Jess likes crafts

Closing up shop

2010-03-23T18:23:00.002-04:00

I've decided to stop blogging. I've enjoyed sharing what I've made, but blogging is not for me. thanks for taking the time to visit!

Snow day activities

2010-02-08T12:50:00.004-05:00

I took advantage of finally having some down time this past weekend and spent some time in my craft room. First I took all my printed photos and went through them making page kits for all the photos I know I plan to scrap:

some of the page kits are nice and small: I actually narrowed it down to just a few sheets of cardstock and patterned paper. I don't bother adding embellishments at this point because I stock so few and they are so versatile I can easily pick them out at the time I am ready to use them. Plus I don't want to tie them up in kits in case I need them another time.

Sometimes though, I get lazy and just throw a whole collection pack into a 'kit' with a few photos I know I want to make pages for. Hey- it still makes things go faster for me and it works!

Here are some additional ones that I had not completed at the time, but have since gone back and finished up too.

Here are two actual pages I made:

I cut the clouds out of other paper also by American Crafts. I really like the simplicity of this. I didn't have much to say- it's a funny picture of my dog and representative of her desire to right up in your business at all times, so to speak.

Classic cute doggy picture- she can't seem to keep from sticking her nose in the dirt! I had always liked shaped paper but never really wanted to thunk down the ridiculous amount Jenni Bowlin charges, but grabbed this piece and another like it at my LSS recently. I'm still a little unsure how I'm going to store it in an album and not 'lose' the shaped quality- perhaps I'll just use the other shaped piece in the same page protector.

Homey

2010-01-08T12:52:00.005-05:00

This is the other mini album I finished up recently. I had purchased this word album and this set of papers quite awhile ago with the idea to use them together to make an album about our first house (I bought it all *after* we bought the house though, so I knew I would have the subject matter). I have been taking pictures of stuff along the way thinking maybe I would do an album of all our renovations, and that isn't quite how it turned out, but I love it nonetheless.

First off, I totally did not plan to have that picture of me peeking out through the whole in the letter 'O', but apparently all those scrapbooking rain dances I've been doing have paid off.

This key is what came with the house and is the original from when it was first built. Even though we are the 4th or 5th owners, we are the first to change the locks!

Getting this hardware just so was a real pain, but I think it looks so cool it was worth it!

It's a little hard to tell, but I embellished a lot of the pattern on the paper with stickles. Now their purchase has been justified :)

My poor husband- he wound up on the page with all the rhinestones!

Ahh good fortune- these shots came out great for scrapping; we were just excited new home owners!

So... much... painting...

I love the little bit of ribbon! This is also my most 'artistic' scrapbook shot. It's of a row of stakes we put around the back yard when we were getting the fence put in. I got the first stake in focus and rest of the background is blurry. Artsy!

Mental note: don't put fresh mini books on very dusty shelves or you will be sad.

I look forward to doing another word book- it was a lot of fun and relatively easy to do- there aren't that many pages! I could have added some short in between pages for journaling, but didn't feel like making it a huge production. Sometimes you just want to show a few pictures in a cute way.

Splish Splash!

2010-01-06T21:10:00.006-05:00

A few months back I went to a day crop and found myself in an interesting situation: all the projects I was excited about working on got wrapped up really quickly, and I didn't really have anything planned. Luckily I grabbed extra photos and paper packs because I like to overpack like that. I had bought the DCWV Citrus PP pack and Cardstock pack in January 2009, but was crushed when they arrived and I hated them. I dragged my feet and by the time I was ready to return them, it was too late and I wouldn't even be able to get a store credit, so I hung on to them figuring I would maybe sell them to someone local or something. Anywho, as the months dragged by I found the paper less and less objectionable, and so when I was packing for this particular pack I tossed them in my bag. Lo and behold, they would being the perfect match for these photos I had with me! So the moral of the story is, always over pack and never return anything. Listen to my words of wisdom people!

I decided to take a pretty simple approach to this book and kept the journaling to a minimum, same with embellishments. I was pleased to find out that the Lime Ricky buttons and brads I had purchased were a perfect color match! I'm quite pleased with how this all came together.

I have had this scalloped square clear acrylic album for awhile but never felt comfortable with how I went to use it, but think using it for clear covers worked out great!

And now on to the barrage of gigantic pictures! As always, click to enbiggen.

unconventional birthday card

2009-12-03T20:12:00.004-05:00

Hey there! I've been busy lately and haven't made much time for crafting in the past few months- sad I know :( But I don't want to let my craft blog die, so I scrounged up some unposted pictures. Here are some shots of a card I made recently for my husband for his birthday:

The background paper is actually a fabric paper. I had purchased both the fabric paper and the dotted paper together years ago when I was first starting to scrapbook, before I really knew how any of it worked, thinking I would need to do some book binding voodoo in order to make a scrapbook- I selected these papers to make my honeymoon scrapbook. I then very quickly learned that I could use a pre-fab binder and the fancy book binding papers have been sitting prettily in the corner ever since.

I highly recommend enlarging the pics- those little colored dots are raised and are quite cute! I used orange rhinestones for the eyes just to spice it up. The stamp is kind of hard to read but says 'Hoo loves you'. So it's a non-birthday birthday cards for the spouse :)

so close

2009-09-03T12:07:00.004-04:00

Ta-dah! Furniture and boxes and labels! Hooray!!!

Ok, so there's still some work to be done, but all my craft stuff is back in my craft room and is mostly organized- I have to hang a shelf and Bygel rail, but the bulk of what's left is getting the rest of my 'Jess stuff' in there and organized. I don't want to bring in any piles- thing must have a home to be let back in! You can see some of my dolls and stuffed animals along the top of the cube unit- it makes me so happy to have them home with me!

I wasn't really sure what to get when I went to Ikea for boxes, so I just bought a bunch in two sizes and it worked out surprisingly well. I actually filled each box with some category of item, though thankfully only one of the boxes is actually *full*. They are however nicely sorted and labelled- now all of my craft stuff is mixed together and it should be pretty easy to find what I need regardless of what type of project I am working on. I did spring for two nice metal boxes to hold my Thickers and other misc. flat embellishments and am thrilled with how well that worked. the left tower is still holding our DVDs.

