Layout Journalling

Here's the journalling from my "Short Stuff" layout; I realized after posting the picture that you couldn't actually read it, even in the close-up:

"Short stuff, pipsqueak, midget, squirt... I've heard them all. If you had asked me when I was younger what the worst thing about me was, I would have said definitely my height. I hated being short, and I used to wish I was taller. I got teased in school a lot because I was always the smallest kid in class; at least until High School, when I had a friend that was shorter than I. Gym class was a special torment for me; I felt that my height (or lack thereof) really held me back: I couldn't make a basket to save my life, and I had trouble getting the volleyball over the net. Finding clothes that fit and still looked good was another challenge; the stuff that fit me was all for younger girls - not what you want when you want to be a cool teenager. And forget about finding pants that fit that didn't need to be shortened.

But somewhere through the years, a transformation has taken place. I'm not entirely sure when or how it happened, but I gradually became more comfortable with and accepting of myself. I think the change may have come about as I grew stronger in my faith, and I started to realize that I'm short because GOD wanted me that way and made me that way, and He doesn't make mistakes. I am what I am, and all the wishing in the world isn't going to change that. So I figure I have two choices: I can either spend my life wishing for things that will never happen, or I can accept and embrace myself the way I am. There's a Bon Jovi song with a line that says "like a favourite pair of torn blue jeans, the skin I'm in's alright with me". That's where I am - totally comfortable in my own skin. I like myself just find the way I am, thank you very much! (That being said, it's still next to impossible to find pants that fit without needing to be shortened.)"

Another new layout!

The scrapbooking blitz continues! This is a layout I did for a blog challenge here on Blogger. The theme was to do a layout on the worst thing about yourself. Here's mine:

And a close-up of the journalling:

I have to say...I'm really enjoying being able to upload pictures on here (in case it was blatantly obvious LOL).

TTFN!

Weekend Scrappy Project #3

The third and final project in my scrap-happy blitz was the layout for the Faithbooking Friends challenge at scrapbook.com. The theme was peace, and there was a list of 10 or so verses to choose from to use on our layouts. In addition, we had to use a pocket and at least two tags. I put my title on one tag, and my journaling and the photo caption are on 4 other tags that I tied together with ribbon and put in the pocket. This layout came out really well, especially since it's a last-minute thing. I've been thinking about this layout all month, but have not been able to come up with any ideas on what to do. Finally, about a week or so ago, I got a glimmer of an idea, and thankfully it took off from there. I finally sat down today, chose my picture, papers and embellishments, made the pocket and tags and put the whole thing together. It only took a couple of hours from start to finish once I figured out what I was doing.

TTFN!

Weekend Scrappy Project #2

The second project I worked on is my Words of Encouragement album. It's mostly encouraging Bible verse, with some quotes and song lyrics added in. The album is a Creative Memories navy and pink PicFolio Minutes album. So far, I've only done the title page and the end page for it, although I have all of the journalling cards made. I've also got the flower embellishments made for the next two pages. I really liked how these turned out, although apparently I wasn't paying attention when I made the journalling cards; I mounted all of the white cardstock textured side up (it was supposed to be textured side down so I would have a smooth writing surface - oops!). It's going to be a little challenging writing on the textured cardstock, but I'm always up for a challenge. You can't really see it very well on the title page, but the flower is pink cardstock mounted on navy blue cardstock, with a crystal brad in the center. The Bible verse card has two pink flowers layered together with the same crystal brad center. The verse cards are going to alternate colours: the next two are white-on-pink with navy flowers, then there'll be white-on navy with pink flowers as you see below. The positions of the flowers will also alternate so that the same two corners don't have all of the flowers in them. At the moment, I'm not sure if I have enough verses to fill all 23 cards, but we shall see.





























TTFN!

Weekend Scrappy Project #1

For the first time in a very long time, I was able to get some scrapbooking done this weekend. I got two layouts done for my Words of Encouragement album and two for my Smile Book, as well as the peace layout for the Faithbooking Friends monthly layout challenge over at scrapbook.com. Not only that, but I figured out how to get my pictures off of my camera and onto my computer so that I can post them (yay me!).

