Snow Photo to Scrapbook

This is definitely a photo I'll have to scrapbook. We got about a foot of snow in Ohio on Jan 28th 2009. It snowed so badly that I ended up working from home that day. Once the plow had been through our complex, there were massive piles of snow everywhere. What's a little pug-dog to do when he really has to GO? Whatever could he be thinking in this picture?

Gators with Capes

This page I love. Not just because I think it's a really good page. I scrap-lifted the design from the Scrapbooks Etc. Page Planner. And honestly, for a techy person who's trying to get in touch with their creative side, that is the BEST way to learn. If I'm learning something new, first thing I do is grab a book on the subject.

No, the biggest reason I love the layout is because of the inside joke between hubby and I, and because I ADORE Fantasia. Favorite Disney movie of ALL TIME. I made hubby watch it before we went on our honeymoon, to prepare us for Disney-Fication. This photo was also taken our very first day at Disney, the day after our wedding. Oh how I want to go back!

Supplies...ugh. I'm telling you, when I post old ones, I just don't know. Other than, of course, that the paper is DCWV, because that's what I have the most of. I choose the solid lime green paper, to echo the color of my shirt in the photo. The blue water paper was to bring out the blue in the gators, as well as play into the fact that these were part of the swimming pool decorations. The jewelled flower is from Stickabilities, I think. I placed that there, to balance out the title and journaling at the opposite corner. Journaling reads:

My favorite Disney movie is FANTASIA, which was the theme for the hotel pool. The walkway to the pool had these adorable statues of Fantasia's characters. The funny thing, was just weeks before, Dave and I thought we should create a World of Warcraft guild called "Gators with Capes"!

Princess Aurora

This is one of the layouts from my honeymoon album. The layout photo was taken during yesterday's cat-infested photo-shoot. Fun times. It wasn't straight. None of them are.

So, the color in the photo is bad. Really, the colors are really pretty powdered blue and pink. (Keep in mind, I hate pink.) I've taken a picture of this layout twice, and I'm not doing it again.

So...supplies. The blue paper is from DCWV. The pink patterned paper with crowns, is from Archiver's but I don't know the manufacturer. The princess embellishment came from JoAnn's, I think. The journalling reads:

Aurora: "Did your handsome prince slay a dragon for you?"

Noelle: "Why as a matter of fact, he did!"

[Explanation: Hubby is an avid computer gamer, as am I. Hence the dragon slaying.]

The Make-Do-Girl's Guide to Photographing Layouts (With Cats)

Step 1 - Find a day when there is some amount of daylight coming down from the sky. If this is the dead of Winter, a snow day home early from work will do.

Step 2 - Open window blinds as far as they will go. Turn on all lights in room, as 1 room with 1 large porch door, will not emit enough light in the Dead of WINTER.

Step 3 - Set up photo "studio" with large plastic box (used to keep kittens from eating baked goods) as object to hold layouts up vertically.

Step 4 - Attach camera to bendable Joby tripod. Adjust legs so camera will actually stand upright.

Step 5 - Position layout against plastic box in front of camera.

Step 6 - Turn on camera. Turn off flash, set to close-up mode, set 2 second timer to outlast button-pressing-jiggles. Adjust camera repeatedly in an attempt to get uncooperating Joby into the correct somewhat straight position.

Step 7 - Remove curious cat from between camera and Layout.

Step 8 - Take photos. Take 2 photos to heighten chances of a useable photo.

Step 9 - Take a third photo after forgetting to set 2 second timer resulting in blurry second photo.

Step 10 - Switch to next layout.

Step 11 - Chase away kittens from coffee table setup.

Step 12 - Repeat steps 8 - 10.

Step 13 - Retrieve camera from floor where it landed when knocked over by kittens who HAD to orally investigate camera strap.

Step 14 - Stomp into kitchen and feed cats and dog 40 minutes early, to keep them busy for awhile.

Step 15 - Hurriedly repeat steps 8 - 10 before animals finish eating.

And THAT is how a Make-Do-Girl takes layout photographs in the Dead of Winter, during a snowstorm, with 3 curious cats and a dog who just wants to be loved.

Joseph Benjamin "Joey" Cat.

