More stuff for sale

Well, I'm a week late, but I'm finally getting around to listing some new items on my etsy shop, EandBShoppe. I'll have a whole slew of new stuff to come, too.

Stop by and take a look.

Here's what's there now:

And here's a sneak look at some that's still to be listed:

Thank you!!

Paper bag album

Had a bright idea the other day. I usually take a TON of photos at any given gathering. It can become quite daunting when it comes to scrapbooking. It's not just that I have a hard time editing them down, it's just that ... well ... I have a hard time editing them down.

I'm not so keen on relying on digital preservation. Sure, my photos are all saved on my computer and a Web site, but think about all of the photos we have from the past. Grandma and Grandpa's wedding photo isn't digitally archived ... and we still have it right? I just am into the tactile stuff. So the hard copies of my photos are important to me.

Back to the problem. Saving them all. I guess I'd been puzzling it over enough that the back of my mind was working on a solution, because this is what I came up with. It's quick, simple and even stylishly fun! A paper bag album!

I made the covers myself by covering chipboard with scrapbooking paper. I then sliced off the closed end of a bunch of lunch bags, aligned everything and punched three holes. Slipped it all into some binder rings and went to town.

See the idea? Storage! All of the photos from this one trip are either featured on the pages or ... tucked inside the little bag-envelopes. Works well, hunh?

Watch for another post coming soon! I've been working on my etsy shop and am hopeful I'll have some new listings up this weekend.

Have a wonderful week!

Happy news!

Just wanted to drop in and let you know that I was voted in to be part of my very first-ever design team (and it happens to be the store's first team, too!) I'll be one of five designers for Mimi's Crop Circle!

My first official submission is due in a couple of weeks -- a single LO about myself, which will remain in the store for the duration of my term, a year. I already have some ideas in mind since I've been meaning to do this subject for so long. But with such cute kids to scrapbook and a mountain of photos of them ... well, you know how it goes.

Anyway, each month the five of us will be given a design challenge, which then will go up on display for customers' votes. Not sure how it works after that:)

Yay! I'm proud of myself:)

One summer photo challenge

OK, I'm so loving this post by my friend Tara that I had to respond for the first time ever to a blog challenge.

In her post, she asks, "If you could describe summer by only using a photo, what would that photo be of?"

Know why I love this so much? Because I don't have to spend time formulating words when the image is the entire point.

Without further ado:

New etsy Treasury

I enjoy doing these when I have time. They're actually a lot harder to put together than you think. Here's my latest, called Fresh love.

My entries

So I decided I would try out for a localish scrapbook store's design team. It's the first time I've ever done this.

We had to make an item in each of three categories: Card, Altered Art and Scrapbooking. The entry due date is soon or just passed; I forget (and obviously submitted these with plenty of time.) Customers will vote on their favorites and five winners will be chosen Aug. 1. Wish me luck!

My Card entry. I redid this one a couple of times, as I'm really *not* a card artist. I do like how summery and happy this one came out, though.

My Altered entry. I'm such a messy altered artist:) This was fun, though. The letter in the middle is a real letter from a stash I bought a few years ago at a junk store. There were several to one woman ... from a few different men obviously vying for her attention. A couple of the men were in the Civilian Conservation Corps and the letters were sent from the field. I have a whole life imagined for this woman.

And, of course, Scrapbooking. I so RARELY get any photos of The Boy lately, and have to take advantage of when he lets me.

Spring might be here ... but no guarantees

It's gorgeous in Seattle right now. Mid-60s, sunshine and the blue skies of legend.

I've been busy as well. Some good things happening in my life right now. (Bank of America is NOT one of them. But that's another story.) I've been making pages and trying (but failing) to get my studio organized. I've put together some things for the etsy shop -- mini inspiration kits being the latest. Eventually, I might even get them photographed and listed!!

The flowers finally are blooming too. See?

Happy Mother's Day!

Pretty relaxing day, except for the early evening, when both kids were a bit of a pill. (Seriously. Out of the 4,872 toy cars you both have, you HAVE to have the same one???) Anyway, I thought I should check in and say I'm still alive, and have been working on a few layouts, which are below. Hope your days have been productive and happy!

My brilliant children

Elephant's science fair project this year was on parasites:

He had three categories: micro, macro and entertaining. What's "entertaining" you ask? Try Mustafar lava fleas (from "Star Wars"), ear worms (from "SpongeBob") and Pokemon (there's a bug type, apparently). Pokemon is banned from his school, so I scored some serious Cool Mom cred by pointing out that he could hardly get in trouble by including them on a SCIENCE FAIR display, now could he?

:)

And here's Butterfly at the beginning of creation:
I love that she DEMANDS to paint. I would never dream of stifling such ambition.

I love these two.

Currently obsessed with ...

(and you'll need to mute the player at the bottom of the page before clicking play):

Pretty morning

Butterfly and I spent a few hours this morning being alternately snuggly and creative. A couple of days ago, I had cut and punched out various roundish shapes with an idea in mind.

Yesterday, I gathered some brads and flowers, and today we set to work taking the idea of my head and putting it into fruition.



Butterfly designed this one herself. Sweet, isn't it? I think I'm going to have to keep it:)

The rest, I'll be making some cute packaging for and selling on my etsy site.

Snow day

So tired of this weather. It's really dragging me down, the grey greys and the white whites. I miss sunshine!

Stuck at home today. The combination of living 5 minutes from the base of a mountain, living in the unincorporated and thus unplowed part of the county, on a dead-end street with a hill to climb up to the main road, a wussy-in-the-snow car and a terrified-to-drive-in-the-snow driver, makes it easy for this to happen.

See?




Took a few pictures of the pretty flowers I got while I was in the hospital:







But still kind of sad. Took some photos of my altered-book-in-progress, which I haven't shared here before:






and some pictures of a layout and some tags I've done in the past few days, just to show that I'm not totally lacking in creativity:)







But ... I'm still kind of sad. sigh