This is the title page for my Smile Book (please excuse the poor picture quality - I'm not sure why this one turned out so fuzzy):

Initially, I had just the flowers and the letter stickers on the page, but the more I looked at it when I laid it out, the more I thought that it needed a little "something something". I was laying in bed one night not sleeping and staring at my closet shelf where my crafter's toolbox is (or rather I was staring at where I knew the shelf and the crafter's toolbox to be - it was dark after all) when it hit me: what I needed was ribbon! I think it turned out rather nicely, if I do say so myself!



This is the second page of my Smile Book:
The Pooh sticker was one of those things I bought just because I love Winnie the Pooh, and I knew that at some point I would find some use for it. When I started planning my Smile Book, I knew immediately that my Pooh sticker was going into it, and I new what I was going to do with it. Making the checkerboard background for him was a little dicey, but it came out alright in the end (and after I gave the whole thing a haircut to get rid the minute white edges that were left after I finished adhering all of those squares).

The third item in my Smile Book, which I don't have a picture of, is a dolphin postcard from Florida. When my dad first started working for ATI and Nortel, he was working in the Caribbean and used to fly in and out of Miami. On his first trip down there, he found the postcard, and bought it for me just because he knew I would like the dolphin picture. Behind each item in my Smile Book is a little journalling card telling about why each item is special to me and/or why it makes me happy. This is already turning into a fun project, and I've only done 3 pages of it! I'll be posting more pictures as I go along.

TTFN!

Close encounters of the wild kind

One of the best things about living where I do is the abundance of wildlife. We regularly have deer and moose go through our yard, as well as rabbits, skunks, and porcupines. I used to occasionally see foxes along the old route I took to go to work. And even all the different birds. On Christmas Eve afternoon, I saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree as I was driving home from work.

Speaking of wildlife, about half an hour ago, three deer (a mama and two youngsters) came up out of the bushes on the other side of our driveway. They walked up the driveway, went down the road to the corner (we live in the SE corner of a four-way stop intersection), turned right and wandered down the road. Just a short way around the corner the road takes a turn; at that point we lost sight of them. I love living in the country!

TTFN!

Scrapping the Tough Stuff, Part 2

(Continued From Last Post)

I've tried before to write my transplant story, but I always found it too hard and gave up. Now, I feel like the time is right, and that I'm finally ready to write my story. My hope is to have the album ready in time for my 10-year transplant anniversary next April; that gives me just over a year to get everything completed. (If you knew me and my habit of procrastinating, you'd know why having a year plus to finish this project is a good thing.) Somehow the album seems like a fitting way to celebrate. I'll have to be sure to leave some blank pages to document how I celebrated the big day. I've got some ideas for something really special, but I don't want to give anything away too soon.

Even now, when I look back at all that I went through, I still think that getting sick and having to go through what I did was one of the best things that could have happened to me (although it certainly didn't feel like it at the time). Before you say that I've lost my mind, let me explain. The whole experience not only made me a stronger person, it also greatly deepened my faith. I now know for myself the truth in the quote: "Lord, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you and I together can't handle." With my Heavenly Father on my side, there isn't anything I can't overcome. I think there's a Bible verse that says something to the same effect, but I can't think of it just off the top of my head. (I should look it up though; it would be a great addition to my journalling.) Having been through one battle made me better able to cope when, a few years ago, I started showing signs of rejection and had to have IV treatments 2 days a month for 3 months to help fight off the rejection. As scared as I was, I knew that I had to rely on God, that He knew what the outcome of this was going to be, and that He wasn't going to desert me in my time of need. What a change from when I first found out that I was going to need the transplant! Then, my first thought was, "If this is God's idea of a joke, it's not very funny." My second thought was that this was all His fault, and for a while I was really angry with Him for doing this to me. But I can see so clearly now that He was with me all they way, even though at the time I was too blind to see all that He was doing for me.

All in all, I learned a lot of really important lessons from this whole experience, even though I had to learn some of them the hard way. I can honestly say now that I wouldn't have things any other way. Although...I could do without the rejection episode and the IV treatments; I really hate IVs.

TTFN!

Scrapping the Tough Stuff, Part 1

Early this morning, I was surfing around on scrapbook.com and I came across a post that has stuck with me all through the day today. The poster asked what is a tough subject that you've scrapbooked, and how did you scrap it. There were several people who had scrapped the loss of children, parents, or grandparents. There were some who had scrapbooked either about or for family members dealing with Alzheimers. There were some who had scrapbooked about their own personal challenges that they had dealt with, or were still dealing with. And there were people who had things that they wanted to scrapbook, but they hadn't yet.


