Nancy Jones' room of sCRAP

I can't believe it has been a month since I was down south visiting all my scrappy girlfriends.
Feels much longer actually.
And I miss the awesome 70 degree weather, can I just tell ya we had snow again yesterday!
And I miss talking in scrap lingo with people who get it, everyone around here looks at me like I am bonkers if I use the word scraplift.
But I can't imagine the insanity if we all lived in the same town, I don't think one town could survive all us girls.

When I was in Mississippi, I was so lucky to get a chance to drive on over to Alabama (why not?) and finally meet Nancy Jones.
I've known Nancy online for a while and have always thought that her and I would always be a good match in a sarcasm contest.
And I was right.
She is a zillion times better in person, my face hurt from smiling and laughing when we left.
And an amazing scrapper, in both quality and quantity.
That lady scraps a lot!

So, here's a little info on my buddy Nancy and look inside her awesome room of sCRAP.

Name: Nancy Jones

Blog: That's Nancy with a Jones

Before you had a whole Room, where did you craft?: oh god I have a photo its scary but in the living room on the floor.....

What are 3 words you would use to describe your room?: MY SAFE haven

What do you love most about your room?: its MINE, has all my favorite things in it.

Least?: it can always be bigger.

If you could change one thing about your room, what would it be?: it wouldn't matter how big it was I would always want it bigger hahaa.

What do you think is the coolest thing in your room?: my scrap shelves my father in law made me. I LOVE THEM.

How do you keep "organized" in your room?: I go on a mad organizing spree every few months and re organize everything.

What do you own the most of?: patterned paper

Do you craft sitting or standing?: both

Do you listen to music, tv, chat on the phone while working?: all of the above. Whatever I am doing when the mood hits, whether its a tv show or listening to the radio or music or chatting on the computer I still work on pages or whatever I have going.

What crafts do you dabble in?: Mostly just scrapbooking and paper arts.


Nancy's room of sCRAP from spazzgirl on Vimeo.

Be sure to visit Nancy, read a little and you will be hooked, and let her know you saw her Mecca of Goodness on my blog!

Ribbon Storage Tips

So here's the latest installment of lame, somewhat organized tips.
These are just a few ideas of how you could store your ribbon.
One of my favorite things to use for storing ribbon is my spool holder which was made by Greta's hubby.If anyone is interested in getting their very own, you can contact Miss Greta via her blog.
They are totally reasonable and I have never seen anything quite as cool or useful.
She's taking orders for unfinished ribbon holders in 2 different sizes, mine is the smaller version. Hers is featured on the video of her room.

So here's just a couple things I do...Enjoy the show.


Ribbon Storage Tips from spazzgirl on Vimeo.

Music by Smashing Pumpkins, Mayonnaise, forgot to add that to the video.

Spring RAKs

Just a couple of great RAKs just in time for spring.

This first one is from Melissa using this cute little chick.
It even came complete without glitter, my arch enemy.
Thanks Melissa!
And Michelle is one of my bestest blogger pals, she always sends a cute card when I am least expecting it.
And always in a style that I absolutely LOVE, like these cherries.
I love this card, those cherries are perfect, thank you.

Hope everyone has a lovely Easter Sunday, we are still sick in my house and got a few inches of snow yesterday, so Easter will be spent indoors doing just about nothing.
Back to business on Monday!

Home again, Home again Jiggity Jig!

Yup, I'm back!
Miss me?

Jamaica was fabulous.
Except for the fact that I got there and realized I didn't have the CF card in my camera.
Oh, and I got a stomache bug the very first day so I spent a lot of time praying to the porcelain god or sitting on his throne while on vacation.
And I am still pretty much as white as I was when I left, mostly do to all the time I spent in the room.
Yup, that's totally me.

But I met completely amazing people.
And I chilled a lot, mostly because I was sick until the day we left, but I don't know if I would've relaxed as much had I not been sick.
And I drank a little Rum Cream and ate very little jerk chicken.
But all in all, it was totally fab!

And while I was away, announcements were made over at Craft Critique about some new reporters and guess who's name was on that list??!
And there is a great challenge with flowers over at Scrap Your Crap.

For now, it's off to catch up....you would not believe the number of emails I got while I was gone!
Til tomorrow....

Greta's room of sCRAP!

Before I leave for sunny and warm Jamaica where I will instantly burn when I step foot off the plane, I wanted to share one more video from my Miss-adventure.
A look inside my buddy Greta's scrappin' lair.
If I ever thought I had too much stuff, I was totally validated in Mississippi, those girls have a lot of stuff!
I wanted to interview each of my southern pals while I was in their rooms but alas, there was barely enough time to get just the videos!

So, here's a little bit about Greta's hideout...

