Katie the Scrapbook Lady

2007-11-30T15:54:00.001-07:00

http://scrapbooklady.typepad.com/

Remember to change your feeds

2006-06-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved!

I have a new blog location so head on over!

http://scrapbooklady.typepad.com/

I was able to transfer my entire blog so don't worry about keeping this one bookmarked. Update all your bookmarks and feeds to go to my new location.

Cruise on over right now!

Katie

blogger trouble

2006-06-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

If you use blogger you know that it has been impossible to get on it for the past few days. In fact there have been a lot of problems over the last few weeks. I've always been quite happy with blogger and you certainly can't beat the price!

But I think it might be time for me to move my blog. For some reason my blog here has been targeted as a possible "spam blog" so until they have reviewed it, I have to type in a word verification with every post. So if I have been somehow spamming anyone with my scrapbook ramblings please forgive me - LOL!

And I still can't post pictures even today!

I can post smiley guys though so I will leave you with a smile and tell you to come back on Monday. I'm working on the new blog now and I will reveal all on Monday and I promise that there will something fun for you to download!

See you on Monday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Blog therapy & deep stuff

2006-06-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

Pull up a couch because I'm needing a quick therapy session. We had a hard morning here (nothing terrible) just one of those everything goes wrong kind of mornings.

My hubby is out of town this week so I'm playing single Mom which is never a gig I would hope for full time. My kids are older now so this generally isn't too bad. He used to travel ALL the time when the kids were little, taking several trips a month. One month (May 1999 when Riley was 2 and Alex was 5) he was only home 2 days out of the entire month. 2 weeks of that were spent in Japan and without all the technology we have today I didn't even get emails from him. That was probably one of the lowest points in my life because the kids were both at very difficult ages, especially Alex. I remember when we went to pick my husband up at the airport that Alex wouldn't even look at him for about 2 days after he got home. He couldn't cope with the whole thing. Broke his Dad's heart.

That said...I'm feeling pretty good about how things are now. It is much easier when hubby leaves and he really only goes a couple of times a year now. In some ways we enjoy the time (no offense Jeff!) because we don't have as much of a schedule to follow. Dinners are even more casual than usual, and we try to do some fun things. It is hard though when a member of the family is missing, especially the head of the household. It doesn't feel quite right and we all miss him a lot.

We had a naughty dog incident in the middle of the night - a bad one! And it turns out the cleaner I used (and have used for years) bleached out a part of our carpet that is less than 2 years old.

That was what I woke up to at 6 a.m. as I was trying to get the kids ready for a drive up to my son's bus stop. He only has 3 more weeks of school before we start homeschooling. We have to leave here at 6:45 a.m. to make it in time so I was already a little time crunched. Then we had to put on his shoes.

What is the big deal about shoes you say? Well he is learning how to tie them. He is 12 and he can read on an adult level, but he can't tie shoes. This is what is referred to in the autism world as "Sawtooth development" - certain areas of development are normal or even advanced, while others are delayed or deficient. He has always had fine motor skill problems. He still can barely write legibly but he is very good at typing at least.

We have worked on the shoe tying several times over the years and it always ends up being such a frustration that we abandon the effort. Now he is big enough that he is wearing the smallest size in men's shoes, the issue has forced itself. I have not been able to find any velcro or slip on tennis shoes. We could probably get by with sandals and then slip on loafers in colder weather, but with the help of his teachers we decided to give it one more shot while we still have their assistance during the day.

Major meltdown this morning. Hard to explain. Hard to appreciate unless you've been through one with him. Been a long time since we have had a lot of meltdowns but we have had a couple in the last week. Makes me so grateful for how far he has come because we used to have giant sized meltdowns several times a day. Now it is very rare. He wouldn't let me help him because he said I was doing it wrong. He liked the way his teacher showed him instead but he could not do it no matter how hard he tried. I do tie my shoes a little differently than most because my Grandpa taught me his special way. They hardly ever come untied but I guess it is not the Alex approved method.

I got a little desparate and cut a deal with him. We quickly made him a chart that says if he practices tying his shoes 3 times a day for 3 days (without getting angry or crying) then we will go to Barnes and Noble. That at least got him in the car to go to the bus stop. We made it in time but he had another mini meltdown when he realized I took him to a different bus stop than dad usually does (Dad takes him to the one by his work) Somehow he made it on the bus and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he makes it through the day.

Remember how I said he earned most of those 500+ books in his room in the layout I posted last week? You wouldn't believe the collection of fast food toys we have also! It's not bribery, it's motivation and it works. Someday I will have to do a layout about all the charts and programs we have gone through around here. Bottom line is they work. Alex can do most things for himself now like getting dressed, brushing teeth,keeping his room clean, and generally being just a delightful and wonderful guy. I will do whatever it takes to help him succeed. Always have and always will.

Ok, I feel better now. Kind of funny how blogging can be therapeutic like that. It's like there is someone out there listening.

I also felt better after making my blog rounds this morning because I saw that the funny dance guy I posted about a few weeks ago was on the Today show this morning! Can you believe his clip was viewed more than 18 million times?

Also found another cute freebie on Paula's blog

I talked to my sister in law on the phone for awhile this morning and we discussed the wonders of blogging. It helped me realize how much I enjoy having blogs to read. Somehow it makes a difference to be able to gain ideas and inspiration from others. After all, we are all just trying to be mommies, or daughters, wives or friends and for my few guy readers out there...husbands, dads, sons, brothers etc. It's just everyday life right? And we are all trying to do the best that we can at it.

This may very well be the wordiest blog post ever for me. I'm sure some of these words will make it to a layout sometime soon!

I leave you with this thought. While listening to Harry Potter Book 6 yesterday I heard something that really stuck with me. HP is very deep stuff in my opinion.

This moment of enlightenment came to Harry shortly after he and the headmaster discussed more about the prophecy and the enormity of the task ahead of Harry.

From page 512 of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince:

But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death, and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew
-- and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents-- that there was all the difference in the world.

Keeping your head held high is what it is all about. That is the difference.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Forgot a great font source!

2006-06-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

Blogger has been giving me problems all morning so hopefully this will work.

Still working on the blog and I'm going to be updating it a little more today. I know my lists for things like fonts and such aren't complete yet, but I can't believe I left this one off of my FONT FUN resource!

http://www.onescrappysite.com/downloads.html

Angie has put together one of the very best font resources around for scrapbookers, and while you are there, you really need to browse her whole site - it is amazing!

Don't know who Angie is? Well she wrote Book of Me series for one thing and she runs a couple of great blogs,does podcasts (which she kindly mentioned my roundup and my Amazing Month of Memories) and she is really an industry expert in the happenings of the scrapbook world.

Thanks Angie!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Blog in progress

2006-06-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Bear with me over the next day or so as I update my blog template. I'm undergoing a little "remodeling" here on the blog so it might take a little while to get it looking just right.

I'm kind of silly this way, I know the blog was fine before but I had some ideas and decided to go for a change. There are a lot of other things I should be working on instead. I used to do this in college also - the night before finals I would get a whim to clean out my closet or something like that. LOL!

Blog remodeling is a lot more fun than cleaning my closet though!

I'll be back later on today with my regular post. In the meantime take a looksie and let me know if you have any ideas or requests for what you would like to see on my blog.

By the way, the new free kit is up at 2Peas and it is really a nice one.

Have a happy day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Amazing Month of Memories Layouts to share

2006-06-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

I should have posted a better image of the free gift because several of you thought it was only the circle image. Hopefully you were pleasantly surprised by the quotes.
You can download it by clicking on this link.

Remember you will need to use a photo editing program such as adobe photoshop elements or microsoft digital image to open and use the quotes and images.

Here's a better image:

Hope you enjoy them!

Don't forget that my June sale only lasts a few more hours so take advantage of the low price on the June issue of An Amazing Month of Memories and the companion quote pack.

I wanted to share some of my creative team's fantastic layouts using the ideas from the Amazing Month of Memories series over the past few months. It is so fun to see these ideas come to life and I think you will agree that these ladies are very talented scrappers! I will include a gallery link and name above each layout image so you can explore the details behind their creations.

I know they will inspire you!

Lindsay has been on my team from the beginning and she has had a lot of fun with the themes and ideas from my series. This layout is posted at 2Peas.

Kathy created this fun layout in honor of National Chocolate Chip Day (great holiday isn't it?) I guess I should warn everyone that there are lots of yummy ideas to try also! Here is the link to her layout at 2Peas.

Crissy used the National Sleep Month prompts to inspire this cute layout. It would have been a shame if she had missed scrapping this silly sleeping moment! You can read more on her post at 2Peas.

Amanda put together a simple yet stunning layout based on the kite theme that ended up being one of my favorites as well. Love the white space on this! This layout is posted at 2Peas.

Tracy is another long time team member and she celebrated her daughter's love of reading with this special layout posted at 2Peas.

Tracie did a wonderful layout for Customer Loyalty Month and she got me excited for when our IKEA opens here in 2007! Love the bright colors on this one! Posted at 2Peas.

I will share some more team layouts tomorrow. I just love seeing all the fun ways the Amazing Month of Memories series is inspiring others to create fun and meaningful layouts!

If you have purchased the June issue you will know that I have issued a special challenge this month. If you share 5 layouts and post them each in 2 online galleries you can earn a free issue.

I'm hoping to get a chance to do some scrapping tonight also.
Be back tomorrow.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Quote Queen

2006-06-03T21:10:00.000-07:00

I love quotes and I used to keep a separate quote blog. It got to be too much work to keep it up with this one so I consolidated.

I have gotten away from including quotes on this blog so I am going to re-commit myself to quote keeping once more.

This post will serve as the index for all my quote entries. Be sure to check back regularly!

Free download, sale extended, reviews from customers

2006-06-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

I usually only run a 2 day sale when I release a new issue of the Amazing Month of Memories. I have let it run a little longer this month because I was hoping to have my products added to another site's online store by now, but there have been some delays. I've been waiting to send out my newsletter but I'm just going to go ahead and send it today. I will send another one when I have more news about the new site.

I'm going to extend the offer of the sale until midnight of June 5th and then I will go back to full price. I'm not sure when my products will be added to the other site so I can't make any promises about a sale there but I will try and do something to celebrate the grand opening.

I have also posted my free download for the month of June so be sure to visit this link for my gift to you!

50% off sale on both the June issue of an Amazing Month of Memories and the companion Quote Pack for June.

Thanks for all the orders so far - I have had a wonderful response to each issue!

Here's a few quotes from happy customers:

I just read through my first purchase of Amazing Month of Memories. I am thrilled with it! I will shortly be ordering the Quote Pack, also. Reading through all the ideas made me think of pictures I could scrap and lead me into inspirations all my own. This will certainly be turning me into a scrapbooking ADDICT! Thanks Katie! I read your blog everyday!
Paula

I just opened up your May month of memories (yes, I am that far behind) and just wanted to tell you again how much I love these. You have ideas for every type of person out there! Even if I scrapped every single day, I could never complete all of your great ideas in just one month. Thank you again for all the great inspiration! You know I'll be picking up your future months the day they come out.
Amy

Thanks for all the hard work on the packs! I love it and can't wait to get started on some of the fun ideas!
Amanda

I love the AMM prompts... I can’t believe that I’m actually journaling now! I wasn’t much of a “journaler” before.
Tracie

Where on earth do you come up with so many creative ideas? You should write a book!
Jen

If that isn't enough to convince you - I will be sharing some of my team's layouts over the next few days and you can see how other scrappers are using the ideas in each month's file!

Have a happy weekend.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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a layout to share

2006-06-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

A page to share!

Kristin Cronin-Barrow Blueberry Crisp Kit (sounds yummy doesn't it?)
My Old Remington font.

Posted at 2Peas, Digi Chick, and Scrapbook Bytes

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Photo Friday

2006-06-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

This week's Photo Friday prompt is "NEW" and the first thing that popped into my mind was my new baby...

I think she's a beauty!

I also realized as I was posting my roundup last night (see next entry) that I never posted my last 3 layouts from the month of May here on my blog. So here they are:

Posted at 2Peas, Digi Chick & SBB. Trish Jones Eve Tide papers and elements.

Posted at 2Peas, Digi Chick & SBB. Trish Jones Eve Tide papers and elements. At first glance this kit seemed "girlish" but it worked out great for a guy layout also!

This is very simple, but it may be one of my favorite layouts ever. This picture was just not that exciting originally. The colors were faded and it wasn't cropped very well - yucky old basement fireplace in the background. But with a scanner and a little clean up, the subject just shines now. Can't believe my baby is 9 now when it seems like just yesterday she was a little toddler giving Daddy a kiss!

Posted at 2Peas, Digi Chick & SBB. Trish Jones Fresh Dreams Kit (quote) and border is a photo edge freebie from Trish Jones' blog.

I am off to work on answering emails and trying to get my house clean again. The end of the month is very busy for me and now that June is underway I feel like I can get a grip again. (If that is ever possible - LOL!)

We watched the spelling bee finals last night and I thought it was so neat that the top 3 finalists were all girls! We made a big deal of that in front of our daughter and she thought it was really cool also. I am in awe of all those kids who did such a great job!

I'm working on the June freebie and also some other good stuff so you may want to check back later today.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Fun, Fantastic & often free fonts!

2006-06-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

2Peas fonts

One Scrappy Site

Da Font

Mom's Corner

Font Diner

High Fonts

1001 Fonts

Font Paradise

ABC webworx

Font Face

Font Freak

Larabie Fonts

Typodermic

Type Now

Swish fonts

Commercial Fonts

Font Garden

Fonts N Things

House of Lime

Dingbats

Please feel free to email me your favorite font resource to add to this list at
kt@scrapbooklady.org

Happy Font Finding!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Katie's May Roundup

2006-06-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

May was a good month for our family so this roundup was a fun one.

I printed out all my blog entries for the month. I opened up each entry and then copied and pasted it into a Word document which worked out really nicely. It even copied my smiley icons which is very important! Now I think I will just do that each day after I post and then print the whole file out at the end of the month. Nice to have a hard copy because this is the closest I have come to keeping a daily journal since I was in 2nd grade and wrote in a notebook nightly "I ate such and such for lunch. I had fun."
LOL!

After printing out my blog entries and looking at my calendar for the month, it was easy to round up my memories.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady's May 2006

Reading:

I started a new program for our family this month – we are calling it “Genius of the Month” and we spent the month learning neat things about our selected “genius.” We will rotate taking turns picking the subject and this month was my turn so I picked Leonardo da Vinci. Of course I became interested in him when I read the Da Vinci code awhile back, but my true respect for his genius solidified when I discovered How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb. I just love this book!

I also have been studying the Everything Da Vinci Book which has been interesting. I started re-reading The Da Vinci Code and this time I have been enjoying the special illustrated edition. When I read it last time I kept trying to picture the places and art that were discussed in the book so it is fun to have pictures to refer to.

I also read Mary Higgins Clark's No Place Like Home which was a fun and easy read. One of her better books.

Did some research by reading Homeschool Your Child for Free - a great book for homeschoolers (I will be homeschooling my son soon.)

I did look through Digital Scrapbooking 5 and Cathy Z’s new book briefly but I really haven’t read any other magazines or scrapbook related stuff lately.

Movies & Television:

I feel like I watched a ton of movies this month and I guess by my usual standards I really did! Watched a lot of movies on vacation so that pumped up the total for sure.

DVDs
Nanny McPhee - cute
Elizabethown - cute actor (Orlando Bloom)
Fantastic Four - didn't like this one
The Family Stone - only saw last half but it was interesting
Hoodwinked - really clever and cute kid's movie.
Just Friends - fun to watch with my SIL and BIL

Went to the movie theater with my kids and hubby to see Over the Hedge. Totally funny movie! We went on opening night of the movie on opening night for a new theater so it was quite the event!

I watched some Friends reruns which always make me laugh. Can't think of any other tv shows that I watched.

Special Days Celebrated:

Vacation with my in-laws to Bear Lake

Nephew's 3rd birthday party

Went to the zoo with my kids - we had a great time!

Special Purchases:

One of the more expensive months of our lives! We had 7 trees planted in our yard (who knew trees were soooo expensive?) and we had a fence put in. I also got a brand new laptop computer. I earned most of the money for that but hubby chipped in the last $250 I needed so I didn't have to wait any longer.

Accomplishments & Dissapointments:

My only real dissapointment was the hideous highlight job I had done on my hair. Really bad - so bad, that there will not be pictures posted here. LOL! I'm still working on getting my haircolor right again and I have colored it myself 3 times since trying to get it right. It really is amazing I have any hair left at all!

A good month all in all. No sickness and really no big problems. If the worst thing that happened to me all month was a bad hair color, I'm pretty lucky aren't I?!

Good stuff that happened -

I was invited to join Kristin Cronin-Barrow's creative team.

I continued on with my other creative team assignments for Trish Jones, Mindy Terasawa and Ashley Olson. I'm so lucky to be able to rub shoulders with such talented (and nice!) designers. I love being part of their teams!

My blog was featured on Ali Edward's blog - yay me! Ali is such an inspiration and she has done so much for autism awareness by being willing to share Simon's story with others.

I made it through the first 2 rounds of the Ultimate Digi Scrapper contest.

I completed 18 digital layouts.

I wrote the June issue of the Amazing Month of Memories and also designed a companion quote pack.

I spent a lot of time with my kids and husband doing fun things together.

I got 2 rooms of my basement completely cleaned out and ready to be framed.

I finally got the hang of using my Wacom tablet.

Finally, I like to round up my stats for the month. Kind of a fun thing to do.

Scrapbook Lady Stats:

As of May 31st - I've now had 26,371 blog visitors. - I had 4000 visitors in May alone!

My website has had a total of 328,552 visitors.

My newsletter has 3,004 subscribers.

I'm excited for June and ready to scrap - how about you?

Use this roundup tool to plan the month ahead and make some amazing memories!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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End of May means....

2006-05-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

ROUNDUP TIME!

Can you believe it is here already? Now before you go rushing off into June, take a few minutes and do a roundup of May. You can make it short and sweet - or go full out on details. If you have a blog and want to share your roundup with family, friends, or the whole world - go ahead!

I would really appreciate it if you linked to my blog and let others know where you got the idea.

