What did you do Ray?

So in all my excitement over National Scrapbooking Day I didn't share the information about my fun activity with my beloved friend Edana.
On Friday we went to Los Angeles to go to the Pavillion of Wings Butterfly exhibit at Exhibition Park, right next to the Natural History Museum. It was a nice day with mild weather and overcast sun which made it comfortable inside the netted area were lots and lots of different butterflies were fliting around. It was so wonderful to actually be in the enclosure with them! After spending time in the exhibit we stepped outside to see this brick building that I believe is the original facade of the museum - it was so wonderful to see, it reminded me of being back in Paris with the ornate buildings and stonework.

While taking photos of the building Edana noticed some flowers that she wanted to get closer to take pictures of and right around that time I noticed this vast space of roses bushes. Turns out it is the Exposition Park Rose Garden. It was fabulous! Its this huge area with seperated plots of specific roses of different varieties and colors. We had such a wonderful time walking through and taking pictures. Every once in a while the wind would blow over the bushes and we were treated to fragrant wafts of roses. It was so serene and beautiful. I like it when serendipity gives us a surprise! If you like roses I strongly suggest you visit the garden. The butterfly exhibit runs to July I believe, and it was pretty inexpensive - $3 for 30 minutes if I remember right... parking was $8, but you can make a day of it! We even saw people having a picnic in the rose garden - so there you go.

As per my previous post, Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day, and I had a blast. I went to Theresa's house and there was a total of six of us scrapping and chatting - it was a lot of fun! Surprisingly we all got a lot accomplished. I spent four and a half hours of the crop time working on one layout. Not because of the usual "thinking about it too much," but because it was a tedious detail oriented layout. I took a photo of a stained glass ceiling and made an inverted pop-up of it using four copies of the photo. Then with my Cricut machine I cut out a bunch of flourishes and made decorative corners to highlight the photo. And that's all that is on the page!! I will try to have pictures of the page up later this afternoon. I just hope it looks as good on the blog as it does in person.

Other than that Sunday was pretty quiet, John spent most of the day resting because he has been having sinus complications, luckily by this morning he was feeling much better.
Oh and me, well... I signed myself up for a scrapbooking challenge. This is the first one I signed up for so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Its 20 layouts within the 31 days of May. So all the layouts I create in the month can be used in the challenge. Then there is this extra 25 bonus pages and I'm not even sure what that's all about - so I may have gotten myself into a sticky situation... we'll have to see how it goes, I'm a little excited about it - I have 7 layouts already done so I'm going to maintain my positivity about it. But when it starts to go bad I don't know who I'm gonna call... I know, Ghostbusters?? {harken back to blog entry title - I know its a stretch - work with me here!} Heee heee hee

I hope everyone is having an excellent day! Be back soon!
~Ren

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!!

For the scrapbookers out there - May 2nd is National Scrapbooking Day!! So if you're like me and scrapbooking is not only a hobby - but therapy and the biggest part of my socialization, then you're having trouble maintaining your excitement that you're scrapping all day long on Saturday!!
I am so delighted that I have a place to throw my need for creativity somewhere that I actually like the outcome of what I've made. Although, it has taken a toll on the other crafty things I like to do, my jewelry making and cross-stitching projects have been gathering a layer of dust lately...
All the doodling, and cutting out pieces of paper, and the stickers that I got in trouble in school for has helped me to gather together skills that I use in my fascination with paper and embellishments, and tape - and don't forget glitter, gotta have glitter!!
So I'm glad we have a national day on the books to recognize the cataloging of our lives and experiences - but truly, for me - everyday is scrapbooking day!!
Enjoy the day folks! I hope you are all scrapping and chatting with friends!
Have a wonderful Scrapbooking Day! And if you don't scrapbook - well... have a great day to you too!!