Brown, black and Red- a love story

I don't know about you guys but I spotted a definite "trend" in my scrapbook pages for the last 10 years.
I love Red.
And I definitely prefer Kraft over white.
Black, Brown and Red make for striking imagery.

I have a whole socio-political theory for this preference.
There is a time and space for those ramblings but this ain't it.
I have no real way to articulate them properly.

I'll just show you my pages.

I love this Pink Paisley clear acetate alphabet so much I managed to buy it THREE times without noticing. Luckily it was 3 bucks a pop at Tuesday Morning my new favorite scrap haunt. I'd love to keep up with the latest lines but I simply can't justify the expense anymore. The background paper is another holdover from 2016 Crate Paper. 

I ended up stitching the danged letters into the page- a process that took TWO whole assed hours because this clear plastic alphabet doesn't like any glue that I had on hand- it either popped out of showed through- a big no no.

When we moved to Utah I didn't bring any furniture. I didn't pack much clothing. I didn't bring my Mac- something I deeply regret. 
I put my favorite paper bits, my negatives, photos and home decorations into 4x4 boxes and sent them over via railroad.
The stuff stayed boxed up for 4 years. 
We left everything behind. 
It took 4 years just to come back to a spot that felt familiar. We lived in a basement. Then the world's awfullest rental. 
Then we FINALLY bought a home.

I cannot put into words just how amazing it is to become a home owner.

Yes the taxes and the neighbors and the plumbing issue which is now your problem not the "Super's" - these are all hella stressful.
But I am an advocate for moving the HELL outta of cities. 
Find a place that speaks to you- a place with nature. A place with DIVERSITY- something Salt Lake deeply lacks but which can be found if you look. 
West ValleyCity is where it's my gente.
I have Temples to at least 5 different religions just blocks away from my home.
I found a Puerto Rican Plena group. We plan to learn. In Salt Lake City y'all.
Seek and find the "other".
We take up space everywhere.

Another page:

When living in a basement apartment you need to seek light or you WILL go crazy. We took road trips.
We saw many things and took up space in areas we were told we would meet with prejudice. Not so.
This is on the way to Great Basin National Park on one of the loneliest roads in America. Make sure your gas tank is full. Bring plenty of water and food. Watch for Butterflies. We spooked a flock of thousands and watched them take off in a cloud of yellow. Everyday magic.

The circles came from a Gauche Alchemy kit. The store is
 gone but I love the focus on using things that are already found.
Pretty sure the window privacy film is "non archival" but hey so is the color photo. 

I have no real answers. I'm not sure why I stick to this instead of expanding to Painting or Crochet or a dozen other cooler crafts.
Some people just love paper.
Some people just like to be outliers.
Join us or let us be.

Everyday is Halloween

Hello scrap happy people.

Today is the day before Valentines Day.
I never pay attention to this holiday because it's stressful. Wanna eat somewhere nice? Did ya book reservations? Wanna buy flower? Pay a premium.
Buy this. Buy that. Nothing which I would buy anyway.
I am not a chocolate lover.

My family just buys tacos from the local street vendor and watches a movie at home. The kid is always invited. She gets the heart shaped box because she is queen of our world.

One holiday I love and have started to spend big on is HALLOWEEN.

The movies. The colors!
The monsters.
The LIGHTS! The decor!
I love it all.

Some pages:

So this is American Crafts BOOtiful from 2016. That's how long I've held onto this paper. Sorry for the distracting hot spots I'm still very low tech with my cell phone and my window light.

For 2019 I wanted to do Witch's Night Out with the kid and my nice.
I never found an outfit that fit what I imagined in my head. I found a BALLGOWN on
Poshmark for 15 bucks. It is GORGEOUS!! Layers and glitter galore! Naturally Lola hates it and
she hated me for making her wear it in public. She's 10 now. No more dress up.
Let's take a moment to grieve.

This is Crate Paper's Hey Pumpkin. I just got 1 sheet of chipboard stickers and some of the papers.
The design for this collection was so simple and modern I had to have it even if it was no longer the it thing to use.

So dang CUTE! Orange, Yellow, Green  Teal, Purple, Silver and Black- Halloween is totally my kind of color palette.

