I am trying a new challenge, using a digital stamp.  At Ildi Co's Creative Challenges there is a new challenge to use the colors of lilac and cocoa.  This is my take on that challenge.  It is my first attempt at using a digital stamp.  This could get addicting, I can see.  Well, here it is:

Not in school yet!

I have been bummed out the past couple of weeks.  I thought I was going back to school, for my last opening.  Hah!  I went to see the doctor about my elbow, and he said that I was not to return to work until October 17.  I am taking physical therapy and counting the days.  My co-teachers say they miss me, but they are working with a sub, who is a brand new teacher.  Hopefully the time will go quickly.  I am going to try some new things with scrapping, perhaps even digital scrapping.  That will help pass the time, I am sure. 

Back to work

I took Christina back to her work today, stopped at Joanne's to see what was on sale (papers), and then came home. I spent the afternoon doing some cleaning downstairs, and trying to straighten things up. I did make some progress and hope to do more tomorrow, after I get my hair cut. I have to take pictures.....I keep telling myself that and sooner or later I will remember them. Oh, it feels good to see some of my room getting organized. If only I can keep it up.

Quiet time

Today I had a quiet, relaxing day. Christina was awake until after 3 a.m., and got up at 8, so there wasn't a lot of sleep in our house. Mom is still under the weather, so Christina and I went downstairs to the scrap area, and she cut papers and glued them on each other, while I cleaned up the area somewhat.
Around 12:30, Sandy and Chrissy arrived with goodies for the CTMH party. Shortly after that, Kathy Miller arrived, our demonstrator. We had a good time, and Sandy as the hostess, got some really great goodies! Our next party will be Sept 12, and Chrissy will host it, in my basement.

Summer Fun is Almost Gone

I am not sure where the summer has gone, but boy, it is almost gone. School starts in a couple of weeks, and with that, my last first day of school. (Hooray!) As my friend Sandy says, this will be a year of lasts....last open house, back to school night, winter break (Christmas vacation), etc. Sometime between now and January, I will decide if my last day of school is March 1 or June 30. I am definitely retiring.


What have I done this summer? So many things...vacation in Canada...Montreal area, my niece came to visit my mom, my granddaughters came to visit me, I fell on vacation and broke my elbow. I have gone to CKC in Valley Forge, Pa and will be going to Scrapbook Expo in Somerset, NJ the end of August. I have taught a couple of classes, and have many pictures to upload with cards and things I created.


I have been doing a lot of surfing the internet and found some great places to visit. One place you may want to visit is http://www.simonsaysstamp.com/ . They have so many of the newest, greatest and best things available. Not only can you find stamps, but all kinds of other things you might need.

If you check out http://priscillastyles.blogspot.com/, you can find all kinds of ideas, challenges, and things to start you brain creating things. There are so many ideas as well as tutorials and challenges, you don't know where to begin. Check out their blog. It is fantastic!

I will be adding more information shortly. I need to take my granddaughters to the airport, then pick up my daughter, Christina.

Time marches on

Ok...ok...I know I said I was going to blog more. I guess summer and no school has me catching up on things. I have been busy. Went on vacation to Canada and had a great time. We saw beautiful sights, stayed on an island in the St. Lawrence River and relaxed. The downsides...well, it was COLD!! They were having record low temperatures. It was in the 50's, the 40's and the 30's! We even had snow one day!!! (Who would think snow in July?) The other thing is I fell on our second day of the trip and found out later I broke my elbow. That put a bit of a damper on things. Our insurance doesn't work in Canada, so I basically iced the elbow and when I got home I saw the doctor. At first they said it wasn't broken, but later, after a MRI, they found out it was broken.

I have been managing. I have a couple of cards I will upload a little bit later.

Where has the time gone?

As I look at this blog, I wonder where the time went? Wow, almost 2 months since my blog was updated. I have to do better at this.

There is no real excuse for not blogging, except that it was the end of school....and oh how I needed for the end of the school year to arrive! It was such a bad year with the kids and iwth administration. I often wonder who is worse....the kids or the administrators.

I am running out the door for right now, but will be back later today to update you with all that is going on. Until later.....by!

Here is a scrapbook page I created for Christina's album. She was getting her hair cut and she thought she was the greatest. I must admit, she sat quietly in the chair and let Ann cut her hair. There are times that doesn't happen.

