A Day In My Life

Memory Works

I know I have mentioned briefly that I am selling Memory Works scrapbooking products.  I am having home parties, catalog parties and just selling it and having fun.  They carry products from the leading companies in the business: Tim Holtz, Bo-Bunny, Simple Stories, My Minds Eye, Pink Paislee... and the list goes on and on and on...

You can see their products at www.memory-works.com If you would like to order please contact me at magicalmemories2@aol.com (they do not accept orders , it has to go through a consultant).

Wanna see some of the things I have created?

Remember a week or so ago I showed you some Simple stories products? If you missed the blog post it is here:A Day In My Life: Scrapbooking with Memory Works  I showed you the Elementary line and I just have to say it is MAGIC!  I used it and put an entire album together for Lauren from Preschool-Graduation in one weekend.  It was so SIMPLE and easy, and what a great gift it will make for her. (i just wish I had done it last year when she graduated:)

I hear so often from women: "My son/daughter is graduating in June and I really wanted to put together a school days album for them." VOILA...Now you can!    here are a few pictures from my album:

 
 
 
 You'll notice the 8th grade year doesn't have pictures yet, I am not so organized that I was able to find all my pictures...BUT I will and it will come together fast now!

I also used the DESTINATIONS and LIFE DOCUMENTED to start a Disney album for our 2007 pictures.  I whipped these pages up in LESS than a weekend!  and this is just a few of the pages...I have done a bunch more...this is truly so easy.  I was doubtful at first, but I love the divided pages.

Wanna see some pictures of the Disney album?

 
 
 
 
As you can see I also used Disney embellishments.  I have sooo many stickers and such I decided to just have fun and add them to it.  i really love the results!

Keeping with the Simple Stories...I found this on their blog and created it in my own way.  I used the Life Documented Flash Cards, Life Documented Cardstock Stickers, 7 Gypsy Printers Tray.  You can get all of these things through Memory works...I added pictures of the kids and volia:

 
Can't wait to find a place in the house to hang it!  A woman at the last home party I did, order the printers tray and Bo-Bunny's Timepiece line and is going to create one in honor of her husband who has passed away.

I also created these three pages, all inspired by pages in the catalog and all made with products from Teresa Collins:

 
 
 

And lastly, I created a mini book with a summer fun theme.  i used all products from the catalog.  I am selling the kit, including colored directions.  The kit includes the products you need, the full color instructions and help from me if you need it.  You just add adhesive, photos and your own fun! Here are a couple of pages from it:

 
 
 

Want a kit.  Just email me at magicalmemories2@aol.com

Dancingly, Denise

 

Scrapbooking with Memory Works

As some of you know, I am a MemoryWorks consultant. www.memory-works.com  Yup, that means I can order, for you, awesome scrapbook products from MANY different companies...I can come into your home and do a party...You can do a catalog party...and so much more!

This weekend I had a party at a ladies house...and it was awesome!  We had fun, we ate good food and we shared our passion for scrapbooking.

I was telling the ladies about MY Oprah "AHA" moment, involving scrapbooking!  First I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many pictures!  And I will never get them all scrapbooked in my lifetime, BUT I have found some help.  memoryWorks carries a product called Simple Stories.  When a friend, who was selling memory Works, talked everyone in my scrapbook group into buying a Simple Stories kit...I, quietly (in my head). poo pood it.  Why? beats me...I just thought maybe it was "real" scrapbooking, involving hours of agonizing over a page and lots of money.

Well, I decided to try it, when i became a consultant, and can I just say "aha!"...I get it.  I spent a few hours on a Saturday and Sunday and got more Disney pictures scrapbooked than I had in the last few YEARS!  and then last week, I took the school themed set and put together a school days album for my daughter lauren...from Preschool to Graduation.  I had wanted to do that last year when she was graduating...and there was no way i could...it was TOO overwhelming.  Simple Stories made it happen!  (i haven't got all her pictures in it yet, as I am not THAT organized:)

That is the kit it is called ELEMENTARY...and then you need the divided page protectors and a 12x12 binder style album.  I will show pictures of my album in the next few days! 

If you click on this link it shows you just how easy it is:

Simple Stories is scrapbooking...simplified! - Simple Stories

My Disney one I am using the DESTINATION kit and the LIFE DOCUMENTED and many of my own Disny embellishments.  I LOVE it...gotta show you pictures of that too!

