Sew Scrap Make

Mass Update

2009-08-21T07:20:00.001-07:00

While it may seem, since I haven't been updating, that I haven't been busy, well, that's just not true. What's first? Well, I guess I'll start with the Christmas orniments I made:

I picked layouts that I liked and then instead of putting them on 12X12 paper, I just put them on the tags. It helped that I found the tool to set the BIG eyelets.

My sister also requested a cupcake shirt for my neice's birthday this weekend.

I pretty much just used scraps that were left over from Malachy's 2nd birthday shirt, which was Carebear themed.

My mom's birthday is coming up in about a week, so I made her a little something. I used the tutorial videos on YouTube to make some mini polymer clay food, then stuck sewing pins in them to make some decorative pins for her. I also made a preety good deal of mini food for my neice's birthday (deifferant neice), but there hasn't been a good sunny day to go outside and take pictures yet.

I used a gift bag pattern I got off of melstampz.blogspot.com and a desktop background image I got from deviantart.com and made a cute little gift bag to put it in.:

Get it, instead of LV it's CC for Cup Cake!

I've been working on a game of photo I-Spy for Anna's party tomorow, but my computer is acting all goofy, so I'm not 100% sure I will get it done in time. I have also been making a TON of them in differant themes and colors and plan on posting them VERY soon.

I keep reaching over for my new notebook than I am writing just about everything down in. It makes sense to me, but to anyone else it would look like doodles and fragmented sentences.

Oh, last thing, I have been getting crazy into clay, polymer clay, and well, whatever the other kind is. We now have all these little pinch pots I've been making all over the house. I remembered the basics from sculpting class in highschool, and I've been having fun painting some. And the way the polymer clay swirls together makes some BEAUTIFUL combos:

I've got so many I brought some to work to clutter up my desk here.

One page of my notebook is full of ideas I see here and there and want to try out, although who knows when I will get a chance to. So a few I'm working with, Trick-Or-Treat bags, pretty much just a bigger version of the gift bag above, Scrable pillows, where you spell out a word, and each pillow is a scrable tile.

Clay Cupcake Christmas

2009-07-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

I know it's been awhile, but I will skip over the whys, and go right into the rest of the post.

I need more than a few Christmas orniments this weekend. I am really into cupcakes right now. I searched on youtube under "how to make cupcake craft" because I wanted something cute to make. I found this video:

I had plans to make little cupcake and donut necklaces for me and for all my neices. I made several, but I don't think I used the right gauge wire, cause the loop kept getting bent and warped. They are still wearable, but, eh....

Then the other day, all of a sudden while I was driving, I just thought, those would make such cute Christmas tree orniments. Before I got I home I had come up with a plan to use paper clips instead of the wire. This is the first batch I made, I wasn't really sure how well they would come out, but, I sure am happy with them.

I didn't really use traditional "Christmas colors," which is what I agreed I would do this Christmas, so I'm not sure if these are going to be for me, of a gift for someone else. A few Christmases ago was hot pink and bright blue, and I think that would have made adorable cupcakes. Last year was all golds and silvers. Justin said it looked more traditional, but this year he is firm that it MUST be red and green.

I have lots of Fimo left over from the wedding favors, so I want to give it a try again. I also found a few more videos on ways to make differant ones. YouTube is GREAT for instructional videos. Sometimes they aren't too exact, so you have to do a little trial and error, but here are a few of the ones I want to work on next:

2009-06-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

"Super" Weekend

2009-06-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend was a BUSY one. Saturday was the wedding of a long time friend (and co worker and son of my boss all rolled into one). It was a beautiful wedding, white and black. My only regret is that I didn’t feel well enough to take more pictures. I only have 2 and neither one is all that great. I started feeling sick at the beginning of the reception, and had to leave early. I had great seats at the wedding, 2nd row. But I didn’t expect Becca to make it down the aisle as fast as she did, so the picture of her dress is not the greatest. Then I took 1 picture of them at the altar and enjoyed the service so much I forgot to take more.

