New Year's Eve

Just wanted to post a note to wish everyone Happy New Year! Looking forward to a new year, and taking time to learn something new - and share my ideas and thoughts with others. I am blessed to have my family!

Kids are Home!

Today is one of the best days! The kids are home from school and that makes me very happy! The kids are working on all different projects down in the scrapbook studio and I am assisting as needed. I have no expectation of getting anything done myself, but just being available to help them is the role I am playing today. I did pull out the New Year's scrapbook and maybe later this evening I will try and put pages together for last year. We always write letters to ourselves on New Year's Eve, and five years later we open the letter up. Everyone always looks forward to opening the letters and I am sure this year will be no different!

For Christmas, the kids gave me a Bind It All that I am really looking forward to learning how to use! But for now, I am just going to enjoy the greatest gift I have - the kids home for the holiday break!

Thanksgiving Cards

Managed to make a few Thanksgiving cards early enough to send them out!

Penny Black Cards with Copic Markers

Here is a series of cards I made using my Copic markers with Penny Black stamps. I love how I can use the markers to make the images have such depth! I really love the new Martha Stewart scoring board - to be able to make envelopes to match the cards is so much fun!

Halloween Edgar Allen Poe Card

Ok, it is really macabre for cardmaking, but I was inspired by KayMcConnell on the Cricut Message board for this one. I used an image from Wikipedia, Martha Stewart border punch for the mice, Cricut jar is cut from Doodlecharms, picture frame is cut from Storybook, vellum, bats are cut using Martha Stewart border punch, red ink and 3-D Crystal Lacquer in red by Sakura. Oh, and I think the ribbon was from Target! No plans on sending the card to anyone - it is just too morbid! (but it was fun to make something so different!)

Glass Etching Plate Project with Benjamin

Yesterday, after school, Benjamin (my ten year old son) and I decided to try our hand at glass etching. I had read on the Cricut message board about using vinyl and the negative image to stencil with the etching cream. I couldn't believe how easy it was! Both Benjamin and I would have liked the etching deeper in the glass, but we still thought it was pretty! We used a clear glass dish from Dollar Tree, the snowflake is from Accent Essentials and Armour Etch cream from Micheals. We did the etching on the bottom of the dish. The glass dish is sitting on a brown charger in this photo. We talked about making dishes with cookies for his teachers for Christmas!

Halloween Cards

I made some Halloween cards today! I used my new Copic markers that I am officially obsessed with along with some stamps that I have owned for a few years, yet never used.

Scrapbook Studio - What is in the cupboards?

Thank you so much to everyone who had such nice things to say about my room! I have to say, the space really did evolve over time. I am really blessed to have a wonderful husband who understands it is part of my personality to create. All the kids love to create things, so it is part of our family.

In case you are wondering, the maple cabinets were recycled from a business that disassembled some breakroom areas, and the countertops were from Lowes. The ceiling and lighting was added in the spring of this year.

This is the inside of one of the drawers that contain rubber stamps. I bought the silver containers a few years ago in the dollar section at Target.

This is the drawer that holds overflow of adhesive along with brads, eyelets and some chipboard letters. The containers in the front are from the jewelry section at Joanns. They are great since they fit double stacked into a drawer. On the other side of the room in the sewing area, I have my thread all divided by color in these containers.

I think I have literally gone through ten different ways to store stickers and a few years ago I worked out this system and it works the best for me! These containers are stored in the roll out shelves in a lower cupboard. The stickers are store alphabetically by category in a Creative Memories product - I think they were called File Mate? I pulled out the ones for Christmas, Halloween, Spring and Fall and store them in the white Walmart boxes on the shelf. Two reasons - it gave me more room in this area since I don't use those categories year round and because I can pull the white box out and have everything in front of me for those events.

This is one of the upper cupboards. I keep the cuttlebug and folders at eyesight. The folders are stored in a container I found at Walmart. I keep a tray of black and white paper nearby since I use it often. The glitter is another story! There is the Walmart container full and then the Ikea white box is filled to the brim. I told my best friend that when I die they could sprinkle glitter all over my coffin and grave and still have enough left! Seems Martha Stewart and I have another thing in common. She was on Jay Leno last night teaching Jay how to glitter things.

Many people commented on the Cricut message board that the room is so clean. This is a better view of the scrapbook counter where you can see the trimmer and mat. I also like to keep my jar out for what ribbon inspires me at a given time - right now it is Halloween. So does the room look like this all the time? Nope. I do minimize the clutter by having so many cupboards to store everything. I love all the racks to put ribbon and jars of buttons - I think they are so pretty! The bulletin board was cleaned off in the room this past weekend so the room does look bare to me. Although I do like to have empty counters!

Take a look at the pictures that I posted yesterday of the sewing area. The jars I have out in the sewing area are filled with antique buttons and there is a jar of old marbles. Another jar is filled with over 100 keys that I have accumulated. Not sure why, but it is really neat to say I have it! The old Squirt bottle I found when my husband and I were boating on Lake Huron and it was on an island. On top the basket are fossils. So if you look around the photos, you will see the clutter!!

Scrapbook Studio

Finally took the time today to take pictures of my room to post!