The fourth Simple Stories kit they have is 100 DAYS OF SUMMER this is the newest of the kits, and really  sunny and fun looking.

Wouldn't you like to create a school days album NOW for your graduating, or graduated senior?  You can go to www.memory-works.com and check out the Simple Stories products.  If you would like to order PLEASE contact me and I will help you out with that.  Or better yet, want to have a party and get the products for free?  Let me know.  Because my life is crazy (like everyone else) I only do a limited amount of home parties each month...and catalog parties are always available. 

I will share pictures later in the week of my albums!

Dancingly Denise

The " Great Big Huge" Mess is now CONTROLLED and a TUTU

well...atleast somewhat.  Sorry I haven't been back here, Ihave had a stomach flu to rival no other.  It truly put me in bed for Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday I woke up with a sinus infection.  It is now Saturday and though I feel better, i don't feel great, and my poor Nate has a sore throat and cough!  UGH

BUT, Thursday and Friday I did work in the mess and I do feel good about where I have ended up.  Now, I took these pictures BEFORE I added back in the bins of things that still need to be gone through and put away or gotten rid of.  AND I am not showing you the big pile of boxes in the dining room of memorabilia from the last 20 years.  My plan is to whittle it down to HALF of what is there.  I can do it!

BUT, I do now have a working room.  It isn't perfect, it isn't magazine ready and I still need to work on it DAILY, but here goes...remember this is what it looked like at the beginning of January:

 
 
 and now I will take you around the room:

Mouse making, Fairy Jar creating and what not area:

 

Tools such as Sizzix machine, cricut, dies, punches, etc:

 
Sewing supplies (I have more, gotta decide how to "handle it"), cardstock etc:

 
My scrapbooking supplies...organized photos in boxes on the top and yes it bothers me that not all the boxes are blue and green! My small collection of MRS. FIELDS tins, cuz that is who I am!, My kitty on the now clean work table! and you can see a bag of fairy wings in the corner:

 
The iris cart wall...all those draws need to be cleaned out and purged!  One thing at a time. and my Fur Friends go their bed back by the window:

 
The last wall:
 
and a view looking in the door:

 
The stuff under the work table?  That is the bins of stuff that need to be gone through and taken care of or said good bye too!

I am not done yet, but I will tell you it was nice to have a space to make a mess yesterday while I made this:

 

It was a tutu I had from my dance studio days.  It was too stained to sell at OLD THINGS...soooo I stained it up some more.  Sewed it to a padded hanger that i tea stainned, addd some flowers and a tag and now it is a Primitive/Vintage?Shabby Chic wall hanging.  It could be hung in a nursery, on a little girls wall, in your house...you get the idea:)  It is now up on my Etsy at www.dancinglydenise.etsy.com.  I have a pink one and a blue one in the works today.  Not quite so primitive looking, but they are coming out beautiful! (I think).

Well folks, don't forget to check and see if you are the winner of the GiveAway...I will give her a week to respond, and then draw a new winner if I need to!

have a great Saturday and share with us how you organize your projects!

Dancingly, Denise

Memorial Boards

Today it is a snow day so both the kids are home. 

 I have been thinking a great deal about past post that I have done and I looked and this will be my 693rd post!  That's alot of posting.

One thing I learned from taking the last challenge blog was that some post are so important or good or helpful that reposting them is a GOOD THING (sorry Martha).

Last night I was feeling greatly let down by someone important in my life and when I am  my heart and mind always goes to my Dad.  He was always there when these letdowns happened (and my Bobo) and so my heart was heavy with missing Dad last night too.

For those of you who don't know, my dad passed away in October of 2008 and another fact would be that i am a scrapbooker, with scrapbooking friends.  So bear with me while I repost some of the info from the Memorial Board we did for my Dad.

I have great friends...Judy and Karen helped me through the whole process.  I picked out pictures, karen scanned them in and Judy worked on the pages.  I want to note that I emailed them both one day and asked for help and the next day we were working on the project.  I spent as much time as I could on it with them that day and then I had to leave.  Later that day they brought the pages down to me in hospice.  They were so great!

One of the things I wanted to do was to put together a board, that then could be taken apart and would have pages for a 12x12 album.  We used this book:

 

and found this sketch in it to use.