After I get it all finished up I'll do a post with some detail shots.

gift box

2009-09-01T12:08:00.004-04:00

I wanted to make a cute coordinating card holder to send the card set to my mom, so I downloaded the 'All Boxed Up' template from Paper Trey Ink. Initially, I had a problem with the card holder pockets being too small, but I was able to recreate the basic design with a whole new set of measurements specific to my needs. After thinking about it, I think the template just printed out at less than 100% of size, so I'll be sure to keep an eye on that next time.

I liked being able to customize it- I used some older SU! paper with a damask print and felt it all tied together pretty nicely!

Here is the front- the stamp I used is from the same set I used to make the cards. I finished the main image off wit a single pearl and popped it up. I layered brown grosgrain and thin purple satin ribbon to tie it shut.

Here you can see it stuffed with cards and envelopes!

Here is is open- 4 cards and 4 envelopes on each side.

Of course, I covered up the inside and outside of the pockets with more of that SU! paper.

Here is what he envelopes look like- I love how the image looks when it is creeping off the envelope.

ATC!!!

2009-08-25T16:37:00.004-04:00

I got my ATCs from the OAK swap I participated in!!! Being the oblivious person that I am, I spent the entire walk back from the mailbox holding the envelope, trying to figure who from that location would have sent me something, without taking the 2 seconds to recognize my own handwriting on the 'to' section of the envelope! Anywho, the three ATCs I got in return are a lot of fun and very unique. The ducky one definitely inspires me to try and make more use out of my stickles (there is a lot of good highlighting sparkle that you can't see in the photo)! I'm pressed for time so I will show you the three little cuties I got in the mail! Next step: proper ATC storage must be acquired!

Sparkly inspiration

2009-08-19T11:06:00.002-04:00

After watching Jennifer McGuire's Thinking Inking videos for Perfect Pearls, I was feeling pretty inspired to break out my Luminarte pigment powders. I knew I wanted to make my mom a set of cards for her birthday, but other than the stamp wasn't sure how I wanted them to look, so this was pretty good timing!

I tried a few different things, but wound up doing this:

Stamp damask image (Inkadinkado) on white paper with VersaMark ink and emboss with detail clear powder.
Make a paint with the pigment powders & Simple Solution #2.
Layer paints over whole image- wipe off embossed image with paper towel.

The emboss resist worked fairly well, although the image does not appear to be totally solid. I made 8 different panels- I'm not 100% sure what I will do with them next, but I'm looking forward to some hopefully really neat cards!

It's hard to capture the sparklyness on film, but it's pretty cool!

Well, I will have to get these done soon as I'm on a deadline!

Bargello

2009-08-19T10:55:00.003-04:00

Yesterday Leslie posted an awesome card with the bargello technique used. since I have a vicous anal retentive streak, this technique is right up my ally! I tried my hand at it last night and am pretty please with the results. I was pretty tired at that point so it didn't come out as neatly as I would have liked, but I still think it's worthy to send off to mom for her birthday. Here is the front. I varied the size of the individual color strips as well as the cuts finished strips. I think it may be too much variance, but I lan to play around with it a bit more.

I decided to keep the cut portion and put it inside the card, I think it's a neat visual effect my mom will appreciate.

This was one of those projects that was extra exciting because I got to use up one of those random things I had sucking up space. My mom, the former art teacher, has this wealth of random art supplies, which she occasionally passes on to me (thanks mom!). This box of colored papers is one such item. At 4X6, I figured I could use it for matting or something.
See all the pretty colors? I knew I would find *some* use. I think these will produce many such cards.

Velvety thanks

2009-08-17T12:43:00.004-04:00

Hello there! I was on vacation for the past week so no major crafting. I did get some cross stitch time in and am almost finished with the little alligator.

I made this thank you card for my stamping friend Leslie who sent me some really cute cross stitch kits she had collecting dust- thanks again Leslie! I hope she liked the card :)

Notice that layer under the sentiment layer? It's velvet! I used liquid Tombow mono-multi to attach the layer on top and then again to attach the whole thing to the card base, but only in the center of the layer, so the edges are a little loose. The bow was added to balance out the giant-ness of the layer the sentiment is stamped on- I had originally planned on cutting it in half, but I like having the whole shape there. I do not trust that I could cut it exactly strait down the middle anyway.

I clear embossed the background image, and used Tattered Rose distress ink around the edges. Aren't you impressed with the color match? I sure was! Sentiment is stamped in Chocolate pallette ink. Background stamp is Hero Arts, sentiment is Amuse. I think. I thought it needed a little something else so I added teeny tiny pearls to the corners.

Can I interest you in a stack of books?

2009-07-28T12:34:00.003-04:00

What do all these pictures have in common?
Why they all point to one exciting thing: craft room revamp!!! You see, we emptied all the books out of the sitting room and placed them upstairs to languish out of the way. I'll be laying claim to all that lovely Ikea furniture, and filling it with my myriad supplies. My desk will hopefully no longer look like such a disaster, and my walls will be one blissful color. I chose the one on the left! Ground Ginger. Mmmmmm- serene!

Painting is schedule for this weekend, who knwo how long it will take me to actually get things organized. Another trip to Ikea is in order!

ATCs!!!

2009-07-27T12:30:00.005-04:00

For awhile now I've been intrigued by ATCs and wanted to get in on some ATC swap action, but have been hesitant- I've read so many complaint threads about bad swaps, that even though I know I'm not a jerk, I've still been wary of getting involved. This weekend, however, I took the plunge! I signed up for my first ever ATC swap- it called for 3 one of a kind ATCs with an animal theme, so I felt it was an easy enough way to start.

Man, I had no idea how tiny 2.3" x 3.5" is! I had a hard time fitting some of my stamps on there- I never though of my stamps as being beefy! But it went pretty quickly and was a lot of fun! All three came out very differently.