Happy Scrapbook Day, late

I hope many of you had a good time scrapping yesterday. It was national scrapbook day. I spend the time cleaning in my scrap room and will be celebrating it next Saturday. Ah....on that day, my scrappers don't know it, but they will be getting goodie bags and something special in their kits. We will spend the time having lots of fun.

Well, at school, our state testing is done, so now all we have to do is test those who were absent and then teach. It will be difficult to get the kids rounded back to study. We have been pushing for the test all year. Now we still have things to do.

What a month!

April has flown by and things have been hopping here at my house. I need a break! Calgon, take me away!

I brought Christina home for Easter. During that time, she was fantastic. She was able to stay with us from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning. When I took her back to work, she did not want to be there. She wanted to go back home with Mommy. She cried and cried. It broke my heart and I was tempted to just bring her home...but I know that isn't possible nor is it what she needs.

Good Friday morning, Dave decided that he needed to see the eye doctor. He has been having floaters for over a week. Of course he didn't call earlier in the week, when it would have been more convenient to take him to the doctor. He made the call and was told to come in at 2:00. We were going to take Christina out for lunch, so we decided to combine both the trip to the eye doctor, then lunch. At the eye doctor's we were told that it appeared the cornea was partially detached. The doctor called a colleague, then told us to drive immediately to that office and "Do not stop anywhere, even at a Waa-Waa." Scary words. We went and the nurse was watiing for us.

Dave saw the doctor and he told us we had a choice of 3 options and 2 included overnight stays in Wills Eye Hospital. The 3rd option was to have a relatively new procedure done in the office. We chose the new procedure. They operated immediately and Dave was then told to keep his head tilted or laid on it's side 24/7. That was tough! Dave was good, though and spent days in bed, laying on his left side. We had to go to Will's Eye hospital Saturday morning for a check up. Things looked good. Friday we went back for another appointment, and things still looked good. Finally all Dave needed to do was sleep on his left side in the evenings. We go back in 3 weeks.

Now that we took care of that, I had to finish my mom's taxes and I had to make sure the books for Eastern Star were ready for an audit. Got both things taken care of and then it was time to go back to school and to begin our state testing. The kids are trying and have extended time.

That brings us up to current. Now to move onward.

I have registered for Creating Keepsakes Convention. That is the end of July. My friends, who are going with me, have registered too.

AC Bailey

I recently joined 'AC Bailey as a consultant. When the company, I Remember When, closed its doors, it was a shock. Monday morning I was a senior consultant with the company, having been with them for over 5 years. Monday afternoon, at 4 pm, I got an email from head quarters, saying that as of 4 pm the company was dissolved. Just like that! No one seemed to see this coming. We had started planning for a big convention, a new catalog was launched, and we had just revamped the guidelines...new web store, new web pages, new heirachy of leadership.

After looking at a couple of different places, I decided to sign with AC Bailey. I like their products, they have a great forum, and everyone seems friendly.

If you should decide to check the company out, maybe even order something, put my name, ConnieWalsh in the spot for the consultant.

Finally!!

I finally got all the inches finished that I needed to do. I still have not been able to find where the missing inchies went, and maybe I never will. They seem to have have just disappeared from sight. If I can remember to take a picture, you will be able to see all the inchies. Everyone did a great job.

Spring break is almost here! Yay!!! I hope to get some organization done in the scrap area. Some things are being straighted up, slowly but surely. I have decided on a plan of action, so that is a start. Since I have been placing things in bags or boxes, I am going to sort things into different catagories. One box will be for stickers, one for rub-ons, one for other embellishments. I will put the brads and eyelets in a pan where they will be sorted. The same with any buttons. Other things I hope to be able to put where they belong.

Until later, I have to find some new things to create. Bye.

Let's try some digital layouts with a new project!

Here is a picture of some CD cases that I put together to create something different. I saw this somewhere on line. (I will need to pay closer attention as to where I find things, so I can give credit where credit is due.) I gave it to my mother, as a little remembrance. Each side shows my parents at different stages in their marriage. In this picture, on the left, is the last picture of my mom and dad. It was about a month before my dad passed away. The picture on the right show them on their honey moon, so you have a span of years from 1948 to 2007.


This view, on the left, shows my parents during Easter 1955, when my mother made our Easter outfits, hers included, from old navy sailor uniforms of my dad's. On the right side, you can see my parents during the 1970's.

When I saw this project, I decided I wanted to try it, but I didn't have any layouts this small. Wanting to try my hand at digital layouts, I decided to give this a try. I kind of like how it came out. Each side has it's own digital layout and they are coordinating papers. I like how it came out. Surprisingly, each digital layout took me just about an hour to create. This is something I want to explore in more detail.

