My January Kit

Part of my scrapping resolution for 2010 was to create a kit from things in my stash and use it to make at least 3 LO's a month. Read about my scrapping resoultion HERE. Well I created a kit for January way back early in the month, and I have been using it quite a lot I have to say!

I wanted to focus on my word for the year, which is RENEW, so I tried to visualize what the word RENEW looked like. I thought of bright and shiny things, so I brought some metallics into the kit. Then I thought of things growing and spring, when the earth seems to renew, so there are a lot of greens and blues. As I began to go through my things, I would individually look at a piece of paper and see if fit the "feeling" of my word. I chose a a few different alphas because they weren't all complete sets. The other embellies I chose I have had in my stash for quite some time now.

I really enjoyed the process of going through all my things and pulling together things that matched and actually reviewing what I have. I am glad that I am going to do this every month because I know that even going through my stuff once isn't enough for me to remember all the great stuff I have. This process itself goes along nicely with my word, RENEW. I really feel that by taking my old things and putting them together in new ways, that I have made those old things "new again".

And here are the LO's I have made with this kit so far:

Sketchy Thursday TIme!

The sketch this week from Sketchy Thursdays fit PERFECT with the Ad/Art Challenge at Ch{all}enge Masters! 

A few weeks ago I was playing around with the camera with Charlotte in my arms, and I was trying to get her to press the button.  She finally did and this was the first photo that she ever took.  Her arm was covering the flash a bit, so that's why the coloring is strange, but I just love both of our expressions! 

I wanted to add a lot of depth to these circle, so I tried some differnt ways to give them some texture and dimension.  I am really happy with the way they came out.  I also found that I had some attachments for my old hole puncher...the one you have to use a hammer with.  I didn't realize I had one with holes of different sizes.  So I punched out all these circles and then put a piece of white CS behind it.  It reminds me of stars...

Crop Suey!!!!

I don't think I posted this yet, but I found out a few weeks ago that I made another DT for Crop Suey.  There is a blog and a Ning community for Crop Suey.  On both, there are some GREAT video tutorials of different types of crafty stuff, which is why I really loved the site.

There are two challenges a month, and you are eligible for a prize for entering one or both of the challenges.  This months prize is some goodies from BoBunny:

The theme for the frist challenge is "Friendship".  The DT had to create any project with the theme, so I wanted to do something different.  I don't know where I got this idea, but I wanted to make a little calendar with all kinds or quotes about "friends".  I asked around on some forums for some ways to complete the phrase "A friend is...".  I got a lot of great responses! 

So I put together this reusable mini desk calendar. There are 31 days and the 12 months tags. Each day has a different way to complete the “friend” saying. I created the sayings and the other words in photoshop, but then I copied them into a word document to make them easier to print out. I am also going to share this file with you!!! You can get the 31 friend sayings with the colored scalloped borders plus the month and “A Friend” tags by clicking here.

Now here are some simple instructions for this project:

You will first need to cut out the sayings and the months. Each saying should be about 3x3, the months are 1x3. NOTE: the Word document is NOT lined up perfect, so you are going to have to measure and trim in a few places.

You will need 2 pieces of chipboard and 4 pieces of patterened paper, all 4x6, for the front and back covers. Then you will need 31 squares of patterned paper (2 sided is best)  measuring 3 ½ x 3 ½ for the days, and 12 pieces of patterned paper measuring 1 ½ x 3 ½ for the months.

Cover your chipboard covers front and back the 4x6 papers adn ink the edges. Attach the 31 day sayings to the 31 pieces of 3 1/3 x 3 1/2 patterned paper, and attach the month labels to the 1 1/2 x 3 1/2 patterned papers.  Glue the "A Friend..." on one of the chipboard covers all the way to the left side, leaving some margins.

The trickiest part about this was punching the holes the right size with the BIA.  I punched 10 holes total: 3 for the month tabs, and 7 on the days.  You will notice that I didn't punch all the way to the end of the chipboard pieces, but I wish I had so that I could have tied some ribbon or something to the rings above where it says "A friend.."  I would also suggest using larger ring sizes to accomodate for the bulkiness of the 31 day tags.

Finally I attached some ric rac around the bottom edge and attached the covers to each other with some ric rac as well so that it will stand on the table and not fall open.

