Thinking About Mother’s Day March 23, 2009

A couple of years ago, I made my mom a shadow box that I have continually been proud of. When designing it, I thought about the colors in her bedroom, and I wanted it to convey things that are associated with mothers- and here is what I came up with:

 

I took photos of it today while I was visiting my family.  I look at it all of the time when I go up there–and I hope it inspires you all to make something wonderful for your mothers- or someone who stands in for a mother for you.  I’m going to be making one for K’s mom this year (don’t worry she doesn’t even know I have a blog), and I plan on making a few more for other purposes this year.  I’m going to make a couple of more posts in the following days (or weeks-the way the work schedule has been), and talk about each of the four corners that I made within this shadow box.

Enjoy!

What is everyone making for Mother’s Day this year?

New Desk January 11, 2009

I am at the point in my training at work that I have received my ‘permanent’ home.  I have a desk.  I have a cubicle.  I had little to no ‘things’ to put on or in it, yet.

So, this weekend, I took the initiative and began working on things to make my desk more pretty.  More Me.

My first project was to cover a box that I’ve  had around the house for about ummm….too long, anyway.  I’d hung onto it with the hopes of either painting it or covering it, possibly for a gift.  I think that every crafter has a few things around the house like that.  It’s too good to throw away, but not pretty enough to use.  Yet.

The desk that I have is entirely too deep, and I’d like to put some pictures behind my computer-so that I see them all of the time.  So I thought this box would be a perfect solution, and I needed to make it pretty.  Some scrapbooking paper, some ribbon and ding!  Here it is:

Pretty and functional.  That’s what I like.

I also worked on an old container that I got as a gift from a Hallmark store years ago.  It is one of those card organizers that has a tab for every month.  That really wasn’t working for me, so I decided to change it up and dress it up a better way.  Here are the results:

Much prettier and even more functional because I couldn’t resist.  I had to:

I just had to make the dividers more “me” by personalizing them, and creating the categories that I typically use for cards. 

This box will allow me to be ready with a card at any time, and have it at arm’s length.  I love it!  Not only that, those touches will allow my desk to be more pretty and feel a little more like ‘home’.

Christmas Crafting December 16, 2008

I am going to be posting some pictures of Christmas Crafts in the coming days. 

I plan on doing this during the weekend, since I will have given some of the gifts at that time, and it will be safe to put those pictures up.

Hold me to it!

Hope all of the Christmas Crafting is going well for all of you!

Let me see what you’ve done…

Getting Organized: Christmas Edition November 29, 2008

If you’ve been reading, you know that my recent major project has been calendars for Christmas.  I have 10 of them to make, and that means 120 6″ x 6″ pages.  So, I’ve had to organize myself, particularly when it comes to making multiple calendars for multiple people who may see other people’s calendars-and when I take an idea and run with it, like I did in the last post I want to avoid someone seeing the same page over and over when they go to someone else’s house.  So, today I came up with an organizational system that I thought I had to share.

Let me first say that I never iron clothes.  I only iron when I absolutely have to.  I typically don’t purchase clothing that has to be ironed.  So, when you notice that my organization system is an ironing board, you may chuckle, but hey, it’s working.

I also have to comment on the fact that I have a small townhouse that I share with K.  We don’t really have a ton of space, and my crafting supplies take a whole room.  (As a matter of fact, we picked out a two bedroom, so that I had crafting space.)  So, now you understand the reasons that I had to use the ironing board.

I began by organizational system by making lists that have the name of each person who is receiving a calendar, and then put the list of each month under the name of that person.  Like so:

Then, I began to distribute the calendar pages under each person’s name, and I wrote the month that I intended the page to be used for.  Like this:

I didn’t want to come to the page later and think, “What the heck month was I thinking about for this?”.  I also have a hard time with certain months like May and June.  Maybe there are just too many ideas out there for that time of year, but I wanted to work on some of those first, so that I got past my block for those months.

Finally, I placed the written list on top of the pages that I have already made.  This will allow me to see if I’ve avoided a certain month or time of year, and will allow me to make sure that people who will see other people’s calendars won’t be able to see four months of the same calendar page.  It will also allow me to track my progress as I go.  You see?

So, this has already made the work flow easier.  What do you do to make the Holiday crafting less chaotic?

Update on the CJ blog October 4, 2008

I’ve posted the front and back covers of my circle journal on my other blog:  http://cjfriends.wordpress.com.

Be sure to check them out.

I’m going to get to work on my National Card Making Day cards now,  I’ll post the fruits of my labor later on today, I hope.

Just Found… September 29, 2008

So I was on the internet looking for a snowflake image that I could use for a card, and I came across this:

And all I’m going to say is,  “This is going to be one heck of a card!”

I was totally inspired to use this idea as a jumping off point.  Check out the other things at: www.lightgarden.net .  I was blown away by the things that this creative person is doing with glass.

So, how do you get inspired?

