After spending several hours on my organizational project, I got really sick of sorting ink pads (when, exactly did I buy this many ink pads??)  & decided it was time to do something fun. 

These are the result:

Products:

Paper & Cardstock: DCWV

Cricut Cartridges: Lyrical Letters, 

Home Decor Solutions

Products: 

Cardstock: Bazzill

Patterned Paper: Sandylion

Embellishments:

Prima, JoAnn Craft Essentials




I'm off to work now.  Gotta go teach people how to use their Cricuts.  I hope you all enjoy this beautiful sunny day!

Spring Cleaning

I don't know about you, but lately my craft room is a wreck!  Wayyyyy too much stuff crammed into wayyy too small of a space.  A problem that plagues most crafters, I think.  So I've decided that it's time to do a little Spring Cleaning.

As much as I would love to simply empty out the room & start from scratch, that's not a possibility for me.  I only have a little time here & there to work on it and really, where on earth would  I put it all while I was working on it??  So instead, I'm going to start in 1 corner & work my way around a little at a time. 

I'm getting myself started with a label maker.  I have one of those old school ones that you squeeze to create the words, but I find that the labels don't stick to my plastic organizers very well.  They fall off with annoying regularity and I often find them stuck to my poor kitty, who, being the world's most nervous animal to begin with,  is less than thrilled with the removal process.  I think a digital label maker with a more flexible tape will be a much better option.  The best part is that I found this cute little Brother P-Touch at Office Depot  yesterday ( www.officedepot.com )  on sale for just $10! 

(Look! It's even a cute Cricut green!)











I've made a good start on the first corner.  I cleaned out all of the organizer drawers.  Dumped out the dust, sorted things out and labeled them accordingly. 

I also took some time to label some sorted photos.  I love these Iris photo organizers (available here:  http://www.amazon.com/jbr2028-Iris-R-Photo-Keeper/dp/B000VFDZWO )  When ever I order photos to be printed, I sort them into these boxes.  Now I can add labels to the top of each case, so I know what's inside them without having to dig through each one for the photos I want.

Tomorrow I'm off from work, so I plan on cleaning out the large Iris Carts under these ones.  I'll let you know how it goes!

I hope you all enjoy this wonderful sun-shiney day!

Lessons In Life

This morning I spent my time finishing up a couple of projects that I started a while ago, but just needed to put the finishing touches on.  This little mini-album is one of them.  I started it while on retreat in February. 

Supplies:

Chipboard

PP-MAMBI

Embellishments:

Prima flowers, 

Buttons- unknown

Trims- unknown

Flock- Pebbles

Ghost Accents- Heidi Swapp

Stickles

Rub Ons- Heidi Grace, K & Co, Scrap Works

Metal Accents- Making Memories

Binding:  BIA

I think I've included most everything I used.  If you have a question on a specific item, please feel free to ask.

This is one of those little projects that non-crafters often ask "What are you going to do with it?"  My answer is always the same. "Look through it and smile"

Album Pages

I had intended to work on some more cards & things for the Craft Bazaar this morning, but for no reason that I can see, inspiration simply eluded me.  Of course, that doesn't have to mean a wasted morning.  Instead I chose to work on a couple of quick pages for my personal album.  

I do chronological albums every year, but like a lot of scrappers, I'm really behind on them. (Yup, still working on 2009 folks.)  I'm also finding that my personal pages get more simple & straight forward as time goes on.  My mini-books and cards tend to be very embellished & detailed, but my pages seem to get less & less so.  And I'm good with it. A simple pages that gets finished & into an album makes me MUCH happier than a heavily embellished page that takes hours.

Supplies: Cardstock- DCWV, 
PP-Carolee's Creations, 
Embellishments- Jolees

As you can clearly see, I have the world's worst handwriting (Note: Already messy handwritten journaling gets way messier when you try to do it with a 25 lb. cat on your lap, who suddenly decides that the free end of the pen you are writing with is her favorite toy.)  But, oh well.   That's just me.  Messy handwriting & all.

Supplies:  Cardstock: The Paper Co,

PP- DCWV, Embellishments- Prima, 
JoAnn Craft Essentials, Title- Cricut 
Plantin School Book & Aleen's 
Paper Glaze, Zig Pens

I know, I know.  It's a layout about mail.  But that's one of the greatest things about scrapping-- remembering the little things.  Because the littlest things are the things that make life joyful.  

Hope you all have a wonderful, happy day.

I have FOLLOWERS!

I was sooo excited to open my email this morning to discover that I have followers!  Who would have thought?  Thank you guys so much for your sweet comments and mostly for my huge, goofy smile this morning. (I feel like I've won the lottery or something!  lol) I hope that I can come up with something new to show you before I head to work this afternoon.  That being said, back to work!

Daddy's Girl Album

Today was a day off for me, so I've spent my morning making this cute little album.  

I covered chipboard with denim cut from an old pair of jeans for the front & back covers, then bound it with my Bind-It-All.  (I think I scared Steve a little when I snagged his old jeans from the toss-pile.  I think he thought I was going to do some weird, overly-sentimental girlfriend thing with them.  Hopefully he'll feel a little better about it tonight when I show him the finished product.  lol)

I think it came out pretty cute. What do you think?

It's A Potholder, Not A Prom Dress

Ok, so I was totally on the fence with this whole Blog thing. I bought a book and  I thought about it and thought about it, but still wasn't really sure it was something I should do.  I'm an avid blog reader, but certainly I'm not in league with those fabulous and famous crafters whose words I can't get enough of.  My doubts were making themselves heard loud & clear.  I'm a scrapbooker, not a writer! I make quilts! I don't write books.  Who will read it?  Am I going to just sit here in cyberspace talking to myself?  

But this week something happened to push me off the fence.  One of my quilting students spent the better part of a class struggling.  Her machine wouldn't cooperate.  Her needles kept breaking.  Her binding slid out of alignment.  But despite her struggles, she remained cheerful and chatty.  After all, I reminded her, the class project was a potholder not a prom dress.  Quilting isn't something to stress over.  We should just relax and enjoy the process.

During the course of our conversation, she suggested I start a blog.  She had no idea that this was something I had already been thinking.  Not wanted to reveal my insecurities, I didn't mention any of my reasons not to go ahead with it.  After all, in a classroom, I'm on firm ground.  I know my stuff.  And certainly, my students want to see casual confidence, not neurotic self-doubt.  So I skimmed over that comment and turned the conversation back to quilting. 

But the seed was planted.  And I couldn't get her words out of my head, so now here I am, about to publish my very first post.  Yea me!  I look forward to having this new venue to share my knowledge and ideas with people that might not ever make it to a seat in my classroom.  I'm also excited at being able to share my creations and hear your opinions. And sometimes, I'll probably just ramble about what's going on and how much I hate the smiling guy that tortures me via his workout DVDs (and I really do hate that guy).

So I dedicate this first post to Jean and thank her for reminding me that even in the blog-world we're still just making potholders.