About Me

Canadian that lives in the desert of Arizona with my wonderful husband and two kids.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Spooky Jar card

I was inspired to do this card from the October issue of Paper Crafts mag. They featured a nice card with the 3 jars. Because I am a Cricut fanatic...I challenged myself to do the jars and contents all from Cricut. I have the Cri-Kit markers and so I used those because they are fine tip and very pretty. Here's what I used:



Paper:
1 9 x 8 purple cardstock (folded to make a 9 x 4 card)
1 8.75 x 3/75 patterned cardstock (first layer of card)
1 8.5 x 3.5 green colored vellum (2nd layer of card)
non-textured white card stock (non textured makes the markers write smoother)


Cricut carts:
Doodlecharms for jars and circles (for eyeballs)
Paperdoll cart for spiders and snakes
Cri-Kit marker - dark grey metallic

Embellishment:
Silver tag frame
Sentiment cut out (from We R Memory Keepers Heebie Jeebies paper kit)
2 orange paper clips
Glue dots to secure sentiment and paper clips to frame
Silver glitter (sprinkled on to the frame after putting glue on the tag frame)
Pop up dots on the back of sentiment

Other:
White paint pen to mark around vellum , black and red pens to do the pupil and red bloodshot on eyes.
Ribbon on the jar lids (1/4 inch ribbon)



Here's the cut file for the jars and contents.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B_S5aT2k8sZ1NjEwZGY0ZjktMzcwZC00NTI5LWE1NWQtNWU2MTJjMGM5M2Rk&hl=en

It's important to do the first tab with the markers and then DON'T remove the paper or reset it. Just remove the marker and insert blade and then hit cut again in CDS. If you don't have the markers and have some cool creepy stamps or even cut out your embellishments...you can do that instead but again I was trying to challenge myself to do the jars all from the Cricut including the markers.

Ths Spooky frame is just two paper clips slid into the holes on the Spooky tag and then I put two glue dots on the silver frame tag and then put the Spooky paper tag down so the paper clips were secure on there. The glue dots were showing through...so I was trying to think how to hide that and what sticks to glue? GLITTER! So I put glue around the whole frame and sprinkled silver glitter.




Sunday, August 15, 2010

Treadmill

Had to vinyl on the treadmill - don't use the book holder ever!

Vinyl wall quotes

I decided today it was time to change the photo collage in the dining room to add something more to it - pretty plain and boring without the vinyl!! Here's the before picture

and the video below shows the after.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Cinch - another project

This is a video of the project I finished today, pretty quick and easy to do.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Cinch! I love this new tool

I got the Cinch tool and decided to make a small 6 x 6 album of my daughter's birthday photos. It's not all completed yet but I wanted to post the pictures of the bound album. It was very easy to punch and line up and cinch the binding wires to this. It was quick and I think now this is my favorite way to make smaller books!


The cover below was basically the invitation that I wanted to have on display. I cut the envelope that I made to go with the card so it was a 'pocket' to hold the invite. I then taped down a loop of stretchy rope so it would go around the card and onto the button so the card will stay put but still can be pulled out if you want to.













Admin's day this week

I made this card for our admin in our department - she's a great person and does alot for us. I used the Wild Card cartridge and the new Cri-Kit markers that I discovered at the CK show yesterday. You cannot see it in the picture but the markers are metallic and have a nice shimmer to them.











Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Empty picture frames


I got some picture frames Christmas 2008 from Santa. Needless to say I loved the frames but was very hard pressed to find mats and artwork that I liked to go in these. So they have been hanging on the walls of my bathroom for oh....15 months now with nothing in them but the picture that comes with it.








Yes I was teased by my sisters about it and many others. So the other day I realized that with my new and larger Cricut machine that I can cut out mats that are large enough for frames this size!! I have one 11x14 and two 8x10 so I quickly went to work designing these in my software that works with the Cricut (CDS) and voila! Custom mats with a nicer than plain old square inside.

Now...if I can just figure out what goes in there. I'll be working on finishing that this weekend. Promise!





Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dining room wall quote

I was thinking today about how hard it is to lift the vinyl off of the mat with the transfer tape. I started wondering...am I doing this the wrong way?? So I went onto You Tube and watched a few videos. Yup, sure enough...I was cutting it too deep and through the paper behind the vinyl which you are not supposed to do. I was also trying to lift the vinyl onto the transfer tape and that was taking a long time but really you are supposed to put it down over it all and then remove the BACK of the vinyl. DUH.

