"water-color, misty memories"

This is a challenge from my friend, Emilie. And it sounds pretty fun, so I thought I'd do it.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

( I am leaving to go to my work trip today, so don't fret if it takes me a minute to respond. I will respond, I promise!)

Reveal of the CHA project....

CHA was last week and because this project was lovingly created for the show, I had to wait until my DT Coordinator gave me the green light to share it on my blog. I had to wait for it to show up on The Paper Mill Store DT blog.

I really struggled at first designing my CHA project. I had been assigned a mini-album and I finally chose to do a Halloween album. So, I had this idea of using 3 pieces of chipboard to make the house "3-Dimensional" and then fill in between with cardstock pages as needed. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I was excited to try.

First, I drew some sketches on some pages from a white Marriott hotel paper pad. (do you think I travel enough or what?!?!) Once I had the 3 chipboard pieces figured out...it was time to put the plan into action. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I was like a woman obsessed. All I did was eat, sleep and dream about the haunted house mini.
(i know...it really is an illness......)

Keep in mind, this album is 100% my handiwork. Every single piece was drawn out by hand and then cut with a Fiskars craft knife. I spent a few hours cutting out that tree alone!! The entire album is made of WorldWin Papers cardstock and chipboard.
All embellishments are handmade except the few sequins that are in the book and the sequins I used to make the roof tiles. Everything else is handmade.

And 5 days and some 60-ish hours later....my mini was finished!

Let me know what you think.....

Now, I'd like to take a moment here and note a few things.

Number one, I had to take these photos in full sun before I sent the album. They are really bright and actually a bit overexposed, despite me trying to fix them in iPhoto. Any color that seem harsh, is delightful in real life.

Number two, I was betrayed by my most favorite white pen. For some reason, it was really rubbing off the cardstock. When I took these photos I had not realized it was happening. IRL it isn't as noticeable, but in the pics it looks awful. I went back an erased all these marks with my favorite adhesive remover square....and all was well again. But, I apologize for the messy looking photo. I've never seen this pen do that before, but most of the time, my layouts aren't rubbing against each other, as they do in this mini album. (and because the album was used in person as a display item for our booth....I didn't need to retake pictures that were clean.


Here are some close-ups of some of the details:


First: The pain was Black Soot Distress Paint by Ranger. Isn't that crackle paint look awesome. Tim Holtz is a genius and that's all I can say about that...... This was so fun to play with!! (and it was my first time and after one trial/error try, it was pretty easy to figure out!) And the glitter is Stickles, also by Ranger. (my favorite color ~ Black Diamond...oh, Black Diamond, I cannot live without you!!)

Ok, now here's the funny thing. See the spider hanging down off the tower? Well, he was made with the "spit ball method." You see, I wanted a 3 -D spider and I knew I didn't want to buy one, so I figured out how to make one. I tore up a bunch of WorldWin Papers Deep Heritage Black paper into little pieces. Than I ran water over them to make them stick together. I squeezed the water out and rolled them into a ball, but I didn't want to wait the time to figure out if that was going to work. So, I squirted some Sakura Crystal Lacquer into the ball and let that dry. It worked like a charm. Then I added the Stickles Magenta eyeballs to make him look a bit more sinister! (although, he still mostly just looks cute!)

(see photo above!)


Vellum and Acrylic moon, Crafty Board and Ruche tree.
(see my little owl peeking out?) Strangely enough, I had a really good time making these tombstones!!

The photo above and below both have the wonderful Elan Metallic cardstock in Obsidian. It has so much glitter in it! I LOVE IT!!!!! And it's available in so many wonderful colors! You should get some and play with it!

These gumdrop candies were so fun to make. I knew I needed a way to make 3-D candy and as you can see above, making the candy corn was easy. It took me a while, but I tried something that worked like a charm to make these wonderful gumdrops! You won't believe what they are!!!

Here's my GINORMOUS SUPPLY LIST!!!!!

WorldWin Papers / Crafty Board

WorldWin Papers / Deep Heritage Black / ColorMates
WorldWin Papers / Deep Orange Dream / ColorMates
WorldWin Papers / Deep Groovy Grape / ColorMates
WorldWin Papers / Deep Terrific Teal / ColorMates

WorldWin Papers / Sunshine Yellow / DoubleMates

WorldWin Papers / Black / Cascata
WorldWin Papers / Pink / Cascata

WorldWin Papers / Cocoa / Ruche

WorldWin Papers / Plum / Metallic Vellum
WorldWin Papers / Silver / Metallic Vellum

WorldWin Papers / Obsidian / Elan Metallics

WorldWin Papers / Black Stripe / High Gloss

Zutter / Bind It All Machine
Zutter / Black / 3/4" O-Rings

Sakura Hobby Craft / 3D Crystal Lacquer

Acrylic

Accucut / Circle Shape (only partially used for moon)

Ranger / Black Soot / Distress Crackle Paint

Ranger / Black Diamond / Stickles
Ranger / Orange Peel / Stickles
Ranger / Aqua / Stickles
Ranger / Icicle / Stickles
Ranger / Diamond / Stickles
Ranger / Purple / Stickles
Ranger / Magenta / Stickles

Clearsnap / Black / Color Box Cat's Eye Chalk Ink

Tsukineko / Jet Black / StazOn Ink

Tsukineko / VersaMark Watermark Ink

Walmart / date stamp

Signo / White / Uni-ball Pen

Too Marker Products / Pink / Spica Pen
Too Marker Products / Clear / Spica Pen
Too Marker Products / Turquoise / Spica Pen
Too Marker Products / Black / Spica Pen
Too Marker Products / Orange / Spica Pen
Too Marker Products / Lavender / Spica Pen