This first guy came out great- I even got to use that yellow cat's eye chalk ink pad I bought a few months ago and then immediately realized I had no use for. No use until now that it! It coordinated perfectly with that patterned paper I bought on a whim last month. Just one random sheet, but it has been taunting me as a total impulse buy since then. It feels good to put those random purchases to use! Notice his little gem eyes- I think they're a little creepy, but in a good way. I stamped him with VersaMark + Palette ink and clear embossed, then went over a few spots with my VersaMark pen and embossed those with gold.

This was a real bear to make- lots of cutting! I think it came out cute, though it is not a style I favor all that much. The pink and yellow fish were inked once, then a stamp with another color was 'kissed' to the fish stamp, then it all went down on paper. The blue fishy was a bit easier- I stamped him in blue then stamped the white over the top.

Hey there chocolate bunny! What's that you say? OAK ATCs are a perfect mate for 6x6 paper pads? I'll keep that in mind!

The first round of ATCs went so well, I went and signed up for another swap! This was 8+1 swap, theme was distressing. I think these are pretty cute and I like the way the various distress elements came out.
The light on my desk unfortunately gives things a funky yellow cast, but this picture shows the real colors better.

Again, that batch went pretty quickly, so I signed up for a spot in another group for the same distressed ATC swap. Here is a close up of the 2nd design. I love the way it looks with the background text stamp! Without that int he background, the main image just looks so lost. Some purple Stickles came in handy to jazz it all up and meet the 'one embellishment' requirement.
As you can see, I am half done with this set- I hope to get it all in the mail tomorrow!

Some old pages

2009-07-24T12:57:00.004-04:00

In an effort to keep this blog somewhat interesting, I'll be posting some older work from time to time. It's interesting to see how my style and product use has changed, and it prevents huge gaps in posting. I know, my adoring fan loves me :D

First up is a favorite page- for both the finished layout and picture used!

The pic doesn't show the color of the pp well, but it is orange/yellow notebook style pp from Basic Grey- the lines are blue. Anywho, this was a fun layout- the only time I have ever done my journaling on the computer. I think the computer journaling fits well. I like the little twine bow I used- that twine is off of some packaging I had absolutely unrelated to scrapbooking. Now the picture, well isn't it awesome??? My friend and I were driving on the LIE one day and there was a school bus in flames on the other side. Naturally a picture was taken. This is the only copy of the photo I have- it's from pre-digital days. The pic itself is actually all crinkled from being taped up and removed from walls more than once, but it's still in decent shape.

This next layout features the one time I've used my foam stamps- sad, huh? Well, I tried some other new things when I made this- all the tearing and staples. I like the finished product a lot but likely won't do a title similarly again.

The cool parts of this layout are where I traced around the swirly design on the paper with my Sakura stardust pen (clear glitter pen), and the swirl I cut out of vellum. I'm quite pleased with how both came out!

So I hope you enjoyed your trip in the way back machine! Maybe I'll post some old cards next, although those aren't nearly as nice as my older scrapbook pages- I definitely think I'm a better scrapper than card maker!

Mini book completed!

2009-07-21T14:40:00.007-04:00

I am pleased to report I finished up one of my hanging projects this past weekend! It actually did not take that much time either! So here are all 20 pages of my mini album. I'm not going to write too much because it I did this post would be out of control. All patterned papers are by K & Co. If anyone wants to know anything specific, just ask in the comments! Click pics to enbiggen.

Felt + Cuttlebug!

2009-07-21T09:57:00.005-04:00

This post is for Leslie!

I'm going to try and show the marriage of felt and Cuttlebug, but not really do a tutorial. How much tutoring is to be done really? Here are a few pics to try and show the thickness of my felt.

See, not super duper thick, but certainly different than paper. I ran mine through my Cuttlebug with the regular sandwich. I'm not sure how many times it needs to be run through as you can't see if it successfully cut all the way through without disassembling the sandwich. Unlike paper you do not see cut lines when it is actually cut. Running it through once was insufficient, but I just run it through 5 or 6 times and it is definitely cut then!

Here are a few little shapes cut out from my Nestabilities. Layer, add a button, suddenly it's a flower! You'll confuse bees everywhere!

At the end, you get cool cut out shapes like this little frame.

Ok, I'm including this weird shot to show how you do in fact get some embossing on the felt. Enlarging it might help.

I have lots of felt from Mom, so I'm hoping to make more using it when I eventually get more dies. In the meantime, I think it makes for a nice backing layer for journaling spots- next post will have mini album pics showing how I did just that!

Next post will take a little while- I need to retake all my pics in an attempt to balance enough light with not having glare. All of a sudden I feel compelled to take nice pictures. Curses!

But where do you put it?

2009-07-21T09:50:00.003-04:00

I have been asked before what the heck I do with my ATG when I'm not using it- it looks like it takes up a lot of real estate which is usually quite precious to a crafter. Well, I have seen people make little stands for theirs, or balance it in a coffee cup, and I've even seen someone drill a hole in the bottom of theirs so they can put a binder ring through it. Theoretically you can hang it from said ring. Also, if you use peg board some well placed brackets could give your gun it's own home on the wall!

I do none of those things though. I recently discovered that the flat top allows me to balance my gun on it's head, making it take up very little desk space and making it *extra* easy to spot!

As I've mentioned before, it is quite light, so I often just sort of toss it on top of whatever pile is nearest on my desk. I don't have to worry about it crushing any delicate paper or making it difficult to get out things hidden underneath.

Yes, my desk has gotten messy. I need to hang that shelf!

counting is hard

2009-07-20T15:35:00.004-04:00

Yes, counting, it turns out, *is* hard. But I'll get to that.

First up are two supplies I had stashed with my x-stitch stuff- you see I have all sorts of miscellaneous craft supplies that are from my wee child years, stored in a series of shoe boxes in my closet. For the longest time it was all shoved into one large plastic storage tote, but a few months ago I set aside a few hours and went through every single thing shoved in there, tossed the junk and sorted out the rest. Now all these miscellaneous craft supplies are somewhat organized, which is how I was able to find any of this at all.

