During my Vacation Break...

It seems that I can only scrap purposefully for a limited time and then I have to take a break to play with my supplies.  But first, I must straighten up my area.  This includes not only putting things away, but going through most everything.  Sometimes I reorganize a few things, but the most beneficial of this act is that I find the things I don't think about.  For instance, I had forgotten that I have sooo much of that Echo Park that I couldn't live without nine months ago (remember when I was in the Dark Days and all I wanted was a pack of EP This & That??). Also, I can't believe it's been 8 months since I fell in love with 5th and Frolic! I still love the October Afternoon I'm hoarding and plan to use it on my brother's and my childhood albums.  And what about the basket of embellishments?  Sticker sheets, foam shapes, doilies, frames, pockets - so many things that I just pass over in lieu of my new supplies.  And so it is that, for a little while at least, I plan to try to integrate a few of those things into my scrapping.

Playing with my supplies after a major project also takes the form of mindless pages without intention. Finding a photo I love and using it to showcase new supplies or use old supplies.  These pages actually make me feel rather guilty.  Shimelle stesses telling the stories so much, that making layouts just for the sake of playing with my supplies feels rather... wrong.  But oh well, sometimes my favorite pages are the ones I did just to dribble my new mist or to 'fussy-cut' flowers or to stamp something.  Besides, if I have to have purpose with each page, I'm gonna have to stop drooling over those Glitter Girl layouts.

And so it was that after finishing up the photos I had on-hand of our vacation, it was time I started scrapping with no direction - using muted colors, old photos, anything different.  Here are a few of those layouts:

This of course is My Minds Eye with a little help from Fancy Pants and a Walmart Doily.  And that's the deal with this layout - to my great surprise, the doilies on that Fancy Pants are the exact pattern of the doily I got in a pack from WalMart - EXACT.  Of course, the other deal with this page is that I took a lot of those ideas Glitter Girl was using in her wedding album and put them to use.  I like it.

Oooh, Aaah... I still have Maggie Holmes in stock.  Oh and new Heidi Swapp Color Shines! My HS inventory now is made up of: Gold, Tinsel, Chartreuse (hmmm), Mint Green, Teal, Primrose, and Sweet Cherry.  We need to talk about this later.

This is one of the benefits of remembering what you have - mixing and matching.  I like the CP Maggie Holmes paired with the MME Find Your Wings.  

Now to talk about those HS Color Shines.  I've had my Gold for about 5+ months, and now it seems to not want to come together properly even when I shake it really well.  Is anyone else having this problem?  Is there some secret, or an expiration date or is it just me as usual?  Also, just a reminder - in my opinion, I could have stayed away from Chartreuse... it's lovely in the bottle, but on my pages it just looks like a dirty gold (but I must admit it was perfect for my peacock layout - but that's the only perfect one so far).  Also, when I splatter or drip, the Cherry and Primrose look so similar - same with the Teal and Mint - but when I look at these photos, they are so obviously different colors. What's up with that?  Maybe I just need to use the photographs in a book and throw the layouts away (NOT!!) But anyway, when I spray them as intended, they are very different indeed. Oh, and so you know, the Tinsel is the perfect color for all that gray that's in the new lines. All in all, I love them all (and GiGi said they look beautiful on the shelf - bonus!)!!!  And now all the colors are available at Michaels!! Woo hoo!

Okay, that's all for today.  My monthly kits coming in soon so I'm trembling with excitement.  I hope every is as scrappy as me!

Stay Safe and Scrap On!

“When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time."― Lady Gaga