You can see her hair pretty well

Not my greatest day as a photographer

Then Sunday was my son’s 3rd birthday party. I had been stressing for a while because we really couldn’t afford to do much. Luckily my family (kind of distant family) has a lake that the rent out to families for this sort of thing. We are planning on having the reception for our wedding there (only 2 weeks to go), and thought it would be nice for Malachy’s party.

The decorations were kind if minimal. There were balloons (which I bought off of eBay), streamers (that were left over from my mother’s birthday party LAST August), and a few other little odds and ends. I made a few pinwheels, a couple of jars with curled paper in them, and of course his birthday shirt hanging up became an unintentional decoration.

On the left you can barely see the jars, primary colors

Matching Pinwheels there were more, but my mom kept moving stuff around

Malachy’s Birthday Shirt

I make Malachy a shirt and a collage for his birthday every year. The shirt is to wear at his birthday party, and the collage to hang on his wall so he can see all the things he has done the past year. He had his birthday shirt on for no more than 2 minutes when he jumped in the lake. He didn’t want to wear a wet shirt all day, so we hung it up to dry, and he put it back on after the sun started going down.

The party favors were candy in Easter eggs. Okay, not really EASTER EGGS. When all of the Easter stuff was put on clearance this year, I picked up some “eggs” that were different shapes. I got Batman, Hello Kitty, and Spiderman. The only ones that looked remotely like eggs were the Spiderman ones, but that’s just cause his head looks like an egg anyway.

Then of course there was the piñata that I included instructions for here. The only problem was, Justin’s sister agreed to bring a bat to hit it with. But she had to leave before the piñata, and took the bat with her. So we searched in the woods and found 2 sticks to use. I was horrified and embarrassed, but the kids didn’t mind at all.

Instead of a cake, there were hero cupcakes. I couldn’t afford to buy a cake, so I was going to make it myself, but couldn’t find my pan. So we had cupcakes, or butt cakes as Malachy says.

The cupcake picks were all hand made. I just printed out Malachy’s name in bubbly letters (the name of the font is Encapsulate from dafont.com), and logos from Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. I printed them on the same primary colored cardstock I did the other decorations. I cut them out, then hot glued them on toothpicks.

Doesn’t he look thrilled for cupcakes?

I didn’t set up any games, besides the piñata. I did bring sidewalk chalk, bubbles, water balloons and 2 extra fishing poles. I told everyone if the weather was nice enough there would be swimming, so almost everyone brought swimsuits and lifejackets for the kids. I didn’t bring a swimsuit, but was chased into the water anyway.

Almost everything Malachy got for presents was superhero, mainly Spiderman (his favorite). He got clothes, toys, books, and the curtains I made him for his new “big boy room.” Of course when he opened it, he decided it would make a better cape. Who am I to judge?

All in all it was fun and a nice day. I am a little sore, and did manage to get 2 injuries on the same leg. My mom managed to sit a picnic table on my ankle. And when I was carrying the trash out, a can of corn someone used as bait stuck through the bag and sliced my leg in 2 places. Now we can sort of rest for 2 weeks while we prepare for the wedding.

3 Day Weekend

2009-05-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

I got tons finished this weekend, but I am not posting some of it. All of the birthday stuff I did for this little man:

can wait until I post the pictures from his birthday party, which is this Sunday.

But the birthday stuff I will post is for my step-mom. I was supposed to drop by this weekend, but I was enjoying hanging around the house too much.

A Simpson's Dinner Apron

Journaling Jar and Notebook

CottonCandy Cupcake Soap Popcicle

I also worked on a couple things for the house.

Curtians for the kitchen

And some cute cupcakes

And of course several layouts:

Mother's Day Weekend

2009-05-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't get to take pictures of all the things I worked on this weekend, so I will probably post again tomorrow. I managed though, to use the sweaters I bought last week, felted of course, "korked" some ribbon and made them into hairbows, and made a tutu (at last) for my neice.