If you have any questions, please email me. See you later.

Today I as working on finishing up some inchies that I have. I must admit, I have been very, very remiss in completing this and returning them to all parties. Somehow my husband misplaced several of the inchies and I have not been able to find them. I have had to remake several. Now I have just one more to put on the sheet and they will be done. I have to also count up the number of sheets to send to each participant. I will be so glad when they are finished.

I am also looking for some paper. The class kit I created last week is at a halt. I cannot find the papers I used. If I cannot find them in the next day or so, I will just use different papers for the kit. This is the layout for the class kit.

I am interested in your opinion of this layout. Let me know what you think. Until later....bye for now.

Hello again!

I am in the process of putting together some kits. I have just about finished with a paper tearing kit, which looks pretty good. It is a basic and simple kit, for beginners. This will be our kit for March. Next month, for April, I am looking to do something for Easter or Spring. In May I will put a kit together for Summer, using titles and flowers. Look to see what it will be, later. For now, while I have the March kit finished, I need to upload my picture. Look for that with my next post.

Today I stayed home from school. I had to attend an IEP meeting with a friend who has a son in middle school. It was interesting. They actually had the IEP meeting for next year, and all they did was put in the classes for next year. There were no goals and no accommodations ready to discuss. Hello! By law you need to present the entire IEP to the parents. When discussing the IEP, it includes the goals and accommodations. The case manager actually expected us to be in and out within 30 minutes tops. There was a lot of hesistation to place Eli in an inclass support setting. The casemanager discussed how difficult the class would be, how much more work was required in the class, and there would be a lot of heavy usuage of the text. We opted to place Eli in inclass support for Language Arts and Social Studies.

On the way home, my friend talked about possibly placing Eli in a support class for Science also. Since the district was not able to provide goals and accommodations, they will be mailing them home to my firend for a review. After that, there will be another meeting to review things. Only time will tell if we need to fight this one.

March comes in like a LION

Boy, this month has been rushing by and I feel like my head is spinning. I have had a crop for a church Dance ministry, a crop at my house, found out IRW suddenly closed their doors, shopped around to find a new scrapbook company that would meet my likes and dislikes, joined that company, AC Bailey Designs Scrapbooking, and went to a retirement seminar at work. WOW!!! all those things are keep my mind occupied.

I have been having several new scrappers over to my crops, so I have decided to offer classes of various techniques that they can use to in their layouts. Everyone seems to be enthusiastic and looking forward to learning new things. In addition to the technique I will give them some information that is useful to scrapping a page.

I am working on a layout using paper tearing and chalking. Once I have it finished, I will upload a picture for you to see.

New Year's Day

Happy New Year everyone out there. Last year, 2008, while there were some good times, we had several not so good days. I hope that 2009 will be a much better year for us. So far, it seems to have started off really great!

My mom came and spent New Year's Eve with us, which kind of surprised me. This is the second year since my dad passed away, and I didn't want her to be alone to reminence about times spent with my dad. We watched a movie, played Scrabble, and saw the ball drop in Times Square. Everyone then went to bed.

We got up this morning, all of us around 10 or 10:30. After a couple of cups of coffee, we had eggs and bagels and then got dressed. Mom stayed and talked and talked. I enjoyed her time spent with me. We watched some of the Rose Parade and talked some more. I asked her to stay for dinner, but she wanted to be home before dark. She left around 3:00.

It was close to 4:30 when our daughter Debby and her family drove up to greet us. We hadn't celebrated Christmas with them, so we opened all our gifts together. I got some lotion and money to spend shopping (for scrap items, of course.) This way I can go to AC Moore or Michaels, whoever has the best price for what I want.

It was our son-in-law's birthday on the 29th, so we gave him a birthday gift. For dinner we had ham, scalloped potatoes, and green beans, with chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert. The grand children cleared the table, and Debbie and I went down to scrap. She is working on a clipboard to use at work. It is coming along nicely. When she finishes it, I will post a picture of it.

They left around 11:45. We had a really great day today. I hope it is the start of a good year.

Hello and Happy New Year!

The start of a New Year. That means new beginnings, starting out fresh, trying something new. Well, I have been wanting to blog for some time, but always ran out of time. My intentions have been good, but we all know what that means. (not a good place to go.)

I will try to post something every day, perhaps figure out how to upload some photos, and talk about scrapping and paper crafting in general. Come back again.