Thursday, September 25, 2014

MDS Sea Shells




You can't really tell it from this picture but this was a one-layer card where I just "print screened" the image from My Digital Studio ("By the Sea Shore" stamp set) and printed it on the front of a card.  The print screen software I use - Gadwin - has a setting where you can create a shadow around the image.  It really really made this card look like the image panel was popped up on the card base. Talk about quick and easy!

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Scrap Thank You



This is a quick and easy "stash busting" card made with my inchie punch and some of my scraps.  Love how it turned out.  May do one in every color group and even some with my seasonal scraps.  The sentiment stamp is from the Stampin Up "Perfectly Penned" stamp set.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Hello Cricut



I haven't been doing the weekly family newsletters in quite awhile but wanted to have a few "Hello" cards just in case I felt the urge.  So I was playing around one day I dusted off the Cricut machine and logged in to the Cricut Craft Room.  I searched for the word "Hello" and found this really cute image.  I wanted to keep the card clean and simple and flat so I added some Stickles to the butterfly for a little interest and then hold-punched some "dots" and Stickled those as a substitute for brads.  The paper was part of a Stampin Up paper pack.  The word background seemed to fit with the concept of a "Hello" card.  Not sure I totally love it but I think the family will - especially if it has a nice long letter included inside :-)

Monday, September 22, 2014

Happy Accident




When I was cleaning out all my ribbon bins I found this obnoxiously wide ribbon that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep.  Val you may remember the ribbon from the "pine cone" project you and I did one Saturday a long, long time ago.  But I got to playing around with a little trying to figure out what I could do with it and discovered it was wide enough to fit the face of an A2 card.  So I mounted it on a 4 x 5.25 card mat and then mounted that mat on a standard sized card and added a punched "Thank You" label.  I kind of like how it turned out and may just make a few more to serve as my holiday Thank You cards.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Organizing Scraps


I don't have a BEFORE picture so you'll have to trust me on this one.. . .I went from 2 big plastic filing boxes of scraps taking up one whole shelf in one of my cabinets down to this. . . .





I decided to pick some standard sizes for scraps - ones that I find myself using alot - (1 inch strips, 2x2 and 3x3 squares, 3x4 and 4x6 mats/journaling blocks).  I then spent a good portion of my Spring cutting the 2 boxes of all my scraps down to those sizes.  Anything that was smaller than that or couldn't be cut to one of those standard sizes was thrown away.  It's working out GREAT!

Here's a "scrap" card I made this weekend. . . .



I pulled out a very, very old Stampin' Up set - "Fun & Fast Notes" - all a part of my stash busting. . . . very fun set by the way. . .


. . .then I combined the pencilcolored image with some scraps - two sets of 2x2 pieces (the orange and grey), a circle cut from an orange 3x3 scrap and then a 3x4 yellow mat.  Kind of liked the design.  It may need a little bling or texture but because it's going in the mail to an old friend I'm going to keep it flat.

One last comment about the scrap system - it really makes for easy cleanup after a card or scrapbooking project.  I take the leftover paper and cut it down to one of the standard sizes and the rest goes into the trash.  The hoarder in me gets a little uncomfortable sometimes at not saving every morsel but I have to keep reminding myself. . ."it's just an 80 cent piece of paper Julie - it's OK to toss a little" :-)



Monday, September 15, 2014

Clear Stamp Organization



I wanted to share a few more pics of the organizing I've been doing in my craft room.  I think I finally found a solution that's going to work for me for my clear stamps.  I've adopted Jennifer McGuire's method of putting all the various sized clear stamp sets from all the different manufacturers in standard sized clear envelopes with standard labeling.  Here's a link to her video about her method.

I just love Jennifer McGuire's blog.  It's so technique focused and she does lots of clean and simple cards which fits my style.  And she's got the ultimate of craft rooms and has so many great organization tips.  I bought the label maker she recommends and have been using it all over my craft studio.  It's kind of funny. . . just seeing things labeled makes me feel more organized :-)

Here's a close-up of one of the sets.  Name of set and manufacturer at the top.  Depending on the size of the clear stamp or stamp set I sometimes have 2 in one envelope - one on each side of the white card insert.  And for the really large stamp sets I cut the acrylic sheet they came on in half so half the stamps in the set are on one side of the card insert and half on the other.  


And here's one of the 2 wicker baskets that they all fit it.  So far it's working out really well.  I can easily flip through them to see what I have and what I want to use.


During all the organization I did decide to have multiple storage solutions for my stamps.  
  • One for all my Stampin' Up
  • One for my Gina K Designs 
  • One for everything else - Hero Arts, Art Impressions, Inkadinkadoo, etc... 
You can see in the picture above the 2 binder cases sitting to the right of the basket.  These are old DayTimer storage binders that I'm repurposing to hold my Gina K stamps.  They fit her 6x8 stamp storage sheets just perfectly.


Again, I really like being able to easily flip through her sets to pick what I want to play with.


So there it is - stamps all nice and tidy.  Now the trick is finding ways to use them all and resisting the urge to buy any more! 



Thursday, September 11, 2014

Getting Organized



Hope everyone's Fall is getting off to a good start.  We couldn't have asked for any better weather this summer.  Mostly sunny days, none too terribly hot, with a few rainy days sandwiched in now and then.  Those rainy day made for some very fun time in the craft studio.

I've been scrapbooking some and made a few cards in recent weeks which I'll share next week but the biggest news was that I took another BIG step forward on the re-organization project.  

Since January I've been working through the 27 lessons in this FREE online class from scrapbook.com.  I really like the methodical way she approaches getting organized and there's tons of different suggestions and ideas for how to organize all the different types of craft supplies and tools - from paper to scraps to tools to sketches, etc.

So I'm going to share a few pictures of the things I've done to purge and get better organized.  First up is the project from Labor Day weekend. . . . .ribbon

I had 4 plastic shoeboxes of spooled ribbon which because of the different sizes of the spools never really fit standing up the way I wanted them so they just became a jumbled mess.


So after doing a bunch of reading and Google searching and Pinterest browsing, I decided on a method that I think I'm going to like.  And best part about it is that it didn't require the purchase of any new storage solution!  Here's the new system. . . 


I took 4x5 pieces of chipboard (old cereal boxes) and depending on the width of the ribbon was able to get 3-4 spools of ribbon on each card.  I then filed the cards by color.  LOVE IT !!!

I was able to get all my spooled ribbon in 2 shoeboxes - downsized by 50%!  I still have 1 shoebox that holds all the wide ribbon which I mostly use for Christmas bows and gift wrap and 1 shoebox for ribbon scraps - all organized in baggies by the same color scheme.




Feels so nice to have a place for everything and everything in it's place.