Doin' it the Wright Way

   Good morning! Whoops! Another day went by and I spaced off a post again! I guess my posting-every-day goal is not going so well. Oh, well, most of you probably don't want to read my thoughts every day anyway!    I was thinking for this morning I'd share a technique. Every month at our Close to My Heart meetings, one consultant shows the other consultants a technique. I will try to share that with you.    In my opinion, I know quite a lot about scrapbooking ... but I don't know many of the different and creative techniques, so I love this part of the meeting! And many of these techniques are ones I love, but not necessarily ones I would have been brave enough to experiment with myself.    Today we are going to try thumping. And, I actually missed the meeting where this was taught - so I'm going to be learning it myself today too. I took a picture of the technique card they made at the meeting I missed, so now I have to see if I can decipher the instructions - since

   I've got another idea for a graduation gift! I just finished it this morning, which is why I hadn't posted it yet.    It is another type of box. It is a My Creations Memory Keeper Box , from Close to My Heart. I have made two already that I am giving for graduation gifts, and then I've got two more to make.    I will try to run down the directions here, but it would probably be easier if you'd contact me and we could set up a workshop! I might actually offer it this summer at B Inspired! Let me know if you'd be interested in that. If you want to make one yourself, hop on over to my Web site and order yours today!   I have also made these for baby gifts; they've been a big hit! My CTMH upline made one as a tribute to her grandmother. They can be used for anything!    A couple of tips: you'll need lots of adhesive ... and actually, in this case, the more you use the better. The paper might bubble a bit, but I think that gives it character. I've al

Again, sorry!! Here are a couple more of my friends' and family's favorite recipes! Salsa Dip 2 8oz. cream cheese Approximately 1.5 cups Pace Picante Medium Salsa (Or to taste!) 2 tsp. Garlic Salt/Powder (Or to taste!) 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese Tortilla Chips Mix cream cheese and salsa. Add salt and shredded cheese. Please adjust any of the amounts to taste! I don't actually measure when I make it. Serve with tortilla chips. I used to make this, use a little less salsa, and then spread it on tortilla shells. Then you cut up the shells for bite-sized appetizers. Needless to say, that took a lot of time. One time I had some extra filling left and my family just started eating it with tortilla chips. It was just as good - and much, much easier!! Hot Pizza Dip 1 package (8 ounces) of cream cheese, softened 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Mozzarella cheese ¾ cups (3 ounces) shredded Parmesan cheese 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning 1 can (8 ounces) pizza sauce Sliced

   I was doing so good there posting everyday, and then this weekend hit! After a scrapbook club and Pampered Chef show Saturday, and then an impromptu visit to Omaha Sunday to visit family in the hospital, Monday was already here! I got a lot done yesterday, scrapbooking-wise, but again, no blog post.    I will try to get back in the groove today.    I am going to start by sharing the recipes we made at my Pampered Chef show Saturday. Please enjoy them! The ladies at the show all said they were fabulous!!    Love fresh pineapple, but hate cutting it? Try our Pineapple Wedger! It's fabulous! Contact me today to order!    Happy Tuesday! Fresh Pineapple Salsa 2 plum tomatoes ½ small red onion 1 4-in. piece seedless cucumber ½ cup lightly packed cilantro leaves 1 jalapeno pepper 1 medium pineapple 1 lime ½ tsp salt Lime Tortilla Chips (optional, see below) Hull and remove seeds from tomatoes using Core & More. Peel cucumber with Vegetable Peeler; remove seeds usin

   T hank G oodness I t's F riday! I'm sorry to all of you who have a five-days-a-week job. But I don't know if I could go back to that. Even though, lately, with my four-ish jobs I've been working four to seven days a week, and I can tell you, I'm getting tired. There's definitely not near enough time to scrapbook, even if I don't work that hard during the day (such as sitting at a computer doing my job at the library, or sitting at a desk subbing - I mean not manual labor by hard) I'm tired when I get home. And downstairs to my craft room seems like such a long and arduous trip. Anyway, I'm glad it's the weekend - mine will be Sunday and Monday - I can't wait. I've got a whole bunch of relaxing planned for Sunday and then scrapbooking with my friend Kristi on Monday.    So, for the moment, my head is a little too tired to think of some scrapbooking tips/projects to share with you - and I have to start getting ready for work in about fi

