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Sunday, March 30, 2008

A little of this and that...

...so I think I would say that my ban was quite good! For crafting anyway, I have no idea what I'm going to do about cleaning!

I saw this on the boards on someone's signature:
"I understand the concepts of cooking and cleaning,
just not how they apply to me."

BWAHAHAHAHA, so true! Anyway, not too much chit-chat at the moment since I've got a lot to show you! Please forgive the ugly pictures as I was very excited to post...

Ta-da!






I did this first to get started. I had to make a card for my parents for their 26th wedding anniversary. I was a TINY bit irritated with the smudge my fingers got on the front of the card. That's stamping for you. Can't be too careful!

I used black cardstock and embossed white cardstock with...oh darn, I forget the name and I'm too lazy to get up and find out. Sorry, I know you know the name of it anyway. Let's see...I used my brand new Scor-it to make the horizontal lines and some metal monogram brads (dollar store, of course!) with my parents initials. A paper flower and a little mini brad for the center. I didn't have any colours to go with the scheme I wanted, so I was able to try out this new technique that I saw in my one of my idea books.






I rubbed the brad in my embossing pad and then dipped it in my embossing powder (I wanted a little silver brad). I used my heat gun to melt it and did this several times until I had a nice thick coating! Look at me go!

I also did a few just simple little note cards as well. I used some textured cardstock I got from the dollar store - okay, NOT so fab purchase as Bazzil cardstock I know I could get for like, $0.65 each or something. The stupid sign fooled me and I thought it was 2 for $1 and by the time I was checking out and the girl said it wasn't, I had already formed a bond with the paper.






So those are my cards for the weekend! I was also able to do a couple layouts as well!

I won't even lie, these are what took up most of my scrapping time. For a while, I pretty much sat staring at the wall trying to come up with something. For me, I think I have to work first with the photos I want and then the paper and then embellishments. I have to start out with those things first before anything really starts to take form. So here we go:




I only had one sheet of this and I knew I wanted to use this as the border and the mats behind the picture, so I cut out the middle and ended up with this:






I had also found this really nice vellum paper in my stash and tore it up to put it on top of my patterned paper. Just gave a nice two-tone thing with the layout - made it less confusing after I put the stickers and other embellishments on. There's also some rub-ons as well.


The other thing I've got to get is some adhesive for vellum. I was SO mad that the adhesive I used showed through on the vellum I used on both layouts. I know Creative Memories has a good one, any other suggestions?


And one more! I have to be honest, this one was a half done one from a couple months ago. Ever have one of those times where you're working on something and then get stuck? I left it and I came back to it again yesterday and this was the end result!

Okay, one more card. I wanted to save this for last as I worked the hardest on this one...






When I showed it to The Mister, I had used plain lavender cardstock and he said that even though the flower was extravagant enough, it looked kind of plain and I agreed. I cut the flower out of the old card and re-did it using embossed cardstock instead. I used the YOU Cuttlebug embossing folder.



Saw something like this on Katie's blog and just had to do something like it. Thanks Katie for your wonderful blog!


So that's it! The fruits of my ban - thanks for coming to look! I may have to enforce another ban - this time, just to get the house clean!

Friday, March 28, 2008

I'm jumping!

...on the ban-wagon!

Please let me be quick to say that it's not the shopping ban (HAHAHA, don't want to hold myself back in case something fabulous comes up!) that I'm going on.

As of 4:30 PM EST today, I will be going on a ban from The Board! Yes, I said it! (Gasp if you must...)

I am behind on pretty much everything else except for The Board and the enabling that has been going on over there. Since started this whole new, and in-depth adventure into the Cricut world, I went from having nothing to pretty much almost everything in less than one month. What have I done with all the new things? Pretty much next to nothing! What does my house look like? Pretty much like a hurricane hit it!

The ban is self-imposed (although I am starting to feel a slight animosity towards the boards from The Mister) and I will be lifting it at 8:30 PM EST Sunday evening. I have made myself accountable by telling all the sisters (and the random brothers out there) on The Board that once my ban is over, I will be posting pictures of my clean house and all the layouts and cards that I was able to make in the plentiful amount of time I had while staying away from The Board.

