Sunday, January 31, 2010

Simple, Quick and Fun

Just wanted to post a peek at a couple of the cards that we will be doing at our upcoming Card Marathon.  Card Marathon is another one of those events where we set up stations for each of the projects and everyone moves from one card-making station to another.  We have found this to be the easiest way to move everyone through, completing 15 cards in one afternoon.  The cards are all cut and presented in kits.  Any special tools or supplies needed are at each of the stations. 




This class is about quick hits, getting the most we can out of one afternoon of cardmaking.  We really do not explore any one technique in any depth so it's a great class for beginners too.  We try to use a bit of stamping, one card with watercoloring, a couple using the Big Shot and dies or embossing folders, several that utilize different punches, pens, inks, and embellishments or a little twist on how to use them.  The cards are simple and quick and fun.

We do several card marathons every year.. one in the fall for holiday cards, this one is all-occasion cards, and we will do another one in late spring that is dedicated to birthday cards.  I just love the idea of having a head start on a collection of cards, all ready to be sent when I have the need.  So that's where this whole event came from (one of my compulsions turned into a class--hmm --go figure).

Saturday, January 30, 2010

An Early Valentine

I got an early Valentine.  One of our customers brought me this Valentine!  It's a heart-shaped glass ornament covered with swirls of red and pink and gold Stickles. 



This gentleman makes ornaments and other goodies for a craft show that is held in town every year several weeks before Christmas.  Quite a big deal in town...it's a pretty artsy affair.  Anyway, way back this past summer I noticed this customer checking out with handfuls of Stickles week after week after week.  He was always very quiet and seemed shy when I would try and engage him in conversation at the checkout.  But finally I just asked him, "What are you doing with all this glitter glue?"  And he said he was making a few ornaments for the craft show.  The weekend of the show I ran over and wanted to make sure I stopped to see his booth.  He had such sparkly pretty ornaments, I bought three of them (one for the boss lady and two for my daighter).  Anyway, imagine my surprise when he came in this week and very softly said "I brought this in for you".  I know my photo does not do this justice, I wish you could see it in person. It is just so pretty. 

Thank you Dennis!  You made my day! 

Friday, January 29, 2010

Favorite Basic Grey Line

There are new yummy lines coming soon from Basic Grey--Cappella, Max and Whiskers, Kioshi. and oops I forgot the name of the last one!  Well never mind the name I will love it (and I ordered it!)  But there was some conversation over at Two Peas in a Bucket about what is/was our favorite older line.  Mine is Granola. 




I find I can use Basic Grey's papers so easily.  They just do a spectacular job of putting together patterns that can be combined and work with a wide range of subject matter.  Their themes are not limiting, the colors work easily with older photos, black and whites, and bolder, brighter colors. 

But my vote for my favorite went to Granola.  I just love the soft blues, taupes, browns and grays.  I have a whole slew of photos taken of Jacob in a vintage photo shoot and Granola worked really wll with these.  (Nana is scrapping all these photos, sorry Jacob! --- Now that he is officially a teen, he hates these photos -- of course now he also hates getting his picture taken, at all!) 

Later! 

 

Thursday, January 28, 2010

I have the best job!

Just another page from the Power Pages class.  This one highlighted the use of Just Rite stamps, Spellbinders Nestibilities dies, and how to colorize acrylic. 






And this next one was showing off one of the border punches from EK, stamping on flowers, and making ribbon photo corners. 




These layouts were all taught at a class in which the students rotated from page making station to station creating 8 pages in one Sunday afternoon.  They were created to each one target specific tools or techniques. 

It's been a busy week.  I had store duty while Colleen was at CHA.  Now that she is back, we are busily placing orders (yes additional orders to those she placed at the show--many companies extend their show specials for a while so this allows us to meet and make decisions together over what will work for some of our various events, what we can wait to order and see if there is a customer need, etc.) 

On the homefront, Idid get both desktops in my workroom cleaned off.  Of cource, now it's messy again, as I spent last evening working up the shower invite for my daughter's baby shower and another card for our upcoming Card Marathon. 

This is the time of year I start to feel overwhelmed.  Class samples, scrapathon pages, card marathon cards all need to be designed in the next few weeks, and until we finish our ordering proecess some of this has to wait.  At least until I have a handle on what products we will be showcasing. 

There is always a line to walk between being creative enough, but using products that are not moving or that we have over-ordered on, introducing new tools and making the project do-able in a limited amount of time. 

Even though it seems I am whining, I know I have the best job in the world and this is just crunch time!  So, next posting I should have some sneaky peeks at card marathon cards! 

