My long-awaited new and improved scrap room!

Owen has been sick with a cold this weekend so I found myself stuck in the house. The ONLY good thing about this was that I had some time to finish up the last projects for my new scrap room!

And now, without further ado (since you all have been pestering me about photos for weeks!)...

From the right: an antique sewing table I got at a garage sale for $25 (with mini albums on top), my treasured antique card catalog (with Cricut on top)... I will be replacing the cheap lamp at some point.

My wall art project: Ikea frame with the glass removed and vinyl letters/images cut with Sure Cuts a Lot and my Cricut

Antique card catalog that I randomly found on Craiglist for a steal! It weighs a ton!

The drawers have lots of things inside: Stickles, adhesives, brads, glitter, mists, paint, Cricut cartridges, etc. I still need to add the rest of the labels.

My corner armoire is from Home Goods. Owen's rocking horse just didn't have a home so he's in there too!

Inside the armoire is my paper, kits, some sewing stuff, cards/envelopes... still need to cram some more in here too!

The middle of the room

This shelf and the one under my desk are cheapies from Target. The cubes hold chipboard, books, metal embellishments, stickers, fabric embellishments, and buttons.

Bowls on top are from Melissa Frances and are filled with small paper bits like journaling books, tickets, paper ribbon, and tags.

The left side of the room: my desk area (I really need a new self healing cutting mat!)

The tall cabinet is a refinished piece we got for $10 at a garage sale and the other is from the As Is room at Ikea and houses my sewing machine, Thickers, and a file with current projects.

The tall cabinet contains my flowers, pins, Bind it All, catseye inks, punches, printer, and alterables.

Wall art was created from clearanced glassless frames from Michaels, cork sheets, and upholstery remnants. These cork boards hold recent layouts, lists, and whatever else I want to hang up.

The second cheap Target shelf is under my desk to block the view. It holds ribbons, bling, epoxy/wood embellishments, my Slice, and rub-ons.

I sorted all my ribbons, cleared out the ones I didn't want anymore and carded all of them on chipboard.

So there you have it!! It took a lot of work but I absolutely LOVE it. I find that my productivity has gone WAY up since moving rooms and I want to spend a lot of time in here. Also, because it is in a central, visible area of the house I am forced to keep it somewhat clean!

I would really love to hear what you think of my new space!

Drumroll please!

Thanks to all of you who came by to participate in the Scrap That Baby blog hop! The winners of the hop will be posted on Scrap That Baby tonight.

I used Random.org to generate a random winner of the Maya Road goodies here on my blog and the winner is...

... the sixth comment belongs to ~Christina~!! Please contact me (my email is over there on the bar to the right!) with your name and address so I can mail out your goodies!

There will be another giveaway soon so stay tuned!

It's like they read my mind!

Provocraft, that is. I nearly passed out from excitement when I saw that Provocraft was releasing a Cricut cartridge that cuts nothing but cupcake wrappers and toppers. Oh. My.

Unfortunately I had to order it from Walmart online because our local stores have terrible craft sections, but it was worth the wait!! This is possibly the best combination of my hobbies possible: scrapping and cupcakes!

There are fifty (FIFTY!) wrappers and toppers on this cartridge. There is every theme you can think of and plenty that are generic. I am so stoked. I will be using this for years and years.

I had to whip up some "fake" (aka Betty Crocker) cupcakes just to test out the cartridge:

How cute would these be with guests' names written on them?

I can't resist polka dots!

And look how elegant these can look... all lacy and dusted with powdered sugar.

SO cute, right?? I may need to get back to baking now. The cool weather and now this... how can I say no!?

Welcome to the Scrap that Baby's Sweet Summertime blog hop!!

Thank you so much for hopping along on our first ever blog hop!

If you didnt come from Kelly's blog or you popped upon this blog and didn't realize we were blog hopping you need to go to Scrap That Baby and start the HOP! You will need to comment on ALL of the blogs to be eligible for the grand prizes listed on the main site! Plus, so many of our awesome designers are giving away a prize on their blogs as well. You will not want to miss out. There are MANY MANY chances to win!

