Be part of my Product Development Team & WIN!

So as I'm working on all my nifty little organizers this week ... and waiting for the 3rd cup of coffee to wear off ... I realized that I was going to take "a few minutes" to develop an idea that's been percolating in my brain for about 3 years.

For as long as I've known her, my friend Shelli has carried around in her purse a little notebook and she writes everything down that happens in her kids lives, funny things they say, places they visit on vacation and what everyone's reaction is as they get off Space Mountain ... you got the idea. She's a bit compulsive. BUT, that translates into really meaningful scrapbooking because she always has these bits of notes ready to rewrite onto her journaling boxes.

So I'm thinking this is a terrific idea since I usually get around to scrapbooking a vacation about 2 years after it's happened and I'm stuck thinking, "I know someone said something funny here. 'HEY HONEY! Remember when we ....do you remember if ....?'" I'm also thinking that Shelli's notebook is OK for people who don't mind writing everything a second time, but I cannot stand writing. Truly, it's painful in the real-arthritic kind of way.

OK, so for 3 years I've been waiting for someone to come up with a purse-sized notepad that has a perpetual calendar in it so all I have to do is circle the date, scribble something, and be done with it. And wouldn't it be even better if said notepad was in a suitable-for-scrapbooking style that I didn't need to rewrite it, I could just add it to the page as is?

So that's my idea, and here's the idea put into test, in a matchbook style folder. Size is about 2-1/2 x 5. (The grid & perpetual calendar are of my own creation, not scans.)



Given the fact that I expect to pay for college tuition for all 3 of my kids with this little gem (I crack myself up sometimes!), I'm seeking product feedback ... and here's where you get to be on my Product Development Team! Leave me a comment and let me know what uses OTHER than scrapbooking you would see for this ... and let me know any suggestions for changing it (even though it is perfect the way it is) ... how many pages should be in the notebook ... should it be perforated or just glued/stapled at bottom ... oh yeah, and a suggestion for a price.

I'll take all comments by Thursday July 10th around mid-day, and then I'll do a drawing. Your "prize" will be a custom-made pad (first run!!!) of your very own!

Too much time on my hands I guess...

So this is what I do when I'm procrastinating doing the things I REALLY need to be doing...I create new organization tools!

Problem A: I live in a flurry of activity and I seem to "forget" (heeheehee) to do things in life that really aren't important, but my DH seems to think they're somewhat important ... cleaning, cooking, laundry, stuff like that.

The Solution: Flylady. Yah, I know, she's got her problems. But the core of her principles work, at least for me. And of course, I had to create my own lists to personalize it for my needs and then OF COURSE had to jazz them up a bit.

Problem B: I hate making meal plans. Every week I pour over cookbooks, my recipe file box, magazine tear-outs trying to figure out what to make, how to adjust it for my family's likes & dislikes, and what groceries I need for it.

Solution: The meals that WORK for my family with the basic ingredients all in a quick-reference roladex (see details below)

So here's the pretty side:

And here are the guts:




Notice that the menu cards are really basic -- one word reminders of what to serve and what to buy (other than the basics that I always have on my shelf or in my fridge).

Also note ... AND I'M QUITE PROUD OF THIS ... that the menu cards are color coordinated (yellow is for chicken) AND numbered ... and wait, it gets better ... if leftovers from that meal can be used in another meal it's indicated by a little triangle arrow with the number of related meal cards.

Soooooo... on meal planning night, I write down what meals I'm having, quickly look up what meals I can use the leftovers in, and then add the basic ingredients I need to my grocery list.

I love being organized. It makes me very happy.

What happens when your favorite site is down ...

I'm blaming it all on All Moments Remembered message board. Tuesday is my "kid-free" morning (from 9-12 -- three hours of pure bliss!), and first thing I did was try to get onto the message board like I always do to check messages and see what I missed the night before.

Rats. The php message board was down. Double-rats. OK, well I've been meaning to make another matchbook mini album for a couple more friends. (I had made 3 the previous week and sent them out.) So I started cutting.