Reading all these posts got me to thinking about an album project I had started planning a few years ago. I had seen an article in Simple Scrapbooks magazine about an album a young woman had done chronicling her journey through kidney disease, dialysis and finally kidney transplantation. Boy, did I ever sit up and take notice! As I like to say:"Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it." The article only showed a couple of pages from the album, but if you went onto the magazine's website you could see the rest of the album. So the very next day, that's what I did. There were many similarities between this lady's story and my own; the main one being that our mothers were the donors for each of us. This inspired me to start planning an album to tell my own story. I right away started drafting the journalling. This turned out to be really hard at times. There were times that I as I was fighting tears as I wrote about some of the more painful moments that I went through. (Since I was doing a lout of this at work during my lunch breaks, crying was the last thing I wanted to be caught doing.)

Seeing this post on scrapbook.com has really motivated me to go back and carry on with my album. I'm still in the drafting phase of my journalling; there's a lot of stuff that I haven't written about yet that I want to make sure gets included. And there's a lot of stuff that I've never shared with anyone before now that I want to put in, even though I still find some of it painful. In some ways, I think that starting this album has been quite therapeutic for me. I've been able to write down some of the stuff that I've never been able to express before, such as how I felt like I needed to put on a brave face, even though I was scared to death. I felt as though if my family could see that I was doing okay with all of this, then maybe they wouldn't be so scared. So I kept my feelings to myself. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I care to count, and I wished desperately that I had someone to talk to. But I didn't want to burden my family with what I was feeling because they were already scared and upset at what was happening to me. I guess I was afraid that they would be more upset if I let on just how scared I really was.

To be continued...

TTFN!

Oh, how I HATE spring cleaning!!

I've been attemting to re-decorate my bedroom for going on three years now. Or is it four? I've lost count now because it's been too long. Anyways, I've decided that this is the year my room will be re-done. I will have a nice, pretty sanctuary to escape to at the end of the day. My new Ikea furniture will finally get to come out of storage and see the light of day, as will the custom blinds I ordered for my room. The floor will be bare, and I will no longer be tripping over things that are laying around.

There's just one problem. Currently, my room looks like a hurricane went through. Where did all this c**p come from, anyway? Does it multiply in the dark of night? Or is someone dumping stuff in my room when I'm at work during the day? This bag has...scrapbooking stuff in it. This one... oh, there's that started needlework project I've been looking for. Stray sock? Where did that come from? Oh well, throw it in the laundry and hopefully I have a mate to it somewhere. Let's see...what else do we have here? Bag of books, another bag of books, another bag of scrappy stuff, more books, more needlework, random balls of yarn for needlework, new clothes, new shoes, new purse...uh oh! I'm starting to notice a disturbing trend. This is all stuff I've BOUGHT!! To borrow a phrase from Britney: "Oops, I shopped again!"

I am making slowly making progress though. Very slowly. Today I cleaned up the space behind my hed (it's approximately 1.5 feet x 4.5 feet. I couldn''t believe all the, uh, we'll call them "treasures", that I found back there. A book I've been looking for, several pens, a stale bag of chips (don't ask), chocolate bar wrappers, a hanger (?), and the list goes on. I pulled everything out, piled it on my bed and vaccumed. From the looks of the rug, it's apparently been a while since I did that. Then I put back only what's necessary: my basket of journals and devotionals, my laptop case (I finally have enough room to keep it within easy reach of my bed where I usually sit to play) and two of my special Cabbage Patch Kids. I also cleaned off my cedar chest, put away some stuff that's been sitting on top of said cedar chest for a couple of years, vaccumed it and then re-arranged the Cabbage Patch Kids that sit on top of it, along with a couple of my Webkinz. And I put away a bunch of stuff that was lying around, and consolidated some bags of scrapbooking stuff that I want to give away. The bare space on my rug is getting larger, although not nearly fast enough for my liking. Maybe I should stop doing so much shopping, and start spending a little more time cleaning. Like that'll ever happen!

TTFN!