So, hopefully this will work and I'll be able to stay strong enough not to wander over there and get sucked back in! I am very much hoping to post some actual work of mine after this weekend is over!

This way I can't just be known as all shop and no cre-a(c)tion!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Palm-ful of pretty...

...I have no idea what my problem is.

I feel like I'm so all over the place with my scrapping. Probably because I haven't done much at all to tell you the truth. I'm getting a bit frustrated as I spent the better part of today blog-hopping and there are some SERIOUS blogs with some SERIOUS layout/creating action going on.

I want to have stuff to post too besides the stuff I'm getting in the mail (although can I just say how freaking AWESOME it is to be getting stuff in the mail - it's been a good mail-week).



I HEART you Marti! That's ALL 24 (is it 24?) of the Series 10 Studio G stamps, plus they came with the cute acrylic mounting blocks and a pen! (I also love pens for some reason...)

Just looking at all these stamps made me want to throw them up in the air a la Demi Moore in that movie where she was rolling around in money...but again, like my paper, I like my stamps un-rolled on...


Maybe I'm more intimidated by all the stuff I am now surrounded with moreso than all the creative ladies I've found myself in the company of (world wide web speaking...)

I go into my room and sit down and just look at everything and I'm just so overwhelmed...that I don't know where to start!

Today I went to the dollar store to buy these small re-sealable baggies (mostly used for the jewelery making but they were 100 for $1 so I grabbed a pack). Yesterday when I was playing with my DS, the extra little scraps that weren't part of my cut were all perfectly good circles (I had also made diamond ones too) that I couldn't bear to throw out, so now I have baggies of die-cut shapes that I can use for something else! No paper is wasted!

I punched a hole in the top part of the bag and have them hanging on my cork board. I LOVE how the girls from The Board have got me repurposing stuff and maximizing my storage space!

Anyways, this is what I ended up making today:




Just a bunch of little magnets. I had seen someone do these for wedding giveaways, but they actually used half marbles or something. Slightly larger than what I have here with a smoother finish at the bottom. I came across a WHOLE bag of these at the dollar store (there's about 50 - 75 of them) and I also bought a 2-pack of photo magnets. I basically just glued the marble on top of the picture and the magnet to the back of the picture. I don't think the magnets are strong enough, so I'm probably going to have to get some stronger ones. I have these up on my fridge now and I think it's using all it's little-magnet strength just to hold itself up!

I'm going to hang them at work tomorrow! Oh well, even though I didn't scrap, can't say I didn't make ANYTHING.

More cards on the way soon though, I have to put my stamps to good use!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: WHO ARE YOU - ? (CSI THEME SONG)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Confession #4

...I could no longer keep going as I was going with confession #2, was it?

Anyway, the one where I had NO clean clothes left and I had to wear bathing suit bottoms...

I finally tore myself away from the scraproom enough to gather everything and haul it all into the laundry room.

There's been a basket of clean clothes sitting beside my chair in my scraproom since yesterday, waiting to be folded.

Non-wrinkled clothes are overrated anyway.

...now if I could just get my hands on that Tobi...


CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: SWEET CAROLINE - NEIL DIAMOND

Confession #3

...I'm turning into a major cutter.

Not the bloody, painful, self-inflicted kind though, if that's what you're thinking.

I've gotten very close to my Cricut because of Design Studio and I'm going to be a master at this out of sheer stubborness.

My very FIRST cut file!

Ta-da:




I'd like to say, even though it may pretty much amount to nothing, that I think it's absolutely weird that I can't weld inside a circle. What's up with that?

And the finished product:

Smack me for being too lazy to edit any of these pictures before I uploaded them. I'm too busy getting my cut on to edit right now!

Now I'm excited to get my own copy of DS (and the mouse - doing all this on the laptop fingerpad is starting to get on my nerves!)

For anyone interested, you can download the .cut file here: Bubbles



CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: BLEEDING LOVE - LEONA LEWIS

Someone's a happy...

...stamper!

Well, nothing like coming home to this to make the day I just had look a bit brighter!



From Scrap Hut




From Stamp Desires




From Scrap Hut




ALL OF THEM!



