Only lack of adhesive shall stand between me and my scrapping

I struggled a little with the second part of the Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique section of my cupcake crawl album. I had used most of the photos in the first part but had just enough left to warrant a second double-page layout. So I arranged. And rearranged. And rearranged again. I dug up some flower border stickers that were close enough to the Sugar Bliss color scheme that they worked. And I found my first use for a small but adorable cupcake stamp I found at a crafting booth inside the Grandstand at the Illinois State Fair. One thing I love about scrapbooking is that, no matter how challenging a layout might seem, there's always a way to pull it together if you can be resourceful with your supplies. Granted, that's not to say the layout worked in the end -- everything's subjective. I probably could have done better, but I was reasonably happy with the way it turned out. (It's hard to see them in this picture, but the little cupcake stamps run vertically down the left side of the left page and the right side of the right page.)

Then I moved on to More Cupcakes, our third stop on the crawl. It was such a small, minimalist store that I decided to go with a similar type of layout for that shop's two sets of double-page layouts. No patterned paper I had seemed appropriate for the sparseness of More, so I went with solid black for the background and skipped the embellishments. I did use the menu along with several photos, though.

I was in my zone and ready to keep going, but then the worst thing happened to me that can happen to an in-the-groove scrapbooker: I ran out of adhesive. I plan to make a tape run tomorrow, but until then I'll just have to hold my scrapping thoughts.

Sugar blissfulness

After a long, drowsy day at work and a tough workout, I was thrilled to be able to come home to dinner in the crock pot and extra time to work on the cupcake crawl album. After a quick bite to eat, I retreated to my little corner of heaven here at home and dove into the first half of my Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique layout. Sugar Bliss was the second bakery on the crawl, in the Loop not far from Crumbs.

I loved the atmosphere of Sugar Bliss, a modern shop decorated in shades of blue and brown. The cupcakes themselves were a design element, with their flower-shaped frosting toppers. We had the option of standard-sized cupcakes or miniatures, and the minis were a real plus in light of the lengthy list of stops still to come.

Here's the first part of the Sugar Bliss layout:

With any luck, I'll have the second part posted soon!

Cupcakes + scrapbooking = heaven!

If you're a reader of both my blogs (LaVonne, this is directed at you! :-) ), you might battle with your self-discipline when you see the photos of cupcakes I regularly post on Extreme Cupcaker. And you might, if you have the time, come over to Mandy Scraps for some fat-free, calorie-free relief. Unfortuantely, LaVonne, there's no escape anymore. The cupcake crawl scrapbook is in progress. (Insert evil laugh here)

I know, I know. I'm awful! :-)

After completing several small projects during my staycation last week, I finally decided to start the crawl book. I'm going in chronological order, starting with the first bakery we went to that sweet morning, Crumbs Bake Shop. I ended up with three double-page layouts for Crumbs because I had a lot of pictures from that one, and I had a hard time eliminating. On the first two pages, I coordinated colors to the color scheme of the shop itself -- pale yellow and pale blue. I love scrapping bakeries because they're so whimsical and colorful.

The assortment of cupcakes at Crumbs was photogenic, to say the least. There were so many I wanted to try but couldn't, and that's what these pages were dedicated to -- the ones that got away. :-) It's hard to see from this shot, but some of the featured cupcakes are the grasshopper, cookie dough and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

The final spread for Crumbs is a pocket page to hold the copy of the menu I picked up and wanted to keep as a souvenir of the store's offerings. I added photos of the cupcakes we actually tried -- the ones that made it into the piece I wrote for the SJ-R. The picture on the right side -- taken in mouthwatering detail by Sara, who is a photographic genius -- is the cookies and cream cupcake we split. The much smaller picture on the left page is the other one we tried -- the milkshake. Sara favored that one, while I was partial to the cookies and cream. (It worked out for the best because we knew who would claim the leftovers -- we needed to save room, after all, so we each took just a few bites from both cupcakes.) The frosting, to me, was the best part of the cookies and cream. It was a scrumptious, generous slather of buttercream. The milkshake was a marble cake with "marble" frosting, meaning a mix of chocolate and vanilla. It was good, but it didn't speak to my tastebuds in quite the same way as the cookies and cream.