  I've got a couple of ideas for you for graduation gifts. This is one of them!   I was planning on giving these to graduates this year, but my husband is a teacher and wants to give something to 20 students - I'm not making 20 of these! I'm making a different gift for my cousin and sister-in-law. I will post it when I get it completed!   Anyway, this is my idea right now. It's what I call a scrapbook-in-a-box. You can make them for any topic, in any color scheme and there are actually different design options.   There are two different designs here. The majority of them are a one-page box. When you open it up, it lays flat in one 12"x12" page. The other is made up of four layers, for over 20 different pages.    These are a couple of boxes that I have for sale right now at B Inspired! If you're interested, please give me a call or e-mail or visit B Inspired! Right now, they are on sale, so don't miss out - only $7.50. Post a comment if you have que

   In honor of Earth Day, my post is going to have nothing to do with scrapbooking or cooking. Even though, I suppose you could do your part in either of those by reducing the amount you throw away by reusing or recycling your scraps, reusing objects on a card or scrapbook page that you might not usually consider, recycling as much of the packaging of your food items as possible and making the switch to paper bags and/or reusable shopping bags.    Anyway, I found this article on the PepsiCo Web site Monday, and I wanted to pass it along. Here are a few tips to help keep the Earth around a little longer!!    Happy Thursday! Happy Earth Day! How To: 9 Green Home Projects You Can Do Today By: Allison Arieff of GOOD Between the economic meltdown and the push for green buildings, saving energy, water and money in your home is more popular than ever. Fortunately, greening your home doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive. We caught up with Eric Corey Freed, principal of Organic

   I'm one of those people who carefully reads every card they receive and saves them. No lie, I think I probably still have just about every card I've ever received ... and then some. I don't know what I plan to do with them, even though I have included some of the cards we got for our wedding in our wedding scrapbook, but I just can't seem to let them go.    And, then there are those people on the opposite side of the spectrum - like my sister. I have quit making her cards because I told her once that I didn't get her card made, and I would mail it to her. She told me not to bother as she would just throw it away. I suppose I should have made and sent her one anyway, to maybe give her at least a moment of joy, but I didn't want to after that remark.    I'm also one of those people who will spend a very long time reading every card in the store, or looking through my stash, looking for just the perfect card. Sometimes I find it, and sometimes I settle for

   Good morning!    This morning I signed ten of you up to receive alerts whenever I put a new post on my blog. If you don't want to receive those alerts, please let me know. I just knew a few of you had looked at the blog, and wanted to give you the opportunity to see my new posts first.    Thank you for reading my blog! If you ever have an idea for a post, please let me know ... some are harder than others to come up with!    If you did not get an e-mail saying this post had been posted and would like to receive one, please let me know.    Happy Wednesday! P.S. I did some scrapbooking last night, but didn't take any pictures. I completed all but putting the pictures on a two-page layout of Topstitch, so I will post that once I get it fully completed. I did some hand-stitching on that page; I loved it! I will try to post about that at some point! One more thing to cross off my list!!

(and sometimes technology is great!! i figured out later that a draft of my post had actually saved, so i was able to recover it. yeah! enjoy!)     Good morning!     Today is my Grandma Dusin's 85th birthday! That's quite a feat!     I will admit that I am actually terrible about remembering birthdays. Okay, I guess that's not it, it's more like I am terrible at remembering to do something for birthdays. A lot of times I remember them, I just don't remember to do anything about them.     Which is why the cards from that 25-card workshop (see one of previous posts) would really come in handy, if I ever get them finished! (I had plans last night, but instead finished reading my book - knew I shouldn't have even started it ... do you ever stay up late to finish a book only to be seriously disappointed by the ending? Yeah, that's what I did last night. I was quite angry - seriously, I stayed up late and this is the ending I get?)      Anyway ... so, this m

So, I just typed a post, and was ready to post it when my Internet went wacko. Argh! I will try to post it again, later today. Happy Tuesday!

