A busy weekend!

I didn't spend a ton of time in my craft room, but I still got a lot done thanks to my cleaning and organizing efforts last week! I'll go in chronological order of what I did.

First up was a scrapbook LO Saturday morning while the hubs did some glorious unpaid overtime. I had picked to my papers ahead of time and love the color scheme. This actually did not take all that long, but some Heidi Swapp rub-on nonsense added a lot of time- but you;ll notice there are no rub-ons there. I had heard so many bad things about her rub-ons (of course after purchasing a pack a long time ago), so I was really wary to use them. I thought one of the clock rub-ons I had might be a fun addition, so I added one to a separate piece of cardstock to use a background image on a journaling block. I was pleasantly surprised- it went on really well! But then I decided to write over it- which was disastrous. So all of that got tossed. Since the first was so successful, I decided to add one directly to my page. Ugh- what a mess. It didn't go on easily and wound up being crooked. The only good thing was that the rub-ons strong aversion to sticking to my paper made it fairly easy to pick off with my paper piercer. I felt like a dentist! So I probably wasted an hour battling with rub-ons to end up with a rub-on free page, but I love the way it looks so its all ok.

now on to the details. I had been thinking about Jennifer McGuire's pages, and what it is about them that makes me like them so much. I think it's all the fine little details. She adds a lot of small touches to her pages that I think really elevate them above others. It;s like the finishing touches on an outfit. Her pages always have killer jewelry and a great pedicure!
I punched out two of the circles on the PP and popped them up, it's not super noticeable but I think it's a neat effect.

I had been storing my Nestabilities in a paper photo sleeve- not very secure. I had intentions of getting empty CD cases and strips of magnet to store them, but at the last minute changed my mind and wound up getting some magnetic paper and storing them on that in a CD carrying case, and love it. It's fairly compact and easy to grab them all at once.
Magnetic sheets complements of Staples:
I am headed out to CA for a wedding in a few days, and made a card for said occasion. In the past, I've been apprehensive to make a card for a wedding- it's a lot of pressure! I'm so thrilled with the results here though. I think the card is appropriate for the couple- the bride is a rather non-traditional gal and I think she'll appreciate the lack of pink :)

I stamped the image in Versamark and added holographic embossing powder- it has a great iridescent shine!

I also decorated the envelope to match- the first time I've done that! I love it, so plan to do it again. It really adds such elegance to the whole thing.

It's a shimmery white envelope with a stamped image in Versamark clear embossed. I love this stamp so much.

A few other picture-less tasks included giving a bunch of my clear stamps the spa treatment. They're so much cleaner and stickier now! I will have to do it for the rest sometime soon. Also, I went through some of the giant stack of pictures I had printed out and made the decision to just toss a bunch of them. The first few months we had Madison I was a picture taking machine, but it's just not realistic for me to scrap them all. I feel much better having tossed some of them- I don't think they would have added anything and to be honest, the quality stinks!

It will probably be a little while before I can get anything else done- we'll be in CA for a few days and then will be staining our deck over July 4th weekend- fun!

I finally cleaned up!

It's amazing what you can do with a clean craft room! I took some time last night to actually clean up my craft room a bit. I had an unnaturally large collection of garbage in there- literally garbage. So many boxes with packing paper and old packaging lying around. I was also able to reorganize a little bit so things like my stamps are much more accessible. I still haven't committed to much permanent storage, so not everything has a home, but I can at least find my desk and most things aren't too difficult to get to! My goal this summer is to turn it into a proper craft room- which includes painting it some girly color and hanging some shelves and probably peg board! I'll be sure to post pics when I finally do!

Here are close ups of the two pages. I'm making my way through the puppy pics I have printed- I have several stacks of photos I want to turn into mini books, as well as a few hundred photos I'll need to go through and decided what to print after that. Thankfully, my photo taking has slowed significantly over the last few months so I have at least some hope of being relatively current with pictures, assuming I get my act together this summer!


