Kissin' the Blarney Stone and Murphy's Law

Supposedly, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you are given the gift of eloquence.  I might have eloquence, but I certainly don't have any sense of organization!!!

I started working on the Ireland scrapbook immediately after returning from our 2-week trip in May of 2007.  I had a lofty goal -- to finish this scrapbook in one year.  To make it easier, I limited myself to only one page for each place that we had visited regardless of the number of photos or miscellaneous cool stuff (like tickets, receipts or other souvenirs).

Blarney Castle was high on my list to visit.  I read lots about the history of kissing the Blarney Stone, and the gift of gab.  You've got to do this!  And, though it wasn't the nicest castle in Ireland and though there were huge, long lines stringing through the rooms to get to the top level to kiss the stone, we diligently waited and finally....kissing the Blarney Stone! 

For anyone who has not been there, you actually have to lay on your back and lean down over an opening to kiss the stone.  Of course, they take your picture and for 15 euro, it's yours to keep.  Awesome souvenir for a scrapbooker.

Time passes, we pack up all of our belongings, put them in storage, and move to another house.  Suddenly, it's 2009 and I CANNOT find the Blarney Stone photos.  Oh, well, surely they will show up before I get to that page.  Nope, they are nowhere to be seen.

Finally, last night, I scrapped the Blarney Castle (which had a really terrific garden, by the way) without my precious photos of Kissing the Blarney Stone.  I joked with my husband that as soon as I finished the page, Murphy's Law would kick in and I'd find the photos in a week or so.

To my surprise, I finished gluing the page and started sorting through my stuff for the next page in Ireland and voila!  the blarney stone photos!  Not even 5 minutes had passed!!  I don't think I like Murphy!

Here's the scrapbook page of Blarney Castle sans kissing the stone......

A little book & one page from Ireland...

Also, here is a prototype of the word book I was going to make for the scrapbook class next Saturday. I've changed my mind to use a different word for the class because I guess I don't know what to do with 2 books of the same word. I'm not 100% happy with how the book turned out. I used the Gypsy font heart instead of the letter "o". I can't think of anything remarkable to say about this book, except that I learned the "chipboard" (e.g. cereal boxes) doesn't slip around as much on old mats in the Cricut if the printed side is down (facing the mat). I might have a dull blade or something, but I find that sometimes the knife edge will grab on the lower left corner regardless of the direction of the mat. I've put in a new blade recently too.

So, the word for the class is _______________________. Fill in the blank for your suggestions or I will choose one of two candidate words that start with the letter M. (You have to guess this, too.)

And a page from Ireland. Will I ever finish this book that I planned to finish in just one year (now going on three years)??? Andy lost one of his favorite rugby shirts in this town and I opened the back of the camera, damaging my film because I thought it said "E" for empty but it said "3" for third picture. This was the last stop for the Titanic before it sank and the museum was really interesting. We met some nice Irish folks in the pub over dinner. As I recall it rained while we were there. The city has had three names: Cove, Queenstown, and now is Cobh (pronounced Cove) under the various English & Irish ruling periods. I really loved Ireland and would go back in a heartbeat!

New Year's Cards

Since I'm really loving my new Old West Cricut cart, I made these New Year's card for family members. The inside used Quickutz dies. All the paper was from my stash, the shiny papers inside were from DCWV Metallic Stack. I pulled the embellishments from an assortment of places and it's impossible to give the references since they have been sitting around for years & years. Fun, though!

Happy New Year everyone!