Hey people! As many of you guys know, I manage the scrapbook kit club over at www.myscrapbooknook.com. This means that I choose all of the products in the kits, buy them, and then manage a design team of talented women who all show off the kit each month. I also manage the message board, where people can come talk about scrapbooking or just life in general (I admit, as much as I like to scrap, I hang out on the everything else forum). It is a really fun little work from home job, and I’m glad to have it!
It recently came to my attention that even though I have been doing this for over a year and a half, I have never done a contest for you guys involving the kit! Time to remedy that, eh?
So here is the deal. If you would like to see this big box of scrappy goodness land on your doorstep absolutely free, leave me a comment here today and tell me what you think of the May Kit, and if you happen to register to chat with me on the message board- do let me know what your user name is!
Also- be warned- I will be holding new Design Team member auditions in just about a month, so if you’re crazy about scrapping, be sure to check back and try out!
I will randomly select a winner on Friday the 9th!
Posted by Lou on May 8, 2008 @ 4:40 pm | 99 Comments
Do you remember that clean, well organized scrapbook room of mine? On the surface it looks pretty good, but underneath the scrappy exterior lies a wealth of sewing supplies, all unorganized and almost unused. There are about six half finished projects, including an entire denim quilt top, a wall hanging, quilt pieces, and yards of fabric purchased with big plans that I never got around to.
I dumped it all out the other night and went through it. I haven’t thrown out a pair of jeans in twenty years. I have moved a shower curtain to three different states because I look at it and I don’t see a shower curtain, I see a fairy costume. I have two yards of day-glo pink vinyl and I don’t know why. I have extremely limited sewing skills. I’ve made a few quilts and a few dresses (with supervision). I have mad seam ripping skills from years of practice. I do not think in such a way that allows me to turn things inside out and form seams; I cannot visualize it at all. I have amazing creative visions and no way to carry them out. It is infuriating. I shouldn’t be let inside of a fabric store and yet I keep going back. Like today when I went and bought more felt that I may or may not actually use. It is an illness.
If you want to know more about the mess, I strongly suggest that you click on the photo and read my notes. Confession: it’s good for the soul.
Posted by Lou on April 22, 2008 @ 6:58 pm | 5 Comments
This year one of my goals was to learn to make a few of the traditional Norwegian goodies I grew up on. Krumkake required the purchase of a beautiful iron and the passing down of the recipe from Grandma. Krumkake is a crisp, rolled cookie that can be eaten plain or gussied up with some whipped cream and berries or pudding. It is excellent either way!
Posted by Lou on April 4, 2008 @ 7:55 pm | 12 Comments
This Pink Paislee paper is great! I used it as the base for this month’s kit. Also, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ll be teaching a class on how to make the box at the end if the month in San Bruno.
Posted by Lou on April 3, 2008 @ 6:15 pm | 15 Comments
Yesterday I taught some scrapbook classes. I so enjoy doing this, partly because I enjoy sharing the craft, but mostly because I always seem to have such a great group of women to teach! I have been so impressed with their creativity and pro-active good natures. I meet so many amazing individuals in my line of work and I feel very blessed because of it.
Yesterday, however, held a very bitter surprise. I was preparing to teach my Cosmo Cricket blackboard class, which is based around the princess album I created for Maggie. I love this album. It is one of my favorite things that I have made, and so special to Maggie because it is all about her princess dress and crown. Imagine my disgust and disappointment when I discovered that it had been stolen from the store.
Now, I don’t know what kind of person it takes to steal someone’s personal scrapbook. I don’t know if they just have no sense of collective responsibility and goodness, or if they function out of jealousy for another’s talent (jeez, just take the class, I’d have helped you make your own), or if they are just mean spirited. I don’t know if it was desperation, entitlement, or flat out meanness, but I do know that it was very wrong. It also makes it darn hard to teach a class.
Most people would agree that stealing is wrong. It isn’t a tough concept. People like to keep the stuff they have and know that it is safe. Stealing from shopkeepers is wrong because it makes it harder for them to turn a profit, and it forces them to raise prices for the rest of us. But it isn’t usually personal. It makes a shopkeeper angry to be stolen from, but I don’t think it hurts their feelings quite like stealing a piece of artwork, or a family heirloom or treasured item. It doesn’t make their daughter sad to be missing item 100634 out of isle 9 the way it might make her sad to find out that her special photo book was taken. So this is personal. That just makes it more wrong, doesn’t it?
You may think that this is a fluke thing, that it doesn’t happen all of the time, but you would be wrong. I know many designers who have had a precious piece of art taken when it has been on display. You may think that the person doing the stealing must be one of the unwashed miscreants of society, but you would be wrong again. When I attended CHA, many, many booths had their designer’s work literally tied to the booth just to make it more difficult to steal. Do you know who attends CHA? Store owners. Scrapbook retailers. People who routinely get stolen from and who you think might have the concept of how treasured a scrapbook might be to someone. Despite this fact, many, many fabulous pieces of personal artwork volunteered to be on display by people who support these companies mysteriously walk away each time. Even pieces that have been tied down occasionally disappear, meaning that people had to work to steal them. It boggles the mind.
I am trying to be forgiving. I am trying to tell myself that I must be pretty damn awesome to have people want to steal my art. But mostly, I’m just hoping that whoever took it might be willing to sneak it back into the store. Leave it in the bathroom, or in a back corner somewhere. Slip it into a basket of ribbon or onto a paper rack in a quiet corner. Just make it reappear. I really want it back.
Posted by Lou on March 10, 2008 @ 2:45 pm | 27 Comments
I may be a wheezy, hacking, sniffling piece of horse puckey- but I can still scrap! I made this mini album, sort of springboarding off of the card that I made, taking it farther, while still keeping things fairly simple. The goal was to keep the photos clean and linear and let the stamping and the song lyrics do the rest.
I used Inque Boutique stamps, Basic Grey’s new Sugared paper, Cat Stevens song lyrics, and the album is wood made by Kaiser Kraft. As always, you can click to embiggen the photos.
Posted by Lou on March 7, 2008 @ 2:19 pm | 6 Comments
Get free blog up and running in minutes with Blogsome | Theme designs available here
RSS .92 | RDF 1.0 | RSS 2.0 |
Comments RSS 2.0