Back on track: I found this old pair of collapsible scissors and an ancient thimble. The thimble is easily older than I am. I was of course very excited when I found these- a dedicated pair of scissors is always ideal, and a thimble is better than getting stabbed, no? Well, a split second before I used the scissors it occurred to me that they may not actually be sharp, and lo and behold they were very much not sharp and shredded my thread as opposed to say, cutting it. The thimble, well those don't become suddenly stabible, but it too did not exactly work out. I think what I need are leather finger sleeves- do they make those?

As I was squinting at my heap of thread that came with my kit, trying to determine which was the medium green, versus the light or dark green, i had the brilliant idea to sort it all out to make my life easier: voila! Like the giant gash on our coffee table? We have no idea where it came from, so we just blamed the dog.

When I got to this point, I came to the very sad realization that I had started in the wrong spot on my canvas. How wrong was it? Well, turns out counting remained difficult and I had a hard time figuring that out. Eventually I said screw it, I would just work with the space available (I started too far to the left, so I did not have enough space).

Shortly thereafter, I realized that I had also managed to just skip a square at some point. Much finagling and adjustments of patterns had to be made, but I am finally back on track! Here is how far I am as of last night:

He's starting to look like a little alligator! Or crocodile. One of the two.

So my Math degree, which you could argue is a degree in advanced counting, appears to have failed me. My little crocoalligator is just going to have to live with a slightly wonky hind leg/rear. I hope he makes it.

For Randy

2009-07-17T12:39:00.006-04:00

My co-worker Randy was fascinated by the ATG when I explained what it was to him, and was quite surprised by the need for that much adhesive, so this post is for him.

This is my ATG. It is quite large, but is lightweight and easy to maneuver. It has a pretty new 36 yd roll of adhesive tape in it.

Here is my box of 12 refill rolls, along with the other refill I still had. So that's 13 rolls of 36 yards of adhesive each. Not too shabby.

See how little space each roll takes up? The is another fine reason to use an ATG- no ridiculous pop-in refills and all their excess packaging to store.

See this cute little box? It sites on my craft table.

For kicks, I am saving all my empty plastic rolls in there. I got my gun in January and as you can see have gone through 4 rolls- that's with taking a substantial crafting hiatus this year. You can once again see how little waste this type of adhesive refill creates.

Here is the project I have been working on and wound up using some absurd quantity of adhesive on. It's still unfinished, so I don't have many photos of it. The black strips you see up top? Those are the base of each page- black chipboard. Chipboard is a fancy name for a specific flavor of cardboard, but it's basically fancy cardboard.

Here are the first two pages- do you see how they are completely covered? Each page is like that. There is not actual black showing except on the cover. Because everything is exposed to fingers, it needs to be thoroughly secured which means lots of tap. Let's also acknowledge the many layers we see here.

So you see, the ATG is glorious for several reasons, and it's certainly something I feel I got my money out of. Which is a good thing, because seriously? $40 for a tape dispenser? I too thought that was over the top lunacy. But I love that sucker as much as one can love a tape dispenser (which apparently is quite a lot).

so many little squares....

2009-07-17T12:32:00.004-04:00

One of the crafts I've been meaning to get into for awhile is counted cross stitch. I had first learned to do this in 7th grade in home-ec and really loved it. I had bought myself some basic supplies and have held onto it all for years, despite not having touched any of it since 7th grade. One such item is this little kit I had bought, and I finally busted it out last night.

Because every house needed an alligator hanging, right? The kit has everything you need (except a needle, which I have anyway). The pattern itself isn't exactly a challenge, but it is a bit tough to see all those little squares and keep your count correct.

As you can see, I am on fire!

Or maybe not. But it's been fun so far! I'm in no rush- the kit has been languishing in a box for about 15 years, so if it takes me more than a few nights to get it done, I think I'll be ok.

My very first card

2009-07-02T09:38:00.003-04:00

I still have the first card I ever made on my own. I will never send it out, but I'm glad I've kept it! I had a few stamps, some ink and paper and was *dying* to try and make some stuff. I had no paper cutter or bone folder at the time, but I toughed it out with a craft knife, ruler and butter knife.

I have always thought this eyelet color set was ugly!

A busy weekend!

2009-06-22T12:31:00.005-04:00

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!

2009-06-19T11:57:00.004-04:00

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.

2009-06-17T11:58:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-15T10:13:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-12T12:34:00.005-04:00

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!

The rest

2009-05-15T09:43:00.010-04:00

After a slight delay, here are the other pictures of my Halloween mini album! I forgot I also used a few other Halloween papers I had from the previous year- I think some were Heidi Grace, not sure about all of them though.

All in all, this project was great. I was really happy with how I was able to finally mix lots of patterned papers together, even different lines. I had a few different styles of paper but I think they all still managed to work together and I feel this is a very cohesive project. I love it in person- the dimensional effect is great, and the paper bag aspect makes it really kind of cool.

First page! I traced over the black stripe with black stickles. It was kind of a messy pain, but I liked the effect and it was fun to change up my paper like that!

Page two. I went back and added the gingham bracket at the end and am glad I did. It's just a cute little extra touch.

First tag. I used velvet ribbon- fancy! I had a lot of Halloween brads so I wasn't shy about using them!

Back of the first tag. Its kind of hard to see, but that layer under the journaling has cute spiders on it.
Page three. I sewed some seed beads along the left hand side of the page. I poked the holes with my paper pierced (using my ruler) and just went back and threaded the beads on black string. I don't think I measured the distance between the holes to fit 3 seed beads, but it did!
Page four. Here I got to use my threading water punch! The brads came all sparkly like that- very fun for Halloween!

Front side of second tag. This was a punch out which I covered in journaling. My hand hurt after writing all of that!

Back of tag. Yes, I covered with some cool polka do paper. Cutting and sanding around all that detail was a little time consuming, but a good break during my crop day (I started this project at home but did the bulk of the work while at a day crop). I really liked having one project to work on all day and will be bringing smaller projects like this with me in the future. I also happen to think this looks really cool!