Public Enemy Number 1

Letting Go

I was going to post some honeymoon scrapbook pages, but the camera didn't focus right on them. I'm still working out the logistics of photographing my layouts. I watched a video from Paperclipping.com, on how to photograph them, but that won't work for me. It's the dead of winter, so there is no daylight hours for me on weekdays. Ugh. So I'm still working on that aspect.

So instead, I'm posting a layout that...I didn't know if I was ready to post. I'm still not ready to even create a layout for the inevitable follow-up event, of actually saying goodbye. Nor can I do the subsequent layout for my cat Chalimar. 2 cats...passed away...within 6 weeks of each other. They were my life. The grief sapped my crafting mojo and I'm fighting to get it back.

So here is the layout I did, when I found out my prescious Annie had cancer. I know the paper is all DCWV, because that's pretty much all I have in solid colors. The letter stickers...cut off the logo on the product months ago. (My attempt at fitting it into a smaller storage area.) The single butterfly, flying free...not sure on that anymore either. I made this page in September 2008, so it's hard to remember. I just remember...how sick she was. The journaling reads:

* It’s not something I ever wanted to do. I realized
it was part of being a pet owner. But it just seemed
so far away. Cats are supposed to live a long time.
And believe me, Annie, you have always been
such a character, that I figured you would be with
me for a very, VERY long time.
* You have been my life since the day I brought
you home. You and me, the deaf girls team. No
matter how crappy my day was, you just cared that
I came home, fed you, and spent some time playing
with your favorite ball of yarn. If you couldn’t find
me, you would wander through the house yowelling
until I came running. You trained me well.
* In 2006, when they told me you had diabetes, I
learned how to care for you. I dealt with my fear of
needles so I could inject you. I adjusted my life to
fit in your care. I took you to specialists and paid
whatever I had to, to make you well. I was on top
of the disease at all times.
* And that’s what makes this so hard. I want to call
someone, throw money at something, and buy what
I need to make you OK. But I can’t. There’s no cure
for cancer. The hardest thing I’ll ever have to do, is
watch you slowly slip away from me. I can soften
your food, cuddle you while you eat, add water to
make sure you drink, give you your insulin, and
wipe your eye and nose as they leak from the
tumor pressure. But that’s it. There’s nothing more.
* I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this. It
feels like failure. I don’t want to let you go. I can’t
let you go. Because I don’t know how I’ll be able
to go on. How can I live with a broken heart?

Feline Interference

Ever tried to scrapbook with kittens around? We have 2 kittens who moved in with us in November. Elly, the black kitty, loves paper. And I mean LOVES paper. I caught her walking off with sales receipts a week or 2 after moving in, and I thought...uh oh. This is NOT good.

Sure enough, I was in trouble. Last night was the first time I had settled in to really scrapbook in almost 3 months. Elly not only tried to steal every bit of paper from my trimmer, but she also climbed all over my entire workspace. I had to remove her to trim paper. Then I had to remove her to glue. Remove her to tape. Remove her to piece paper. Remove her to journal. Remove her because I turned away to dig in my sticker stash and she climbed over everything to get into my rolling scrapbook case!!

Oi! But the best...I had put tape on the back of a ribbon to place on my page. Cats + ribbons = Disaster. And I knew this. Still...I'm carefully trying to line up the ribbon into juuuuust the right spot...when WHAM! Elly's paw smacked it down right in the middle of my page! So now...I should put on the page layout "Design by Elune P. Cat."

Where Do You Craft?

I read these magazines about scrapbooking, and they give the impression that EVERYONE has this fabulous craft space. Everyone, that is, except me. I'd never even given thought to having a scrapbooking desk before Christmas 2007, when a friend of mine received a scrapbooking desk from her husband for Christmas. But she had been scrapbooking for a long time, and her sister was a Creative Memories consultant. So she probably had good use for a desk.

Still...a craft desk? Or even a space in my house dedicated just for crafting? That's an interesting idea. I grew up working on crafts where-ever. I cross-stitched in front of the tv. Worked on school projects at the kitchen table. We had 5 people in our house when I was growing up. There was no room for a dedicated craft place.

That was then. My mom now has a table in a corner of her familyroom, where she does alot of sewing. After retirement, my aunt started up her own embroidery business and set up shop in her basement. I have another friend who recently was able to take an entire room and set it up for crafting. Granted, that room had been her the bedroom of her recently passed father. I know she'd have rather had her dad here. But she still was able to repurpose the room for her special area.