First the tutu. I have been eyeing tutus on etsy and artfire. The can go for around $15 for the basic ones. I was about to break down and pay $5 for a PDF tutu tutorial. I had googled my brains out. Then it hit me, youtube. There are tons of how to videos posted. Just type in what you want, and someone has probably already done it. I picked one that was pretty basic, but that's really all you need for something like this. I paid $1 for a spool of ribbon, and got a yard each of pink and black tule, at $1.74 a yard, and I got this:

So instead of paying $15, I spent $5, sat in front of the TV and made it myself. Not to mentionthe bow in her hair.

I found some examples of korked hairbows here, then googled again for instructions on how to "kork" the ribbon. Or maybe it's how to "korker" it. I found better results for "how to make korker ribbon."

Also took a little time to make myslef smething for Mother's Day. A pair of pink Hello Kitty Earrings.

The picture just does not do them justice.

And finally, I made a couple of sweater monsters from upcycled wool sweaters. Of course I only had enough charge in my camera to take a picture of one of them. Just happened to be the first one I made.

He kind of blends into the background of my mother's sofa.

VERY productive Weekend

2009-05-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

My mom and step-dad were going through a little Malachy withdraw, and asked to take him for a little while Saturday. Then called to ask if he could spend the night. The called to see if he could eat lunch on Sunday. And so on and so on. As of now, it looks like we will be getting him back tonight. Point is with Malachy out of the house for a bit, I got SO much stuff done.

3 Layouts:

I also cleaned the house inside, and part of out, took a car full of stuff to the goodwill, and finished 3 gifts.
Mother's Day Chalk Boards:

My mom's, you can see where I messed up on the edges a bit. How popular are cupcakes right now? They just seemed fitting, cince she will probably hang it in the kitchen.

Beth's. I love the bling on the crayons. Justin said it would be okay, instead of chalk. I stamped the image, outlined it in glue, then added glitter.

Patrick and Rebecca's wdding present:

I love the little piggy anyway, but I think the colors I used make them even cuter. Again, little piggy's in the kitchen, that's just cute. I only hope they don't think I'm calling them fat.

I even made one for our kitchen:

All of these were wall hangings I got a Big-Lots on clearance. They already had the brackets to hang them on the back. The were only $1! I sprayed them with black chalkboard paint, then decorated.

I also covered a frapp box but it came out too horrible to take a picture. Then Sunday night I realized I had to time to get a workout in. Of course I came back and was too jacked up to go to sleep, so I'm a little tired today, but it was worth it.

Oh yes, and while I was at goodwill, I browsed the sweater racks, and found a few.... I have been looking over and over Betz White's website. I saw her book in Barnes and Noble ages ago, I think it may have been while I was pregnant with Malachy. There were so many projects I wanted to try, but the whole felting thing looked hard. Then I saw instructionsfor machine wash fleting, or fulling, so, I am going to give it a go. The cupcake pincushion would be sweet for Justin's gramma. The baby blankets look soft, but would the wool make them itchy? I aso saw a sweater vest apliqued with felted wool. Anywho, while I was donating, I picked up a few:

Spiderman Pinata

2009-04-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

I needed a pinata for my son's upcoming birthday. We went to my nephew's birthday 2 weeks ago, and they had a Sponge Bob pinata. Malachy loved it, and so did Justin. Since Justin likes to have the best for Malachy, he decided we MUST have one at his party. After pricing some, and not really liking them, the price or the styles, I thought back to a craft project we did when I was in about the 4th grade, paper mache pinatas. I had some Spiderman wrapping paper left over from Christmas, it didn't look very Christmassy at all. Malachy's party is going to be super hero themed, so thought it would work great.

PREP

Mix the soaking solution. I couldn't remember the exact ratio, and when I looked it up on the internet, I found recipes to use flour as well. I thought I would wing it, and it worked out fine. In a bowl combine glue and water, easy huh? I used generic white glue. I bought a botte at Walmart for $.50. Use a pretty good amount. I'm guessing when I say, about 2 cups of water and half a cup glue.
Rip scrap paper into strips. I used an old magazine (magazine paper needs to be soaked longer) and some extra printer paper that I save when extracome out. You can also use newspaper, it soaks up the glue really well.
Blow up a balloon. I used an 11". I bought 12 of them off ebay for $1.