I was so excited that the process was WAY easier than I thought, and I thought I had been pretty 'experienced' in the vinyl already. Ha. Anyways, I jumped up to do this quote in my dining room that I've been thinking of putting there forever. It took me all of 15 minutes. I love it!




Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Getting ready for my daugther's party

My daughter is having a "Rock Star" themed birthday party. Black and pink are the colors and guitars are all abound! I started working on the decorations. This is the guitars I made with my Cricut (Indie Art) and the banner I made also with that same cart and Storybook for the font.




Tuesday, March 23, 2010

No time for projects today

I didn't get to many any projects tonight - yuck! Too busy with work and I have an early day tomorrow. Tomorrow night should be better so I hope to have something posted up. I need to plan on making at least 10 peep gardens for some co-workers so I'll post those once I get those done too.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Peeps were planted

This is the peep gardens with the peeps planted. They are so cute. I would probably fill these next time around with Jelly Beans so it's got some weight to it.



Saturday, March 20, 2010

Getting ready for Easter

I made these tonight, little baskets with paper grass and I'm going to put peeps on sticks in there so it's like a little peep garden. I'll post the finished garden a bit closer to Easter.

My latest projects

I have not blogged in so long but I decided that with all the work I put into these sites that I should continue sharing my ideas and work. I recently bought the Cricut Expression so I've had fun doing some larger projects! Here are a few of them below.

Invitations for my daughter's birthday party. I had fun with these using both my Cricut and the computer to print out the inside details. Used Wild Card cartridge for this and Indie Art (guitar).

















Haley had to do SWAPS for her Girl Scout camp weekend so we did a miniature girl scout on a mini-page layout. We had fun making these and they turned out pretty cute!

I've been making a few easter things with the new Cricut Easter 2010 Cartridge and this pillow gift box is something for Katie - my friends daughter. I'll put some goodies and a cute tee in it.


I cut vinyl out on my Cricut too, it's super addictive!! You want to vinyl everything. This is my cartridge holder and I labeled it. For any of you wondering what this box is - it's a fishing tackle box container! Only $10 or so called the Plano Flip. Fits those things in perfect.










Sunday, February 17, 2008

My Scrapbook Room

It's been a year in the making but my room is finally done. Here I sit!!




I'll take you through the process of how I got it set up. I'm not completely finished organizing so as I do go through that proces, I'll document more information on here. I know how hard it is to think through organizing your stuff and doing it right the first time so help is always good! I hope some of this can help you out too in organizing no matter what your space. I used to have everything tucked in an Armoire but what I found was that when everything was tucked away, I spent half of my time pullling out and putting away.



THE ROOM
The room is an add-on we put on the house last year. It started when we decided that our old laundry room off the kitchen needed to get busted open to make way for a dining room adjacent to our kitchen. Picture below of this wall being knocked down! Now this was over a year ago.





Once we decided the laundry room was no longer, we needed somewhere to do laundry. Hence the add-on room in the back. I thought...'what a perfect opportunity to make that room 20% laundry...80% scrappin!! So the seed was planted. Here's the first concrete pour and wall to go up to that room (and Haley's toothless grin all excited with what was going on too!).
So now you have some historicals on the room, so now to the fun part! Oh yes wait, I had to hold on the room getting done for almost a year because we ran out of money and did not tile our floors as originally planned but last October we decided to just go for it and retile the house now so we could enjoy it fully! Once tiling was done, walls could be put up and joined for me to paint, etc, etc.


PAINT ME ORANGE



Of course the perfect color for me is some shade of orange, it's a brownish cooper/orange color and we had about 1/2 a gallon left from the living room so it made sense to continue the color through the house and use what we had left. And that works out fine by me! Orange is my color. Although I hear it makes you hungry! Not good! So here I am, excited to finally be painting the room.

Done! PAINTED and ready to clean and move into!



CRAFT TABLE



I purchased a nice tall bench height table so that I could sit or stand while scrapbooking. Sometimes if I want to do something quick, I like to stand and do that. This table is great because there is a long deep drawer to keep all the tools I use all the time, my camera and other essentials that I want to keep right there. It also has the table top that doubles in size. As shown it's got the leaves folded in, but it can expand out. Which is great if you have a project that's taking up lots of room or the kids want to join in but you don't want them taking up your space. The bench to match also sells to go with it. Staples, apethocary style craft table. I think it was about $250.

