The Babbling Brooks

The Quilling Patch! Great GSD Files for FREE!!

One of my favorite tools for scrapbooking and other crafts is my Wishblade . It makes cutting your own designs a snap! There's lots of help on the web when you need it and several places to get free cutting files. One of them is The Quilling Patch. Lisa makes beautiful files! And right now she's giving away one per day. You can get them HERE . My favorite thing to do with my Wishblade is cutting titles in whatever font I chose for my scrapbooking. One of the other things I want to do is cut vinyl pieces for my windows and walls! If you own a cutter, check out Lisa's site! Her files are available in GSD and SVG format.  

Helmar USA.....Call for Design Team!

Helmar Adhesives of Australia is expanding their market into North America and is looking for design team members in the USA and Canada. My friend, Tracy, has been on their team and done many projects for them that have been used in advertising and at trade shows. She has been named VP of Sales and Marketing and is helping put together this design team. You can get all the information and learn how to apply on her blog at Treasure the Moments . Good luck! 

Minnie Mouse

I've been at the scrapping table again :) Legend was so excited about having breakfast with Minnie and her friends he could hardly stand it!

 

 

Run, Jump, Splash....

Legend loves to play in the pool. He'll run and jump in over and over and over. I took this photo in July when we were at Ocean Shores in Washington. I took a lot of pool pictures, but this is my favorite!

More studio pictures.....

I've had a request for some additional photos showing how I've sorted and labeled the storage in my studio. My cardstock is sorted by color, patterned paper by color, theme or, in some cases, manufacturer. Embellishments are mostly sorted by color and some by theme. Rubber stamps are stored in the Iris carts below my worktable and are sorted by theme. Each drawer has a number and I intend to compile a binder of all my stamps with numbered pages corresponding to the drawers showing what is in each one. IT should be easy to add new stamps and keep it up to date. For the alphabet sets stored in the acrylic drawers from The Container Storeabove the work table I used part of the original packaging as labels to show the font. Ribbon is stored in 2 large open top glass containers that I found at Walmart. Some of them are still on the cards they came on. Some of them have been rolled on to old fashioned clothes pins that are from The Dollar Store. Chipboard alphabets are stacked in acrylic containers from The Container Store  . They are right at my worktable where they are easy to get to! I have tools, photo pencils,scissors, exacto knife, etc. in a Tool Turn-About from Pampered Chef. Right behind it I've put a few small nails in the wall where I hang a brayer, an 18" steel ruler, and a basket that holds my adhesives. Photos are sorted according to the album they'll go in...for example, Legend 2008, Disney, Mountain Dreams, Russia, etc. The boxes hold 4x6 and 5x7 prints and if I've printed an enlargement I slip a note inside to remind me. Memorabilia is sorted and stored in plastic expanding files I found at the dollar spot in Target. Enlargements are filed in document boxes, again from The Container Store. I love that place! If there are specific questions you have, feel free to leave a comment and I'd be happy to answer them...

                          

The Studio at Mountain Dreams...

I've had a lot of requests for pictures of my studio. Here it is! Since we were moving to a new state and building a new home I had the opportunity to build the room exactly the way I wanted it. There was a lot of planning to get things right. It is wired with cable, extra phone lines, and plenty of outlets, so I could reorganize if I wanted to...but I don't see that happening. The outlets behind the furnishings work on switches and I also have some higher up on the wall to use with chargers, heat tools, etc. The floor is heated porcelain tile, easy to clean and warm in the winter! There are 2 skylights on the northwest side of the room that let natural light pour in all day long. I took the pictures with my wide angle lens with natural light, then used the photomerge feature in Adobe Photoshop Elements to get an entire wall in the picture. All the furnishings and most of the storage was purchased at IKEAwith the exception of the work table (standing height) which I got at Costcoand the photo ledges which are from Pottery Barn. The drawer units beneath the worktable are Iris carts with the wheels removed. The shelf above it sits on top of the carts (thanks to Cheryl S. for that idea!). Each drawer is labeled (as is everything else in the room) and has a piece of patterned paper on the inside of the front to give a more uniform look (thanks to Paula W. for that idea!). The white frosted paper holders and the pale yellow storage pieces (the Shelf-It series) are from Cropper Hopper. The stackable paper trays are made by Design Dynamics and can be ordered online at several scrapbooking sites. All the wood storage pieces and the photo boxes are from IKEA and I'm putting my Longaberger baskets to good use! I love my play space, hope you do, too!