In New York we would dress the kiddo up and buy her some candy. She was teeny and didn't want to be outside in the cold.

2012- Keep warm is the first rule.
She still cried when we took her out.

Utah is a whole different thing holiday-wise. The more suburban family oriented landscape means we have plenty of costume required events to attend so October is actually our busiest time of year as I try to fit everything I want to photograph every week.

Some photos:

2015 was supposed to be a sure fire winner- Sea Monster, Holographic, warm. NOPE.
She hated that the head kept flopping forward. Can you believe she wore this costume AGAIN this year?
I'd bought it 2 sizes too large. It didn't flop this time. Whew.

2017- wait- I DID get her a girly short sleeved costume. Little Red Riding Hood.
Made her wear her coat for the actual Trick or Treating and she got SO MAD.

2019- BuckBeak the Hippogriff. EXCELLENT CHOICE. 
Spent 3 weeks freaking out how we would recreate a HORSE with an Eagle face.
Found a Crow mask, painted it grey and gold. Found a wolf costume and
had her wear that with claws I made out of  craft foam. Kid next to her is best friend Harry-
the kid is kinda weird but he treats he well.

Dave made the wings out of card board ans paper plates. The wings actually FLAP- he used washers
on the joints so she could open the wings wide. This of course was not appreciated in school.
Her 6 foot wingspan played murder in the classroom.

 Then you have WitchFest which started as this small marketing event to get more shoppers to visit  Gardner Village in West Jordan. I cannot stress enough how amazing this event is. GO. More than once if you can. Especially on Witch Parade nights Friday and Saturday.
4pm in the afternoon has some of the most spectacular light I have ever seen anywhere.

The costume that started the WitchFest madness.
This 6 dollar thrift store costume fit so spectacularly I feel like I have to one up myself every year.
She really liked this because it was light, the hat was not too big
and she just tucked the dress into her jeans when it was done- the fabric is that thin..

2019 Kid and Niece. I buy the witch hats anywhere I find them. I prefer lots of layers, glitter, color and lace.
I come fully prepared with costume changes and money for snacks.
 The girls frown but I just keep taking photos until one of them does something smiley. 
If visiting in October Garner Village WitchFest is a MUST.

Kuwahara Pumkpin Patch is my absolute favorite.
Did YOU know there were smoke machines that ALSO made bubbles?
You you get smoke filled bubbles??? SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!!
Just don't let them pop in your eye- that is NOT a good thing.

This is Salt Lake City in late September. You should visit. You won't regret it.

It'd almost spring mi gente. Celebrate.

Buffalo Plaid Love with Echo Park

Hallo party people,

I'm just now coming down from the glow I got watching Jennifer Lopez and Shakira shake their middle aged thangs at the Super Bowl Half-Time Show.

Shock and absolute awe was my response... then I burst out crying outta sheer unadulterated pride.

Being Puerto Rican has been an exhausting roller coaster of emotion the last 2 years.

I have SO MANY THOUGHTS but I'm giving myself some time to decide if I need to write about it.

Let's go to our scrappy safe space shall we?
Crafting is my escape when the weather is too bananas to actually escape:

Echo Park's "Little Lumber Jack" is a collection intended for boys but my recent obsession with the pattern has spread to our wardrobe and holiday decor. It's very easy to match photos.

I saw the Echo Park Little Lumberjack Collection and fell instantly in love with the Black/White/Red Buffalo Plaid theme.
I've been redecorating for the holidays in plaid the last two years:

Christmas in my wanna-be FARM HOUSE- a post about that at some point- LOL.

Thanksgiving dinner. I couldn't find 84 inch long Plaid curtains- they are sold out everywhere!

 That Black & White check is everywhere so why not my pages?

Played around with painting the background but I'm still terrible at it.
I also can't stand the warping water causes on regular paper so it's a stencil and some pen work to the rescue.

The collection has a lot of small detail pieces and lots of graphic pop- I really love it.
Here I added a Smash Phrases flair from A Flair For Buttons on Etsy.

Still up to the same ol same ol- string all balled up because I can't be bothered to bring down my sewing machine and
sew on the page.
Pop dots to punch a banner out and this wonderful chipboard for this collection which I highly recommend for Girls. LUMBER JILLS UNITE!

