National Scrapbooking Day Countdown

Good news... I'm actually off on NSD so I'm hoping to be able to participate in some of the cool online challenges and the what not. With a toddler, my days are always a little unscheduled and unpredictable, but he's been pretty good about letting mommy do other things while he happily plays with stickers. Two more days for comment posting for my little scrapbook giveaway. Remember all you have to do is leave a comment on any post. I can't believe tomorrow is May 1. I still have a Mother's Day card to make, and then a birthday card for mom, too. I am sending Mom some Godiva sugar free chocolates for Mother's Day though, so I'm covered if the card runs late : P . I hope to see a few more comments up here before I have to choose a winner... more choices makes it easier.

WoohOO someone left a comment....

I was just getting ready to come back through and edit out my Freebie giveaway for National Scrapbooking day since no comments had been posted and now... here is a comment! I love comments.... it's just like getting mail only there's no bills in the pile! Let me clarify on this... I'm a working mom in a single income family. Though I work for one of the big craft stores, this giveaway is just plain from me to... the winner. I want to share some of my new favs as well as give someone something new and fun to play with. The economy being what it is, I know how hard it is to have anything extra at the end of the week for some new supplies. I lost everything I owned in Hurricane Katrina and without gifts from others, I would not be where I am today. So there's not a lot of flash to this giveaway but the products are all new (as in unused, not necessarily recent) and I hope that I'll be able to continue to do giveaways every so often.
So here it goes: The Contents of the Giveaway for Scrapbooking Day:
One Tim Holtz Flourish Mask
One package Martha Stewart Red Glitter Alphabet Stickers
One Bare Elements (by Creative Imaginations) Precious Boy Kit
One K. and Co. chipboard mini book

As you know from reading the blog, I love making books... one of my favourite things to do. I'm getting ready to work on my Bad Mommy book... which I think will end up being called something like Supermom meets the Real World. Keep the comments coming and I'll post the winner on Sunday. These mini books are wonderful to work with. Scroll back through for some advice on sanding chipboard books.

Color Inspiration # 50 from Kristina Werner

I spend a healthy amount of time cruising other paper crafters blogs. Some of that is for www.Scrapnwin.com for whom I am an ad rep, and the rest of it is simply because I love seeing what other people are doing. We are also a really interesting breed of people... we love to share what we know and what we've learned along the way. So I stumbled across this challenge at Kristina's blog http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog . This color combo is such a stretch for me... which was the real fun in this challenge. The glitter and Vellum daisies are from Jolee's Boutique, the papers are Bazill and Paper Company cardstock. That brown from Bazzill is wonderful... though I'll tell you that my baby bug cricut taught me a lesson or two about cutting on textured cardstock. The Turquoise eggs are hand inked. This was really fun and quite easy to execute. For those of you who don't know, if you scroll over the picture you can see it enlarged. I still really am learning the digital camera... Oh... and I promise... I'm off tomorrow so I'll post the picture and the product list for my National Scrapbooking day Giveaway. Remember all you have to do is post a comment and I'll pick one post as the winner. As always, I hope you are having a good time with your paper and projects.

A few thank you cards... and a frantic search

Grr... you ever have one of those days where nothing quite goes right... it doesn't quite go wrong either but just not quite right... yeah... It was one of those. The time at the crafting table went well, until my cricut mat gave up the ghost and I went about searching for the replacement ones I swear I own... I cannot find them anywhere. It does mean that I did get more cleaning done, more organizing done. And I made two thank you cards that I've been needing to get out in the mail. The cards were super quick and fun. On the blue card, the flower shapes are inked through a mask so they are very subtle on the page. That heart vine bouquet is one of my favourite stamps and it's one of the cheapy dollar bin stamps from michaels. On the green card... the flowers are die cuts and held in place with Making Memories Snaps... don't let the name fool you... there is no snap function, you still need a setter (thank you Crop-a-dile) but they do give a cleaner backside finish than brads. They also have a fairly long shank so there is room to crimp them closed but still have movement on the attached piece. I've been putting off putting together the items for my scrap giveaway since no one has yet posted but I suppose I ought to get a picture put up soon. As soon as I narrow down my choices, I'll make up a bundle and take a pic. I'll post the actual contents list as well, because a picture maybe won't tell you much.