And, I've been waiting all month to unveil the new "me" - a Katie the Scrapbook Lady Roundup Chick! I think I look good in boots, what do y'all think?

Just like my other little chickies, I ordered this one from Bless this Chick.
Ok, here's the deal. I created this roundup feature to keep myself in line and a little more organized. This way I don't wait forever to upload pictures, print out layouts and focus on keeping things in order. It is also a great way for me to get some important details down on paper (or blog) to use for future layouts.

These are the questions and tasks I try and complete each month:

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

What special days did I celebrate and how?

What illnesses or health concerns did I have in May?

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try in May?

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

What were this month’s disappointments?

What were my accomplishments this month?

Any thing else noteworthy to record about May?

Then I am going to be sure that at the end of each month I have done the following tasks:

Pictures & layouts:

Backed up all digital pictures to a cd

Back up all digital layouts to a cd

Print out any digital layouts created during the month and put them in albums.
Uploaded all digital pictures to 2 different sites. ( I use Sony Image Station & Costco photo center)

Send email links to online photo albums to your family or friends who might enjoy them or send a picture cd, or picture attachments. Share your memories!

Get your pictures printed out and put into simple photo sleeve albums.

If you use film, be sure you get all your pictures developed and file your negatives in a safe place. If possible, I would suggest you get a picture cd along with your developing.

Put finished paper scrapbook layouts in sheet protectors and albums to enjoy.

For bloggers - print out my blog entries to keep in a binder. My blog(s) really are like a journal and I was thinking that it would be nice to have hard copy to keep. I know some people back up their blog files which is probably a good idea.

Scrapbooking Supplies:

For digital scrappers:
download, unzip, and file all kits & fonts purchased. Save a preview image of each kit and keep it in a separate file for easy browsing. Back up all new purchases to cd or dvd in case of computer crash or to maximize your hard drive space.

For paper scrappers:
put away any new purchases. Do you still have stuff in sacks sitting around? I know some of you do! Put it away in an organized system.

For all scrappers:

Look through what you have purchased recently and decide what you want to use. At the first of the month set some goals for scrapping (hint – use this same list of ideas as a goal sheet for April)

Sort through old supplies that no longer appeal to you. Donate them to a friend who can use them or a charity. My older supplies go to my daughter who happily uses them to create many fun projects. I have also donated some to charity.

Look through what supplies you did use during the month and think about what it is about them that appealed to you. This will help you make smarter purchases in the future.

Clean up your area! Whether that is getting your computer in tip top shape, or clearing off the piles on a table where you can sit and work.

So consider this a little nudge with the old spurs from Katie the Scrapbook Lady. Don’t let this sit unfinished for too long, take a few minutes and write out your answers while the month is still fresh in your mind. You will be so glad that you did!

If you want to get really ambitious, have other family members fill this out (or help them with it) for an even richer memory resource.

Remember that I will post my own personal roundup notes here on my blog tomorrow.

Now Giddy Up and Happy Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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June issue and quotes are done!

2006-05-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

2 day sale of 50% off the ridiculously low price of $5.00
ONLY $2.50 through June 1st!!!

2 day sale of 50% the everyday (and incredibly low) price of $3.50
ONLY $1.75 through June 1st!!!

You can buy both of these in my web shop

OR

for all of those who have been asking if I could take credit cards and not just pay pal - I have some big news coming! I'm in the process of setting up a new shop with a wonderful digital scrapbooking website that will offer you more purchasing options. It could still take a few days to get everything set up there so rest assured that I will also hold the same usual 2 day sale there.

I will send out my newsletter when all systems are a "GO" at the new location so be sure you are signed up to receive messages from me at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/katiescrapbooklady/

AND...I'm offering a special challenge for this month only! You will have to read the first page of the June issue to find out more - but I will give you a hint: there is an easy way to earn a free issue!

I will be featuring a lot of fun pages here in the next week that show you how other scrapbookers have used the ideas in past issues.

Happy Shopping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady
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Happy Memorial Day!

2006-05-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post today. I just wanted to be sure that you saw the added links to Saturday's entry - there are lots of amazing freebies and sales out there today!

But save a few dollars for tomorrow... the June issue of An Amazing Month of Memories is coming and I will have some surprises for you!

Have a wonderful day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Weekend Wamblings - edited to add (ETA) another freebie

2006-05-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Gina Miller has a great Memorial Day freebie on her blog - perfect for military pictures! Thanks Gina!

Found another awesome freebie that I thought you would all want to know about. It's on Meredith Fenwick's blog and it is gorgeous. She also has a sale going on this weekend at SBB.

I originally titled this post "Weekend Ramblings" but then I thought of Elmer Fudd for some reason so I thought it should be "Wamblings" instead. Too silly!

Just some odds and ends today.

Thanks for all the nice comments yesterday on Alex's favorite layout. I read all of them out loud to him and he felt pretty special so thank you if you left a post on this blog or on one of the gallery websites.

A reader asked for advice on the best way to tie ribbon. This is actually something I am not very good at - I have never been able to tie pretty bows! Because this is a weakness of mine, I actually bookmarked a page on Martha Stewart's site with advice on this very subject. Go to Martha's website to see what the expert has to say.

Michelle Coleman is giving away "Good Karma" on her blog.

Lucky Bug Scrapbooking has a new look. Check out the state by state listing of stores!

Jen Caputo (one of my creative team members) has been sharing some awesome sketches on her blog (free download) - love this one!

There are some good sales this weekend on digi stuff so if you need a little enabling here are some links:

Ali Folendore's mini kits on sale for $1

Kristin Cronin-Barrow's designs at The Digi Chick are 30% off. I really love her new Petal Pack!

Andrea Burns at The Digi Chick is having a 40% off sale.

Holly McCaig has a coupon on her blog for 15% off.

And it's been awhile since I've done some of these...

You Belong in 1974

If you scored...

1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too.

1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all!

1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!

What Year Do You Belong In?

You Are a Smiley Face Cookie

You're happy go lucky. So happy, in fact, it's a little past the point of normal sanity.
You usually make those around you smile ... when you're not creeping them out!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

You Are Cream Pie

You're the perfect combo of simplicity and divinity
Those who like you life for understated pleasures

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Ok, I think I have got all the important stuff covered now!

I'll be back on Monday - taking tomorrow off.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Alex's favorite layout

2006-05-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

The new theme on Photo Friday this week is "Home" which is just perfect for the pictures I have been wanting to scrap lately. I am having fun documenting my children's rooms through photos and I know these are memories they will cherish.

Been working on my son's room this week because I have had maps on the mind. I love his room because it is like a living scrapbook. Full of memorabilia and collections.

Today we had a lot of fun taking inventory in my son's room! Check it out:

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

Not sure if I should be publicly admitting the amount of OCD that is prevalent in our house! LOL! My son's large collections represent years of obsessions, gifts, and mostly rewards for all the point systems that have motivated him throughout the years. He loves all of this stuff and he and I had SOOOO much fun counting all of these things this morning. He is ready to do the rest of the house now! LOL!

Font is shorthand.

Thanks for looking - Alex is so excited about this layout because he helped me a lot with it. If you get a minute to leave a comment about it I know he would think that was really neat!

Hope you all have a happy weekend!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Links & recipes!

2006-05-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Want to see some really amazing photography? I just love photos of children anyway and this site has some really beautiful portraits! Check it out at http://www.ann-mariehensley.com/

Another one of my blog buddies has a great freebie up to share. This one is from Maggie and the colors are some of my favorites. Thanks Maggie!

I had some requests for my recipe for chicken burritos so I thought I would share it here. It is not really a recipe as much as an ingredient list, but that is often how I cook. I have some VERY picky children so I need to make food that everyone can customize to their own liking. My daughter is a vegetarian. She's only 9, but she made the decision years ago because of her love for animals. I can't convince her to change and I respect her choice. However, she really is more of a "selectetarian" as we call her because she doesn't like much!

My son has textural issues (usually a part of autism) and won't eat anything creamy or mixed together. He is a lot easier to cook for than my daughter is though which I never thought would be the case. He doesn't eat a wide variety of food and he can't stand mexican food, casseroles, or other "suspicious" foods LOL! He LOVES pasta and could eat it at every meal. He never has sauce, just butter and parmesan cheese. Every time! He also is crazy about steak, bacon, and sausage so you can imagine how that goes over with the Veggie Chick! Could they be more different? Thankfully, he loves fruit and a lot of veggies so that helps.

Most nights I try to find a happy medium, but sometimes we have a meal that I know one of them will hate and they have to have something else like leftovers. Some people have the rule that you eat what is put in front of you or else, but I really can't see that working around here. My son would probably actually throw up if I forced him to drink milk and it would scar him (and us) for life! How do I know? We had an occupational therapist who made us push the point enough that I can vouch for it. It is important to try and get kids with textural issues to get past them so they can have a well-balanced life, but there comes a point where you also have to live in peace and some battles are not worth fighting every day for years on end.

Bet you didn't know you would get all of this by asking me to share a recipe? I guess I'm a little chatty today or something.

So here's the rundown on the Chicken Burritos:

Diced or shredded cooked chicken breast. If I feel ambitious I grill it, or even slow cook it and shred it just before serving. Yesterday I decided to take the easy route and I used Louis Rich grilled chicken strips. They are good, but kind of expensive unless you buy a big pack at Costco (which I do.)

Flour tortillas

shredded cheese (we like cheddar and/or Monterey Jack)

Diced tomatoes

shredded lettuce

Fresh Pico de Gallo (I love this stuff! and I always buy a container of it in the produce section)

Rosarita Vegetarian Refried Beans

S& W San Antonio Style beans (yummy)

Guacomole

Sour Cream

Spanish Rice (I usually just use the Lipton instant packets)

Salsa

Everyone can lay out their own tortilla and fill with the meat, cheese, rice & beans of their choice. Then the plate goes in the microwave for about 90 seconds till it is all heated and bubbly. They get to add the other ingredients and roll into burritos. This is always a filling meal and there is very little cooking involved so it is nice on a hot day.

My favorite way to serve these burritos is to use pork instead. This is what I do for company (or I'll offer both options) and I served this to my in-laws on our vacation last week.

Put boneless country style pork spareribs in the crockpot in the morning with about 1 cup of water. Cook all day on low heat. Drain off excess liquid and shred pork using 2 forks just before serving. I don't use any spices but I'm sure you could jazz it up a bit if you wanted. This always gets rave reviews and the pork is so tender this way!

So there you have it...one of the famous "build your own dinners" that we live off of. I will try to share more on the blog so you can hopefully get some recipe ideas. I know my worst task of the day is deciding what to have for dinner so maybe it will help inspire me if I share some details with all of you.

What's on tonight's menu? I have been in the mood for barbequed hamburgers ever since I wrote about BBQ month in the May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories. We love them with Famous Dave's BBQ sauce (yum!) and I bought a bag of the kids favorite potato chips (Lay's Dill Pickle- uugh!) and some corn on the cob also.

Speaking of the month of memories.... June's issue will be ready on Tuesday the 30th. I usually try and have it published on the 25th which is today, but I fell behind this month because of my vacation and I thought it might be nice to get Memorial Day weekend out of the way first.

I'm sure you know by now that you want to be here the day it is published!

Good stuff in June's issue - I'm having a ton of fun putting it together!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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A great day!

2006-05-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough today to spend a big chunk of time just having some "me" time. It's been awhile since I've done that and I must say it felt great!

I went to Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware which are 2 places that I always find a lot of inspiration. I didn't actually buy anything, just looked, but that was fun to do. I also went to Michaels and used the 40% off coupon to buy another one of my favorite albums. I haven't yet filled an entire album so I don't know exactly how many pages will fit, but I can tell you already that it is a TON! I originally was going to use all these cute little theme albums, but I have recently changed my mind that I will do this more like a family library of albums and keep them in our family office. I will take pictures and share more details someday soon. The idea is loosely based on Stacey Julian's system with my own twist.

So that was some fun shopping just for my own pleasure. No groceries. No errands. No to do list in the purse. Gotta do that more often.

I treated myself to a nice lunch. Some people can't bear to eat alone, but I'm not one of them. I just bring a book or a magazine in the restaurant with me and I enjoy the solitude and the pleasure of having someone else prepare the food and wait on me.

I guess I'm pretty simple, but to me that is a great morning!

I have another freebie link to share with you today - it has been a good week for freebies!

My digi pal Ashley Olson has a cute paper pack on her blog to download. She is going through a pretty rough time right now yet she still found the time and energy to do something generous for all of us. How amazing is that? The papers will go with one of her upcoming kits so you will want to be on the lookout for when that is released (don't worry, I'll let you know!)

That's it for now. Need to get working on dinner. We are having build your own grilled chicken burritos and chip and guacamole.

Have a happy night.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Late night blogger and more maps

2006-05-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have one of those days where you think I can totally get everything done today and then find out you can't? Ok, so I have them almost every day...but I really wasn't expecting today to be one of them! LOL! Thus, the late night blog entry. But the day just doesn't feel right if I don't blog so here I am at 11:30 p.m.!

A couple of cool things to share:

Amazing freebies from Bad Candy - love that name! These are from a digi designer in Germany so part of her site is in German, but the digi downloads are easy enough to figure out and thankfully in English.

I found this blog and I love the tutorials she does called Photoshop Fridays! Here is a great one about making eyes "pop" - I'm going to have to try this sometime, it looks really cool!

And another cool thing... it is nice to be missed!

Maps, maps, and more maps!

My son has a full wall of maps in his room. I did a layout about his room today.

Posted at 2Peas

I need to still do a page 2 of this layout but for now I thought I would share the rest of the map wall.

We have maps from all over on the wall. I used 3m brand Poster tape so they are removable. It was like putting together a giant puzzle to layer them all just right. My son's favorite map is the video game map of Spiderman's Manhattan.

Have a happy Wednesday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Sunday Scraps and Monday Maps!

2006-05-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Shabby Princess has a new freebie up at http://www.shabbyprincess.com/DinnerParty.asp

I had a wonderful scrappin Sunday afternoon yesterday!

Ashley Olson Delicious Breeze Papers
Monotype Corsiva Font

Posted at 2Peas, SBB, & The Digi Chick

Ashley Olson Faithfulness Kit
2Peas Well Behaved Font
Idea from May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories - Better Sleep Month

Posted at 2Peas, The Digi Chick, & SBB

Ashley Olson Glam Chic Kit - I LOVE this kit and it is on sale right now for 50% off!

Posted at 2Peas, SBB & The Digi Chick

Now on to the Monday Maps portion of the post....

Maybe it is a little goofy, but when I titled this entry I still didn't have my blog theme for the week settled on. After I typed in "sunday scraps" it came to me. Yes, mostly because of the rhyme - LOL! But that is ok, because once I thought of it, I knew it would be cool. See, I love maps! I never realized this until lately, but as I look around my house I can see a lot of maps - and I wish I had more. I also wish I would have understood how cool maps were when I was younger.

So for the next few days let's explore maps (scrapbook style of course!)

Today we will start with scrapbooking maps, aka blueprints, sketches, etc. This is like having a plan for your page and you just plug in the papers and pictures. Really takes the mental strain out of scrapbooking and it is so fun to see how individually unique they can turn out.

Here are some of my favorite resources:

Scrap Maps

Becky Higgins

Simple Schemes

Pages of the Heart

Memory Creators

I'm going to put them in a separate entry as well (see below) so you can find them anytime on my sidebar by clicking on this image.

So do a layout today using one of these resources and enjoy the ease of following a map!

Happy Mapping Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Scrapbook Maps

2006-05-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Scrapbooking maps, aka blueprints, sketches, etc. are a fun and easy way to jumpstart your scrapbooking creativity. This is like having a plan for your page and you just plug in the papers and pictures. Really takes the mental strain out of scrapbooking and it is so fun to see how individually unique they can turn out.

Here are some of my favorite resources:

Scrap Maps

Becky Higgins

Simple Schemes

Pages of the Heart

Memory Creators

You can find this entry anytime by clicking on this image on my blog sidebar menu.

So do a layout today using one of these resources and enjoy the ease of following a map!

Happy Mapping Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Random Scrapbook Lady Stuff

2006-05-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

How's that for a clever blog entry title? That really is what this post will be though. Remember my 374 emails from the other day. My inbox is now down to 53 messages and they are all things that I need to take action on in some way. Some of them are simply items I want to keep track of or share here so it seems like Saturday is a good day for that. I will be cleaning my house and yard today, so why not my inbox also?!

Random item #1 -

We went to see "Over the Hedge" last night and it was hilarious! I totally recommend it and I'm always so happy when a movie comes out that both kids and adults can enjoy.

Random item #2-

I found these cute elements at Designer Digitals today and decided I "needed" to add them to my collection. Love the tape collection! Also picked up these cute frames and some fun metal accents.

Random item #3 -

I picked up a copy of Digital Scrapbooking 5 a week ago and took it with me on vacation. It was fun to see alot of my digi friends in print and I'm always thrilled to have a new magazine, especially one for digital scrapbooking. Now don't get mad here but I'm going to give an honest review. I actually liked the last 2 issues better. Now, this is NOT because they didn't accept any of my entries, although I wish they would have! LOL! No sour grapes here.

I thought that many of the pages seemed fuzzy and dark and the overall layout was not as pleasing. Too critical? Well, it is a digital scrapbooking magazine so I would expect they would really focus on quality issues like that. I also thought the articles were not as good as previous issues. Perhaps I've grown enough as a digital scrapper that I expect more? Who knows? If anyone else is noticing the same stuff I am on this I would love to know. I'm not trying to be mean - so don't send me nasty comments over this - LOL! I know a lot of hard work went into this issue, and there are many wonderful layouts and ideas. Just some observations and opinions.

I love the free digital downloads - especially the one by Tia Bennet!

In my opinion, Simple Scrapbooks should make this a regular publication complete with subscribing options. I can see that they could easily publish 4-6 issues a year. If you look at all the amazing talent online, you will know that there would be plenty of great pages and articles available! Hmmm... maybe I will send them an email today.

You can email them also by using this link.

Random item #4 -

Still on the subject of Simple Scrapbooks - I am very excited about this upcoming book! Don't you think this book is a result of all the blog quizzes and tags that go around? What a great idea!

