JYC: Manifesto, Intro page AND some cool pages

Once you take a class, it's hard to stop, right? I'm now addicted. I have tons of blogging for scrapbookers posts to still add, but I thought I would maybe break them up a bit, so I've decided to show you something else I came a little late to but still ended up being awesome:

I'm taking Journal Your Christmas with Shimelle. My second Shimelle class in a month, LOL. Oopsie! Seriously, though, I wasn't certain about taking it. First, I'm not really huge into Christmas, and to be honest, things for Christmas this year were looking very bleak...Insanely bleak. As you may or may not know, I go to California to visit my Grandmama for Christmas every year. Since we're being laid off at work from December 14-28, I decided to take off until the first week in January. I decided I needed it. While I'd love to get into a few things with that (rants, raves and all other manner of weirdness), I'm just going to say that I love going out to California and seeing my Grandmama, and my father. And it's good to see a few friends out there and have awesome experiences. I'm truly blessed.

Second, a whole lot of people that I follow (thank you, Google Reader) are doing it. And I figured, if they could do it, I could too. I mean, after all, my Christmas experience is my Christmas experience. So it's relevant.
Okay, and seriously, if you take this class, you pay one fee and can do it for-EVER! (the word 'forever' is in my head like in that movie 'The Sandlot' where the kids are talking about something ominous, but obviously in this class it's not ominous, but more like a hyperbole--you know, exaggeration for effect). There are digi-downloads for hybrid or digi scrappers, printables and prompts every day. Yes, EVERY day. It's seriously a really cool class and I started looking forward to it. I'm allowing myself to think it's awesome (cue Grinch music and see my heart grow a few sizes...).

So I'm a few days behind, but I have a few ideas and actually started to do a few things last night, despite there being a billion other things that needed done (house stuff and organization--and SLEEP!). I wanted to get an 8x8 AC Modern Album, so I could play with the front and be awesome. However, I'm working with a budget here and so I just went with what I had on hand, which is an 8-1/2 by 11 AC album covered in cloth. It's black and there's a small slot in the front for a card or index label or something. Right now it looks totally ghetto, but it can change later, and I'm not sweating that for the time being.

This is my Title page. Now, as I understand it, Shimelle doesn't do title pages until later. I'm cool with that, but I got inspired by this Making Memories paper (which reminds me that I have to go to target before I leave and pick up some more of these paper packs and other embellies)--it's the Tinsel line. I love that the diecut looks like an ornament. I used a scrap of paper next to it from the same patterned paper package and then layered a cutout from Jen Allyson's card set and made a little subhead type of thing. The cardstock base is from Couture Cardstock--love the shade and weight of it! The stickers that say 'Xmas' are from last year's Making Memories Christmas line, too. And the 'Nicole K' is thickers. I ::heart:: these thickers, and wonder if anyone knows that font (they're the black stickers), because I'd rather buy more Christmas embellishments other than thickers to complete this...

Next up is my manifesto page. Or rather, my 'manifest-O!' page. I wanted it to be simple, plan on adding something else eventually, but I just really liked the combination of my favorite thickers, the blue paper from MM (from that Tinsel line), and the K&Company trim which reminded me of a garland. It's on the back of my title page, so it's on the same piece of Couture Cardstock--which by the way is FANTASTIC. I cannot say enough about this wonderful company.

My manifest is handwritten with Pilot Choose (.7) purple ink. I got that pen from Jetpens.com. It's lovely. Have a white one too, that I haven't yet used, though. My manifest talks about the fact that Christmas seems to have lost its magic for me, but that I want to memorialize and perhaps reflect on older Christmases while still rocking the present one. And I also want to refine and even FIND my style. I plan on using a bunch of different pages, sizes, etc.
I thought I'd show you a pair of my element pages. These were acrylic clear pieces, part of an album from Pat Catans. I simply covered them with some of the MM Tinsel paper and went to town. They will have something on the pages, probably a picture or a fond memory (left the back blank so that I could do something with journalling and it wouldn't show through). The red paper has holly on it, and there are even glittery berries. Yay! The green paper reminds me of something from the MM Passport line. Oh, and there are some lovely bits from the Vintage line I got at Michaels from MM on there, spells out 'Fun'. I hope to get some envelopes, maybe some other little things there, too.

