scrapulescence

Happy Birthday (and Thank You) Dr. Suess

Since March 2 is Dr. Suess's birthday, Christopher's class has been celebrating all of this week- Monday they wore t-shirts from places they had visited (Oh, The Places You'll Go), Tuesday they wore crazy socks (Fox in Socks), Wednesday everyone wore green (Green Eggs and Ham, of course!) and Thursday everyone wore red and white and a silly hat (The Cat in the Hat). 

We even celebrated at home with these.

 

 

 

And by the way, just how much fun is it for a seven-year-old to color his food this color?

All of this got me to thinking of how much I learned as a child from my friend Dr. Suess. Things that I actually still remember even when I've forgotten Algebra, sentence diagrams and the Elements chart. I'm glad that Christopher's books are around for a refresher course. So, that said I would like to thank Dr. Suess (Theodore Geisel) for teaching me:

"That a person is a person, no matter how small"
To try new things, because I just may like the taste of green eggs and ham.
That "when it is wet, and the sun is not sunny, you can still have good fun that is funny."
Babies come down The Hooberbloob highway.
That I am going to go exciting places.
"Everyone needs trees."
Christmas will come no matter what!
"Barbaloot" is just a fun word to say.
"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere."
"You oughta be thankful, A whole heaping lot, For the people and places, you're lucky you're not!"

Christopher mentioned to me recently that he may be getting "too old" for his Dr. Suess books, after all he is 7! I think I'm going to keep for a while longer, until I'm too old for them...whenever that may be. 

Oh, and remember-“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You-er than You.”

Cupcakes - New Obsession

I will admit it - I love Cupcake Wars on Food Network.  It's just too much fun to watch all of the cool ingredients the bakers use and the unusual combinations they create.  About a week ago I was inspired and the day after watching the show made these -  

"Dark chocolate cake with crunchy peanut-butter filling and dark chocolate buttercream frosting topped with salted peanuts".  Now, I am a not a baker, but I'm thinking I did pretty well for making it up as I go along.  They were tasty.  I like baking, it's predictable.  You measure, you mix and the results are good. In my day to day crazy-ness, I like predictable - things turning out like they should.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week there was this- "    

"Fresh raspberry cake with dark chocolate buttercream filling topped with chocolate ganache and raspberry buttercream." Oh, and a little "chocolate shard".  These were for a birthday party, so I had an excuse. (Because you know, I needed an excuse.)

I seem to have a trend toward chocolate - can't see how that could be a bad thing though.

I'm really beginning to love this cupcake thing.  How much fun is it to use words like "butter cream" and "ganache"...seriously.  Oh, and you get to buy tools and supplies, just like scrapbooking!  Did you know that they actually make the cutest little tool that removes the center of the cupcake to add the filling? And the different  style papers are just stinkin' adorable - have you seen the colors and patterns? I noticed that in my local craft store, the cake decorating aisle is located suspiciously close to the scrapbooking aisle.  I think they are on to something.

In the world of baking, I think cupcakes are like the scrapbookers "mini-album".  Quickly made, creative, and you can use nifty embellishments to decorate...and they're just cute!

In honor of this newly found obsession I am initiating "Cupcake Friday", yes that day will feature the flavor of the week.  Now of course, these beauties will be included in a themed scrapbook aptly named "The Cupcake Book" I think...certainly could not be involved in another craft and not have it involve scrapbooking somehow!  Now, where to find cupcake themed supplies..........

Pantone, the official gods of universal color, have announced their annual Color of the Year and it's Honeysuckle. It is, in Pantone's words " a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues”.  If you're not familiar with Pantone, they are the go-to company for all things color - paint, fashion, interior design and printing. They actually create  color combinations and color codes we all use. It's pretty amazing how their color of the year begins to shop up all around.  Anyway, I love it...pink-y, but not too...red-ish but not too much. 

Speaking of color, ever get stuck creating a page and you just can't get the color scheme right? We all do.  Often I use the Adobe Kuler site. Very cool place to hang out.  You can view color combinations that others have created, search combinations by theme, main color or other inspiration. You can even create your own color schemes and save them. If you're a digi-scrapper this site is amazing resource-you can create swatches that match your photos! Check out my Kuler schemes! 

If you want to play around with colors schemes even more Color Schemer is great as well.  Lots of schemes created by others and a nifty tool you can download (free!) to creat your own.

If you've been scrapbooking a while, you've probably seen the Bazzill Color Matchmaker.  Oh how I love this - it will help you match Bazzill cardstock to other brands of patterned paper.  Genius! I love it when someone does the work for me!

2011 Word for the Year

                                                      
I've joined with many scrapbookers in choosing a "word of the year". A kind of guiding word as inspiration.  I'm sure that those of you that do this, already chose your word.  I'm sure that many of you thought long and hard about your word . I however, am a bit late. New Year's eve came and I still didn't have a word. So I decided to just wait and let my word come to me on it's own.  So, somewhere in between lathering, rinsing and repeating in the shower yesterday (where by the way I tend to do my best thinking), it came to me.

Adventure. It just seemed to be right for the coming year. I've made alot of changes over the past 6 months and I'm looking forward to more, so adventure seemed to fit.  However...this is going to be my version of adventure. This is not going to be the outdoor, mountaineering, race care driving, cowboy-movie, root'n-toot'n  type of adventure. More like an adventure in my creative life, my scrapbooking, making scrapboking my business (more on that soon!).  Basically being adventurous, taking risks, not worryng so much about "what if". Actually pretty root'n toot'n in my own way, I think!

I think there will be a journal/scrapbook based on this - need to percolate on that.  Any ideas?

The dictionary definition is- a. an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b. an exciting or remarkable experience, a daring risk.  I'm up for it!   

Yup, that's going to be my 2011.  Adventure.  

You can find a great class in journaling about your own word at Ali Edwards - One Little Word.

A Little Creative Inspiration

 

I got this at "Art Day" for children at one of our local libraries.  I don't know where they found it, but it's my new creative inspiration! Love this!