How to Crop a Wine Glass

Want to wish everyone a joyous Christmas and not to mention lots of scrapbooking and memory-preserving tools and tchotchkes under the tree! I've enjoyed scribing my scrapbooking exploits over the last couple of years. Thank you for following along with me! Below is what may be my final post for the year. I still have the entries of six more pages yet to post, so stay tuned.

[Friday, July 30, 2009]

I'm on a roll. If I can keep going at this pace, I might finish this by year's end. As long as Twilight doesn't keep destracting me. I'm reading Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun (the 246-page draft of the 5th novel in the Twilight series), and I've been re-watching Twilight after each chapter, so I can re-live it from Edward's point of view. Is this fanatical? Matter of opinion, I guess. But, as I pop a few pieces of cookie dough, I AM fanatical about this next page in the Biltmore scrapbook.

It consists of two pictures: me/Leslie and Jennifer/Shannon after we dressed for a Friday night dinner at the Inn on Biltmore Estate. I knew I'd used one of the wine background papers and since there is only two pictures, the bottle of champagne being poured into the flute glass is a perfect choice. Studying the pictures, I contemplate how to crop them. Wouldn't it be appropriate if I could trim them into the shapes of wine glasses? Yes it would! I answer myself. I go in search of an oval cutting pattern. Once found, I place the pattern slightly over the edge of each pic and using the red cutting blade, I cut the shapes. (image 1)

I push the remnants into my scrap catcher, not giving them another thought. I plan to cut vellum in the same shape for a glass effect, including the stem, but then I wonder if I'll be able to draw successfully the stem free hand to scale. What else could I use that would have that distinct slope? My eyes then fall to the scrap catcher. I pull out one of the u-shaped scraps I tossed away previously. Cut in half and inverted, this would do it, I think. I try it out with one of them and to my amazement, it actually looks like stemware! (image 2)

At this point, I break and we take Summer to her swim class and to pick up the crabs we ordered earlier from our usual place Always Best Crabs.

After having my fill of the renown Maryland crustaceans, I build upon my idea of the stemware-shaped pictures and cut a piece of sand cardstock with the multi-purpose scissors on a slight curve to form the shape of a table for the glasses to rest on. Unfortunately, the shape obscures part of the background paper image. To bring it to the foreground, I use the multi-purpose scissors to trim around the stem on the glass so when I put the "table" down, I can lay the glass over top. (image 3)

For final touches, I cut two ovals with the oval cutting pattern and the red/green blades from black and pink cardstock for the journaling, which will go in the center between the picture glasses. I adhere both together with tape runner; then, with the same oval pattern, I cut a little section off the top right, so it doesn't overlap the right-side picture glass. I add journaling lines with the patterns and pens stencil and the gold metallic fine-tip pen. I add a few food stickers to fill the table, then complete the journaling. An epoxy sticker with the phrase "Fine Wine and Good Friends: A Perfect Pairing" rounds off this page. (image 4)

Last weeknight of staycation and you know Twilight and Midnight Sun are calling!