Patterned paper from a big My Mind's Eye slab, cardstock is Bazzill, except white = PTI. I used Ranger distress Ink in Old Paper on the edges of the white CS and spritzed it with water to get to fit better with the soft, distressed style of the PP. I'm not sure it's showing up all that well, but the PP has an embossed glittery design on it! I learned I am running dangerously low on Thickers and gold brads- eek!

Dk blue ribbon is SU!, teal is from ribbons and bows oh my.

Show your dad you give a hoot.

Heh. I was stoked to use these Hero Arts owl stamps finally! I bought them right before my crafting dry spell, along with the DCWV Green Stack. The stamps are of course a lovely quality- they are also trimmed very neatly so messy people like me don't have to worry as much about getting outlines on my stamped image. The DCWV paper was very good as well- this was actually my first time using the brand! It was very thick- so thick that when I first cut it I didn't press hard enough and I only cut through about half the layers! It also has a very pleasing texture. I whipped these three cards up pretty quickly last night, and while they are not the most intricate cards made I really like how they came out. I;'m glad I stuck the eyelets around the corners- gives them a little extra oomph I think! This morning I kind of wished I had taken the time to clear emboss the owl images- maybe next time.

Goodbye Mr. Phin

I got some very sad news Sunday afternoon- devastating, actually. After 15 long years of bringing my family nothing but love and happiness, we all said goodbye to our family dog Phineas. I have had a lot of strong emotions since hearing the news from my mother who is sadly very far away (she's in NY, I'm in KY). One that stood out to me was my mixed feelings of anger and regret that I had not scrapbooked about our family dogs more. I in fact have only one page about my Phinny, and zero about Onyx (who passed away ~5 years ago). I've never been on to keep a journal and my memory is terrible, so scrapbooking is the only reliable thing I have to preserve my memories. I only started scrapping 2 years ago, so many memories are now lost. I've been itching to get back into crafting lately, and this realization that most of the good times I enjoyed with our dogs are now long gone, and I have almost nothing of those memories left, has spurred me to want to get to my scrapping full force. I can't really afford to lose any more memories- I'm the only one who can share some of them.

I'm glad I took the time a few months ago to make this simple page. I always liked the way it came out, and I think the picture is very representative of the fun we used to have together.

Here is the detail of the journaling block. I actually distressed it using Ranger distress ink, and I think the end result was pretty cool.

throwback cards

These first two cards are ones I made probably 2+ years ago, and actually took pictures of! The first one actually folds at the top. It was cut that way on accident, but I kind of liked it. The base paper I used was not very sturdy (Bazzill), but that combined with the top fold gave it a very 'just a note to say hi' kind of feel to me. I sent this one out to my friend Jamie- I hope she liked it! This is easily one of my favorite cards I have ever made.

When I made this card, I was on a multiples kick so I actually made two! I love this Daisy D paper, so sad thee company went bust (it did, right?). I actually cut into the card and the ribbon is threaded through it- kind of a hassle but pretty neat looking.

This last card is one of the first ones I ever made on my own. I used one of the color challenges on splitcoaststampers to guide me- it was turquoise and pink (well, the SU! versions). I mixed in a dark army green to balance the brightness. I must say, I love the combo. It's obnoxiously bright, sure, but so fun! I had picked up a little rubber alphabet stamp set and tried to use it here. I found it near impossible to get the letters aligned correctly, so I just cut each out and stuck em on like this. I went with a 'messy on purpose' approach to deal with the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to actually align things correctly. I never gave this card out and still have it I think. I used rubber cement to adhere things because I was just starting out and that was what I had- some of the letter have fallen off. I think I will do this color combo again!

I'm hoping to get my scraproom cleaned up soon- it's become a bit of a dmping ground for random things and I can't really work in it currently. We've been busy with seamingly endless yardwork, but I miss scrapping and DH assures me we're about done for the season. Hopefully I'll be scrapping again soon!