Cover the ballon with the strips of the soaked paper. I used 3 layers of magazine pages and one layer of printer paper. I would not suggest letting it dry until you do 2 or 3 layers first. The paper will be too thin and when the ballon starts to deflate the sides will callapse. You can do all layers at onc if you want, but I let i dry between the bottom laters and the final patterned layer. Do not cover over the knot in the balloon.

The final layer is the wrapping paper riped into strips. It is about the same thickness as the magazine, so they need to soak longer than newspaper printepaper s well. Let it dry over night. I bought the wrapping paper after Christmas. It was originally $3, but it was 75% off when I bought it.

Close up of the patterns

Holding the knot in the ballon, cut a small slit in the ballon and let the air out. Pull the balloon out through the hole.

Using a sharp knife (like an exacto) cut a flap in the side. Like a rectangle that isn't closed on one side. This is where you will put the candy/prizes.

On each side of the balloon hole knot, cut a slit big enough to fit the ribbon (or in my case fibers) used to hang the pinata through. I thought I had red ribbon, but after going thgough my stash, relized that all my red ribbon was patterned. So I used some red fibers. I got the spool of fibers at the Dollar Tree

Pull the ends of the fibers up through the knot hole. Tie the ends together.

Tuck the knot back in the hole.

You now have a loop to hang it up with. It also makes it a bit like a pull string pinata, ripping the pinata.

And that's it. I did a litle price comparing: An Iron Man Pinata for about $15. A Spiderman one for about $23. Superman for about $16. And Batman for $23. So that averages about $19. And that doesn't include the stuff that goes in it.

I spent less than $6 on supplies. And that's enought to do at least 4 or 5 pinatas. As long as you can find wrapping paper in the pattern you want, you can make a pinata to match. As cheap and easy as it was, I am going to make another one,that way the "little" kids and the "big" kids have there own.

Upcoming "Tasks"

2009-04-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

If nothing other than to keep it straight for me, and to kee me motivated, here is a list of the events I need to make something for in the next month and a half.
Birthdays:
Brianna (belated 6th birthday)
Terri
Malachy
Crystal
Starr

Mother's Day:
My Mom
Justin's Mom

Wedding:
Patrick and Rebecca

Party Stuff:
Malachy

Also, I found the most amazing ribbon website. Hip Girl Boutique has tons on tutorials on "ribbon sculptures." I was looking for instructions on how to make a ribbon cupcake, which I found yesterday, but am having touble finding today. They have a ton of free instructions, then another section of designs you have to pay for. I sent $5 through paypal and got instructions for 2 kinds of turtles and an ice cream cone. I can't repost the instructions, but after I make one I will post it, and the link so if you want to buy the instructions you can.
They have a ton of ribbon people, disney princesses, cheerleaders, pirates. I am going to practice a bit to see if I get good enough to make it worth it.
In the mean tie, I found Girly Things, that has differant FREE versions of Tinkerbell, the cupcake I originally wanted, turkies, and a ton of others, most of which spacificly state, you can make them and sll them, just not the instructions.

Also, click on the link below. You earn points by doing stuff. I've had it a week, and all I've done is used their search engine (powered by google) and I've got 9 points. You get points for shopping, searching and trading stuff in.

Layouts and Birrthday Prep

2009-04-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

My biggest problem scrapping is color coordinating. You know finding colors of paper and embellishments that go together. Sometimes after I finish a page I look at it and HATE it because the colors don't go too well together. Here's an okay example of it:

Joel's Birthday Cookout (open)
by Mommy2Malachy
Scrapbook.com

The color's are mostly muted, naturey tones, and then I added the felt ribbon, and it just seems too bright. Also I just really don't like the ink colors that well with it. I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with it, bt color wise, that's what stands out to me.
This one too, lots of problems. One of which are the colors I chose.