Page five. The witch was another punch out- I covered it with a few layers of UTEE. It;s a little warped, but looks neat in person. I glued the thin green ribbon on top of the wider brown ribbon then snipped them both. I really like how it looks! That orange stripe through the middle of the page is also ribbon. That other brad/ribbon bit is on the next page.
Page six. Lining up the threading water punch on both sides of the blue paper int he middle was a *hassle*. I wound up using two smaller pieces instead of one long piece. I love the way it looks at least!

Third tag. I popped the stars up on pop dots- it's fun that way!Back of third tag. I had this spider scrap and thought it was so cool! Glad I was able to use it.
Page seven. I like the way the journaling tag looks tucked under the picture. The line spacing on it was so big, I thin it would look weird if I had the whole thing out by itself. Halving it and putting it on it's side makes it looks less goofy to me.

Page eight. Awww, just noticed the camera strap is in the way! Too bad. 'BOO!' is popped up. The brads are dark purple covered in stickles- midnight I think. It looks awesome but is starting to rub off :(

The end.

Halloween mini book part 1

2009-05-12T09:50:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween! Oh wait, I'm a few months late.....

Halloween is my favorite time of year, although we were too busy this past year to really celebrate. I still had a lot of memories and even some cute pictures of the pup, so I decided to crank out a mini book anyway! All my pics are from the same night- testing out the dog's costume. So I went heavy on the journaling. I also could not bear the thought of letting all the cute Halloween paper I had purchased languish for another year! I'm quite pleased with hose this turned out!

Cover Shot!
These 3-D letters are Jolee's. I originally sued them on our silver candy bowl the night of to give out candy.

This is the back. All throughout I tried to layer patterned papers and create more of a sense of dimension to it. Since my mini books are not covered, I like them to have more of a tactile side to them. This glitter paper from Doodle Bug is really pretty but quite thick to cut! All the punch outs and patterned papers are from My Mind's Eye Night Light and Spooked. The fun brads are from Making Memories Spellbound line. CS is Bazzill.

This was my first paper bag album! It was a lot thicker than I originally anticipated, but I finished it off with ribbon instead of metal rings and it worked out quite well! I will most certainly be making this type of album again!

I have a bunch more pictures and I will upload those in the next day or two.

Manly sparkles

2009-05-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

I apologize in advance for the darkness of these pictures. I took them back when I made this card for my step father in February, so the card is long gone. I figured I could get away with some of the more frilly girly things, because my SD is more amenable to these sorts of things- all those conversations about bras and nail polish he suffered through when I was in high school really toughened him up!

Ahem. On to the card! I got to test out several things when making this card that were new at the time. Awesome textured background compliments of the Cuttlebug, perfectly spaced oval and scalloped oval layers compliments of Nestabilities (when will these things not still feel new????), and manly sparkles compliments of Stickles. The sparkles are manly because they're blue and green!

See how manly they are???

This basic type of card is a favorite of mine. Monochromatic (for the most part), very clean and simple design. And lots and lots of dots.

MacGyvering a 'T' and a new size

2009-05-05T09:59:00.006-04:00

With the advent of oh-so-nice weather, I haven't been scrapping all that much. Most weekend time lately is spent outside whipping our yard into shape or on other endeavors. Thanks to my general poor blogging habits though, I have many, many projects I have not shared here. So time to reach back to a crop I attended at the end of January for some cute pages!

First is a page I got to get a little creative on. I'm getting to the point where I am *gasp* running out of Thickers! The horrors! So I combined two fonts. Not exactly a great artistic achievement, but I don't think I'd done that yet and I really liked the way it came out. the bigger deal though is the fact that I ran out of Ts! Yes, I apparently use that particular consonant quite often and had a hard time getting the statement 'grad night' out, so since I rarely crap about quince apples, quiches, or quarks, I sacrificed a Q in the name of pupular scrapocity and MacGyvered myself a T. I also just learned how to correctly spell MacGyver.

I also tried out 8.5x11 for the first time at this same crop. I like this size a lot- I had been getting somewhat tired of single pictures on a whole 12x12. Sometimes I still like it (as in the page I posted just above), but other times it's too much white space, but 6x6 is too small to write much. So 8.5x11 is the perfect compromise!

In case you are wondering, yes, the lacy page is hard to cram into a page protector, but not impossible.

Hapy cards, sad cards

2009-01-30T12:13:00.004-05:00

While making my thank you cards, I took a time-out to play with a new stamp I purchased. This is a cute little House Mouse stamp and I am hooked! It was pretty easy and fun to color in and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I was very worried about it getting to my friend in one piece as the pearls and popped-up image made it seem rather bulky. I have been informed though that it arrived in one piece- hooray!

Needed another thank you card and wanted to play with water coloring, and this is what I got. I also tried something a little different- instead of mounting the image on the scallop layer and then popping the whole thing up (like in the card above), I just popped up the main image on the scallop backing. I had seen this done before and thought it looked pretty nice, but to be honest I do not like the way it came out. In general it's not a great card- it's kind of boring really. But, I do thing the bug is kind of cute.

Lastly is a card that was not as much fun to make. A co0worker of mine recently lost his father and I wanted to send him something. I don't own a sympathy sentiment, so I thought about printing one out on my computer. By the time I got my main image done and mounted though, I didn't really think there was room. For the most part I like this card. I wish I could have used a different ribbon, one without any brown, but I didn't have anything better. I do like the image and notice those cute little baby pearls! I was pleased when I realized they would work well this way- I bought a pack of adhesive pearls in three sizes and had no idea what on earth I would do with the smallest size. Solution!

Oh, I used two Spellbinder's embossing mats on the card above and finally got a good, deep emboss on my oval. One just doesn't cut it.

Polly says Thank You

2009-01-21T12:27:00.006-05:00

Seeing as I own all this stuff to make cards and supposedly make them, seems only natural I should start sending things like thank you cards, right? Well, it took an unnecessarily long time for me to get these done, but I think they turned out great!

