Darcy Scraps

Does your LSS have a Quickutz Club? Up until about six months ago my favorite LSS offered Quickutz at 30% off all the time (except limited editions). Now the Quickutz are at MSRP but with a subscription to the club all QK are 25% off. Club membership is $50 for six months. In addition to the discount there is a free new shape die each month plus a monthly club night with free projects. Last month's club night featured a members only sale with some alphas as much as 40% off.

I rarely buy QK shapes so the free die is not much of a draw for me. (Also I think the LSS chooses the shape, not you.) I can't stand the idea of paying full price for my alphas. I must have been spoiled with them discounted before. Another LSS in my area still offers them 30% off everyday, but they have a much smaller selection and they have them priced higher than MSRP to start with!

I've looked around on ebay and the alphas I've been watching went for more than I anticipated. So if your LSS offers this club or you are a QK queen, I'd love your feedback. The alphas I'm looking at these days are Lucy and Daisy. I'm interested in Tangerine with shadows too. Imagine the pain my wallet is experiencing as I type this!

I finished my perfume tray!

Oh yeah! I am still riding my energy high. I haven't felt this good in months. I had a really productive weekend and got to spend a lot of time with friends too. I've got that back to school feeling where I want to buy notebooks and organize up a storm. I've been out of college since 1992 but every September it hits me (I guess it's early this year). I am so ready for Fall and I don't care that in Florida it wont feel like Fall for months.

Yesterday I had the dust bunnies on the run in the master bedroom. It feels so much better to be able to get to my things and have them right where I need them. All my little BPAL bottles are organized and out where I'll get the most use out of them. Today's craft project is to finish a wooden tray into a perfume tray for my dresser. I have a plain wood tray that I want to paint and decoupage with pinup girl images.

Once I finish the bedroom it's back to my scrap room. I've decided to have one of my Gone With The Wind movie posters framed to decorate the space over my computer station. It's my favorite movie and I can't wait to get this done. I'm hoping I will be inspired to be ruthless about getting stuff out of the space that I am not going to use or that doesn't belong in the room. DH needs a space for his Disney pin collection but I'm not sure that space is going to be in my scrap room!

I hit three scrapbook stores today. Woo Hoo! Not only did I load up on the two new lines from Basic Grey, but I got them on sale! I had a coupon for 40% at one of the stores and found a Prima paint can set. Plus I loaded up on goodies to make the invitations to the Black Moon party. What a great day :) Facial to look forward to tomorrow!

Bye bye soul fog! Last night I got my second wind and once again I am looking forward to a high energy, productive weekend. I attribute it to the power of the Black Moon. Even better there will be another Black Moon next month. Doug and I will be helping friends host a Black Moon formal. We hosted a Blue Moon party over a year ago. It was formal and a huge success. I'm so glad to hear our friends want to do it again!

In celebration I have ordered the Black Moon Rising perfume oils from BPAL. I'm going to spoil myself a bit this weekend. My scrap shopping list is Basic Grey and more Bazzill. There will be sales at 3 of the LSS this weekend so who knows what I'll find to love!

I'm also indulging my love of makeup this weekend. I've got plans to visit MAC, Sephora and Chanel this weekend. On Sunday, I'm going for a facial with a friend. And I am putting away a few of my pennies for the next product release from Lush. Maybe I should attribute my energy rush to retail therapy :)

The good news is that my eye is healing quickly and I am feeling much better. The bad news is that the past few days I've been down in a funk. It's not really the blues. It's more like a blah feeling that just won't budge. I call it soul fog.

Soul fog usually lifts pretty easily...all I need is something to look forward to or something to get me moving. But I've got those things and this time they are not working. We're having friends over tonight and all I can think about is the work...is the house clean? what dishes should I serve? I have a facial to look forward to. I love being pampered. But it's still foggy here.

One of my sure fire creative energy sources is Elsie Flannigan's blog. I think I'll head over there and see if Elsie can clear this soul fog.

