Challenge to Myself

This weekend I issued myself a challenge. Since I have been buying a lot of scrapbooking supplies lately both online and at the big box stores, I decided I needed to actually create something with all those things. I have spent a lot of time making room for them and organizing them. Now it was time to actually put scissors (paper trimmer) to the paper and (eeekk!!) cut it. As you may have read in the previous post I had bought quite a bit of supplies when SEI had a big sale. Among those were items from their Morning Meadow collection. I got shimmer paper, cardstock, ribbon, buttons, brads and cardstock tags. One of the shimmer papers was butterflys and quite pretty. I chose that for the cards that I made along with the ribbon and cardstock. I had also bought some Petaloo Crazy for Daisies from HSN and incorporated those into the simple design using the flowers and the rhinestone flower for the center. I added a tiny pearl to the center of the rhinestone. I typed the sentiment for the inside which I think took a long time as I felt I had to have the color of the font just right. Did not get it exactly the hue I wanted but it will do. Here is the finished result of that little project.

Received My SEI Package (like Christmas all over again :) )

A few days ago, I heard about a fantastic sale on the SEI website. Well of course I had to check it out. I ordered a bunch of stuff including a couple of grab bags. Below is the list of what arrived today.

First though I will say that yes, I would order again even though a lot of it is papers that if I were in a store, I probably would not purchase. I especially like the cardstock, ribbons, buttons and brads that I picked from the individual things that were clearance priced. Now for the bargain bags:
The $80.00 value bag had:
3 pkgs of beaded iron ons
Puffy embellishment pack
Fabric stickers (tabs, corners, etc)
Cardstock tags, alpha stickers, frames, tabs & labels
Rub-ons (will be good for Valentine)
Clear alpha and word stickers
Ribbons, some in pinks & browns, others good for birthday
58 sheets 8 1/2 x 11 patterned cardstock

The $100.00 value bag had:
Ribbon in earth colors
Alpha rub-ons, word rub-ons
Vellum stickers (dots, phrases, borders)
Project portfolio of the Seasoned line (idea booklet)
The Idea Book, a spiral bound book of layouts & ideas for their Serendipity line.
Puffy frames and words
12 x 12 patterned vellum about 12 sheets
12 x 12 cardstock sticker sheets
Alpha stickers
Fabric stickers
Vellum alpha stickers
52 sheets of 12 x 12 cardstock

As I mentioned above, I also bought 99 sheets of 12 x 12 cardstock. All of this for $54.55. The box was very heavy but the shipping was only $6.99. The $100 pack was $7.50 and the $80 pack was $6.25. I am thinking about doing the 365 project on my own without the Becky Higgins kit and I could use a lot of this in that. The design lines of all this is pretty clean and simple. Some good colors for stuff for the guys which is not always easy to find. Yes, I would definitely order again. A very good way to add to your stash. And getting colors you wouldn't normally buy gives you a challenge

Scrapbook Excursion Trip

I have a birthday coming up very soon (tomorrow in fact) and the other day my DH asked me where I would like to go for dinner that night. After some thought I told him what I would really like to do is go to one of my favorite restaurants, however the only thing is its in San Antonio. He said no problem (its his favorite too). Although in the past we have driven down to SA just to go to LaMargarita, I thought this time I would like to make a day of it. I have pretty much seen all the sights there is to see there, more than once. So how about a Scrapbooking excursion? So the night before, I went online and found the locations of several SB stores as well as some Tuesday Mornings. I printed those out along with a map. Our son had given me a TomTom for Christmas and I must admit I was a bit skeptical about it. However, armed with my maps, addresses and TomTom we set out. It was very easy to set the TomTom up and I will have to say it is amazing. It would have taken hours to map out the places I wanted to go and then follow a map to get there. But with the TomTom we went from one address to the next flawlessly. The only address I did not have with me was the one for LaMargarita. Now of course we know how to get there, but the last SB store we went to---well we really had no idea where we were in relation to LaMargarita. However again TomTom did not fail me as there is an option to set it to take you to the center of town. That’s what I did and again it was flawless, because once we got to familiar territory, we had no problem.