Hmmm. It's just as easy to whip up 3 if I'm already doing 2. In fact, since I'm cutting paper for 3, I might as well make a few extra. Message board still isn't up, so I might as well keep working.

Three hours later and I had cut enough paper & covers & embellishments for ... are you ready for this? .... SIXTEEN MINI BOOKS!

Am I nuts? Yes. Did I have a plan for them? Nope. So after I finished out the afternoon with kid/household/cooking duties ... and got everyone settled for the night, it took me about 2 hours to assemble & finish the 16 books.

So what the heck was I going to do with SIXTEEN books? I don't even have that many friends, LOL! So this morning I took photos of them, opened up an Etsy account, and well ... we'll just see what happens!

(16 books. If it weren't for my aching wrist I'm not sure I'd believe I had done that much in one day!)

ETA: Oooh! I just figured out a plan! Erika from the MB came up with a fun challenge to sell unwanted scrapbooking supplies and spend the profits on new supplies at AMR...if I sell these books, then I'm moving some scrapbook stuff off my shelves. Even though they're not unwanted supplies (I love the papers I used!), it's still money in my pocket to buy more stuff, LOL! (gotta love the logic)

Page Parts Class -- Embellishments

Three lessons this past week about using Embellishments. Next week -- our final week -- is on journaling. I'm going to miss this class when it's over!

This week's first lesson was how to create a pattern for your eye to follow, either the typical "Z" pattern or using a triangle pattern to create a balance that's pleasing to the eye. I took a long time working on this layout to create 3 distinct visual triangles with (a)striped paper; (b)blue/orange/white clusters; and (c)blue elements. There's also a very subtle 4th triangle going on with the brown stamped circles, brown handwritten journaling, and brown stitching. (Nearly all digital elements from Little Dreamer Designs.)


The 2nd lesson was on repeating elements but with variety. I really just wanted to quickly knock this layout out since I spent so much time on the first one, so the only repetition I included was the ribbon tabs. (Digital elements from Kate Teague and Creative Memories.)


The 3rd lesson was on using large embellishments as a focal point. I was dying to use this new Disney-Hannah Montana digital kit from Creative Memories (paper & guitar transparency). Title & journal block by Ali Edwards.

Page Parts Class -- Titles

Continuing on with my "catch up" mode ... this layout is for the 9th class lesson, this one on presenting titles in unusual, eye-catching ways. I had a lot of fun building on Kelly's afternoon pretend play as a News Reporter. This girl has quite an active imagination and it's clear to me that she picks up on whatever is going on around her at the moment. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner and the news was on. She interrupted her singing play and switched to typing up a news report. She came in and said I was Chef Mommy "from TV" (she knows I love watching cooking shows, especially Top Chef) ... and she was News Reporter Kelly.

I can't say enough about this "Page Parts" class I'm taking from Debbie Hodges. Each week there are 3 lessons and layout challenges that focus on a different aspect of a layout: the Canvas, Photos, Titles, Embellishments (this week), and finally Journaling (next week). In each lesson, Debbie discusses several different ways to tell your story using the page part of that week, along with some excellent layout examples. She has a guest designer lined up for each topic to provide additional insights and examples.

This was -- by far -- the best $20 I've ever spent on my scrapbooking hobby! Check out Debbie Hodges website and get on her mailing list to find out about future classes at http://www.debbiehodges.com/.

More Page Parts class layouts

Edited to Add -- I used a lot of new digital elements I purchased from DesignerDigitals.com, including one by Ali Edwards who has just partnered with Designer Digitals to create some fun new elements!

I've been at least a week behind in my class, and I'm trying to play catch-up tonight!

The first layout was for a lesson on providing contrast within a title:


Next layout was for a lesson on utilizing context in photos. I chose a sattelite image to provide context for the house photos:

I couldn't resist having fun with this last layout, which combined two different lessons on handling unnecessary or awkward backgrounds in photos as well as making a title more meaningful.

