Day 1 - Embracing my Signature Style

For Day 1 of Spring Training, we were asked to analyze and consider our signature scrapbooking style.  Here's a Wordle to show my results:

Go to the Ella Publishing Blog to see more about signature style.  It really was a cool process and it helped me find commonalities I did not realize existed.

The most common thing I found is that, as much as I love the control involved in printing my own photos, they fade WAY too quickly.  I was saddened to see the fading on some layouts that were simply a few years old.  I need to embrace a way to get photo lab pictures in custom sizes, which will take a little more forethought than I typically put in to the printing process.  Is it the paper?  The printer ink?  Hmmmmm....

Spring Training of a Different Color

Angie and Wendy at Ella Publishing Co, (one of my favorite sites), have begun Spring Training for scrapbookers!  You can sign up for their Spring Training for a mere $40, and get daily, 20-minute exercises that allow you to hone your craft.  I signed up in an attempt to get my scrapbook juices flowing in time for a summer full of archiving!  Join us!  Check out my super cool gadget to your right--->

It's Officially Been Given

I finished a scrapbook last week, and have been wanting to post it, but was waiting to give it to my friend.  She just had her first baby, and the 8 x 8 book is full of advice from her friends who are moms as well.  Good people!

Crafty Shirts

My friends and I ran a 5K today.  Well, to say "run" for me is funny... I jogged and did a little bit of walking... but I am really proud of all of us.  We were dealing with 30 mph winds... talk about taking your breath away.  All for a good cause: my son's future high school and the place of employment for one of my favorite crafters, Ann Cox: Bloomington Central Catholic High School!  What a great fan base, too!  There were people cheering us on pretty much the whole way.

So, why is this on my craft blog?  It was all about the shirts!  One of our gang of runners is a sister to a woman who does some seriously cite creen printing.  She designed a shirt for us.  Since we are all friends who are addicted to Zumba, the front of our shirts say, "Zumbalicious Runners."  The backs of them say, "I danced my way to a 5K with Zumba Fitness."  They are adorable.  So I bought one "normal" one and then we cut up the second one.  Yes, I said we CUT them UP.  Basically, we created tanks out of them.

Here's the deets: First, we cut off the collar along the seam.  Then we cut off the sleeves along the seam, although Karen made some stringy tassles with her sleeves that I thought looked adorable.  Then, we did something similar to the tie fleece blankets that are very popular.  We cut and tied strips along the side.  We added some black ribbon in there and ties the tops of the arms with black ribbon.  More pictures will follow, but I just think they turned out so darn cute!

Because of my butt to gut ratio, I bought a 2XL and cut longer strips along the side.  I would suggest getting one size larger than your comfort level of T-shirt when you do this.  We got sooo many compliments. :)