Yard Sale
by Mommy2Malachy
Scrapbook.com

Well, I am trying to train myself, which is really hard. It's not only in my scrapbooking, but the way I dress (myself and my son), decorating, anything the involves colors, I will screw up.
I bought a color wheel, read about how to use it, and it just still was not working. My problem is, I see red and green go together, but is hard for me to find the RIGHT red and green.

So these are the layouts I did last week:

Head 2 Tow

That one's main problem with me are the red circles on the bottom. They're red, just like the background cardstock. But it just doesn't look right together.

Christmas at Dusty and Sabrina's

I found colorbok's Friendly Forest supplies on clearance at Michael's and I bought one of almost everything they had left. Since they were meant to go together, they did. Then I added the silver journaling spot, and, I'm just not sure anymore.

Mothers and Daughters

I am actually pretty happy with this one. I used textured cardstock, all from the same pack, so it wet together pretty well. But when I got it printed at CVS, they cut off part of the picture. WTH

Sisters

Packs of papers are my friends. They all go great with one another. I even cut out flowers from the colorbok set of papers to make embellishments instead of trying to find some that match. Now looking at it, th papers match each other, but they don't really look that hot with the picture.

Enjoy Easter

This is probably my favorite one I did this weekend, and it doesn't even have a picture, and it's not for me to keep. I'm working on a pre-made album for my friend Crystal. I used Martha Stewart patterned paper, textured card stock, and alpha stickers. Nothing was sold as a set, but it all goes good together. At least I think so.

This weekend I started pn the pinata for Malachy's birthday. I will post pictures when I am fully done. I'm about half way right now. I'nm so busy with wedding stuff and birthday stuff, I haven't had tome to do the sorts of projects I want to for ME.

Handmade Embellishments

2009-04-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

Matchbooks for Journaling:

Instructions Found Here.

Tags

Maze Books

Instructions Found Here.

Put them all together and you get:

Children's Car Set

Pink Florish Set

Tickled Pink Set

Bright Dots Set

Thinking about the maze book instructions at Glitter Adventure reminded me of her exploding box class. I made one for my mom for her birthday one year. I think I will give it a shot this year as a mother's day present for her and Justin's mom. I am almost finsished with the chalkboard I made for Beth, and will post pictures when I am done.

Altered Bird Houses

2009-04-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how many times I have seen one of these and wanted to give it a try. I don't have a use for one, I don't have a real place to put one, but still this weekend I ended up makng about 5 of them. Before I show you mine, here are a few that I saw and really liked.
These are VERY elaborate
LOVE this blog and everything she does
The colors here are so pretty
I'm in lust with these, the colors, the patterns, the GLITTER!!
I have always loved pink and green together
Anyways, you can gooogle "altered bird house" and TONS will come up. You can make hem really fancy or as plain as you want. All I really did for these was a little paint cover them in some nice paper, and added a little glitter to some.
First I panted the parts that were HARD to cover with paper. Okay, first I did one where I didn't paint any of it, and decided from now on to pain to make sure it all goes together.

The I covered the sides and roof with patterned paper

Then (I'm not so sure you can see it well here) I added a little glitter to some of them. These I outlined the circles on the roof with Martha Stewarts glitte glue, then used glitter from her black set.

I didn't want to over do the glitter cause I know if I give them away, some people don't like too much. But CAN there be too much. The only problem came when I hung one on my kitchen wall. I failed to pain or cover the bottom, so it looks kind of ... whack. So it will sit on a shelf and version 3.0 will have the bottoms painted.

My next altered project? Well, I would love to give this a try. You HAVE to click on it, it is AMAZING

On a Ball Now

2009-03-24T07:16:00.001-07:00

This weekend I caught up on most of the collage prints I had to do lo's for. And I was totally surprised by how many Christmas lo's I did. Not just this Christmas. I found pictures from like up to 5 years back.