Our theme for this blog hop is SWEET SUMMERTIME!! The members of our design team will all be sharing fantastic summer projects, stories, tips or ideas for keeping cool and having fun in the summer with a baby along.

Here are a few of my ideas:

- I'm starting with a layout of my boy on his first Independence Day! For many, the 4th of July is a true icon of summer. Every year my best friend and I make plans together and last year we were both pregnant and blissfully envisioning our perfect family, double baby celebration. Well, babies sure do have minds of their own! Owen had a ball until about five minutes before the fireworks when he had a total meltdown. We packed up and by the time we hit the parking lot he was completely calm again and we paused to see the fireworks, which he thought were pretty fascinating. Despite the evening not going according to plan I still got some awesome photos of my little guy in his adorable (and so fitting) Little Firecracker onesie:

- Next up: kitchen stuff! Anyone who knows me knows that I love to be in the kitchen... and that I HATE the heat and that means I'm in a real pickle in the summertime! When it is hot out I just can't take the heat and I get out of the kitchen. What's a cook to do? A lot of crock pot cooking and grilling.

One of my favorite ways to grill is using foil packets. This idea is borrowed from campers, boaters, and RVers everywhere. Try salmon, dill, butter and some lemon slices in a double wrapped foil packet. YUM! Or the classic potatoes, carrots, onions, butter, salt and pepper. Those little crispy bits that stick to the foil are fought over in this house!

- What to drink on these dog days of summer? How about a little Blueberry Lemonade Spritzer! I came up with this after I had juice leftover from making Owen's pureed blueberries.

1. Cook fresh blueberries over medium heat until they burst.
2. Strain juice from the berries (save berries for jam, babyfood (!), or other recipes).
3. Fill a pitcher with homemade or store bought lemonade and add the blueberry juice... it will be a beautiful color!
4. When you are ready to serve: pour until the glass is about 2/3 of the way full and top with any clear sparkling beverage such as 7-Up or fizzy water.
5. Garnish with lemon slices and a few whole blueberries.

Bonus! Add some citrus flavored vodka, champagne, or prosecco for an awesome adult cocktail!


- Finally, ANY season is a good one for a giveaway, right?! To win this Maya Road trio of fun chipboard, felt buttons, and ribbons all you have to do is be/become a follower of my blog and leave your blog hop comment! Wednesday I will choose from the followers who played along.

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Our blog hop runs from today, August 18th until August 22nd. Invite your friends to play for extra entries. You must comment on all the blogs for a chance at the main prize!

The Scrap that Baby blog will be drawing for prizes on Wednesday August 25th! .

The next stop on the blog hop is Heather!

Step by Step

Check out prompt 11 at Scrap That Baby! This time the prompt is "Step by Step" and you need to create a layout about a baby or child under 4 in action... moving in any way! One lucky winner will win an American Crafts travel kit from Thoughts2Paper.

Here is my example of Owen not sitting still for photos:

Mailbox stalking!

I've been following the tracking number of a certain package for a few days now. Tracking numbers are my dirty little secret. I stalk my coveted mail like a kid waiting for Santa. Just one more peek... one more refresh of the screen to see if it is one step closer.

And when this package got here I ripped into it faster than you can say "Pink Paislee warehouse sale". ;-) With a warehouse sale you never quite know what to expect. It is a bit of a gamble to order a box of goodies without knowing exactly what you'll be getting. But Pink Paislee is my absolute favorite manufacturer and they have not created a single thing that I don't like so I figured this was about as safe a gamble as I could come by.

I was NOT disappointed to discover ALL of this!


