scrappassion

Doris

 

I will introduce you to Doris, my new sewing machine :) I have a habit of naming my machines/computers. My tread mill is Johnny and my first ever laptop was called Leopoldo. I know I'm weird. 

Doris is a Bernette 15 of the great Bernina family. It's advertised as "young design at an affordable price". I think the word "young" appealed to me:) Just kiddin'. I went to a Bernina retailer here in Rome and that was what they recommended after having failed to lure me to buy one of those fancy AND expensive models with a touch screen. Not for me. I'm a "mechanical-press-the-pedal" kind of girl.

So here is Doris in all its splendor:

All these yummy stitches of which I will probably use only half but at least they are all now available for me should I ever need them.

Why all this blabbing about my sewing machine?

Because I'm taking Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's It's Sew Easy online workshop which starts on this coming Monday. I met Julie at Pacs Paris (where I met also Nathalie and other talented teachers and old and new friends but more of that in another post) and got more and more into mixed media after taking her classes and after starting to follow her blog.

 

So I'm ready for this new adventure with Doris.

I actually do have a perfectly functioning sewing machine: it's a Singer Melody 50 from 20 years back for which I couldn't even find the manual on the internet (I've lost mine. I mean I know I have not LOST it, it's just buried somewhere here in the house and for the life of me I can't think where). I will need the manual and a couple of extra feet for it to be able to follow Julie's workshop so I thought "what the heck. After 20 years I really can buy a new sewing machine." The thing is that even though Doris came with 6 extra feet, the other two I will need I still had to order. So I guess I could have found those for my Melodie 50, but then again, I like Doris better:)))) 

I hope that I will gain confidence during the class to actually USE Doris to sew on paper and fabric and on my layouts! For now I'm still using my old sewing machine... which strangely enough does NOT have a name.

Oldies but goodies

Yep, I'm about to show you photos of my LSNED 09 album which I finished Saturday night. LSNED stands for "Learn Something New Every Day" and it was Shimelle's online class that I took in Sept 09. Yes, last year. She's done it this year too, but I didn't even think about doing that since my project from last year wasn't even done. I had gotten as far as Sept 12 but that's it. Luckily I had written down my journal every day and I even FOUND the notes and I had even picked out all the photos last year, so actually it was a piece of cake when I set my mind to it. I know, it took me more than a year to get it finished but here it is now in all its splendor. (I still have to find the coil to assemble the whole thing but I'm positive I'll find it somewhere here in the great chaos).

Some of you might remember the previous pages. You can find the last ones here and also clicking on "online classes" on the sidebar.

Here are all the pages from Sept 13 till Sept 30 and also the back covers.

"Skype is a fantastic invention"

"Good friends are the salt of the earth"

 

"I don't forget and forgive the wrongdoings as easily as I'd like to think."

 

"I truly love FLIP FLOPS (with bling)"

 

"I'm a happy person on Thursdays when the cleaning lady comes."

 

"Planning a trip ahead is half the fun."

 

"If I just closed the Internet, I'd get so much more done!"  (rats, I still have to make holes on the acrylic pages I've used here and there to add visual interest. The acrylic pages are cut from Heidi Swapp's and Tim Holtz's packaging)

"The 50mm lens is the best there is."

 

"Today I realized once again how grateful I am for my children."

 

"Today I remembered why I fear and hate dentists."

 

"I just love the sunny September days in Rome."

 

"I feel so much better when I create something."

 

"Good news make my day!"

 

"I just love weekends: less work, more fun and as a bonus my hubby does the cooking."

 

"I remembered how an unexpected gift can brighten your day."

 

"Today I remembered how hot my hubby is."

 

"Scrapbooking connects women all over the world."

 

"Today I realized that my lasagne is almost as good as my mussakà."

And the inside and outside back covers,

WHAT A GOOD FEELING TO HAVE COMPLETED THIS.

I still have 15+ projects to finish. I've abandoned some and I must have thrown away some because there's no way I have done close to 15 projects in the last year. At one point there were 27 unfinished minialbums and projects in a banana box... but I'll get there... one day... in the maybe not so near future...

Now I just might continue my Mykonos album... or not. I could also take a glass of prosecco and just chill on the couch watching TV.

A Week in the Life (Monday)

It's official: I'm doing A Week in the Life project with Ali Edwards. Actually my week started yesterday but I still have to download my photos from yesterday.

So far I have my album ready to go, and I've been journaling (list type) since yesterday morning and I have taken pictures. That's already an achievement. Let's see IF I will finish this project any time soon after this week... But at least I'm giving it a try.

Metal, metal, metal

The first prompt or assignment on Shimelle's "Something from Almost NOTHING" online class asked us to use metal on our page.

Here's my page:

 

I took inspiration from Sketchy Thursday's sketch for this. The "patterned paper" is a scrap paper where I had tried some distress inks and it just fitted here so perfectly. The tag is made using the same Distress Inks (Faded Jeans and Vintage Photo). I used here a resist technique I learned from Sir Tim. I used Donna Downey's stamp with Versamark on cream cardstock and poured clear embossing powder on it, heated it and inked it with the above mentioned DIs.Then I ironed the tag being careful not to use steam but using a scrap paper in between the tag and the iron. This way the embossing powder melted on the scrap paper and I was left with a nice distressed looking tag without the shiny and bumpy embossed look. I distressed the edges with the distressing tool and added some Walnut Stain on the edges Tied a piece of ribbon and attached an Ideology tag with a pin on it. That's one of my newer pieces of metal that I actually love and use. The other metal items on the LO are the title with MM mailbox letters (I think they are MM, they were one of my first purchases back in 2005!) and 20 some eyelets that I set in the journaling die cut with my Big Bite. A little bit of machine stitching around the "patterned paper" and the page was done.