Zig / Pure Black / Artist Pen

Marvy Uchida / Orange / Liquid Applique'

Therm-O-Web / Zots Mini 1/4"

GlueDots / Pop Up

GlueDots / Vellum

Stampin' Up! / Sun Sparkle / Stampin' Glitter
Stampin' Up! / Coral Crystals / Stampin' Glitter
Stampin' Up! / Razzle Berry / Stampin' Glitter

Marvy Uchida / Embossing Heat Tool

WesTrim / Black / 24 gauge wire

Horizon Group USA / Craft Sequins

Novtex / Magenta / Sequins

Stampin' Up! / 12" Guilliotine Trimmer

Fiskars / 12" Trimmer

Fiskars / Heavy Duty Craft Knife

Creative Memories / Self-healing Mat

Walmart / 1" foam brush

Anita's / Grey / acrylic paint

ribbons/fibers: Offray, Michaels, Wrights, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's

Family......

So, my brother and his family came thru Topeka on their way home from a wedding and we met at the Arby's right off the highway so we could at least have a meal together before he had to get home for his job.

Of course, we had to get a picture of all the cousins together... Jensen 9 3/4, Griffin 5 1/2, Abbey 13 1/2, Marinne 3 1/2, Logan 12, Elley 11. And a successful picture is rewarded with a "silly" picture!
(seriously, try getting a good picture with 6 kids and one of them being 3 years old!)

This is my brother, Randy.
He's awesome and I love him!

This is my sister-in-law, Lori. She's so funny.
I was chasing her with the camera.
She took a picture of me, so I took one of her.
She's laughing so hard, her eyes are squinty! Then, she agrees to pose....but it's too late, she's still laughing so much she's squinty! But, you can see her marvelous personality!!All in all it was a good visit, but WAY TOO SHORT!

It's Hot In Topeka

People! It's seriously hot in Topeka.

Just ask Beth, she knows!!!! :)

GEO-CACHING

Meet the GPS....Meet the hunters.... Meet the "fearless leader" and his hunters.... Now, if your asking yourself, "what in the heck is a geocache?" Here's a short answer. It's a scavenger hunt of sorts. A global scavenger hunt. You see, people hide these "caches" with stuff in them. Then, the register them, listing the GPS coordinates and some basic clues to help you find the cache. Then, you and your treasure hunters take your GPS and search for the cache. There are caches pretty much everywhere.

And while geocaching, we explored more of our city in one day than we have learned the entire 1 1/2 years we lived here. It was fun!

Some beautiful nature shots, and photos of the hunters
taken during the journey....

And a park bench he found w/ his name on it.....

After following the tricky clues and looking for a good 30 minutes in the humid day....we had to give up the search for this first geocache. Which was a total bummer, because this cache included a diabetes "travel bug" which is a medal that stands for diabetes awareness. Ike really wanted to get this one for me. But, alas, it was not to be today....

So, off to cache #2.
This one was at Mount Hope Cemetary in Topeka.

I have to be honest, I like cemetaries. (I know...you probably think I am weird. I just think they are so peaceful. And my love for them really comes from Bonaventure Cemetary in Savannah. From the moment I saw that place....I was in love with it. Now, this cemetary can't hold a candle to that, but it was still peaceful none-the-less.

This was a multi-cache, which means that there are several clues that lead you to other clues that lead you to the cache. Did you follow that?

So, the first clue led us to this tree. The clue had something to do w/ a fork or something like that....see, in the "fork" of the tree..... So, the fearless leader lifted Indiana "Griff" Jones up to retrieve the clue.

Off following the clue to find the Stage 2 of this cache....

Daddy lifted "The Princess" to retrieve this clue....
{I absolutely love this picture, don't you?!}

Reading the clue....

Off to search for the final phase and retrieve the cache.....
...and THERE IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, Oh Man....we were ExCiTeD!!!!!

A cache can be filled w/ almost anything.
Toys, pencils, coins, jewelry, pins, travel bugs or whatever.
So...we dumped it out and everyone picked something.

This is what we took:

A tiny Sketcher photo book for Marinne.
Coins for Griffin and Jensen.
A special rock for Logan. ( he wasn't there, but we didn't want to leave him out.....)
and A breast cancer awareness bracelet for Mommy.

We left: 3 hot wheels, a stuffed lamb and the tin man.

Those are part of the rules....you never take something without leaving something in it's place.

Returning the cache to its hiding spot....

On the way out, I spotted this little angel, looking over the memory of someone.
It kind of touched me....

A smaller cemetary, another cache...and a storm moving in...

And our last cache of the day, at a small corner park in our city. This park has a gazebo with some benches under it.
So, I caught this photo of little Missy sitting still, which doesn't happen often! Looking thru the top of the gazebo.
(this reminds me of a picture I might have taken in Savannah.) And a quick photo of the kids in the gazebo....

And the next cache is found.....

Griffin loves anything green, so we got him this green martian and
left a coin in it's place. He really thought this guy was funny!

And our final cache was at another tiny neighborhood park.
They had this gate w/ a "W" on it. I love wrought iron gates and
this one reminded me of Savannah, again. And right when I shot this photo, the sky opened and it began to rain.

Geocaching, expedition one.......over.

Go try Geocaching...it was super-fun!!!