Organized Chaos

Here's why my crafts area looks like while I'm creating. I like to keep everything in reach, hence the open drawers and tools everywhere.

It's not too bad, actually. You can still see the desk surface, and there's just a few layers of items off to the side!

Ooh, you can see my new vertical storage for patterned paper. It's the clear containers just to the right of the cubes (which are in the middle). I used to have my pp in the bottom cube, with the vertical shelves, but it was too difficult to sort through. I don't know what I'll do with the cube now, but I've manged to shove bits and pieces in there anyway!

I'm not planning much more organization changes until we move, as I have no idea what my space will be like. I do, however, have plans for ink pad storage. My friend's husband is handy with wood, so I've asked him to make me a storage unit.

Oh, and here's where you can usually find Ginger when I'm in the crafts room. This futon is just to the left of my desk :)

Going in circles

This layout was for a challenge on Scrapfriends, where we had to use at least two metal rimmed tags. I went with a circle theme here, obviously ;)

I used a bowl lid to trace the largest circle, and a CD for the smaller one.

I coloured the rims of the metal tags with Staz-on, and then filled them in with paper and a sticker for one, and a chipboard letter for the other.

There's also some rub-ons, small gems, more stickers, a metal rim sticker, brad, a Marvy Le Plume II marker, and white Sakura glaze pen (for the dots on the 'C').

The journalling:
"March 30, 2008 - As I finished this layout, which took much longer than anticipated (due to some defective embellishments), I was happy with how it turned out. Then I realized that I had titled the page "Ten Months" in error! Thankfully, the circles were easily moved, and I was able to redo it."

Yup, that's right. I put the wrong title! I was just about in tears, and decided to journal around the circles, explaining the error. I liked how it looked with the journalling, but the title bothered me too much. Good think the adhesive I used didn't work very well, and I was able to pull up the circles, and put them on another background! I wanted to keep the look of the journalling, so I explained the history of the layout.

Oh, and the adhesive issue pushed me over the edge, and I caved and ordered one of these.

It's a tape dispenser gun, and it's all the rage on SCS. Apparently it's easy to use, even though it looks like a packing tape gun! It's made for use in the framing industry, but has been adopted by paper crafters.

Here's the deets: Specifically designed for use with 1/4" Scotch ATG Tapes. Makes applying fillets, laying multi-opening mattes and working with small wooden frames simple. Other features include a gear system that helps prevent gum-up, easier loading and a transparent cover - so you know when it's time to refill!

Black and blue

I've been wanting to try this colour combo for some time, especially with my latest rub-on and glitter pen obsession! All but one of the cards have some glitter on them, some more than others.

Rub-ons: Basic Grey, American Crafts
Stamps/ink: Stampin' Up
Pens: Copic Spica clear, Sakura Stardust clear, Sakura Glaze white
Cardstock: unknown
Other: Prima flowers, misc brads and eyelets, Stampin' Up ticket corner punch

And a close-up of one of the cards. I love this flower rub-on from American Crafts, and I filled it in with the Copic Spica clear glitter pen. I also coloured on the sentiment and the Prima flower.

Happy Birthday to Moo!

I made this card for a limited supply challenge on H! We couldn't use any special tools (no punches? the horror!), just a trimmer, scissors, colouring tools, stamps, inks, etc.

The farm stamps are from the Penguin Pants set I won. I masked the cow, fence, and grass to layer the images.

Don't know how to mask? It's really easy. Stamp the image you want to be on top (such as the cow) on some scrap paper, and cut it out as close to the outer lines as possible. That's your mask. Then stamp the same image on the carstock, and place the mask right over top. Stamp the image you want to appear behind (such as the barn) overlapping the mask. Take the mask off, and there ya go! The barn looks like it's behind the cow.

I coloured in the stamped images with ink and a blender pen (all SU). If you squish the top of the ink pad to the bottom, you'll get a bit of ink on the inside of the lid. Use that ink to paint with the blender pen, and you have a quick "watercoloured" image.

The sentiment is from SU's Everyday Flexible Phrases EFP, except for the Moo, which is also from Penguin Pants. There's no "to" in EFP, so I used the "together" stamp, and inked only the first two letters.