Where does that leave me? To date, I have been scrapbooking at the kitchen table. On the nights I want to scrapbook, I have to drag all my containers of supplies out to the table. They take up half the table, and we eat at the other half. Since it's just hubby and myself, it's not that big of a deal. I can even leave them there over time. But when company is coming over, I have to drag everything back into the computer room, where everything is stacked in somewhat neat stacks on the floor. I started out with everything in a nice drawer in my "craft center" in the closet. The stash quickly outgrew the storage space.

I'm on the verge of changing all this. A few months ago, I found a desk in the latest Ikea magazine that I think will be perfect. (I'm an Ikea junkie.) It will have a bookshelf of 16 cubes, with a nice-sized desk part attached. We're going to reorganize the loft in our condo, to fit the desk, the elliptical, and the large craft-drawer unit that I've had for years (also an Ikea find, but from their kitchen section. I bought it for extra kitchen storage in my apartment and made it craft storage once I moved into my condo.)

I am so jazzed to get this set up. I have no idea how it's all going to fit in that loft. It's a nice sized loft, but we're still going to have to do some arranging. The hubby will have to figure out how to run cable to the tv up there too. Because not only do I like to watch tv while I'm exercising, but I love to watch tv while scrapbooking, too. But that's another chat all together.

We're tentatively making the trip to Ikea next Saturday. So once I have the desk, and have the whole loft set up, I'll post some pics!

Oh Boy

When I saw this paper at JoAnn's, the denim just screamed "Little Boy." Since I had decided to do an ongoing scrapbook for my cats, I knew I'd have to do a page devoted to my only "little" male cat at the time. (1 year later, alot has changed in my house pet-wise.) My "little" boy is now a 3 year old 14lb HUGE male cat. (With full claws.) And I adore him from tip to tail.

The journaling reads:

Kieran Tanner. I brought you home from Kitten Krazy in June 2005, and promptly locked you in the spare bedroom for 2 months. You were covered in Ringworm, poor baby. You hate closed doors now. You always have to know where I am. You're very much my little boy. I just call out "Kier-Kier!" and you come running. You're also a handful, clawing the couch, wrestling with Annie. It's why Daddy calls you "Orangie McBad." Just when I've about had it with you, you cuddle up against my face in bed, purring away, and all is forgiven. You are my baby boy, my Snickerdoodle. And I love you with all my heart.

I cropped and printed the 3 photos of Kieran from kittenhood to adult, on my PC with Microsoft Picture It! 2000. I have been to lazy, to date, to put in the effort to learn my new copy of Adobe Photoshop, which was intended to replace Picture It. Anyways, I happened to find these stitched denim letter stickers in a clearance bin at Hobby Lobby. The paw prints are from a cat themed sticker sheet. The rest, the writing and the "stitched" flower were done with a white scrapbooking gel pen.

Scaredy Cat

This page was created to celebrate my weird relationship with my then 9 year old cat, Chalimar. The journaling reads:

You were so mighty when

You came to live with me.

But slowly, over 9 years, your

World has shrunk to where

You'd rather not leave

the spare bedroom.

People say Torties in

general are odd, but

You're just my Chalimar,

and I love you.

The black background paper and the pink and white daisy paper were both standard open-stock cardstock from Hobby Lobby. (Not sure what brand they sell. I'll have to research that.) The red sparkly letter stickers, I believe, might be from Stickability. The journaling card came from Creative Memories. I do know that. I promise that pages I make going forward, I will note down the makers of the various supplies. To get started, these are images of pages I've created since I started scrapbooking in mid-2007.

Geek'd Out Moment

I need a moment.

Blaaaah!

Ok. Just all geeked out. 2 weeks ago I actually checked out podcasts. I started listening to ScrapHappy by Lain Ehmann. I'm adicted. I've downloaded all her podcast episodes that are on iTunes. I just love it!

So the magazine she works for, Simple Scrapbooks, is closing up shop. I have been reading that magazine for a year but hadn't picked up on any of the editors' names. She's a contributing editor there. When I heard the magazine was closing, I opted to email her and tell her how much I love her podcast and hope she'll keep it going.

She emailed me back! I didn't expect a response. But she emailed me back!

Now I just have to go off and be all geeked out for a little bit longer.