This first one is a pretty good example of a happy misktake. I bought the holly jolly e-cut from scrapbook.com. When I printed them off, I realized I was low on ink. So instead of a Christmasy red and green, it came out kind of streaky and blue and purple. But I loved it anyway. It may not go so well with the pictures, but I think the presents in the bottom pull the color our even more.

I saw a layout in scrapbooks etc. magazine that had a cute mosaic look on one side. I wanted to pull theearthy tones from the beach picture and thought the mosaic would be nice to use different paper, but still look planned. After I was all done, the fiance looked at it, and sand congrats for mimicing the stone walkway in the picture. Of course I acted like it was all planned out.

Because these picture were scanned, they would have looked weird if I enlarged them too much. So I shrank the collage, fit the pictures in, then printed it on 5X7 paper. So the square is 5X5 inches.

I also did a few more, but I'm not as proud of them as I am of these. But ifyou want to see them, they are posted in my sb.com gallery.

Just a reminder, I have some stuff up on ebay right now, mostly electronics stuff,(10% of the selling price going to cancer research), but I also have some clothes my son has grown out of, a few good deals on scrapping supplies(a set of autumn leaves stamps for 99 cents), and some of the homemade soap shown below.

Homemade Soap

2009-03-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

So went a little soap crazy this weekend. I just couldn't help myself. Once I started, I kept thinking of differant ways to do it, color combos, scents, and then the "prize soaps." You know you put a little toy inside the soap, and when you use enough of the soap the toy just pops right out. I made so many, and have NO need for them, tht I am selling them on ebay. It's really easy to make them, I bought a kit to start that had molds, dyes and fragrences. Then I have been shopping ebay for more of everything. I found the a girl that sells the most amazing scents for candles and soap. I got cotton candy, cream and sugar, and fudge brownie. They smell good enough to eat, and I'm a little afraid my son might.

Look at me, posting

2009-03-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I finished a layout last night, and while I was taking a picture of it, went ahead and took a picture of the 2 other layouts I have done last week and was just too lazy/busy to do.

This first one I did last week during a snow storm, the news called it thunder snow. Yes I know it is pretty basic, but I like layouts with a lot of negitive space. I didn't just get lazy and not finish it, I keept adding stuff, and chnging my mind and taking it away. I like it just like this. Also, FYI, I have been selling some of those teddy bears (in differant colors) on ebay.

This one is a 2 page layout I also did during the snow. We went and had these pictures done in January of last year, and I JUST got around to doing a layout. I could have made it just one page if I put the title all on one, but I like this way better. In case you can't read it, the title is "3 Generations." The three generations being: 1 my mother, 2 my sister and I, and 3 my son and neice.

And this is the one I did last night. There are 2 pictures because I used a blank card and put the journaling and picture on the inside. I love all the greens, especialy because it is a picture of my neice in the spring. Of course it would have been better if I would have used a color picture to show the flowers, but I was trying to be artistic with black and white. Also, I have been selling some of those Hello Kitty faces, and some full body ones on ebay too.

Been a Little While

2009-03-09T13:18:00.001-07:00

Okay, So I know it has been a little while, and I am not really keeping up too well on the one a week posts, but things have been so busy. Mostly because I got engaged on Valentine's Day. So, with the wedding coming up, June 13th, I have been kind of busy planning for it. And not just planning, but budgeting,since we have to pay for everything ourselves. It would have been nice to ask before I spent all of my tax refund, but what ever. So here is a little of what I have done. I made a collage of my family, mostly my sister and I at my mother's 2 wedding in March of 2000. All the pictures were poloroid, so the quality is not the greatest, but I changed the border color to somethng that blended in pretty well, and I think it looks decent. The other is of the fiance and I, with our son. That's right, after almost 3 years he is making an honest woman out of me. I'm kind of anal about us all matching when we take family pictures, but this is why. I just think it looks so much better this way. I didn't have enough pictures to fill all the squares of the collage, so some of them are flipped and repeated, but cropped so that they look differant, at least to me. I am getting ready to send these of via the internets to wallmart to be printed, then I can do a layout for them.