Another Christmas Page

Precious little pumpkin, he is. I started work on his 8x8 baby album today but haven't gotten a page fully completed yet. I took a break from that to do this page. The lettering proved to be the biggest time eater... I cut it on the Cricut and then decided that I wanted a shadow cut as well... ran everything through the Xyron sticker maker and then mounted the maroon letters onto the shadow cuts. The frames and photos are also cut on the cricut. The background paper and patterned paper are from Rob and Bob studios, I want to say the fall slab (slab IX?) The maroon and burnt orange cardstock are Paper Company. The date tag was made with layers of the card stock and the patterned scroll paper, date printed out with the design runner. I had a really good time with this one... and I think that in future, when doing alphabet cut outs, I'm going to try running the paper through the Xyron first, then cutting the alphabets. I have not gotten anything Mother's Day made for my shop at www.shophandmade.com and I have two thank you notes to get made this week, as well as a mother's day card for my own Mom. I have not made a final selection on the goodie giveaway, but since I also still see no comments, I guess I don't have to panic about getting that done right quickly. So it might end up that it's really easy to win this! I'm heading back to the craft room to clean up from this project and perhaps get started on another.

National Scrapbook Day May 2nd

national scrapbook day is May 2nd... there's likely going to be a crop in your area or check out your local independent scrapbook store.... Me... I'll likely be working but since I work in a craft store, Every day is scrapbook day for me. Now... I've been writing for weeks and there's not a single comment here... so for National Scrapbook day, I'm going to give away a small bundle of goodies to someone who posts a comment. I'll make up a little package and post details and a pic on Sunday but off the top of my head, I'd say, some designer paper, some Martha Stewart Alphabet stickers, a Tim Holtz mask and... I'll just have to see what else. So come on... I know you're out there reading... and I hope your out there crafting, now say something!

Mother's Day Sale at www.shophandmade.com

Ah krikey... as if I haven't already too much to do... shophandmade.com is hosting a Mother's Day sale... and encouraging that we get as many new things in our store as possible... I haven't even caught up to the baby stuff I wanted to get done... My average day has so much piled into it that I'm often just plain too fried to make it to the craft room (which still needs cleaning out) and sit down at the table (which still needs to be cleared off everytime I want to use it) and then actually get some work done. Work... which is actually play and fun... and then the night flies past me and it's midnight... and the little boy, bless his sweetpea heart will be getting up in four hours (bad night) five hours (average night) six hours (mommy loves you very much for the extra sleep). Oh and... I can't give away any of the details, but if you are a cricut user, you might want to head on over to your local Michaels on Sunday... so... I'm going to drag my tired butt to the craft room and see what little piece of something sparks my imagination.

Toddler at Easter and a book for a coworker

Between Easter with a toddler, work and life in general, I've had a hard time making it back here in the past week. The little guy really had a wonderful time picking plastic eggs up off the lawn and putting them in his basket. I can't wait to scrap those pics. I did make a small board book for a coworker this week though and learned some shortcuts.... I used a photo mount spray adhesive and adhered the paper to sheets of thin cardboard first, then traced the book shape and cut them out... much faster and easier than working on precut chip board. A big plug here for Tim Holtz's Kush Grip Scissors by Tonic, they made this project a breeze. I use an emory board for the edge sanding which is fast and easy and rarely tears the edges. It also angles into those very tight corner cuts. I played around with a lot of tools for this one: Dymo labels, the Design Runner, a Journaling Stamp, and of course, my usual favourites, distress ink and masks. Four pages ... eight sides, about four hours of work. My camera and I are at odds with the photography so this is really the only good picture I was able to get. I have about five other projects running around my head that I hope to be able to get done in the next few days, but life with the toddler often gets in the way! I'll have at least something done by Sunday so... until then, y'all keep doing creative things with paper... what a wonderful thing to take something so usual and make something so... not.