 

I had already drawn out an idea...I wanted each page to depit something that Dad was in life...I Friend, A father, A dancer:) and so on.

The final board looked like this:

As you can see each 12x12 is a page.  His favorite color was blue, so we used the blues on each page  It now sits an an album that I can look at and share with others and though I don't NEED a reminder of how wonderful he was...it certainly serves as that.  And it is such a keepsake.  I just didn't want a board that had random pictures on it and then I would have to deal with all the loose pictures.  I am lucky I am a scrapbooker with great scrapbooking friends.

The board it self was a tad bit tricky to put together, especially since I was a mess emotionally and the service was the next day.  That is where my post "real Men Do Scrapbook" came in A Day In My Life: Real Men DO Scrapbook...  In the end, my very patient husband put it all together for me, because of course it needed to be in page  protectors and easy to remove after:

Dancingly, Denise

Finish It Friday Scrapbooking

Since the beginning of August my scrapbooking peeps and I have been doing what we call Finish It Friday (FIF).  We came up with it when we realized we were meeting every Friday night, but not really getting anything done.  You can read a little more about it and the details of how it works on this post: 

 A Day In My Life: Finish It Friday...

I wanted to show you what i accomplished this month. Now, the thing about me is I do NOT finish things:(  I get good ideas, I plan them, I but what I need to do them, and then POOF...I am on to the next thing.  Because of this, I am so dang proud of what I finished this month:

Yes folks that is SEVEN mini albums!  All but one of them wasn't even started, just sitting and waiting.  All but one of them was a kit...I LOVE kits!  Now we were allowed to do prep work during the week and ofcourse we could finish what we wanted when we wanted to, we just needed to complete our goal every Friday night...during our scrapbooking time.  I will tell you, for the first time ever nobody has sat idle.  Every single one of us accomplished something!

My mini albums still need pictures and the Halloween ones are Christmas gifts for some people so i really have to find pictures for them:)

heres a closer look...This first one is a Teresa Collins kit...2008 I believe. :

The thing I am most proud of about this kit is I had to use my ZUTTER, which I had bought 2 years ago and never used!  It is a binding machine...it punches holes and then  squeezes the coil.  But it is all manual and I think slightly difficult to get the hang of, but I did it:)

This next one is not a kit, but I got the idea on another ladies blog.  I will show you more of it later, but the cover:

 
 Now, the next ones are kits from the Button Farm  Welcome

 

This last one is a Kit In A Bag by SEI it is about 100 years old:) (maybe not that old but I have had it forever). Once I put it together I LOVED it:

SEVEN mini albums folks!  Can you tell I am proud:)  What is in store for next month?  Well, more kits I am sure, but I would like to get some more of my DISNEY pictures done, and I have an idea for a Halloween album for us. 

Stay tuned folks for more FIF projects!  Tell us about what you finished up Friday...or this month...or

Dancingly, Denise
 
 

Halloween Scrapbook

Hello...school shopping has kept me away from home all day today.  so, Nate is done, but Lauren has not begun. Luckily, we hadn't done any shopping for Lauren since we found out yesterday at the open house that she has to wear all black all the time:(  She said shopping will be like being a person on WHAT NOT TO WEAR. Buying things you would never buy and having to wear them!

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to do the tutorial for the Disney scrapbooking (paperpiecing), but I will soon I promise. For now, I thought I would show you a board book Halloween scrapbook I just finished.  This was a kit, so it was not my original idea.  The kit was from The BUTTON FARM The Button Farm - Welcome!  The kit isn't available anymore on her website, but I still thought I would share it cuz it would give you ideas for your own book.  This is a black board book, but you could do 8x8 pages like it too.

Scrapworks paper, Scrapworks shimmer shapes,Scrapworks stickers and Daisy D's rub ons.

Below: The page on the right is a black large envelope.

Below:page on the right...the three tags lift up so you can put a picture underneath

Below right...another black envelop, I am going to fill it with matted pictures and attach sticker tags to them to pull them out

 Isn't that cute?  I love her kits...I have tons of product left over to embellish the mats I want to do, etc.

Well, I am working on mice again tonight, so I better get busy!  Have a great evening! Check out my other blog to see some more steps in the mice making:)  at: www.dancinglydenise.typepad.com/mepursenalities

Dancingly,Denise
 
 
 
 
 
 

More Disney Scrapbooking!