Before you had a whole Room, where did you craft?: my living room, kitchen table and I even took over the foyer in my old house…I had that mess everywhere….

What are 3 words you would use to describe your room?: unorganized chaos

What do you love most about your room?: the lighting..when we were moving in o’neil had the electrician come in and put up fluorescent lights

Least?: the carpet…BLECH! That is coming up soon

If you could change one thing about your room, what would it be?: THE PAINT COLOR …working on that this spring…I thought I could live with that color but I just can’t do it

What do you think is the coolest thing in your room?: my ribbon holder the hubs made for me

How do you keep "organized" in your room?: organized?? what is that? {snort}

What do you own the most of?: hmmm…patterned paper, thickers, chipboard and felt

Do you craft sitting or standing?: both

Do you listen to music, tv, chat on the phone while working?: music

What crafts do you dabble in?: I sew and scrap…that is it

You can check out Greta and her crap at her blog --> HERE.
Enjoy the show!


Greta's room of sCRAP from spazzgirl on Vimeo.

EDITED: I just wanna add that those drawers that are all nice and conveniently closed are filled to the max with CRAP! Seriously...she knows how to pack it in when she hears the camera's coming!

scrap MY crap challenge

We are looking for some Players over at Scrap Your Crap.

So, if you are up for a little challenge....head on over to the blog and sign up to
scrap MY crap!!

Stay tuned, before I leave for sunny Jamaica mon, there will be a little video and a little giveaway you won't want to miss!

Anthologies Scrapbook Studio

If there is one thing I know about crafters, it's that we like pretty stuff.
We are generally people who love the look, the feel and sometimes even the smell of things and usually buy accordingly.
I am a totally visual person.
And so I love to see people's stuff.
I love to just look.

And so, while in Mississippi visiting my friends, I not only taped each and every scraproom I visited but I also made a short video of the scrapbook store in Biloxi called Anthologies Scrapbook Studio.

This is a cute store that is run by Jennifer Fox, who is not only one of the friendliest people I have ever met, but also a great scrapper and mom.
She single-handedly runs this well stocked store and also makes almost all of the store samples.
Inside you can find all sorts of lovely product such as Hambly, KI Memories and even the Creative Cafe!
And there is a good mix of themed lines as well as trendy, I love that.
And TONS of ribbon...my weakness.
And most of the store is arranged by product line...YAY!
And she carries entire lines of product, not just a few choice pieces, which is also remarkable.
And then there are sections for baby, school, etc. as well.
Which makes it easy to find something if you have a specific project you are working on.

So enjoy this little look inside this awesome store.
And if you are in the area, be sure to stop by and tell her some spazzy chick from Chicago sent ya!

Anthologies Scrapbook Studio from spazzgirl on Vimeo.
If you are unfamiliar with viewing these videos online, it is best to hit the play button, then pause til the entire video loads.
That way you can view the entire video without it stopping to load while viewing.
Hope that helps.

Happy Birthday Melana

Happy Birthday to the cutest little princess in all of Biloxi!!



Happy Bday Melana from spazzgirl on Vimeo.

Old Skool Paper

This morning...

Me: Max, take a picture of me with this paper, I gotta show Greta and I look cute today.
Max: You look cute today?
Me: Don't start, just take the dang picture.
Max: Why are you taking a picture of paper, I mean....
Me: JUST TAKE THE PICTURES!!
Max: Don't I need a flash?
Me: Nah...just take 'em.

Fine...here's the flash.
Isn't this the paper you own too Michele???
And the grand finale of the worst patterned paper I own and yes, kept after I sifted through my paper and gave away all the horrible prints I had in my collection....

I don't even go to the beach.
Or own a sealife stamp to use this on a card.
I don't even know why I bought this paper to begin with.
This paper has to go or be used in the next 30 days, or it is outta here.
It is on death row waiting for a pardon.

If you have paper like this in your collection, old patterned paper, join us over at Scrap Your Crap and check out what Greta and I cooked up!

I went to Mississippi and all I got was this lousy Strep!

Yep, we came back and got sick.
I kinda expected it, with all those germ infested planes we rode.
And when I came back to work last week, my computer was sick too.
He greeted me with tons of porn popups.
A girl can only find her horny match so many times before getting bored.
And very angry.
So after countless hours with tech support.
I am virus free again.

And totally behind on my work.
And about 1000 posts behind on my bloglines.
And I leave for Jamaica in 10 days!
So much to do, so very little time.

And yes, I still scrap!

I've run outta new pictures to scrap that inspire me, so I started sifting through old photos that I never scrapped and it was like a trip down memory lane.
So, if you are in a scrappin' rut, I highly recommend digging through your old photos.
I think I actually forgot how little the kid was once.