  Another day, another dollar. Today I will be working at my "regular" job, but I will be thinking of the rest of the scrapbooking I need to get done.   As I'm sitting here thinking about it, I've decided I really like the Close to My Heart Workshops on the Go . While I'm actually working on the workshops trying to figure out how to do them, I may not always love them, as any of those who have scrapbooked with me know. But that's why I do them ahead of time ... figure them out so I can help the gals complete them successfully!   If you're not familiar with our WOTG program, it's quite simple. Every month we get together to scrapbook. We will all make the same layout, that is designed by Jeanette Lynton just for this purpose, but you can each use your own creativity to make it different. You purchase a guide and a paper pack and any other of the suggested embellishments you'd like to use. The guide takes you through each step of creating the layou

  I pretty much spent the whole day scrapbooking; and while I made a little progress, I didn't make near as much as I wanted to. But, oh, well. I had fun doing it.   I got the 11 copies done for my page swap - man, those took me about 11 hours, much longer than I had planned. And just now I finished the first layout from the Veranda Workshop on the Go . Yay!   I actually used some of my wedding photos and uploaded them to Picnik to make them sepia toned. It's the first time I've used that Web site ... and I really love it. My friend Brittany told me about that Web site when I saw a scrapbook she had completed for her boyfriend - it was really cool the way she was able to alter the photos and even write messages on them. You make all your edits, and then you save them to your computer and print them out yourself (I've been amazed at how well my new printer is printing my pictures!!) or you can upload them to a photo printing Web site or take them to your favorite stor

So, eight hours of scrapbooking; and I finally got a little bit done. I got at least my first two pages from my CTMH page swap done. I have to make 11, so I've started re-creating them. I really like how they turned out. If you want to know any of the stamps, papers or embellishments I used, just post a comment - it's too much to write out right away as I used about six stamps sets and many embellishments! To see the whole page, click on the photo; sorry about that, but I wanted to make them big! Enjoy! Happy Saturday evening!!

  Good morning to one and all! Or maybe just one ... depends on if anybody reads this! :)   Please let me know: do you like all the updates I've made to my blog design over the last few days? I found a couple of very cool Web sites that let me do all that for free! Yeah!   I don't have a project to share today, but maybe soon I'll have some photos to share. I am getting ready to spend most of the day down in my scrapbooking "cave" getting some serious work done. I have projects to work on for other people, I have some graduation gifts and cards of my own to work on (I'm going to try using the paper pack Game On - I have high hopes), and I have an "about me" scrapbook page to make for our Close to My Heart swap. I've decided to use the paper pack You Rock - it could possibly be one of my all-time favorite paper packs. I've also still got those 25 Bella cards to finish. And if by some miracle (speaking of which, don't forget about our

You’ll love our pretty Miracle kit designed exclusively for National Scrapbooking Month in May. April is National Scrapbooking Month. To celebrate, Close to My Heart is offering a special kit just for you just for this occasion. It's a beautiful spring-themed scrapbooking kit that includes new, coordinating B&T Duos® die-cut papers, B&T Duos, Irresistibles™ chipboard die-cuts, My Stickease® adhesive images, Flip Flaps™, plus more favorite accessories and papers. We're also including an instruction brochure for easily creating two beautiful two-page layouts—with no stamping required! this is the paper and guide you'll get these are the stickers and die-cuts these are the embellishments and sponges Miracle Kit Contents 5 – Colonial White Cardstock 1 – Bamboo Cardstock 1 – Floral B&T Duos® Paper 1 – Stripe B&T Duos® Paper 1 – Crystal Blue B&T Duos® Die-Cut 1 – Sweet Leaf B&T Duos® Die-Cut 1 – 6" × 12" My Stickeas

   the last couple of days i've been talking about making cards and a card organizer. some people just don't like to make their own cards or have no desire to do so.    if that's the case, that's just fine. visit B Inspired! and purchase some of the cards I (and my friend Judy) have made for you. if you don't see what you're looking for in our card display, we'll custom-make some for you!    don't live in the area? let me know what kinds of cards you need and i can make them and mail them to you!    i've posted the door display we have at B Inspired! and also some other cards i have made for your viewing (and copying) enjoyment!    some of these cards were made by cutting level 1 packets up ... they make simple cards look fabulous! can you tell which cards were made with the level 1 kits? happy thursday!