Honeymoon Album Update

Do you know, I've only finished one scrapbooking project in the year and a half that I've been scrapbooking? That successful project completion was my sister's wedding album. The reason that one was finished, is because I had set a deadline for myself. It was her Christmas present in 2007.

In general, though, I like scrapbooking without a deadline. My whole workday is filled with deadlines. Scrapbooking is my release. It's supposed to be fun. Therefore, no DEADLINES.

So the biggest project I have going on right now, is my Honeymoon album. We honeymooned in Walt Disney World Resort from May 11th - May 17th 2008. I LOVE Disney World. It was my 6th or 7the trip there, lifetime. But it was my hubby's first trip. He was a Disney fan in general before. Now he's totally hooked on the resort. We can't wait to plan our next trip there.

Since it was our honeymoon, we were able to participate in the brand new Disney Honeymoon registry. That was so cool, because we registered for items and experiences within the resort. Our wedding guests were able to purchase increments of these items. Then we just redeemed everything while we were there. It was like having $800 of trip spending money. At DISNEY. One of the souveniers we brought home, was the empty scrapbook album. I didn't want to shell out the money for their paper and embellishments, if I knew I could get ones I liked better at home. But the album, with its Cinderella's Castle medalion, was to good to pass up.

Another pro-scrapbooking perk of staying at Disney that we utilized was the Disney Photopass. The way this works, is Disney Photopass photographers were stationed throughout the parks. You have them take your picture in front of various Disney landmarks, and they scan a card you're given, to log all the digital pictures to one online account. At the end of our trip, we were able to purchase a CD of all the pictures we had taken. That worked ot SO well, because Hubby and I are both extremely shy about asking others to take our picture. This was so easy, we were able to walk away with 24 photos of the 2 of us from all over the resort.

I am approximately 2 pages away from being completed. But I am stuck. While at Disney, I was stalking Snow White, to have our picture taken with her. (Hubby humored me.) I envisioned this fabulous scrapbook page containing 2 pictures: one of Hubby and I with Snow White on our Honeymoon, the other of me with Snow White at age 4. I know the age 4 photo exists, as a slide. I am currently after my dad to locate that slide and digitize it for me. (He has the gadget to digitize his slides.) To date, he hasn't located the picture yet. But I have faith!

I'll post pictures from this scrapbook in my periodic layout posts as time progresses. :)

Where Does Craftiness Come From?

"Crafting is one part imagination, one part skill, and one part leap of faith to just TRY it" ~ Me

So I said that on the header to my main page. And I do believe that is the recipe for craftiness. So many people think they aren't crafty at all. "Oh I could never do that!" they lament. "I don't have a crafty bone in my body." In reality, they may have the wrong perspective, and simply be missing one of the parts of the recipe.

Let's look at part 1: Imagination. Imagination is something we learn as a kid. Something we cultivate. Some parents and teachers encourage it, others don't. But without imagination, there are no ideas. Albert Einstein wouldn't have made much of himself if he hadn't thought what the bus he was on would be like if it travelled at the speed of light. It's these ideas that make the world go round.

When it comse to crafting, you just have to come up with a vision of how you might like the project to look. My first scrapbooking project was my sister's wedding album, aka Christmas Gift 2007. That was a big chore. But I had an idea. I could envision a page of pictures of bridal shower gift opening, just hanging together in the perfect layout. I had no idea what I was doing. That almost lead me to stop before I'd even begun. But I couldn't get the idea out of my head.

My quest to learn how to scrapbook, lead me to locate part 2: The Skill. Being a knowledge junkie anyways, and a techy by profession and schooling, I turned to the one place I knew I could find the skills. I bought a book. "The Joy of Scrapbooking" by Kerry Arquette, Andrea Zocchi, and Darlene D'Agostino. It's a HUGE hardbound book, that I carried to work with me for a week. I read it cover to cover and was hooked. I learned about layouts and what supplies I might need to get started. Once I bought all the supplies, I was ready to go.

And then...what? Wait? Nothing happens.

That brings us to part 3: The Leap of Faith. Sometimes you have to just jump in and try it. Let go of the need for the project to be perfect. (That is difficult for a perfectionist such as myself to admit.) You can have all the coolest ideas in the world. You can break the bank buying books on the subject. You can spend hours in class studying the craft. But at some point you just have to TRY it. Let go...and be crafty.