I really do believe that blogging is changing the world. Seem like a bold statement? I don't think so. We can be in touch with people around the world and share ideas like never before in the history of man. It is also just a really cool way to use your creativity and keep track of life in general.

Random item #5 -

I did another layout last night. Just a simple one, but sometimes those are the most fun to do!

Kristin Cronin-Barrow's Sunny Sunrise Kit at the Digi Chick.
Brush Script MT font

Posted at 2Peas, The Digi Chick,a> and Scrapbook Bytes.

Pretty random stuff today. Hope you all have a happy Saturday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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scrappin again

2006-05-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

It seems like it has been such a long time since I have scrapped! I've really missed my creative time lately so I decided that even with a long "to-do" list today that I needed to make some time for me.

I put together these 2 layouts of me when I was about 4 months old. The photos are from 1969 and my Mom kindly scanned them for me. Did a little digital cleanup on them but they do still look older - but I guess they are older so there!

papers are from Kristin Cronin-Barrow's Color Pop Kit at The Digi Chick and the flower is from her Shabby Touch kit at Scrapbook Elements. I posted this layout at
2 Peas, Digi Chick, and SBE.

I used Kristin Cronin-Barrow's Shabby Touch kit from Scrapbook Elements. I posted this layout at
2 Peas, Digi Chick, and SBE.

It was kind of fun to do some pages about me as a baby. Not something I usually do.

I'm also proud of these layouts because they are my first pages created on my brand new laptop. Loving it so far, but like everything, there is a learning curve involved. I've never even used a laptop so it is a bit of an ajustment to use the touch mouse and the keyboard (I'm used to a natural keyboard so that is a big adjustment for me.

I was having a hard time working without a mouse so I decided to hook up my Wacom tablet because it also has a wireless mouse. Then I figured if I am going to go to all that effort, I might as well finally get used to using the pen with the tablet. I really have never gotten the hang of it even though it was a Christmas gift from last year. I'm excited that I am learning new things and I can tell I am going to enjoy this new computer. My kids are very happy also because there wasn't a lot of pressure for them to get off the computer today so I could have a turn.

I still have a lot to set up on the laptop so I think I will have plenty to keep me entertained over the next few days. Hopefully I will find some good Wacom tablet tricks to share here on the blog. If you hare a Wacom fan and have some helpful hints for me - Please leave me a comment or email me at kt@scrapbooklady.org

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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The return of the Scrapbook Lady!

2006-05-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my vacation and I'm in the process of sorting through and answering 374 emails that have filled my in-box in the last 6 days!

I'm happy to be home and I have to admit that I really missed my computer! LOL! The good news is that my new laptop computer is arriving today so on future trips I should be able to bring it along. On this trip it wouldn't have helped me a lot anyway because we had no internet access. We stayed in a house at Bear Lake in Garden City, Utah and there just wasn't that sort of technology where we stayed. I do wish I could have digi scrapped a little because I really missed it, but perhaps it was good to take some time off anyway.

I feel rested and rejuvenated, which is nice. I had several naps and went to bed early almost every night of the trip. I shared a room with my hubby and 2 kids and we all slept in bunk beds. It sort of felt like we were at camp and it was fun to lay in bed and giggle with my kids each night. We even put Whoopie Cushions under each other's pillows. (yep - that is my kind of fun!)

I read a Mary Higgins Clark Book called "No Place Like Home" which I thought was one of her better books. I like reading her books because they are easy and entertaining, but often they are too predictable. I thought this one was not as predictable and I was even surprised at the ending.

After breezing through that fun read I decided to do some educational reading. I spent a few days looking through the book "Homeschool Your Child for Free" but I will need to go through it again now that I have my internet back and check out all the great sites mentioned. I have to say that it is the best homeschooling resource book I have ever read.

We watched a couple of movies also: Nanny McPhee (cute story), Elizabethtown (cute actor - Orlando Bloom), Fantastic Four (I found it boring and hokey), The Family Stone (I only caught the last half but it was an interesting story), and Hoodwinked (a kids show that I actually found very entertaining and clever!)

We went swimming each day in a nearby indoor pool and took a few walks around the area. The weather was perfect - not too hot or too cold.

I cooked dinner 3 of the nights and also prepared lunch one day for the entire family. (My husband's side) I made haystacks, build your own burritos, taco salad, and a pasta bar. I will try and share some of the recipes here soon because they are all good casual entertaining kind of meals since everyone can customize it the way they like it - a big help for picky eaters!

So this is probably the most NSBR (non scrap book related) post I have written in a long time since I haven't been scrapbooking at all. I didn't even take a lot of pictures except for the day that we celebrated my 3 year old nephew's birthday. We had a lot of fun doing that and he had a blast!

It is always hard to come home and get back in the routine. I'm almost done with the mountain of laundry (Mt. Never-Rest as I call it) and we are in desperate need of a trip to the grocery store. We have a busy few weeks ahead of us so I need to get in gear pretty quick so we can all function. I started on the June issue of An Amazing Month of Memories and I'm feeling very excited about the themes and holidays - lots of ideas brewing!

While I was away, the next round was decided for the Ultimate Digi Scrapper Contest and I did not make the cut. I guess there were a lot of hurt feelings over the cuts. I honestly do not feel bad about it because I am very happy with how my entries turned out. I never expected to win, I just wanted to try my best and see how far I got. I feel like I did my best so I can't ask for anything more than that. It will be fun to see who gets through the next round, it is some tough competition! If you want to see my entries you can see them here - WEEK 1 Layout and WEEK 2 Layout.

Well, I am hoping that my next blog post will be made using my new laptop computer! I'm pretty excited to finally have one and it will be nice for my kids also since we won't always be trying to all use the same computer.

Until then....

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Gone fishing - be back on May 18th

2006-05-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be on vacation May 12 - 17. I will return to blogging, scrapbooking, and other related Scrapbook Lady activities on May 18th.

I will not have access to a computer or the internet during this time, so please don't worry if I don't answer emails or process orders. I will get caught up on the 18th.

Have a happy week!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Week 2 challenge done and fun blogging

2006-05-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

I finally worked on my week 2 layout for the Ultimate Digi Scrapper Contest! I can't post it anywhere but the contest gallery, but I can share the link with you so you can go and check it out if you like.

See my layout here

In other news...

Trish Jones is retiring more than 50 of her items (papers, kits, element packs etc.) - you will want to check out the hot deals!

I've been blogging about blogging this week - LOL! and I thought I would point you toward some fun stuff for your blog!

First of all, as you find cool things on other blogs that you want to share, be sure to give credit to the source where you found it. Sometimes these little clips are posted all over the place so you may not be able to credit one source. In this case, I found this cute little clip on Amy Edwards' Blog. This guy is really pretty good!

Watch the video by clicking here

Looking for ideas to give your blog a personal touch?

Try using prompts and tags to give you ideas for posts.

Keely has a wonderful blog with a weekly top ten list to inspire you.

Of course I love adding smileys to my entries. You can visit smiley central to find these cute little guys!

Blog things Quizzes

Here's one I did this morning:

Your #1 Match: ISFJ

The Nurturer

You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.
A good listener, you excel at helping others in practical ways.
In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.
You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for.

You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist.

What's Your Personality Type?

Love this idea for a photo tag blog entry. If I didn't have 5000 things to do before leaving town tomorrow - I would do this one! I will try and do it later on in the month.

And speaking of all that I have to do today...

To do lists are a popular blog entry subject. Gina Miller always makes hers look all fancy using her cute digi kits. Maybe I will try that sometime, but for today I just need to get going!

The big "to dos" today are:

Laundry - oodles!

Packing for me and kids - Hubby is on his own for this!

Clean the house because I hate the thought of coming home to a dirty house.

Grocery Shop for my meal responsibilities for trip (We are staying in a house with my in laws)

Finish moving stuff around in the basement because when we return from our trip our construction guru will be starting on our project. We are doing 2 rooms to start with. I wish we could do the whole thing at once, but alas, no magical money bag here! We are working on offices first because Hubby really needs one - our master bedroom looks like an office cubicle right now.

Take extra stuff from basement to charity drop off for Deseret Industries.

Buy a few more shirts - I have nothing to wear!

Pick up refills at pharmacy.

Finish up Mother's Day stuff!

Try and squeeze in some layouts for the Amazing Month of Memories challenge and for some of my design teams.

Maybe I should take one these... it's a "chill pill" smiley graphic! LOL!

That's the general list. Of course there are a million other sub-lists also - LOL! But if I can get through those, I will be ok.

Hope you all get through your lists ok also today!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Week #7 is up and more on blogging

2006-05-10T13:31:00.001-07:00

Because of all the National Scrapbook Day activities at Scrapbook Bytes, this week's Amazing Month of Memories challenge was posted a little late. However, Amy has graciously given us all until next Wednesday to complete the 5 challenges based on my ebook series. I'm really excited about these so I need to hurry up and get scrapping since I'm leaving town on Friday!

If you still need to order your May copy of an Amazing Month of Memories, be sure to do it soon, because I'm not going to be able to process orders from Friday morning (May 12) until next Wednesday (May 17). I'm going to be without a computer and without internet for 6 days (GASP!) while I am on vacation with my inlaws. I might go through serious withdrawals!!! I will post a reminder on my blog while I'm gone, but I'm afraid that you will have to go without the daily scraps from the "Scrapbook Lady" for a few days this month - sorry!

So here's the link if you want to order May's issue before I go:

Link to Katie's Shop

I do plan to post tomorrow and Friday so I will be able to finish up my theme of blogging.

Today, I wanted to point out some great resources to look over if you have a blog, or if you are considering getting into the blog world. I believe that scrapbookers in general have been quicker to embrace blogs because of their love of journaling and sharing memories. Still, there are many people who look at you like you are speaking a foreign language when you start talking about blogs.

There is no way I can be a complete resource on blogging - I just know what I have figured out by trial and error. I actually had another blog before this one. If you want to see my old blog you can check it out at http://www.myscrapblog.com/scrapbooklady
-there will be a lot of out of date links, but you can see where I started.

I didn't know where to look for information on blogging at first, and in the last 8 months there have been a lot of developments in blogging and a lot more information. Funny how fast it changes!

Here's some good stuff to check out:

Always check the help feature on your blogging system - lots of FAQs and other goo info there.

Michelle of Scrap Rants fame has recently been working on a series about blogging. Really comprehensive and useful information!

Wikipedia Blog info

I've shared some of my tips for blogs before, but it is worth repeating some of them.

#1 - Make sure your blog is readable! Do not use bright, dark, or busy backgrounds - it is just too hard on the eyes. Even if you use white text against a plain back backround, it is more difficult to read than the traditional black text on a white background.

#2 - Enable comments to make your blog interactive. But turn on word verification (under settings) or you will be suprised by spamming comments that offer your readers info on enlarging things that most of them don't even have! LOL!

#3 - Post regularly. If you are sharing your blog with more than just your family, make it interesting by keeping it current. Even a private blog should be added to on a regular basis...after all, why did you start blogging in the first place?

Tomorrow I will post about how to add your own style to your blog. After all, you are a creative person, why shouldn't your blog reflect that?

Well, I'm off to scrap. I took both of my kids to the zoo today and we had a lot of fun. (Monday's trip got cancelled) so I could use some quiet time now.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

........................................................

Blogging about Blogging!

2006-05-09T05:38:00.000-07:00

My mom has jumped into the world of blogging (so proud of her!) She has started a private family blog to share things within our small, but geographically challenged family. That gave me the idea for this week's blog theme: BLOGS!

Blogging isn't for everyone, especially a public blog like this one. But I do think that keeping a journal is very important and a blog is a great way to do this. It also makes it very easy to add pictures, links, and other fun things to share with your readers, however many there are.

First of all, what is a blog? Blog is short for "web log" which is an online journal that is updated frequently.

Here are some interesting statistics about blogs:

Rate at which the number of blogs have doubled in size over the last three years, according to Technorati: every 6 months

Number of new Weblogs created every day: 75,000

Percentage of bloggers who still maintain their blogs with new posts after three months of blogging: 55

Source: Technorati.

I use blogger which is a free tool from Google. Many scrapbookers seem to favor typepad because you can have mulitple pages to your blog and a few other features. I didn't want to pay for my blog as I already plunk down a significant amount of change each month for my website. Plus, I think I've figured out enough about blogger to make it just as functional as a typepad blog. There are other services out there, so you can do a web search for "free blogs" if you are interested. I did try a few others before settling on blogger and I did not like them nearly as much.

The first things you should consider are:

Who do you want to read your blog? Will it be public or private?

What is the purpose of your blog? Why do you want one?

What do you want to post about? Do you have a theme? Or will it be more about your daily life as it unfolds? Or both?

How often would you like to post entries?

Are you aware of privacy and safety issues? (see below.)

Privacy issues:

Even if your blog is not publicized, technically anyone can find it and read it so take certain precautions (these also apply to posting layouts online) to protect yourself and others.

NEVER post your address, phone number, or highly personal information like the exact locations that you hang out at or work at or where your kids go to school or hang out!

Don't post pictures of questionable content or use offensive or explicit language. This isn't just a matter of not offending your readers, but of who you will attract. Think about who does a websearch for those kind of topics...do you really want them reading your blog and seeing pictures of your kids? Speaking of kids, please be careful about including pictures of them in the tub or scantily dressed. While these may be innocent pictures, there are some very yucky people in the world who will find other uses for them.

If you post a picture of someone else - be sure you have their permission, especially on a public blog. Remember my blog shy brother? I had to respect his wishes for privacy so I covered his face in the layout I posted.

I am not sure if some blogs can be password protected? If you don't want your blog to be easily found then make sure you do not publish a RSS feed. I personally love blogs with RSS feeds (mine has one) because then they can be added to my bloglines reader, but if you don't want non-invited readers do not publish one. In blogger you can turn the RSS feed on or off under setings.

That is probably enough blog stuff to think about for today! I will post more tomorrow.

One of my favorite things about having a blog is being able to share pictures and layouts with my readers. So I am going to share my latest layouts with you before signing off.

Posted at 2Peas, Sweet Shoppe and Digi Chick

Posted at 2Peas, Sweet Shoppe and Digi Chick

Posted at 2Peas, Sweet Shoppe and Digi Chick

Hope you have a happy day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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BIG weekend! Good Scrapping Stuff :)

2006-05-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

I didn't do one layout this weekend - but I still consider the weekend a scrapping success!

I was excited to open my email on National Scrapbook Day and look for sales, but even more thrilled when I found a message from Kristin Cronin-Barrow inviting me to be on her Creative Team! Kristin is a talented designer who sells her kits at The Digi Chick and at Scrapbook Elements.

Then I made the rounds online and I picked up a free kit at Scrapartist, Rhonna's exclusive 2Peas kit, Lynn Grieveson's Backyard Explorer, Gina Miller's Garden Treasures 2, and some Michelle Underwood kits.

Thank you for the great response to my sale! It was the only opportunity to stock up on past releases at half price so I'm so glad so many of you took advantage of the opportunity! There were 2 orders that when I sent the links and/or attachments, they bounced ...so if you didn't get your order, please email me at kt@scrapbooklady.org

I was also so happy that I made it to round 2 of the Ultimate Digi Scrapper Challenge
contest! Now it is on to the Week 2 challenge which is to scrap ourselves! Tough one, but it will be fun to participate.

I've got a busy week ahead:

Monday - going to the zoo with my daughter, sister-in-law, nephew and 2 nieces. Also going to a dance recital for a friend of my daughter's (old neighborhood.) Getting new trees planted in yard.

Tuesday - tending my nephew while his mom takes the girls (5 month old twins) to the doctor. Hopefully the fence in my yard will be finished being installed on this day.

Wednesday - volunteer at school day

Thursday - pack and get everything together day

Friday - leave for vacation for 6 days. It looks like I will be without internet for 6 days - Not sure I can make it that long! LOL! I did finally get a laptop ordered though and it should be here before I leave so I can at least do some scrapping.

Oh, and I'm itching to do some layouts so hopefully there will be a lot of scrapbooking this week!

Have a happy Monday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

* Updated again - National Scrapbook Day Saturday May 6th

2006-05-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

*more links added - I will post any more that I find through the day also

Saturday May 6th is National Scrapbooking Day!

EVERYTHING in my store is 50% off - this weekend only.

Be sure to check out the events at your local scrapbook store for this fun holiday and here are some great online events:

Shabby Princess will be having a sale and several online events.

Scrapbook Bytes has an entire day of events planned.

2Peas also has a ton of good stuff for scrappers planned and I can't wait to get my hands on Rhonna Farrer's exclusive NSD kit!

The Digi Chick and A Cherry on Top are some of the other sites that will be having special events and sales for National Scrapbooking Day.

Scrap Artist will have a free kit - no strings attached!

Jasbeanie will have a 40% off sale on May 6th only!

Designer Digitals will be having a sale and some chats (with freebies)

Trish Jones has a sale on her awesome snapshots line at her new site.

Scrapbook Elements also has a lot of sales going on today.

* Simple Scrapbooks has some free downloads for National Scrapbook Day, including a digital kit.

* Creating Keepsakes also has some free Downloads.

* Sweet Shoppe Designs is giving away a great kit for purchases above $10

Feel free to let me know if you find any great sales and I will add them to this entry.

Have a wonderful weekend and do lots of scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Sketch Layouts - and blog shy brother

2006-05-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would share a couple of layouts here:

Posted at Two Peas, Scrapbook Bytes, and Sweet Shoppe.

I used Mindy Terasawa's Touch of Spring Kit. Fonts are Angelina and Artistamp Medium. Gina Miller's sketch #11 for her Scrapbook Bytes sketch challenge.

I was going to post this layout for the sketch challenge but it seems that my youngest brother has "issues" with being seen on the internet! So I decided I will now have to give him a new identity if I post a picture of him online. Here he is....

Posted on 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes - yep, I posted it this way!

I think it is a good look for him, don't you?

It's sort of like having a family photo of Flat Stanley! LOL!

And speaking of Flat Stanley....

I did this layout to help a fellow digi scrapper's daughter with a school assignment. I thought this was such a neat idea!

