Articles : Featured Guests

November Guest Paper CT Reveal

Meet Cecillia and see her awesome layouts!

A Cherry On Top would like to announce our November Guest Paper CT Member!  Please welcome baltoscrapper.  You can learn more about Cecillia here and see the wonderful layouts that she did for her reveal.  Cecillia worked with the Little Yellow Bicycle Frightful line.

       Hi!  My name is Cecilia (some here call me Cec) and I am thrilled and honored to be Novembers Guest CT member. I live in Baltimore Md with my husband, our son, my niece and 3 furbabies. In real life, I am an insurance agent, and have been for 23 years (exciting, right?) but in my fantasy life, I am just a scrapper with nothing but time for creating art!   I do get to live that fantasty for about 2 hours a day, after everyone else has gone to sleep! I tend to hide in my “fantasty world” a lot on the weekends.

I can’t really define my style, as it changes all the time. One minute I like linear and clean, the next, I have to have clusters of “stuff” everywhere! I’m a big fan of making all kinds of altered art. I have been published once, a HUGE accomplishment for me, in the November e-zine issue of Scrapbook News and Reviews. My goal is to get published in a paper magazine, one that I can hold onto and keep forever! 

I never imagined that I would be chosen for this Guest CT spot, so I can’t even tell you how happy I am. I hope that I can “rock this spot” for November and one day, be chosen as a permanent CT member. Thank you ACOT for the friendships, great shopping, inspiration and everything else you have brought into my “fantasy world”!

Name:   Cecilia Volkman, aka "Cec"

Family members:  dh Ken, ds Mason (8) and Sara (my niece, who is 23) all live in the house.

Pets:   JT (my stupid kitty that gets hurt), Rascal (the best kitty ever) and Axle (the baby kitteh, she's 8 wks old ) all love to wreak havac on our place!

Birthday:   10/06/66, you can just say "October 6th" and not let everyone know how old I am!!

Favorite television show?    Love me some House, Desperate Housewives, Gray Anatomy and I have a secret guilty pleasure.......Discovery Health!! Yeah, my dh and son love it when I watch shows with live surgeries on it!!!

Favorite movie?    Fast Times at Ridgemont High, an oldie, but a goodie!!! I don't watch too many movies anymore, I can't sit still long enough. Usually, Ken and Mason commandeer my tv anyway, so I sit up my scraproom for a session of glue, bits and baubles!

Name 3 of your favorite candy bars.    DOVE (milk, dark doesn't matter!!) is my favorite! A close second (and third) would be Snickers Bars and Reeses PB cups.

Name 3 musical artists you enjoy.    I dig "chick" music! Love Gwen Stephani, MAdonna and Evanessence. I do listen to a LOT of different stuff, anything really except heavy metal. 

Favorite (NSR) store to shop?   Ross & Target! Bargains anyone?

Favorite (NSR) magazine publication?    I read "rag" magazines. I have to know what's happening in Hollyweird.  So, I get the Star and Us weekly.  Everyone makes fun of me for reading these fine publications, however, whenever I tell friends I am done with an issue, SOMEONE always takes it home.  They act like they don't care about Brangelina or the Olsen twins, or who is wearing what, but they secretly do!

Name 2 of your favorite colors.   Hot Pink and Turqouise.  YUMMY!

Favorite thing to do with your family?   We hang at the beach. We do anything water related, boating, waverunning, fishing (not my personal fav) and we really dig water parks. We have a little place in De we like to call "Heaven"!!

Favorite thing (non-scrap related) to do without your family?   LOL! See above. I can't get my boys to come anywhere near my scrap room unless they want to use the computer.  I try to get Mason to make cards, but he's a "no go" in the crafty dept!  Where did this kid come from anyway?   My boys like to go 4 wheeling, but I look at that time as my time, alone in the house, to scrap and sing!! (Yup, I sing........a LOT! Apparently, not too well though.....

What's your favorite scrapping tool to use when scrapbooking?   Love my Cricut machine! I'm  obsessed!!! But you know what "oldie" tool I keep going back to? My circle cutters from CM, they have never failed me and I use them a lot.

Name 3 of your favorite SB companies/lines.   My Minds Eye tops my list, I love nearly everything they put out!! I should buy stock in that company.......  I also love Basic Gray and Bo Bunny. I never limit myself to those companies though, anything that catches my eye is fair game.

Name 3 of your favorite embellishments to work with.   BLING!! I have to have some kind of sparkle on nearly every page. I like shiny!!   I also love the noteworthy pads from Making Memories, as  I like having a different "shape" sticking out from underneath the photo.  I'm also a big fan of American Crafts THICKERS! Anyone NOT like those??? I didn't think so! They have such a "polished" look to them and the felt ones are fun to glimmer mist!

What are your favorite adhesives?   Beacons 3 in 1 adhesive. That stuff works like magic! It hold ribbons and any bulky embellies down like crazy.  I also use regular 3M glue sticks for photos and light papers. Mod Podge I use for most of my altered projects. I like the sealing property, since I usually make purses or other things that get handled a lot.

What is your top two fave holidays?   Christmas is my absolute favorite, followed by Thanksgiving, which is the Christmas season kick off!

What's the one thing you must have readily available when you sit down to scrap?   A clean desk. I know we scrappers are messy messy people but when I finish a project, I have to put away everything, including my scissors.  That way, when I start a new project, I have the maximum amount of room to work with and I know where all my stuff is. I HATE looking for something only to find it under a piece of scrap paper on my desk.  If I am working on something that takes more than 1 session, I have to clean up so when I come back, again, I can find stuff. Disorganization drives me batty!

What would you like the ACOT members to know about you?  I want them to know how much of a change scrapping has made in my life. It's a wonderful outlet emotionally.  I love to get involved in a project and every problem just disappears and color, texture and smells (hmmm, adhesive! LOL) take over. I also want them to know how much I TRULY appreciate this opportunity to be a GCT member, it means the world to me!

Check out the awesome creations Cec made with the Little Yellow Bicycle Frightful line. 

This fold out album is awesome!!

Cec altered coasters to create this "frightful" door hanging that is on her front door.  You can see more detailed photos of her door hanging here.

Here's a cigar box that she altered.

And all the fun cards Cec created!

Published on 11/03/2008.