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!

Merry Christmas

to 

One and All!

New Items in my Etsy Store

Here are a few items I've added to my Etsy store. Still more to come.

These are a pack of 6 quilted coasters made from 100% cotton fabric. More styles and colors to come. They are reversible, so you can choose which ever side suits your decor the best or just change it up.

Also I've added some Christmas Cards, I just have the one type so far, they come as a set of 5 for $15.

What I've Been Up To

Wow it's been way too long again since I've last posted! I certainly haven't stopped creating, I've just had no time to post lately. So today I thought I'd share some of the more recent layouts I've done for Prairie Chicks, where I work. These have already been posted on the Prairie Chicks blog so some of you may have already seen them.

Bo Bunny paper and stickers, Kaisercraft lamp post and Prima flowers

Stencil from Crafter's workshop

Echo Park paper, Prima flowers, various ribbons, beach umbrella sticker

Echo Park paper and embellishments?

Simple Stories paper and stickers. Tim Holtz Alterations Rosette dies.

Outdoors and explore def. clear stickers(?) Fabscraps chipboard

words, tree die-Tim Holtz Alterations, Paper?

My New (old) Garden Feature

I'm enjoying these beautiful spring days (even though the wind is unforgiving). This spring I haven't been too motivated to get into gardening. I will plant some "eat for enjoyment" veggies. I won't grow any for long term storage. I find in the fall I just can't get myself to do all that work anymore even though I used to do it with a lot of excitement and enjoyment , I loved seeing jars lined up on the counter waiting for lids to seal.

I do have an area I'm happy to make a little more beautiful though. It started with winter projects inside. We decided we wanted more room in the living room to be able to move the furniture around better. I have had this piano since about 1994. I bought it used from someone who was making room in their home. 3 years ago I had  it tuned and asked the tuner what he though it was worth because I was thinking of reselling it. He basically told me I'd be lucky if I could get $300 for it. Extremely disheartened I decided to put a poster up to see if anyone wanted it. No one offered. I tried to give it away, again no one was interested.

Sooo I saw something on Pinterest that gave me an idea where I could still enjoy my beloved piano but not as a musical instrument but a piece of landscape. This year I will only have the potted plants beside it but in the future I will build a nice landscaped garden around it. The thing that kind of made me sad was how quickly it became weathered although that is the look I wanted.

 People driving by have asked my husband "Is that a piano on your lawn?" Maybe it will start a new trend and instead of old pianos being used for expensive firewood they will become beautiful pieces of landscape.

While I was taking pictures I decided to take a few of our very large poplar tree in our front yard. Although I find beauty in these seed pods I know the torment they will bring me once they blossom into giant fuzz balls that will fill the air with nose tickling seeds, clogging the lawnmower and covering the ground like freshly fallen snow. Then I hope the wind will blast them away almost as soon as they come :)

Jen Unger Fine Arts on Etsy

I am now open for business on Etsy. I have been wanting to find an outlet for selling my handmade items for a while now and finally took the plunge to make it into an official business. You can click the Etsy tab on the top of the screen to go to my store. I will be selling finished products that I have made including my artwork, cards, mini albums and possibly some quilted items.