Valentine's Day Gift for Malachy

2009-02-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

For Malachy's Valentine's present, I decided to try a differant version of crayons. Instead of melting the crayons and pouring them in the molds I put the crayons in first. It has to be a mold that can be put in the oven. I used a tinfoil muffin pan.
First, peel the wrappers off the crayons, and break them into smaller peices. Sort them by colors and fill the cups. Using this method, the colors won't all melt and mix into one, so it is okay to mix it up. I made 6 crayons that are differant colors marbled together: red and pink, yellow and green, black and white, orange and brown, blue and purple, and one rainbow.

Put the pan in the oven. Be cure to check the crayons about every minute. You don't want them to melt too much. When you can see most of the crayons melted, turn the oven off.

The more you mix it up, the more the colors will blend together. Which is why I wait a little while for them to harden up before I take it out of the oven.

After they are cooled all the way, just pup them out of the cups. I put mine in the fridge for a little while first. You just want to make sure they are firm all the way through, otherwise you end up with dents and wonky shapes.

Here he is opening his crayons, I put them in a Spiderman toolbox for him.

EBay and Photo Collages

2009-02-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Because of all the shopping I have been doing recently, I am getting off my procrastinating butt and selling some of the stuff I have been meaning to for a while. So, check out some of the stuff I have up now, and since I never got around to fxing the coding on the last past, you can click here and go to my Scrapbook.com gallery to see the tags that were supposed to be there.

On another note, I have been playing around with the collage templates at scrapbooksetc.com I made some up and have set them off to be printed and when I get a layout done, I will post it. Until then, here are some of the collages I have done so far.

Here is the start of a 2 page layout for Kimberly's birthday party:

I put the title and the journaling directly on the photo.

This one for Thanksgiving, I just put the title:

For my neice's Christmas Play:

I din't have a whole lot of pictures, so I am going to journal over the blocks of pp. The same for this 2page layout of the family by various Christmas trees:

I just did these 2 Today from some Vacay pictures:

I'm liking them a whole lot better than the other's. I guess practice makes perfect. No I just have to do the layout. There are lots of great examples in the magazine, which I just renewed my subscription to, and on the website.

Tags Galore

2009-02-10T08:35:00.000-08:00

So, Only about a month in and I already missed a week. My bad. I got my income tax check and went a little shopping crazy, and vacation crazy. I spent a little over $100 at one of my favorite stores for scrapbookig supplies. The thing is, this store is called "Mighty Dollar." EVERYTHING in the store is $1. They have a whole asle of scrapbooking stuff. And not Dollar Tree supplies, name brand stuff that was just overstocked or they don't make it anymore. So for $100 got a BUGGY full of stuff, everything from Autmun Leaves stamps, which I later saw at Walmart for $11, to Bazzill velvet stickers, ink pads, rubons, packs of paper. I got so much stuff that I don't really have places to put it all. There were also trips to AC Moore, Michael's, and Walmart for craft supplies.

We also took a little time off, and sent to the beach for a few days and then to Tennesse for a few more. A little reckless, I admit, but I didn't spend all of my vacation days last year....

Anyways, all I have really made for the last week or so is tags.

The coding is a little wonky, so I will be back after my lunch break to post pictures

I guess I need to get started working on some more Christmas orniments.

CPSIA "PrePost"

2009-01-26T08:36:00.001-08:00

Just a little bit to get anyone whois unaware clued in on the CPSIA deal. On Wednesday we are starting a "blog in" so, I wanted to post this so people whould know where it is coming from.

See you on Wednesday

One a Week Ornaments

2009-01-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

I made these for my one a week Christmas ornament project. The pictures were taken from the Christmas gala I went to with my sister for her work's gala. It was held in Charlotte at the Omni hotel. It was beautiful and there were Christmas trees everywhere. I have decided that every group I make I will use pictures that go together. I also entered these in a challenge at scrapbook.com. It was a tag challenge to make a set of tags that have the same or a similar design.