Finally, I drew a ground line on the card, so the animals don't look like they're floating in the air :p

To finish, I dragged the edge of the cardstock in Really Rust, and mounted it on Old Olive pp, and then used SU dimensionals to pop it up on Really Rust cardstock. I stamped the grass onto the SU Blush Blossom cardstock base, and attached the ribbon (from Michael's $1.50 bin) with SU Sticky Strip.

I'm pretty happy with this simple card, and quite proud of my made up saying. Chloe sings "Old MacDonald" every time she sees the card ;)

XOXO

I haven't been scrappin' much lately, but completed this layout for a challenge on Scrapfriends. The challenge was to use at least nine eyelets in one layout.

The design is pretty simple, but I'm happy with it. I love the all-blue look, with a bit of white to keep it fresh. Although I think the paper flowers have a bit of green in them, so it throws me off...

The pp is from one of those Costco packs, the border strips are white paper stamped with Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink in Lagoon Blue (with a mix of See-D's and SU stamps). To finish off, a bunch of eyelets, a few glittery brads, three paper flowers, and my white Sakura glaze pen complete the page.

Seven Wacky Things About Me

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I was browsing Julie's blog, Out To Impress, and saw she has a tag request. So here goes!

Seven Wacky Things About Me
1. I sleep with a pillow over my head.
2. Anytime I have a bunch of coloured things (craft stuff, Chloe's toys, clothes, etc) I organize them by the colours of a rainbow. Roy G Biv, anyone?
3. I was a swimsuit centrefold model. Well, kinda. I was in the Province newspaper in my bathing suit, and it was a full page photo in the centre section!
4. I refuse to wear heels, I'm tall enough!
5. I love to eat orange peel.
6. Crab mouths terrify me.
7. I've never been to Disneyland or Disney World. Well, I think that's wacky!

Now it's your turn. I'm supposed to tag seven people, however, I'll just leave it open for anyone else who wants to participate. Just leave a comment with a link to your blog so we can read about your wacky self :p

Pay it Forward!

Wowee - I received the most amazing package in the mail yesterday. Jill from InkGenious had posted a "Pay it forward" blog candy offer, and I asked to participate.

So you wanna see what she sent? As always, click the photo for a larger view.

Can you believe HOW much stuff she packed in there? I'm overwhelmed. There's so many fun little things, like the felt flowers, chipboard tags, paper flowers, and of course, the variety of stamped images. I was excited to see the sweet little bird's nest from Inkadinkado, which I've seen many times on Jill's blog, including this beautiful baby card! I also love the Elzybells chick, which was the star of one of Jill's recent amazing cards.

Speaking of which, Jill also included one of her cards in the package. She used SU's Time Well Spent set, which is one of the hot stamp sets on the scene right now. I definitely want it! It's a level 3 hostess set, so it's hard to get.

Okay, so now it's time to start my own Pay it Forward! So the first three crafty bloggers to post a comment on this post will receive a PIF package from me, and then they will post the same thing on their blog, and send out three PIF packages to the first three people who comment on their post, etc. Anyone in Canada or the US can participate, as long as they have a blog to continue the chain.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry up and post a comment!

I won, I won!!!

Christine at ScrapTime was having a blog candy giveaway for the Penguin Pants Stamps "Around the Farm" stamp set! And yep, I won it! Eek, I'm so excited. It's such an ADORABLE set, an I can already see all the fun little birthday cards I can do with it. Do you think I can do a farm theme for Chloe's birthday next year? ;)

Here's the set. Isn't it cute? Check out there other sets at Penguin Pants

Card Exchange

I'm participating in a card exchange with some friends, and we each had to make 10 birthday cards. The party chick card (in my last post) was my prototype. I made the design a bit easier by not cutting out the square, and just adding one on top. You can't really see the difference without opening the card, so I'm glad I saved the time!

I ended up doing several different designs, as I couldn't decide on just one. For this first group, I wanted to use this set I just got, Summer by the Sea by SU. I stamped the image with Timber Brown Staz-On (thanks again Shelley!) and coloured it with SU's watercolour crayons. Then I used a SU blender pen to soften and blend the colours.

The pp is from one of those bulk packs from Costco, and it's hard to tell, but it has sand dollars and little flowers. Perfect for the stamp! I used SU's ticket corner punch on each of the corners.

