Embellishments...The Oriental Trading Way

I can't say that Oriental Trading is totally new to me. I've actually been buying party supplies and favors from them for a while now, but when I received their latest scrapbooking catalog I realized how many cool embellishments they offered - especially brads.

Of course, they have your traditional brads in a myriad of colors (how does 150 for only $2.95 sound...), but they also have jeweled brads and ones that look just like eyelets. And what's even cooler are their themed brads like...

Candy Corns,
Christmas Trees,
Neckties and Bow Ties (for Father's Day),
Dog Bones, and for all your Las Vegas Layouts...
Casino Brads in the shape of poker chips and dice.

Check out Oriental Trading today!

I Found Them!!

The unfortunate thing about records, especially older ones, is that sometimes they're wrong. Even census records aren't correct 100% of the time (or consistent from census-to-census). So, when I went looking for my great-great grandfather's grave in Collegeville, I came up empty-handed using records that I thought were accurate.

But, as if he was leading me to him, I accidentally drove to Norristown while looking for a supermarket in King of Prussia one day (while at CKC-Valley Forge). When I got home, I started digging and found information that lead me to believe he was buried there...less than a mile from where I had been. Arrgghhh!!!

Fast forward to my second trip to Philly in less than a month.

With the boys napping in the car, and time to kill before the Wiggles concert, we drove up to Norristown to check it out. The cemetery is huge and the main office had yet to return my inquiry, so I was crossing my fingers that I would find him (and anyone else that was related). As we drove through the cemetery, I gave my husband strict instructions on what names to look for, oh and we were finding them,...all but the one I was really looking for. To quote me, "He's so close I can taste it," and as if he heard me from above, I look up to see a huge family marker. "Yes, Yes, Yes!!!" I tried to contain my excitement as the boys were still sleeping. I scrambled to find a place to park and grab my camera and hoped that my great-great grandparents were there...and they were, along with my great-great aunt and uncle. Relief set in as I was able to verify another fact in the family story.

Scrapbook Sketches: Opposites Attract

Just doing some sketching and thought I'd share... These two sketches are for a single, 12x12 layout and feature one large photo and several small complimentary photos. Enjoy!

On Being a Perfectionist

It stands to reason that scrapbooking and an overwhelming need to have everything be "just so," just don't mix... Yet, here I am, it's 10:00 at night and I'm coming to grips with an ever so slight laminating glitch on something that in a day's time my two-year old boys will not even notice. They're going to be squealing with joy because they have a portable picture book of their favorite "Things That Go" - the trash trucks and motorcycles that we look for every day on the way to school.

Scrapbooking isn't about being right, perfect or precise, it's about the person that benefits from it being perfectly happy that you made them something.

Staying in Fashion with Pantone Color Reports

Looking to spice up your scrapbook layouts with some of the hottest colors of the season. Check out Pantone's Fall 2006 Color Report.

Text Circles in MS Word

Looking to make a text circle for a CD cover or to put a cool twist on your scrapbook journaling, but don't have scrapbook software? Not a problem - text circles can be easily created in MS Word using the Word Art function. Just use the following steps:

In Word, go to the View Menu - select Toolbars --> then Word Art. On the Word Art Menu, click on the Blue A (it's kind of tilted to the side).

That will bring up the Word Art Gallery dialog box. You want to select the third option from the left in the very first row. It doesn't have a specific name, but it looks like bowed text. Click OK.

You will be then prompted to insert your text. Click OK.

Your text will not automatically appear in the shape of a circle, but it's easy to do. You will notice white guide boxes that surround the text that would form a triangle if you "connected the dots".

One of these boxes, on the left-hand side of your text, will appear as a yellow diamond. You want to left-click on the diamond(hold the mouse button down) and pull down.

You will then see a dashed line start to wrap around to form a circle. Once it's all the way around, you can let go.

Your text will look like a flattened circle at first, but your white guide boxes will help to fix that. You should see two in the middle of your text image.

You want to left-click on the bottom one (again hold down on the mouse button) and pull down again. Once you let go, you will see it's more in the shape of a circle. You can then click on the other white guide boxes to fine tune your circle.

Happy Journaling!