I've been away from my blog a couple of days now recovering from an accident on Saturday. I was so looking forward to a fun and productive weekend! Saturday started out promising. I scored the Daisy D rub ons from my must have list and a bunch of Bazzill at 3 sheets for 99 cents. I ordered a few photos developed. I went of to the pool party ready for a relaxing swim. What I got was pure agony.

Somehow in the splashing of pool volleyball, something went across my eye. I had my contact lenses in and ended up with a mild scratch on my cornea. It was a combination of extreme pain and embarrassment. Taking out my lenses leaves me blind and uncomfortable. I have never been able to wear glasses as they give me migrane headaches. In my nearly blind state I got exactly nothing done for the rest of the weekend.

I'm feeling much better today. I am wearing my lenses but I have to limit the number of hours I have them in. I have a lot of trouble with my eyes so this is pretty much par for the course for me. Hopefully the weekend coming up will be extra productive to make up for the down time!

Bring on the new goodies! I'm shopping for new Basic Grey, Bazzill cardstock, new Chatterbox and Daisy D's rub ons. How about you?

I am so ready for the weekend. Work has been an absolute zoo! I am totally happy to be out of there for a couple of days. I'm going to a pool party cookout tomorrow and I am going to relax. I'm going to work in my garden and in my scrapbook room. I'm looking forward to a fun and productive weekend.

In my on going challenge to organize my scrap room, I decided I needed yet another rolling cart. I already have two of the 7 drawer Iris carts and a kitchen cart (butcher block over three large metal baskets) but I decided I wanted an iris cart capable of holding 12x12. As much as I hate to give my money to J's after the Fall Stack fiasco, I found them 50% off at J's this week.

I never did get any scrapping done last night. I ended up having to work late. I did work on my scraproom for a little while, but I was so tired I gave up. I hate being worn out and not having time for myself. I'm going to be really cranky if this keeps up.

Has this ever happened to you? Friday night, after an exhausting day of work and running errands, I dream I am hard at work turning out layout after layout. In the dream, my layouts are awesome; I'm so excited and the ideas are just flowing from my hands to the pages. I wake up Saturday morning and all I want to do is scrap! But of course, I can't because Doug and I have plans. So it is Saturday night before I make it into my scrap room. By the time I get there I am about worn out. I sit at my work table and look at all the goodies I've purchased. I cannot even look at my Technique Tuesday stamps without grinning. But the magic just didn't happen. My space wasn't organized and I felt hemmed in by stuff. So I put on some tunes and set to work cleaning up yet again. I made some progress! My QK dies are all organized in a pretty pink binder. Lots of embellies found a home. This is all good, but I have this strong urge to create something! I can't wait to get home from work and play. Of course with my luck, I will have this fab layout idea while I am driving...which I will promptly forget when I get out of my car.

Wow! What a great shopping day! Today I brought home the Junkitz Halloween papers and lots of the ew Bohemia line. But my favorite find was Technique Tuesday stamp sets in Boho Butterfly and Loves Me Loves Me Not. I cannot wait to play :)

No big shopping list this weekend thanks to my little online splurge the other day. I will be looking for the new Halloween papers from Junkitz. One of our local shops advertised it at 15% off this weekend!

Had myself a bit of an adventure looking for the Fall Stack over the last few days. It started when I read on Two Peas that it was 50% off. I went to the closest J's and was told they were sold out. So, I drove 30 miles to the J's they recommended. When I got there I was informed that the Fall Stack was the only one NOT on sale. Since I am not willing to pay full price for something I know I can get a better deal on, I sweetly asked the sales lady when they would go on sale. The reply? "Not until the winter stack arrives."

Never one to give up, I headed to ACM with my handy dandy 50% off coupon. But alas, no Fall Stack. A generous Pea emailed me a J's coupon and the hunt was back on! Once again I made the 30 mile trek to the J's with stacks in stock...only to find the shelves bare and a huge 50% off sign for the Fall Stacks. Ugh! From there I tried two smaller J's stores and spent a fortune on gasoline, but I finally located my prize at 50% off. Thank goodness that's over!

