It's COLD Here!!!

We got more snow last night and the temps dropped down into the single digits. It's supposed to get back into the single digits again tonight.... BRRRR.....

Luckily I was tucked up, nice and warm, here at home... Scrapbooking!

One page that I finished today seemed to fit in naturally with the weather.



Can't you just feel how cold it was??? When Kari looked at the photo she said, "Mom, I look PURPLE!" While some of that can probably be blamed on the quality of the photo, part of it is because it was simply COLD that day!!

As for the layout, see those clear letters? Those were cut from TRASH! Yep! Trash! I had a package of Spellbinders dies that I had not opened. As I was flipping through some things I came across the package. The plastic that the dies were encased in was nice and sturdy. Hmm... I thought.... I can cut clear letters from that! I cut out the front and back of the package so that I had 2 flat sheets of plastic. I attached it to my Cricut mat using tape around the edges of the sheet and loaded my deep cut blade. Seconds later I had my letters AND a couple of snowflakes. Some white paint around the edges and a little bit of Stickles to make it sparkle and voila! a lovely, cold wintery page.

A Change is in the Wind.....

I am feeling bright and creative this year, so I've decided to update the look of my blog a bit. (As soon as I go to the hairdresser next week, I will update my photo too. I think you will all be surprised by how much my hair has changed.)

First a report on 2010 and my scrapbook efforts. I didn't quite make either of my goals for the year. I didn't scrapbook 100 layouts and I didn't use up my stash as diligently as I had hoped.

As for this year, I'm still working on using my stash, but I don't think I'm being quite so obsessive about it. When I just let myself go and use what feels "right" for a particular layout, I tend to be more satisfied with the results.

I'm allowing myself to purchase a few things, especially things that I know will help me scrapbook more and create more. One of my first purchases for the year was the Page Maps 2 book by Becky Fleck. I always make sure to download the pdf each month with new sketches and I had purchased her first book. When I found there was a second one I HAD to add it to my scrap resource library!

I proudly present to you my FIRST layout of 2011! It was inspired by one of the sketches from Page Maps 2 and includes MOSTLY items from my stash.



I used some old Bazzill carstock for the background and stamped snowflakes with some of my Stampin Up stamps and white craft ink. The patterned paper is my only new purchase: Bo Bunny Midnight Frost, a new paper that I just HAD to buy!

My favorite element on the whole layout though, has to be the icicle stickles on the word "Snow" in the title! I LOVE itt!!