         

In Honor of Gigi...

Our friend, Gigi, is the #1 Mouse fan and the best tour guide you could ever hope for at Disneyland. And besides that, she's a truly great friend and we love her dearly (you, too, Darrell!) She loves taking little ones to Disneyland to see the magic in their faces and smiles. Legend had such a fun time staying with us at Darrell and Gigi's, they are just like having another set of grandparents!

Two for the Disney Album...

 

There's no doubt that Legend is too cute...

Here's the proof!

Disneyland...Main Street

Another one done for the Disney album!

The Disney Album...

As I sit here listening to reports of Hurricane Ike and wondering about the aforementioned people with no brains, I've gotten a few more pages done for the Disney album.

          

Not the best scans...some of the edges are cut off, but you can get the idea!

Back to those photos...

I finally have my studio pretty well put together and organized for scrapbooking, stamping, painting, and whatever else comes along! (OK, I'll share pictures of that soon.) So I've gotten started again on a scrapbooking project...those photos from our trip to Disneyland with Legend in 2006 for Disney's 50th Birthday celebration. I'm so glad to have my Wishblade to cut letters, words, and whatever else I want...normally I would scan and stitch my scrapbook pages to share, but I didn't want to put this one of my scanner because of the beads and glitter so we're stuck with a photo.

We'll be leaving for Helena in the morning. John is going to attend the search and rescue course for pilots that is put on by the state of Montana. He'll be busy from Friday afternoon till the end of the weekend. I'm going along for the ride and the chance to just relax, read, catch up on photos and my blog (assuming the internet connection is good!), and so I won't miss my sweetie for 2 days. I wanted to make another trip to Glacier National Park before it closes for winter, so we've decided we'll stay on the east side Sunday night and come back through the park on Monday.

Goody Box From Lisa Bearnson...

If you are a hard core scrapbooker (or are married to one), you know who Lisa Bearnson is. If not you are scratching your head wondering who the heck she is...Lisa is the founding editor of Creating Keepsakes magazine which pretty much sets the standard for the industry. She has her own scrapbook show on QVC, has written many books, etc., etc., etc. and has made millions doing it. She has a blog. Every now and then she runs a little contest on her blog (which usually has nothing to do with scrapbooking). About 3 weeks ago, I won! Today I received $50 worth of Creating Keepsakes products in the mail. How cool is that? One of the items is Lisa's September Kit of the Month, which happens to be a travel journal! I know I'll put that to good use on our next big trip whenever that may be. It would be perfect for our return to Australia :) Thanks, Lisa!

Scrapbooker Alert!

John and I went to Costco today. As we were walking in I saw a woman walking out with a big pack of patterned paper in her arms. Naturally, I went right to work to find it. Holy Moly...it's 360 sheets of Wild Asparagus Patterned Papers (contained in 2 books) by My Mind's Eye. In each of the 2 books you get 3 sheets of 60 patterns, so a total of 6 sheets of each. The cost.....drum roll...$13.49. That's right....I figure if you were to find it in an LSS (Local Scrapbook Store for you non-scrappers) at the low, low price of 40 cents per sheet that would be $144.00. I bought two packs saving a total of $261.02. Well, that's how I explained it to John. Anyway, it's a heck of a deal even if you don't care for all of the patterns. Run, don't walk, to your nearest Costco to see if it's on the pallets!

 

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My New Toy :)

Well sure, I could have spent those extra dollars I'm earning in the construction business for something like the extra money our oversized tub is costing or light fixtures or the upgrades to our garage doors and openers or the glass tiles I want in the master bathroom or the extra window we're adding to the house or the expansion on the back deck or ..........but THIS is way more fun! I had planned on getting a Nikon D80, but those extra dollars put me into the D200 :) The battery is still charging, but I hope to snap a few shots tomorrow and at least learn the basics of the camera so I can get some great shots of Legend being his sweet self next week. Stay tuned!

