ATC's for Scrapbooks and Beyond Challenge

ATC's for Scrapbooks and Beyond Challenge, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

I am on the Design Team for my local scrapbook store, Scrapbooks and Beyond. Kelley is a dear friend (and she reads my blog too ;-) and I visit her often when I am in town doing errands. Her store is right next to the grocery store and the place where I get my hair cut, so I have lots of reasons to be nearby.

Anyway, this month I designed a clear album (check my flickr account for more pictures) and these two atc's as part of a challenge that Kelley was doing with the rest of the team.

I literally whipped these up in under 10 minutes each. I love the way the confidential one came out, don't you? I had a scrap piece of dictionary page that said "radioactivity" and it totally cracked me up when I thought of this old lady and the heart...the green kinda represented the green fog that I imagine radioactivity to look like...twas fun!! I am really loving ATC's...I just need to find the time to add them to my new 7 Gypsies spinner...and I can't wait for the little protectors and punch to come out...Hurry 7 Gypsies, hurry....

TTFN...and if anyone has any tips and hints on good places to visit in the Colonial Williamsburg area, please let me know. We're planning a spring vacation down there and any good tips would be GREATLY appreciated!

My River

My River, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

This is what I am dreaming of today...this beautiful river meandering through my neighborhood and through my back yard. When I was in high school I would walk the 1/4 of a mile down the road from my Mother's house and sit on the edge of this bridge, sometimes I think I would sit there for hours - and think. Since this was in the country, it was very peaceful, and the road was {and still is} a quiet country road. A beautiful place. On hot summer days we would jump off the bridge and enjoy the cold water...the fact that it was really muddy never bothered us - AT ALL! Oh to be young and naive again!

I'd try to solve my problems, dream of the future and enjoy the beauty before me. On hot summer nights the neighborhood a group of teenagers {including myself} would walk down to the bridge and stare at the sky, enjoying the stars and the occasional star cruising across the horizon. We'd often play truth or dare, though I always opted for the truth because the dares were to scary for me! . Good times, GOOD times!

Anyway, today the sun was shining - it was a beautiful day. Not warm like the day I took this photo, that's for sure! Yes, there is still a thick layer of ice on the river, the sun - though warm - isn't hot enough to melt it away. Will it ever happen? Seems like not to me right now.

Today, I'm dreaming of my SUMMER river. And, I sure hope it warms up soon!

Easter Egg Treasure Hunt

Easter Egg Treasure Hunt, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

On Sunday my Mom hosted a lovely Easter Egg Treasure hunt for my little Valentine and my niece and nephew. She did such a wonderful job with all the clues and all the places they had to look for clues! They ran around and around looking here and there for eggs, and drinks and even a huge bubble blower thing. It was a great time. Dinner was nice, though everyone else ate ham and I ate my vegan fair. I had made some black bean soup the night before and ate that and some other things that were on the table for dinner....and no dessert for me - it was cheese cake! THANKS Mom, he had a great time!

March Surprise Guest Designer

I think I told you all that I resigned from Scrapmuse as the Newsletter Designer, as a matter of fact, February was my last month...but Amanda was caught in a jam and I volunteered to be a regular designer for March...so, without further adieu - here are the scrapbook pages I created with the March Scrapmuse kit!

I {heart} U

Boys have Big Dreams

The Scanlons

My One True Love

And since I couldn't NOT do something vintagy, here's a little hanging card called "A Good Boy"

Hope you all had a Happy Easter!!

Stitching Experiment

I thought it would be fun to share with you one of the reasons why I love to Sew on Paper. For this demonstration I made 4 simple post cards using Watercolor Post card paper as my base, vintage wall paper, scraps of paper bags from my favorite store and lovely printed Cotton Scraps from Crafty Secrets. Look at the first image that's posted above of this lovely Hello postcard, it's pretty - but it's a little bland in my eyes.

Now take a look at it in the image below, with turquoise machine stitching added to it. I don't know about you, but the added texture and color really take this from nicely boring to NICELY fantastic!

AFTER Stitching, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

You can check out my Flickr to see the other examples I made! Thanks Sandy for sending me those Cotton Scraps...it took me forever to do something with them, but hey better late than never is my motto lately!

