Ribbon Roundup

Hi all!

Springtime often means Spring Cleaning. Something about the start of warm weather just gets me itching to straighten and organize and such. In that vein... I wanted to share my ribbon storage solution. I moved everything to this method a little over a year ago, and it is still working out really well.

I have most of my ribbon wound on plastic floss bobbins (I believe that DMC makes them) that I've found at WalMart and AC Moore. The bobbins come with a metal ring to hang them on. I have a curtain rod mounted to the wall above my scrap space. The bobbin ring are hanging on C-shaped shower curtain hooks. All the ribbon is sorted by color... making it really easy to find a good match for a card or layout. Generally I'll just grab the color ring I want and fan it out over my project to see if any would be a good match. It's nice to be able to try things out without actually removing them from the ring and/or bobbin.

Now, not all ribbon fits. I can get ribbon up to 3/4 inch-wide on there... but wider or thicker ribbons you have to tuck the end under the ribbon as opposed to using the little slots in the plastic. Really wide or bulky ribbon I wrap around the antique bobbins that sit on my desk top and secure with a straight pin. A~ loves to help put new ribbon on... which makes it even easier to keep it all neat! :)

Home Sweet Home

I just started a new online class with Shimelle, called No Place Like Home... how appropriate given my Kansas connection (and the fact that I still have the Dorothy costume I slaved over for weeks in my closet!). The class is for five weeks and each week we get five messages in our inbox. Some messages give us journaling prompts, some are some projects and layouts, and some are bigger projects or minibooks. Everything about Home, of course.

This "home" thing always gets me.

Growing up Texas was home... but I don't remember living there myself. It is where Mom and Dad's home was and where all the family was. All my childhood memories are of Newport News and Hampton. In fact, one of my first really distinct memories was when we had just moved to NN's and the furniture wasn't there yet. I got to eat my cereal using a cardboard box as a table. I thought that was SO cool! I was like 3ish... so using boxes for furniture WAS cool for me. :)

When I went to college, I'd be walking across campus and run into friends or co-workers, and they'd ask where I was going. I'd say home and they looked surprised... but I was just going to the dorm. And while I was there, the dorm or apartment, or whatever WAS home. My stuff was there, my pictures were there, my dog... it counted. I love to visit Mom and Dad, but Kansas, as much as I like it there, isn't really home.

When Sergio and I started dating, it got easier. I'd be at a party with him and some of his friends and their friends ... and they'd ask the question, "So, where are you from?" With them, I could just say that I'm from here... I'm American. That was enough.

Now, home isn't so much the place, it's the who... if Sergio and A~ are there, it counts as home. Now I'm still not sure where I'm from... that may always be Texas... but I know where home is.

much love,

erin

Family self portrait

Here's one of my more recent layouts... and one of the few with all three of us in it. This is a self-portrait of us in DC on the mall... turned out pretty darn good for a self-portrait, if I do say so myself! :)

Later!

erin

It's all about the dress...

At Easter, it is definitely all about the dress... and the shoes! This dress was A~'s pick... I wanted the pink one with a little green, but she wanted the green with a little pink. Luckily she looks good in either color!

Notice the slightly shorter haircut? She wanted to get her's trimmed after I got my haircut last weekend... so off we went to Cartoon Cuts. When the lady asked how short to cut it, A~ put her hands up to her ears.... Yikes! So I said, how about chin length? So chin length it was... very Dora-esque! I took the time today to blow it dry with a little bit of flip out at the bottom... too cute, but it doesn't last for long. This is just prior to our Easter egg hunt. I had A~ running all over the house to see where the Easter Bunny hid her basket of candy while I raced around back to hide the eggs. She had fun, but I was out of breath! It's tough being the bunny solo! :)

Enjoy!

much love,

erin

It's all about the shoes...

At least it is when you're bowling! We went on our first family bowling outing last weekend and had a blast. Sergio had only been once before (and he still beat me both games... NOT fair!) and this was totally new for A~. At first she let Papi help her roll the ball up the lane granny-style. By the end of the first game, she was on her own... no helping this little girl! She was even trying to throw it a bit. Luckily she thought that the purpose of the game was to get your ball all the way down the lane. Each time it made it, she would holler "GOAL!" really, really loud and give us the thumbs up. It'll be fun until she figures out about those darn pins! ;-)

Not the best time for a cold...

The month of March has been a complete blur. I was up for my DT month with ScrapGoods and got my box of goodies at the end of February... but I didn't get to do a thing right away because I was Manager on Duty up at work for that weekend. I survived the weekend without any problems, with the exception of the start of a bad cold. I ended up being out sick part of the week... which is also the same week as our first DT meeting for my local Scrapbook store, Scrapbooks Plus, where we got our DT kits.

So, I needed to get at least 3 projects done for ScrapGoods by the 18th... AND... at least 4 projects done for Scrapbooks Plus by the 19th, all while trying not to ruin them during any given coughing spell. My usual method of laying everything out on several projects and fiddling for a bit before gluing everything down wasn't such a good idea. Everytime I'd start coughing, things would start flying! Yikes! Oh well... I'm starting to feel a bit better and took a couple of shots of some of my creations to show you what I worked on... here goes:

For ScrapGoods, this month's technique was Mitering Frames. It came with a cool tool, the name of which eludes me and some nice chipboard strips to make frames with. The tool is basically a ruler for measuring agles and you can set it where you want to mark perfect placement. I'm not so much a measuring kind of girl... so this was a bit of a challenge for me. I did have a fairly successful 8-sided frame... but the one corner that isn't perfect is hidden under the edge of the pic! :)

I also did this layout with large mitered corners... but used a craft knife to cut the angles in place instead of the ruler. It's a lot easier... and the corners are always perfect since you cut both edges at the same time. The background cardstock is an exact match for the outside of the Mimi's Cafe building. I thought the corners really echoed the window trim. I love the bold color combo and a few extras... it doesn't need a lot to make a statement!

Enough of mitering... so I used some of the chipboard borders to accent my linear layout of the ulta-popular "Windy Hill Homestead Tractor Ride", courtesy of my Shel-bel... and much to the delight of the little ones. It's not quite famous, but it should be. The screams as they ploughed through the tall grasses were definitely equal to an amusement park and it was much cheaper... and I think more fun. No line at all here! Aren't they cute?

Then on to Scrapbook Plus with beach themed paper from Reminisce. I didn't have a lot of beach photos and mom helped out in the search. I'm still working on the "rock collecting" layout that she found pictures for. I want it to be just right... so no rushing on that one!

First up is baby N~ with her toes in the water at about 9 weeks old. I love the look on Shan's face when the cold water hit them... Priceless! I added a lot of buttons and some felt pieces to give it a little-girly feel.

Here's a close-up:

Next up is S~ walking along the beach. I added some Heidi Swapp and Prima bling, K & Company paper and more buttons. It's simple, and really focuses on the beautiful beach and that cutie pie! I sewed so many buttons on these that my index finger was all messed up from poking through the paper. :)

OK, that's it for now. Hope you like everything. I'll post more this weekend to get everything back up to speed, ok? [I made a couple of cards too (both for SG and SP) as well as some altered items... but don't think I'll upload them here... this post is a long, catch up one!]

much love,

erin