What's going on?

Let's see...

1. I've decided to become a consultant for Tastefully Simple, you can read more about that here.  I'm really excited about this!
2. Perrin turned 9 this week, so we had a big family bash on Sunday.  He got a new bike!  Now just needs to master the whole bike riding thing.
3. My buddy Kelli came up from NJ last weekend so we spent Friday night crafting with the gals and spent all day Saturday at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield learning from the great Tim Holtz.
4. We've continued to enjoy geocaching.  Eric has now hid three pretty devious puzzle caches.  We've got a 5/5 cache on our radar that we're looking into as well; already found Waypoint 1 and scoped out the coordinates for WP 2.
5. I harvested the first thing from our garden this spring: rhubarb.  There's an article in the works for harvesting and freezing rhubarb.  I also made my annual Rhubarb Cream Pie, which is 28 kinds of awesome.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the highlights of the week!

Girl of Many Stripes on Examiner.com

Although I've posted links to some of my Examiner articles on this blog, I wanted to include a more detailed post on what I do at Examiner.  I have two titles there now, the Boston Scrapbooking Examiner and the Boston Canning and Preserving Examiner.  My goal is to provide great content with local connections to the Boston area.  So, I'll include recipes on the Canning and Preserving page, but I'll also include information on where to get equipment and ingredients locally.  You can subscribe to each of these titles to be notified when new content is available.

To subscribe to the Boston Scrapbooking feed, go to the Boston Scrapbooking Examiner page and click on the "Subscribe" button under my name.

To subscribe to the Boston Canning and Preserving feed, go to the Boston Canning and Preserving Examiner page and click on the "Subscribe" button under my name.

Maybe your interest in Examiner.com is piqued by reading about my articles.  You can write for Examiner.com too! There are tons of local titles available for many different topics.  It won't make you rich unless you've got a really popular title, but you can make some money and build an online profile that can give you other opportunities.  If you're interested, feel free to ask me questions, or go to the Examiner Application page.  If you use this link, apply, and are accepted, I do get a referral bonus, which of course is pretty awesome for me too.  If you don't see a relevant title, feel free to ask Examiner.com about it.  There was no Canning and Preserving Examiner positions until I asked to create it!

Many, many stripes

I certainly fit the description of a girl with many stripes, as I have so many interests, hobbies, and skills.  Over the last couple of weeks I've:

• Posted three articles on canning and preserving at Examiner.com: 
• Canning and Preserving Rhubarb
• Where to Shop for Canning Supplies in the Boston Area
• Review: Ball Pectin Calculator
• Installed Camtasia and created a video version of my Ball Pectin Calculator Review

• Posted an article on MA National Scrapbooking Day Events at Examiner.com
• Tried to work on my front brakes, but I was one tool and three rusty bolts short of being successful.
• Did some geocaching on my own and with the family
• Entertained my children through their spring break, mostly by wearing them out through geocaching, but we also spent a fun day in New Hampshire at the See Science Center in Manchester and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord.
• Picked up a new customer who was totally blown away by my work (love when that happens!)

Saturday I'm taking Perrin to the district Pinewood Derby race, since he qualified by coming in second in our Pack.  Probably should get some housework done one of these days.  While I do have a lot of things I'm good at, housework is certainly not one of them.

Just got off the phone.....

...to register for Tim Holtz's classes next month at Absolutely Everything. It took me an hour to get to through, but I did still get the two classes I wanted, so that's great. My friend Kelli is coming up for the same classes, so I'm sure we'll have a blast.

I've had the pleasure of taking some of Tim's classes in the past, so I know what I'm in for. Can't wait! I was remembering the very first class I took was way back in 2006 at CKU-M Boston (at the very last CKU Boston, *sadface*), with my friend MF. It was a class where we made a little folded book out of a sheet of paper, a lot of distress ink, and distressed hardware, and it was amazing. It was back before most of his tools were released as products, so we had homemade distress ink blenders and distress hammers that he had made with linoleum nails. I still kick myself that I didn't take his other class that weekend, it was a memory glass pendant.

Graphic 45 Design Team 2012 Audition

I am super excited to be auditioning for the 2012 Graphic 45 Design Team! Graphic 45 has the most creative and amazing papers and products, and I loved seeing what the current design team produced for the recent CHA expo. As I've mentioned before, it was Steampunk Debutante that put Graphic 45 onto my radar, but I have fallen in love with so many of the other lines. Anyhow, enough gushing, and on with the audition.

I looked at my library of paper craft creations and picked out some of my favorites to display here. Some use Graphic 45 products, some do not, but the latter showcase some of my favorite techniques and products. I am a technique junkie, so I love to see how to do things, rather than just looking at pretty pictures of final results.

Project #1 - Strano Ribbon Dresses


Several years ago I had the opportunity to make some items for the Strano Ribbon CHA booth. I was given a bag of ribbon, some Ribbon Stiff, and free reign to create. While I did several layouts, a card or two, and some other projects, my favorite result was these ribbon dresses. Each of these is made on a papier mache dress form that is about 7" tall. The photo above was taken by the Strano team and was used at one point for a Ribbon Stiff advertisement. The dresses made it back to me from CHA and are now displayed in my scrap attic. If I am selected as a finalist for the Graphic 45 design team, I will make a dress specifically using G45 products (No, I am not above bribery!).

Project #2: Steampunk Birdhouse

This is a recent project, and I just blogged about it this week. I totally love the steampunk genre, and I've been looking for excuses to use this G45 for Hampton Arts Stamp. I love altering stuff, and I have been known to "rescue" stuff from the trash to use, like the copper wire in this project that my husband had put in the recycle bin.



Project #3: Tags

As a technique junkie, I love tags because they give me a chance to try out new things on a small canvas. I have been following Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas for several years, and always knock out a few tags. here are a few samples of tags I've created.

















I also recently posted a tag using Graphic 45 products: Graphic 45 Corset Tag.

Project #4: "Unraveled"

This is an older project that I really love and takes some unconventional turns, merging my hobbies of scrapbooking and knitting. The layout and journaling hidden behind the knitting describes how my labor and delivery of my first son was nowhere near "textbook", and not what I was expecting as a first-time-mom.

Project #5: Altered Notepad Holder

This is a fun little project that is a great teacher or friend gift, and I have sold many of them at local fairs. I'm including this one because I created a tutorial article at Suite101 that has been very popular since I wrote it.

Project #6: Island Adventure

My husband and I were married in 2000 in Hawaii, and we took our new fangled (at the time) digital camera and took all sorts of pictures and uploaded them to our new fangled "website" so our family could see the pictures. My brother in law had all of our photos printed in 8x10 size, so I have this wonderful stack of images to pull from for my wedding scrapbook. These two particular photos are from the Polynesian Cultural Center on the island of Oahu. I used some of the cardstock sticker elements from the G45 Tropical Travelogue line as well as one of the journaling cards. The cardstock is Core'dinations Core Impressions Graphic 45 Timeless collection. In this case I did not sand the cardstock because I wanted to keep the color consistent while adding some texture to the background.

Project 7: Stamping and Copic Tutorial

I recently posted this tutorial about using Copic markers to color a fun stamp. I love using scraps for cardmaking, and I {heart} my Copic markers!



















Thanks for holding out to the end of my audition!