Wow!!

Have I really not blogged in over 3 weeks??
Sorry- but I have been busy!

Son #2 moved back home, one additional person int he house and the whole routine changes.
Ever notice this? It effects everything, so good to have him home but what happened to the grocery routine (I shop every day now) and the laundry routine (two loads a day? He is ONE person), picking up CONSTANTLY...oh well, did I say it was good to have him home?? It is!
Speaking of home, my Mom and her friend Buck are visiting. Arrived here on Monday the holiday- they drove up from Florida, the scenic route way (via Ohio) and are int own for my cousin Kimberly's wedding. While waiting, the wedding is 5/31, they are touring New England, seeing the Maine coast, much of NH and some of VT-too bad we have three days of rain expected.
What else- I enjoyed the holiday weekend, not sure why we cannot work 4 days every week and have 3 off, sounds so much fairer than the 5/2 scheme we comply to now doesn't it? we did BBQ, played on the lake, shopped and shopped. I cleaned the house good, scrubbed the sun porch top to bottom, worked in the gardens and scrapped!
I have been a scrapping fool lately- loved seeing all my scrap friends and having a BALL at CKC this year- love that weekend. I have been on a roll ever since, many cool projects being worked on for ACB-exciting days there and speaking of exciting days my scrap friend Margie Aslett and her daughters ahve started an exciting adventure, they created a cool place called The Girls Loft, coming June 15th- check them out, tell them I sent you and look for many great prizes and surprises these ladies have TALENT!

Speaking of talent, wanna see my most favorite layout? I did this!

Isn't it so cute?? It was SO easy, from a class by Technique Tuesday. It is a CKC thing. I love it- I have had these pics for a while, that was a few Halloweens ago, Hunter was Spiderman two years in a row, so he wanted to be something different, so he was "black Spiderman" here-hahahaha, he loves these costumes cause "the suit has muscles" they are "built in"- he cracks me up! I so envisioned a layout that was titled "My Hero!!!" but this seemed like the perfect pics to use on this one and Meagan is not really the "damsel in distress" type....
I really like how it came out - I LOVE TT stuff - gonna make another, same but different using similiar pics for Hunter's album as this pinky sparkly one is for Meg's album and I am gonna use these tips and techniques on other pages so be ready!

And the AC Bailey Blog Hop Winner is.....

Are you excited?

I sure am, I LOVED having all these visitors to my blog- you gals gotta keep coming back you hear??? I promise to give away more stuff and tips and pointers and whatever you need if you keep stopping in. I LOVE the comments, I have read every one and I am not too techy but I WILL figure out how to access everyone's email address and answer comments next time!

Okay- enough,...you want the winner....on MY blog, the person picked for the blog "leave a post" gift is CARDSISTER!!! You win all the Marks papers in this kit (not the kit but a pile of the PAPERS you have seen here- you are going to LOVE this! So,...leave me another comment with your address or email me your mailing address at scrapqn@wildblue.net so I can get that prize mailed to you!

We will definatley be doing this again. Check the forum ladies to see who won the May ACB Goodies Kit of the Month and the store to buy one if you want, there were only 9 left when I checked this morning.
And, now that you have found me here- keep coming back to visit okay????

AC Bailey National Scrapbook Day Blog Hop Stop

Welcome to my blog. I am so excited to be asked to participate in this, AC Bailey's FIRST ever blog hop! This is amazing....this is an awesome opportunity for you to meet all the ACB DT members, learn lots of (hopefully) new ideas and techniques, gain some inspiration and rumor has it that YOU may even win a prize or two along the way.