You can read the thread she posted with the Flat Stanley info. Here's the layout I did:

posted on 2Peas

If you don't know about Flat Stanley you can read about him here.

Have a Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Organization - weeding!

2006-05-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just a few notes to start off with:

I finished my entry for the ultimate digi scrapper contest. We can't post the layout anywhere but the gallery for the contest, but we can post a link to the layout if anyone wants to go look and/or leave feedback. I think you need to be a registered user to leave feedback, but I believe that anyone can view the layout? Here's the link to my layout.

Also had some great comments on my blog entry yesterday that I wanted to share.

Amy K said "Thank you for the Picasa web page idea! I have all my previews saved in separate folders for which CD they are in, but never knew about this wonderful option for viewing. Awesome!

And just a little FYI - having more than 500 fonts installed in your computer at once can significantly slow down your processes. I keep a folder where I look at my fonts, and only install the ones I know I will be using. Thanks for the great tools!"

Amy, I'm so glad you mentioned that about the fonts! For some reason this never dawned on me and I really should weed out a lot of the fonts I never use. Thanks so much!!!

Kristin said " For what its worth, I think its cheaper to print out photos at places like costco rather than at home anyways. I don't think printers are economical in terms of cost, they are convenient yes but I don't think you'd save money in the end, after buying the printer etc. I gave up buying ink for my printer and i'm just going to send to an online photo service from now on (both for layouts and for photos)."

Kristin - I totally agree! I thought about printers all day and went and looked at several. I started thinking about cartridge cost and photo paper cost and I really think it ends up being just as expensive or more than professional printing. Plus I really like the way they turn out from Costco. There is something about home printing that just isn't quite there for me. I had officially changed my mind and then came home to read your comment and that helped confirm that it was the right decision. Thanks so much!

So today's organization topic is WEEDING! I'm not talking yardwork stuff here, although I have enough weeding to do to keep me busy for a week. What I'm talking about here is weeding through the extra stuff that is bogging you down. When Amy brought up the font issue above, I knew it fit perfectly with what I wanted to post about today. I've been thinking about this alot lately.

Whether you are a paper scrapper or a digital scrapper, there seems to be a natural process we all go through. After we have our initial discovery that we love scrapbooking, we seem to go through a frenzied collection period. Like a squirrel gathering nuts, we collect tools and supplies like crazy, often without really understanding our own style yet.

I did this as a paper scrapper and I have an enormous amount of "stuff" to prove it. I also did this as a digital scrappper and I have a bursting hard drive and a lot of cd backups to prove it.

In both cases trends have changed, and I have changed. There are supplies I will never use and I need to get rid of. Sure, I could hang on to them forever in hopes that I will use them, but even if you have the storage space, the mental burden of having all that "stuff" you will never use just weighs on you. Physically, you spend more time moving around and organizing products than you will ever spend using them. Digitally, it slows down your hard drive (as in the case of my excessive collection of fonts) and it takes longer to find what you want.

I did the same thing when I found blogs. I use the bloglines reader and I just added every blog from ever scrapbooker. Recently I have started deleting blogs that don't give me regular and useful content. I just don't have the time to wade through all that information every day. I'm going to narrow it down to a handful of useful and interesting blogs. I'll be weeding my bloglines and my fonts today, just like I need to weed my yard - but I think I will still put that one off for a day or two! LOL!

This same principle can be applied to life in general. When you have to many possesions, you spend all your time managing them. When you have too much to do, you often end up chasing yourself in circles trying to keep them all straight. It is a balance that we need and we are all always striving to achieve it.

So whether you are thinking about a paper collection, your closet, your refrigerator, or your hard drive... clear some space today and do some weeding. You will feel lighter because of it and you will feel more able to be creative as a result!

Happy Weeding!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Organization on the hard drive

2006-05-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

Digital Scrappers love to brag about how they don't make messes anymore, and indeed that is probably my favorite part of digi-scrapping. However, you quickly learn that you need to be organized within the confines of your hard drive or you run out of space and find it difficult to scrap. Why is space always an issue?

Even traditional scrapbookers often use computers for digital pictures, fonts, and journaling so these tips should be helpful to everyone.

FONTS:

I love fonts! I currently have 1,379 of them installed on my computer! I didn't have to count them - I use the font hit tool - a free software program to organize my fonts. I know there are others out there as well, but I really like this one. You can sort your fonts several ways, it is easy to see them all in one place, and printing out a illustrated list of fonts is a snap! I do print out a new list every few months when I have added quite a few fonts and then I keep it in a binder on a shelf next to my computer. Most of the time I pick my fonts right on screen as I'm working, but sometimes it is so helpful to see them in print.

Here's a screen shot of the font hit program:

I'm getting ready to buy a laptop computer so I'm going to want to transfer my fonts to the new laptop. I decided to backup all my fonts to a DVD this morning which will be a good backup as well. I won't need to install every font on the new laptop as some will already come with the computer and the Word program I will install on it. I know there are some other ways to do this. There are some online tutorials for using the file transfer wizard in Windows XP so I'm going to study those as well. Here's a link from Dell that is useful.

PHOTOS:

Because I'm currently sharing a computer with my children (and their programs) and the computer is also a few years old - I'm constantly running out of space. With all the digital kits and photos I have on my computer, I need to frequently back up to discs to make space. I'm hoping this will improve with my new laptop purchase, but I know I won't be able to keep everything on my hard drive.

Backups are important, but I also like to have my pictures in online albums available through photo processing sites. The albums are easy to share with friends and family and easy to order prints from. I use Costco and Sony Image Station. One thing I love about Image Station is if you are willing to become at least a "silver level member" - I think it was $4.99 for the year to do that? then you have access to your original image as well. What does this mean? Well, you can click on the photo and access your original jpeg file then copy it into your editing program. Very useful!

I use Costco to print out my layouts right now, but I'm spending a fortune this way. I love the look of the professionally printed layouts, but I may just consider investing in a better printer since ours has recently started jamming with every print job.

I do like that I have my pictures in 2 different online systems in case something ever happened to one of them. However, I've been careful to choose companies that I thought would be stable and around for the long term - don't think I have to worry about either Costco or Sony going under anytime soon.

Another photo organization tool that is very helpful is the Picasa Photo Organizer from Google - and it's free! This tool takes every image on your computer and organizes them in a very user friendly way. It also does some fun tricks like collages and photo stacks and you can send pictures directly to blogger or emails.

Here's a screen shot:

JOURNALING:

A blog is a wonderful tool for journaling. I often pull from entries I have made on my blog and include them in layouts. I'm not the only one. If you have read Cathy Zielske's new book, or one of Ali Edwards articles in Creating Keepsakes, you will recognize a lot of the content in the journaling has been on their blogs previously.

Even if you are not a blogger, you may use your computer for journaling. Even though I'm a digital scrapbooker, I usually cut and paste my journaling into Word so I can do spelling and grammar checks - plus it is easier to read that way. Sometimes I will save the journaling as a file in word if I know I want to use it elsewhere, like a letter to a family member, blog or journal entry. When I was a paper scrapper I used the computer a lot for journaling. I always saved my files so I could alter them and print them out for other pages (like grandparent books.) Keep a folder on your hard drive just for journaling and date and label your entries to make them easy to find.

If you are typing a large blog entry (like this one) or a lot of journaling, be sure to save as you go. You don't want to put all that work into a document and lose it because of a computer glich!

DIGITAL KITS & ELEMENTS:

Digital image files are really like pictures, but a kit will have several images that work best if they are kept together. I like to keep all my digital files together by designer since I post my work online and need to include credits. I create a folder for each designer and file the appropriate kits in each folder. This is also an easy way to see which designers you like the most, because their folders will be the most full.

I also save a preview of each kit and put that in a different folder labeled previews. Then it is easy to browse through all your kits at once. Some people print out this list of previews but I haven't done that since I am always adding to my digital kits with freebies and purchases. It would be a good idea though. One thing I have done using the Picasa tool I mentioned under the photos heading, is to make a webpage of my previews. I promise that this is very easy to do!

Simply go to the folder of your previews within the Picasa program. Then "select all pictures" in that folder. Then in that same menu (it is on the top right of the selected folder and the buttons says "actions") select the option to make a web page. It will take you through the process step by step and then your web page will pop up.

Be sure to save this to your bookmarks. I like to put it right on my toolbar. This won't be the kind of web page you can send a link to another person, this will only work on your computer. But then you won't even have to open your photo editing program to see your previews.

Here's a screen shot of my previews web page:

yep - I know that's a lot of previews! LOL!

I chose the white background 1 page option when creating this in Picassa - this is my favorite format because you can see all the thumbnails on the left side of the screen. Whatever kit you want to see in more detail, simply click on the thumbnail, and it will bring up the larger picture on the screen.

You can also create folders for smaller elements like flowers, doodles, ribbons, buttons, etc. I haven't done a lot of this yet, mostly because of disk space. I also like to keep my things together by kit. But it is up to you how you want to organize. Just find a system that works for you.

Hope you have enjoyed looking through my hard drive.

Have a happy Wednesday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

A short diversion off the path

2006-05-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

In the middle of my week long theme of organization on this blog - I thought I would take a minute and let you know that Ali Edwards has made my day by posting links to some of my autism pages on her blog. You can read her blog entry here and see a cute picture of her little boy and another fun one of her dancing and having a great time! She is such a creative inspiration and you can just tell that she is genuinely a nice person as well.

Thanks Ali!

I have already received several nice comments from people who personally emailed me to tell me that they were grateful and happy to read the information I have shared. Thank you so much for your kind words, they mean a lot to me.

There's also an anonymous comment here on my blog letting me know that my "What Not to Say" article was offensive. I can understand the points made by this person and I don't pretend that writing an article like that will make everyone happy.

The good responses far outweigh the few bad responses (I'm sure there will be more) and I'm ok with getting both. I am surprised though at how many times in the last year someone has lashed out at me for something like this. Usually it is a parent of someone with autism and I guess in a way I can understand that because there is a whole world of hurt there that has to be worked through.

Anyway, scrapbooking is a much safer topic in general so I usually try and stick to that. But I won't pretend that my life doesn't have autism in it and I would never expect anyone else to do the same.

Of course I love to visit Ali's blog for the same reason that hundreds (or more likely thousands) of other scrappers do... she's talented, nice, and very cool! But I also love that she shares little bits of her world with others, especially the really dear stuff like her son's struggles with autism.

I sincerely hope no one ever sends her anonymous posts criticizing her for her for how she is trying to help others deal with one of the greatest trials they will ever face in life. I'm not being dramatic or even trying to be rude to other well-meaning people by saying this, but unless you've been there, you just don't understand. Just as I could never understand the pain of having a child who has cancer.

Autism is so confusing to understand and quite often it appears to others that the child just has a behavioral problem and they feel like they should say something to make the parent do a better job. No one (as far as I know) would walk up to a stranger in a grocery store and criticize their child for being in a wheelchair, or think that it was the parent's fault. But you wouldn't believe the stuff that gets said to a parent of a child with autism when they actually do dare go out in public.

This is especially true when the child is very young. Anyone who has ever had a 3 year old child with or without a disability, will tell you that it is no picnic to take them out to a store or restaurant. But add autism in the mix and it can be something beyond description. It's not just strangers either. Relatives spend their time blaming other sides of the family for "bad genes" or all sorts of things like that. It is just a difficult situation. It does usually get better with time, but at first it is all quite painful.

Please know that the true intent behind the article I wrote, is simply to increase better understanding of what a family with autism goes through, especially as they struggle with a recent diagnosis. My advice is simply to be a friend and do more listening than talking. It shouldn't always be that way, but a parent will need some extra support at first. No Ph.D needed, just only some patience. And of course we all make mistakes, no way around that. I don't have all the answers, these are just my suggestions.

I appreciate all input and I thank you sincerely for reading my blog and visiting my website.

Back to my regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Katie's April Roundup

2006-05-01T22:27:00.000-07:00

Be sure to zip on over to 2Peas - the May free kit is up!

This week my blog theme is organization and I thought that sharing my own roundup with you would be the perfect way to kick off that theme! This monthly roundup has become one of my greatest tools for organization. It helps me take stock of the past month, and also perform tasks that would otherwise build up and become unmanageable.

If you missed the roundup questions, be sure to read yesterday's post. You can use the prompts in any way you want to help you journal about the past month. Post it on your blog to share with others, or keep it to yourself. Either way, I'm sure you will find this to be a useful tool for organization in your own life!

Here's my April Roundup:

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

Ali Edwards – A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking. I’ve read this before but it has been awhile. I really took the time to study this and even did a week long blog feature on Ali Edwards so I feel as if I learned a lot from Ali and this book during the month of April.

I read a couple of People magazines during doctor and hair appointments this month. I don’t think I learned anything valuable from those! LOL!

I finished a book that I have been working on since March called “Different Minds:Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits by Deidre V. Lovecky. This is not a “page turner” type of book. In fact it was a very difficult read for me because it is such a technical book with lots of case studies. It was interesting and useful for me though.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Family by Richard Carlson Ph.D. I've had this little book on my shelf for quite awhile now and I'm not sure what inspired me to finally get it down and read it this month. Glad I did though. Nothing deep or profound in here, but simple stuff that makes you realize you can do things better. I especially liked the advice for letting the phone ring sometimes without answering it (my husband can NOT do this!) and also scheduling some "white space" on your calendar.

My son and I started listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on CD and my daughter and I have been reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books.

I also read Family Fun magazine. I didn't read any of my scrapbooking magazines this month, I just let them pile up!

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

I watched more tv this month than I have in a long time!
I watched several episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, and Friends.
My husband and I watched 5 episodes of The Apprentice that have been sitting on our TiVo for quite some time. -I had to look away as I added the link for that show because we are not caught up yet so I don't want to know who's been fired!

Also watched Extreme Home Makeover. We loved the episode where Kermit the Frog was the host! The episode where they helped rebuild a Texas town that had been devastated by Hurricane Rita was also really neat. I love the premise of this show.

I took my kids to see Ice Age 2 and we all really enjoyed it. Good movie.

We also went as a family to see The Wild. The kids loved the movie, the grownups just thought it was so-so.

I also watched Barbie Mermaidia and Mulan 2 with my daughter. I liked Mulan 2 better than the Barbie movie.

Also watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with both of my kids.

What special days did I celebrate and how?

Our family had some special days in April, some of which I won’t post about here. We did have an Easter Egg Hunt in our neighborhood and also one at Grandma & Grandpa’s house (Dad’s side.)

We celebrate Easter but we decided to learn about Passover and Lent this month as well. We really want our kids to have a taste of other cultures and religions. This ended up being a neat experience for us.

What illnesses or health concerns did I have in April?

I had my yearly check up in April so I was proud of myself for doing that. Everything checked out nicely. My doctor did want me to get my blood sugar tested and also the routine cholesterol check so I had to spend a day doing blood tests. You can read about the thieves stealing my blood here! LOL! For some reason I was wiped out for almost 2 days from that experience!

Other than that, no illnesses this month. My daughter had a mild bout of hay fever but everyone stayed healthy in April! YAY!

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

My husband and son went on an overnight scout camp and so I had a girl’s night at home with my daughter.

We also went to a concert at Temple Square which was nice. Took our kids and my mother-in-law with us and I got to take lots of pictures of flowers on the Temple grounds. Coming to a layout very soon!

Hubby and I got to go on a few dates which was nice. We have found a wonderful respite provider who is perfect for our kids and she came once a week and did fun stuff with the kids while we went out. Awesome!

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try in April?

Because we learned about Passover, we tried some new foods like falafel, knish, & Matzoh bread. The kids thought the Matzoh bread was going to be a wonderful treat when they looked at it, and they were pretty dissapointed when they tasted it. We all liked the knish & falafel though.

I also experimented with making Gnocchi one night - I've always wanted to try it and we generally like Italian food. It wasn't our favorite, but it was interesting to try.

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

We bought a dresser at Target for my daughter's room. She really needed one and it turned out very nice - hubby put it together.

I ordered a few books from amazon.

Other than that I didn't buy a lot this month. I was really good about sticking to the budget which will help because we have a lot of big expenses coming in May!

What were this month’s disappointments?

I did close down my quote blog and my autism blog which may seem like a dissapointment, but I'm actually glad about this decision. I feel more focused and like I have a better vision now - see below.

Oh, and I royally screwed up my hair! Went in for highlights and apparently, the stylist thought that meant she should strip every bit of color out of my hair and leave big chunks of it still dark in the back. It looked so awful - and I'm not exaggerating! My son walked right by me, didn't even know who I was. My daughter screamed when she saw me and my dog growled at me! LOL! I bought a box of Loreal haircolor the next day and added some brown back into my life. It is still pretty light though and I'm really unhappy with it!

What were my accomplishments this month?

I actually feel like April was one of my greatest months of personal accomplishments. During the month of April I:

completely redesigned my website at www.scrapbooklady.org

opened a new online store

created 3 new quote packs and redid my mini album instructions for sale on my site.

wrote the May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories and also created a companion quote pack to go along with it.

designed an April freebie for my site, and also a May freebie that is available now.

completed all of my design team requirements (and then some) for Ashley Olson, Trish Jones and Mindy Terasawa.

entered the Sugar Babe contest, and while I didn’t move on to the next round, I’m happy that I entered.

participated in Scrapbook Bytes weekly Month of Memories challenge that is based on my own Amazing Month of Memories series.

finished 21 digital layouts

and

My blog was picked at Pajama Market's Small Business Blog of the Day and also nominated for a Scrapper's Choice Award.

I feel like I have gained a new clarity in vision for myself. I decided to put away the autism book I have been writing (and stressing about) for years and just focus on being me. I still have a significant amount of autism related information on my website, but I finally let go of feeling like I had to do this book thing. It’s a good feeling.

My autism awareness layout was featured on the Digi Pick of the Day Blog and I had so many wonderful comments and emails about that layout. What a neat experience!

I cleaned out my pantry (which was long overdue) and reorganized my daughter's entire room!

I think it was a pretty good month if I may say so myself!

I'm still working on some of the tasks like getting all my pictures uploaded, but I did get all my layouts printed out today so that feels like a big accomplishment.

I also thought I would post my "by the numbers" stats here:

As of April 30th - I've now had 22,131 blog visitors.