So I got my table in there, took all my supplies out and then freaked out. How to organize? Well, I tell you the best way was to start is to put it in piles of supply types. Glues and things to stick with, stamps and inks of all kinds, pens, paint and glitter. Once you have piles, then you know the storage size/type you'll need. The biggest mistake to make is buying storage BEFORE doing this. I did already have great boxes that my mom got me that hold art supplies and they hold all the small things. I sorted those and then labeled them (oh yes, make sure you have a label maker for this process!). So things like eyelets, staples and punches, ribbons and fibers.



Now I know if you scrap alot you accumulate letters of all kinds. Stickers, rub-ons, paper, chipboard, etc, etc. The list goes on and I have a bunch so I decided that I would use a 3 level 12x12 plastic storage container to sort 3 main things I use alot on pages: 1-letters 2-chipboard anything (including just blank chipboard paper to cut or use) 3-words and sentiments/phrases (I have lot of those in rub-on, sticker or just the vellum quotes packs). Here's the container organized, and of course labeled. The goal here being that IF YOUR HUSBAND CAN GO IN THE ROOM AND FIND ANYTHING TO MAKE A PAGE...YOU ARE ORGANIZED!

PAPER, PAPER, PAPER...



You never seem to think you have enough, but when you take stock...you have so much paper it's unreal! Between buying here and there for projects, getting gifts of big 'stacks' and other stuff...it all adds up. Start with plain colored cardstock, and get that organized. I put all of my neutrals into one container and the colors in another and tried to get them by 'rainbow' scheme. Don't put scraps with full paper pages, you'll end up never using your scraps. We'll get to those in a minute! Cropper Hopper makes upright vertical holders and I love those. I have 12x12, 8x8 and also 6x6. Now if you don't buy 6x6 card stock alot...the trick is to make the 6x6 in the cardstock with your scraps as you go so you build up an inventory. It's great for cards or also for the small 6x6 books which are nice and quick to make. I have two more of the vertical holders for patterned paper. This is not for kits of patterned paper but just miscellaenous pieces that I"ve bought here and there (you know, those 5 for a dollar sale deals or that one original piece of paper that is so cool looking!! So this was tricker, how to sort just a bunch of hodge podge of paper. I started by looking at them and sorting by 'feel' for them. I really had three main types of paper: 1-Earthy looking 2-Bright or Fresh and 3-Specialty (vellum, clear overlays, metallic, etc).






Paper kits are great too and I like to keep those together because they tend to have all the coordinating stickers, tags and embellishments or even letters. I have a whole other storage unit that I think works best for kits. It's an upright rack I bought from a scrapbook store that was closing. At the time I thought it would be great for all paper but I don't like keeping my cardstock and open pieces all on there. Kits are packaged and keeping them out this way lets' you see them easily. There is a bit of a dilemma with this rack though. It's veeeery long and tall, I don't tend to use the bottom portion and don't want to be bending over to look way down. So my plan for this is to cut this rack in half and then put both of them side by side UP higher mounted to the wall so they are all at eye level. That will free up the floor space too (and out of the kid's hands or Sophie the cat too--she's a litte devil sometimes).







SCRAPS? ISN'T THAT WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?



Scrapbooking comes from using scraps to make books. Well one of the most challenging things I have found is actually using thsoe scraps because a big pile of mixed up colors and styles can be so overwhelming. I think I've got it! I found a very perfect sized rolling file cart that goes under my shelving but can pull out easily. I got a bunch of legal size file folders and labeled all of them. Scrap papers are sorted into colors so I can look towards blues, greens, neutrals, or even black/whites. And don't forget specialty paper. I liked how easy it was to sort things and reach for them that I also put in here stickers by themes of holidays, nature, kids, and just misc. I also put my cricut mats and templates in there too. The rack had another layer of files I could hang and a bottom shelf. I'm choosing to use the bottom rack for storing stamp pads and box of projects in progress or project kits (non scrapbook page types). I even had a grey plastic bing that fits right in the top on teh side, but it could be used to hang letter size. This cart will hold both letter/legal and it was only $25 at Staples and it's metal and sturdy!








On top of the shelves I stained and had put onto the walls around the room behind me are the essential tools and gadgets. #1 - my photo printer/scanner Epson Styl Pro. This is how I get started in custom printing my photos or my journaling. #2 - My Cricut - now that I can connect to this from my laptop (Cricut Design Studio Rocks!!) this tool is quadruple the use for me #3 - my mini and my large Zyron machines that turns anything into a sticker (for when I don't want to hand use tape on projects).