This is a view looking into the room. The desk area on the left is a laminate table that I painted from the ugliest yellow to my favorite green. The room is located in the basement. Directly to the right of the table is a doorwall. The actual room, from the end of the green table on is 20'x14'.

All my Cricut cartridge boxes are stored on the IKEA shelves above the computer. I keep the actual cartridges in a accessory organizer on the shelf. My Cricut Expression lives on the table and I hang the mats on the counter.

The room is divided up into zones - general crafts, sewing and scrapbooking.

This area is for general crafts. The cupboards are filled with clay, school supplies, paint, glue, containers, markers and crayons. The area is a favorite for my youngest! You can see my Cricut mats hanging on the hooks!

This area is located to the right walk into the room. It is the sewing area. (To the left of the sewing machine are two windows.) The lower cupboards contain fabric, the drawers contain thread and sewing notions and the upper cupboards contain patterns and books along with some tie dye supplies! My youngest uses the sewing machine a lot! You can see the cubes next to the counter hold surplus scrapbook albums.

This table in the middle of the room is 40"x8'. I usually stand when I do projects, so the chairs are usually moved out of the way. It is a very heavy table - I bought it years ago on-line and finished it. You can't see in this photo, but there are two windows to the right of the table that provide a lot of natural light. The three small lights above the table in the middle of the room are on a different light switch. Lighting was very important to me when we did the ceiling. The cupboards at the end of the room are dedicated to scrapbooking. I keep a Fiskars cutting mat with a Fiskars paper trimmer on the counter all the time. You can see a IKEA trash bin next to the cupboard on the right. This works out great since I can literally brush scraps right into the trash! I also keep a wood IKEA bin on the counter that contains pencils, ruler, scissors, and various tools. Underneath the open area is a cart holding surplus pages and page protectors, along with a wrapping paper container and bins with bows and curling ribbon.

I wanted to include this photo because I wanted to show everyone the electrical outlet I had put in when the ceiling was being done! It is right to the left of the speaker in the ceiling. I've only used it when my daughter and her friends were getting ready for homecoming to plug in a curling iron, but it was really useful! Of course, I have a cordless glue gun, but if I didn't it would be great for that!

This is how I store seasonal items. In the white boxes from Walmart, I have Christmas, Fall, Halloween, Spring and School. In the box, I put all the paper, punches, ribbon, stickers for that event. I just added the school album, only because that is a project I am working on right now - the label will change with the next project. I store some of the DCWV pads, albums I am currently working on and the plastic pouches contain chip board, transparencys, rub ons. Some stamps are kept in the bin on the left. The one on the right is empty! The pink and blue boxes are from K&Co and contain paper. The cubes were purchased at Costco in 2002.

My paper is stored in containers that fortunately fit in the Costco cubes, divided by color and theme. The binder to the right of the cube contains recent favorites that I am not ready to file. All the cupboards at this end of the room contain scrapbooking supplies. I have drawers for stamps, adhesives, cutting tools and punches - along with buttons mixed in! The lower cupboards contain stamping, embossing, letters, and stickers. The upper cupboards contain idea books and magazines, small scrapbooks and cards, cuttlebug, embossing and xyron.

This cupboard is one of my favorites! I love ribbon! The bin on the left contains adhesives and the pens, pencils and chalk are all included!

As I was writing this entry, I thought I should include a photo with the windows! This photo is taken from sitting at the green table.

I really hoped you liked catching a glimpse into my world!

Cleaning Binge

This past weekend, I spent a lot of time sorting and going through the kid's papers I have accumulated over the years. With my oldest entering high school, it made me realize I should really get all of this in order. So with garbage bag in hand, we sorted.

This of course, prompted me to clean the scrapbook studio! Just have the desk area to clean and I will post some photos.

I had quite a few unfinished projects, and although I didn't finish them all, I crossed quite a few off my list! I made an album two years ago with some portraits I had taken on the kids, but I never journaled in it. It is now complete! I also had birthday books and Halloween albums to bring up to date for all three of the kids and they are done also! It is such a relief to have them caught up. Next projects are school album, Christmas and New Years.

Getting Ready for Homecoming

This is something new for our family this year! I have a million ideas in my head, but only so much time to create everything.

Cricut is celebrating its 100th cartridge!!

http://www.cricut.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=361&s=1&sc=2

Freezer Paper Whaler T-shirts

Here are the shirts and dishes that I made for Ben and friends for their annual salmon fishing trip! The shirts were made with design studio, sans serif and going places cartridges.

Where Does the Time Go?

I was so excited on the Cricut message board this morning there is a contest if you post inof about the new Gypsy you can be entered to win one! But better yet, it forced me to say hello to my neglected blog. Not much new in my scrapbooking world -just like everyone else, not enough time to do the projects floating around in my head!

okay, the gypsy is here!

http://tinyurl.com/ybofzut

Summer is here!

Well, summer, I suppose, is officially here! I did manage to get my photos for 2009 in order. I ordered May and June yesterday, and went through January-April and wrote the dates on the back. I neglected 2008 and I hope to get back to them and straighten them out this summer.

Now I have to work on updating my blog since I made that commitment to Andrew!