Asymetrical Balance

Debbie Hodge "Page Parts" class, week 1 lesson & challenge on achieving asymetrical balance. I started with the photo collage of different size photos. I knew I wanted to use the Bo Bunny floral paper on the Scenic Route rule-lined paper, and I had some K&Co flower accents that I wanted to use (RAKd to me by Samantha, thanks girl!) After moving these bits and pieces all over the place, I turned to CK mag and found a layout by Kim Watson (CK May 08, pg 24) that was perfect. The letters are outlines from a CM sticker sheet that I simply cut out and glued on the page, backing & all.

The challenge was to achieve white-space balance in an asymetrical layout. I'm pleased with it!

I'm in love ...

...with Debbie Hodge's class, and it hasn't even officially started yet! Heather Prins, the Creative Director/DT Coordinator from All Moments Remembered, posted a week or so ago about some classes offered by Debbie Hodge. I clicked on the link, read about the "Page Elements" class, and thought I'd give it a try.

Well, I gotta tell you, this woman is ORGANIZED and ON THE BALL like you wouldn't believe! That's a huge bonus. But I can tell already that she's also an excellent teacher and I'm going to learn so much from this class.

The first thing I see is a promotion for the class with a "Sample Class" -- a 3-page download lesson, along with a challenge. Holy cow, I hadn't even signed up for the class at that point, and I learned some things from that sample class on grid layouts that were immensely helpful (upon which I based the left page from my previous post). Along with the Sample Class was an invitation to join in a challenge for that lesson, and a gallery exists specifically for that challenge.

Then after I signed up for the class, she posted a "Welcome" post in a designated forum for the class, along with a class schedule, and a "Pre-Challenge Lesson & Challenge." Ummm, are you following me so far? That's 2 lessons and 2 Challenges before the class even begins on Monday next week!

I worked on my layout for the Pre-Challenge Challenge all afternoon and uploaded it into their gallery around 5 pm. Debbie has already commented that she loves my layout! I can tell I'm gonna love this woman!


This one is using real stuff ... and the tree idea was inspired by a layout by Corinne Delis (click here to see the layout). Ingredients include MM paper, tag, and Bazill CS all from an AMR Monthly Kit; flowers punched & hand-cut from Bo Bunny papers; foam bird and white Thickers (that I inked & bronzed) from American Crafts.

Journaling reads: "It was an evening walk & you asked to use my camera. You took 78 photos of cars, ants, lizards, squirrels, trees, flowers, neighbors, houses, dirt, and stones. Oh yes, and a few of me. We sat on the sidewalk & I said, "Let's lie down." So you took photos of clouds and treetops. On the way home the sun was setting and you wanted to take pictures of the sunlit trees."

Yeah, new layouts!

Left and right sides of a 2-page layout for the Week 2 assignment of My Moments Yahoo Group -- my friend Jessica invited me to join this group that is based on Lisa Bearnson's book "50 Moments that Matter Most." The Week 2 assignment was to do a layout about your role models.

It took me a long time to decide on what kind of look I wanted to have for these layouts. I decided to go digital and use the Creative Memories "Earthly" digital package to give the layouts a nice, clean, consistent look. When the project is completed, I'll plan to have them bound in a digital StoryBook.

AMR Challenge layouts

I haven't done any challenge layouts in a while, so I was happy to see these two at All Moments Remembered message board.

Scraplift Challenge -- Here is a layout by "born2scrap", followed by my scraplift of her layout.




Ugly Paper Challenge -- The first photo shows two pieces of construction-theme paper that I had purchased to make a gift for my FIL that never got made. I really felt stuck with this paper, not sure what to do with it. So that's why I chose it as my "ugly paper" inspiration.



And here's the layout. The "fix it" and measuring tape theme actually turned out to be perfectly timed for a layout about how this time I don't have all the answers. I can't come up with a plan, a schedule, or anything that will fix what's going on with my daughter right now; I have to turn my eyes upward.