Ok, some of my friends on the QVC Scrapbook forum are more interested in what I bought than listening to me go on and on about TomTom. So, our first stop was at a Tuesday Morning in Universal City. There, my DH insisted that I really, really needed the Fiskars 12” trimmer and for $19.99 I had to agree. I also bought some Fiskars shape templates (which I found out when I got home I already have L )

Next stop was another Tuesday Morning on Crestway. There I got Fiskars 8 ½ x 11 Country solid color cardstock, 36 sheets each for $1.99. Not exactly “Pretty Paper” but definitely a necessity. I think this may have been the Tuesday Morning that had some Anna Griffin scrapbook kits. They were, I think about $30.00 and probably a bargain, except the end of the packages were opened so I had no idea if they were complete. I declined on those. We did go to a third TM but by this time I was burned out on those stores. There were several more in SA, but the products seemed repetitious.

As we were traveling to another SB store on my list, we passed one not on the list. Well we were able to make a sharp right and go through parking lots, etc to get back to it. It is a fairly new one, maybe a couple of months in business. It is called The Scrapbook Store and is located at 10130 San Pedro. www.scrapbookstoreinc.com Here I purchased, yes Pretty Paper including dotted swiss, a sheet of Queen of Hearts by FancyPants and some Doodlebug flocked papers. I also got flowers---Flora Doodles by Petaloo in blue and also in white and then some smaller pink ones with rhinestone centers (gotta have some bling). Also found InStitchz by Bazzill, Baby Bundle templates.

Next we went to Scrapbook Cottage located at 502 Embassy Oaks. www.scrapbookcottageSA.com Again, Pretty Paper said take me home. I got Cloud 9 Design (Christmas and Valentine), Heidi Grace (Christmas); Brenda Walton Sweet Talk Postage Stamps (Valentine); GCD Studios (Christmas) and Daisy D (Christmas). I also got what I originally thought was fabric stickers, however it turned out to be a sheet of fabric images (in this case old fashioned Santas, snowmen, etc) that you can attach to your project with stitching, brads, buttons or adhesive. These are Homespun Cotton Scraps by Crafty Secrets. www.craftysecrets.com. Another thing I could not pass up here was a Tim Holtz design ruler. This is a clear ruler, very well marked with gridlines, excellent for my aging eyes LOL. It has a metal strip for cutting and (the real seller for me) evenly spaced holes for piercing ($6.99). I also got another set of InStitchz templates, Favorite Things. And last (and probably least) a white gel pen for making faux stitches when I am too lazy to get my sewing machine out. This store had a LOT of stuff to make recipe books, papers, stickers, other embellies, etc.

The last store we went to was Scrapbook Heaven www.scrapbook-Heaven.com , a very nice big store. Believe it or not I found MORE Pretty Paper, mostly My Minds Eye (a variety) and a couple of sheets from Heart and Home---too ummmm pretty to pass up. Actually I will probably cover a journal with that. I got still another InStitchz template, Cozy Christmas. I also got some beautiful ribbon by 7Gypsies (Chelsea) and Double Dot by BoBunny.

Ok, well that is it for my shopping excursion to San Antonio. Now I just have to find room for all my treasures and also get busy using some of them. Ok, maybe after a trip to Michael’s this afternoon. Thank goodness, with the weather turning bad, I have the day off tomorrow.

For those of you reading this who are NOT on the QVC Scrapbooking forum let me briefly explain the Pretty Paper thing. We have discovered that this is basically a condition (medical? Probably not!) but I have dubbed it PPS, Pretty Paper Syndrome. The symptoms are going to a SB store (or online) and buying paper you could not resist. Now this is “pretty paper”. Will you ever actually use it? Probably not. It is “too pretty” to use. You are either afraid to use it in fear you will mess it up or, if you do use it, then you will no longer HAVE it. That makes sense, right? And I will bet, if you are a true SB’er you have this condition. Am I right?