I’ve got three miniature pages done for my little keychain and they are so cute!

 

I just put my photos into the pre-made “Garden Party” pages, reduced them first to 8″ x 8″ so I could print them out for a regular sized album. Then I reduced each page again to 2″ x 2″ for my keychain.

I put all the smaller pages onto one sheet for printing, then I cut them out and glued the pages back to back. I let the glue dry then laminated them and trimmed the corners. Then I punched a hole in each corner and put them on a keyring. You can add a ribbon or two if you want. I’m going to do about 7 little two-sided pages but I can add as many as I want and I can make more layouts out of the papers and elements that I also purchased when I bought the quick pages.

I’m going to print out the larger album when I’m done with the keychain. Save your layout sheet and make extras because everyone who sees it is going to want one too.  

I use scrapbooking papers for a lot of my projects, not just scrapbooking… in fact I really do very little traditional scrapbooking. And I buy just whatever strikes a chord in me on some level that I have to have. I recently ran across another beautiful paper find. Actually, I’m loving the quick pages that coordinate with these papers. They’re at WeedsandWildflowersdesign.com  and they are titled “Garden Party” by Patricia Christensen. Love them.

I’m going to make a mini-album 2″ x 2″ out of the quick album for a keychain thats laminated… just because I think that would be soooooooooo cute. I’m still crazy about the grunge look… well I like it if it’s not dirty looking. I also like the homemade doodles that are so popular right now.

I have backed up all my papers (they can eat a lot of hard drive) onto dvd and transferred them all to my laptop. I group them by site where I purchased them, then by collection name so I can keep track of what I have. I’m still working on making my own papers and stuff too. Birds keep popping into my head for some reason. I like birds so maybe I’ll do some soon.

I don’t mind pruning plants but I just hate to throw away what I cut off… I love to watch things grow. So I put three cuttings of my Kandy Kitchen JM in a bottle of water as an experiment just to see if they would take root and they did. They have very fine roots starting to grow out of the bottoms of their stems. woo-hoo!

That means I don’t have to graft them to get new plants. Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised they rooted. A few years ago I did successfully root two rose stems from a bouquet that had withered. I’m just lousy at keeping the fussy ones alive in the heavy soil I have.

I need to plan out where I’ll be growing these beauties throughout next winter before I try to root very many more. Their roots need to be well established to survive the cold all winter and protection from the wind helps them too. I’ll plant the babies in the greenhouse floor where they’re protected. The two year olds should be able to survive the winter outdoors now with a little protection.

The only JM I lost this spring was ‘Aratama’. It survived the winter and started to leaf out, then all of a sudden it withered up and died for no reason I can figure out. All my other jms are thriving. I guess that’s how it goes. Maybe it is a difficult variety to grow? I’m not going to replace it soon although I think it is probably one of the most beautiful varieties.  

Well, I finished the shoe card I was working on. I hope I can remember how I made the background cause I’m really liking it too.

Once I cut the pattern out and made a few adjustments, this went pretty quick. The background took longer to make than the shoe. I think this is such a cute idea that I’ve decided to host a swap for shoes. I’ll have to post my pattern in case anybody wants to use it, although any shoe(s) are welcomed to enter. The design possibilities are endless for ankle bracelets, tatoos, toe rings and sandals, etc.

Really, can a woman have too many shoes? I think not. I’m into flip-flops and Mudd shoes myself. There’s not enough tea in China to get me to wear a pair of high heels at my age. I’m a creature of comfort. But I do like to look at a beautiful, well made designer shoe, don’t you? So hobble on over to ATC World and join the fun. I’ll post a pattern sheet as soon as I get one made.

I spent a good part of the day finishing ATCs. I am working on six at a time. I got three completely done and two more half done.

I came up with a couple of (I think) cool ideas for ATC swaps. I’ve never seen window cards with shutters on them although they’ve probably been done before… hasn’t everything? I’m pretty sure my idea is not original but the design for it is.

I’m really proud of the way the house card turned out. The picture is of my brother before I was born and my Grandpa on the porch of the old homestead. The gold stamping picked up the chalk toward the edges and really made it look cool. I didn’t know it would do that - but now I do so I’m bound to use it again, on purpose next time.