How Lazy Am I?

How are you adjusting to this strange new world? I finally settled into the working from home drill when the government announced school was heading back in a limited capacity. Now that I’ve wrapped my head around my new in-class routine, I thought I’d get back to posting before New Year’s rolled around!

One of my new favourite challenges on the My Memories forum is the faith challenge by Lori Imel. She provides a Bible quote and you create a scrapbook page around it. As you have probably learned, I procrastinate a bit (not at work though, which is interesting) so I have finally scrapped my littlest one’s Baptism. She is almost fourteen.

Okay, to be honest the very first scrapbook page I ever created was about twelve years ago and was a Baptismal page which featured all three of my girls. They wore the same gown which has been handed down from my husband’s side. Their great-grandmother and her brother were Baptized in it, as was my mother-in-law, all three of her kids, and two nieces and two nephews. However, my girls are the first Catholics to wear the dress. Maybe one day I’ll get around to posting that page up here, but as it’s not digital…

I was inspired to create another Sacramental page featuring the same kid on the occasion of her First Holy Communion. Not for Lori’s challenge but for a blog train challenge to use the great bits I collected. I guess now I need to make a three kids, one dress page for this Sacrament as they wore their cousin’s dress. Let’s see how long until I finish that one.

By the way, I managed to complete my CK-12 certification ages back. I actually finished two days after my last post and managed to procrastinate posting about it!

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

My CK-12 update

Time to give an update on my educational journey. Today I completed my fourth CK-12 assignment. Screenshot below.

Hold off on the kudos though as it may be time consuming to watch the webinars and complete the work but it is NOT hard! Any one interested in learning more about what CK-12 has to offer should look into it. You have five required webinars to watch and five required, very easy quizzes to complete and any entire year in which to do so. It’s free (they are privately funded by a massively wealthy family) and all they ask is that you pay it forward by telling others about a free educational resource. Not onerous and you can find great resources to supplement your teaching materials. End of spiel!

Digi-Mom

The screensaver on our computer is a slideshow of photos I’ve taken over the years.  You would think as someone who scrapbooks that I’d have done more with those pics but no, they’ve stayed in digital form. Thankfully,  when I decided join in on the My Memories digital scrapbooking challenges, I had plenty of pictures to choose from.

The picture used on this page is now sixteen years old! I only had given birth to one kid at that point but was featuring a very full belly as my second arrived a month later. In the shot is my eldest daughter’s hand and that of  her cousin, putting candies into a pile. We gather with my family for Easter brunch every year, except this one, and after eating the kids go play while the Easter Bunny hides chocolate treats. Then when all the goodies have been collected, the kids dump their findings into a big pile and watch eagerly as someone divides the sweets evenly between them.

The one requirement of this challenge was to use the free digital papers and embellishments given away during March’s blog train. Every month, there is a colour palette selected and the various designers from My Memories create free items with those colours. Mid-month they post on their blog pages and you hop from blog to blog  collecting the goodies. I’ve already hopped on board April’s blog train and am eager to get started on the next challenge presented by Over The Fence Designs.

Another challenge I’m planning on joining each month is called Follow the Recipe presented by Connie Prince. Essentially there are required items that your scrapbook page must include.  February’s recipe was:
-3 or more papers
-2 hearts
-1 flair
-1 ribbon
-1 scallop or lace border

My version was closely based on the “inspiration” page Connie provided which consisted of only one photo and although I quite liked how mine turned out, I wanted to include all my babies.

IMAGES TEMPORARILY REMOVED AS PER AGREEMENT WITH CSM, WILL REPOST ONCE PUBLISHED IN SPRING 2021 ISSUE!!

Amazingly, I’ve completed eleven challenges this month, four in March and one in February.  One of  my favourite things about digital scrapping is that you can easily add or delete photos or elements and move them around without making a mess…there’s enough of that in my house as it is!

“A picture is worth a thousand words, but a scrapbook is worth a million memories.”

Remedios Lina C. Villarosa-Garcia

One word

I have been sleeping like a baby.  Frequent wakings during the night – no tears though or dirty diapers, but yes, very unsettled with lots of tossing and turning. How about you? This pandemic has most of us on edge and out of sorts. Our routines are out of wack and there no set date for normalcy to return. The other night as I tossed and turned, I wrote some brilliant posts in my mind. But alas, with the rising sun most ideas fled from my brain.

A single thought stayed behind. One word. Just choose one word that means something important to you or is some goal you aspire to reach. The classroom teacher presented this to the kids and asked them to write about the word they selected, why it was significant and how to work towards it. I decided to join in and picked CREATE – it may seem easy but clearly I’ve struggled to keep up with this blog and I’ve spent less and less time crafting over the years.  I have my excuses, rationalizations and actual good reasons but my inability to get into my craft area and get going has had a negative effect on me.

