MyScrapHappyLife

What happened to April?

Gone. The month of April is Gone. Im not sure how I lost track of it maybe is was here.....

at the Lake or here.....

hunting and dying eggs......

or during those spring break pajama days.....

or maybe that day.....

or the day I helped mom organize her scrap room....

or Earth Day.....

or the day we built Kenzies Junkyard Jane for the 

School Open house......

or the school open house....

or the last few days of April getting ready for our 

National Scrapbook Day Crop. Im not sure but 

never the less it is gone! So here is to a longer May....

Dr. Seuss mini scrapbook album

During our National Scrapbook Day Crop. One guest Kelly who if you can believe it has never made a scrapbook created this fabulous Dr. Suess mini album for a friends baby shower. 

For her first scrapbook she just dove in taking on an acrylic bind it all album! 

She also used the same papers from Chatterbox that she used in the album to make a card from the Bookatrix. It reads:

Today you are you

that is truer than true.

There is no one alive who is youer 

than you.

-Dr. Seuss

Disneyland Vacation Scrapbook

I began this album well over a year ago and finally picked up where I left off and finished it! To include all of my favorite picks from Disneyland and California Adventure I ended up with 2 albums. These are 9x9 Bo Bunny 3 ring albums. I used a lot of colorful papers from Creative Cafe as well as some provo Disney papers.

Enjoy!

Mulan Asian Scrapbook and Card

Opening night was a success! Watching the play from the audience was a first for me. I couldn't believe how professional the kids were. I knew that it was crazy backstage but you couldn't tell from the  audience. Everyone played their part perfect.

I worked back stage for the last show on Friday and it was so crazy it was actually the first time I didn't cry. Every rehearsal and every show I ended up teary because I was so proud of them. These kids have such talent and dedication and it showed.

After the show was over I decided to make a scrapbook of each scene for the teachers as well as the parents that I worked with all week. I had also set up my video camera during a rehearsal so I thought it would be nice to make a dvd for each actor (all 70). Do you ever get in over your head? 

Well once I have an idea in my head I can't let it go. So thank goodness I have a wonderful sister, mom, and neighbor who were willing to work as slaves in my sweat shop to get my projects done. We were like a factory. Everyone worked on different parts of the book. Cutting embellishments, paper, and constructing pages. I had to keep it all organized so that we ended up with 8 of each page. 

I used the Eastern Promise embossing board to create the front cover.

I love how it turned out. Everything I needed was on that board. 

The papers I used for the whole book were from a G.C.D. Studios stack called Zen Garden.

The fan is from the same board.

Again the sword is from that board.

Love these fans that mom made. She gold embossed some chipboard scraps and stamped the fans and embossed them with glitter powder. 

I used huckleberry Glimmer Mist on the flower.

The chinese lantern turned out really cool. Again from the board. It has 3 layers and some bling.

We worked for 10 hours on saturday so between the 4 of us it took 40 hrs to complete the 8 books! I also put together a couple of thank you cards for people who donated. I used the Bookatrix board and the Eastern Promise board along with again the Zen Papers.

So then i set out to edit and burn the 70 disks. I used imovie to make the video and idvd to format and burn it. It took much longer than I expected. Typically I make 30 min videos from pics and video this was an hour and a half so it took 10 minutes per disk to burn. Thus I ended up burning disks for 2 days!! My computer did great no problem burning that many disks and the kids loved them! 

I used fotoflexer to create a photo collage for the cover of the dvd. Then I printed them at Ritzpics on a Tuesday because on Tuesday and Wednesday 3.5x5 pics are only $.06!

Then I printed the background. I found the chinese translation for Fa Mulan on igoogle.

I enjoyed giving everyone their gifts to show my appreciation for the hard work they put into this amazing show. I am so thankful that Mackenzie has this opportunity through FAME and I am so lucky to have been a part of it.

Mulan melting pot hair pieces

For the past 2 weeks I have spent every morning back stage for rehearsals and shows at my daughters schools FAME production of Mulan.

Thats my girl. She is playing one of the hair dressers. I thought it would be nice for the hair dressers to have some pretty chop sticks in their hair. So mom and I altered some chop sticks from panda express.

They turned out fab! First we painted the sticks with black acrylic then a layer of modge podge.

Kenzie pitched in.

Then we mixed Utee, flex beads, and Jade embossing powder in a melting pot. The trick to getting the round ball on the end is to do multiple layers and allow gravity to pull the material down into a tear drop shape.