I had ordered the larger stamps a while ago from Stamp Desires and I had no idea some of them would be that huge! LOL...and of course, MORE of my wood-mounted Studio G stamps from Scrap Hut. Awesome place to go and Mark was even nice enough to give me 10% off my order!

It was just yesterday I said I may have to move things around to make room for more stamps and it really looks like I'll have to! I wasn't even thinking there'd be this many! I'm SO happy! And there's still more to come! My 2 lb unmounted stamps from Angi-B and my clear unmounted Studio G stamps from Marti! I love good mail days!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: I WANNA GROW OLD WITH YOU - ADAM SANDLER

Monday, March 24, 2008

The battle is won...

...and I have CONQUERED and vanquished the beast I call Design Studio!

Holy cannoli, I can NOT believe that took me all of about three hours just to get the basics figured out! Thank goodness I decided to try out the trial version while my own copy is being shipped. Had I not, I think I would have thrown it back at Kim in frustration! *LoL*

So, after a million pieces of scrap paper later and some shrieks of frustration and impatience, I was finally able to make a square with a heart welded inside it.

WOW! I'm still amazed at how difficult it was. Newfound awe and reverence to the DS masters out there - Okie, Capadia, et al. All of you! I bow down...

This isn't the end, I know...the battle may be over, but the war is just beginning. I'm gonna figure the crap out of DS if it's the LAST thing I do!

*insert maniacal laughter here* MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA...

But first, I'm going to bed.

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELING - THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS (& OKIE)

Spring has sprung...

...and so has a little spring cleaning! Mind you, the rest of my house looks like a freaking warzone, but at least my scraproom is getting in ship-shape.

Seeing how I don't really like anyone enough to have them stay overnight, I moved our spare bed in the guestroom and stood it up against the wall to make room for me and my stuff. Originally, I had it still set up, but it was getting to be a pain to be squeezing in between the table and chair to get at other things. So voila! If we ever have anyone sleeping over, I'm sure they'll find the floor very comfortable! I would say that I was just joking for the newbies' sake, but those who know me probably would know I'm not really joking...LOL.

I also took a trip downstairs into the tenants' area and took an unused DVD/movie case that was just sitting around. Instead of just keeping it on the floor, I had a little creative epiphany and put it on my folding table.



So there's a full view with the desk and all its cleanly glory - it won't stay that way for looong!




A close-up version. So once the rest of the stamps I'm waiting for shows up, I'll probably have to move the picture and the plant up to the top of the shelf to make room for everything, but there's my small embellishments in my glass jars (Dollarama 2 for $1), the smaller jars have paper "Prima" flowers and metal letters. Down under that is more jars and my Stickles! Will have to move those around later as I have more on the way! Under those are my stamps - mostly Studio G mounted stamps (my clear stamps are in my stamp binder) and below that is my carts! Only room for two more...! (Then I'll have to get another shelf...there's another one downstairs, but people are actually using it. Not for loooong...*giggles*

Alright, around the room we go: there's the other side of my work table. My baby Cricut and my Cuttlebaby in full view of course! Inside the plastic shelves: first drawer = adhesives, a TON of adhesives, my Cuttlebug embossing folders in their plastic filing folder, a box of foam shapes and my box of glittery chipboard alphabets. Second drawer, more embellishments that I didn't have enough of to put in jars, third drawer, 4x6 papers in filing folders and larger flowers and wooden shapes. Next drawer, my heat gun (that I totally stole from The Mister because he got it on sale at Canadian Tire for $9 - beat that Michael's! BWAHAHAHAHA!) I know you may not all be that interested in ALL the contents, but consider it more for my purpose than for yours.





There's a close-up of my corkboard that I just remembered I've had for forever! My one and only Cricut cutting mat (note to self: must get some more!) and some things that I was using, the Easter 3D stickers and my favourite ribbon. The hearts are wooden, I got them in 4-packs (4 different sizes in each colour) from the dollar store and I put them up so I could remind myself that I actually have them so I can use them eventually.




The other side of the room holds my sewing desk and once-used sewing machine that I had no idea we even had until about five days ago.





