A Quiet Sunday

Today was a relaxing day. It was too hot to do much, so we hung out around the house mostly. Miss J. did get her back-to-school supplies. She was SO excited! She couldn't wait to get her name on everything and put it all in her backpack. She must have then emptied and refilled it five times. :) She certainly does keep us young at heart. Oh, and after most of the back-to-school excitement wore down, we snuggled up to watch a movie. You can ask for better than that.

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I'm also working on getting some major page kits together for our retreat in.less.than.two.weeks! Lori and I are finally going to tackle 911. No, I'm ashamed to say, I have not yet scrapped a single word or picture on the subject. She and I are both "blocked" on how to approach it. We decided to tackle this one together. We're hoping it will make it easier if we share pictures and general information, design a format together (to which there may be some variations), and share our thoughts and feelings as we struggle through the emotional journaling (most of which will be hidden). I think I kept waiting for the "silver bullet" before I could scrap the events of that day (and ensuing weeks/months). Unfortunately, seven years have passed and there is no silver bullet in sight. So, we have decided to dig our heels in and just do it.

Tomorrow is our planning day. We are going to lay the whole thing out and make decisions. I think she's interested in doing 4 - 12x12 pages. I'd like to do a mini book (from scratch - including the book, itself). I guess it's possible we'll be doing something very different on the same subject. The important part is the approach and shared materials, I think. We'll see soon enough.

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On a lighter note, about a year ago, someone gave me a pastry scraper to remove adhered photos, papers, embellies, etc. Used with Un-du, there is nothing that won't come up with ease. The edge is VERY sharp and fine - it will get underneath anything. I was getting a little concerned because I've used mine so much it was getting just a little bit dull and chipped on the edges. (It really does get a work-out.) I was on a mission to find another one. I found the BEST resource for these things. At https://www.kitchenworksinc.com/3522/Pastry-Scrapers , you can buy these things for $0.59/ea. Yep, .59 cents will get you these wonderful little gadgets. They even say in their product description that they use them to remove price tags. LOL I bought six to start. The order was here in three business days, priority mail. The customer service was excellent. I wrote them to tell them as much and received an immediate response from Louise, who was wonderful. Just something to consider a non-traditional scrapping tool that works great!

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I wanted to leave you with at least one picture today, so I decided to share my thoughts on an upcoming layout. As soon as I can round-up all the photos I have taken of birthday cakes I have made over the years, I'm going to do a couple (few?) pages about them. I think some of them are pretty creative, actually. I think I can probably count on one hand the number of store-bought cakes that have come into this house. This cake was made with a bunch of mini cake pans. Of course, Johanna's nickname is "bug" so we try to incorporate the theme when we can. This is one of my favorites and I'm really tempted to make it again. It's great for parties, because each child can have their own. This was Miss J's third birthday.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back to chat some more on Monday night.