And I had already taken three sheets of paper out to use when I took this photo! So let's see... that's: 20 sheets of patterned paper, two canvas albums, 7 sheets of alpha stickers, 3 sets of chipboard alphas, 3 6x6 paper pads, 2 tubes of glitter, 2 artisan tapes, 2 packs of artisan letters, 3 flip notes, a pack of brads, a sheet of cork buttons, a pack of stamps, a pack of rub-ons, and a set of canvas tags.

You clearly need your own box of goodies and the price is amazing for all of this! I think there are still a couple of days left to order. Check it out!!

Fill in the blank

I have been checking out the Big Idea Fair over at bigpicturescrapbooking.com. Each day for 13 days a different designer has a small project idea and each designer has filled out this little list. Here are my "fill ins"...

I live just west of Boston and I love it here!

I like food, travel, my crazy kitties, and staying up wayyyyyy too late.

I loathe people who drive with their blinker on, liars, and mayo.

I listen to a baby monitor far too often.

I laugh when Owen giggles.

I lack motivation to clean.

I learn something new about being a mom every day.

I love my little boy to pieces!!

I blog less frequently and eloquently than I would like.

Your turn!

We have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who made a guess on my ribbon RAK! I hope you all enjoyed the crop as much as I did.

And now... drumroll, please!

The winner is: Ann (3 Pals) with a guess of 78!

There are 77 ribbons in the bowl and most of them are over a yard long! Hey, I told you they were of a pretty good length!

So, Ann, please send me your address and I will get them in the mail to you!

And to everyone else... keep your eyes peeled for more RAKS including ribbon, paper, embellishments, and even a few kits!

A RAK for Crop Weekend!

ACherryOnTop.com is one hopping site this weekend due to another amazing weekend crop event! Join us for fast paced fun games, creative challenges, Fast Scraps, Bingo, and of course... prizes and points a-plenty!

I would also love it if you join me for my Special Days Mini Album class on Sunday at 2pm EST! We always have a blast in my classes!

In honor of crop weekend I'm RAKing this assortment of ribbon! All you have to do is guess how many ribbons are in the bowl and I will send the ribbons to the person with the closest guess.

HINT: Most of the ribbons are a pretty good length...

Please leave your guess in a comment and also tell me either your ACOT screen name or another way to reach you if you're the winner!

(clicking the photos will bring them up larger)

Blackmail!

I really did not take nearly enough photos of the Cherry gals in Chicago! "Lucky" for me there are a ton of blackmail photos sitting on everyone's computers. ;-) Here are a few from the ACOT get together and a dinner on our last night there.

A Kristin sandwich!

Heidi and Sus

Hmm, a theme here? Janet, Juliana, and Jules

Leslie being very ladylike...

Janet, Juliana, and Jules

Sus, Pam, Jules, and Heidi

Janet and Sarah

LOOT!

It is probably a little wrong of me to begin my CHA/Chicago blogging with the free stuff I got but we all know that's what you want to see anyway! ;-)

There is no doubt that one of the awesome things about going to the CHA shows is the make and takes and freebies. I'm not one to look a gift horse (or embellishment) in the mouth so I made sure to leave plenty of room in my suitcase for this. Good thing I did!!

Here's the majority of the loot I came home with:

We R Memory Keepers water bottle


Signed book!

Tattered Angels misted mini album

October Afternoon

Mists and paint

My class from Melissa Frances (with binders from WRMK, Ranger Mini Misters, and Zip Dry)

Maya Road bingo chips, chipboard, canvas banner, and acrylic

Echo Park paper

Fancy Pants Designs Christmas ornament

Making Memories vintage groove necklace and tote bag

Jillibean Soup T-shirt

Scotch adhesives

Zutter Distrezz-It-All for $15 at the end of the show!!


And of course my favorite, Pink Paislee!
I was stoked to get to do this make and take necklace when ACOT ordered the new Parisian Anthology collection. I heart my cherry girls for letting me play!!

And I may have picked up a few other goodies along the way that could become RAKS soon so stay tuned! Next up: posts on the fantastic CT gals' shenanigans and what the family got up to in Chi-town!