N is for Nicole!!

Something for a good friend, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

I made this mini-collage for a friend that was having a tough week last week, and it pretty much came together so easy and so fast. One of the reasons for this is that it's only 4" x 4"...so tiny means fast. The other reason was that I needed a break from the projects I was working on. What took the longest was waiting for the couple of layers of crackle paint that I put on it to dry.

Nicole had just finished up a project using lady bugs, so this little lady from one of my old dictionaries was perfect for this page! Then I found some other nice words that described her in my dictionary and put them on the canvas...add her initials and the crown and send it off in the mail to make her day!

Nicole, so glad you liked it!

BTW, I tried to fix this image so that you see all of the image - for whatever reason blogger is cutting off the right hand side of it.

My ETSY Shoppe

I'm having a K Mart blue light special in my Etsy Shoppe....Everything has been marked WAY DOWN ...time to clear it all out so I can make some more! Some items are half price, some items have been marked DOWN more than half price!

Easter Goodies

I spent some time afternoon making some Easter cards, and an ATC for some special people in my life. It was nice to make them and think of my friends and family as I was making them, I hope you all smile when they come in the mail! Here are some of the others: The little chick planter is little (the bunny card is an ATC - 2 1/2 x 3 1/2) isn't it lovely! I got it for my Mom, but haven't given it to her yet, hope you're not reading this Mom, look away! :-) TTFN...been a long day!

Bunny Love Card

Bunny Love Card, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

My friend Vic (http://vickichrisman.blogspot.com) put out a challenge the other day...and lucky me got to play along! The challenge was that she'd send an envelope of goodies to 10 (well it started out as 10 people and so many wanted to play that she increased it to 20) and we had to make a card using ONLY the items in the envelope. We could only add ink, paint and hopefully stitching - she didn't say no stitching so I assumed it would be ok... Anywho, this is my card though I didn't use everything - I had two brads and a pin left over....isn't it pretty! I gave it to my Mom so she could send it to her sister for Easter!

Also wanted to share these little ATC's I made for Heart in Hand's First Anniversary yesterday. I did a make and take and these were the cards I made as examples. Hope you had a great weekend...and go see Horton Hears a Who....it was funny!

Adore Canvas

Adore Canvas from Shawn, originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon.

I got my beautiful canvas from Shawn (BonoRama Mama) yesterday. Wow, she made this lovely 5 x 7 canvas for ME. I so love it. I can't wait to hang it in my studio, in a spot where I'll be sure to see it every day and be inspired by our friendship!

OH, the internet is a wonderful thing. THANK you Shawn - I love her!! Have a lovely Saturday!!

Lucky Me!!

#1 Girl ATC from Bonorama Mama Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

I've been so busy this week and last with projects for EK Success and some pages for ScrapMuse that I have barely come up for air. Combine that with the fact that my Big Valentine was in Spokane for two weeks (comes home this afternoon) and my little Valentine got the flu, and I've been a little on the stressed out side.

Imagine my delight when I got this beautiful trading card in the mail from my very kind and sweet long distance friend Shawn! She's so cute, and so is the card. THANK YOU Shawn.

I'd like to ask all of you to keep Shawn and her family in your thoughts this week as her father in law goes in the hospital for surgery!

THANKS Shawn, I'll be thinking of you all tomorrow!

A gift for a friend...

A gift for a friend... Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

I made this 6" x 6" chunky canvas for my good friend Shawn over at Bonorama Mama. We've been doing trades every now and again. It's a fun way to do something that's not for an assignment and just for fun. Our lovely friend Vic is going to play along next time I think...right Vic?

She received hers yesterday, and is quite happy with it I think. The airplane was a little plastic vintage thing that I painted and inked silver. I also used a Heidi Swapp Damask mask, some vintage wallpaper I bought a while ago from an Art Tea Life last year. I also love my vintage dictionary, don't you? So much fun - and so many words to choose from ;-) . One of the patterns of the wallpaper matches the damask mask from HS. I was lucky there.

In other news, the weather has been nice for the last two days, well yesterday and today actually. And I've got a sick boy on my hands. A ton of work to do this week too! I hope he's feeling up to going to school tomorrow!

