stuff like pacing and building endurance and avoiding injuries and maintaining glycogen levels and stretching just the right amount; those things help the seemingly-hard process of running become easier. With writing, you learn stuff like sentence structure and word choice and organization, silencing your internal editor and being brave on paper and filtering out the fluff to get to the real; those things help the seemingly-magical process of writing strong journaling become easier.

Doesn't matter, honestly, if you love journaling or hate it, this class will help you. If you have the desire, everything else will start making perfect sense! And, as a happy little perk, there's a give away on Thursday, July 28 at write. click. scrapbook. for a free seat in the class. Click over and leave a comment to enter!

on Weddings

I confess: I didn’t love my wedding day. Something like that is sort of strange to live with, like the fact that no one signed my Junior yearbook (because I even sluffed the yearbook signing day!), or that I didn’t go to prom, or that I put "Mr." instead of "Dr." next to Kendell’s dad’s name on my wedding invitation. It feels a little pathetic, wandering through life without those contemporary milestones, but it’s still the truth. My wedding day wasn't the most blissful day of my life.

My lack of bliss had nothing to do with my marriage, or even with the festivities. My sisters and mom worked hard to make sure I had delicious food at my reception: tiny chicken salad and crab salad sandwiches, vegetables and dip, hand-made mint chocolate temples, individual cherry cheesecakes. It was all very elegant, in an old house that had been renovated as a reception center. I loved my dress and veil (even though now I look at them and shudder a little bit, they look so dated). I think my bridesmaid dresses were gorgeous (although, Chris and Becky might disagree). The flowers were perfect.

No, the uncomfortable feeling I get when I remember my wedding day doesn’t come from the details. It doesn’t come from the fact that we got married in February when I really wanted a May wedding. It snowed that day, one of those bleary, miserly winter days, so all of my photos at the temple are ugly and grey. It doesn’t even come from the fact that the combination of winter weather and a Jazz basketball game on the same night meant that quite a few of our more casual friends didn’t come. No—it comes from the fact that I was 19, and standing in that gorgeous antique house in my beloved wedding gown was deeply, deeply unpleasant. I didn’t enjoy being the center of attention like that. And, at 19, I didn’t know myself well enough to know just how uncomfortable and unpleasant I’d feel in that position.

So when I received the assignment to make a wedding layout for this month’s WCS gallery, I was more than a little anxious. I haven’t scrapped my wedding photos. I have absolutely zero desire to scrapbook my wedding photos. In fact, they are somewhere at my mom’s house, which really means I might never see them again. So, instead of making a layout about my own wedding, I made one about Haley from a wedding we went to six years ago, my niece Lyndsay's:

　

I wrote the journaling based on some thoughts I wrote in my journal that night. They focus on my hopes for Haley when she gets married: that she, too, will love the details, but also that she’ll get it right, somehow. More right than I did, so that when she looks back she only remembers being happy instead of mortified like I felt.

What about you? Did everything about your wedding day make you happy? Have you scrapped your photos? If you want some ideas, you should visit the gallery—there are some awesome ones there!

my Write. Click. Scrapbook Give Away

Today at  Write. Click. Scrapbook. is a great big give away day. Many of the WCS designers have put together different gifts, all of them scrapbook related. So! If you're of the scrapping persuasion, you should check it out. If you're not, well, maybe today is the time to start!

For my contribution, I decided to finally do something with one of my collections: word-based fabrics. It is a serious weakness of mine that when I see a fabric with words, I tend to want to buy it and make it into a scrapbooking embellishment. When you use fabric on your layouts, it does take a bit more effort than using, say, an alphabet sticker set. But the product possibilities effectively double. (I can't tell you how often I've thought "someone should make this patterned paper into fabric" or the other way around.) Plus, it's just so lovely. And as I am consistently drawn to word-based anything, well, it's a rare wordy fabric I can resist purchasing! I put some of my collection to use in a few textual fabric embellishments.

First, some tips for scrapping with fabric:

• fabric is sold by the inch in increments based on a yard. Or you can buy it in fat quarters, which are 18"x22" inches; some fabric stores will also sell fat eights (11"x18"). When I'm buying a fabric I know I'll only use for a layout, I buy 1/8 of a yard, which is 4.5" tall x 43-45" wide. If the pattern of words repeats, make sure to buy enough that you get at least one repetition. Obviously there will be some leftovers when you're finished. Perhaps one day I will make a quilt with all my scrapping-fabric leftovers!
• unless you're sewing your embellishment directly onto your layout, back it with some card stock. Then use your regular, preferred adhesive to stick it down.
• alternately, it is perfectly ok to stitch it down on your layout. In fact, it is awesome. You can even, if you're so inclined, cover an entire 12x12 sheet of card stock with fabric. Plus, there's just something about the back side of a stitched-upon layout that makes me happy. Is that weird? 
• keep a dedicated sewing-on-paper needle. Paper dulls needles faster than fabric does, so keep your nice, sharp needles for your fabric creations.
• if you have one, use your walking foot. It moves the paper/fabric combo through the machine much easier than a regular foot. Warning: A quarter-inch presser foot will leave a faint scratched line where the 1/4" guide touches your cardstock, or, at least, mine does.
• iron your fabric. I repeat: iron it! I know. I hate ironing too. But it does make a difference to the piece's outcome.
• the way you cut your fabric also influences the end result. A rotary cutter produces a cleaner edge (obviously, straighter, too!) than scissors do. I like the more ragged edge that comes from a fabric cut with scissors, but you should do what makes you happy.
• do some practice stitches before committing to whatever paper-and-fabric creation you're making. The tension will need to be adjusted a bit, depending on the texture of the fabric and the thickness of the card stock or paper you're sewing on.
• decorative stitches work almost as well on paper as they do on fabric. Keep in mind, though, that the holes punched by the needle don't "heal" on paper like they do on fabric. If your stitches are too small or close together, the needle holes can turn into perforations instead.
• sew slowly. Since paper doesn't heal, you can't fix your mistakes by ripping the stitches out. Trust me: just go slow!
• keep in mind my cardinal rule of sewing: fabric is a flexible medium. You'll rarely get exactly, completely square and straight fabric embellishments. That's OK. the texture of fabric invites imperfection if you let it. Imperfection just reinforces the fact that you made this, not a machine.

Now for the give away:

1. The All-About-Me Embellishment:

 
(about 2 1/2" tall x 5" wide)

2. the baby boy tag:

 
(about 4.5" x 7")

3. the Baby Girl Embellishment:

 
(about 6x6)

4. the Christmas Tag:

 
(5" x 2.5") (made with some left over bits from this quilt)

5. The Cute Little Chick Set

 
(9"x5") (I know...cue bird-induced squee!)

6. the Hiking Set

 
(8"x 5.5")

If you're interested in entering the give away, go to today's WCSpost and leave a comment. (You can, of course, leave a comment on my blog about the absolutely stunning quality of my work, tee hee, but that won't get you entered into the drawing.) You might just win nothing (and we all know that if *I* entered that would be the case, as I never win anything), but you could win my textual fabric embellishments. Or any of the other cool stuff that's up for grabs.

And let me know if you win!