Once in a While...

In my life before scrapbooking, I was a serious lover of crafts. There are very few crafts that I haven't tried...and passed on...until scrapbooking. When I discovered scrapbooking, the need to craft was replaced with the need to create scrapbooks. The various crafts came and went as my hobby-of-the-month-or-two, but scrapbooking has "stuck around" for just over nine years now.

Maybe once a year I get a wild hair, as my friend Leigh Ann says, and do a tiny bit of crafting, just to prove I've still got it in me.

On our last trip to Mississippi I watched a show on DiY called Embellish This!...Dena Fishbein, the host of the show, demonstrated how to cover a lightswitch plate in lengths of ribbon. The project can be seen here. Well, of course, that looked like a cool use of ribons and it was just enough to get the craft bug going again.

So, here's tonight's creation--

It's a very simple project, using a precut photo mat from the frame department at Michaels and many lengths and widths of ribbon. It was fun and I can see it being a neat project to repeat with different ribbons. It would also be cool placed on a scrapbook page with hinges. The mat gives it extra sturdiness, making it the perfet flap for hidden journaling. It also has potential as the cover of a small book. Lots of ideas...that's why I enjoy this hobby...there are always so many options.

In other news...my new Club Scrap Leather Album came today...it's official. I'm in deep like! That is one fine looking album! Shipping was awesomely fast and it was packed really well. However, I wish there had been a reminder on the album page on the website that I needed to order extension posts if I really wanted to fill it up. It's a large album but only comes with one set of one-inch posts. That means I can only fit about ten pages in my new album. Do you *know* how many pages I have waiting to go into a new album?? Many. Bunches. Tons. So tomorrow I'm going to Home Depot and get some big-moma album posts! The ones for *real* scrapbooks. LOL!

I did some re-arranging today in ye ole scrap space. I'm cleaning out and I've discovered that I have too many scraps. I know...most every scrapper on the planet has too many scraps. It's a side effect of our craft. They just seem to hang around and multiply. I *need* to do some pages using scraps. Desperately. Someone on 2Peas should do a challenge.

Lastly, remember the Pebbles/EK Success lettering templates called ABC Tracers? If you do, you've probably been scrapbooking several years! I have two vintage editions of these books, Book 1 and Book 2, seen here:


These books have excellent ideas for embellishing hand-cut or die cut letters and titles. They are filled with sample pages in the classic, colorful Pebble in my Pocket style. If you would like to own these books, leave me a comment somewhere on my blog (anon is ok) and then email me and let me know that you want the books. I'll mail them out to the first person who asks.

They are vintage. You can tell because they originally sold for $6.95...and idea book for $6.95 is unheard of nowadays. LOL!

For the record, yes, I am bribing people for comments. It's true. I have no shame. I love to see comments...comments make my day. Sometimes, I feel like I'm having a totally one-sided conversation here...so indulge me a little. Thank you.