Martha Stewart... I love you, you jailbird.

OK, so I finally bought the Martha Stewart Circle Cutter at Michael's. I love circles, and I hate having a million circle punches to get a nice looking circle. I started with a Fiskars circle cutter (right) years ago, but it has a part for the center of the circle that touches your paper or picture. If I was using pictures I had printed on my printer, they would get marred by this. Also, the blades were tiny and sometimes hard to change.

So, then I bought (left) the Cutter Bee/EK Success (after purchasing several punches from EK Success and Stampin' Up!). Apparently, JoLynn needed an IEP to work it. Just couldn't get it rockin', and it required a glass plate (sold separately) to cut at its best.

Enter, Martha... she was my last hope! Truthfully, and without sarcasm, I knew that, if Martha Stewart produced it, it would probably be high quality. Well, for $14, I FINALLY found a circle cutter that will work for me. Here's a video (that showed me some things I didn't realize!). Please note that I took it out of the package and started using it without needing any sort of aid... three perfect circles right off the bat. It's a good thing. :)

FS118: For Healing

Necessity brought my cardmaking back to me this evening. This card is for my sister-in-law, whose mother passed away this week. I decided to look in to the Featured Stamper's gallery this week for some sketch/color inspiration.

I decided to CASE this card of hers. I liked the colors and the basic design.

Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches

Cardstock: SU! Eggplant Envy and Old Olive; white

Ink: SU! Eggplant Envy and Old Olive

Paper: SU! Le Jardin (I think)

Stamps: SU! Close as a Memory

Circles: Coluzzle

Accessories: Ribbon (Offray); brad

Administrative Professionals {Secretaries'} Day

For our two school secretaries, I made the following "lazy Susans." They absolutely loved them. I was happy that they did.

Choo choo!

Well, I have finally reached week 12 in my Cathy Zielske class. Only 4 months later...

Anyway, in this week, she allows us to go back and choose some of our favorite layouts to recreate. I chose this one.

I have had this scrapbook idea for 5 years and have only now have had the opportunity and layout to get it done.

Here's the story... The photo on the left was taken in the early 70s when my husband was vacationing at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. Knowing that we had this photo, I took a snapshot of Ignatius, age 7, when we were at Silver Dollar City and I spied the same basic train as the one in Scott's photo from 30 years earlier.

The train is from Jolie's Boutique. I decided to use vellum for the puffs of smoke and the journaling. I inked the edges in nopes that the smoke would show up better. I had some Lionel embellishments and paper that I used, in addition to Stampin' Up! Baroque Burgundy and Chocolate Chip cardstock. I used SU! Chocolate Chip ink for the years, and two different date stamps as well. I did some paper piercing as well. The title is created with rub-ons.

Clearly Accomplish

I purchased a clear overly on sale somewhere... I have no idea where... that I just knew would be a Max scrapbook page. It was fairly simple to use, and I love the way the completed page looks.

What caught my eye to this overlay (Clear Expressions by Jackie Eckles) was the subtitle: "little things really are BIG things." It feels like that is the theme of our time with Max so far. Many things that we really took for granted with Ignatius because he just DID them is now a celebration for Max.

As far as assembly was concerned, I was kind of a dork. It took me a while to realize that, if I scanned the text area, I could adjust the typed lines accordingly instead of wasting an entire tree while I guessed and checked by printing. I decided to adhere the overlay by using corduroy brads by Stampin' Up! With the exception of the brads, the photo, and the journaling, all else is the design in the overlay. It is one of my first times using these, and it was really a lot of bang for the buck.

Ode to a Great Magazine

Alas, my final issue of Simple Scrapbooks came in the mail this week. I have a whole lotta love for that magazine. It was one of the reasons I found that I could, indeed, scrapbook without it being a major production, and I would still feel that I had accomplished something. It was the way I learned that quick, mini-scrapbooks make great gifts and allow for a fast record of the moment.

From what I gleaned, the mothership, Creating Keepsakes, will be absorbing Simple Scrapbooks. Kind of like a mag within a mag. I am glad they aren't forgetting those of us who looked forward to our issues month after month. Also, it sounded like there just wasn't enough advertising money to go around. I completely understand that in this economy.

So, I send a big thanks to Stacy Julian, Cathy Zielske, Wendy Smedly, Angie Lucas, and the rest of the gang. They will be missed! However, their blogs (liked to their names) live on! Plus it sounds like they will be keeping their little portion of cyber space on the CK site.

The week of April 27-May 1, they will be having a blog bash. There are 17 blogs that you can go to to share memories and experiences with SS and enter to win prizes. Here are the sites:

http://getscraphappy.com/
http://elizabethdillow.typepad.com/
http://bethproudfoot.blogspot.com/
http://celestefs.blogspot.com/
http://mks.typepad.com/
http://rebeccacooper.blogspot.com/
http://www.elishasnow.com
http://abagofchips.typepad.com/
http://chersmoon.typepad.com/
http://candicepalmer.blogspot.com/
http://marnieflores.typepad.com/
http://rachelgainer.blogspot.com/
http://jenniferwozab.blogspot.com/

{Plus, the four editors' sites listed above.}

If you haven't grabbed the final issue, do. If you are a stamper and/or cardmaker, there are tons of ideas in SS that I have crossed over into my cardmaking, particularly regarding simple design and layouts.

Just Playing

This phrase has taken on such a different meaning over my years of teaching. I can't tell you the countless times I have heard it when investigating horseplay. Alas, I am a firm believer in horseplay, but, in the 21st century, in a post-Columbine education system, we must take more things seriously than ever before. So, "I was just playing," becomes a last ditch argument for, "we don't want to get in trouble."

I was thrilled to do a page where the layout was, indeed, about just playing. Max was at the park, I was able to get a good shot of him midplay, and I thought it would be a perfect photo for the 8.5 x 11 in. single-page spread for Design Your Life, Real World Color 11. The color palette is shown. I LOVED the blue, but wasn't a big fan of the orange/yellows. I tried to choose an orange/yellow patterned paper. Conveniently, there were almost the same colors in Max's photo as were in the palette, so that worked nicely.

I used the SU! Paper Pack II that I got last night from my dealer, I mean demonstrator, Karen. LOVED the dots, especially the blue, so i thought I would use the same pattern in different colors. The Sprinkles Thickers were PERFECT for the playfulness of the situation. I love the asymmetry of the sketch as well as its gridlike layout. It lends itself for lots of choices, yet a speedy page, as you're using 1 four by six photo.