I used one of the stamps from SU's Itty Bitty Backgrounds to add some interest to the right side of the card. I think the stamped image looks like sand. I added brads, eyelets, or a snap to the image, and popped it up on dimensionals. The inside has the phrase "Wishing you happiness" also from Summer by the Sea.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, as the colours are not my normal style. The image is so pretty, I just had to try it!

The next group the same idea, just with different styles. I used basically the same supplies: mostly SU, with some Costco pp and miscellaneous brads and snaps.




For the blue cards, the brads match the paper better than it looks in the photo. Again, not my normal style, but I like the Lexicon of Love stamp that has a definition of the word celebrate.



On the purple cards, I embossed the Happy Birthday phrase and added some Stickles glitter to the flower image on the right (it's hard to see in the photo).






The next card uses a fun SU set, Computer Quips. I love the cat/mouse image, and the "Hope your birthday is glitch free" phrase is entirely appropriate, especially as when stamping it, I rocked the stamp a bit and the edge made a line on the card. Hence the birthday cake stuck next to it :p

Again I used the Timber Brown Staz-on and then SU's Pure Color pencils to colour the cat. I used baby oil to soften and blend the colours, then Crystal Effects to add dimension to the mouse and the cat's collar.

The birthday cake is stamped with Tempting Turquoise, also coloured with Pure Color pencils. I embossed it with clear powder. Finally, to add interest to the right side, I used one of the stamps from SU's All in a Row with white craft ink and clear embossing powder.

I was going for a retro look with the last card, and tried out Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) on the Happy Birthday stamp. I stamped the image with Chocolate Chip, then Versamark, sprinkled on the UTEE and heat set it. I repeated the Versamark, UTEE, and heat, and ended up with a "wet" look that I really like. I added a couple white eyelets a sheet of white paper on the inside (the brown paper is too dark for normal pens).

This second photo shows the UTEE effect better. It is clear, it's just reflecting the light in this photo. You can see how it really is quite thick, and that's only two layers! You can layer more, and then let it dry and crack it, or press a stamp into it to create reverse embossed image. I can't wait to play with the UTEE again!

This card is cukoo!

I was playing with the z-fold card, after seeing it demoed on Scraptime. I needed an idea for a card swap, and wanted to give this style a whirl.

I'm happy with how it turned out, although my colouring leaves something to be desired :p

The little birdie is form SU's Very Punny. I stamped him with black Staz-On. He normally has "Chirp Up" underneath his feet, so I added the "party" word from SU's Everyday Flexible Phrases set, using SU's Blue Bayou ink.

I coloured in the bird with SU's metallic pencils and the Pure Color pencils, then softened it all with baby oil. I punched out the bird, dragged the edges in Blue Bayou, then punched out a yellow background and popped them up on some dimensionals.

The right side of the card looked to plain, so I stamped it in Versamark with the background stamp from SU's Polka Dots & Paisley. Then I added extra glue on the big dots, and sprinkled on some of SU's Dazzling Diamonds glitter. The card is one of those pre-scored ones you can buy at Michaels, the cardstock and patterned paper is unknown.

Once I decided on my design, the card came together very quickly.

Here's how it looks standing up. I cut out one of the flowers from the pp, and put it on the inside of the card, just to add more interest.

The colours (and the bird) give it an Easter-y feel, non? I'm going to give it to my friend, who is turning 32 next week. I used to call her "Chickee", so it's very appropriate ;)

More organization

Found this handy little unit at Canadian Tire (on sale for $10 from $22). It's now home for all of my embellishments (chipboard, brads, eyelets, metal bits, paper flowers, etc). I decided to stick with my new organizational scheme, which is by colour (and ROY G BIV at that, because I'm a geek). So depending on the colour, there's one to three drawers for each. Each chipboard alphabet set is in a drawer (or two for larger sets). I've stuck samples of some of the chipboard alphabets on the front of the drawer. I think I'll do that for a few of the other ones as well!

The inside of a few of the drawers:
I've mixed red and pink, then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black and white, metallic, and one drawer for just Christmas stuff. Then there's two rows of chipboard (mostly alphas) and the last three larger drawers are miscellaneous embellishments and larger chipboard.

Overall I'm very happy with the set-up, and can't wait to start using it!