Make'n take at Fluvanna Crop

I stopped by tonight to visit my friends who were cropping at Beth Ecklund's Fluvanna Crop. The photo here does not do justice to these cute little flowers that Anna Estus the Close To My Heart Consultant made. She's showing everyone how to do these so stop by tomorrow and check it out. All that's needed is the new CTMH circle punch (in photo above), paper, some bling and after some folding & gluing you have custom flowers! If you're not going to crop, just stop in & shop. Beth has her CM products and Amber from Amber's Scrap Attic is there too.

News You Can Use

If you like Tim Holtz's work and want to learn more about it check Buffalo Stamps & Stuff''s website (see link below) for information about the 4 classes he will be teaching there on June 12 & 13. Class sign-ups are this Sunday 5/2 starting at 9am and I would imagine they will be a sell-out quite quickly.
May is National Scrapbook Month with May 1st being National Scrapbook Day. There are a lot of sales this weekend. Scrapbooking at Just Country in Tidioute, PA is having a 50% off sale this weekend, Memory Miser (see link below) is also having a 50% off sale as is Scraps and Strings and Paper Things in Northeast, PA. They will also be at opening day at Crossroads.
ScrapDazzle (see link below) is having a month long sale with 25% off - use code: MayScrap2010 at checkout.

Shadow Box

Another quick & easy project that's great for a gift idea. Paint, paper, rub-ons, ribbon and flowers are all you need along with some adhesives. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out - I may change the saying on the one mat for one thing. I keep looking at it trying to decide.

Coupons

As you scroll down my posts, check out "My Blog List" - one of the links is to Obsessed with Scrapbooking. This blogger posts coupons to places like Michaels, AC Moore & Hobby Lobby almost weekly. So you may want to consider subscribing to her blog. Or just click on the link below for this week's coupons.

Photo cubes

Photo cubes are a great gift idea. They are easy to make and can be personalized or adapted to a special occasion. These wooden blocks were painted first, the cardstock was placed so as to appear matted. A variety of embellishments were added - buttons, ribbon, and rub-ons. A chipboard was frame was also painted in a coordinating color and added - I did not used adhesive along the top or down part of each side so that a photo can slide in easily. Other photos can be added on the other sides or additional embellishments, titles or names can be added.

My Dog Album

I made this chipboard album with a kit from The Button Farm. I liked this kit for a couple of reasons. First, it had everything I needed except ink , adhesives & tools in it and it all coordinated. I like not having to go to a bunch of places to find what i need for a project. Angela at The Button Farm does a great job putting beautiful kits together. I hope to take a class with her at Buffalo Stamps & Such in May. The other reason I liked this kit is that it was my first chipboard album and with this kit you even used the chipboard box that the chipboard alphabet & embellishments came in! Very clever! In the one photo (sorry, I haven't figured out how to get the photos in the order I want yet) you can see clear through to the page before and after - that's the top from the chipboard box. I love the papers - they are textured so they were fun to work with. There's no photos in it as I'm going to be giving this as a gift but I'm really tempted to keep it for myself.

Check out these scrapbook stores

I've done some traveling in the area and wanted to share two scrapbook stores with you in case you haven't had a chance to check them out yourself. This past Thursday I stopped at Scraps & Strings & Paper Things in Northeast, PA. It is located in the basement of Pillowcasegram, a quilting store right at the main corner in Northeast across from the town square. While the store is small, Kris, the owner, has a nice selection especially in papers. She has regular classes and crops as well.
The second store (see photo)I found through Kris and is located in Tidioute, PA. Its just under an hour from Jamestown and a very pretty ride-part of it through the Allegany National Park. Scrapbooking at Just Country is a combination antique/gift shop and scrapbooking store. The scrapbooking are is in the back 2/3 rd of the store so don't be quick to think you're in the wrong place. She has an amazing selection of a wide range of things including Tim Holtz, Prima, 7 Gypsies, Iron Orchid Designs and so...much more! This place is well worth the trip - I will be visiting again soon! I hope to get a few friends together for a road trip! If you stop in make sure you get on her mailing list for her newsletter. She also holds Crops & classes although right now they are mostly on Monday nights.