Hi, as promised I am going to share with you the start of the kids autograph book(s).  No tutorial yet for the paperpiecing, but bear with me!

Any how, The first year we went to Disney (2005), the kids were at a good age that they still wanted to meet the Characters.  THIS year, our fourth year going, they were too old (18 and 15:).  But for the three years we went before this year we got some great autographs.  The first year we went, the kids went armed with a little plastic holder that had sharpies and 3x5 index  cards.  All the characters signed the card.  When we got home, I cut the index card into a tag shaped, matted it on one or two pieces of cardstock punched a hole at the top and tied ribbon through it.  Some of them I couldn't punch a hole because the signature would be damaged, so I just stapled a ribbon to it..  We made sure to take plenty of pictures with the character, one of the character signing, one of the kids standing with them and then usually one of the whole family or me and the character.  I printed of the best pictures and matted them.  I used an 8x8 album, one for each child (although they are full and I haven't even finished the first year of characters yet:) Lauren's has Tink on it and Nate's has Mickey Mouse.

Here is Lauren's:

I love the look of all the ribbon coming from the top, so I made sure to get TOPLOADING 8x8 albums.  I have two more different ones for the rest of Lauren's autographs, and two more albums for Nates.  Treasures for them I hope.

So, here is the first double page so you can see what i am talking about...notice the tag:

I tried to choose paper specific to the character, in this case Mickey Mouse.  AND Ichose as big a sticker as possible for each character to add to the page.  NO paperpiecing on these pages!

Minnie Mouse

Goofy

Nemo (no signature for him) and Coral (?)

Donald Duck

The Evil Queen

Pluto

Peter Pan and Wendy Darling   

Belle

Snow White

Cinderella and Suzy and Perla   

TiGGer

Pooh

Pocohantas and Meeko

Captain Hook and Mr Snee

Geppetto, Gideon and Pinnochio

And, did I mention I haven't even FINISHED that first year of characters?  Really after four years, about the only characters we don't have are the "evil" ones, cuz they come out at Halloween  and we haven't been there for that yet!

If you have any questions I hope you feel free to ask.  I will get to the tutorial soon!  I hope you have enjoyed these...I better get back to work scrapbooking those Disney pictures!

Daningly, Denise
   

  

Half Full? or Half Empty?

 
Before I explain the title of this I want to thank everyone who has emailed me about my Disney Scrapbook pages.  Read on to discover the half empty/half full idea:) The number one question has been HOW DO YOU DO IT?  From both seasoned scrapper and beginners...sooooooo I have decided I will put together a tutorial showing you how I do one of my Disney paper piecings...I just don't think trying to explain it is going to work, so I will add step by step pictures.  WHEN?  You ask?  Give me a few days, we have an incredibly busy time coming up with getting Lauren ready for Cosmetology school.  I hope to have it up and on the blog by Tuesday, so keep checking!  PLUS I have a Disney autograph book to show you too, I'll take pictures of what I have done so far in the next day or so.

So, Half Full or Half Empty?  It is a question asked all the time.  What kind of a person are you...a half full kind of person?  Or a half empty?  The other day Julia Roberts was on the Oprah show.  I like Julia, and I can't wait to see Eat, Pray, Love.  I read the book when it first came out and I loved it, very jealous of someone that can just pick up and travel around the world, but I probably wouldn't go even if I could:)  ANYWAY...Julia was talking about the movie and she was talking about her life.  Julia smiles all the time, have you ever noticed that?  When she talked about her real life you could see that she was totally enamoured by her life with her husband and children.  One thing she said that really stuck with me was {I lay in bed at night and my last thoughts are "I get to get up and do this all over again tomorrow"} It stuck with me, because I am afraid to admit that lots of times I head to bed at night lately thinking "Geez, do I have to get up and do this all over again tomorrow"?

Since she was on Oprah last week I have gone to bed every night and thanked God that I will be able to get up the next day and do it all over again.  And you know, just that little bit of change in thought has made a tremendous amount of difference.  Yes, I get tired of doing the same thing day in and day out...but geez, look how lucky I am...every morning I have 16 hours or so stretched ahead of me to live the life I am creating.  I feel like I am heading towards being a half full sort of gal!

See you tomorrow...cuz I get to do this again too!

