ScrapHappy

Simple Calls Are Out!

People often ask me how to get published. Here's my one-word answer:

SUBMIT!

You cannot get into a magazine if you don't send your work in. Simple as that (pun intended).

So here's your chance:

If you haven’t yet submitted a page for the Simple Scrapbooks’ Nov/Dec page call there’s still time! The deadline is midnight MST on June 8^th. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Here’s what we’re looking for:

Make the Most of It This issue we’re making the most of circle cutters—those special tools designed to cut out circles in several different sizes. If you‘ve created a clever page using a circle cutter, submit it here. Be sure to identify which tool you used. 6/8/2008

Color Play In the last five issues, Stacy Julian has shown you how she plays with color. Now it’s your turn! Use this yummy Christmas Candy color palette to create a page on any theme. 6/8/2008

Simple Schemes Show us how you’re inspired by this playful scheme created by Sara Winnick. 12 x 12 Simple Scheme 8 1/2 x 11 Simple Scheme 6/8/2008

Our Readers We’re looking for multi-photo layouts that celebrate the holiday season. Send in your best pages about holiday traditions, family gatherings, gift-giving rituals, favorite childhood memories, and anything else related to winter celebrations. 6/8/2008

Fast Album Formula Have you made a cool mini-album about Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, family traditions, heritage, or another wintry theme? Share it with us! Just upload four to six spreads, and make sure the journaling is readable. 6/8/2008

Share Feature: Terrific Tools We want to know which scrapbooking tool you can’t live without. Which tool do you reach for again and again? Which tool would you hate to misplace? Tell us about your favorite tool (a specific trimmer, eyelet setter, punch, die-cutting machine, pair of scissors, etc.), and send us a layout you created with it.

Remember to go to our website to see the page calls and Simple Schemes.

Where Ya Been?

Judging from my emails, you're actually missing me! Sorry about that. Here's a short run down of what's been happening around here:

-Got all the text for my book FINISHED and TURNED IN yesterday! Now, if my understanding of the process is correct, my editor Megan looks it over, then she and a team of smart people will choose their favorite essays. These are then edited for "voice" and content, then it will come back to me for edits. Then I'll send it all back again for line (copy) editing, then I think it goes to the design team, then back to me for a final look-see. Crazy, eh? I am relieved to have my portion over and done with -- that's the largest part of my work, and to see it out the door is kind of surreal!

-I've been working on this:

You can call this "production scrapbooking," something I try to avoid (creating multiples of the same album). I don't like to do it because (a) it takes a lot of time and (b) it gets a little boring after the tenth album in the same exact theme and (c) my creativity seems to go out the door with projects like these. But I decided that Ben's baseball team (the one that is going to Cooperstown) needed albums for their trip, since none of the other parents are scrapbookers. Oh, and yes, there is a slight ulterior motive involved -- once they see how cool scrapbooking is, maybe I'll convert a few over! ;)

-I've also been working on putting together some class ideas for a Simply Complicated/ScrapHappy World Tour with my darling friend Stephanie! If you know of a store near you that might like to host us in the coming months, shoot me an email. It'll be a blast -- and yes, chocolate chip cookies will be involved!

So things are indeed cookin' over here on the ScrapHappy stove. I just can't share all of them because they're either incomplete or secret. :)

What have you been working on?

30-Minute Thursday (?)

You'd think I'd be able to squeeze 30 mintues into the day to get this done on time! Ah, well. It's actually more like an hour and a half because after I create it, I have to post it and find the winners and link to them, and then redo everything after the computer goblins mysteriously delete my first post... it's a tough job, I tell ya!

ANYWHO... here is my book layout.

As you can see, I cheated. Not only did I avoid the question of my favorite books, I also FORGOT THE JOURNALING LINES! ACK! And I use journaling lines ALL THE TIME. Whoops.

I still think it's pretty cute. Materials: versamark chalk, American Crafts letters, Heidi Grace rub-ons, DMC floss, and Hero Arts rhinestones.

For last week's winner: Sherry, who is addicted to Half-Price Books!! Also, someone emailed me to tell me this was their first challenge, but I cannot remember who it was. If that was you, please re-email me! And Sherry, send me your snail mail address.

For next week... how's about we do a monochromatic theme? I don't do that much, but I think it would be fun. How about shades of... hmmm... red! That should be enough of a challenge. 30 minutes or less, ladies!

I am behind!

I am way behind, oh, how I know that!

But I have not forgotten you, my loyal friends... I've been working on my book (all the text is due this week!) and some scrapbooking secrets and a little of this and a little of that... and my dear heart (the part that lives outside my body) has been out of town... so I am sort of Okefenokee'd if you get my drift.

