This post is strictly scrapbook related! I will post an update post in a few days – about the fires here last week, another new ratty baby, zoo life and more stuff : )

First of all, September’s challenge is due by tomorrow (also if you just want to enter the draw for this months prize, please post your comment by tomorrow night at midnight (Oct 2). All challenge entries get 2 ballots.

Here is the mini I finished for this challenge – sorry for the awful quality of the photo – I’ll take some better ones – and also of the inside pages – when its light outside tomorrow and post them up later.

I did a tutorial on how to make this mini if you’re interested – it’s really quite quick to make (and easy and cheap – what could be better than that?) The tutorial is posted at the bottom of this post, so scroll on down : )

Here are a couple other entries for this challenge:

Hop on over to Leigh’s blog to see all the other pages in this adorable mini! Isn’t her pup just the cutest?

Here is Rose Stannell’s awesome mini about changes in the homes that she’s lived in. Great idea Rose!

Now for Octobers Challenge!!

Theme: A week in the life

Mini Book style: Accordion – there is a tutorial here for this particular type. (If you use this tutorial, just add a couple extra pieces on so you have 7 pages in total)

These are the most fun to look back on I think, as our lives tend to change so much, even in the span of a few weeks or months. Do it on a week in your own life, your kids life, or your pets life! Have fun with it!

Remember for this challenge, you can choose to do both the theme and mini book type, or just one or the other.

I will post a picture of October’s prize after September’s winner is announced on Oct 2.

Online Classes are coming back!!! I will be offering my series of FREE techinque classes again with Techinques 101 starting on October 12. If you’d like to sign up please send me an email or leave me a comment here. There will be 4 weekly lessons and you can do the class at your own pace. Techniques 102 will start at the end of November and will run for 6 weeks, then 103 will be offered in January and is also 6 weeks. I am thinking of adding a new class in the new year – Mini Book Techniques. : )

Now for the mini book tutorial:

You will need:

- Crafty board or chipboard sheets

- various papers

- binder rings

- crop-a-dile to punch holes through chipboard

- various embellishments

This is a great project to use up scraps! A very low cost and quick mini album to make.

1. Cut you chipboard sheets into squares measuring 4.5 x 4.5″

2. I like the look of rounded corners right now, so I rounded all 4 on each piece

3. For these pages, I kept some just as straight chipboard as I love that natural look. For the others, I covered them with patterned paper and trimmed the corners off.

4. Sand all the edges of each page with a sanding sponge until they are smooth.

5. Shaped paper is fun to cut up and use – remember that you don’t have to completely cover each page – use a shaped piece and you’ll get a fun look.

Guess what I got today?

A little baby rat!! (and yes they did put her inside a paper bag for me to take her home in! isn’t that terrible?)

I had to stop off at the pet store on the way home from school today to get more bedding for Fro’s cage, and there were all these adorable little rats in aquariums – feeders. Meaning of course they are bred to be food for other animals, as I am so used to seeing now… However, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for all these little cuties and before I knew it, I was asking one of the ladies who worked there if I could just hold the little cream colored one – just for a second. That’s all it took – I held her and I said “I’ll take her” and that was that.

Her name is Bella and she is absolutely adorable! She is as small as a mouse right now so she must be very young, and she is very tame. She had ridden on my shoulder all around the house already. I have to train a rat for a class I’m taking in January so I knew I would have to get a rat eventually.

At school today I got to hold some interesting critters….such as a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach (and it was really big too!), a Tarantula, a California King Snake, a water dragon, and some lizards. Pretty cool!! I was not so thrilled about the cockroach though, as you can see by my face in the photo.

Today is a special day as it would have been my Grandma’s 87th birthday. She loved animals her entire life, and I know she would have been thrilled if she knew where I was right now. I didn’t even find out about the EATM program until about 6 weeks after she died last year.

Happy birthday Grandma, we all miss you and love you very much.

Angus adored Grandma, and the feeling was mutual   : )

Who’s working on the challenge for this month? Just a reminder that they are due in by September 29, and please let me know if I can post pictures of them here. If you just want to enter for the giveaway, you can leave a comment under any post from August 25 until now.

I just wanted to share this awesome mini that Sabrina completed for the challenge:

I love love love that she did it on the San Diego Zoo/ Wildlife Park!!!!  Be sure to hop on over to Sabrina’s blog to see photos of all the other pages of this adorable mini!