I picked up this bird stamp this past weekend and decided it would be perfect. I stamped it in several colors and matted it in either a similar color or complementary color. I decided that I would make a coordinated set. the cards are all similar in that the main image is there and they follow the same basic layout, but I varied all the embellishments. Fun!

And yes, they are Chrismakah thank-you. Theme Schmeme.

The first two and blue and green. I love blue and green together. Perhaps to an unnatural degree. I love the little rhinestones on this first one, but I feel the sentiment is just sort of hangin' out there, totally ungrounded. I think using a corner rounder or something like those label nestabilities would help a lot, but since I don't any of those I think I need to start stamping straight onto the background.

I poked little holes in all the scallops here- first time! Love the way it looks! Stamped sentiment on background- much better!

Pink and orange- glorious!!!!

Orange and grey- so fab.

And here we have my all time favorite color combination- purple and purple. :P

Ok, so it's not so much a color combo in the traditional sense.... But I love purple, have tons of it, and don't really know what else to pair it with. I was particularly excited to use the lace here. I bought it on a whim one day, thinking I would use it on something Valentine-y. It wasn't expensive, but I certainly don't want it sitting around sucking up space- that roll is big! I did have one issue using it though- it was too thick on the back of the scallopy layer at first so it didn't lay on the card base correctly. A little visit from Mr. Scissors and all was right.

Now all I need to do is actually send them.

Stickiness and some cards

2009-01-16T12:24:00.006-05:00

First thing first, I got my ATG! Here is a picture comparing it to some of my other adhesives. It's a biggie for sure.
I had read before that there is a learning curve to using this sucker. When I read that, I of course thought, 'what the heck is there to learn, you roll on glue???' Well, turns out, they're not lying. You have to be careful when you finish rolling out adhesive and go to remove it- you have to be sure to pull back firmly and not up. The adhesive sticks to itself better than anything else, so it's natural inclination is to stay attached to the rest of the adhesive that you are currently moving far away from your project, so it is imperative that you effectively break the string of adhesive.

So there you go- learning curve.

In addition to playing with tape, I also made some cards! I received a Cuttlebug recently but had not yet had a chance to test it out. I purchased a few embossing folders and dies also, and was stoked to use them.

Here is a card I made using the swiss dot embossing folder and a cute heart die along with oval nestabilities. I like hearts. A LOT, so I had to dig deep to find some restraint once I purchased this heart die and say 'don't go buy anything else heart related'.
I enjoyed using my nestabilties, although I was pretty much convinced when removing them from their packaging that I was going to bend them. I knew they were thin, but apparently my understanding of the word thin is inadequate. Wafer thin! I need to give them a more reasonable home though right now they live in an old photo sleeve I had.

I got a little carried away with the butterflies on this one. And the texture. I like it anyway though! In addition to really liking hearts I really like butterflies. And unicorns and puppies and kitties and and and....

Ok card:

More hearts! Yay hearts! I purchased a bunch of papers from the American Crafts 'Romance' line a while back, this was the first time I had a chance to use any of it though. I like the line a lot and think I will end up using most of it on cards.

Finally, I was able to work on those thank you cards from the doggie. I decided I wanted to make it a simple single layer card. I don't have any thought bubble stamps, so what I did was trace around one of my scalloped oval nestabilities. It's not perfect, but way better than I would have been able to do free-hand!

I decided to color the stamped image with a sharpie ultra fine point marker instead of my pencils. I must say, I love the results! I may have to get a few more markers. Sharpie: the poor woman's Copic!

Consistent sounds so much better than boring....

2009-01-09T12:19:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I went to an overnight crop (mentioned in the post below- very nice crop, very scary setting). I enjoyed it and was quite pleased with the layouts I was creating. Then I started to notice a bit of a trend. My two page layouts were looking remarkably similar. Clearly, I have a style.

Style, that's it! Sounds so much better than 'stuck in a rut', 'unimaginative', or 'boring'. I like my consistent style of course, but it's kind of funny. I think most people would describe me as very much NOT a boring person. Hopefully my layouts aren't either!

Here's the first one:

I like this one quite a bit. I struggled a lot to stamp the title- it's something I need to work on. I do not have enough confidence in my ability to stamp things straight the first time, so I always stamp my titles on separate paper. Practice makes perfect.

Darn it- still need to add that date!

I was especially pleased with the way the ribbon looked- it's a reversible ribbon from American Crafts and I think it finished the layout nicely.

Here we have layout 2. No, the butterflies aren't exactly relevant, but I think they're cute.

Hmmmm. From this distance it *does* look quite boring and empty. Funny, in person I thought it looked fine. Perhaps I should look at my stuff while it sits on the floor more often...

And finally, a lovely shot showcases the tips of my slippers. Oh yes, and a very purple layout too! Note to self: fix ribbon!

Now, just to assuage any concerns that I'm becoming the crazy lady who stays home every night scrapbooking pictures of her dog and nothing else, here is a layout I did about myself and the Aquarium.

This also proves that I do in fact get out of the house on occasion. Ignore that this was all the way back in September.

Sorry for the glare- I was too lazy to take stuff out of page protectors.

I am in adhesive purgatory!

2009-01-08T12:13:00.006-05:00

Yes, I am in tape purgatory! This is the source of my many woes:

I had been using tombow mono multi happily for quite awhile, but was longing for a tape runner again. I had heard many good things about the dot 'n roller and decided to take the plunge. I ordered one snazzy little dispenser and 6 refills. I tested it out and was immediately in love! Adhesive love. Heh. STP anyone? Anyone?

I digress. Back to my agony. I tried it, loved it, and happily toted my new dispenser and 2 refills to an overnight crop with me. All was going well- I was cruising along and had done several layouts I was quite pleased with when it came time to pop in a refill. Then my happiness quickly dissipated as the unthinkable happened- my refill didn't work properly! Crap! Basically the uptake roll which collects the empty plastic strip is not rolling back, so the tape strip stays stuck to the paper leaving a great big mess and the need to take the thing apart and manually roll the strip back in. I end up with not enough adhesive on my project for it to stick, but enough left on the plastic strip to get all over my hands, pants, desk, really anything nearby.

