a little late because i am lazy

i bought a laptop in january so i'd have computer access at CHA. that laptop has changed my life. it's also made me a little bit lazy. all my photos are on the iMac upstairs (although that is currently downstairs, another story altogether) because that's hooked up to my non-wireless printer. so lately i've been doing all my computing (and all that blogging that i do) on the laptop because it's easy and i don't get nearly as tied to the computer for some reason, but that also means all my cocoa daisy projects for the march kit are on this computer, which is usually upstairs and takes forever to boot up (should get that looked into...).  this means i haven't posted pictures to my blog. but today, i change that. :)

we had international reveal yesterday at cocoa daisy, it's a new thing we started last month because nearly half the team is international and sometimes they don't get their kits until a day before reveal or even later. i don't know about you, but i do not work well under that sort of time pressure. so christine decided to do two reveals, one on the 28th for stateside DT work and another on the 14th for the international DT. it's been amazing to see what a little more time does! their work was awesome before this, but it's phenomenal now.

and i'm telling you this because? i don't remember. i started down a path and have plumb forgotten. just thought i'd let you know a little bit about cocoa daisy...

any way, here's my march gallery.

oh, i remember now!

 

i was telling you that because i really struggled with this month's kit. there were awesome things in it, lots and lots of embellishments, enough paper that i knew i could use easily, and the stamps were amazing! but the colors were softer and i struggle with pastels. always have. hopefully i won't always will. i have gotten over phobias in the past, i need to work on this one. the reason i was telling you about international reveal was i thought everyone did an amazing job with the kit and made it look easy. i am very happy with how my work turned out, i just had to push myself to get anything i liked. i suppose that happens on occasion.

again, here's my march gallery. i'll walk you through how i survived it:

the paper from crate saved me. who could not love happy flowers. and if you look back to this post, you might notice something. i totally scraplifted the card. turned it into a layout because i knew it worked the first time, it had to work again. so that's my valuable lesson numbers one and two for you today. use paper you love and scraplift. i also loved the may arts ribbon. you'll see that again. and again. this photo isn't one of my best, it was snapped before i knew a bit about lighting and such. but it was a proud moment and i decided it was time to scrap it. it really doesn't work with the paper, but valuable lesson number three? so what. things do not have to work perfectly together. and the title? there are only three people in the picture. so what possessed me to name it that? well it's the chant from thumb wars, of course: "1,2,3,4, i declare a thumb war!"

this paper from pink paislee, well i had originally put it aside, not me. i've never been scuba diving, have no pictures of fish, nothing that would be supported by paper with fish on it. i was cropping with my denver girls and we discussed the paper, when i remembered another card i'd done about birthday fishes. a clever play on words, yes? so this card came into being. valuable lesson number four: you don't have to use paper as it seems to be intended. think outside the box. putting a birthday hat on anything that shouldn't be wearing a birthday hat is rather rewarding. try it sometime. notice the canvas ribbon again?

this next card. yes it took me a long time. but i knew it would look awesome. thank you to christyn for the lovely background book paper. it's from sense and sensibility. and after i got over the horror of using such a lovely book for such purposes (christyn showed me the book came to her in pieces, unusable already, making me feel better. valuable lesson number 5: it's ok to repurpose something that may have ended up in the trash), i enjoyed painting and stamping over it. makes a nice background, don't you think?

took my favorite papers, stamped with the quatrefoil stamp, and began cutting. i was inspired by a gorgeous piece of art by jill ricci. (i want to be like jill when i grow up) check out her site, hello lovely! i think my card is lovely and i was lamenting to my denver girls that whoever got it would just throw it away, not knowing how much time and effort went into it. they assured me if they were the recipients, they would save it forever. valuable lesson number six: pick good friends.

and finally, this sweet little framed piece. it's a quote i found long ago. i am notoriously bad at remembering quotes and punch lines. i'm just not blessed with memory cells like that. i can remember many many things, some very valuable, some not so much. but i can't remember a quote this good to save my life. i was sharing the gist of this with my good friend heidi and she she loved it and wished she could remember it, saying how hard it was for her to remember good quotes. i had a lightbulb moment and this is the result. valuable lesson number seven: not everything you do as a scrapper has to be a layout. use your skills to bless and enrich the lives of others.

the quote is one i've shared on my blog before long long ago, i'm not going to go find it. it was before the days of pinterest, it was that long ago. the jar paper, another piece that i set aside because i just couldn't think of how to use it. but to hold a quote and some sweet little flowers? well of course i could use it. so i cut and glued and wrote and voila (i like that word), i had this. and it makes me very happy. and it made my friend heidi happy. and there's not much better in this world than being happy. note the canvas trim yet again?

i'm sure there are a few more very valuable lessons in this post, but i'm late for art day at ronda's, i haven't gotten dressed yet, i didn't exercise today (but i've been very good all week and have done the legs routine in this post every week, yesterday in fact, and it's getting easier, will discuss later...), and i have to end this, which means i can't think up any more very valuable lessons.

i will tell you i've got a quick picture tutorial for the above framed piece, but am saving that for another post, remember: smart blogging!

but i need to say one more thing. MY SISTER IS ENGAGED!!!!!! and i am so happy for her. she giggles now. she never used to giggle. more on that later too :)

have a great day!