Since it's almost a month until Valentine's Day, I really need to start working on stuff for that. Maybe some cards or saw a project idea for a "Nuts For You" jar of nuts.

UpCycled Crayon

2009-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the 7th birthday of one of my nieces. We went to her favorite Mexican restaurant for her party. Can you tell what her favorite TV show is?

So of course we got her some Hannah Montana stuff, a guitar with lip gloss, and a coloring book. I also picked her out a Disney Princess bubble bath kit. But I thought it needed a little something else. So, I made a really lame looking double boiler, and melted some crayons to make her an upcycled-heart-shaped-rainbow crayon.

Close Up of Side

Kimberly liked the crayon okay, but Big Daddy was the most impressed I think. He had all sorts of questions, and was showing and describing it to everyone like HE made it.

Layout for Christmas of 2002

2009-01-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

Here is a layout I made for a challenge at Scrapbook.Com. The rule was 90% of the layout had to be circle. It could be one big circle, lots of little ones, it didn’t matter. I made another layout, very similar to this one, but I thought I would go with something a little more traditional.

First I traced a circle onto the maroon cardstock. Then I used my jumbo square punch to make tons of these squares. I used paper from a DCWV pad, so that they all matched relatively well. I rounded the corners with a medium punch, and inked the edges of some of them. I glued them all down in the outline of the circle, then filled the circle in, overlapping them so there was non of the card stock showing. I matted the photo, then placed it a little off center over the circle.

The other layout I made I cut the circle out of the cardstock, so when I was finished the layout was an almost 12 inch wide circle-ish shape. I made a few more since then, using different size squares, stamping on some of them, a circle full of other circles. It’s time to move on to something else.

Upcoming Excitment

2008-12-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

So, this is it. Well I guess tomorrow is it, but what ever. New Year's Eve.

I think I have explained myself already, but just in case here is the official press release type statement. I don't really make New Years Resolutions, more like goals, or solutions. That way when I don't follow through, like what 99% of people that make resolutions, it doesn't feel like as big of a deal. Last year I lost a bit of creative motivation. After almost 2 years of being seperated, my son's father and I have started the process of reconciling. And while we have known each other for years, it is almost like that "new love" phase, where you want to spend all of your time together. Which leaves little time for crafting and, well to be perfectly honest, myself in general. So this year, I have decided to do something about it.

I want to do at least one project a week. And here in a public forum is where I shall post the evidence. I once heard that people that share their resolutions with friends are somthing like 75% more likely to stick with them. So instead of friends, I am putting it out here.

I also want to get back in the habit of one of last years "not" resolutions. I decided to combine two things I love, photography and the out doors, and commit myself to venturing outdoors every other weekend (the daddy's weekends) and photographing nature. Believe it or not , I did pretty awesome at this one, sticking with it through the cold months, and not really slacking off until I guess it was June or July, when the hint of a rejoining first arose. This year I am reinstating it, but it will hve to include a few changes. Up until last week we were still going by the every other weekend creed, but it seems a little silly now, so the field trips will include not only my little Honey Bunny, but also Poppa Bear.

I have also decided to give Becky Higgins Project 365 a try. I was planning on taking a picture of my Honey Bunny every day that way I could do one of those 40 seconds for a year videos like you see on YouTube. I was thinking something more like this though, I just like the tree one too. There is a challenge posted on scrapbook.com and I have singed up for it.

I also have it in my head to make 1 homemade Christmas orniment a week, or maybe like every other week for the year. I didn't really like the ones I had on the tree this year, and I don't want to be racing around at the last minute trying to get them done next year. Plus I look forward to Christmas all year long, so this will help ... prolong the Christmas spirit. I hope.

Other than that I am just going to be doing like randomish craft projects and layouts I guess. I've seen tutorials for journaling jars, recycled placemats, and a ton of other things I want to try. I will post my result, with a link to the place where I first saw the idea. I guess that's it for now. I'll end today by posting a layout I finished last night. It is a picture I took of a Christmas tree while my sister and I were out of town for her company's end of year awards dinner.