Well I hope you like this calendar and enjoy!!!

Scrap that Poetry LO's

Scrap That Poetry! I found this site through a link that Jennifer left on a forum (can't remember which one!).  But I love the idea of using poetry for inspiration for LO's.  Often times I have trouble coming up with titles for LO's, and what better source than some amazing poems.  There was a blog hop this weekend on their site, I you get extra entries for the prize if you created a project based on the poem "How Do I Love Thee?"  So I thought it was a perfect title for this LO.  I used a Jan. 2010 pagemap from Becky Fleck as well.  Remember how I posted that I was going to create kits for myself with my stash?  Well I did (and I will post pics this week) but this LO was made all with products from the "kit" I made! 

I also created a LO for the January 15th Challenge based on the Poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost...one of my favorite poets.  I lifted this LO from a LO I saw for the Sketchy Thursdays Feb GDT spot by Sandra, which is just gorgeous (and I voted for her!).

I am also using this for the Blade Masters Challenge at Ch{all}enge Masters.  The frame around the photo, the two scalloped vellum borders and the notebook paper were all cut with my cricut.  Most of those svg files I got from this AWESOME SCAL site.

Well thanks for visiting! 

A tour of my scrap room

Well for no other reason other than I cleaned and I want to look at how my space changes over the year, I am giving you a tour of my scrap room.  I would like to come back to this post in a year from now to see how it has changed and how much I have used!  So here it goes!

Due to my scrapping resolution (which you can read about HERE), I have started to clean out a lot of stuff. But I still have a lot to go through! Anyways, it is kinda clean, so I thought I’d share where I create. My hubby calls it my “workshop” because he says I am like an elf up there working away around Christmas time. I also tend to start singing or humming the music I am listening to really loud and he will shout up: “ I can hear you!”

Anyways, here are two shots of the room. It is a guest bedroom, which I of course clean up when guests come. It also has a lot of our odds n’ ends storage cabinets and furniture.

The best part about this room is that it has a sink and a bathroom. The sink is separate from the tub area, and on the otherside of the tub area is another sink area which is in Charlotte’s room. I do a lot of my painting and misting and such in the bathroom so that I can clean it up right away. It is nice to have a sink handy.

This is my desk area where all the “magic” happens! It is an old computer desk and I really like it for a few reasons: it has a pull out tray for a keyboard where I keep my trimmers and my notebook.

It has a raised shelf on the top in the corner which is supposed to be for a monitor, but I keep my tote up there with my punches, adhesives, and scissors, and then my mists, stickles, etc are just on top of the shelf, too.

Underneath the shelf I keep my tidbits of stuff. Does anyone else have TONS of these? These are little pieces of goodies that I have either made, or have taken out of my stash cause I want to use them. Right now it is a mess. I really need to sort through these things and decide what and how I am going to use them.

There are also two other shelves on the desk where I store my albums, and a container of current projects and papers that I am using/working on. You can see that I also have my bulliten board with sketch and other things up there for inspiration!

To the left of my desk on the wall I have a whole bunch of these hanging baskets and hooks from IKEA where I keep all my stickers, rubons, alphas, and bling. I keep everything in its original packaging. I have just gone through all of this stuff and organized it better. I put all my alphas together by color, and did the same with rub ons and the other stickers and things. Hopefully I can get it to stay this way!

To the left and slightly behind where I sit I have a few rolling carts that store different things. One houses chipboard, mini albums, and things like loose glitter, large flowers and other misc. things. The cart next to that is all stamping supplies. I have a drawer of inks and blocks, a drawer of CTMH stamps and a few smaller stamps (the dollar bin kind) and then another drawer of stamps from other manus.

On top of these drawers I have a four drawer sorting system for my scraps. I first divide my scraps into cardstock and pattern papers. Then I separate out large pieces (bigger than 6x12) and smaller pieces. That leave me with 4 piles. I have to say that I don’t use my scraps nearly as much as I should. I am thinking about spending a month just using scraps…we will see.

On top of these I have a few other small storage containers for embellishments like flowers, brads, small chipboard, buttons, etc. They are all organized by color.

