Eggscellent Layout (And Bonus Content!)

Finished another Color Me Scrappy blog challenge today!  I really enjoy their challenges, this is my second time submitting.  The colors this time around were right up my alley and made me think of spring (come on spring!).  The twist was to include a tag and/or stitching. (And wouldn't you know it, but the challenge at BasicGrey Challenges was for a spring project - so hello, it is a two-fer.)

BasicGrey's "Green At Heart" collection was perfect for this challenge.  Nice and springy!  And so are the pictures of the kids decorating eggs and cupcakes to celebrate spring and Easter.  You love my title don't ya?  Hehehehe... me too!  I thought it was clever.  I used a big glitter chipboard letter "e" and some of my Thickers stash for that.  Of course, it is a two-pager.

There is a little round butterfly chipboard tag, which I ran some ribbon through and some even littler chipboard circles dispersed throughout the layout.  The scrap of paper under the title has two lines of stitching with some green glitter thread, using the We R Memory Keeper's "Sew Easy" tool.  (Which brings me to my bonus content.)

I really love it when I see layouts with stitching, so when the Sew Easy came out, I immediately bought one, a dozen heads, 6 packs of thread, storage case, the big mat - you know the deal.  And so far, I've used it, what?  Two, maybe three times?  I'm still trying to get the hang of it.  It never comes out as cute as I imagine it (hate that!) and there has got to be a way to keep the line straight when I'm rolling the poker-thingy on top of my paper.

None of that, however, stopped me from buying the circle tool that goes with the darn thing when I was attending a rubber-stamping show this weekend.  Clearly, I haven't given up, and seeing as how I cannot sew a lick (seriously, not even a hem), I am determined to make it work.  Anyone out there have any tips on using it?  Let me know.

I was dragged to the show by my scrapping buddy, La-Vie.  She forces me to stamp, I force her to attend mini-album classes.  The night before the show, the event sponsors hosted a "Make & Take" event.  We did six 15-minute projects.  Most of them came out pretty good.  It would've been a good idea to take some pics of my projects to show you, but I gave most of them to La-Vie to include with her cards for troops thing.  I'm not a big stamper or card maker, but it was a lot of fun hanging with her and some fellow crafters: Vicky, Ellen & Becky.

This was my second time crafting with Vicky, as she is a friend of La-Vie.  Ellen was a FB crafting buddy of La-Vie's as well, but this was their first F2F encounter.  Becky was a loner, and like all good scrapbookers - we welcomed her into our circle (today she is probably telling her husband, "and then I made the mistake of sitting at this table full of crazy women, and they wouldn't let me get away").

These crafty-chicks put me to shame with the stamping.  They're all like, "You have 7 people following your blog -- how sweet, I have 1,593."  "Oh yeah, I'm Copic certified.  Yes, I knit.  And make jewelry.  I've got 5 quilt projects going.  I make my own yarn, right off the rabbit."  Seriously, that last one was real.  

It's cool ladies, it's cool.  But for real, it was a lot of fun and I cannot wait to hook up with them again!

Besides the circle tool, I also managed to buy a few sheets of Mosaic Moments grid paper, this thing that is supposed to let me create perfect bows, and some Smash book embellishments.  Technically, this is a clear violation of my resolution not to purchase anymore stuff until CKC, but since it was a show, and I stayed under my $40 budget, I'm calling it a success!  Under $40!

I cannot afford another hobby, so I'm sticking with scrapbooking and hopefully I can create a project with the Sew Easy that I'm happy with.  Stitched circles here I come!