There's my paper sorted by colour and stacks, the black and white polkadotted tote is a recent find to carry all my paper to my next crop-day, and there's more stickers, 3D embellishments, yada-yada and cardstock.




And last, thought certainly not least is my basket of ribbon. There's bobbins of ribbon inside the basket and the ribbon hanging are these spools that I'd gotten at the dollar store (5 for $1) and I found out that the spool didn't have so much in them, so I just knotted them around the basket. This way I can see everything that I have. I only use a little bit anyways, so the length of each is perfect!


I'm just sitting here in my nice, clean scraproom that is slowly getting to be more and more MINE!

Before I forget, a couple recent acquisitions:






Can I just say that idea, tips and technique books are SO AWESOME! These are my favourites! They're all so jam-packed with ideas and tips that it's taking me about two days to go through an entire book, and it always seems like there's more for me to find if I look through it again on another day! Love them!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: ETERNAL FLAME - ATOMIC KITTEN

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Like always...

...just one more thing before I attempt to find myself a life away from updating my blog.

Can I just say the downside to an Easter long weekend? Government workers - should I stress, mail and delivery people - get Easter Monday off.

I WANT MY STUFF!

*breathes*

Thank you. Good night all.

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: WOULD I LIE TO YOU - CHARLES & EDDY

Baby steps...

...one little step at a time. So today I handed out the Easter cards I had made for everyone. Just going to take a tiny moment here to do a little tooting (I realize now, how this is SO for from what I really meant - although after an Easter lunch with The Mister's family and an Easter dinner with my family, not altogether that far from the truth...)! As I was saying - or what I really meant was that I was going to take a minute to toot my horn just a little. I was SO in love with the embossed card that I used liquid glass on. The effect was AWESOME! I couldn't stop touching it and running my fingers over the smoothness of the embossed flowers. So there we are, toot, Toot, TOOT (both literally and figuratively I am not ashamed to say!) L.O.L.

Now that you know me just a LITTLE bit more than you really wanted to, let's move on.

After I gave out the cards, both my mom and my aunt started in on me about possibly selling the cards. I shrugged it off (again, both literally and figuratively) and just said that it's really all in fun. But they pushed a little, recruiting The Mister to join them - that little traitor. They asked him how many other people had suggested that and he told them more than a few others.

While it's nice that they're saying this - and I definitely feel good about it, I just can't let myself think that I'm even anywhere near good enough to start asking people for money for the things I'm making. I mean, I'm looking at them and while I LOVE them to pieces, I just see them as ordinary. I mean, I'm a member of THE BOARD for crying out loud. There are SO many other talented women out there that I just think it would be presumptuous of me to assume that I'm good enough to start selling the things that I'm making.

Maybe it's my own little mental issue I need to deal with as I've planned three other weddings (including my own) and a lot of people have suggested I try my hand at wedding planning. (One of the DJ's I worked with even when so far as describing me as an army general - I had everything timed right down to the second LOL. He assured me he meant this as the highest of compliments). But like I said again, I just don't feel like I could ask people to PAY me for doing that. It feels like...I don't know, I would just get scared to have someone OFFICIALLY put their most important day so far all on me - and also pay me for it.

I have a psychology degree for Pete's sake. I know what my mind is doing to me, but I am completely powerless to stop it taking ahold of me. Fear is holding me back from a lot of things...but I just don't want anyone to come back at me and tell me that I just wasn't good enough.

Grrrr, I HATE sounding like an afterschool special. Moving on...

If I ever get the nerve up to do anything further with the cardmaking or whatnot, I did find a nice site for those clear plastic packaging that some cards come in. They also sell nice clear boxes that you can put card sets in to, for those of you not being held down by fear.


I can definitely see a 5-pack (or whatever-pack) of thank-you cards or invitations going in here. Do NOT underestimate the power of good presentation! I mean, if someone put a bowl of what looked like crap in front of you (even though it tastes like the most heavenly thing you'll ever put into your mouth) there's no denying that it still looks like a bowl of crap, right?


This is orginally what I was looking for. I like the the look of cards all nicely and individually package in these nice plastic sleeves. The flap has one line of adhesive to keep everything nice and neat until that one special person buys it for another special person.