For my part, I made HUGE mistakes with my sister's wedding scrapbook. Some of the pictures were fabulous. Some I did just to get them done. I didn't necessarily glue things down right. Some of the photo edges were very rough, because I used my engineering major hubby's old paper trimmer from college. Sometimes pictures just disappeared into the background instead of being enhanced by it. And sometimes...every so often...I hit a fabulous page that I just adored.

And you know what? My sister LOVED it. Not only loved it, but cried when she opened the gift. And showed it to her and her husband's friends when they returned home from Christmas. And that, I think itself, was enough to validate my idea as good, my newly aquired skillset as adequate, and it justified the leap of faith.

Flower Girl

My first foray into the world of Scrapbooking, was fueled by my desire to create a scrapbook album of all the pictures taken by family and friends at my sister's wedding. This page, "Flower Girl" was one of my favorites.

Supplies used: Solid pink paper came from a DCMV solids paper pack. The red rose patterned paper was from a wedding album scrapbook kit I had purchased to get started. The title sticker was from a sheet of wedding word stickers. There were a few silver twirly embellishment stickers I added as well. Note to self, keep better track of supplies for posts. ;)

Over all, I thought my placement of the photos, with one large focal shot and 2 smaller supporting shots, was pretty artsy. At least it was for me. I spend my days parked in front of a computer writing code. This paper and adhesive thing is very different for me. (I also didn't think until well after I gave the album to my sister, that I should have taken the pages out of the page protectors to photograph them properly. Learning...learning.)

Thankful

I have this insane need to get other people's opinions on my scrapbook layouts. I'm not sure why that is. I've never had this need to put myself "out there" before. In fact, I have a Far Side comic hanging in my cube at work, that says it all. It shows a line of adventurers treking through the jungle. The first guy is hanging upside down from a trap he stepped in. The next in line says to guy #3 "See, that's why I don't walk in front." That...in a nutshell...is a big part of my philosophy on life.

And yet, I need opinions on my layouts. So when I saw my local scrapbook store was having an online blog challenge, I jumped at the chance to enter. The challenge was to make a page that showed what you are thankful for, in honor of Thanksgiving.



Being a huge animal lover, and having adopted 3 new pets in 2008, I of course had to scrapbook my pets. Since I'm also newly married, I had to include the hubby. So in 2008, what I was thankful for was my new family, "My Sweeties."

The supplies used: The patterned and solid paper came from the DCWV's fall paper pack. The tiny maple leaf punchouts were from a punchout I purchased at Archiver's. Not sure who made that. The title I created on my PC with a desktop publisher. I printed it to scrapbooking sticker-type paper, and then cut it to the size I wanted.

The layout was made all the more special in that 2 weeks after I submitted the image, the grey cat in the picture died unexpectedly from cancer. It was an inadvertant memorial to my beautiful Chalimar.

Welcome + Mission

Welcome to Noelle's Craft Loft! I have spent many moons looking for a place where I felt comfortable chatting about my love of Scrapbooking and Crafting on the web. To date, I have been largely unsuccessful in my quest. Therefore, I decided to carve out my own little blog niche.

My mission, then, which I am hereby accepting, is to fill this blog with talk about crafts. Scrapbooking will be the specific topic of choice. But that is not to the exclusion of all others. My experience is that most crafters are not confined to just one method of creativity. While I currently focus primarily on Scrapbooking, I am a long-time cross-stitcher. I've also dabbled in decorative soap and candy making. (No worries, I used different molds for each.) I even have a long untapped knowledge of stained glass crafting. Now THERE is one you don't hear about every day.

So then, what is it I really intend to do on this blog? I've got a variety of ideas. I'd like to, of course, gush about my current projects. I'm craving opinions on my scrapbook layouts. However other topics I'm contemplating: product reviews, new project ideas, how-tos (if I come up with any), funnies, updates on my group craft days. If this page really gets hopping, it might be fun to have some craft challenges, play games, and have give-aways. But that would be farther down the road, I'm sure.

One last note: The Name. The name has a very simple explanation. I'm Noelle. In my home, my aspired-to crafting space, is to outfit the loft into a craft area. Hence the name, "Craft Loft". As yet, though, I don't have that space set up. It's in progress.

So with all that said, Welcome Welcome! I look forward to crafting with you!