Thankfully, I was smart and brought another refill with me. Problem was, that one didn't work either. Now I was in deep sh!t. It was very late at night and I was at an overnight crop in some remote camp ala Jason movies. CRAP! Luckily, I'm super prepared and actually brought about a billion adhesives with me, so I was not without stickiness.

Ok, fast forward, I go home and try out my other 4 refills, and they are sucked! Ack! I had purchased these online so I was a little worried about exchanging them, but the folks over at scrapbook.com were oh-so-nice and sent me 6 brand spankin' new refills cartridges! Hooray! 5 of my bad refills were from the same lot, and the 6th was from the next sequential lot.

Ok, so I sat down the other day to make some thank you cards, like a good little gift recipient when what should I discover? Why my replacement refills also suck!

Now I have invested probably a few hours of my life attempting to understand what my refills are doing when they are not working properly and have to figure it out. A few hours is a lot of time to spend considering adhesive. So finally, I have given up and succumbed to societal pressure and ordered, you guessed it, and ATG-714. The Cadillac of adhesives. It came with 3 rolls of 908 acid free Gold tape and I purchased another 3 rolls for a grand total of 216 yards of 1/4" sticky goodness.

Because I have been moderately obsessed with my little adhesive dilemma, I decided while I was trying *one more time* to correct my adhesive misbehavior I would take pictures. Because that's what scrapbookers do: we take pictures of things that really don't deserve to have their picture taken. Enjoy.

Starting to roll. Not too bad. A little slack isn't so bad....

Hmmm, maybe it's more than I realized...

It does not appear to be getting better...

So you see how this can become problematic:

Yeah, no good. Probably funny for the people who saw me ripping up huge strips of the stuff and doing battle with clear sticky tape and midnight.

On to a more positive note! Here are the cute little images I plan on using the yet to be constructed thank you notes:

There are actually going to be thank yous from the dog to the family members who purchased her goodies. We're a polite family. When I was visiting my parents my mom cleaned out her arts supply stash and found an unused box of Derwent watercolor pencils. Yeah, completely unused! Full set too- 72! So now I have watercolor pencils. This was my first foray into watercoloring since probably elementary school. I'm pleased with the results and look forward to practising more. Here's a close-up.

The stamp is from Amuse, also a Chrismakah present, but for me. Madison would only chew on stamps if they were given to her.

Ornamental

2008-12-30T12:51:00.007-05:00

Ok, so it's been awhile since I posted anything, and this post is a touch late topic wise, but I still wanted to post it so too bad. :P

For my holiday cards I purchased some pigment powders from LuminArte. The product is called 'primary element's and comes in 3 flavors: regular pigment powders, iridescent mica powders, and straight up mica powders. As I was poking around their site, I saw they had a tutorial for using said powders to make ornaments. Now the pictures sure were pretty, but I wasn't sure that I was interested in branching out. I mean, I like crafts and all, but I generally want to avoid picking up every neat thing I see resulting in an overflowing craft room and dozens of unfinished or never even started projects.

However, after rolling the idea around some more I checked out the YouTube tutorial and thought that a) the finished product is awesome, b) I already owned the most expensive part (the powders), so the additional cost would be low, and c) it looked so easy! So I trotted on down to my local stamp shop to buy some remaining goods and picked up some uber cheap clear glass ornaments from Hobby Lobby and I was off! Except I was never able to get anything other than the regular pigment powders. Shoot. I went ahead and made a few ornaments and found it was indeed easy and produced a fabulous result, so I went ahead and placed an order directly with LuminArte online and got some flashy mica powders (regular and iridescent). I was set! I cranked out about 20 ornaments total- though sadly did not take picture until I had given most of them away.

12 were packaged up and sent off to my step MIL as a Christmas present which was quite well received. I was a little unsure about giving them as a gift- after all she is a person not a tree, but she was touched that I made something just for her and she thinks they're beautiful, so score for Jess!

One other was given away as part of a thank-you gift for my neighbor for watering our tree while we were away visiting family. The rest that are left are pictured below. These are a mix of ones I liked the least and ones I wanted to keep just for me.

Close ups! I really like the way these came out. The colors swirled a lot on these, that is partly why I like them so much.

This was a fun and pretty easy project. It was however not cheap initially if you have to buy everything and quite messy. The little jars of powder seem like they will last a decently long time, although some are already half empty (oh no!). I hope to find some other ways to use these. I'm going to investigate decorating glass plates/bowls with these. I'm thinking I can paint/powder the underside and apply some sort of sealant and it will be ok. That would also make a killer gift for someone like my mom who doesn't have much need for Christmas ornaments. :)

Scrapping away from home

2008-11-11T18:23:00.005-05:00

I recently went back to the DC office for work- I spent a few days at a conference as well. Work was good, blah blah blah. I got no actual work done, but gt to attend a meeting in person- yippee!

I stayed in a hotel and drug a bunch of scrap stuff with me. I tried very hard to not bring too much, but of course brought waaaaay more than I used. I also discovered that paper is freaking heavy! I did not like having to lug my extra heavy suitcase around, especially since I was sick. I didn't spend all my free time scrapping, but I did get a few pages done and I'm pleased with the results.

This is the first page I put together using some new doggie themed products. The paper and little bone embellishment are Love, Elsie. While I think the designs are super cute, the quality is rather poor. Oh well!

Here's a close up of the bone. Isn't it cute!!!

Next I made this tiny page- title has since been added in brown vinyl thickers 'slurp':

This time I played with some of my new heap of American Crafts paper. It's fun to change between using a shabby, romantic style like Basic Grey to going to a bolder, more graphic style like American Crafts.

When I bought this particular paper, I had these pictures in mind!

That giant paper is the stuff I use to cover my work surface when I craft. My mom, the former art teacher, had tons and she gave it to me. I have several inches of that stuff! It's really great- I love having it there to stamp on and write out my thoughts for journaling. I've even been known to write out measurements when my fraction skills start to deteriorate.