It’s been harder to get motivated to create and the aim of my one word was to get my craft on again. The plan was simple – spend twenty minutes minimum each day in my craft area either scrapbooking, card making or tidying up my supplies so that I had the space to make something.  I’ve not been entirely successful but have days where I can spend an hour or so working my magic.

Made this in 2008 and still love it

This weekend, I really rose to the challenge thanks to Creative Memories Virtual Crop on Facebook. The challenge was that every four hours, they would post a new scrap map for you to attempt. I didn’t think I would manage to get all twelve layouts done but I did – thirteen actually as I took a wee walk and coming back, forgot that I’d already finish a particular challenge! No photos are attached to the layouts but that’s okay, I know what ones I want to use. I just need to get them printed.  Last summer at the PNE I managed to take 175 pictures of the girls and myself during our day there and loved the colours we saw throughout the day.

Such a fun day

My ice cream wings

With layouts planned by someone else and knowing what event I would be scrapping, I dove in. The hours past very quickly and I had an amazingly good time.

Initially I thought I would make digital layouts but I decided to pull out the papers, ink and stamps. As one lady said, she prefers the hands on approach as it “is like having a book in your hands to read vs a book on a nook or kindle. Something about holding/hands on.” As a library technician I appreciate her comment – but I love both paper books and my Kobo just as I love paper and digital crafting. Each has a time and place. Now I will proudly show of my efforts.

 

“Your humor is your compass and your shield. You can hone it into a weapon or you can pull its strands out to make your very own cotton-candy blanket. You can’t exist on a diet of humor alone, but you can’t exist on a diet without it, either.”

David Levithan

Crafts in the time of Covid-19*

Years ago I used to share my digital scrapbooking on this blog.  I’m at it again! Yes, some of the time on my tuchus in front of the computer has been spent creatively.  I still turn to MyMemories for great digital papers, quotes, and embellishments but lately, I’ve joined its forum to participate in various challenges.

I’m going to share a couple of my recent efforts and the My Memories freebies for those who scrap digitally. These two freebies are only valid until April 19th. If you are interested in starting to scrap digitally, I have a deal for you! My Memories has sent me an email that I’m allowed to forward to as many folks as I would like and in it is a link that will let you download their My Memories Suite 8 for FREE until April 30! The software is perfect for creating photobooks of past memories and scrapbook pages of what you are doing today (simply export to a JPEG and you can easily email your pages to those you want to share it with). Just leave me a comment if you want it and I’ll get in touch with you.

Absolutely Spring: Click here or on image

Mother May I: Click here or on image

I’m a total cheapskate so most of my digital downloads are ones I’ve managed to get for free. One great thing about some of these challenges is that they give you a freebie to use on your page or as a reward you for posting, sometimes it’s a mini kit from the online shop. There are also plenty of free items in the shop and most months there is a My Memories blog hop where you can get beautifully colour co-coordinated digital items from many designers – one should be starting today on the MM blog. So here are a couple of my pandemic creations. First is my Dr Bonnie page – love that woman! – the pandemic related words were given to be used with the Staying Home scrap challenge.

Next is about another one of my passions -reading.  The Keep Calm challenge freebie had many options to pick from: Keep calm &:  Stay Home, Shop Online, Work From Home, Be Kind, Home-School, Pray, Watch TV, or Give Thanks – all of these apply in my household but I picked one.  As you can see from my page I use GoodReads to track my reading – I even have a feed on this blog – because I read so much!

Anyhoo, more another day – maybe!

“Scrapbooking isn’t about scraps of paper and photos.  Scrapbooking is about scraps of life – yours and those special to you.” 

Rebecca Sower

*Apologies to Gabriel García Márquez for bastardizing Love in the Time of Cholera for my own giggle.

Time flies except in a pandemic

When I started this blog ten and a half years ago, I had such grand plans to craft frequent pretty, poetic, and pithy posts. But as the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  It’s been over two years since my last attempt to resurrect this little beast. This time, perhaps…

Nowadays, time seems to be flowing rather differently. As the title says, time flies except in a pandemic. Normally the days are busy with rushing the kids to school and myself to work, planning dinners, activities and gatherings. Now with Covid-19’s insidious spread we are staying home to flatten the curve and March break has yet to end, a month after it started.  With the wonderful weather we’ve been having, it should feel like an early summer vacation but we’ve nowhere we can go – I’ve always hating grocery shopping so no joy in Muddville with that chore – and around the block is considered an outing right now.

Lethargy is running rampant through the household with teenage complaints of “It’s too early” at 10 am and nagging is becoming par for the course with regards to this nightmare called remote learning.  High school was quite a while ago for me so in order to help, I’m forced to learn again!  And as time is moving like molasses going uphill in January and I’m spending so much time in front of the computer anyway, I’ve decided to use that time to better myself and to create again.