Dancingly, Denise

Disney Scrapbooking PART II

As promised I am back with the rest of the pages I have done so far.  If you didn't see the first post about it, scroll down I wrote it last night.  A recap...I LOVE Disney...I took THOUSANDS of pictures in the four years we have been and I want to paper piece each page in some way...I showed you several last night and now these are rest that i have completed for 2005 so far.

First Peter Pan and Wendy

and Captain Hook and Mr. Snee, ofcourse:

a close up of the paperpiecing...I believe I made a pattern from a coloring page on this one:

Pooh and TiGGer and Eeyore:

My very Favorite guy DONALD DUCK in his safari gear:

I took the Animal Kingdom map and cut it into a shape of a rolled out map for this paper piecing:

In the scrapbook I have serating pages for each of the parks.  This one is for Magic Kingdom ofcourse:)
 
The THREE Amigos:

The kids got hats from MK: Inside of the crystal ball is a picture of thekids standing right outside of MK:

The TOWER OF TERROR at MGM (well now it is Hollywood Studios)  Nate and I went on it ONCE, got the pin that said we had survived it and vowed we wouldn't go on again and we haven't!  Everyone says the elevator guy in my paper piecing looks like Michael Jackson:)

Beauty and the Beast: I had seen this idea somewhere on the web.  The beast is paperpieced, and was quite "fun" to do!  belle is too, but she was much easier!

I loved the Pink Flamingos!
 
Here is a close up, I used pink feathers on it:

Tarzan and Jane.  This show was awesome and we were lucky we saw it that year as we never saw it again:(
 

and then we jump to the page where we head home...there are still many pages to go in between but for now this page documents how very small the car was that we rented:

and THE END:

Thank you so much for looking.  I would be glad to talk any one out there through paper piecing.  Don't forget to look at the blog post right before this for Part I.

Dancingly, Denise

Disney Scrapbooking PART I

 I love to paper piece...and I decided two years ago I would paper piece ALL of my Disney pictures for the last 4 trips. We are talking THOUSANDS of pictures...THOUSANDS!  So, I started with 2005, the first year we went.  I thought I would show you the pages I have done SO FAR.  Even thoough it looks like I have a beginning and end...I don't have everything in between.  I love doing it though and am hoping this fall I will finish up 2005.  One of the problems is that for the first three years that we went my daughter competed in TWIRL MANIA...(baton competition) down there so I have even more pictures.  I am going to put this in 2 post, one now and the other one will post around 6:00 tomorrow morning.  There are 39 double pages (or something like that) so i don't want to overwhelm you:)

The first pictures is the plane ride.  My dad was alive then and took us to the airport (actually he did for the first three years)...so that is him in the picture on the left top with Lauren.  In February 2005 Lauren was 13 and Nate was 10.  This was their first plane ride and Nate was rather sick, so yes the barf bag is the pocket on the page:)

I love paperpiecing.  I make patterns out of coloring pages, mostly.  I have quite a collection of Disney World coloring books.  A close up of the plane paper piecing:

We ate at The Rain Forest Cafe.  We LOVED it (might I add we love everything about Disney:)   
 

I made a pattern out of the kids menu, there was this adorable picture on it so VOILA!
 This first year set a tradition for us.  We always go to Downtown Disney when we arrive, saving our first full day for Magic Kingdom.  You might notice that Scott isn't in these pictures, he arrived later in the week.
 
Our first full morning we went to Chef Mickeys...it was our first ever character meal and we were hooked (until this year when the kids decided they would rather do other shows and such...too old for characters anymore:(
My paper piecings for these pages came from the menu:
A coloring book:

and the folder that the group picture came in:


No paper piecing on this page, just a bunch of characters:

    The princesses:

Scott is in the picture now.  He wasn't thrilled about posing with the characters, but he did some of them.
a close up of the snow white paper piecing.  Paper piecing is much like quilt piecing though I think it has a different name.  I trace out all the pieces onto cardstock and other various papers, leaving some room for a "seam" and then I glue them together.  It can be a tad tricky sometimes...but it is my favorite scrapbook technique.
I LOVED meeting THE QUEEN, she was soooooo scary!

Pocahontas...
 

 Well. that is it for now.  I will get the other pictures uploaded, check it out first thing in the morning for part II.

Thanks for looking and if you have any questions...please ask.

Dancingly, Denise