$5 BULLETIN BOARD
Here's a quick project. Got one of those frames around the house that has no glass but just the backing? Go to Walmart and buy their tile corkboard, it's $5 for a pack of 4. I had this frame my friend gave to me that she did not want (to think I almost tossed it). I got those tiles and then just mounted them with the stickies it came with to the back board behind the frame and cut excess off the cork (keeping that for some small cork sections I can do. VOILA! You can probably do it without the frame too and just buy a large poster size foam board (they sell those at Walmart too for probably $2.)



OTHER ESSENTIALS





  • Don't forget to have big garbage can under your desk for tossing as you go. Keeps the desk clean.

  • If you have a cool shelf that you like that fits some stuff (I repurposed a CD holder we had that Taft wasn't using) - put out your embelishments that you like in jars or holders that you want to keep in sight to use. Those are fun.

  • I bought a kitchen carousel utensil from Pampered Chef a few years ago and all the basic tools and pens are in there on my desk within reach. I LOVE that carousel.

  • Music!! I play it off my laptop but get a radio in there or something so you can groove to the tunes. :-)

  • Treats - OK, sneak a few chocolates into your desk or something. For me it's dove, or black licorice. Yum!

  • Most of all, relax, breath and have fun because if you cannot relax then you are just not as creative. If you are organized and efficient, it gives you more time to be doing things. And...you can get in and out of there to spend time doing other stuff too!

Now there's one more section of my crafts that I have not tackled yet. Ironically it's what got my started into scrapbooking...stamping. So I'm thinking through and looking at my stock of stamps and pads, ink so I can have the most effecient space for this because I want to keep that as part of my craft and scrapbooking process. I'll be back to this post to update when I get that tackled ladies (an any cool gents that do scrapbook - there are a rare few!!)

GETTING YOUR PRODUCTS OUT WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM

I decided after a few months of using my room that I still had alot of things that were in boxes, or bags that I was not seeing and not using. I especially had alot of stamps that I could not see that I wnated to have easy view and access to. I waited and went to Michaels to use my 50% coupon off of the Making Memories shelving unit. It is great and surprisingly holds alot more than I expected. I am going to go to Michaels this weekend to buy the little glass votives (for candles) to hold some of the buttons and other small things that I want to have on here and 'see' through. Perfect size! (PICTURE IS COMING!!)

PERSONALITY!

I decided to try out the vinyl from Cricut to make a wall quote in the room. I wanted to keep it simple, so I did the word CREATE from Printing Press. I was nervous to get this right but it did work out very easily! (PICTURE IS COMING!!)




















Thursday, February 14, 2008

Paper Craft projects

This is a little word book I did for Haley to put pictures. BFF - Best friends forever!
Word books are very in right now, all sizes. You can buy them completed with with my design studio and cricut I did it myself.


OK got to liking that so much that I made another one for Haley's teacher.



So going off the word books some more I thought, flip it...up the other way and I could do a 'tiered' greeting card? Yes...! I made an Easter one here with the greeting "Put all your eggs in one basket":


My sister-in-law was looking for something she could put on her mini-champagne bottles that she will be giving out at her wedding so we came up with the idea of heart shaped tags to hang from them. Here are the hearts using Cricut too. It was very hard to do this because I had to print the text in word and line it up to be exactly where the hearts would cut, talk about a challenge but I got it!! Here are the hearts and she picked out pearl string to rope through it to hang them from the bottles.


This was from a pattern that someone had created and shared online at http://www.cricut.com/ and I thought it was soo cute that I had to make my own version of it. Thanks to CraftyOne online there, here is her picture on the bottle, and I did an orange sunshine version which is under it.


Custom Checkbooks



I had ordered some blank checkbook cover kits on http://www.orientaltrading.com/, they have a great scrapbooking section to their site with lots of supplies at great prices. Here is one that I made and gave to my friend at work for her birthday. I had made another one that was a giveaway for a baby shower game prize but didn't get a picture (shame!!). I used cricut to make the words and some bling rhinestones in pink and I think the paper is Close to my heart from a kit.




School photo cards

I made these cards because I was going to mail some school photos and thought just putting them in a plain old envelope would be boring! So I made cards to go with them and taped the photos with removable tape inside. The camera and title again made with Cricut!




CD Case insert

I had a CD case from a software that I didn't need so I decided to use it to make a nice case for the CD of photos from my girlfriends shower. Here is a picture of the front and back of it - pretty straightforward to do but if you do this make sure you measure the insert that was in there before tossing it! These inserts are great and much easier to make (DVD size) than the jewel CD case. Used cricut for the title, ribbon and a rub-on for the word shower.

FRONT BACK