Us annoying the easily vexed with matching jammies this Christmas in TEXAS of all places.
I spent half the time talking to family I hadn't seen in over 20 years or drinking with my sister who can
drink anyone under the table. Don't try her.

I'm still looking for Black/White check 84 long lined curtains. If you have suggestions where to find some, they are sold out everywhere, I'm all ears.

Hugs mi gente.
Stay strong. Stay positive.
Michelle

All The Things, Not Really

It's been 5 whole years since I last looked around this space.

Everything has changed- the paper crafts industry, how we communicate via Social Media, Politics (don't get me started). 

Most of my favorite scrappers have stopped fussy cutting and gluing paper.

I couldn't sit down long enough to do it myself. 

Who cares? I would ask.

But I still love paper and I still love taking photos. 

My family moved to Utah 9 years ago.

We struggled for a while trying to get our footing on a vastly different cultural landscape.

We bought a new computer so I could get back into the swing of things but I relied on someone who made many promises about his tech skills- he promptly deleted all the photos on my old Mac hard drive. 

Flickr became a paid space and I lost most of my digital archive.

On and on.

Thank goodness I got into scrapbooking and had many photos printed.

This is why the hobby is valuable. 

No need to make it stressful. 

I don't have an amount of pages I need to get done or an amount of photos I need to get into an album. I just take it one project at a time.

Some pages from like 3 to 4 years ago:

The kid is now in 4th grade. 😁

This we REALLY LOVE now: Camping and National Parks
You're gonna get a see a lot written about both.

Utah is seriously beautiful. Brooklyn is exciting, current and beautiful but the quiet of the desert and the sight of fresh snow on the Wasatch Mountains has totally done me in.

And I picked up another long term expensive & totally engrossing hobby:

Gardening

This was last Summer's final harvest after a full season of frustration.
Between bugs, too cold, too hot, too much water then no water for three months I was glad to get this.
Gardening is not for the Pessimistic.

The kid:

Then

Now

So that's the update. I'l be checking in more often now. 

Maybe I'll even pick up some new web design skills so I can update this page. 

Watch this space!

Great Salt Lake Park Marina is currently growing salt crystal formations usually only seen in Mars or Antarctica.
So go see them.

Michelle.

Inspiration Elevator Challenge- scrappy layers

Our main purpose here at IE is to challenge ourselves, each other and YOU to take the creative process to the next level;  to inspire growth and change in our scrapbooking beyond the mundane.
You can see all of Inspiration Elevator's previous challenges at on Facebook .

 This month's challenge is issued by the creative Katherine Sutton. Katharine has a fabulous, eclectic style where she showcases all kinds of mediums and keeps the focus on her great photos. This month she has a warm seasonal challenge for us. Here it is in her own words:

" 'cos Autumn is all about layers of leaves and layers of jumpers (in the northern hemisphere) I would like to challenge you to add lots of layers to your page....this could be layers of paints, inks, stamps, papers, glassine paper, acetate....lots of lovely layers."

 My page started as a mass of pop dot clusters all over the page but I realized I wanted a more clean look because I wanted to display this page in my office..

Papers, die cuts and chipboard are all Crate Paper. Flair is from A Flair For Buttons on Etsy.

I lost my precious iPod Touch a couple of weeks back so I had very little material to work with.
Thankfully a friend who lost her entire photo library last year (THE HORROR!!!) convinced me to back-up everything up into iCloud so my photos are safe.
I just don't have access to them till I buy a new Mac device and since I refuse to pay outrageous data charges or buy a new iTouch with an inferior camera it's gonna be a while before I can print my pix.

Die cuts are the easy way to create layers. 

We encourage you to check out each designer's creation this month: here's a complete list of this month's participating designers!

 Katherine Sutton

Lisa Moen

Lisa Speigel

Ann Jobes

Michelle Hernandez 

Jayne Morgan

Christa Uttley 

Wendy Robinson

Why not give the challenge a try yourself? Then pop by our Facebook page and share with us what you created!

I have a second back up- Flickr. So this fall photo is safe.

Thanks for swinging by!