My website has had a total of 319,599 visitors!

My newsletter has 2,974 subscribers.

Next post will be about using the roundup tool to project forward into May - great for goal setting and planning in general.

Thanks for reading my roundup!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

..........................................................

Welcoming May

2006-05-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

I will post my roundup later today (see last entry) but for now I wanted to get May started off on the right foot by hooking you up with a few freebies!

My free gift for May is now available on my site at this link.

Here's a preview:

If you purchased the May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories, here's a link to a wonderful freebie you could use for your Cinco de Mayo pages. Designed by the generous and talented Tiff Brady and is available at this link at Scrapartist. Thanks Tiff!

Remember that this is the last day you can buy the May quote pack at 50% off. After that it will be $3.50 (which is still only .10 cents a quote!) unless you buy it in combination with the May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories - then you will still get the half price deal on the quotes.

Come back later for my roundup!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Last day of April - Roundup Time!

2006-04-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

Before I go on to post the roundup, I have to tell you that Jen Wilson has a blog! And there is an awesome freebie there so be sure to visit her (after you finish here of course!)

April is ending today and I'm quite sure that it was the fastest month of my life! I know I need a roundup so I can feel ready to move on to May.

What is a roundup?
Each month I "close out" the month by answering the following questions and working on some tasks. This has been a great organizational tool for me and has really helped me with my scrapbooking and my life in general.

Also, a great tool to use to plan the coming month!

Watch this blog or my scrapbooking blog at the end of each month for roundup time!

Here's the April roundup:

April events & information:

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

What special days did I celebrate and how?

What illnesses or health concerns did I have in April?

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try in April?

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

What were this month’s disappointments?

What were my accomplishments this month?

Any thing else noteworthy to record about April?

Then I am going to be sure that at the end of each month I have done the following tasks:

Pictures & layouts:

Backed up all digital pictures to a cd

Back up all digital layouts to a cd

Print out any digital layouts created during the month and put them in albums.
Uploaded all digital pictures to 2 different sites. ( I use Sony Image Station & Costco photo center)

Send email links to online photo albums to your family or friends who might enjoy them or send a picture cd, or picture attachments. Share your memories!

Get your pictures printed out and put into simple photo sleeve albums.

If you use film, be sure you get all your pictures developed and file your negatives in a safe place. If possible, I would suggest you get a picture cd along with your developing.

Put finished paper scrapbook layouts in sheet protectors and albums to enjoy.

For bloggers - print out my blog entries to keep in a binder. My blog(s) really are like a journal and I was thinking that it would be nice to have hard copy to keep. I know some people back up their blog files which is probably a good idea.

Scrapbooking Supplies:

For digital scrappers:
download, unzip, and file all kits & fonts purchased. Save a preview image of each kit and keep it in a separate file for easy browsing. Back up all new purchases to cd or dvd in case of computer crash or to maximize your hard drive space.

For paper scrappers:
put away any new purchases. Do you still have stuff in sacks sitting around? I know some of you do! Put it away in an organized system.

For all scrappers:

Look through what you have purchased recently and decide what you want to use. At the first of the month set some goals for scrapping (hint – use this same list of ideas as a goal sheet for April)

Sort through old supplies that no longer appeal to you. Donate them to a friend who can use them or a charity. My older supplies go to my daughter who happily uses them to create many fun projects. I have also donated some to charity.

Look through what supplies you did use during the month and think about what it is about them that appealed to you. This will help you make smarter purchases in the future.

Clean up your area! Whether that is getting your computer in tip top shape, or clearing off the piles on a table where you can sit and work.

So consider this a little nudge with the old spurs from Katie the Scrapbook Lady. Don’t let this sit unfinished for too long, take a few minutes and write out your answers while the month is still fresh in your mind. You will be so glad that you did!

If you want to get really ambitious, have other family members fill this out (or help them with it) for an even richer memory resource.

Remember that I will post my own personal roundup notes here on my blog tomorrow.

Now Giddy Up and Happy Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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One more thing...

2006-04-28T20:49:00.001-07:00

I already posted my Saturday entry,(see below) but I can't believe I forgot to post about this! LOL!

My blog has been nominated for a Scrapper's Choice Award! I'm listed with some pretty big names so I don't really plan on winning, but I sure hope to get some votes so please take a minute and vote for me if you like my blog.

Here's the list of nominees

Here's the poll to vote for your favorite

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Shopping stuff

2006-04-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

Trish Jones has soooooo much stuff in her store, that there is no way you could have it all. In fact, it would be quite a feat to have even half of her amazing designs that are available. So I know you are going to find something great at her sale!

Check out the sale at Scrapbook Bytes!

I am proud of myself this month. I tried really hard to stick to the budget for groceries and miscellaneous and I actually made it! My hubby will be so happy and now because I have been a good girl and left some money for the end of the month, I get to place an amazon order for a few things I have had on my wish list. Want to know what I'm ordering?

The King's English - Adventures of an Independent Bookseller - I'm excited to read this one - my mom recommended it. The King's English is an independent bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah and it is quite famous.

The Essential Shakespeare Handbook - We are Shakespeare fans!

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy I think this one looks interesting.

Books to Build On A helpful reference for picking out good books for my kids.

Can you beat Ken? - This one is for my son who thinks Ken Jennings is just about the coolest guy ever!

Speaking of the end of the month... Tomorrow is ROUND UP TIME! Then I will post my own roundup on Monday and then I will get started on the new theme for next week.

I'm still thinking organization would be a fun subject for next week. :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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This is what it is all about

2006-04-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

Jen Caputo, one of my design team members, created a layout that just blew me away. She has kindly given me permission to post it here to share with my blog readers.

I just love what she had to say about this:

I was looking through Katie the Scrapbooklady's May Amazing Month of Memories and saw that there is a "No Diet Day" in May. The purpose of the day is to have people just feel good about themselves and their image for one day. It made me think of the Dove commercial for their Campaign for Real Beauty. It has moved me to the point of tears and I really needed to scrap it to let all the woman in my life know that they are beautiful. Writing is not my strong suit so even though I haven't included a ton of journaling, it was a huge stretch for me. You can see the commercial at campaignforrealbeauty.com - bring a tissue.

Here is her layout and her journaling:

Posted at Scrapbook Bytes and Scrap Artist

Journaling: During the Superbowl, Dove ran a commercial featuring little kids singing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’. Printed on the screen while the children were singing was each child’s personal fears. They read things like “thinks she’s ugly.”, “wishes she was blonde”, “afraid she’s fat”, and “hates her freckles”. According to their website, 92% of girls want to change something about themselves - 92 percent! Everytime I watch this commercial my eyes well up with tears because I know I’m one of those statistics. And so are all the women that I love. Dove wants us to change our minds, all 92% of us. Because every girl deserves to feel good about herself.

Ok, is that powerful or what! I literally got the chills over this one and I'm in that 92% group also. I bet most of us are.

This is what scrapbooking is about for me. Being able to express your feelings so profoundly on a little square piece of paper. Sharing pictures and thoughts that make an impact on the people you love. Sometimes, even a whole bunch of people that you hardly know. A page like this becomes more than a layout; it can be a mission statement, a paradigm shift, an epiphany!

This is also what the Amazing Month of Memories is all about for me. This is what I love about it. If something I wrote can inspire someone to reach inside of themselves and produce a geniune and amazing creation, one that I believe has been inside of the artist all along... then I couldn't ask for anything better than that!

Do you know what else I love? I'm seeing layouts about the "stuff" of everyday life. People who have scrapbooked with the Amazing Month of Memories ideas have said that their scrapbooking has changed. They are looking at life with new eyes and they are enjoying the "little things" even more.

I sincerely thank those who have made this into something big, something wonderful, and something truly inspiring!

Thanks Jen for letting me share your amazing layout here.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Quote pack companion for May

2006-04-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

Next month I will release everything on one date, but it didnt' work out that way this month. I now have a companion quote pack ready to go with the May issue of the Amazing Month of Memories.

Now you will have a quote (and a few quips) to go with every theme and holiday in the May issue! I think they turned out really fun and I'm going to stay with the low price of only 10 cents a quote - which I think is an amazing bargain!

But.... if you buy the pack before May 1st it will be 50% off for a total cost of $1.75 - that is only a nickel a quote!!!

If you already have your May issue and just want the quote pack, go to this link.

If you haven't bought the May edition yet, you can get it along with the quotes in a combo pack deal so go to this link.

Back to my regular blogging in a little while.

Happy Thursday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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I almost forgot!

2006-04-26T17:38:00.001-07:00

Only about 5 hours left for the 50% off sale on the May issue! So be sure to order tonight! I am going to go to bed early so if I don't send your download link tonight, I will send it first thing in the morning!

Visit my store and get your copy tonight!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Those thieves stole my blood!

2006-04-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

When my son was 5, life was not very easy for him. And on top of it all, his doctor wanted him to be tested for Fragile X which is sometimes present in (mainly boys) with autism. That meant a blood test and I simply couldn't see how anyone was going to get blood out of that little guy.

It was even more traumatic then I imagined and it literally took 3 full sized adults to hold the poor little guy down. (I can hardly bear to think of it even now!) Well needless to say he was VERY mad by the time we were done. I had to drag him out of the hospital kicking and screaming and the entire way out to the car he yelled this phrase at the top of his lungs..."THOSE THIEVES STOLE MY BLOOD!!!" I'm sure we got a lot of interesting looks, but I wouldn't know because it was one of those moments in life where I used my special "I can't see anyone skills" and I just plowed on toward the car.

To this day whenever I give blood (or anyone else does for that matter) this phrase goes through my head!

Now that he is 12, he can have his blood taken without much trauma at all - as long as the reward is right. He is one smart cookie so he knows how to work the system. Fortunately, we haven't had to do a lot of blood tests since then.

Why am I rambling about blood today? If you read my blog entry yesterday you know that I was "robbed" of my blood yesterday. No big deal really, just some routine tests. Turns out the glucose is a little high so they want me to retest in a few months. I guess I have some triglyceride trouble and my good cholesterol (HDL) is too low. Nothing too serious though. But for some reason I have hardly been able to function since last night. I am literally exhausted and haven't been able to do much today at all. I feel sort of wimpy admitting that, I mean it shouldn't be that big deal. I swear that "those thieves" took too much of my red stuff and they must have taken the good scrapbooking blood because I've have no creativity flowing through my veins today!

So the big organization post I had planned will have to wait until tomorrow. The good news is that my quotes were mostly done so be watching for a sale on a "Mega May" pack of quotes tomorrow!

Darn those thieves!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

doctor stuff today

2006-04-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm just now getting a chance to post today because I've spent the day doing a glucose test to check for diabetes and some other blood tests to follow up from my yearly physical. Not my favorite way to spend the day, but at least I finally got it done. There is nothing so draining as having something yucky like that to do on your "to do list" - you just look at it every day and thing "I don't want to do that!" Better to just get it over with. Hopefully I will have my results tomorrow.

Just a short post today to remind everyone about the 50% off sale on my May issue of an Amazing Month of Memories. I'm thrilled to see so many repeat customers who have bought prior issues, that tells me they like what they are getting.

I also like blog surfing and finding nice things being said about me (who wouldn't like that?) so I thought I would share a few with you:

Angie Pedersen gave me such a nice review on her blog. She said "Her guide did not disappoint. I was blown away by the amount of resources she had compiled: month-long themes, daily holidays, over 100 journaling ideas, quotes, and Internet links. Total brain-candy for a journaling junkie like me. And tell me I don't know a good scrapbook journaling resource when I see one.

And at $5, how can you beat it? I know it took her more than an hour to compile all those resources, and even the kids at McDonald's get more than $5 an hour! And when was the last time you were able to buy a scrapbooking idea book for $5??"

Her post got me thinking - I bet everyone wonders how long it does take me to actually compile each month's guide. Truthfully, I have never set a timer to it, but I can tell you that it takes me about 8-10 hours per issue when you consider the research and writing time together. When you look at that, I suppose I'm really undercharging on the whole thing? But I love doing it!

There's a quote I'd like to share here that totally applies to how I feel:

You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.

Warren Beatty

I've had this Month of Memories idea for years and it just feels so good to finally be bringing it to life. Before I decided to publish my first issue, I made a decision that it had to be something that was worth doing for myself, whether or not anyone else chose to buy it. I'm glad I took that approach because I have gained so much from this series and I can see a big difference in my own scrapbooking as a result. If you've been following my blog for awhile, I bet you've noticed also!

Another wonderful review from Tamara, another blog buddy of mine:
Qt's Creative Chronicles

and Amy Edwards (owner of Scrapbook Bytes) just posted the challenges for this week in the Month of Memories forum so be sure to check it out!

Remember that the sale will end tomorrow at midnight (mountain time) so spread the word!

I'll be back tomorrow with a post on organization - my blog theme for the week.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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May issue on sale 50% off

2006-04-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

My May issue of An Amazing Month of Memories is ready! I'm really pleased with how it turned out and I think you will be blown away by the amount of ideas, links, and other good "stuff" you will find in this fun scrapbooking guide. The May issue has:

4 month long themes
31 daily holidays
108 calendar inspired ideas
and 73 links to explore.
Some of the links will take you to free downloads of related fonts,
recipes and ideas that go along with the information I've included in the guide.

You know that I reward my loyal readers each month by offering each new issue at
50% off for 2 days only - that means until midnight on April 26th the May issue is only $2.50! I think the regular price of $5.00 is a great deal for all you get with this truly amazing resource - but $2.50 is a STEAL!

So don't wait around - get your copy now at my shop.

On Thursday (April 27th) I will have new quote packs for sale including a "Mega May" pack of quotes that will go along nicely with the Amazing Month of Memories series. I will do a 2 day introductory sale on Thursday and Friday for the new quote packs only so keep watching my blog this week.

I wanted to share one more weekend layout with you - really happy with how this turned out and my brother was nice enough to let me share this with the world.

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

I used Ashley Olson's new Comforting Quilt set which is available in her new AshScraps store! Love all her new stuff so be sure to check it out!

The scrabble tiles are a freebie from computerscrapbook.com so be sure to grab those as well.

So are you ready for an Amazing Month of Memories this May? You are going to love my new guide so be sure to check it out - and don't forget the 2 day sale!

Spread the word ok?

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Highly productive scrap day!

2006-04-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

I had some nice scrapping time yesterday so I have a few layouts to share. I was on a scrapbooking roll!

Posted at 2Peas, Scrapbook Bytes & The Sweet Shoppe

I hope you can read the journaling on this (click to enlarge or visit one of the links) because I think it turned out pretty funny. At least I made myself laugh - so that's a good thing, right?

Christy Loveable kit by Mindy Terasawa (Sweet Shoppe)
2 Peas Essential, and CK Cosmopolitan fonts

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

Michelle Underwoods Dream in Color Kit (SBB)
Fonts are: Monika and My type of font

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes
I used Gina Miller's Bulletin Board and Note this kits
Font is CK Higgins Handprint

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

I used Trish Jones Elementary Eclectic Series in Green
Font is Bernie
The photo is a self portrait - it's not my favorite picture of me, but I'm trying to get in front of the camera more.

Now I'm off to do some more writing... You are going to want to check here tomorrow
wink wink!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Blog of the day!

2006-04-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

I feel so honored to have had my blog chosed for "small business blog of the day" by Brian Brown and his wonderful daily Pajama Market blog. It is kind of neat to receive recognition from someone outside of the scrapbooking industry, makes me feel good about my blogging skills.

I hope you will stop by his blog and read the entry he wrote about me. I also enjoyed looking around and found some very interesting blogs to add to my daily reads - I especially enjoyed the Pitstop Cafe in Singapore.

Brian sent me a list of questions and I thought you might enjoy reading my answers also.

He asked in his post "So here's my question...has she done a scrapbook about blogging?" He was most likely joking, but I've actually thought about it! LOL! Blogging has changed my life in many ways and I do spend a lot of time and energy on my blog so I really should include it in my scrapbooks. I did do a page about blogging just a week ago if you will recall. You can view it here.

Here are the rest of the questions:

1) How has the blog impacted your company?

I’m not sure I can be called a “company” since it is just me here, the Scrapbook Lady works alone. I have run a website for about 5 years now and I have not always had items for sale. There were times that I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to go in, but my blog has really helped clarify that for me. Now that I have an easy way to keep in daily contact with scrapbookers everywhere, it just seems like a natural offshoot to have ideas and patterns to offer them as well. I would say that my blog is the main driving force behind the majority of my sales. My blog readers know that they will find out about my special sale days and new items by checking in with me on a regular basis. I also point them in the direction of a lot of other good deals from other sites as well, and offer a lot of free ideas and information each day.

2) What has the response been from your customers/clients?

Overwhelmingly wonderful. Scrapbookers are a fun and friendly bunch on the whole and I regularly get nice emails and comments thanking me for my efforts and time. While that isn’t why I run my blog, it sure is a nice benefit!

3) What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

Everything! I’m a scrapbooker after all – I can find enough inspiration from a pair of shoes to create a whole page about them, so blogging comes naturally to me. My “work” is scrapbooking and I love to blog about the creative process, the supplies, and the subject itself. I guess I have found my calling in life, because it doesn’t feel like work to me at all – it is the way I have fun!

4) What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

It would have to be the far reaching impact across the globe – truthfully, I wasn’t expecting that. I have regular readers in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and I’ve had visitors from all over the world. I would say that about 60% of my readership is from the United States, but the rest comes from other countries. That has truly been a fun surprise for me.

5) What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

I use blogger which is a free service from Google. I’ve looked at other blogs that require a monthly fee and they just don’t make sense to me. I already pay a lot each month to run my website and store, so I don’t want to add that extra cost to my expenses. I’ve also been able to figure out how to add enough code to the blogger template to customize my blog the way I like it. I find blogger very easy to work with. Customizing a blog is a lot easier than building a website so I’ve had no trouble at al working the program. I am the sole creator and contributor of both my blog and my website. I do spend a lot of time blogging, but for me it is an enjoyable and rewarding activity. Plus, it gives me lots of great journaling material for my scrapbooks!

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my blogging obsession and I want to thank you all for coming here each day to be a part of my world.