Photo board

This was a simple project to make-mostly gluing chipboard pieces after placing ribbons in various places. The lacing to connect each of the boards was a little tricky as it should not be too loose or too tight.

My Craft Room

In the top photo my craft space is in the back left corner but I really use the entire room at times. My cats, Patch & Pumpkin have their climbing thing in that photo which does keep them occupied at times. However, they are always interested in what my friends bring to a crop at my house! And they love pieces of paper! In the middle photo you can just see a little bit of my Cricut table and a side view of the main place where I work. As you can see I'm fairly messy but mostly because I have about 20 things going on at the same time. I do have to clean up my actual workspace to work otherwise I just can't be creative. The bottom photo is a shot taken right from the front of my workspace behind the sofa. I have another table and chairs in a different corner of the room where I can work or friends can crop. The tables in my workspace get moved around to wherever they are needed for whatever is going on. The "Create" on the wall is an Uppercase Living expression.

Copics 101

For those of you wanting to learn how to use the Copic markers in your artwork, I'll be ready to offer Copics 101 in the very near future. I am just waiting for the materials from the office to arrive which should be tomorrow. Please let me know if you are interested and I'll let you know further details. I will be doing a demo at the Gowanda Crop - see the calendar on the right for crop details. If you have been reading my blog since the beginning you'll know that I am a Certifed Copic Designer by Copic and the class is focused on papercrafters, stampers & scrapbookers.
And here is my first tip - when purchasing your markers, do not buy them in sets! You want to pick your favorite color and then pick 2 more. One that is 2-3 numbers higher and one that is 2-3 numbers lower. If you purchase a set you'll get a wide variety of colors but you won't be able to do shading with what is in the set.

Random Musings Album

This album was so much fun to make! It was also my introduction to Thickers -those are the letters used for "musings" &"favorites" - I love how they feel squishy!

This was also the first time I had used rub-on's right on the acrylix. This album is a good example of building your acrylix album from the back forward so that each page adds to the next so from the front of the album you get to see some of the whole album throughout which is really the purpose of a see-through album!

Clipboard

Clipboard at left is made with acrylix paint, cardstock, rub-ons, ribbon & Mod Podge. I left the back just painted - no paper or embellishments back there. I mod podged the entire clipboard after I was done adding the paper & rub-on's so that with use everything would stay in place. The holes on the right where the ribbon is were pre-drilled. The hardest part of this project was cutting the paper to the shape. Another pink project - see how I pick pink when I'm not working on my own stuff?!

Arrow album

I thought I would post twice today since I missed yesterday. Although I read in some blogging info. that its best to post on weekdays as most people take a break on the weekends from their computers. Anyways this is an acrylix album that I did that is unusual in its page format. Every page is a different shape. Its a 3 ring album and many of the pages are half pages and open independently of each other. A consideration with this type of album is your photo placement since the person looking at the album may open the top half of the page & see the top part of the next page before they turn the bottom half. Its a really fun album and certainly makes you think about adding fun elements like these pages into your projects.

Coaster Challenge

At Amber's Scrap Attic Crop yesterday, Anna Estus, the Close To My Heart Consultant held a Coaster challenge. The photos here show some of the entries. Each person was given a plain coaster and 2 sheets of 6 x 6 paper and could create whatever they wanted. My entry was #4 see below on left side. I gave it my friend, Kim, for her 3 year old daughter to place on her bedroom door with her photo. With 2 sons I don't get to do many projects in pink so this was fun.

Jumbo Greeting Cards

Are you saving the cardboard that comes with your 12 x 12 paperpacks? I hope so! Besides using them to cut letters and shapes with your Cricut you can use them to create Jumbo Greeting Cards. This is an assortment of cards I made with a CKC class kit.

As you can see a variety of materials have been used including Delta Paint for the chipboard letters and fabric strips used instead of ribbon in the holes along the top. Photos, journaling or memorabilia could be added to personalize.

