More Firsts

All the Crafty People be quiet...Whoooaaa !!!

Hey Everybody. Just wanted to take this time to share some first experiences I've had this year. In April, I attended my first official CROP. I met up with some other ladies from the online crafting community I'm a member of, Scraps of Color (S.O.C.). We met at a local scrapbook store and had lots of fun scrapping, chatting, & sharing ideas/tips/techniques. Below are some pics of the crop and the store:

The store where the crop was held is Gypsy Corner.  It's now located at 125 Broadway, Kissimmee, FL 34741.  The owner Trinette is the sweetest person you'd ever meet.  Their description says:  "We are a specialized scrapbook boutique with large areas for scrap booking and crafting."  During my visit I used a Cricut for the first time also.  It was a very fun experience and I can't wait to do it again.

Another first I had this year was attending the Scrapbook Expo in Orlando in May.  If any of you have ever been, I'm sure you can agree that it was like going to "scrapbook heaven"!  There was so much to see and do and purchase.  I took Trinette's advice and packed a lunch.  I was there for a number of hours and got some awesome deals.  Here are some pics from the day:

This is a pic of Kate & Trinette at their Gypsy Corner at the Expo.

Two of the coolest ladies alive!

And, at the Expo, I received my order for my Silhouette Cameo!  Yay!!  Very exciting!!!  Of course, I couldn't wait to get it home and try it out. I haven't used it a whole lot and I'm still getting used to it. But I love the fact that you can get just the design you need without having to buy a bundle and they are very inexpensive.  My first cuts were the @ symbol and the words in the page below:

My last and final first for this post has to do with my crafty space.  Not the blog but the place where I actually let my creativity run wild.  Up until about June, my craft area was the walk space between my front door to the living room and dining room.  If you've never seen it, here's a pic:

So now, I'm in a new place (to be closer to My Love) and my wonderful man has allowed me to turn his spare bedroom into a CRAFT ROOM!!!  How exciting is that, huh?!?!  So here's what my new room looks like, where I will now make all the magic happen:

Well, that's it for today folks!  Feel free to comment on anything I've posted, because I'd LOVE to hear from you and know what you think. I'd also like to hear about any of your experiences.  Thanks for visiting!

Take Care!!!

A new item I've purchased is the 10 drawer rolling cart.  I'm sure you all have oogled over them during your shopping visits just as I have.  I found it at Big Lots for $28.  And, that's awesome compared to $50 in Marshalls or $70-$80 in Michaels.

I absolutey love it!  I use it to sort and organize letter stickers, other embellies, and book projects.  To organize my book projects, I'll pic a drawer and put all of the stickers and embellies I want to use for that project and drop it in.  I also include paper up to 8 1/2" X 11".  Then I use a sticky note strip to label the drawers so I know where everything is.  The only bad thing about the cart is that it doesn't fit 12x12 sized paper.  But, I make due.  So here's what my craft space looks like now...

So, I've decided that I want the Silhouette Cameo.  It's an electronic cutter that would allow me to do so much more with, not only my scrapbook page layouts, but also with other crafts.  I've gotten mixed reviews about the Cricut and haven't really heard much about other electronic cutters.  I've even only heard from a few people about the Cameo.  But the ones that I have heard from LOVE it!  Hopefully I can raise the money to obtain one.  It's $300 at regular price.

http://silhouetteamerica.com/silhouetteCameo.aspx

An AWESOME week of Firsts!

This past week has been an awesome craft week!  

I met one of my fellow SOC members for the first time.  It was so nice meeting her and I can't wait until she comes back to FL.  We're planning a crop so it will be great to get a group of the FL ladies together for the first time. I'm so excited!

We met at Piktails in South Orlando.  It's  an awesome scrapbook store that has lots of items that are unique compared to Michael's and JoAnn's.  They make they're own layouts and mini-book kits which are so beautiful!  Debbie was wonderful! She showed us a project she's working on that's very extensive.  But, she's doing an awesome job with it.  I'll definitely be back to participate in one of their crops.  If you want to check them out, go to Piktails.com.

I also created a new item.  I was looking for a dry erase board in the dollar store and couldn't find one.  Saw a few in other stores but thought they were just too expensive for what I needed.  So, I decided I could make my own for less than what it'd cost to buy one.  Here's what I did:

1) laminated color computer paper
2) edged it with printed duct tape (from JoAnn's)
3) rounded the corners
4) made 2 holes with hole punch
5) tied ribbon to the holes
6) added embellies (It's 2 sided, butterfly on side showing and 2 pink hearts on the other side)

And, here's the finished product:

Now I can stay organized with my projects.

Another first that has nothing to do with scrapping (except to create a page about it) was I took my son to his first NFL game.  We went to see my home team, Jacksonville Jaguars, play.  Unfortunately, they lost to NY Jets but it was nice being in that atmosphere, especially since he loves football so much.  We even sat next to Santa Claus at the game.

Then my cousin Kim told me of her great idea for us to create mini-books for Christmas.  I love it!  So, we started our first mini-books.  It was so much fun.  This is the first page I've created:

It's so much fun working on this project (and shopping for it).  I can't wait to complete it and start adding my photos.

Well, folks!  Thank you for taking time out to visit me today.  See you next time, same scrapper time, same scrapper channel.