Using your stash feels good!

This is the first time I've used any of this BG Archaic. It's perfect for reptile pics. This little guy just appeared on our patio one morning last summer. He was SO cute! BUT--I kept my distance. Turtles can be vicious. I know this from experience. They may be slow(and actually this one moved out pretty fast) but they can bite HARD. We just left him alone(after I made sure to take his mugshot) and he hung out all day and was gone the next morning. We had one show up like this in our backyard in El Paso and we kept him for a few days as a "pet". Yeah. That didn't work out so well. Our freshly sodded yard was torn up and half eaten before we had to kick him out. We released him in the desert behind our street and do you know he showed up in my parent's backyard later on that summer? They lived 5 blocks away. How did we know it was the same one, you ask? He had a red sunburst painted on the top of his shell. Guess somebody decided they didn't want him as a pet after all. He lived in their cul-de-sac moving between the yards for a few years up until we all moved here to Georgia. Wonder if he's still there?

Just a couple things I thought I'd share about the techniques on this one: the little turtle shells lined up at the top are a Quickutz die( part of a rose, I think) that I die-cut from a piece of thick velvet cardstock. I ran them through a cuttlebug embossing folder (the mesh one) and then took a black marker and colored in around the raised spots and along the edge. The funky little extra under my title was just me messing around with a Spellbinders edge die. I die-cut the edge once on a piece of cardstock and then turned it around and ran it through again to make a shape. I had to trim some of the edges to clean it up a little, but I thought it turned out kinda cool. Reminded me of something reptilian. My brain works in weird ways.

There's no rhyme or reason to what I'm choosing to scrap these days. I had these pics laying around in the same place with those Army formal pics. I did up kits for both layouts a few years back so I just decided to finally finish them. That felt good! So did using some of my older stash. I might try making up more kits in the future when I don't have a lot of time to scrap but I want to get SOMETHING accomplished.

I have a major dilemma going on with digital photo organization and trying to figure out what to scrap next. I want to work with some of my more current pics which requires me to edit them and print them off. I'm just being lazy about it. I read a good article by Stacey Julian in the new issue of Scrapbook and Cards Today. You can check out the issue here. It's a FREE download and has some serious eye-candy in there! She has a 3 part series on tackling your digi pics and it couldn't have come at a better time for me. I'm going to take her 15 minute timer idea and get started this week.

I might try to work on a card or two this week, possibly a layout, but we're leaving in a few days for my in-laws beach house in Delaware so I'll be MIA for a week or so. It's our annual family reunion and there's 15 of us staying in their house! It's ginormous though so it's always a fun time--fireworks on the boardwalk, kayaking in the canal, and bodysurfing at the beach WOOHOO!! Hope everyone's enjoying summer and able to get out there and make some memories!


Supplies used: BasicGrey paper,PTI paper(lined notebook),Perfectly Clear stamps,Cuttlebug embossing folder,EK Success border punches, Quickutz dies,Spellbinders dies,Bazzill,Ranger distress inks.