Doing The Happy Dance With My New Toy!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

It's here! My Wishblade arrived on Thursday in a rather beat-up box courtesy of DHL. It survived and I am happily cutting cardstock and stockpiling words for the scrapbook pages I want to do. The Wishblade is a computer controlled cutter. I'll be using it mostly for scrapbooking. I was a little worried about the learning curve to get this thing cutting, but so far I've been able to make it work. I first saw it at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Portland over a year ago when it was brand new. Because of the price and the fact that I knew we would be moving and putting our things in storage and who knows what, I decided to wait to buy. On my birthday John suggested I go ahead and buy it, Happy Birthday to Me! I started researching prices online and found that a new version with new software was due out in March. They weren't even selling them then, just taking preorders. Lucky me, my timing was perfect. This new version while still tricky is so much easier to learn than the original software and doesn't require other programs to do some of the options. So, here I am....plugging away and obtaining little successes along the way :)

We had a great visit with our friend Dorothy yesterday. She is in town for a Ptarmigan Village board meeting. We met her and her grandsons, Ian and Isaac, for dinner last night at Mambo's. John had Saffron Lobster Ravioli this time. What a colorful dish. I couldn't eat a whole order of that as I don't care that much for saffron, but he enjoyed it.

    

On the home front, we are planning to get our goods from storage in Tacoma the first week of April. We discovered that it will be several hundred dollars cheaper to do a local rental and pay mileage than to do a one-way rental of a UHaul truck in Tacoma and leave it in Eureka. Go figure! So, we'll be lumbering over and back in a 26' truck...over on Thursday, April 5th...load up on Friday, April 6th...back on Saturday, April 7th...unload at the rental house and turn in the truck late on Sunday, April 8th (Happy Easter :). Pray for dry weather!

It's a beautiful place :)

What a beautiful day we had yesterday with bright blue skies and newly fallen snow covering the meadows, mountains, and trees. We have lots of days like this! I am not missing the gray, rainy skies that I grew up with. The day ended perfectly when we left Jerry's Saloon in Fortine after having indulged in the Friday Enchilada Special. We were greeted by a full moon shining brightly over the mountaintops and lighting up the snow and 5 whitetail deer. It was a beautiful drive home :)

We've done a lot and accomplished a lot over the last week. Last Saturday I went to an all day scrapbook class at All About Memories (AAM) in Columbia Falls. I had a terrific time and met some nice people. AAM is a huge scrapbook store and has a large classroom in the back where they have something going on almost every day. The class I attended was taught by Stacy Burb of EK Success and Kristy Doolen of Making Memories (and several other manufacturers). Here's the projects we made. Guess who will be getting a Sesame Street Band-Aid box :)

John spent 2 days this week working with Paul on the neighbor's house. He helped install the fireplace and did some wiring. He said one day he was standing in what will be their living room and looked out the window at the same view that will be ours (below). There was softly falling snow and incredible quiet and he realized that a year from now he'll be standing in our living room looking at the same thing :)

We've had quite a bit of new snow here at Big Mountain over the last week...probably added close to another foot. Our long icicles are back and the SUV from Florida is almost "buried". When we open the door we are confronted with a wall of snow :)

We both got our Montana drivers license...without a test. It is up to examiner as to whether you have to take a written and/or driving test. I guess we both looked sane enough and old enough (but not too old :) to be safe on the road cause she just had us fill out the paperwork and show her the money. The second hurdle was to get our vehicles registered. I was able to do that in Lincoln County (where Eureka is located) and secured a temporary registration for our new utility trailer. We are going to Washington on Monday and will be bringing the Honda back (currently stored at my sister's). Not only is the weather too bad for John to ride it all the way to Montana, but the tabs are expired. We no longer have the ramps to put the bike in the truck. John wanted to get a little utility trailer anyway, so we figured now was the time. We found a perfect one at Costco! I told John I was glad that he was the man and not me cause there he was in the snow getting the tongue installed, etc. so that we could tow it home. John got his first choice for a personalized plate on the truck, I got my third choice for the Beetle. I'll share those when we get them back and on the vehicles. Anyway, I guess all that makes us official Montana residents and they will want us to start paying state income tax!

 

We also found another yummy place to eat...the Chicken Noodle Cafe. It's downtown on Main Street in Kalispell and is exactly what it sounds like! The chicken noodle soup is awesome with homemade noodles and big chunks of chicken. The sandwiches come in large or extra-large! John chose a bleu cheese burger and I had the grilled cheese. All the bread is made on premises. The waitress brought some homemade potato chips with our sandwiches. Mmmmmm, good!

As I mentioned, we'll be leaving for Washington on Monday. We both have dentist appointments on Tuesday. Yes, that's right...we are not changing dentists. I've been going to the same place for over 20 years and they are that good! They are virtually pain free and very child friendly. If you need a good dentist, call Dr. Neal Wanner in Kent, 253-852-3929! More appointments and visiting friends and family will fill up the rest of the week. Our thanks to Lynn and Arthur who are letting us stay with them, see you soon!