Next to these I have a cabinet that used to be an island in our kitchen in our old house. Inside is my cricut, items that I want to alter, and unfinished projects. The drawer above it has my cartridges (which I only have 4) and my QK dies. On top of this cabinet is all my patterned paper and cardstock. As you can see I use old priority shipping boxes for my papers. Most of my papers are organized by manu and I also keep them in the original packaging, too.

This other cabinet I have has some older paper, my paints, large Ziploc bags from kits, masks, and other crafty supplies.

I used to store my ribbon in one of those clear tote things with holes, but I had too much and they were getting tangled.  So I bought some foam board and cut 4x6 pieces and wrapped the ribbon around it.  RIght now they are secured with tape, but I am going to use some rubber bands end to end to secure the loose ends of the ribbon.  I keep them in a cardboard box under the bed.

Last is my closet, which has a lot of junk in there that we are just storing, but it also has a lot of my craft stuff, too. There are bags of fabric, old photo frames, cross stitching, my serger, sewing patterns, and a lot of my scrapping kits. All of the kits I have ordered I have still in their packaging on my shelf. I can still pretty much remember what is in each one!

If I had the money and the resources to redo this room, I would probably get some storage that matched and go floor to ceiling with one large storage cabinet at the foot of the bed and take down the shelves that are there now. But I am happy with what I have and it really works for me right now!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of my room!!! If you have any great storage ideas, please share!!!

Sketchy Thursdays LO

Here is my LO for the Jan. 14 sketch!  I made the flower using a cupcake wrapper.  I am going to be posting a tutorial soon about how to make one and other ways to use cupcake liners!
The letters are the page are printed right onto the cardstock from a digital kit by Emily Powers.
I machine stitched around the bracket flourish and then embossed in a bit of white powder and then outline with stickles. The heart I cut out from some fleece and stitched the x on it. 
I am also using this as a challenge at Ch{all}enge Masters for teh digital challenge which was to use a mask or a frame around your photo.  This digital paint splatter mask is from Brianne Neville.

It's the middle of the month

Which means there are lots of new challenges going up EVERYWHERE!  First off is the NEW challenge at Candy Shoppe Designs.  You have to use the NEWEST scrapping product you own to create a project.  It can be any type of project, and even if the last thing you biught was two years ago (or longer) then that is YOUR nestest product, so use it!!  There is a great prize up for grabs...a gorgeous kit from a GREAT little store called Blue Moon Scrapbooking.  Oh, and by the way, there are other ways to  be entered for the kit..just leave a comment on the CSD blog, and/or become a follower!

After Christmas I had a 40% off coupon for Michaels. I swore to myself that I would never buy another "stack" of paper, but this one from K & Company I couldn't resist. It is a new line by Carolyn Gavin called "Greenhouse".


I also found a Martha Stewart border punch on clearance for $3.99 at the Christmas Tree Shoppe!

The other NEW things in this LO include Charlotte's NEW snowsuit (which she wore this ONE time) and of course the newly fallen snow!

I also created a few cards with the scraps from my LO.

OK, next is the Sketch Challenge at Ch{all}enge Masters!  I created this sketch with the intention that you can use different sizes of photos. I used 6, 2x2 photos, but you could use one 4x6, or two 3x4, or four 2 x 3, you get the idea....

You can visit the sketch group HERE.

And here is the LO I created using the January Cocoa Daisy Kit!

Jan. 7th sketch at Sketchy Thursdays

OK so I am totally loving Sketchy Thursdays!!!  I really like the style of the sketches there, so I am hooked!!  I loved this sketch with all the white space and the splatters on the background.
I used some paint and painted a piece of carboard to get the lines, and I splatted some wet paint around, too.  When I was cleaning my brush, I had a few big drops of water land on the LO, and although it is hard to tell from this photo, you can see where they left watermarks, and I think it looks cool.

I just loved this photo of Charlotte at mass on Christmas Eve.  She was just in awe with everything in the church.  My favorite part of mass has always been the music, hence the music notes paper.

One more for Sketchy Thursdays!

OK, so I did one more for the Second Change Challenge at Sketchy Thursdays and this time I did a LO.  I have been meaning to scrap this photos forever!  They were taken Labor Day Weekend and Charlotte was 3 1/2 months old.  My how time flies!

I attempted to machine stitch some swirls, and it was harder than I thought! But I am pretty happy with it.  I used a lot of papers and other embellies from a Cocoa Daisy kit.  TFL!