I like using the pocket pages. They come in different sizes, patterns and colors, and I can see myself using them quite a bit. Sara was the one who gave me the idea to try a homemade pocket in my 2008 New York album, and it worked out fine, but I still like having the pre-designed pockets.

I'm having so much fun with this album so far. Now that Crumbs is finished, I'm organizing paper, photos and embellishements for the next section, which will be Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique. I need to come up with an intro page for the whole thing, but I tend to leave those for last, when I've established the overall feel of the book. I hope to get rolling on Sugar Bliss this week, and when I finish it, I'll post photos.

Thanks for reading!

A finished Paris album and other thoughts

After a long absence from this blog, I'm back to say that, although I haven't blogged about my scrapping lately, I have been scrapping. In fact, I have finished the Paris book, and once I have the chance to run over to Scrapbook Your Story for some page protectors, I'll be able to fully assemble it.

Here are two of my Eiffel Tower layouts. For some reason, I'm having trouble uploading photos to the blog, so I don't think I'll be able to add any more to this post. :-( Maybe I'll try again later.

There were so many great things to photograph in Paris that it was hard to narrow down my pictures to a reasonable number for the scrapbook. Natalie gave me a great idea to use one of the pocket pages that came with my variety pack -- a 12x12 with nine 4x4 pockets -- at the end of the book to make a couple of collages of cropped photos. As I was working on the book, I set aside photos that wouldn't fit in the main part of the book for possible use in the collages. I was able to use almost all of them that way. I would include a photo of the collages if I could get the photo feature to work! (Enter my frustration with technology!)

Now that I've finished my first hybrid album, I have to say I've measured the pros and cons. I love the ease of the 3-ring binder, but the pocket pages were a little inconvenient in the sense that they restricted me in some of my layouts. I can see myself using hybird books for future projects, though -- especially small, simple projects such as one I'm planning for a Christmas gift.

With Paris 2010 finished, I'm in between projects, trying to decide what to start next. I have a weeklong staycation starting a week from today, and I'm hoping to get in plenty of scrapping time. One project I need to do soon is a framed photo page in memory of Typo, the feral stray that adopted the SJ-R as her home more than 10 years ago and had to be put to sleep last week because she had large mammary gland tumors. I've gathered several pictures coworkers took of her over the years, and we're hoping, once I finish it, that we'll be allowed to hang it up somewhere in the building. Some other books I'm eager to dig into: the cupcake crawl, my reunion weekend at U of I with Sara, Heather and Steph this past April; a book of childhood family vacations (part of my long-term "scrapping the old, yellowing pictures" project); and a number of single layouts for my "favorite things" scrapbook, including Krispy Kreme, Einstein Bros. Bagels and meeting Boyz II Men. 

I decided to do a "favorite things" book back in March, during my last staycation, when I realized my tendency to take pictures of the things I love most in life. By "things," I mean things that are tangible (I should probably tackle people and concepts in a different book). For example, so far in my "favorite things" book, I have a lot of foods and food places -- cupcakes, Mel-O-Cream doughnuts, my mom's banana bread. I also have the old Doc Marten sandals I got just after college and wore for several summers, to the point of needing a strap repaired (after which I wore them for at least one more summer). And then I have a layout for all the Dave Matthews Band concerts I've been to. (I wore the sandals to a few of those!) It's fun to have a book dedicated to the small things that bring me joy. I'm all about taking pleasure in the little things. There just aren't enough "big" moments in life. We need to find happiness and contentment in the ordinary.

I'm sure in the coming days I'll become inspired for my next project. I have a few things to focus on before I can relax, though. I have a retreat next weekend on which I'm giving a talk, and I need to get through three more days of work. I'm more than ready for a week of leisurely scrapping, though. I know I can accomplish a lot in several wide-open days. Only seven days till then!