Something from Almost Nothing

Yes, I'm taking another online class. This is Shimelle's Something from Almost Nothing class where the purpose is to use a lot of items from your existing stash and NOT buy new ones.

For now we have used metal embellies, ribbon, scraps of patterned paper and cardstock. Shimelle is doing an album with the theme Celebrate Life but I decided to create layouts with the same theme: practically layouts with photos that bring me joy and happiness using up the ever growing stash of scrapbooking goodies. 

Here's my first layout using up some scraps of patterned paper. Actually they are all from the same paper. I had a College Press die cut sheet and I used that as a template and cut up the Sassafras Lass paper, which for the life of me I couldn't use as such, getting a bunch of pretty diecuts. I matted them all on black cardstock (scrap pieces) and mounted them as a border to my photo in my layout. The ribbon I attached with Tim Holtz's Tiny Attatcher is old as is the background patterned paper from Basic Grey Phoebe collection. The only thing new (bought 2 months ago) are the American Craft vinyl stickers that I used for the title. Oh, also the buttons are old, so I used quite a bit of my existing stash for this layout featuring my husband and our son.

 

LSNED recap Sept 8 - 12 + front cover

Sono stata un po' impegnata questi ultimi giorni e non ho potuto aggiornare il blog. Adesso vedrete tutte le pagine insieme dal settembre 8 al 12 + la copertina. Sono proprio contenta di come sta venendo questo album.

I haven't had time to update the blog these past few days. Life got in the way :) I'll post the photos of all the pages from Sept 8 until Sept 12 + the front cover. I'm really happy of the way this album is coming together.

L'8 settembre era il giorno in cui Kristina è partita per la Nuova Zelanda, da qui la frase Nuova Zelanda è davvero lontana.

Sept 8 is the day when Kristina left for New Zealand hence the caption or the lesson of that day.

9 Settembre ho tirato fuori la scatola che contiene le lettere che ci siamo scambiate io e Franco dal 78 al 81 quando ancora non esistevano i cellularil, l'Internet, Skype... Qualche volta fa bene ricordarsi del passato.

Sept 9 I dug out the box which contains all the letters that Franco and I wrote to each other between '78 and '81 when there were no cell phones, no internet and no Skype. "Sometimes it's good to reminisce"

La lezione dell'10 settembre era Deliziarsi con qualcosa rende la giornata più dolce.

L'11 settembre ho capito che Seguire due corsi online nello stesso momento è un compito arduo.

La pagina è fatta di nuovo con l'acetato.  Another acetate page.

Condividere e legare con qualcuno ti fa sentire benissimo.

Ed ecco la copertina, fuori e dentro.

Here is the outside and the inside of the front cover.

Sneak peek of my Me TAV album

Questo è solo un assaggino del mio Me TAV album che sto facendo con Cathy Zielske.Si vede la struttura delle pagine e la mia scelta di cardstock, patterned papers e i blocchi di alfabeti. Avevo ricevuto un pacco di cardstock nero con il retro lucido (viola, blu notte, bordeaux ecc) nel goodie bag al CKU l'anno scorso ma non mi piacevano e non li avrei mai usati altrimenti. Qui andavano a pennello. Come patterned ho scelto un mix di BG Phoebe e WeR Tiffany. (sono nella fase di fucsia e verde acido)  Anche gli alpha blocks sono di Tiffany (colori coordinati) e come alfabeto ho usato gli stickers di Am Crafts. Cathy ci insegna come fare gli alpha blocks con il Photoshop ma ho preferito usare materiale che già avevo. Questo progetto mi piace da matti. Ho finito di tagliare ed incollare tutte le pagine, mi manca di finire il journaling sulle lettere (ne ho finite 6) e poi stamparli.

Here's a sneak peak of my MeTAV album I'm doing with Cathy Zielske. You can see the structure of the album and my choice of cardstock, patterned papers and the alpha blocks. I used black cardstock - a pack of black cardstock with a shiny dark colored backside was in a goody bag we received at CKU last year and I knew I would probably never use them. Here they are perfect. Can't remember the manufacturer though. My patterned papers are a mix of BG Phoebe and WeR Tiffany. (I'm into fuchsia and pea green right now!) The alpha blocks are also Tiffany, coordinating colors, on which I mounted Am Crafts stickers for each letter. Cathy teaches us how to make alpha blocks on Photoshop but I prefered to use everything I could from my stash. I love the project! I have all the pages cut and glued, now I need to finish the journaling on each letter (6 letters are done) and then print them. 

LSNED Sept 7

Lunedì scorso ho tirato un sospiro di sollievo dopo un'emozionante farewell party e barbecue per Kristina che abbiamo fatto la domenica.

Last Monday I was really happy that the farewell barbecue for Kristina that we held on Sunday was over with.

LSNED Sept 6

Questo è il retro della pagina del giorno 5. Non riesco a carburare la mattina senza il mio espresso:)

This is the backside of the day 5. I really can't cope in the morning without my espresso :)

LSNED Sept 5

La pagina di oggi è montata su un foglio acrilico trasparente. Ho inserito nell'album 4-5 pagine trasparenti che ho ritagliato dalle confezioni di abbellimenti di Heidi Swapp.

Today's page is mounted on a piece of transparent acrylic. I've added in the album 4-5 of these transparent pages that I've created from the embellishment packages of Heidi Swapp.

( Il lavandino sporco la mattina può rovinare tutta la giornata)