Pink of Perfection July Project August 4, 2008

If you haven’t ever been to the Pink of Perfection website, you really need to check it out.  I have been a reader of the Pink of Perfection blog and I was a subscriber to the Pink of Perfection podcast for a while.  Sarah, the creator of the site has issued challenges during each month since January, and this is the first one that I’ve actually accomplished.  I’ve always read the blog and thought “That’s an amazing idea!” and “I’m really going to do this one!”  but I’ve never actually posted or sent anything in about it.  This time is the real deal, and I plan on  continuing in the coming months, because this challenge was so much fun to think about.

Sarah challenged everyone to create a Happiness List and get back to her with thier results.  I haven’t included the basics like my family and friends, because I think that they are a given. (Even when they aren’t so joyous.)

Stampin Sammie’s Happiness List:

     The laughter of a young child.

     The smell of a freshly cooked breakfast, especially when you didn’t have to make it.

     A cold beer on a hot day.

     The absolute euphoria of being in the moment of getting something you’ve waited for. (i.e., a long-awaited party or Christmas morning when you’re a child.)

     Summer nights with the windows open, and a cool breeze coming into your house.

     Fireworks.

     Having time to quietly enjoy your hobbies, and truly being surrounded by them instead of the hustle and bustle of a busy day.

Thank you so much, Sarah.  This project was amazing to think about; and spurned some thoughts about the real joys that fall into my lap every day, especially the ones that I don’t think about nearly enough.

If you haven’t gone to the Pink of Perfection website yet, what are you waiting for?  The wit of the writers and the pure bliss of inspiration awaits you.

New way to show your scrapbook pages…. August 4, 2008

This project was done for Mother’s Day for both of my sisters and my mom.  I love how it turned out so much, I just had to share it with all of you.

What you’ll need:

 

• a 12×12 plain canvas (can be painted or left plain)
• a 12×12 scrapbook page of your design
• a 12×12 page cover (with the edge that attaches to the book cut off)
• adhesive

 So, for step 1 you cut the edge off of the 12 x 12 page cover, like so:

Next, you’ll need some adhesive to place the page protector on the canvas.  I found that regular double-sided adhesive worked the best, and it gave me a little time to adjust the page protector if I didn’t get it just right the first time.

Because I chose a 12 x 12 page, it was a no-brainer to put the page insert on the top.  But, if you were working with a rectangle, such as am 8 1/2 x 11 size, you’d need to orient your opening whichever way will allow you to place the scrapbook page in properly.

Finally, I inserted the page that I wanted to display.  (This page is an example of my sister’s page.)

 

The back opening on the canvas is the perfect place to hang anything.

You could even get fancier with this project and paint the four exposed sides if you like, and if you’re putting a permanent theme in a certain canvas.  But I liked the idea that I could give my mom and my sisters each a new page every once in a while, and they could change it out without worrying about matching the paint that I put on the sides.

Hope you all enjoy- and happy scrapping!

So it wasn’t exactly the next day… April 26, 2008

I really wanted to post the next day after my last entry, but it was beautiful here.  The kind of beautiful that you wish you had in the middle of winter, so I decided to sit on my back porch and enjoy it rather than staying inside.  Now it’s humid.  I wish it would just rain and get it over with, but I digress.

Here is the promised sample of the card I was toiling on recently:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was relatively easy to make. 

1.  I simply cut a normal 4 1/2″ x 5″ card out of Chocolate Chip paper by Stampin’ Up! 

2.  I then made a second cut in the fold so that I had two 4 1/2″ x 5″ pieces of paper. 

3.  I took one of them, and used my corner rounder punch, again from Stampin’ Up! and rounded all four corners.

4.  On the second piece, I cut a section off (longway) that was approximately 1 1/2″ wide.

5.  I rounded only two of the corners of the larger piece of cardstock.

6.  I then adhered the ribbon on the 1 1/2″ wide peice of cardstock and then adhered that to the previous peice.

7. Then I adhered the outer edges of that smaller peice with the 1 1/2″ peice on the front to create the pocket.  *A tip:  line up your rounded edges so that you get a smooth look.

8.  Then I puched out a daisy punch from Stampin’ Up!’s Tempting Turquoise.  I adhered that to the ribbon with a glue dot.

9.  Next, I found a botton that matched the Chocolate Chip resonably well; and added it to the front of the daisy.

10.  Finally, I added the sentiment on a pre-made tag from a big-box store, matted that on Tempting Turquoise, and colored in the open space on the sentiment.

Voila!  A beautiful card that anyone would love to receive…it took no more than 10 minutes; other than my design time.  You could easily embellish it with giltter on the tag or more stamping or stickers on the front of the pocket; but I didn’t feel it was necessary for my purposes.

Let me know what you think!

Just a quick note… April 21, 2008

I’m sending out swaps tomorrow and am going to post a pic of them along with a brief overview of how I made them.

I think this is going to be my attempt to be published as well.  I’m going to send the card off to a few magazines and *crosses fingers* hope that it is accepted to some magazine.  Wish me luck!