New Year, New Color Inspiration

Around this time of January I take a look online to see which new Pantone color will be influencing "the market." You can find this color in nearly every type of embellishment, be it paper products, thicker fonts, fabric swatches, home décor prints and dress ups, jewelery, etc.
Here's an excerpt from their website and a beautiful quote of color for your day as well:

What is the PANTONE Color of the Year?
A symbolic color selection; a color snapshot of what we see taking place in our global culture that serves as an expression of a mood and an attitude.

So, how will you be using this color of influence first? I challenge you to incorporate it into ... a Valentine! Go get Greenery and then post a link to your blog or picture gallery in the comments below :-)

Sons of Scrap-archy

You may have read before that I am a big fan of late night scrappin... well, if you've read enough of my blog to know that, you probably know that I'm a fan of anytime scrapbooking lol.
Earlier this summer I found that one of our tv trays works perfectly for creativity in the living room. On the one hand, I am forced to gather a limited amount of supplies to work with. This challenge can help me to focus and also flexes my brain to come up with alternate ideas. My craft room is 30 feet away, too so it's not like I can't go and find the item I think will make a layout perfect!
On the other hand, I get to spend some quality time with Ray after the girls are asleep. By "quality" I am referring to the type of interaction couples nationwide experience nightly- zoning out in front of the boob tube! We hardly watch any tv in our house, so binging on some Netflix can really be a treat. One of our favorite shows is the Sons of Anarchy. We also enjoy House of Cards and the Orange is the New Black- or, the Orange and Black as my hunny refers to it.
Well yesterday I was griping to a friend that I've been doing altogether to much house cleaning and that it is really interfering with my creating! It was no surprise to me that such a build up of not making had me in the mood to really crank out some craft last night, and I was able to create three layouts in their entirety. Go me!
Often times the lack of supplies on hand will have me making most of a layout or card, and then finishing it up the next day or sometime later in the week. Last night I managed to get pen to paper on all three pages as well, and tucked them into my brand spankin' new red canvas fall album. A much better feeling than the one I had the previous day, when the only crafting I managed was putting a completed page into the same album. Not working on the page, just putting it away... lame!
So, often times I'm asked how I'm able to whip out the pages so fast? A lot of times it is because I'm working out of a pre-assembled kit I've made. Have you ever seen  a collection of items on your desk and thought, gee that's pretty! Well, when I do that, often times I will enclose said collection of goodies in a sheet protector. I keep between ten and twenty of these on hand to grab and put with photos at a whim. By adding a few more embellishments, or sometimes just an additional piece of background paper, I can sometimes stretch these one-page kits into three or more layouts, like I was able to do last night.
For September, my challenge product of the month is going to be using my stash of pre-made kits. A lot of them have photos in them that I want to include in albums already moved out of viewing, and seeing what I wanted to scrap with last year is like having my own Throwback Thursday any day of the week!
If you'd like some tips on how to create your own scrapbook kit, check out this movie I made last year. Grab a pen and paper, jot down some notes, and then go shop your stash (or favorite scrappy outlet) and then go to town! Or, go to town, shop, and then stay up late making something awesome :-) The choice is yours, of course.
Thanks for choosing to spend some time on my blog today, and if you've got a good show for me to watch I'd sure like to hear of it... the Sons had their final soap opera style dramatic conclusion last night and Survivor is merely on the horizon of my viewing schedule!
Hmmm... anyone else extremely disappointed that "Jax" is no longer being considered for the role of Christian Grey...? He does bad boy gooood! I'm not saying he's a great actor, but I believe it when he gets into a heap of trouble episode after episode all while wearing his custom baggy leathers :-D

Anatomy of a Late Night Scrap Sesh

Late at night when the kids are in bed, I like to have Ray select a few photos for some "Scrapbook Starts." That's my little nickname for these pages I start and don't usually complete right away. You'll notice these examples are pretty basic... they'll be spruced up sometime today, but here's a peek into my late night creative process!