Random Stuff

Ok, I got a couple of questions about my Compound W trick, so I'll give you some more information. I'd had the wart (interestingly enough - it WAS on my left hand) for a while maybe a year or two. It was in a spot that when I put my hand in my extremely tight jeans it got hung up on the pocket and that would cause it to rip. And bleed. Many times I just ripped it off, put a band-aid on and hope it would go away. AND it never did. I tried plain old Compound W, several bottles to be exact and NOTHING worked. So, in a desperate moment I took care of it on my own with the blade and the W. I'm not sure if I even thought to wash the blade first before I got started either, I was desperate I tell ya. My Mom wouldn't take me to the Dr. to have it removed because she thought it would just go away. The impatient person that I am just couldn't wait that long. So, there you have it, Compound W did end up working, but only when I got to the root of the matter..ha ha ha.

Onto other important things. I love great customer service. Mostly because I've been the on the end of the phone giving good service. I recognize good service - and I abhor bad service. Makes me want to jump through the phone line and say, listen buddy if it wasn't for people like me buying this product you wouldn't have a job, so smarten up. But maybe I'd say it on other words not so eloquent. ha.

I got some really good customer service today from Janice at Dahle (pronounced Dah-LEE) on my paper cutter. My husband bought me the Dahle 550 in 2004 (maybe 2005) for my birthday. An expensive purchase at 189.00 but so worth it. I've never changed the cutting head. EVER not one single new blade. It's a self sharpening unit. Cuts like buttah. I love my cutter. And it gets a lot of use. For the last two years in a row I have created pages for EK Success for AC Moore headers - and each page is reproduced 155 or more times. That's a lot of cutting even when Prism sends us the cardstock trimmed to size. All the journaling blocks, photos and mistakes have been cut on that trimmer...not to mention every other thing I have cut in the last 4 or 5 years. But, it needs a new blade. It still cuts nicely, but when I want to trim that 1/16" of an inch of something sometimes I get a ragged edge, and I can't have ragged edges for any of my work!

So I called Janice today because I hadn't gotten a response to my Web communication on their site. Janice, she's a doll. You should call her just to say hi! She was awesome - as much as my Dahle rocks so does she! So, thanks Janice - for making a come back with good customer service...people that give good CS are a dying breed!! I appreciate your help and, after all we are fellow New Englanders!

If you need a new heavy duty, high speed low drag cutter, get yourself a Dahle...you'll be happy you did.

	Professional Rolling Trimmers
			Cuts up to 20 sheets of paper at a time (550-554) Self-sharpening blade cuts in either direction Blade is made of ground steel and encased in a plastic housing for safety Automatic paper clamp holds work securely Adjustable backstop Inch and metric measurements with metric sizing grid for precise cuts Sturdy metal base will not warp or crack Can be wall mounted Optional paper roll holder available Optional floor stands available (556 & 558 only)

I was tagged!

Pam Bennett from Wild Sage Lampworks tagged me last week Here’s the rules: I am sharing 7 Facts about me....or weird things I know about...

1. Red Licorice does not actually contain any licorice from licorice root (Just watched NGEO and found that out...)
2. We have had 100 inches of snow this winter, and 3 inches of rain forcasted for tomorrow...incidentally - I've always been told that for every inch of rain that falls, it's 12" of snow that doesn't...THANK the Lord it's going to be rain!
3. I am left handed. Did you know that approximately 7 to 10 percent of the adult population is left-handed. Also, In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand,[26] Chris McManus of University College London, argues that the proportion of left-handers is rising and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers. He says that left-handers' brains are structured differently in a way that widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centers of the brain. woo hoo for me
4. I used to be a cat person, but now I can't believe I ever put up with changing a litter box every week. ICK!
5. I can't stand to wear socks or shoes, yet I can't stand to have dirt on my feet either....hmmm, maybe I should vacuum more often.
6. There is such a thing as love at first sight, just ask me and I'll tell you all about it.
7. I once had a wart on my hand (when I was in my teens) and was so mortified by it that I cut it off with an X-Acto knife and then poured Compound W on it. YUP, I almost bit my tongue off. BUT, it didn't grow back...so I guess it was worth it. Man, that hurt. Oh my gosh it hurt so bad. Oh, and I also pierced my own ears....4 times.