Thank You!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapping for a good cause recap

2006-04-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

I am busy working on the May issue of an Amazing Month of Memories today. I'm also helping my guys get ready for a scout camp which means the girlie and I are going to have a "girls night" tonight. There will be fingernail painting, watching movies in Mom's bed, and more than likely some junk food involved.

I wanted to share just a few of the comments I have received this week about the charity kits I've posted about.

About the Shabby Princess kit:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting about this!!! I am so blessed to have this little guys Mommy, Janelle, as one of my best friends and it was through The Shabby Princess that we were able to do this project to help raise money for Angel Daegen and his family for research. I have made several LO's using this kit, love it!!! They are in my profile on 2peas.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased this kit from The Shabby Princess, is is the absolute best!!!

Check out Daegan's website for more info. www.dmanhero.com

And the really cool thing, is Daegen's mommy wrote the poems in the kit and the rainbow paper in the kit is a the picture of a rainbow that I took on the day of his funeral, it was awesome.

He always told his mommy and daddy that when he went to heaven he was going to slide down the rainbows and make flowers out of the clouds, so the sky, in all it's majesty, is very meaningful to the family.

Thanks again girl, you are so great to post this.

Kay :)

Thank you so much for posting this comment Kay - I visited Daegen's website and signed his guestbook. Seeing his sweet little face touched me and brought tears to my eyes. I can't imagine the grief of losing a child and I'm so impressed with the way this family has dealt with this by helping others.

I'm going to have to do something special using that rainbow paper now that I know the story behind it.

Remember that you can purchase the Bluebell Road kit from the Shabby Princess Shoppe and she is donating 100% of the proceeds until May 14th. Thank you Shabby Princess!

About the Eternal Hope Kit:

Katie, thank you so much for highlighting this kit again.
It is a cause near and dear to my heart. A sad anniversary is coming up on May 21, which is the day I will donate 100% of the gross sales to Alex's Lemonade stand in loving memory of the inspiration for this kit, Lorenzo Bela Rissolo.

Theresa Hernandez

Thanks for your note Theresa. I am so glad you brought up Alex's Lemonade Stand because this is such a wonderful website that offers so many great ways to help fight childhood cancer. I hope everyone will take a minute to visit this site. I've marked my calendar for May 21st to post a reminder here so we can all help Theresa in her effort to donate to this wonderful cause.

Remember that you can buy the Eternal Hope kit at Dani Mogstad's store and all proceeds go to Alex's Lemonade stand. Thank you so much for this inspiring kit!

About the Strength kit:

I received a lot of nice notes about this one, it's so nice that people want to help each other - no matter how far away we live. Australia is pretty far from Utah, but I have friends in Australia because of the wonderful digital scrapbooking community. I've seen their pictures, and the damage from Cyclone Larry was devastating! My friend Trish Jones is one of the creators of this kit and she has thanked me several times for posting about it here. Thanks to everyone who purchased this kit and if you haven't picked it up yet you still can at Clik Chic designs.

About the Autism Kit:

Between posting about this wonderful kit and having my layout featured on the Digi Pick of the Day blog, I've had a ton of emails about this one. I'm always amazed at how many scrapbookers out there have a child with autism. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that anymore since there has been such a huge increase in the population of autism - but for some reason it does still blow me away sometimes.

Here's one of my favorite comments:

thanks SO MUCH for sharing your layout over at DigiPickoftheDay - it gives me a lot of hope for my son, just as I figured I should give up! THANKS!

That is one of the main reasons I did that layout of my son - I wanted others to realize their is hope. I remember so vividly the feeling that there wasn't going to be a future for my son. When you are dealing with a 3 or 4 year old who has autism and a lot of severe delays, it is so hard to see that it will get better. It does take a lot of hard work, but life does get easier. I've been around a lot of kids with autism and have been able to see their progress over several years. Even those who were quite severe in their autism, have made progress. Some more than others, but all of them have progressed. So don't ever give up hope!

You can still purchase this wonderful kit to benefit autism research at Scrapdish.

also, if you are a Build a Bear fan - they have a special bear available right now to benefit autism speaks and they are also running their purple heart promotion at the same time. Go to the Build a Bear website for more details.

What a week it has been! I'm so glad I picked the topic of "Scrapping for a Good Cause" because it has inspired me to use some wonderful kits that also help others. I've also been thrilled to receive all the wonderful comments and emails and hear how these kits have touched others lives.

Hope you will take the opportunity to support at least one of these great causes!

This weekend I will answer some questions in my posts so don't forget to stop by. If you have any questions for the Scrapbook Lady feel free to email me at kt@scrapbooklady.org or leave a comment here on the blog.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapping for a good cause - Leukemia

2006-04-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Shabby Princess pretty much rules the digital kingdom with her generous free downloads, and now she has donated 100% of the proceeds from her Bluebell Road kit to charity for all purchases made before May 14th. This kit benefits the National DMAN Hero Light the Night Team for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. You can purchase this wonderful kit in the Shabby Shoppe.

Here is the gorgeous preview:

I've had this kit for awhile and this post motivated me to finally create a layout with it.

Posted at 2Peas & The Shabby Shoppe

I love the quote that came with this kit so I thought I would share it here since I am going to combine my quote blog with this one.

I also got another layout done yesterday - this one is for my kids, and scrapping for my family is also a good cause!

I used the Fresh Dreams kit by Trish Jones which I love because green is both my son's and my husband's favorite color!

Posted at 2Peas, SBB, & The Digi Chick

One last note for today...I got this in the mail yesterday! I only ordered it on Monday night so I was thrilled at how fast it came. I've already read more than half of the book and I love it! Totally recommend this one.

Have a happy Thursday (boy this week is going fast!)

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Bonus post - AMM challenge #5 up at SBB & a freebie

2006-04-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

I already blogged today so be sure to read the entry below also. Just had to add a little post because Amy has posted Week #5 of the Amazing Month of Memories Challenges up at Scrapbook Bytes.

If you haven't participated before, it's never too late to start. Basically, there are 5 topics from my e-book chosen and if you post a layout for each one, you get a prize at the end of the week! It's also very inspiring to look through the gallery each week and see how people are using the ideas.

And if you are doing the Scrabble challenge this week, here's a freebie you are going to love! It's available at computerscrapbook.com

So pull out your April edition of an Amazing Month of Memories and use those ideas!

Happy Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapping for a good cause - Childhood Cancer

2006-04-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Before I go on with today's post, I need to make a correction. On yesterday's layout about King's Peak I stated that the elevation was 6,100 ft when in fact it is 13,528 feet! I got my facts from Fact Monster so when I went back to check, I realized my mistake;

In Utah
the mean (average) elevation is 6,100 ft.
the highest point is Kings Peak at 13,528 ft.
the lowest is Beaverdam Wash ? at 2,000 ft.

so be careful how you read tricky tables - LOL! Now you've had your Utah geography lesson for today, so don't ever say you don't learn anything here!

The good news is... it's a digi layout and it is so easy to fix! In fact, I already have.

Today's "Good Cause" is Childhood Cancer. Can you believe that you can help such an important cause just by purchasing a scrapbook kit? One of the things that impresses me so much about the digital scrapbooking community, is the generosity and support that designers, site owners, and customers show each other. Give them a good cause to rally around and it turns into something special. The kit featured here today is called "Eternal Hope" and is available at Dani Mogstad's Store.

4 very talented ladies contributed to this HUGE kit; Dani Mogstad, Anita Stergiou, Theresa Hernandez & Kim Hill.

Here's a preview of the kit:

and I had so much fun creating this layout with it!

Posted at 2Peas and Dani Mogstad's Gallery

It's finally sunny here, still a little cold but at least it looks like spring again.
Hope you have a wonderful spring day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapping for a good cause - Cyclone Larry

2006-04-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know I'm so happy that my autism layout was featured on Digi Pick of the Day yesterday! Melissa does a wonderful job with this blog and I've been thrilled to see her feature "faces of autism" in honor of National Autism Month.

Today's "Good Cause" is helping the victims of Cyclone Larry This Cyclone caused great devastation in the Queensland area of Australia. How can you help? Well, you can buy this wonderful kit at Clik Chick Designs for only $5.95. 3 fabulous Australian designers; Trish Jones, Tracy Ann Robinson, and Kylie Clark, have donated their time and talents to help others who have been affected by this terrible storm.

Here's a preview of the kit:

I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of this kit. Today I really wanted to do something using the amazing quote that came with it so I put together this layout for my husband.

Posted at 2Peas, Scrapbook Bytes, and The Digi Chick.

One of my husband's proudest accomplishments is having climbed King's Peak with his scouts. It is the highest peak in Utah with an elevation of 13,528 ft ft. He also loves quotes (are we a perfect match or what?) so I knew that he would love this combination.

and I also did some layouts just for fun last night...

Here's one of our day at the park in February:

Posted at 2Peas, Scrapbook Bytes & The Digi Chick

Kit is "Joy" from Ashley Olson's wonderful "Fruits of the Spirit" CD - isn't that the best name for a collection?

and here's a layout about Shopping with my Mom:

Posted at 2Peas
SBB
Digi Chick

Kit is "Patience" from Ashley Olson's "Fruits of the Spirit" CD collection.

Hope you all have a great day! Can you believe it snowed here again last night? It is April 18th for crying out loud! But now the sun has come out and it looks like a spring day!

Crazy!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

..........................................................

A new week & new theme!

2006-04-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had such a nice Easter weekend and I'm feeling relaxed and ready for a great week.

My son has the entire week off of school so we will be practicing our homeschool skills this week. I've assured him though that he will still get plenty of video game time (a girl has got to scrap you know!) so hopefully it will be a pretty laid back week.

I am going to be working on the May issue of an Amazing Month of Memories this week. I have almost all the holidays and themes figured out, but it pretty much takes me a full week to write it and put it all together. If all goes according to plan, it should be available by next Monday - and my blog readers know that they want to be here on the day of release!

I didn't scrap this weekend until late last night. I didn't have a lot of energy but I managed to pull off this layout:

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

The idea is from the National Humor Month prompts in my April issue of an Amazing Month of Memories.

All I used were a couple of fonts - Hootie and Annifont. I love the way it turned out because it really captures the part of my husband's personality that I wanted to highlight with this.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone for the nice comments on my blog lately! And I am planning to combine my quote blog with this one - but I will post more about that later.

Ok, so pretty random post so far from someone who said she has a theme for the week... and I do.

I'm going to try this theme thing for a couple more weeks because I have some fun ideas in mind.

This week it is going to be Scrapping for a good cause! And today's good cause is one that is dear to my heart, Autism.

I've shared some of my son's story here and the response from others has been wonderful. I really appreciate the kind and supportive comments.

In honor of Autism Awareness Month, 10 talented digi designers have created a Mega Kit called "Just Me" with all the proceeds going to the National Alliance of Autism for Autism Research. You can purchase the kit for $8.00 at Scrapdish. I just downloaded mine last night so I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I will share my layouts here when I do.

What a fantastic way to support autism research. My sincere thanks to the designers who contributed this and Scrapdish for hosting this kit!

Pretty cool that I can support a cause that is important to me while doing something I love - scrapbooking!

Hope you all have a wonderful day today, and I hope your weather is better than mine here in Utah - it's snowing here!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

................................................

Happy Easter & some quizzes

2006-04-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of silly things to share here:

You Belong in Barcelona

When it comes to Europe, you don't want to decide between culture and fun. You want art by day and a big party by night.
Barcelona is ideal for you. You can check out some Picasso, eat some tapas, take a siesta, and then dance all night!

What European City Do You Belong In?

Your Inner Child Is Happy

You see life as simple, and simple is a very good thing.
You're cheerful and upbeat, taking everything as it comes.
And you decide not to worry, even when things look bad.
You figure there's just so many great things to look forward to.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog.
Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights.
A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time.
You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

I'm going to go hang out with the Easter Bunny now! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Saturday "Stuff" from Katie

2006-04-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Sugar Babe Contest Update -
I did not make it to the next round in the Sugar Babe contest, but I'm still glad I entered. It prompted me to create one of the most meaningful layouts I've done and I'm very happy about that! Want to see who did make it?

I also got a little coupon as a consolation prize and so I used that today and when I combined it with their hot sale going on right now, I got a ton of good stuff for only a few bucks. Check it out at

60% off sale at Sweet Shoppe on retiring items.

Need some enabling? Sure you do! Here's what I bought:

Looking for some freebies? Here are some good ones I have found lately:

Cool Atomic Papers

Spring Doodles

Word of mouth freebie

And don't forget my April freebie!

Here's a layout I did yesterday for the Amazing Month of Memories Challenge.

posted at 2 Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

Used Trish Jones' Eclectic Stamps
and LB Typewriter and Garamond Fonts.

Thanks to all my blog readers who made the journaling on this layout possible! LOL!

We are supposed to go to an outdoor egg hunt in about an hour and it has been raining here all night. Could be a wet one!

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

....................................................

Last day of Ali Edwards & where did everybody go?

2006-04-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot of fun focusing on Ali this week and I've learned a lot. I hope my readers have enjoyed it as well.

I have no idea why this is, but my blog readership has dropped off dramatically this week. I'll chalk it up to spring break and hope that it isn't anything personal? Maybe I scared people away with the lengthy posts I've been doing? LOL!

At any rate, it's all good. I'll keep on blogging and those of you who have been following along know that I'll keep giving you good stuff to scrap about.

For the last day of Ali Edwards on my blog I thought I would direct you again to her blog. She answered a lot of questions from readers and she now has a new title at Creating Keepsakes; Creative Editor. I noticed that Cathy Z. also added a new title and some more hours to her Primedia gig so there must be something going on there!

And here is an Ali Edwards lift that I had a lot of fun doing. Her original layout is on page 33 of A Designer's Eye - I just love the simplicity of the design.

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

Tune in tomorrow for "Saturday Stuff" - I'll wrap up the week with misc. ramblings of sales, freebies, and other good stuff.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

..................................................

Ali Edwards - helping you find your own style

2006-04-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Re-reading Ali's book this week has been a great exercise in creativity for me. So inspired by her and her unique style. I love that she encourages scrapbookers to find and embrace their own personal style. She suggests looking through the layouts you have created and picking the ones you like the best. Decide what it is that you like about those particular pages and you will start to understand your own style. Do you like patterned paper? white space? color blocking? collage techniques? In her words, "What speaks to you about YOUR pages?"

I decided to take a look through my digital gallery since I feel that I am beginning again to define my style now that I'm a digital scrapbooker. A lot of the early pages were experimenting with this new medium. Just like in my first days as a paper scrapper, there was a learning curve that involved simply understanding how to use the tools. It was fun and exciting for me to feel like a beginner again after 20+ years as a paper scrapper. That was and still is part of the appeal of digital for me. Truthfully, I still have a lot to learn, but that is a challenge I enjoy. I'm not sure if I have really found "my style" yet as a digital scrapbooker because I have been having fun trying new techniques.

Here are the trends I see so far in my favorite digital pages and one of my past pages to illustrate each point:

1- Big pictures. Now that I don't have to order enlargements, I'm love having the ability to make my pictures fill the whole page if I want to. I love making the photo the star of the page.

Posted at 2Peas

2- Font work and word art. I'm at the beginning of the learning curve on this, but my favorite layouts often include funky or unusual fonts and quotes or word art. I guess this is the writer in me, because I simply love words.

Posted at 2Peas

3- White space. I do love the clean look of white, and also any color of empty space. Again, it lets the photos and words take center stage.

Posted at 2Peas

4 - Sepia, black & white, and colorized photos. I love having the option to change the way a picture looks to match the mood of my layout.

Posted at 2Peas

5- Linear design. I have become much more linear since converting to digital. I used to tilt my pictures all the time, but I'm having a hard time doing that now - seems like I really like clean lines and color blocking as well.

Posted at 2 Peas

6- Meaningful journaling. By far, my favorite layouts are the ones that I poured my heart into the words on the page.

Posted at 2Peas

So take Ali's advice and look through your creations and think about what defines your style. If you have her Designer's Eye book, pages 168-172 are all about this topic.

There is no right or wrong way kind of style...enjoy yours and make it your own!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

................................................

Ali Edwards Inspiration

2006-04-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

I blogged about Ali's "Designer's Eye" book yesterday, so I really feel like I must mention that she has another one coming out this June called "A Designer's Eye for scrapbooking with patterned paper." You can pre-order it on the Creating Keepsakes Website I actually did just pre-order it, which is pretty unusual for me since I live fairly close to several scrapbooking stores. Sometimes it is just nice not to have to try and chase something down - worth the shipping cost for that!

I also decided to pre-order Ali's new font CD coming out in May while I was at the CK website, so I dropped some serious change all in the name of Ali today! Totally worth it though in my opinion.

I figure that I need to get my hands on the real Ali's handwriting. Some of you may know about this whole controversy, but I have to admit I was oblivious until just a few weeks ago. I won't name the particular font because I really don't want to point any more people to it than I already have, but I guess someone scanned in Ali Edward's handwriting from her first book and made a font out of it. Not cool.
So sad that stuff like this happens.

Ok, on to more about Ali... I've been studying her scrapping style this week and I still am planning to do some heavy lifting (scraplifting that is) but in the meantime, I used some Ali inspiration for the following layout:

While this isn't a lift of any Ali layout, it was still inspired by her great sense of design. She uses a lot of what she calls "photo bars" or strips of mulitiple photos.

This is my entry for the Sugar Babe contest going on at the Sweet Shoppe. I used the Serenity kit by Andrea Victoria and the fonts are Monotype Corsiva and Fine Hand.

Posted at 2Peas and The Sweet Shoppe

Journaling reads:

I am here. I always have been, and I will do my best to be there for you any time you need me.

I was there for your first breath, your first steps, and comforted you the first time you fell. No milestone has passed without me there cheering you on, often with a camera in my hand. That is the way it should be, what being your mother is all about.

Each step you take into the future is uncharted. All I can do to reassure myself, is to reflect upon the past. Every picture is proof to me that your foundation is a strong one. You have good memories to build upon.

You will need my guiding hand less and less as you continue to grow, but I know you will remember that you can take my hand at any time and I will gladly be there .

Love, Mom
April 2006

Thanks for looking!