I generally start with the photo itself. Thinking of a basic title, or the story I want the photo to tell helps me get into the mood to gather my supplies. The chosen photo or story may also influence the colors or theme of papers I'm shopping my stash for. It really helps to take the photo to the paper stored in our craft room; you can pretty easily tell what "goes" (and doesn't ) by holding the photo up to a few selections. There can be surprise pairings of patterns that emerge as my creative engines begin to turn over!

Next, I reach for add-ons like stickers or die cuts that I may have thought of while looking at the photo or searching for a background. The way I have my embellishments stored makes this a really easy thought to page process. Check out this tour of my craft room for a glimpse at one of the ways I've had my space organized. I look for either matching colors, a theme that fits, a phrase to use as a title, or maybe just something shiny that needs to be used.

I recently overhauled my die cut storage system, and along with my August Product of the Month Challenge and wanting to use more of my old stuff up this year, I'm hereby announcing that my product of the month will be... Die Cuts! On August 15th my fellow contributors to DieCutCrazy and I will be hosting another Blog Hop, so watch for that! Last night I got into my circa 2009 Storytellers collections and chose this "Delightful" set that went well with the photos and papers I'd chosen. The great thing about their die cuts is that they already look layered and embellished, so sprucing them up is not actually needed, but very easy to do. See how I layered photo corners over those already on the background patterned paper above? And in the layout below, I simply added paper flowers, and used my exact-o knife to cut out a small part of the design to layer on top for added dimension. There were more than enough pieces to spread across two pages that will go side by side in my album, so I put the extras into a new kit, made from papers I'd thought of using but didn't. I  mean, why put them away when I can use them for another late night crop session?! 

So sometimes, on simple pages like those two, I can add a few finishing touches that bring them nearly to "enter the album" stage. Touches like the brads in the centers of the flowers, or the hand drawn blackberry vines with custom blended ink splatter berries. Touches like the eyelets on those punched circles, or inking the edges to make the white core disappear.

On the page to the right, I chose a package of Glitz Design's cardstock stickers to embellish my layout. You can see the page is still lacking- nothing is holding the banner together, there is no title or journaling, and frankly, it's hard to tell what the story behind my holding a large gun with a gleeful smile is. And guess what, it's totally okay that the page is incomplete! I fully intend to go back in and put those finishing touches on sometime today or later this week.

In the meantime, I may think of a much better title (although, "Annie Get Your Gun" will be hard tobeat), I may change the angle of the story I want to tell, or add variegated yarn instead of black twine as I intended... the choices are all still there, but I can make them in the my actual craft room,during daylight hours easier than late in front of the tv, on a card table set up by the sofa at night. On the other hand, I sometimes find that I'm really okay with how it looks and I just add a quick dash of fiber and journaling to get it in the album pronto. These simple pages add a different visual element to albums that can almost become monotonous in all their embellishments and details. As long as those pictures are getting printed and/or our stories are being told, there's no "wrong" way to scrapbook!

So theres a peek into my late night creative process... now you know why I'm posting photos of my work to facebook at 12:23 am! Let me know, how do you maximize your creative energy? Do you have a little routine that makes it easier to craft in a jiffy? Leave a comment below, mark your calendar for August 15th's DieCutCrazy blog hop, and as always, thanks for reading!

Wait! Don't throw that away?

I admit, I have a problem throwing away little bits of pretty paper. So I'm not surprised that I was inspired to create my own version of enamel dots with this tiny punched circle from a cricut cut tag I used.

It doesn't look like much, but you wouldn't believe how proud I am of this little shiny dot and it's friends!


They were really easy to make, I just  added a blob of Close To My Heart's Liquid Glass to the top and let it dry overnight on a shred of wax paper. I wanted to be sure it was really dry before I touched it because sometimes I get over eager and ruin things!


This isn't a project I would necessarily recommend, as it was a tad tricky getting the paper to come off the glue tip without spreading sticky all over the place, but it was fun, and now I know how to make a very coordinated little blingie for any layout that "needs" it. And since you bothered stopping by today, now you do too!