Admit One album

I tried to put the photos in the right order but they turned out with the inside photos on top and the album cover to the right. A techie, I'm not!

This is a cute idea for that special someone for an anniversary, Valentine's day or absolutely no reason at all. Lots of places for photos and a lot of pockets for journaling, "love notes" or memorabilia of special times!

Picture Frames

These make great gift ideas. You can get plain wooden frames from any of the craft stores - I only paid a couple of dollars for these. I used Deco Art'sPaper Perfect which needs a palette knife (they sell one) to spread out onto your surface - it was really easy. While it was still damp (not wet) I placed the flowers I had on hand in the corners and let dry. This works best on a warm, dry day with low humidity. It takes several hours to a full day to dry depending on how thick you apply the Paper Perfect. You can also add glitter, fibers, etc to customize your project. If you want to make a custom sheet of paper for your project just spread the Paper Perfect on a sheet of wax paper and let dry. Pretty neat stuff!

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A Peek into my Week album

Here's another project that I have completed recently. I have a bad habit of starting a project, getting distracted & then not getting back to it for a few months. Does this happen to you? I have about 10 projects in a box that are in various stages of completion waiting for me to finish. I'll post photos of them as I finish.

Anyways, on this album there are 2 pages for each day. One side has space for a photo and the other side has a pocket for adding items such as receipts, ticket stubs, notes, etc. A photo could be added to the front of the pocket as well. Various flowers such as those on the front decorate the album throughout.

Preparing for Amber's Crop

My friend, Amber, the owner of Amber's Scrap Attic (online store) is hosting a crop this coming Sat. and I'm spending part of the day to get my stuff together for that. Its been awhile since I've actually been able to go to a crop to work on my scrapbooking! I've promised myself that I will try to regularly work on my family's album this year. In the past, I've either been a vendor or teaching so this should be a relaxing and hopefully productive crop for me. I'm trying to be very careful and avoid the "taking everything but the kitchen sink" mentality. I have my layouts planned and in some cases already done except for adding photos, journaling & final touches. My photos are in the page protectors with the embellishments for those pages. I still need to get some coordinating papers and a few more embellishments together. I also need to make some titles with my Cricut this week. Pack my tools in my rolling tote and I'll be ready to go! Check out the link to Amber's website below the posts. Future crops and craft events are listed to the right.

More Uppercase Living projects

Here are a few other projects I did awhile back with Uppercase Living expressions. For those that have not used vinyl before to create home decor items a great way to start would be to order some small expressions like the snowflakes above to play with before starting to work with larger items. Then move on to larger items or make your own with your Cricut.

Sally Lynn MacDonald

Here I am with Sally Lynn MacDonald at the end of the Copic Certification Course in Columbus, OH two weeks ago. (I'm on the right). Check out her blog and artwork at her blog Inkyheart - link is after the posts.

Here are a few of the Uppercase Living projects I did while I was a consultant with U.L. Now that I have my Cricut Expression and Gypsy I can create projects like this on my own. The Uppercase Living website though has some great accessories that accent the projects as well as display stands and hangers. It's a great place for inspiration as well.

Too many projects, not enough time

While Copic markers are my newest love I have a wide range of crafts/artwork that I love as well. This is a picture of a set of 4 display boards that I have put together - no pictures yet as I plan to sell this at a craft show later this year. Much of what I make I either give as gifts or sell. Working with different projects gets me out of my comfort zone working with materials I don't typically use or colors that I wouldn't necessarily put together myself. There is such a variety of materials, tools and techniques and never enough time!

Copic Certification Course

I completed the Copic Certification Course in Columbus, OH and can now teach Copic classes. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. My instructor was Sally Lynn MacDonald, a Regional Copic Instructor. The artwork above is her work showing various techniques and what a difference the Copic markers make when coloring an image. During the weekend I also took 2 other classes, went to the Memories Expo and stopped at an Archiver's near Cleveland on the way home! I'm looking forward to teaching classes in the near future to share this with others!