New Quilt in the Works

This is the project I started today. Love this fabric! Cosmopolitan by Northcott. I got all my pieces cut and you'll just have to stay tuned as to what quilt this will become ;)

Girly Valentine's Card- Tutorial

It feels good to get back to crafting in my craft room  although I will miss the fantastic large window views I had in the living room especially now that the deer have been walking across our yard almost every day. I'll also miss watching sunrises and sunsets while I craft.

 Anyways here is another Valentine's Day card I made. This year I am trying to challenge myself to use what I have and not run out and buy what I think I need. For the paper I dug really deep into my stash and found three different pink papers, two of which I think are from the very first paper I ever bought over 12 years ago. Also a while ago I made myself these cute supply challenge sticks with a punched scallop circle on top where I wrote different paper company names or general color way, embellishment categories, and technique mediums. So I randomly picked an embellishment stick and a technique stick ( I knew I wanted my paper to be pink and from old stash so I didn't pick a paper one) and came up with using my Stampin' wheel (which I hadn't used in years from Stampin' Up)  and die cuts. I did use some other things as well such as ribbon, lace, other stamps and embossing powder.

For the first step I cut my pink paper (the plainest) to 4"x 5.25", inked up my wheel with Versamark then starting on one side I rolled the wheel across my paper then trying to get as close to my stamping as possible rolled the wheel across again to cover the whole paper with pattern.

I used Ranger's Puffs white embossing powder to give a slightly raised design and then heat it with my heat tool. It's really cool because it puffs up as you heat it. 

While I still had my embossing powder out I stamped a doily image (My Mind's Eye "the Sweetest Thing" stamp set) onto a gingham pattern paper and cut it out around the edges. The Puffs embossing powder really gives the look and feel of real lace.

Next I adhered my background paper to my card base (5.5"x 8.5" scored @ 4.25 and folded).

I cut a off white piece of cardstock with a Spellbinder's die (Lattice Rectangles) and a heart out of a linen pattern pink paper (because I still haven't bought a heart punch, it forced me to use my electronic die cutting machine which is good since I paid good money for that thing, lol).

Attach the die cut rectangle to the upper right corner of the base leaving about a quarter inch from the top and right side of the pink background paper. Add a strip of lace to the bottom of the card.

Using 3D dots adhere to the back of doily cutout and attach to lower left corner of the card

I stapled some looped satin ribbon to the back of the heart and then attached it to the doily with 3D dots. Stamp your sentiment (mine was Happy Valentine's Day from Stampin' Up) to the rectangle in a matching ink and your card is done :)

Craft Room Sneak Peek

Crafting has been put on hold for a bit as the days that I feel better (still effects from the flu) I have been getting my craft room painted. I'm eager to get my stuff back in and start crafting again. Here is a little sneak peek of the room which hasn't been easy to paint. I'm painting over walls that should be just ripped out and redone and painting over varnished trim still from the 1950's I'm sure. So far I'm liking how its looking and in the end I hope to have a bright cheery place to create.

This picture shows a bit of the trim before its painted and further in the distance you can see the closet trim that's getting a crisp white makeover.

Favorite Products

As I'm looking through my stuff and thinking what tools can I not live without, these come to mind. The We R Memory Keepers Corner Chompers. At first when I saw them I thought "why would I want yet another corner rounder?" but curiosity won out and I bought the 1/4" and 1/2" rounder. I didn't use it that much at first but then I tested it on chipboard and I was hooked. Now I don't even use my regular corner rounder punches anymore I just go straight for my chompers. I use them a lot when making the tags for my mini albums because I can punch several at a time. The other pair is the ticket stub and deco corner which I use just as much.

I'm not being endorsed by any companies mentioned, I'm just sharing my favorite tools and products from personal experience.

Simple Valentine's Day Card

I'm still struggling through this flu bug but I'm eager to get back to normal life so I'm trying to ignore my nose this afternoon and create something. The card I'm making is just a fast simple card to make. You can change things up to make it into an Anniversary or Wedding card as well.

First I started with a basic grey card base 8.5 x 5.5 inches, scored at 4.25 inches, a piece of scrap mirror paper and scraps of cream cardstock.

I cut the mirror paper down to 4 x 5.25 inches.

 I then ran it through a diamond pattern embossing folder

Next I cut out two hearts out of the cream cardstock (in all the years I've been doing this I'm surprised I still haven't bought a heart shaped punch or die set).

With a couple of stamps, Versamark and silver embossing powder, I heat embossed the two hearts.

Next I cut (3) 4 inch strips of paper, making sure they were not straight, and adhered them to the side of my card.

 I added 3D dots to the back of my hearts and attached them to my card.

 Next I wrote LUV U on the cream cardstock and cut each letter out individually and glued them to the bottom of my card

And there is my very simple card, hope you give it a try.