Recent Plantings

I don't exactly have a green thumb, but even I could plant these lovely additions to our front yard.

For Rainier's birthday earlier this year, we returned to Gig Harbor's Java and Clay to paint more heart plates to add to our dishware collection. My mom and grandma were there with us and it was a four generation fun time!

You can't really tell how your painting will end up after the firing process. Of course, us talented girls created masterpieces- that slid noisily to the floor one morning a few weeks ago. To the CONCRETE floor. Only one survived, and I just couldn't bring myself to throw the shards of the other three into the garbage.

Mimi suggested we "plant" them outside, and that's just what we did in between rain squalls yesterday afternoon.  Now we have our little love blooms outdoors, where we can still see  them when we are getting in and out of the car!
They are pretty enough that I'm considering repurposing  the rest of our dishes!

Be Still My Heart!

Well in the first year or two of having my blog, I would have thought nothing of a week or two between posts, but now that I'm in the habit of sharing my life with THE WORLD, I actually felt bad for not having put anything up on here since Valentine's! Sorry, world, I know how interested and disappointed you must have been!
All joking aside, I've been terribly busy and had to (gasp) put my crafting on the back table this last month as I pursued the direct selling business sides of my life. On top of that, I was finally able to replace my phone's cracked screen- if you saw it you thought it was horrible and unsafe and remarkable that it would still work. When you replace your phone and all of the pictures were saved on the phone, guess where they stay?! Great lesson in downloading though :-)
I did create quite a few scrapbook pages in the last couple of weeks and I was really inspired to try some new things with my "letter stickers and paper" product challenge. Surprisingly inspired, actually. I had forgotten how easy it can be to simply build on top of a plain background for instance, or how a subtle texture like embossed polka dots can take that plain background to a whole new level of fun!
and my dear little Letter stickers, how I love thee! I love to mix and match your fonts, I love to create letters that I'm lacking out of letters that I won't use i.e. a 'g' turns into an 's' with a simple snip of the scissors, I love to use as many of you as I can to build extremely long titles. My pages were sometimes on the receiving end of no less than five different brands, types, and colors of tiny alphas! So that's something I'll be continuing to play with. Side note: my fixation with filled in letters seems to be waning slightly. But only slightly.

To start of my March on a bright and positive note, guess who is learning to craft by osmosis?! Little Sunday has demonstrated both stamping, with a scrap paper beneath her project for surface protection, as well as sponging edges, glue sticking, sticker application, and tape runner use. All in the last week, and completely unprovoked by me. YESSS! Another successful conversion hahah!

I love the sound of crying to craft in the morning...

So now, on to my March product of the month to work with (drumroll, please)


Stamps!


Check out the new issue of Die Cut Crazy, and may be the creative forces be with you!

February Simple Stories DIY Calendar

Every month for 2014, Rainier and I are working together on this DIY Simple Stories based scrapbook calendar for her dad. I think it is so important for him to have a "pretty" place to document his observations and memories of our girls... his notes are like little written treasures!

Well, the idea of providing him with a tool like this came about four years ago at my 2nd Creating Keepsakes Convention.  My Dear Friend and I both purchased Basic Grey's 12 month, put-it-together-yourself kit. She chose to put photos that had already been taken into her calendar, while I chose to wait for a cute photo, taken within the first few days of the month, to accompany the gorgeous mini layouts (each page was 8x8). A tiny bit stressful, yes. The funny thing about giving a gift like this, is that you can't make someone write down their memories...okay, you can, but sometimes suggesting can sound an awful lot like nagging!

I chose another Basic Grey calendar kit the next year, struggled with the same print-in-a-timely-fashion conundrum,  and then decided to skip this creation the following (last) year. The contents were just a little too little, and I was having a hard time with feeling like this wasn't exactly a creation of MINE. Sure, I put it all together, but essentially, each month would look just like my friend's! Not a bad thing, but I was desiring a change. This last CKC, I chose a slightly more expensive, but to me, much more expressive DIY scrapbook calendar to feature monthly snapshots, keep track of birthdays, and yes, provide a place for those all important memories!