I've been shopping for baby presents for her and her... but of course I cannot just buy something, I have to MAKE something, so that means I shop AND craft which takes twice as long as simply shopping or crafting would...

Today I've been working on a couple of cards, one for the mag and one to actually send to someone (can you believe it??). And we've had homework galore around here (do YOU know the capitals of all 50 states? Ben does!). So suffice it to say that I am indeed WAY WAY behind.

But you love me anyway, right??

Do you love yarn?

If you love yarn like I love yarn, you may already know about Vickie Howell, the closest thing to a rock star in the fiber industry. She is getting ready to launch the second season of her podcast, CRL (Craft Rock Love). Check it out on 5/22!

Episode 46: Layle Koncar and Scenic Route

If I had to pick one product line to scrap with exclusively, Scenic Route would definitely be near the top of the list. The combination of fun color combinations, classic designs, and scrap-ready products makes the company a favorite among scrapbookers everywhere. In Episode 46, I sat down for a long-distance chat with SR's director of marketing, the esteemed Layle Koncar.

Not only does this woman simply ooze creativity and life, she also is "wicked smahht," as we would say in Boston. So take a listen and let me know what you think. Oh, of COURSE we are giving out prizes! Layle and Scenic have generously donated three sets of the newest mini-line, Liberty. Listen to the podcast to see how you can win.

Want to see Layle or another SR teacher in person? Their list of classes is here.

(Just in the interests of full disclosure, in this episode I also talk about why I don't take pictures at my son's baseball games, what I'm working on (and NOT working on), and where I'll spend my summer vacation. Oh, and I announce the winners of the Donna Downey books!)

30-Minute Thursday

I think the title of my page is appropriate -- it is the story of my life these days! No matter how well I plan things out, something gets thrown into the mix and it all gets jumbled up again... ah, well.

materials: patterned paper and ribbon (unknown) + letter stickers (3Bugs in a Rug and Scenic Route) + crochet trim (Rusty Pickle) + labels (Fontwerks)

Last week's cool winners:

Amy for taking part in her first 30-Minute Thursday

And Lisa is our random winner!

Please send me your snail mail addresses.

For next week... Hmmm...

Scrap your favorite book! And use some kind of lines for journaling -- stamp, rub-ons, lined paper, drawn lines, whatever. See ya soon - got a great podcast to get up!

By the book

It is lists like these that make me feel woefully ignorant. Not only have I not read most of these books, I haven't even HEARD of many of them. Geez!

Apparently this is from Time Magazine. I think I will start my own list (how can a top 100 books list NOT include Harry Potter??).

The adventures of auguie march (saul bellow)
All the king’s men (penn warren)
American pastoral (phillip roth)
An American tragedy (Theodore dreiser)
Animal farm (george orwell)
Appointment in samarra (john o’hara)
Are you there god? It’s me, Margaret (judy blume)
The assistant (Bernard Malamud)
At swim-two-birds (flann o’brien)
Atonement (ian mcEwan)
Beloved (toni Morrison)
The berlin stories (Christopher Isherwood)
The big sleep (Raymond chandler)
The blind assassin (Margaret atwood)
Blood meridian (cormac McCarthy)
Brideshead revisited (evelyn Waugh)
The bridge of san luis rey (thorton wilder)
Call it sleep (henry roth)
Catch-22 (joseph heller)
The catcher in the rye (j.d. salinger)
A clockwork orange (Anthony burgess)
The confessions of nat turner (William Styron)
The corrections (jonathan franzen) TRIED TO READ
The crying of lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
A dance to the music of time (Anthony powell)
The day of the locust (nathanael west)
Death comes for the archbishop (willa cather)
A death in the family (james agee)
The death of the heart (Elizabeth bowen)
Deliverance (james dickey)
Dog soldiers (Robert stone)
Falconer (john cheever)
The French lieutenant’s woman (john fowles)
The golden notebook (doris lessing)
Go tell it on the mountain (james Baldwin)
Gone with the wind (Margaret Mitchell)
The grapes of wrath (john Steinbeck)
Gravity’s rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)
The great Gatsby (f. scott fitzgerald)
A handful of dust (evelyn waugh)
The heart is a lonely hunter (Carson McCullers)
The heart of the matter (graham greene)
Herzog (saul Bellow)
Housekeeping (marilynne robinson)
A house for mr. biswas (v.s. Naipaul)
I, Claudius (Robert graves)
Infinite jest (david foster Wallace)
Invisible man (Ralph ellison)
Light in august (William Faulkner)
The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (c.s. lewis)
Lolita (vladimir nabokob)
Lord of the flies (William golding)
The lord of the rings (jrr tolkein)
Loving (henry green)
Lucky jim (kingsley amis)
The man who loved children (Christina stead)
Midnight’s children (salman rushdie)
Money (martin amis)
The moviegoer (walker percy)
Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia woolf)
Naked lunch (William burroughs)
Native son (Richard wright) *read
Neuromancer (William Gibson)
Never let me go (kazoo ishiguro)
1984 (george Orwell)
On the road (jack Kerouac)
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest (ken kesey)
The painted bird (jerzy kosinski)
Pale fire (Vladimir Nabokov)
A passage to India (e.m. forester)
Play it as it lays (joan didion)
Portnoy’s complaint (Philip roth)
Possession (a.s. byatt)
The power and the glory (graham greene)
The prime of miss jean brodie (Muriel spark)
Rabbit, run (john updike)
Ragtime (e.l. Doctorow)
The recognitions (William gaddis)
Red harvest (dashiell hammet)
Revolutionary road (Richard Yates)
The sheltering sky (paul bowles)
Slaughterhouse-five (kurt Vonnegut) *read
Snow crash (neal Stephenson)
The sot-weed factor (john barth)
The sound and the fury (William Faulkner)
The sportswriter (Richard ford)
The spy who came in from the cold (john le Carre)
The sun also rises (ernest hemingway)
Their eyes were watching god (zora neale Hurston)
Things fall apart (chinua achebe)
To kill a mockingbird (harper lee)
To the lighthouse (Virginia woolf)
Tropic of cancer (henry miller)
Ubik (Philip k. dick)
Under the net (iris Murdoch)
Under the volcano (malcom lowry)
Watchmen (alan moore & david gibbons)
White noise (don deLillo)
White teeth (zadie smith)
Wide Sargasso sea (jean rhys)