Letters in this page are the negatives from my American Craft letters, this is one of my favorite cheapo tips and I use it all the time.
The paper is from KI memories, I bought it while in MS.
And if my friends ever questioned just how cheap I am, they witnessed it firsthand at the LSS when I only spent $20.

My Miss-Adventure

Here is a brief recap of last weekend's Miss-Adventure.
The kid, Josie and I arrived safe and sound Friday night.
Not a single aviation glitch.
Josie was sitting a few rows behind us with a woman changing her burrito eating baby a few dozen times.
I was sitting on the aisle where I witnessed a woman lay flat out on the carpeting in the middle of the aisle about 3/4 of the way through the flight.
With her face pressed to the carpet, she calming explained to me and the flight attendant that she was just really dizzy and felt so much better clinging to the airplane's carpeting installed circa 1975.
That vision alone, almost made me require my barf bag.

On Saturday we ventured over to Elizabeth's house for her big birthday celebration.
We also visited the LSS in town (video coming!).
There was food.
And many presents.
Oh yeah baby...Look who's got a new gun!Here's *e* with her little Bella and her awesome Mom, Juls.
This picture was right outta the camera...they are just that good looking.

And Aimee was there too!
And who could resist using our wooden angel wings as 'staches!
Here's all us gals!

The next day we drove to Alabama to visit our buddy Nancy.
I told Max I was on my blogging world tour 2008.
We stopped at the beach for a few photos.Sometimes the kid was cooperative, other times not so much.
Now, this gal Nancy I have known for a while online.
But in person...Oh my, a thousand million times better!
Her hubby is a dream.
He was cooking, cleaning, tending house...this man is a prince.
And her scraproom...it would make you swoon. (video coming!)
Here we are after we were well fed and laughed until our bellies ached.We stopped to see the Katrina memorial and snap a few more photos...just cuz.
The lighting was perfect too.
The rockstars...On Monday we were flying back outta New Orleans.
Did I mention I went to four states last weekend?
While in New Orleans we got to see some sights.
Like the St. Louis Cathedral.

We even went inside although I feared one of us would instantly burst into flames upon entering.
My money was on her...she was wearing the shirt that said sinful!
(might as well have worn a target!)
And we saw Bourbon Street.
When asked how Bourbon street was Max has been replying, "stinky".
I think he thought he was a politician that day.And right before heading to the airport, we stopped at Cafe du Monde to get some beignets.
Max has been requesting that I make some, I told him I could just get him a big bowl of powdered sugar...pretty much the same.
We took our extras to go, good thing.

Then we were off to the airport for our 4pm flight.
I called on the way, since it was already raining or sleeting in Chicago.
The new departure time was 5pm.
We checked in, the lady at the desk told us it would be closer to 6p than 5p.
We figured we were in for a long wait.
So we planted ourselves in seats between 2 gates, ours and Los Angeles.
NO is a small airport.
And we waited.
Or backs to our gate, the whole time someone stayed in our staked out seats.
And at about 4:45p, I looked over my shoulder to see...No one.
Everyone in the Chicago area...GONE!
We ran to the screens to see if the gate had changed.
The only other Chicago flight was American and we were flying United.
I called, it said our plane had left at 4:39.
So we head back out the security gate, because there is no one to be found anywhere and are met with the most unpleasant woman.
She had a hard time believing we were at the gate the whole time and missed the plane.
Yeah...so do we!
I am so lucky, a thousand times over, that Josie was with me.
I felt like a complete moron, but it wasn't just me.
We all missed it.
So, our only option was to fly to Denver and then Chicago or wait til Tuesday.
So we flew to Denver.
And once on the plane to Denver...there was a computer problem.
We sat on the plane without taking off for almost an hour!
To make it up to us, they let us watch Dan in Real Life.
Then off we went.
We knew it was gonna be a close call for us to make our connecting flight but we figured...what else could happen?
Well, as we got closer to Denver, we were stuck in the air because of a storm.
And as we landed....we missed our connecting flight.
We just had to laugh and half cry.
Then when we ran our butts over to the nearest desk and got a new flight.
And guess what?
That flight was delayed too.
We finally got back to snowy Chicago at 2:15am.
And then we had to find our luggage that had arrived home many, many hours earlier.

After that it was off to the public transportation for a ride home that made me wish I had been packing heat that night.
Josie almost became a 48 hour missing person mystery.
And we were finally home, safe and sound after dragging my luggage and a tried boy through the snow, at 3:45am.

Phew!
That whole last 12 hours was dreadful.
But all and all, it was a marvelous time with awesome people.
And I will only travel with Josie from here on out.
No one can appreciate a mullet like that girl.