Thwarted Plans

The last three days have been utterly frustrating for me as I had this whole outline of keeping up with my blog, being creative and getting projects done. I felt as if I had gotten off to a great start. As Friday morning dawned, I did not. I had been totally clobbered by the flu bug, leaving me totally helpless to even try to get out of bed, hence no Friday scrapbooking post. So I gave in to the knowledge that nothing would get done on this day. Usually the next day after being sick I feel weak but not helpless but again the nasty bug wins making me bed ridden all of Saturday. Okay so I'm sure the next day will be better, I'll be able to at least get out of bed but no somewhere in the night a giant elephant came to sit on my chest and used a jackhammer on my head. Today I was determined to get out of bed and try to function normally but yet again the bug wins. This time making me feel like I'm going to faint every five minutes. So back to bed I go. At least my brain hasn't been taken hostage and I can at least have a clear  head (sort of).  I am determined to post what I had planned today regardless of how I feel anyway.

Even though most Mondays are my "get things back on track after the weekend day", today I haven't succeeded in getting too much back in order. And now before I get into how I organize stuff I wanted to share about my craft room. I've had several posts on reorganizing it in the past and since I made it into a temporary guest room recently and had to clean almost everything out of it, I decided that now was the time to give it a new look, fresh paint and some much needed character. I finally after years of indecision decided on a color, along with a few accent colors.

So today I just want to show what the room was like before in the many stages it has been in, starting  with the first space dilemma I had.

When I first realized I had a problem with the way I organized my room this is what the space looked like. I had a lot of  stuff but no room to actually work on any projects. My kids were younger and wanted to be where I was as well so I needed a place for them to create. My only solution at this time was to bring in a professional organizer. I was quite disappointed with what she came up with but there were a few ideas she had that I liked. The cost of hiring her was too much for me to not get  key  elements to the room. Things like my kids couldn't share the room, my beautiful  hutch computer desk had to go and I couldn't have my sewing machine out all the time. She did however give me some ideas that helped me get past the overwhelming amount of stuff and start visualizing a room to suit my needs. I joined the organizing challenge at Two Peas And A Bucket and went over and over the Scraprack organizing system.

This is how I transformed the room into a workable space. Not only did I find room for my kids but everything is accessible.

In all of these pictures including the final ones that I will show you when I'm done painting the room, my computer desk has stayed in the same spot throughout.

This was a new paper storage that took the place of the large binder system I had previously.

Looking back at these pictures I'm surprised at how many changes the room has gone through over the past 3-4 years. hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can show you the final newly painted space and although many things will be the same there will be a few changes. 

Favorite Products

For my first product review let's start with one of my must have tools, the Tonic Studio paper chopper. It's a guillotine style paper cutter that can cut through several papers at once as well as chipboard, which I need cut a lot because of the amount of mini albums I make. Another thing I like about this chopper is that it saves my regular trimmer blades when I cut photos because as most of you scapbookers know photos seem to dull blades really quickly.

It has a finger guard so you don't accidentally trim something you don't want to ;) which also pushes down to hold your paper firmly in place. Best of all it makes cutting super fast especially if you mass produce Christmas cards like I do every year.

New Year, New Goals

I hope every one had a happy New Year, I'm excited because we get to start another new year with fresh ideas and goals. One of my goals is to blog more often (I'm sure many of you bloggers feel the same). I want to make my blog more interesting with more varied content, more crafting ideas, tips and tutorials. So having said that Mondays are always a day for me to get back on track, reorganize, put things back in order after the weekend and I've decided that Monday is going to be a day where I share the way I organize my stuff and hopefully it will helpful to someone out there. Tuesday's are a day I try to set aside for card making so I aim to make a card to show you. Wednesday, well I'm not sure but today I want to show you the project I've finished yesterday. Thursdays I work a full 8 hour day at my local scrapbook/quilting store so trying to get a project done when I'm tired is pretty hard, instead I will show you some of my favorite products that  I've purchased over time. Friday is my scrapbook day so I'll show you my latest project. And Saturday, because I want my Etsy store to do well I will have to do a little advertising, I'm not fond of advertising but it's one of those things that needs to be done. Maybe you'll find it interesting :) I can't promise that every day will have a post but my hope is to at least post more often and that by giving my blog a little more structured format I can plan my projects a little better.

This is a really quick easy project if you need to give a gift on short notice. To make these I measured a regular sticky note pad 3"x 3" and cut 2 pieces of chipboard 3 1/4"x 3 1/4" and 1 piece 1/2"x 3 1/4" to make the cover. I then took a piece of pattern paper 4 1/4"x 8 1/4", glued the chipboard pieces down on the wrong side of the paper in this order- big, small, big, leaving a 1/2" border around the outside and 1/8" in between each piece of chipboard. Trim corners, wrap and adhere edges to chipboard. glue a ribbon across the center (long way) leaving about 8" over on each end to make the tie. Glue a 3"x 7" piece of matching pattern paper to the inside cover hiding the ribbon finishing the cover. Gently fold the cover into a book. Glue down a sticky note pad to the right side of the cover. Tie closed and add a matching pen. Decorate the cover.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!