Happy Mother's Day

Where else would I be on Mother's Day than at the ball field?

Here are the Lamorinda Monarchs, the 10-U baseball team that swept the USSSA tourney in Sacramento this weekend. Five games in two days... whew! (Ben is in the front row, lower left -- with his eyes closed). All I have to say is, thank goodness they won!

For those of you with some knowledge of California geography, you will know that Sacramento is about 140 miles from Los Gatos.

Good thing I don't have a gas-guzzling SUV. All the same, 140 miles x2 converts to about $56. Just think of all the Bazill I could have bought with $56!!!

If you've been paying attention (and I will not assume that you have), you will know that this is not Ben's normal league team. It is a NEW team. We figured being on a town Little League team, and a town travel team wasn't enough. So we signed him up for one more team. This one is special. Not only is the team located in the East Bay:

...the boys are also taking a week-long trip to Cooperstown this June to play in the Dreams Park tournament.

No, we won't be driving. But I will be in upstate New York for a week in mid-June. Anyone in the area want to tell me where I can find the nearest Starbucks and scrapbook store, in that order?? (And don't even bother to figure out how much transporting five people to and housing them for a week in Cooperstown will cost. I don't want to know).

You know what I love??

I love spending 30 minutes at 11:30 at night, uploading the next day's 30-Minute Thursday into the computer, only to see the whole thing evaporate into the ether once I hit "save" because my #$@#%% computer is not receiving its cable signal.

Someone, somewhere, is laughing.

In any case, this will be short and sweet without all the fun and extraneous material my other post had. Sorry.

There it is -- happy colors, wallet photos, and a piece of KI paper from at LEAST a year ago. ;) That may not seem long, but around here things get rotated pretty fast. I'll post a materials list later. The most time-consuming part was the rub-ons. To get them positioned correctly, I work backwards from the right end... but that means I'm constantly checking and rechecking my spelling!

Winners:

Kate and Megan participated in their first 30-Minute Thursdays... (nice job, ladies... see, that wasn't too bad! And hey, Megan, tell those 2Peas folks about 30-Minute Thursdays, will ya? I'd love to get some more traffic from over there but I feel weird about posting b/c that would be the only thing I'd post... haha).

Katie Scott, Contest Queen, wins the oldest stash item award with patterned paper from 2000!!! And  ladies, it still looks great... just a little reminder that no one (except other scrapbooking psychos) will go through your book, carbon-dating each embellishment. NO ONE CARES! USE IT IF YOU LIKE IT! And if you don't like it -- for gosh sakes, get rid of it!

Now, for next week, use:

-A vacation photo

-A paperclip

-And some hidden journaling, just for kicks. ;)

Keep it under 30 minutes and show me what you can do!