At the elementary school where I work, a colleague mentioned that she was CK-12 certified when we were bandying about ideas on how best to assist our students while they are at home. Ultimately, we decided to use Readworks and Khan Academy to ease the kids into the online learning world but the idea of certification struck a chord with me.  I love to learn and research but I often need a carrot dangling at the end to keep me motivated. So I’ve jumped in and yesterday began the journey to become a CK-12 certified educator – it’s free and completely online.  I’m blabbing about it online to ensure I continue. You, people of the internet who may happen to read this, are the public I’ve chosen to announce this to in an effort to hold me accountable throughout this process. Fortunately they allow a year to complete this but with the expectation that we  are in for a bit of a wait before life returns to normal, I’m hoping to get this done before June. I’ll keep you posted…hopefully!

Okay, that’s the “better myself” part.  Next post will be about my creative stuff.

 

“No school without spectacular eccentrics and crazy hearts is worth attending.”
Saul Bellow

 

 

Raise a glass to Spring Break!

Living where I do, Spring Break is when the sun shines, the flowers start to bloom and the windows can be thrown wide open (for a very short time!). It’s also the time when I get to dig out some craft supplies from under the mound of debris that builds up in my craft area when school is in session.

As I mentioned last post, I indulged myself by purchasing the amazing Cricut Explore Air 2. This past week, once I finished load upon load of laundry,  I watched innumerable YouTube tutorials and decided to try my hand with the Cricut Holographic Sparkle vinyl in Fuchsia.  So pretty!!

My new camping wine cup!

Don’t you love how they look in different light?

My favourite thing about the wine cup is the lid. During one camping trip last year, I lost a glass of wine every single day due to my girls bumping into my side table — never again!!

But I went a little crazy last month when I discovered Facebook groups for those who adored their Cricut machines.  Looking at everyone’s posts inspired me to buy several of these stainless steel wine cups and several flasks in both white and pink! Now I just need to make them all extra beautiful. Thank goodness Spring Break lasts another week.

 

“Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.”― Louis Pasteur

 

One Craft Addiction is Apparently Not Enough!

This summer I bought myself an amazing birthday present. Why? Because I’d been eyeing one for a few years and decided that I deserved to treat myself… a beautiful Cricut Explore Air 2.

Isn’t she a beauty?

 

Anyhoo, I’ve been experimenting with paper cuts and vinyl too.  Loads of fun but it could easily become a serious and expensive addiction.

H’s water bottle

H’s class all received identical water bottles and I’m completely grossed out by the thought of drinking from someone else’s glass or bottle and I DO NOT share cutlery – even with my kids.  So it’s a no-brainer that I’d have to clearly indicate which one is hers.  It was my first time doing a project with vinyl. Not too shabby!

 

I also tried my hand at Christmas ornaments…who (pun intended) doesn’t love this face?

 

Hmm, what’s missing?

We decorated our classroom doors for Christmas and well, I left my NEEDS at home!  Yup, I did fix it but it left folks confused for a day as the world really is not a stable influence.

 

 

Still struggling a bit with this one as my FAITH won’t stick…yup, another funny! But seriously, I had to make a second vinyl Faith as the first one wouldn’t stay on the wood.

 

 

My current project. I just have to find the time to stick my words on and glue my pretty little flowers to the plaque.

 

“Creativity is Inventing, Growing, Taking Risks, Breaking Rules, Making Mistakes And Having Fun.”  – Mary Lou Cook

Wow…my site’s still alive!

Ha, holy cow, it’s been 3 1/2 yrs since I posted last and this beast is still up and running! Honestly, I’m going to try and post at least twice a year – snort!

But if you’re still out there folks, here’s one of those freebies that  I used to post more frequently back in the old days. Links are valid until January 7th.

http://www.mymemories.com/store/share_the_memories_kit_1

http://www.mymemories.com/store/share_the_memories_kit_2

 

Inks & Thinks isn’t the only thing I’ve been neglecting to update. My Goodreads feed shows a book I finished back in Sept and I’ve read tonnes since then…but, you guessed it, haven’t updated that either! And although things have changed since my last, long ago post, I still love quotes, so here goes.

“For a really long time, I thought being different was a negative thing. But as I grew older, I started to realize we were all born to stand out; nobody is born to blend in.”

Halima Aden

Yikes!

Just realized that I haven’t posted in almost a year! Clearly my time is going by very quickly. Can’t say that I’ve accomplished anything major in the past year or even created any cards/scrap pages worth posting. Guess I should clean my craft area and get back to it.

In the meantime, here are 3 freebies for you.

I hope you can make good use of them!

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.
FDR