I say if you've got it, flaunt it. Get stepping, people!


Oak Creek Market Place

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: NAME - GOO GOO DOLLS

Saturday, March 22, 2008

A little break...

...because I'm a little broke! I wasn't going to mention anything, but as the blog has been a bit slow lately, I thought I would enter it in here anyway.

Before I get to that, have you ever noticed something about long weekends? It's like, having one day where all the stores are closed makes people a little bit restless. It's like in that one day, people remember every single thing they have to buy, or want to buy, or want to look at, so that the next day, when all the stores are open again, it's a complete and utter madhouse.

Today, it seemed like everyone and their mother's gardener and yoga-lates (I picked up that word from The OC) instructor was at the grocery store today. People! Where were you two days ago? We had to pick up some last minute apple crisp to bring to Easter lunch tomorrow and it was wall-to-grocery aisle packed. Needless to say, the Easter aisle looked like it was torn apart. Sadly to say, we were also part of this crowd. We picked up three Easter lilies and some chocolate for the munchkins.

ANYWAYS, I have once again wandered faaar away from what I was originally going to say, so I've actually got to backtrack to try and remember what I was goin to say. It's proving to be a little hard as we've just put Michael Clayton on and the intro is confusing the heck out of me.

So...oh right. The event that needed documentation. We were in Zellers today (equivalent to Target...?) and I discovered, for the VERY FIRST TIME, a whole aisle with labelled with big letters: SCRAPBOOKING.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't really all that breath-taking, or vast a selection - even though it really was a whole aisle. It's just the discovery of a whole bunch of scrapbook items all gathered in one place where I have never been is always a little exciting isn't it? There were albums, clear stamps (there was actually a bit of selection on this, but they were all alphabet sets), a LOT of Fiskars things, embossers, cutters, etc.

So are you already thinking to yourself, 'get to the point already!'? The point is, I wandered veeery slowly down that whole aisle. Looking left and right before taking the next step forward...looking everything over very carefully, looking again if need be and...I didn't buy anything. Not one thing. I didn't even pick anything up with the intention of buying it and then changing my mind. I reached for things...glanced at the price tag and wrinkled my nose before drawing my hand back.

With the help of my lovely enablers, I know a good deal when I see one. And just because this aisle is full of scrapbooking things, it doesn't mean they were worth the price that was being asked for them. So take that Zellers! Keep your $5 single-page of stickers and $11 small packs of paper. As a true member of The Board, I am wiser and I know better than that! Plus, the sisters can probably point me in a much cuter and cheaper direction!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: DON'T SPEAK - NO DOUBT

Friday, March 21, 2008

Slow on the mojo...

...so my creative juices DEFINITELY took its sweet old time to get flowing. I had about three hours of free creating time before heading over to church and I just could not get my thoughts and ideas together in any one coherent creation.

For some reason, I think I'm feeling a little bit intimidated by the ladies on The Board. I keep looking at all the beautiful things being made and I just can't seem to come up with anything original. I'm still learning all the new techniques and I keep falling back on the same old, stick-a-sticker-on-it technique. Eventually I'll get my mojo back to full force, and you can bet I will be a force to be reckoned with....well, maybe. Probably...we'll see...LOL.

Here are a few more Easter cards I cranked out. Not to big on the creativity or originality as The Mister and I will be out and about getting ready for Sunday. No time to play in the scraproom tomorrow...

A little eye-candy...(please tell me that I'm not the only one, but I can't help completely falling in love with the things I make! I can't stop staring at them and shoving them under The Mister's nose).

Pretty much the same look, but with a different 3D sticker and instead of just Stickles, I used liquid glass for the flowers for a little shiny pop

Stylized flowers, MCPT/Prismas, Stickles and 3D sticker

Was trying to try something different. Tried my new Wasau cardstock paper (BEAUTIFUL PAPER!) and used the square mosaic embossing folder. Fell back on the old routine and used 3D stickers.


That's it for now! Going to cuddle with The Mister and watch a little CSI: Miami.

Happy Easter, everyone!

CURRENT MOOD: CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: AMAZING LOVE - HILLSONG