Found that pic and.... A shop that store list

In the process of cleaning my desk last night I found the picture of my son that I was looking for... so hopefully sometime tomorrow I'll be able to get that page done. If you make books or journals, be sure to click on the link below to scrapbooksuperstore.com and check out Jill's deals of the day.... they have Bazzill chipboard spiral bound journals (8x8) on sale for only 4.99 a piece!!! super deal. I'm exhausted today so no new pics of new projects though I do have another card finished. I'll get more pics up over the next few days. I also need to get some production done for my store at shophandmade.com so hopefully the boy will be cooperative in giving mommy some time to create.

procrastination

some days I avoid the craft table like the plague... today is one of those days... I've had months to get a baby shower card made and I still haven't managed to get it done. I did get my desk cleaned (mostly) and some of the bills paid... and it's only ten thirty... so if I pull off something fast and easy I could get a card made and still get to bed by 11... but I'm really thinking about just digging through my collection of cards and using something not handmade... all the gifts that I'm sending to the shower I made... so maybe a store bought card will be okay... and as I write that I know that I mean not okay but that I'll forgive myself for not making one... nope... just checked and nothing I have is shower suitable.. so now I'm thinking maybe no card at all and just let the gifts speak for themselves.... that might work... I'm really tired these last few days... we've had inventory at work which makes for early mornings and a lot of time playing the hurry up and wait game... but it went well and is now over so my schedule gets back to normal for the rest of the week... which is good because while I've avoided the craft table today, I do have some projects that I'd like to get working on as well as one that needs a few finishing touches. It really is wonderful to be getting back into doing things again.

that thank you card... finally

alright... so I only got a little organizing and cleaning done... I built a bookcase, threw out some garbage and did some menial and tedious chores but still have days of organising to go... but I did take the time to get that thank you card finally finished....

playing with the Xyron design runner

So I was able to take some time tonight to play with the design runner... I am enchanted with making tags right now... and one of the store managers for the company I work for is getting a new store... he's excited but stressed so I borrowed the State Farm Insurance Ad text.... "you know the place where X meets Y? I'm so there" and made him a tag. I haven't taken pics yet but I'll add them to this post tomorrow sometime... the inks are still drying on the tag. I also made a thank you tag for one of the girls I work with but still haven't finished the thank you card... I really am avoiding that one for some reason. Tomorrow needs to be more of clean up and organise day than getting any projects done day but I'll see what happens. I'm surrounded by so much clutter that I have to clear a space to work every time I set about a project.

Xyron Design Runner

Alright... so Broke down today and bought a design runner.... I make gift books for parents and babies... and have been running the pages through my computer... for those of you who can't already tell given how much trouble I have with my posts here... I'm a puter moron.... centering these book pages drives me batty, as does the amount of time it takes to print all the pages, let them dry, mount them to the chipboard book, trim them... et c. So I've been kicking around a design runner for quite some time and finally today decided to get one. I'll post some Design runner enabled projects soon... and hey... does anyone know anything about the I Remember When folks? They seem to be the largest industry supporter of Xyron products, but I know nothing about them . I can't afford another job... I'd go crazy trying to manage that but I was just wondering if anyone had any feed back about them. I also wanted to let y'all know that if you are in the market for scrapbook items that you can't find, or don't have a scrapbook supply store near you, please feel free to let me know what you are looking for as I have some great resources.
Still studiously avoiding that thank you card.... but must get it done this weekend.
Hey.... if anyone is actually reading this... drop me a comment would you? I feel as though I'm shouting into a cavern here.