Inspired by Cards

I've become a regular visit to Catherine's blog Confessions of a Scrapaholic (you can find the link in the sidebar under "Other Blogs I Like"), and I've been so inspired by some of the beautiful cards that she makes that I'm thinking I may have to try my hand at making some of my own. I've got tons of cute embellishments, and goodness knows I have enough cardstock to open my own store, so there's really nothing stopping me. Well, actually, there is. That darn annoying little voice in my head that keeps telling me "you couldn't possibly do anything as nice as that, so why bother?" Sigh. How to get away from that voice? I keep telling it to go away, but it keeps sneaking back when I'm not looking. I may have to force myself to just sit down and try something, and see what I end up with. With any luck, it'll actually turn out to be fairly decent-looking, and I can say to the Voice "Take that! I can make beautiful cards (or at least nice cards!)" I've got some cream-coloured blank cards that I bought that I'm going to use for my first attempt, and I'm thinking of doing something with butterflies or flowers to celebrate the beginning of spring. Or maybe cute bunnies and chicks for Easter (I've got the cutest Mrs. Grossman Easter photo stickers. Hmmm... Now that I've actually start putting down some of my ideas, the ideas are coming fast and furious. Maybe I should use the cute vellum butterflies... Or the Sandylion 3D hibiscus flowers... Or the Jolee's boutique lilies that I didn't think I had but which I just discovered I did... Or...

TTFN!

My March Goal

I was just over at Teri Leigh's blog saw her journal prompt that she had posted: Write about one thing that you would like to accomplish this month and how you will go about accomplishing it. Since I've finally gotten the album that I wanted for my Smile book, I want to get that done this month. It's only 24 4.5" x 6.5" layouts, so it shouldn't be too hard, and I've got lots of ideas already for what I want to put in it. (A couple of them are going be kind of "cheats", like the dolphin postcard that I have on my bulletin board in my office that my dad sent me from Florida just because he'd thought I'd like the picture. I don't want to do anything to it in any way, so it's going in just the way it is.) I've got lots of cute scrapbooking stuff that I bought just because I love it, so I want my album to kind of showcase some of those things, as well as being a collection of stuff that makes me happy.

How am I going to accomplish this? Well, I guess the first step is to figure out what else I want to put in it, aside from the things I've already decided on. The next step will be to make sure I have everything I want to put in it gathered up in one place so I don't have to look for it. And I've decided that behind each layout I'm going to put a 3" x 5" journalling card that tells the story behind why these things make me happy, so I'm going to have to make those. And then I'm just going to have to find the time to sit down and work on it. Today's cold and snowy, and I'm sick (again), so I think I'll spend some time working on some things for my album. I have one idea for my album that I've been dying to get to, so I'm thinking that's going to be my starting point (the only thing I'll say about it is that it involves Winnie the Pooh).

Now that I have a computer that will actually "talk" to my digital camera, I'm hoping to start being able to post pictures. That should be interesting, because as of yet I don't have a clue. I think my camera came with a cable that will let me plug it directly into my laptop, thus allowing me to take the pictures right from my camera. But we shall see. I'm hoping that my BFF who lives nearby will take pity on me and help me out if I get stuck.

TTFN!

The View From The Driver's Seat

I love my daily commute. Seriously. I think of it as my "me" time, away from all the pressures of work: the irritating co-workers, the deadlines, the ringing phone, the endless emails, you get the picture. In my car, there's no one who wants anything from me; it's just me and God. My co-workers all think I'm nuts because I actually enjoy driving all that way, twice a day, every day (although I will admit that it's not so much fun in the winter). But I enjoy it. And because Dad commuted to work every day, I grew up thinking that's just what people do. I have to admit, I can't quite understand why my co-workers look at me like I've lost my mind when I say I enjoy the drive every day. But I digress. I use the time in the morning to plan my day, talk to God, talk to myself (yes, I do talk to myself, but as of yet I haven't started answering myself - if that happens then I'll start worrying) or just crank up the tunes and sing along, which is my favourite way to spend the time - I refer to it as "car karaoke". At the end of the day, I use the time to decompress before I get home. I'm telling you...there's nothing better after a lousy day at the office than cruising along on open highway on a bright sunny day with good music in the CD player. It's one of the best forms of therapy there is, in my opinion. I sometimes feel quite privileged because I get to watch the changing of the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, I get to see the baby animals in the spring and sometimes I get to see wildlife. I love to look acorss an open field and unexpectedly see a herd of deer grazing. That is truly a special thing.

TTFN!