- Personal note about this layout:
I read the journaling out loud to my 9 year old daughter to see how it sounded and she and I both ended up in what we call "happy tears." I figure that is the only prize I need for this layout - so I'm happy with it no matter what happens with the Sugar Babe thing. Just so glad for the motivation to work on such a meaningful topic.

Day 4 of Ali coming your way tomorrow so see you then.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

........................................................

Ali Edwards day 2

2006-04-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the Ali part of this post, I wanted to add a few things to yesterday's entry.

If you read my post yesterday, you will know about the layout I posted describing my son's journey. I have to say that the response to this layout has been overwhelming. I'm just touched so deeply by the kind and supportive comments on my post, on this blog, and via e-mail.

My email inbox is bursting right now with messages from people who would like to know more about autism for many different reasons. I am so happy to help in any way I can. I wish that I could take away the pain and struggles that so many are dealing with, but I know I can't. Hopefully, the message of hope I shared in the layout will be of some comfort. There is no cure, but early intervention and specialized therepies do work.

It is so neat to see so much popping up about autism in the digital scrapbooking community right now. Ashley Olson, one of my creative team members, used the prompts from my April edition of an Amazing Month of Memories to inspire her to do this layout about her daughter who has autism. She has given her permission for me to share it here.

You can read more about her layout here.

There is true power in a scrapbook page, especially one about such an important subject.

Which brings me to another reason why I selected Ali Edwards as the featured artist this week on my blog...

Ali gets it. She teaches others to scrap the important stuff in life. I love her book
"A Designer's eye for scrapbooking." Of course the design principles are wonderful, but I love it even more for the written content. Ali is not afraid to scrap a page about an ex-boyfriend, or use her own personal history to illustrate concepts. She has a knack for making her layouts seem simple, but in reality they are filled with amazing design details.

If you don't already have this book, I highly recommend it.

I've had this book for quite awhile now, but I have renewed my appreciation for it this week while I've been studying Ali's style. I am going to do a few Ali "lifts" that I will share later in the week. For now, I will pull out an older "lift" I did of an Ali Edwards layout. It happens to be another page about my son which seems to fit well with this post.

This is Alex when he was only 8 months old. A very happy baby. We had no idea there would be any words like "Autism" coming in the future at this point and I guess I'm glad we had that time in the beginning. That is something that is different about autism - you don't really know at first. In 1996 it was very rare to have anyone receive a diagnosis before age 3. Now that so much more is understood about the early signs of autism it is possible to diagnose as early as 18 months.

So here's my 2 page Ali Edwards lift of a layout she had published in the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooking Kids on page 107

Posted on 2Peas in January 2006

More Ali inspiration tomorrow so see you then!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

.................................................

Ali Edwards & Autism

2006-04-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my earlier post that I want to try something new here on my blog. I thought it would be fun to have a weekly theme to focus on Monday - Friday and then I will use the weekends for more random posts. There will still be a lot of variation each day because it depends on what is happening in my life, and what I am currently scrapping. I'll just try it for a few weeks and see how it goes. After all, it's my blog and I want it to be fun for me and for my readers!

So the theme this week is Ali Edwards - I guess more like a featured artist really. We study the masters of art in school like da Vinci, Monet, and Van Gogh, why not study the "greats" in the scrapbooking world? Ali Edwards is the perfect starting point for me because I feel as if I share a special bond with her. We've never met, and we probably never will but I feel a connection with her because her son has autism.

I'm almost a decade ahead of her in the autism thing - my son was diagnosed in 1996 and he is now 12 years old. Her sweet Simon is only 3 (I think) and was just diagnosed last year.

She is very open about their life with autism on her blog and I admire her so much for that. She has a huge audience and she is making a tremendous difference in autism awareness just by sharing a little bit of their personal story with others. If you don't already read her blog, I would encourage you to add it to your list of "must reads."

Some of her recent posts have been a little difficult for me to get through because it is almost like reading my own personal journal entries. On the other hand, I know there are great differences as well. In fact, that is one idea I would love to get across to people... that people with autism are not "all the same." In fact, there is such a wide range in how autism is manifested that it really makes it a confusing thing to explain to others. Ali is doing a good job on her blog right now posting some good links and that will be a great help to others in furthering understanding of autism related disorders.

This brings me to a little more of my own story. I've tried to share my experiences through newsletters and my website for years now. In 1996, there were about 3 books on autism that were easy to find. The literal explosion in the autism population began in about 1991 at the earliest - my son was at the beginning of this curve. I forged ahead and spent years researching and even started writing a book. I have now changed my focus for many reasons. I still believe very strongly in helping others understand autism, but the time has come for me to put my energies elsewhere.

I have homeschooled my son before because of educational difficulties. I am going to start homeschooling him again full time after this school year. Before it was forced upon us - now it is a choice. A choice we are making because we feel that it will give him the very best outcome in his life. He has come so far, I want to make sure that he keeps on progressing.

So in honor of Autism Awareness Month and as part of today's topic, I thought I would share this 2 page layout with you. It is very dear to my heart and my son has given his permission to share this with others. I have posted this layout on 2Peas if you want to read more about it.

Thanks for letting me share a little bit of our story here and I hope you will take some time and visit some of the links on my autism pages and on Ali's blog.

Obviously, there's a whole lot more to Ali than autism - so I have lots to blog about this week. Hope you will join me!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

.................................................

1st of 2 posts today

2006-04-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend and I'm rested and ready to blog again!

I'm going to post again later on today so I can kick off my new "theme of the week" idea. You are going to have to come back this afternoon to find out what I'm taking about.

I wanted to get a quick post off this morning though for a few reasons:

1- This is the last day my new quote packs are on sale for only $1.00 - that's $1.00 for 20 quotes!

2- There is a free gift on my site for the month of April. Only 79 people have downloaded it so far so I know there are a lot of you out there who might have missed it.

3- I did have one reader find 2 typos on my website so Michelle (yes, another Michelle!) earned $10 in free items from me. She picked the April Month of Memories, the Mini Album Patterns, and the Spring and Women Quote Packs.

I've now corrected those typos and they were so little that I would have never caught them because I have stared at those pages for so long. If you find a typo or a broken link anywhere on the pages of www.scrapbooklady.org just email me at kt@scrapbooklady.org and if you are the first one to find it, you get a $5.00 credit for my store. This blog doesn't count for the typo contest because I'm sure I make a lot of typos here since I type so much each day! LOL!

3- I neglected to give out the correct answers for the other contest that has already ended. I had 3 winners already that I listed in Saturday's entry. Here are the questions again with the correct answers:

How many times have I been published - articles and layouts?
5 times - 4 layouts and 1 feature article. The answer is on my scrap bio page.

How many items do I have for sale in my new shop?
6 right now; 2 issues of the Amazing Month of Memories, 1 set of Mini Album Patterns, and 3 quote packs.

How many pages about autism are there on my site?
6 pages total. I think they are all very important - but if I could pick just one page that I hope everyone would read it would have to be "Not Autistic" so I hope you will take a minute and look it over.

What month and year did I start doing Roundups?
January 2006. The answer is on my roundup page of course!

How many pages are in the April issue of Amazing Month of Memories?
31 pages with a lot of fun stuff!

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest!

Ok, I'll meet you back here later today!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Housekeeping

2006-04-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today is a "housekeeping" kind of day for me both IRL (in real life) and on the computer - LOL!

So I'm cleaning up my task list and taking care of a few things right here on the blog.

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has ordered from my new store this weekend! The orders have been processed smoothly and there have only been a few glitches in delivery because some of my customers couldn't receive emails with large attachments. I've taken care of that now, so if you ordered and have not received your links - please email me at kt@scrapbooklady.org
I have all the orders on file so it will be easy for me to resend your links if needed.

There was some confusion on where to go to download the items once purchased. I'm sorry I didn't explain this all better. Since I am just one person and this isn't a large shop, I process each order individually. Once I receive payment notification I send you out an email with the download links. This could take as long as 24 hours, but it usually is MUCH shorter as I check my email several times a day. I've now added that info to each product description so this should be more clear.

Remember that the Quote Packs are on sale for only $1.00 this weekend!!! So far the best selling pack has been the "Great Women" but they are all doing well.

I did a layout using a quote from the Spring pack yesterday and posted it on my quote blog if you want to see.

Finally let's talk contests!

I had 3 winners for my contest so far and they all chose to do the quiz answers. No one has taken me up on the typo or broken link offer yet, so either I don't have any or no one wants to take on that challenge! LOL!

The winners are:

Michele Duffy
Janet Thompson
Michelle Blackwell

Michele and Janet both chose the April Month of Memories for their prize and Michelle chose the mini album patterns with 2 quote packs (Women & Spring)

Thanks for playing ladies!!!

And speaking of contests, I decided to enter one myself. I put my hat in the ring for the "Sugar Babe" contest going on over the next few weeks at The Sweet Shoppe.
50 (yes fifty!) other scrappers are also trying for this one position so it will be some very stiff competition. I thought it would be fun though and I'm already glad I did it because the challenges so far look like they will be great inspiration for me. So wish me luck and I will keep you posted.

Ok, one last thing...

I'm taking tomorrow off from blogging. I've spent soooooo much time at the computer this week that I've let other things fall by the wayside. So I will still fill orders, but now blog entries here or on the quote blog on Sunday April 9th.

I'll be back on Monday and I have something very cool in mind for this blog. A whole new twist each week, so be sure to come back then!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

..........................................................................

And we're live in 3, 2, 1...

2006-04-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

The site is done! The store works great - some of you have already tested it out.

If you have visited www.scrapbooklady.org you may need to refresh your screen to see the changes.

Ok, are you ready for some fun? It's my "Launch Party Weekend" and I'm inviting you to celebrate with me!

You will need to go to my website for the following activities:

1 - I have a new free gift for you!

2- My quote packs are on sale for only $1.00 each until April 10th - That is just a ridiculously low price for 20 quotes. That means they are only a nickel each!

3- Do you want to win a prize? How about a $5.00 credit to my store? That will buy you one issue of the Amazing Memories series, or a combination of other things. I will be uploading more quote packs on a regular basis also so you should find plenty to use a $5.00 credit on!

- Here are 2 ways you can win:

Be one of the first 3 people to email me with the answers to these questions. You can find all of this info on my site. Send your answers to kt@scrapbooklady.org - don't post them here in the comment section (don't want others to cheat from you!)

the questions are:

How many times have I been published - articles and layouts?
How many items do I have for sale in my new shop?
How many pages about autism are there on my site?
What month and year did I start doing Roundups?
How many pages are in the April issue of Amazing Month of Memories?

and/or - yes, you can do both!

Find a typo or a broken link on my site and let me know via email at kt@scrapbooklady.org - the only catch is you have to be the first one to email me about that particular typo or broken link. I am limiting this to 5 coupons total on this one although I sure hope there aren't that many mistakes! LOL!

Have fun!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

almost done!

2006-04-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

My site is almost done! Everything is up except the quote packs - so there are 2 pages about the quotes that aren't quite complete and my index page is not ready.

If you want to see a work in progress you can take a sneak peek.
If you would rather wait for the finished product, it will be done tomorrow!

So come back here tomorrow for details of my
"Launch Party Weekend!"

want some hints?

There will be a freebie and a contest! And a big sale on the the Quote Packs only!

The Amazing Month of Memories and the Mini Album Patterns will be offered at their regular low price - so you can order those today if you want to!

So this might be my shortest blog entry ever! - Bet you didn't think I could ever keep one this short!

See you tomorrow....

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

Tagged

2006-04-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that my site redesign is going well - I'm hoping to launch tomorrow and have my new store up and running! The latest it will be is Friday so watch the ol' blog here to find out more.

My doctor's visit went well yesterday. I always dread doing the yearly check up thing but I feel good knowing that I did something to take care of myself. That is what my next art journal is going to focus on...once I get to it! LOL! I am going to do it - just really want to get my new site off the ground first.

I've had a great response to the April Month of Memories and I received several more orders last night. I just want to remind you that you can still order it on this page.

Ok, on to the tag.....

The ultra talented designer Kim Hill of CG Essentials "tagged" me with this great idea for a blog entry. I would encourage everyone who reads this to take a minute and do this for a friend or family member because

#1 - it will make their day
#2 - instant scrapbook page journaling!

I will tag a few of my online buddies to do it also just so this fun little thing spreads like it should.

So here's what I'm supposed to do. I pick a friend and post five things about her/him, and then tag other people to do the same.

Here are five things about Kathy (my Mom) - a Mom can be a friend and I'm lucky that mine is!

1. She was always there for me. Literally and emotionally.
I love that my Mom didn't work outside the home because she was always available to me.

2. She has probably had the most unique mothering career that I have ever heard of.
I was born when she was 22. After 12 years of fertility struggles and futile attempts to adopt, she miraculously became pregnant with my younger brother Michael. Then 7 years later (I was 19 by this time,) my parent's adopted my brother Zachary from Korea when he was 4 months old. Are you following all of this? Pretty amazing if you are! My mom has basically had 3 separate families and has been a great mother to each one of us.

3. She's got a wonderful sense of humor.
We laugh all the time about silly lines from Seinfeld and Friends. We can practically speak in code this way and I'm sure it drives my Dad and Husband crazy when we do this.

4. She's has a great thirst for information and is always up on current events.
She reads several newspapers a day and she usually is the one that tells me what is going on in the outside world. She always stays informed and always votes - but her candidates rarely win! She taught me it was ok to go against the grain and stand up for what you believe in.

5. She's very hip - much more so than I am.
She's no typical "grandma"... the woman owns about 5 pair of crocs, has way more scrapbooking supplies than I do, watches the cool tv shows, and finds great blogs all the time to tell me about. And she has even dabbled in digital scrapbooking - pretty cool I tell you! Oh, and man can she shop! I can't keep up with her!

Now for my tags....I feel a little guilty doing this to you all because I know you are each so busy!

Trish Jones

Ashley Olson

Jenn aka "scraprascal"

Scrappin Kay - love the name of her blog "Hunapuke Kaikamahine which means - Scrapbook Girl

Miss Kim

Ok, I'm off to do my computer geek stuff!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

......................................

just a short one today

2006-04-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

I'm working very hard on my website and so far it is looking really good. I'm so excited to share it with you, but it is going to be another few days before it is completely ready. I believe it will be worth the wait.

I also have a doctor's appointment today (yearly checkup) and errands to run so I better keep this short.

Just wanted to be sure you saw my new Quote Queen - isn't she cute?! I got her from Bless the Chick so my scrapbook lady wouldn't be lonely! LOL!

She is now gracing my quote blog in all her royal cuteness!

I also have an older layout to share today. I didn't post it when I created it last December because it was going in a gift album for my Mom and Dad and I didn't want them to see it before Christmas. Then I never got around to posting it for some reason, so I dug it out of hiding today.

It is very simple, but it is one of my favorites.

Posted at 2Peas.
All papers, circle brushes, and stitching came from the Digital Scrapbook Memories CD. Fonts used: AL highlighter Abadi MT Condensed.

Have a great day!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Silly stuff about me

2006-04-03T14:44:00.000-07:00

not sure this is true - Marcia just always seemed a little too stuck up for my liking. I've always thought I was a little more like Jan than Marcia. I'm pretty basic, but I am an oldest child so I don't really have the whole "middle child" mentality going on.

You Are Marcia Brady

Confident yet kind. Popular yet down to earth. You're a total dream girl.
You've got the total package - no wonder everyone's a little jealous of you.

What Brady Are You?

Now this next one - I hate to admit this - is pretty accurate! All you do is enter your name on this one so obviously it is completely un-scientific, but if I was going to be Ben and Jerry's ice cream I would think that a cookie dough or brownie batter would suit me just fine!

You Are Brownie Batter Ice Cream

You've been known to lick *everything* clean

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

and I was pleased with this one because I love Kermit! He is one cool frog!

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know.
You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems.
Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green.
Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test

So these may be totally silly, but if you are creative, you can find a lot of fun scrapping ideas from little quizzes like these. You never know...you may see a Kermit page popping up here soon!

So go take some silly quizzes and have fun today.

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

First layout done in April

2006-04-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

In my world, the best kind of day is one where I can scrapbook! I had a lot of fun doing this page. I posted it at 2Peas and at Scrapbook Bytes.

We are serious Harry Potter fans in our house!

Supplies & Resources:
* Jen Wilson Grass Stains Kit
* Jen Wilson Scrap Street The Lock Shop
* Batik Regular Font
* Black Chancery Font
* Parry Hotter Font
* Katie the Scrapbook Lady's March Amazing Month of Memories.

I've been thinking about my scrapbooking goals for April so I thought I would share them here:

I want to start and complete Rhonna Farrer's second art journal challenge. I'm late in getting started, but I'm not worried about it. I want to do it. I loved the first one!

I loved doing the everyday celebration type pages inspired by my Month of Memories series so I want to keep on creating lots of those!

I'm very lucky to be on 3 wonderful Creative Teams and I'm excited to complete my assignments there. All 3 designers (Ashley Olson, Trish Jones, & Mindy Terasawa) have newly released kits and designs so that is going to be a lot of fun!

I also will be releasing some new quote packs and another freebie sometime soon so keep an eye on this blog! I love scrapping with quotes!

I don't want to put a number goal on my scrapbooking this month - like xx number of layouts in April. I am just challenging myself to scrap what I enjoy and enjoy what I scrap!

What are your scrapbooking goals for April?

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Katie's March Roundup

2006-04-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

The fabulous Angie Pedersen recommended the roundup on her blog.

I love seeing other people's roundups so if you want to - send me a link to your own roundup if you post it publicly.

Here's my March Roundup!

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

I didn't read a lot this month - but I think you will notice that the book I read had a big influence on me because I had my best writing month ever!!!

Pen on Fire! by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett

I also read out loud to both of my kids individually each night before bed. I really should write down the books that we read and do a scrapbook page about them. We read a couple of our favorites this month that I highly recommend.

I'm in Charge of Celebrations - any scrapbooker would appreciate this one!

The Secret Knowledge of Grownups - We LOVE this one! Makes us giggle every time.

The Secret Knowledge of Grownups:The Second File - Every bit as fun as the first one!

Dr. Welch and the Great Grape Story - a true story about how Dr. Welch (a dentist) decided to make non-alchoholic grape juice.