Lastly is this little sucker. I just love the colors and the picture and everything!

Yes, I am totally biased, but I think Madison is jut the cutest puppy around! This is one of those times when the 6x6 size is perfect. I don't really have much to say here other than 'isn't my puppy the cutest in the world!'. With the picture and embellishment, there isn't much room left so a decent title really caps it all off. I'm quite pleased with how it came out. My title is even almost straight!

Simplicity rules!

2008-10-13T12:14:00.005-04:00

This past weekend was the first in along time where we actually relaxed- which meant I got a good amount of scrapping in! I spent a lot of it working on a mini-book of a weekend trip we took a few years ago, but also did 2 new Madison pages. I was working on the first one and decided that there was no point in me feeling like I needed to add a lot to my page visually when really I would just have forced it. I really like the page that came out of it in all it's simplistic glory. It's not that I felt I needed to be like the people who get published in magazines whose pages are stuffed with embellishments, but more so that I was worried the page would look empty and unfinished. I think it looks great!

Afterward I did my first 6x6 page. I had purchased a 6x6 paper pad a few months and had not touched it and was worried I was going to start accumulating a list of things I had wasted my money on. No more! I really liked the 6x6 format- it was perfect for the picture! I didn't really have a lot to say, had only 1 picture and it would have looked weird to me with a lot of embellishments. However, it was still something I wanted to record. I think the tiny format is perfect for those times when it's just a little anecdote or just something you don't have a lot to say about but want to remember. I really like how it turned out and I made it in just a few minutes. I'm excited to make some more this size!

Lastly, I finally glues the title on to the cover of my honeymoon album. I think it came out pretty well! The flag is just from a picture I took while we were on vacation. I used UTEE to make the chipboard letters all thick and glossy. I first painted them with acrylic paint and applied the first coat of UTEE while they were wet, then heated them and kept adding more as I heated them. I found the UTEE really easy to work with. Thee frame is something I had bought ages ago with no intended purpose- worked out quite nicely if I do say so myself. I didn't even have to re size the photo!

I am also trying to be much better about recording all of the mental dialogue I have when I look at a picture- I want my pages to say everything that I am thinking. Surprisingly hard to get ones self to do that!

Project kits, etc.

2008-10-02T12:35:00.007-04:00

I've started making myself little project kits. Putting them together is a great way to use up a small amount of time, or get something accomplished when I'm too tired to actually *make* something.

Here is a kit I put together to finish off one of the few remaining layouts for my honeymoon scrapbook.
Using it just made things go much faster when I finally sat down to work, and I was able to crank the layout out pretty fast. Here are the finished pages. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of them together, but I didn't, so tough. Yeah, I wound up changing the pictures, but all the rest went much faster!

Using the kit also forced me to use the embellishments I had selected to match my papers. Otherwise I may have just wandered off and never used those cut outs, when they coordinate so nicely!

Here is a layout I made recently that I tried a new method on for cutting and pasting. Usually I measure and then cut, then adhere when layering papers, but this time I tried gluing my top layer (the green scalloped paper) down first and then cutting it to fit on the background paper. I won't be dong it again. I wound up with uneven margins. Uneven margins make me twitchy. I used the excess space for some journaling, so I think in the end it looks fine.
Here is my attempt at fancy scrap photography.

Yeah, the letters are velvet! I nabbed 2 packs of velvet thickers online recently- I guess they were leftovers.

I find that the scrapping I've done in my themed honeymoon album is very different than the scrapping I've done for my regular old everyday life album. And of course the upcoming scrap pages of the puppy will be different as well. I'm much more excited about the kitschy stuff for the puppy pages. I got paper with glittery dog bones!

If you haven't picked up on it by now, photography is *not* a hobby of mine. I dropped my mom's photography class after 4 days when I was in high school. True story.

My craft room

2008-10-02T12:00:00.005-04:00

Now that we are in a house, I have my own craft room. It's great to have a place to put all my stuff and not worry about cleaning it up all the time so we have a place to eat. Crafts are by their nature messy, and crafters tend to be as well. Add to that my lack of furniture in the room, and surely you understand the mess that is posted below.

See the big bag with leaves sticking out of the top? I'm making a new wreath! I loves wreaths. I have great wreath making plans for the winter.

Here is my desk, along with what I am currently working on. I need another table. I've adopted the 'shove' methodology for clearing off workspace. Not good.
Isn't the leaf paper pretty! Just got that. It is not actually related to my current project.

Here is my cardstock and some of my patterned paper. There is another box the same size that holds papers that are put together into kits and project packs I intend to work on soon. I'm showing this because I just reorganized my paper last night :) Previously I had it categorized as such: SU! paper by rainbow, Bazzill textured paper by rainbow, and then Bazzill smoothies by rainbow. That was not so much working, so now all paper lives in rainbow harmony. I'm big on rainbow sorting. I have a lot of purple, orange, and green. I'm set for Halloween until I die!

This little bin hold all my thickers, letter stickers, and 3-d embellishments. It's a fun little box. Yeah, your eyes are not lying to you- I bought some Jolee's type embellishments. Wanna make something of it? I think they're cute!

So there you have it, where I like to get busy with scrapping and such. I'm hoping the gift fairy brings me a table and some shelves this year. Maybe a better chair. Then I won't hunt around the floor for supplies like a crazywoman!

Hello world wide web!

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Hey there! Hi. How's it going.

My name is Jess, and I like crafts. Mostly I've been scrapbooking lately, but really I secretly love all crafts. My dream is to one day have a house covered in homemade kitsch, but for now I'll settle for sneaking in a few hours here and there to live out my hokey fantasy. My day job is challenging but just not that creative, so I enjoy the outlet that crafts provides. My mom was an art teacher for many years and arts and crafts were always a part of my life growing up. I think in high school and college a lot of that got lost, but now that I am nearing 30 it seems it is time for me to get back to basics. A glue gun, some decorative paper, some pipe cleaners and who wouldn't be happy?

I'm hoping this blog will enable me to share the fun I have working on crafts with people, and make some new crafty friends at the same time.