The Story of Two Loves

Big bad blogger signing in.

March 2010 seems to be the month when my blog officially died. Cause of death? Facebook. (Everyone else blames Facebook anyway for their own lack of blog updates, so it's as good an excuse as any.) But in a word - LACK. Lack of time, lack of inspiration. But I believe in reincarnation, so here's my initial attempt at resuscitating the blog. I am hopeful that I will be able to breathe some life into it because also after so many months, seven, to be exact, I have started scrapbooking again! Scrapbooking, after all, is the raison d'etre of The Armchair Scrapper.

I have been a frequent visitors to my fellow scrappers and manufacturers' blogs though. I continued to be abreast of scrapbooking news, styles, products, and trends. In fact, it is in one of these frequent forays in inspirational galleries that I came upon American Crafts' Recipes Week Challenge. I was so inspired by the theme and Jennifer Gallacher's sample layout that I decided to venture into my scrap room and play.

Baked Goodies


Journaling:

Recipe for Chocolate Revel Bars hand-written on a page of CH's recipe notebook.

Materials Used:

All three patterned paper (a la Carte) and Thickers by American Crafts; Cosmo Cricket tag; Tulip dimensional fabric paint; Saunders liquid glue; Sakura pen; Tsukineko ink pad; button by Autumn Leaves.

On a side note - revel bars are the very first goodies I baked. It was Christmas 2002. I've never baked before and I wasn't sure what the final outcome was supposed to look like. I thought at first it looked underdone (the chocolate looked too soft and gooey to my untrained eye) so I returned it to the oven for an extra 10 minutes. Thank goodness, bar cookies are easy and forgiving, so it still turned out well, just slightly burnt on the edges. Thankfully, too, I had forgiving friends and family who pretended not to notice those burnt edges. :-)

I'd like to believe I've become a better baker since then. After all, I took a class after that first near-disastrous experience. And now I am INSPIRED. Inspired to continue scrapbooking and to start baking again. Just in time for Christmas! I am very happy that in this particular layout I got to combine my two loves.

It's An Epiphanie!

So when I finally got my first DSLR, the first thing I thought was, I need a new bag. And I don't want those bags that scream "Camera bag, steal me!" No, I want one that could carry to school, to work, and to meetings. Practical enough to protect my expensive gear, and pretty enough for me to want to carry it around all the time.

After searching online, I had an Epiphanie! I found this, and I want it. Gotta have it.

This is the perfect camera bag for women. And guess what? Epiphanie is giving away a brand new Canon 5D Mark II or a $2500 gift certificate to Southwest Airlines. Click here for details.

And again, I know exactly what I want. I think that's the beauty of Epiphanie, the creator, Maile Wilson knows exactly what you want.

Concert! Concert!

Get a chance to win 2 Silver Tickets to the Timbaland, Jojo, and Justin Timberlake concert via fritzified.com http://wp.me/p63Qf-I5

Prima's Big Secret

That's Right! Prima is giving away two more AMAZING prize packages in conjunction with our BIG SECRET!

We want EVERYONE to have a chance to win so we are changing the rules a bit.

* Please copy this write-up and link us on your blog, Facebook, or any other site that you frequent (please follow their TOU).
* Then post here with a link to your blog, Facebook or site post for your chance to win BIG with Prima!
* One US and one International winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.


And we are getting closer and closer to revealing our secret-it won't be long now!

Just a couple more days of suspense!

It's 2010

Happy new year everybody! Wishing and hoping that the year 2010 bring you the best of everything.

They say that what you do on the first day of a new year, you would likely be doing for the rest of the year. Well, after we welcomed 2010 with all the noise we could muster (shouting at the top of our lungs and banging on the gates) and jumping around like crazy (so we'd all grow taller this year), the kids and I took turns at the Magic Sing karaoke. So I guess, the neighbors would have to bear with our family version of the Queen's "Somebody to Love" from hereon hence.

Since I finished season 1 of Dollhouse at around 3 a.m. (I watched it in my iPod while everyone else slept), I woke up around 12 noon today. Not a good sign if I want to be more productive this 2010. Less TV and less sleep means more time for other more important though not as much fun things. Then I had delicious left-overs from our media noche and some chocolates. I wouldn't mind having the chocolates everyday but if I see another left-over in the ref...

And of course, I couldn't resist spending more than a few minutes in Facebook you'd certainly be seeing me there more often. Everybody seems to be there. Does anyone still log on to the egroups? Maybe we should move the egroups to Facebook. Started feeling kinda guilty about that and about neglecting this blog. I've been a bad bad blogger and I hope to address that this year. Blog on! I hope somebody out there will still read me...seeing that almost everyone I know is more into Facebook nowadays.

In a few minutes, I will be logging off to actually scrap. Yey! I miss scrapping. My scrap room is clean and organized (a result of being OC the past few weeks) and I can't wait to make a creative mess in there again. I will not even attempt to count how many layouts I did last year. I hang my head in shame. This year, I promise to find time to scrap at least one layout a week. Not including this. One layout created on a monthly basis to highlight the month's activities, with Becky Fleck sketches. What could be easier? So bring it on, Project 12.

Speaking of projects, I miserably failed at my first Project 365 attempt, due to many factors, the least of them - my 5-year old digital camera dying out on me in October. So here's hitting the reset button. I hope to be able to do this religiously as it would also be a source of photos to scrap for my Project 12.

By the way, I am still enrolled in school and I am working on a few research projects so it will be crazy around here, but I am hopeful that I will be able to finish whatever I take on with flying colors, and I don't mean drug-induced ones. Hehehe.

So here's to a great start - wishing you all the best. Now excuse me while I go scrap with Sarah and Kahlo. Have fun!