Here is how this works, if you are already on my site via a link you already know this, but for those of you popping in here mid-stream, let me explain. The FIRST post or START to this blog hop is on the AC Bailey blog. There you will find the instructions, all the "fine print" details and such. From there, you will go the firsat DT member whose link is in the post (at the bottom). Once you have visited that gal's site, you will click on the link she has in her post to the next ACB DT designer and so on and so on,...following me? Be sure to leave a comment on each blog as at every site there will be a random name drawn from all who post and one lucky person who leaves a message/comment will win a SUPER prize. Don't forget to leave a comment here too! Then- when you are finished with all THAT, you can still win a prize, a bigger better one I am sure! Just create a layout or project using three or more of the ideas you saw demo'd on the blogs and post that layout in the ACB gallery in the NSD layout folder (under Scrap Stimulus Contest). There is also a thread in the forum there for you to post "I did it" and you can even post a link there to your layout (all instructions for this are on the forum and we can help you - it is easy peasy) . We will then draw one lucky winner from all those posting qualifying layouts and THAT lucky "rabbit" will win an ACB May Goodies KOTM . That is what is pictured here (actually there is MORE to it than what you see here, this is a good idea of what it is - it is GORGEOUS stuff, Marks papers, Chatterbox tags and embellishments, Maya Road Ribbon, Prima butterflies- all KINDS of stuff! How cool would winning that be?? It COULD be you, all you need to do is PLAY! It is a lot easier than this perhaps sounds, try it! You will enjoy it.
So, since we all promised to answer these questions - here is a little about me-
1) My name is Gail Connor, I am from Rindge, NH - I have lived most all my life in New England and I love it. I am one of the "oldest" DT members, I have been on this team since I am also theACB Consultant Coordinator. I love this company.
2) I found ACB by accident! I was with another direct sales company of scrap supplies and I wanted something more so I was looking around. A friend found the forum and we joined to chat with other scrappers, who knew it was the start of something so much BIGGER for us?
3) What I like most about being part of ACB is the friends I have made-these gals are awesome, but the constantly new items in the store is good, and the gallery full of inspiration is good too and the daily tips, links and pointers on the forum ...I like it ALL.
4) My current favorite product or line, and it may change next week is the Marks Paper line. It is amazing, the colors are so rich and the papers so thick and easy to handle and use. I also LOVE my THICKERS and the ACB store carried LOTS of them.
4) One thing unique about YOU. Hmmm,....I have bunions. There, I said it- no one else I know has bunions and they hurt and they are ugly and I need them removed. Don't tell anyone.

And,..you want me to teach you a technique or give you a tip or two? Well, my lastest craze (okay I have been crazy for years) is altering THICKERS! I love Thickers, when I saw all the options available to us at the CHA Summer 2008 I thought I had died and gone to Thicker Heaven. Look at this pic with me and some of the Thickers they had there...who seriously can have that many thickers?

Not me- there is a limit to my scrap budget too. So,...I figured "your imagination is your boundary" not your budget girl and I decided to make my own thickers, not actually branch out and manufacture them, but alter and re-cycle and create my own. You can too. There are several different ways.
You can buy each style thicker in white only and really stretch your creativity and budget. Just paint or ink them any color you want to match your layout. You can also cover them with pattern paper for a different look too.

Try paints and all kinds of different inking and painting styles. Here I painted the "g" and "m" with acrylic paint and the "&" was painted with crackle paint-

Or you can apply a few coats of Ranger Glossy Accents (or diamond glaze) like I did here-
these thickers were yellow, I inked them orange and then just added the brads to the "d" and "y" and the glaze to the rest for two totally different fun effects.

How about "blinging" your thickers with stickles or rhinestones! You can decorate them with buttons or brads too. These techniques definatley give them a totally different look from plain out of the package and they are unique and one of a kind.

I have drawn on mine with sharpie-check this funky look out-

You can stickle them for a sparkly look, or ink them like I inked this white one with pink cat's eye ink and then stickled it, the periods and exclamation point are also stickled on the plain white.

and this ultimate alteration was done for a snow layout.
I inked the thicker, then when it was dry I stickled it, then when that was dry I covered it with Ranger Glossy Accents (you can use Diamond Glaze too). It looks awesome in real life- dimensional and sparkly and like glass.

My DT friend Gin (tell her I said "hi" when you visit her blog) inks her thickers and glazes them and she says they look like tile. How awesome is that? Here you will see both the inked and glossy accent ones and the "just ink" version. If you visit the ACB Gallery there is TONS of inspiration in there and if you look close you will see all kinds of layouts with thicker titles alters and created by myself, Gin and the other ACB girls. I sure hope you try this altering technique and add YOUR layout to our gallery too.
Oh, and another tip with regard to altering Thickers-if you line them up in order on a sheet of wax paper, prepare them there and then transfer to your layout the backs stay sticky and they are easy to work with. Clean up is a breeze too. Do you need letters and have run out? You can create new ones by altering other letters into something else and by creatively adding the ink, paint, or bling you can masterfully hide the alterations. You know, cut m's into n's and cut the middle out of e's to make more c's. Shortened j's are more i's and shortened h's are new n's...got the picture? See if you can identify the "used to be a..." letters in my samples-there are some, keep looking.
Have fun and STRETCH those thickers ....you can do it- be creative, you are only limited by YOUR imagination.
Hope you had fun visiting my blog- your next stop on this "hop" is the blog of my good friend Lisa- tell her I said "hello"!!
Enjoy the rest of your blog hop-see you on the ACB forum-come back here soon too to visit me, you are welcome anytime.