I've been AWOL, sorry... *smile*

A friend convinced me to go to Aruba with her.... sounds like a good story, huh? Well, she convinced me back in the summer and, lo and behold, she kept me to my word. We were gone last week so I'm behind in WOYWWs and blog posts. It was a warm weather vacation blast. She taught me how to play blackjack (21) in a casino... only, she didn't teach me how to win.... so what I lost I rack up to entertainment costs.... lol.

I got back in time to help DH put together ds#2's 16th bday party. Don't ask. Thirty rowdy teens in my basement. It was quite the clean-up. Welcome home! Lol.

I also came back to an almost finished Sketchbook Project that was close to being due. The extension we were given due to the weird weather we've suffered recently was no match for this procrastinator! I was supposed to postmark it yesterday but we had a little ice storm so I opted for holding off til today (as in I have to mail it by 4pm).

What I've decided to do is take pictures of all the pages and share them on my blog starting today. The theme I chose was "The Greatest Story Ever Told." I used various papers, stickers, stamps and dies to illustrate my TRUE story, as wild as it will seem to you. I just changed names in the story to protect the innocent - hee hee. You know, I'm getting antsy about the amount of supplies I have so I may throw in some random blog candy to commenters through the tale-telling process. Check back.

Pic #1 is the bombed out area that resulted in constructing this sketchbook. Once it's mailed, I expect to excavate.

Pic #2 is my front cover. I used a wine glass and some old red wind to make the faint "rings" and a definition from a dictionary to serve as a title.

Pic #3 is of the inside cover dedication and the title page (love that Tall Tales alphabet stamp set from Stampin Up.)

Pic #4 is actually the start of the story. From now on, I'll refer to the book's page numbers. This one is page 2. I used an adorable "man & woman" die from Cuttlebug and a "Wish You Were Here" stamp from Claudia Rose (had it a long time, never used before). The collage patterned paper in most of the book came from a Journey Stack by Me & My Big Ideas (MAMBI). The photo is from a magazine.

If you choose to read the story going forward, you can always catch up. I hope to post two pages a day and you can always check older blog posts whenever you check in. (If I'm making cards that day, I'll post those, too.)

What's exciting to me is that this sketchbook will start out at the Art House Coop (Brooklyn, NY), then is set to travel with 28,000 other sketchbook friends to about 8 more locations in the US. People will be able to check out the books and peruse them at their leisure. Can I consider this being published? *smile* Check the site if you're curious about future Art House Coop  Projects.

Thanks for visiting!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)