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Just wanted to post another Power Page from that class a week or so ago. 




Wild Side was about layers--layers of paper,  layers of EK border punches, layers of EK flourish punches and flowers, and tiny, tiny dots of Stickles. 

Oh, and last night I did get the cardstock sorted and out away into my Cropper Hopper vertical organizers and I did get the Page Planners reloaded with papers so now they are just awaiting my pages to come home fromthe store.  And I did put all the scraps (to me scraps are smaller than a 1/2 sheet of 12x12 paper) into a Creative Options box.  That box is full, full, full again.  (It will be time to make more cards from scraps!!!!)

Tonight will be time to sift through the Clip It Up and purge.  Then the fruit crate (which is also full of scraps and smallish pieces of cardstock. 

That's it for this mornings update.  Gotta get ready for work and get the doggies outside.  Ooooh, at work we did finally get our blind order from Hero Arts.  So we have a sampling of all their new stamps at the store now.  Time for card samples and class samples! 

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Day 1

Just a quick note on Day 1 of the sort, purge and reorganizing effort.  Didn't make much of a dent on Monday.  Husband was home from work.  Enough said. 

Tuesday evening I did spend some time sorting through the second desk and sorting the debri into a stack of cardstock to put away, put large and full sheets of patterned paper back into the paper rack and the smaller pieces into one of my Creative Options boxes for card making. 

On my desk is a stack of leftovers from pages I created for the store that I need to put away into Page Planners so that when my page comes home, I can create a coordinating page for my album(s). 

So tonight that will be the goal, to get the page planners out and that pile put away, then clear the rest of that desk.  Next will be to thin out the items on my Clip It Up.  Speaking of which I saw the floor model Clip It Up At Simply Renee's blog  http://simplyreneeinc.blogspot.com/ and that looks sooooo cool. 



Is this not the coolest thing? 

On another note, this past weekend at the store, I got several cards designed and papers pulled for out upcoming card marathon. I will take a couple of teaser photos of those for future posting.  Last week, I did also get our samples done for our upcoming Craft Crawl (this is an event we do with a local bead shop, a paint-your-own pottery place, and a luscious little bakery). 




I always feel that I need to post some sort of picture when I post, so here is a sample for the Crawl.  I used an Inkadinkado inchie stamp, colored with Smooch and put it in an Inkssentials frame.  Glaze has everyone doing a silver charm, and Giralte Beads is contributing the chain and additional charms.

I think I would change the ribbon that attaches to the chain... and of course I will want to add more charms and danglies for my own piece.  Love charms and danglies...

Monday, January 18, 2010

Bl-eck.  Here are before photos of my scrapping space.  I can't believe I am posting these. 




Here is the view of my desk, all loaded with scraps and all kinds of schnib-lets, a pile of rubber samps, etc. etc. etc.  That pile in the foreground is actually an old fruit crate that I use to throw scraps in.  It's a little full...That is sitting on top of a footrest that holds fabric.  I want to get wheels for the bottom of this so I can roll it out of the way.  But I do kind of like it in the room, cuz I can turn round in my chair and put my feet up for a bit. 




This is the other desktop which is also piled with paper, projects in progress, my Cricut, and who knows what else.




I love my paper rack.  I got this from a store that was closing several years ago and it has been the best thing I ever purchased for storage.  




Last wall, last photo.  The Crop In Style Cubes hold my punches, page planners, page kits, paper tablets, pages from make & takes, photo files for over-sized photos, larger chipboard, etc. 

 There is the mess as it stands right now. 

This may take awhile.... 

Painting with Smooch Inks

I said I would post some more of the Power Pages, so here's another one.  What we focused on here was using Smooch inks to add color to the punched butterflies. 




The Smooch ink colors are very intense, so if you want a softer blue, for example, you need to paint on the white Smooch pretty liberally and add in just a tiny touch of the blue.  Once the color is on, I use my fingers to kind of tap and pat the white and the color together.  (Nothing like using the tools God gives you!) 





This close up shows the butterflies a little better (maybe).  Some tiny dots of Platinum Stickles finishes off the butterflies very simply.  The soft pastel look is not my normal color pallette, but is nice to show this technique.  In addition to the two 4x6 photo mats provided with the page, there is plenty of room for adding a journaling box, a title and a small unmatted cropped photo (maybe two is they are cropped very small). 

Today I am starting the purging and cleaning up in my studio.  I hesitate to do this, but I'll take a before, during and after photos of the room.  Hopefully there is a marked improvement...

Right now my furry children (my three dogs--really do not have furry human kids) are calling me to take them outside... 