Ah, the joys of online shopping! It is nearly one hundred degrees outside and the humidity is suffocating. Lucky me; I can shop in air conditioned comfort without ever venturing out into the heat! First, I visited the BPAL site for perfume oil. I always purchase the monthly offering in the Lunacy series. This month is Chrysanthemum Moon. Even the logo is beautiful...which explains why I had to buy the babydoll tee as well ;) I need to create a layout about my love of BPAL.

My next stop was Lifetime Moments. I love shopping with Jackie! I've been looking everywhere for more of the Paris in Spring line by Rhonna Farrer and LM had exactly what I wanted. They also have the new Flair Autumn Splendor. Now I can stalk the postman for my September CK and my LM order.

My final stop was for digi kits at Two Peas. I'm not much of a digi chick, but I have been wanting to incorporate digital elements in my layouts. I picked up Rhonna Farrer's Gypsy Monogram kit and the matching card kit to play with.

This week's Two Peas blogger challenge is to write about 5 goals accomplished and 5 future goals. This one is tough!

Goals I've Met

1. College I really wanted to go to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but my parents were seriously opposed. In the end, I opted for the College of Charleston (see life goal number two). I literally raced through college and earned my Bachelors degree in two years.



2. Live in Charleston
I was vacationing in Charleston when I found my heart's home. I was 16 years old and I had never experienced anything like the feelings I knew in Charleston. I knew right away that this was the place I belonged.


3. Travel I've been lucky enough to visit Europe twice. The culture, the art and architecture have had a profound effect on me.



4. A Good Job I actually have a job where I have amazing autonomy and command respect. I also have job security. My work life is good!



5. I survived 3 years as a submariner's wife One of the hardest things I have ever done was commit to a realtionship with (and eventually marry) a submariner. DH was on a fast attack submarine and out to sea 9-10 months a year. While he was deployed, we had virtually no contact. It was three years of living hell. We've been civilians a long time, but I still have nightmares about those deployments.

Future Goals

1. Adopt DH and I hope to adopt an infant girl in roughly five years.


2. Travel There are still so many places I want to see!


3. Finish my novel


4. Complete my Book of Me actually this will probably always be a work in progress, but I want to give my daughter (see future goal one) a scrapbook about who I am, what it was like to grow up being me and what my life was like before I got married.


5. Continue my commitment to Lifetime Learning I always want to be reading, studying, learning.

Yes! This weekend's score included lots of lovely new goodies from Bo Bunny and a Cropadile. I've been waiting for someone to restock the Cropadile for a few weeks now and I am feeling very lucky to have found it in a store where I had a $20 loyalty card discount :)

I am now on the hunt for the new Fall Stacks from DCWV at a decent price. Couldn't find them at ACM. Our J's was sold out. I drove about 30 miles to the next big J's only to find that all stacks except the two I want are on sale. I just can't pay $20 for them when I know in the next week or so they will be at least 40% off somewhere or somewhere I can use a coupon.

In other news, I am once again rather impatiently waiting for my issue of CK to arrive. The lss has had it for over 10 days now. I was in two bookstores this weekend and they had it too. Please Mr. Postman, bring it today!

This weekend's shopping list:

• New goodies from Bo Bunny


• Technique Tuesday Loves me, loves me not stamp sets


• Flair Autumn Splendor


• Stemma

I can't wait to go shopping!

Thought I would share one of my favorite layouts from the Peke's album!

In the interest of fairness, today I present a photo of Henry. With his baby face and sweet ways, this Peke won my heart in an instant. He's just four months younger than Disney, but he looks up to his big brother in a big way. Henry loves to be near Disney and follows him everywhere.

Henry is a snuggler and often makes adorable snuffling noises when he's happy. He is full of affection and easy to love. Disney is his perfect playmate and together the two of them romp all over the house. I am one lucky Mama!

My two little dogs are called Henry and Disney. They are two years old and yet they rule my home. Little Henry is the photo I use for my profile so I thought today I would share a photo of Diz.

Disney came to me at a very difficult time in my life. We call him my cardiologist because he worked so hard to mend my broken heart. Today he's a total Mama's boy and never leaves my side. I adore him!