October’s challenge will be up in 5 days – check back for it – it’s going to be a fun one and there will be a tutorial to follow along for it if you need it.

School is keeping me very busy as usual and I seriously cannot believe its half way through September already!! I’ve been learning how to do morning areas at the zoo in different parts – so far I’ve done Nutrition (making all the diets for the animals), and Wildlife Theatre/ Show/ Aviary which includes a wide variety of animals such as a few birds, a chinchilla, a beaver, a couple baboons (which I’m in love with), a couple capuchin monkeys, and some other various animals. That is probably my most favorite areas (because of the baboons!). This week I start in Primate Gardens. I still can’t touch or talk to any of the animals which is SO HARD. I did get to hold the bunny and the chinchilla though, and I had to go into the Beaver’s enclosure to get into his pool and clean it – he was asleep the whole time though. Fun times, fun times.

Oh, I did do some baking a couple days ago – yummy Lemon Squares! They are for a speech I have to do in one of my classes – a How -To Speech. So mine is how to make these and then there will be some for everyone in the class to eat.

Lemon Squares Recipe

Crust:

1.5 cups flour

3/4 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)

3/4 cup butter

Lemon Filling:

6 large eggs

3 cups sugar

1 1/3 cup lemon juice

grated zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift the flour and powdered sugar for the crust and then add the butter. Mix it by hand – it should be a crumbly texture. Press it into the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake the crust for about 20-30 minutes – it will smell SO GOOD – like shortbread!

Filling: Whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add the zest and lemon juice. (I also squeezed the lemon into it after I used the zest). Sift the flour over the mixture and stir it until its mixed in. Pour over the baked crust and pop it back into the oven for another 35 minutes.  Let it cool completely before cutting, then store the bars in the fridge. Enjoy!!

One last thing to share today: here are a couple pictures of one of my newest mini’s – this one is in the current issue of Memory Makers Magazine. It’s a great idea to make as a gift for someone (Christmas is coming!!)

What a scary thing this is – all these crazy wild fires burning here in Southern California. They aren’t in the area I’m in but they are getting closer. Our usual blue sky was all hazy and overcast looking, but it was all smoke. We can smell it in the mornings at the zoo. I’ve never been in this kind of situation before and there is a possibility if the fires get too close, that we’ll have to evacuate the zoo.

I took this picture at the college today – it was much more dramatic in real life, but you can really see all the smoke in the sky.

This one was taken yesterday on the 118 – lots of smoke in the distance. We actually could see the fires burning off in the hills at one point from the freeway.

It’s still so incredibly hot here. Yesterday I only had classes in the morning and had the entire afternoon off so I got to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain! I was so excited!!! It was even hotter there though and I think between the heat and riding the crazy rollercoasters, it just did me in.  I was pretty sick! I was still a little dizzy and nauseous today!

I do have to say that the ride Tatsu is definitely the scariest ride I’ve ever been on.  It is the largest, tallest and fastest flying coaster in the world. A flying coaster is where you are facing downwards, as if you are flying.

it starts out like this, you sit in the seats and get harnessed in

then it rotates 90 degrees so you’re facing downwards! I totally felt like I was going to fall right out! yikes!!

So believe it or not, I do not like heights, at all. So the scariest part for me was when we started up the first huge climb as we were moving slower, but facing downwards watching the park below us getting smaller and smaller. Then everything else happened so fast, we were whizzing through loops and steep hills and wow, crazy!!! It was seriously the longest 90 seconds of my life.

So school stuff is going well, days are blending together for me its so busy. I just added a couple more classes too so I’m up to 24 units this semester! The thing is – my friends are all taking the same courses. (how very highschoolish of me to say that!!). But honestly, it will be so much easier to study as a group, and the extra classes are fairly easy. Better to get them done now.

I am really learning to value time off, even when it’s only a couple hours. I really love Mondays now too cause I only have classes in the morning then I have the entire rest of the day off and no zoo duties. I consider it a day off, lol

Here is a picture of Hudson, the beaver. He’s so stinkin cute, I just love him!!! He was out with his trainer on the lawn in front of one of our classrooms the other day, so I snapped a quick photo of him with my phone.