Later

Saturday, January 16, 2010

In the Meantime...

CHA, I love going to CHA.  Love the rushing from booth to booth, all the wonderful samples of pages, cards and other projects.  It's a lot of work, trying to select what you think customers at the store are going to love and balancing that against what you personally would love to have (sometimes it is NOT the same).  But this winter I will not be going.  I will be minding the store.  There is so much going on and I have a lot of classes to prepare for.  But still, it's CHA... heavy sigh.  I will live vicariously through photos and phone calls. 

I am trying to be a grown up.  This was my decision not to go this winter.  This is crunch time. I have cards for Card Marathon to work up, Formula Pages for the next couple of months to do, have to start the pages for Scrapathon and class samples for the spring/summer calendar, and, and, and...  Then there are the little things (read personal projects) like baby shower invites (I am going to have a grandbaby in April!), baby announcements and other fun baby things to do.  But still, it's CHA... 

In the meantime, I did get some Valentine cards done for a bonus class.  Had a great group today at the store for these.  Thanks to my wonderful students--you all make it so much fun to teach. 



I think Valentines are my favorite cards to make.  With a heart die and some pretty papers you can make such interesting little cards.  So here's one thing off my list.  999 more things to go!  But still it's CHA...

I will be a grown up, I will be a grown up....


Friday, January 15, 2010

Water's Edge Power Page

I took the photos of the pages from the Power Pages event, again.  This time making sure the flash was not on.  Hopefully these look better.  I'm working on it!  The favorite page of the day?  Waters Edge. ( I name all the pages... this one just felt like water to me). 




Like I said before, Power Pages was intended to present everyone with easy to create page "recipes"  and yet introduce some fun and creative techniques.  On the Water's Edge page we used the Fiskars Shapecutter, but we used it free-hand.  We mixed two colors of Stickles on our pallette (a small paper plate) and applied it with a flat edged tool (a one-inch wide scrap of cardstock works just fine) on the vine diecut (Sizzix).    We put together a product tip card for each of the tools and products we worked with for the participants to take away with them. 

All of the Power Pages are presented without photos or titles so everyone can interpret the page as they choose. 

More later! 

Thursday, January 14, 2010

2010

I can't believe another whole year has gone by.  





Looking forward to 2010, I promise to:

* learn more about my little camera and take more photos

* reorganize my studio

* sort, purge, sell and donate the supplies I no longer need or want

* save more money

*  put in a vegetable garden again

* support local businesses as often as possible when I shop

* practice the fine art of saying no

* submit layouts, articles, and cards to the pubs again

* learn to utilize my Adobe Photoshop program 

* write old-fashioned paper and ink letters







Power Pages

Power Pages!  This class was fun to teach and all the ladies had a great time.  They successfully created eight different page layouts in one afternoon, had a nice little lunch, yummy cupcakes from Delicately Delicious.  What a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon!  We all had such a good time, we are going to schedule another class like this later in the spring. 




I took some individual pictures of each of the pages to post, but the flash was on and the photos were not good. The one photo I quick snapped of all of the pages spread out on the floor worked out the best.  I'll take my camera back in to the store with me tomorrow and take the shots again; this time without the flash.

 I am so-o-o not a mechanical person.  Gadgets and me -- not a good mix.  And this includes cameras.  But I'm working on it. Which brings me to my next post.  2010 goals. 










Sunday, January 10, 2010

Old Papers, New Layout

These papers from Bo Biunny were introduced quite a while ago (I'm talking maybe two years ago), but snow themed papers are timeless, don't you think?.  I selected these for my January Formula Page and added ribbons and jumbo snowflake punches in two sizes.  I also used a couple of Bo Bunny's stickers on the page, which is unusual for me.  (Nothing against stickers--I just don't use them very often.)  The large one worked out well, but I did add the dotted ribbon as opposed to the one that was just printed on the sticker and the smaller circle sticker just seemed to balance out the light and dark colors nicely.




Journaling will go on the lower edge of the light blue paper--just a note about my daughter at age 10.  Then this page gets added to her book or mine--wherever it seems to fit. 




Saturday, January 9, 2010

New Computer!

Been "off the grid" for about 10 days!  Yucky virus in the home computer and we ended up getting two laptops rather than replacing the other computer.  My daughter, our own little geek squad, says to keep the home computer and keep running the anit-virus--sooner or later the virus we have will be identified and corrected.  But having the laptops will be awesome since right now I am sitting on the couch in the living room and blogging away. 

We are not quite done copying files though, so no pictures right now. 

Later!