My son and I finished listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on audio cd. We've listened to this before, but it was fun to review it.

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

I can't think of one tv show I watched this month. I caught a few bits and pieces here and there, but I really haven't sat down and watched a show in the longest time!

I did watch quite a few movies with my kids:

Veggie Tales Lord of the Beans with my daughter. It is a cute one and if you are Veggie Tales fan, then you will like it.

Deep Sea 3D in an IMAX theater with my kids and hubby. This was what we did on my birthday. I reviewed this movie in a previous blog entry

Chicken Little on DVD with my Mom and daughter. I saw this in theaters back in November but this was the first time I've watched it on DVD. It was cute, I don't think my Mom really enjoyed it, but my daughter loves it!

National Treasure on DVD - with my husband, kids, and my Mom and brother. This is one of our family's all time favorites. It is simple but we love the historical excitement and action. Don't think my Mom and brother enjoyed much and I know my Dad watched it once on a business trip and really did not like it at all. That's ok, to each his own. We will keep on watching it!

What special days did I celebrate and how?

My birthday! on March 10th

My 15th Wedding Anniversary on March 22nd

My Mom and youngest brother coming to visit from March 25th-30th.

A variety of fun holidays because of the March edition of An Amazing Month of Memories - a few worth mentioning are:

St. Patrick's Day

Middle Name Pride Day

and
National Waffle Day - this was the one my kids were the most excited about! I still need to do a layout about our celebration.

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try in March?

Nothing noteworthy!

What illnesses or health concerns did I have in March?

None! Amazingly, since my daughter got sick. I always get sick when she does! 3rd month in a row that I can credit Airborne for keeping me healthy.

I did get very tired after marathon shopping days with my mom during her visit. I can't keep up with her!

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

I mentioned a lot of them already...birthday, visit from Mom and brother.

Besides those, I would have to say that I've enjoyed a weekly date with my husband. For most of our married life, this has not been possible. But now we have found a wonderful respite provider for our children. She is expensive but she is great with the kids and she is very sensitive with my son's special needs. They just love her and it has been great for us as a couple to have a weekly date time!

Also did a craft almost every day with my daughter in honor of National Craft month.

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

I was good to not spend a lot of money this month. We tried to run a pretty tight ship because we need to do a fence and our basement soon. I'm also saving up for a laptop computer.

I did do some scrapbook shopping and I bought a new watch with my birthday money. Still even have some birthday money to spend.

What were this month’s disappointments?

I really had a great month. Not too many disappointments to report. I did apply for a design team and did not make the cut, but I don't feel too bad about that.

I guess my biggest disappointment is that I didn't take better care of my health. I did walk on the treadmill quite regularly at the first of the month. I did a total of 9 miles and I started a diet and was really good for about 10 days. I ate mostly veggies, fruits and vegetable soup but I only lost 1 pound and gave up. I have not been able to lose weight for the past few years no matter what I try. But I guess I have tried to improve my health this month so that is a good thing.

Oh, and I deleted my entire email account on the 31st of March!

What were my accomplishments this month?

I guess I will toot my own horn for a minute here because I feel like I really accomplished a lot in the month of March!

Sold a lot of copies of the March edition of an Amazing Month of Memories.

Wrote and published the April edition of an Amazing Month of Memories and so far sales are looking really good.

Scrapbook Bytes started a weekly challenge based on the Amazing Month of Memories series!

Invited to be on Trish Jones Creative Team

Still on Ashley Olson's Creative Team

and Mindy Terasawa's Creative Team

I completed 40 Digital Layouts including a 20 page art journal for Rhonna Farrer's first challenge!
Now my 2006 layout count total is 78 completed layouts.

Also completed 6 Quote cards.

I held a creative team call and ended up having 42 very talented scrappers apply! I chose 8 of them to join my wonderful existing 3 team members.

I gave away a March freebie and did 4 quote pack freebie giveaways. It's April now, so be watching for the April freebie to be posted soon!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady by the numbers:

As of March 31st - I've now had 16,577 blog visitors to the scrap blog
and 9,223 visitors to my quote blog

My website has had a total of 309,625 visitors!

My newsletter has 2,951 subscribers.

Now I'm going to finish up the rest of the roundup by doing all my unzipping, uploading, and backing up! Then I will be ready for an Amazing April!

I also use the same roundup list of questions to set goals for myself for the new month so I am going to work on that also. But for now I better get to bed. It is 11:00 p.m. here now, but with the whole Daylight Savings time change that means it really is midnight!

Good luck with your Roundup!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Roundup March!!!

2006-04-01T10:05:00.001-07:00

So March has ended and it's time to Roundup Your Memories!

Don't know what a roundup is? Well you can read all about it in a previous post at
http://roundupyourmemories.blogspot.com/2006/01/roundup-your-memories-introduction.html

Here's what I'm going to be rounding up for the month of March:

Here are the questions I thought and actions I thought of to include for the March Roundup. Feel free to copy and paste it for your own use. (I will post my own March roundup here tomorrow if you want to see how I respond.)

March events & information:

What books and/or magazines did I read this month?

What movies and/or tv shows did I watch this month?

What special days did I celebrate and how?

What illnesses or health concerns did I have in March?

What fun things did I do with my friends and/or family?

What new foods, recipes or restaurants did I try in March?

What special or unusual purchases did I make?

What were this month’s disappointments?

What were my accomplishments this month?

Then I am going to be sure that at the end of each month I have done the following tasks:

* I'm going to add something to this list this month - I am going to print out my blog entries to keep in a binder. My blog(s) really are like a journal and I was thinking that it would be nice to have hard copy to keep. I know some people back up their blog files which is probably a good idea.

Pictures & layouts:

Backed up all digital pictures to a cd

Back up all digital layouts to a cd

Print out any digital layouts created during the month and put them in albums.
Uploaded all digital pictures to 2 different sites. ( I use Sony Image Station & Costco photo center)

Send email links to online photo albums to your family or friends who might enjoy them

* Get your pictures printed out and put into simple photo sleeve albums.

If you use film, be sure you get all your pictures developed and file your negatives in a safe place. If possible, I would suggest you get a picture cd along with your developing.

* Put finished paper scrapbook layouts in sheet protectors and albums to enjoy.

Scrapbooking Supplies:

For digital scrappers:
download, unzip, and file all kits & fonts purchased. Save a preview image of each kit and keep it in a separate file for easy browsing. Back up all new purchases to cd or dvd in case of computer crash or to maximize your hard drive space.

For paper scrappers:
put away any new purchases. Do you still have stuff in sacks sitting around? I know some of you do! Put it away in an organized system.

For all scrappers:

Look through what you have purchased recently and decide what you want to use. At the first of the month set some goals for scrapping (hint – use this same list of ideas as a goal sheet for April)

Sort through old supplies that no longer appeal to you. Donate them to a friend who can use them or a charity. My older supplies go to my daughter who happily uses them to create many fun projects. I have also donated some to charity.

Look through what supplies you did use during the month and think about what it is about them that appealed to you. This will help you make smarter purchases in the future.

Clean up your area! Whether that is getting your computer in tip top shape, or clearing off the piles on a table where you can sit and work.

So consider this a little nudge with the old spurs from Katie the Scrapbook Lady. Don’t let this sit unfinished for too long, take a few minutes and write out your answers while the month is still fresh in your mind. You will be so glad that you did!

If you want to get really ambitious, have other family members fill this out (or help them with it) for an even richer memory resource.

Now Giddy Up and Happy Scrapping!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

back to my main scrapping blog

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still scrappin!

2006-03-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

I will post the roundup later on today...

I had a great scrapping day yesterday! I think taking a few days off really rejuvenated me.

This ended up being one of my favorite layouts even though it is quite simple in design. Nothing like doing a page about a great memory!

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my Dad. Can you tell that he is a great Dad? - I've always been close to him - even when I was a teenager so I'm pretty lucky that way!

I did this layout in honor of Goof Off Day in March - the idea was in my March edition of an Amazing Month of Memories.

I used Ashley Olson's Touch of Home kit - which I just LOVE! The beige background is from Jen Wilson's Innocent Creme pack. Fonts are 2Peas submarine and Duke (which is a commerical font.)

It is posted at Scrapbook Bytes in the Week 3 challenge gallery. Also at 2 Peas and The Digi Chick.

The next layout was fun one to do -

My daughter has sooooo many stuffed animals and she really plays with all of them - so I guess it is a good thing. Last summer we had a big photo shoot with all the animals so I have some fun pictures from that to scrap. When I asked her what kind of holiday she would make up, she had several answers, but I thought this one was the most fitting for her!

Paper and elements from Digital Scrapbook Memories CD, fonts are 2Peas Flower Garden and Abadi Mt. Condensed. Idea from March edition of Katie the Scrapbook Lady's Amazing Month of Memories.

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes.

Well, I guess I better stop scrapping for now and get something else done!
Remember to check back later for the Roundup!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapping March

2006-03-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

So can you believe that tomorrow is the last day of March? Where did this month go?

If you have been a blog reader of mine for more than a month, you know what I will be posting about the next 2 days...Roundup! So get ready to close out the month and start preparing for April.

I'm working on that very goal right now. I did some scrapping today since my Mom and brother left this morning.

I had so much fun doing these spring pages and it was very enjoyable to try a new style. I did what is called in scrap language a "scraplift." Ju Bean is one of my favorites on the digital board at 2Peas so I borrowed her "mojo" today and created this 2 page layout:

You can see Gail's layout that I used for the lift at 2Peas.

I went looking for Spring the other day, and there isn't a lot of it around here, but I did find a few fun things to photograph.

All papers and elements are from Mindy Terasawa (Sweet Shoppe) Pocket full of Posies kit. Layout inspiration from Katie the Scrapbook Lady March edition of an Amazing Month of Memories. Fonts are Monika and Dream Orphans.

Layouts posted at 2Peas Digital Gallery and Scrapbook Bytes (page 1) and (page 2) and The Sweet Shoppe (page 1) and (page 2)

I also did the Coca-Cola challenge layout today:

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes in the Month of Memories gallery.

Ok, you would never believe how long this page took me because the way it ended up is extremely simple! I spent way too much time trying to find the perfect elements and papers and finally just gave up and used simple shapes. I love the Loki-Cola font and wanted to use it for this layout so I guess that is my embellishment.

We had a blast on our Vegas trip in 2001 and I have been wanting to scrap it forever. I used the theme day from my March edition of the Amazing Month of Memories to inspire me to finally get going on this.

I'm going to start working on my quote shop and getting a shopping cart going on my site so stay tuned...hopefully it will be up and running next week!

In the meantime, per popular request, I have at least added a button to my site where you can order the March and April editions together at the same time. It is at the bottom of the ordering page. Please know that the ideas from any given month's issue can really be used all throughout the year. You will want them all!

So get ready to join me in a Roundup tomorrow - see you then!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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bonus post!

2006-03-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

I know I already blogged today but I wanted to tell you a couple of quick things:

1- Free kit is up at 2Peas and it is my favorite free kit yet! In fact, I think it may be the foundation of my new art journal for Rhonna's challenge.

- just a note, I've had a hard time downloading the 2Peas kit because I think everyone is trying to at the same time, so you may want to wait awhile!

2- Free kit is up at Shabby Princess and it is a darling spring, flowery theme.

3- The albums I blogged about earlier today - the We R Memory Keepers post bound linen album is available at Michaels - which is a bummer since I bought 2 of them yesterday at full price. But at least I can let you all know to use the weekly 40% coupon if you have a Michael's nearby. There was no coupon this week, but I think next week I will be heading to Michael's to get another one of these!

Ok, that's all for now...

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Scrapbook Lady goes scrapbook shopping!

2006-03-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

Hit the "big ones" today with my Mom.

Memories in Bountiful, Utah

Heartland Paper in Bountiful

Paper Creations in Salt Lake City (Brickyard)

Want to know what I bought? Sure you do....

Tag Maker

Notch Tool

I haven't really had a chance to try either of these tools yet so I will let you know what I think of them after I get a chance to play.

and
I found my new favorite scrapbook album an 8x8 linen album that can fit TONS of page refills! Never bought anything from this company before, but I'm thrilled with these!
updated link - http://www.weronthenet.com/
someone asked me in the comments section where I got this album and I realized the link was expired so I updated it. I purchased these albums at Paper Creations but I know that you can get them other places. I think these are the ones that Stacy Julian has started using and she lives in Arizona. It also looks like you can order online. They are a bit pricey, but you can fit a ton of pages in them so it would be the equivalent of having 2 very full regular 8x8 albums.

I was really proud of myself for not buying a single sheet of scrapbook paper - this is nothing short of a miracle! However, since I already own enough paper to wallpaper myself a path to China, I figured I could do without any more...especially now that I'm primarily a digi scrapper!

Pretty good day for the scrapbook lady!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Am I cute or what?!

2006-03-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously... I think this "cartoon" format is a better look for me!

I know you are going to want your own little chick so be sure to visit http://www.blessthischick.com/
I found out about this company from Lindsay Teague and I promptly submitted my order. It was approx $7 U.S. dollars and my little self can be used for as a web icon or in my signature line. You will be seeing my picture here on the blog and probably in my sig lines soon!

Lots of shopping today with my Mom and brother. In fact, I was so worn out that I had to come home and have a short nap! Even with the nap, I can barely keep my eyes open now.

We went to a lot of quilt and embroidery stores today. I am not a quilter like my mom is (I've made a few simple quilts) but it is still fun to go along and see all the neat ideas. One store was super nice and even let us take pictures inside. If you love fabric and are in Salt Lake City, Utah - you have got to check out Quilts Etc. - what an amazing store!

Here are some pretty colors to enjoy:

I'll take my camera with me tomorrow so I hope to have some fun things to share with you then.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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Shopping to begin tomorrow...

2006-03-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

My Mom & brother arrived yesterday about 4:00 p.m. and by the time we got to my house and had dinner, there was only time for one short craft store trip. Since we don't shop on Sundays, the real enabling will begin tomorrow!

I'm still hoping to get all my layouts done for the week 2 challenge at Scrapbook Bytes, but it is looking doubtful at this time of night. Oh well, I really want to be keeping up with all the challenges, but I might have to remember that a week where I put out a new edition and have a design team call might just get a little crazy!

I did get some time to work on a girl scout cookies page. I hope you don't think less of me when you find out how addicted to cookies I am!

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes

Fonts are 2Peas Garden Girls Love Me and 2 Peas Well Behaved.
Ribbons and Brad are from Gina Miller.

Hope you have a happy Monday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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A scrappy Saturday and someone is coming to visit...

2006-03-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Been so busy writing and picking my new creative team this week, that I haven't had much time to scrap!

It just doesn't feel right if I'm not working on a layout or two.

Even though I was tired last night, I decided that it would be good to have some creating time.

Want to see?

Posted at 2Peas and Scrapbook Bytes (in the Week 2 Month of Memories Challenge)

The only elements I used for this are from Trish Jones' Elementary Electic series in green. I love all the little doo dads included with this set and can't wait to use more!

So guess who is coming to visit me?

My mom and my youngest brother are coming to stay for 5 days.

Now if you have read this blog at all, you will know that my Mom is my biggest enabler! We are going to spend a few days hitting all the scrapbook, craft, and quilting stores within driving distance so I'm going to have lots to tell you about and some fun pictures to share from our adventures.

I may not be as active on the boards as I usually am for a few days while they are here, but I promise to still blog here everyday.

The April Month of Memories is available on my website and my team has already started creating with it so I will share some links in a few days.

Have a Happy Saturday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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My new Creative Team!

2006-03-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

Get a load of all this talent!

Trish Jones –
Trish lives in Australia and loves using quotes on her layouts. I love her eclectic style and she is an amazing digital designer who sells her products at Scrapbook Bytes and Scrap Happy Studios.

Kathy Wagner -
If you have ever spent any time in the 2Peas digital scrapbooing area, Kathy is a familiar face. She is so involved in the community there and I love the way she spreads sunshine wherever she goes. Kathy has lived in Missouri all of her life and is fairly new to digital scrapbooking. She is a very dedicated scrapbooker and her gallery is full of fun layouts.

Tracie Radtke -
Tracie is a homeschooling Mom who is a Texas transplant. She was selected for Digital Scrapbooking Magazine’s Best & Brightest of 2006. She is also a very talented photographer, so you will want to take a look through her amazing gallery of layouts.

Ashley Olson -
Talented digi designer Ashley Olson (Ash) has already created a great page based on one of the April challenges in the Amazing Month of Memories. You can see it here on her blog and be sure to check out her gorgeous designs at Scrapbook Bytes.

Crissy Hunt -
An active member in the digital scrapbooking community, Crissy always takes the time to notice other's work and make them feel welcom. She is someone who explores many creative styles in her scrapping and her gallery is filled with many wonderful pages to inspire you.

Kristin Cronin-Barrow -
Kristin lives in Canada and has worked as a graphic designer and has a certificate in Visual Arts. Her proudest accomplishment was "getting to design a 2006 calendar for the canadian cancer society and seeing how happy those ladies were!" Be sure to take a look through her wonderful gallery.

Jen Caputo -
A software engineer by day and a web designer/srapper/crafter by night, Jen also finds time to run her own site where she sells bookmaking supplies and Caputo's Kits. She has had digital pages and cards published and writes a monthly column for the Digital Deck of SS Reflections.

Amanda Gale Lee -
Amanda is a a digital designer and co-partner of www.digiscrappin.biz. She lives "deep in the heart of Texas" and used to be a 4th grade school teacher before becoming a SAHM. She has a beautiful scrapping style and can take a look through her gallery here.

I'm also so pleased to have 3 of my original Creative Team members on board. They have stayed with me through a lot of changes and I really appreciate all their talent and hard work!

I need to update their bios but here are the ones I posted when the originally joined my team:

Lindsay

Tracy

Cindy

So basically... I'm thrilled with my team and can't wait to see what they create with my quotes and the Amazing Month of Memories series! Speaking of which...

You are doing a wondeful job of spreading the word on this. Lots of scrapper's have taken advantage of the secret sale. Have you?

Click on the pay pal box below to get to the sale link:

Hope you have a Happy Friday!

Katie the Scrapbook Lady

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