Ok, so I am going to tag:

1. Shawn: Bonorama Mama
2. Nat: Scrapbook Trends
3. Vic: This Art that makes me Happy
4. Colette: A Bird in the Hand
5. Linda: Friends in Art (I think she already played, but I am to lazy to click over and check!)
6. Sherry: Esprit D'Art
7. Gabrielle: The Result of my Inspirations

So, of you were tagged, here's what you have {well, you don't have to, but it's fun to..he he!} 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Since I can't seem to post without a photo, thought I'd share this family photo taken a couple weeks ago. We went snow shoeing with my Mother in the back 40 and she came along for the trec. It was a lovely time, though the natives stopped for a little lesson in Winter Survival. My husband the Survival Instructor taught them how to make a camp fire in the snow. Though, they couldn't believe they forgot the hotdogs and marshmellows...ha ha. They did manage to warm up while I kept going for the exercise...It was a great time. My handsome Valentine is doing a great job holding up that tree, don't you think?? TaTA for now folks...happy friday....

A Dream in February ATC

A Dream in February ATC Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

I don't have anything to share that I've been working on tonight, it's all secret agent stuff that I can't....if you want to see them all you'll have to take an SDU Class at your local Scrapbook Store to learn how to do the technique we're working on.

Anyway, this is a little ATC that I sent to my good friend Shawn, BonoRama Mama for our Valentine Swap. I got the image from Teresa McFayden and her Sweet Bella E-Zine. The image is much smaller than I wanted it to be, but she looks so adorable on this ATC, don't you think?

Shawn and I have another swap coming up here..as a matter of fact I'll be sending out her chunky Canvas tomorrow...I'll share the image as soon as she gets it....

Well, ta ta for now - I've got to get one more page completed tomorrow morning and get it approved before I go out to run my errands...so I need some sleep. The page is planned out, I just ned to execute it!

Three Unhappy Frogs on my back porch

Three Unhappy Frogs on my back porch
Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

I thought I would blog early today...taking a break from my EK Success assignments to share my ice covered frogs. NOTE: I know they look real, these are only statues that hang out on my porch during the winter. We're having a lot of ice and sleet today, so I need to get my work done while I have light to see by!

Aren't they cute? Christmas Tree Shoppes, a buck. Can you believe that. If you have never heard of this line of shops, you are missing out. My husband calls them the China Tree Shoppe because just about everything is made in China, but hey - that's OK with me! I can do down to Portland and shop there, fill up my cart with cute stuff and only spend $25.00...gotta love the China Tree!!

Ok....breaks over.....time to get back to work. TTFN!!

My workshop on Monday

The Lovely Group Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

was a total hit with Loretta, Janet, Barbara and Sandy. We had such a lovely and relaxing day, I felt very honored to be with them creating art and sharing some of my secrets with them.

Each one of these ladies created a lovely collage, each one used pieces that meant a lot to her, and for the most part finished them. That's the best part - their collages are at a point where they can hang them up on the wall if they want and call it done - or they can do a little more puttering and embellishing and then be finished with it.

The best part, they asked me to teach another workshop in April, and I am pretty excited about the theme. Both Loretta and I had submitted 12 x 12 paper collages to the True Colors challenge at Quilting Arts - and Loretta showed hers to the group at lunch time. They all fell in love with what she showed us, so we're going to be making a lovely paper quilt. The theme is going to be them as children...I think. We'll see how that works out, but I had so much fun.

THANK you Loretta for organizing this, and thank you Sandy, Janet and Barbara for being such a great group of women to be around for the day! I'm really looking forward to April!

A Rendezvous with Nature

A Rendezvous with Nature Originally uploaded by CatherineScanlon

My latest collage 10 x 10 collage.....still needs some work in the upper left corner and the middle left column....but I am loving it so far! I plan on adding some stitching to the middle left column and the top left box needs something....

I have had so much making these collages, this is my 3rd for the weekend, including the one for my workshop tomorrow. I'll try and do a step by step on a new one in the near future when I get to do another one, so you all can see the process, I think you'll love them as much as I do!

I plan on selling this one on Etsy, but if YOU would like to purchase it before I actually list it, let me know and I'll figure out the cost and all those details and send you a PayPal invoice!