Wow! I can't believe I wrote all of this about the album that I wasn't necessarily all happy about. Weirdness, eh? I think it just goes to show you that stranger things can happen. The girl who hasn't been all Christmas-y can suddenly take a minute and say 'wait a second, I want Christmas back!'...

What about you? Are you Christmas-y? Why or Why not?

So that's all I have right now. Thanks for checking this out, and thanks for sharing your JYC projects--they're fantastic! Happy Creating!

A New Chapter

We're about halfway to 2/3 of the way into the new house--of course, it's going to be weeks before I get my books and crafty stuff the way I like it, but we're closer to being in the house. The internet and satellite people are at the house today, getting that all taken care of--yay! I will have internet and tv, I can finally catch up on Top Chef and Sons of Anarchy (weird combo, I know).

So the new house is happy and fun and I'm loving it. I'm not loving being sick, I've still got a bit of a cough (Thank you to Tylenol, I slept last night--some kind of minty syrup that allowed me to sleep and not cough all night--yay!). And there's a full weekend.

There's also online classes. I'm taking Jessica Sprague's new class, and I'll have another post on that later--I'm actually going to be focusing on Shimelle's class "Blogging for Scrapbookers." I signed up a little late for the party (what's new, right?) because of the house thing (we put in an offer on a sunday and by that friday--5 days later--we had keys) and NaNoWriMo (and the novel in a month might not happen this month, kids) and the various birthdays and functions I had to show up to this month--well, let's just say that I'm noticing that I overschedule things a LOT!

So I kept hedging about whether or not I would have time to take Shimelle's class--the cost is only $15, and you DEFINITELY get your money's worth in a Shimelle class as I'm learning. And really, I've always wanted to take a Shimelle class, because she's fabulous. Love her style and the way her personality shines through the photos. So yesterday, I finally admitted to myself that NaNo probably wouldn't happen and I wanted to do something for myself. Plus, we're being laid off at this time next month (which means I'm going to California early) just before Christmas but returning at New Years, and I probably won't have the funds to take another class at the end of 2009/beginning of 2010--so I needed a darn treat! I've been moving without complaining in the midst of coughing up a lung and not sleeping because of said cough (sorry, I don't mean to vent, but darn it, I deserve this class!).

So back to the class. Or rather, back to the reason why I need this class. I've said before that I've never really been to a crop, officially.

• I've had people bring crafty things to book group and we make bookmarks or cards or something.
• I participated in an online crop or online crafty thing where we chatted a bit and then tried to make things, etc.
• I've been to Archiver's and set out a few things to work on, but it was mostly at non-peak times where it was just me, and I left when people started filtering into the room (because I thought it was a class and it turned out not to be)...

So what can you draw from this? That while I have creative friends, we don't craft together. YOU and the people I meet via blogs or on various boards are my creative people. I can share scrapbooking with YOU! I can show you cards and all sorts of crafty things that i don't normally share with others. And you don't understand how much that means to me--how much YOU mean to me. So thank you, first of all, for being around. And I want to take this time to apologize. I read and check all of your blogs, but I don't reply as often as I should, so I'm going to work on that.

And the blog will be changing, in a good way. I've been thinking of turning the address of GothamGal.net into a splash page, but retaining this blogspot account, as well as my book review and book crossing journals for links, but I'm not 100% committed to the idea yet, so that's where we're at at this moment. Look for new posts soon--like, possibly in the next day or even tonight, if I get inspired (which ISN'T hard to do when you're doing a Shimelle class, I've learned).

Happy Creating!

Jessica Sprague

A while back, I took a free course from Jessica Sprague. Oh, my goodness, if you ever have an opportunity to take one, you need to do it. She's amazing! So I decided to post the first and second lessons combined. I've used Photoshop for over 10 years (did design in high school and college, etc), and I FINALLY now know how to use brushes correctly, LOL. Her classes will satisfy all skill levels, in my opinion. This is a silly picture that I took of me, and I just thought the frame and brush (celebrate) looked like they fit. Now, don't be too scared, because I'm not wearing makeup and I did that weird thing with two Princess Leia buns, LOL.

Anyway, go check her out at her website, JessicaSprague.com!