The girls loved em!

Macie has been to every show and rehearsal so after seeing it 7 times she knows every line and every song. We brought her a little chair and she sat in the front row everyday telling each new set of students who sat by her what a treat they were in for. So today on our last day time show the class presented her with an award and gifts for being their number 1 fan! 

How sweet is that? All of the kids love her and she passes out tons of hugs.

So tomorrow I will get to watch the show and then Friday Ill be backstage and balling Im sure. Every show I have had at least teared up a dozen times. These kids are so talented and hard working and I am just wanting to hold on to every minute of it. Im sure Ill really loose it on the closing show. We have a cast party on Monday and I am planning to put together 70 DVD's of the show and 6 scrapbooks for the teachers and parents who have put it all together. I have big plans for those so Ill post the finished projects next week!

Viva Las Vegas

Wow what a weekend in Vegas! We had a blast at the Viva Las Vegas Soccer tournament.

On Sunday it was crazy windy and cloudy with a little sprinkling which created this rainbow over the fields.

Despite the weather our girls kicked but winning 2 out of 4 games!

We took home 2nd place!

We stayed at ........

We had a soccer break Saturday night and had fun taking the girls to the strip to see

the M&M factory

We had dinner at the Outback inside the Coke Bottle

The MGM Lions

The Vegas Lights

Macie could see the Excaliber from our hotel window and couldn't stop talking about going to see the princesses. I wasn't sure what we were going to do when we got there and it had no princesses 

We decided that she was the princess in the castle after all!

After that we took the Tram from the Excaliber to the Mandalay Bay to see the Shark Reef and then back to New York New York where the girls took their first cab!

We had a fan-tas-tic time with girls and everything but dinner and the cab was free! So when we got back to the hotel I crashed with the girls and Bran still had money to gamble with!

Acrylic Scrapbook Album Tips

Heading for Vegas this weekend for a Soccer Tournament so I will be sharing new National Scrapbook Day Crop details next week but I will leave you with some new Acrylic Scrapbooking tips I just posted over at Kits2Remember.

First an  embossing video....

I used the finished piece to create a key chain!

K2R has also released new Flourish Stamps. I used them to create the boarder on this magnet board.

Royal slumber crop and Make your mark contest

Hi croppers I hope you had a great time at the Royal Slumber Crop over the weekend. I really enjoyed meeting all of you and presenting the Bookatrix make-n-take!

To check out all of the boards click here and email me at 

andreavenndesigns@cox.net

You can also email your photo entries for the Make Your Mark contest there as well or upload your photo to an online gallery and link it in the comments section of this post! Remember we will be giving away a $50 gift basket to one lucky book mark creator!

Also all Royal Slumber Crop attendees receive an amazing $10 discount for the National Scrapbook Day Flip Flop Crop! Please email or call me with any questions or for help signing up!

My MacBook battery swelling problem!

It is so weird to live without my computer. Part of my daily routine has been missing since last week when my MacBook battery inexplicably swelled!

One evening last week I  was working when Brandon asked What is under your computer? Huh? I lifted it up to find that the battery had swelled so much is was now protruding from the computer. I shut down and removed the battery. 

Since we were leaving for the weekend I had to make an appointment at Apple for the following week. Now the battery is only under warranty for the first year and I have had mine for over 2 years. So I figured I was going to have to purchase a new battery for $125 even though the battery had no problem holding a charge.

Well the good news was that Apple was happy to replace my battery for free! This was a defect that they had seen before. So if this happens to you no worries just take it to a genius.

So now I am trying to clear up my digital to do list like unload my camera from the Coerver Super Cup Tournament last weekend....

 

now I a can photograph the projects I have finished this week.

I also need to edit an acrylic tips video I shot, blog (check), download the second season of Big Love, and catch up on emails which looks like may not happen today as the Cox server is down.

So Im on to preparing the make-n-take Ill be presenting this weekend at the Royal Slumber Crop. 

*Also an update** registration will be closing on APRIL 1 for the Flip Flop Crop! So if you are looking for a 4 star way to spend National Scrapbook Day May 2nd make sure to sign up right away as spaces are limited. Remember for only $40 you get cropping space, catering all day, gift bags and prizes, as well as optional projects!

Yellow Card

Thought I would share this card I made as a sample for Lydia's friend's Daughter's 18th Birthday.

It looks like Ill be crankin out 75 of these babies!