Before, I would desperately rush to put together the calendar days before Christmas (why do we do things like that?!). So the best part of creating it usually felt like the act of finishing it on time! This version is being created monthly, and the best part of the process is that Rainier and I are doing it together. She puts most of the stickers on, cuts the paper, chooses papers, and on this month, it was her brilliant idea to tuck that row of photos she chose behind the polka dot paper strip. Like any Fancy Nancy loving three year old, she also thought it was necessary to apply a lot of bling to that printed banner!

Sometimes bossy mommy threatens to ruin the creative process we are enjoying, but this session went spectacularly, and ended with her saying, "I want to do another calendar next!"

I'm looking forward to it too, sweetie :-)

Product of the month for February

I decided at the beginning of the year that each month I would focus on a different product, and try my darndest to include that featured product on all my projects. In January, I chose to focus on bakers twine. I love how easy it is to use, and the variety of colors in my stash were incorporated into nearly every project, so yea me!

This month I was hoping that some of the blog hop commeters would give me a suggestion, but my wheels have been spinning trying to find the answer myself.

I kept coming back to "paper." Now, does that sound like a challenge? Heh heh, me neither :-)

 This morning just as I selected a representative photo of using different papers, I changed my mind and have decided my product of the month for February will be...

(Drumroll)



Superbowl Champs Card for Ed in NJ

LETTER STICKERS!

And paper.

Together.

So let's Sea(hawks) what comes of my personal challenge this month!
Thanks again to all the people who left lovely comments on my post for the DCC blog hop this weekend!

-Anna

Advertisement Repurposed

I love a chance to use a bit of advertising in my projects, and once I realized the Lumber Liquidators flyer had all these choice samples of woodgrain in them (drool), I quickly started adding large cuts to my stash box.

My coworker will receive this on her birthday, along with another repurposed item I worked up for the February 2014 Valentine's themed issue of Die Cut Crazy. Be sure to check that out, I'm really proud of how it turned out!

You can see that I've made a little garden out of die cut Close To My Heart flowers, with enamel bling centers, and a cute butterfly flying about, trailing a few pearls. For some extra dimension I added my theme product of the month, baker's twine. Then I stamped the Celebrate phrase onto some scraps cut into banners. Pretty much anything outdoorsy, I put banners on!

 Anyway, these office cards get passed around for everyone to sign, and my card has a lot of delicate layers of embellishment on it. Imagine my horror at thinking of all the blings and flowers flinging off as the card slides in and out of an oh-so-secretive envelope. So, instead of walking it around personally to ensure no damage ensues, I sealed the top of the card with a bit of packaging cellophane.

Around the outside edge of the card I ran four pieces of double-sided Scrappy Tape. It has a peel off backing, so once I had that off, I could lay the packaging plastic right on top, and then trim off the excess. This worked beautifully and it felt awesome to hand it off for circulation care-free.

Tomorrow I'll be uploading a new movie (yeah!) and then on Saturday morning you can blog hop with the DieCutCrazy contributors as we share fun Valentine's tutorials.

My projects will feature some different ways to incorporate punched shapes in your backgrounds, so find a couple of your favorite dies or punches or cut files or whatever, and lets craft together!

Christmas Cards Continued

I've been concentrating so much lately on getting organized around the house that I haven't taken much time to write about it, what a bummer. But, as usual, in between my chores I have still found ways to release some creative energy, so here is another fun way I figured to use my Christmas cards received this year; enter the hole punch.

This relic of our school days still comes in useful and makes it really easy to slip just about anything into a binder, provided it can span the width of two of the binder rings. Otherwise things get a bit wobbly, which bothers me, but may not bother you?

I put all these cards in between the couple of Christmas pages I've created and I love the way they break up the monotony of my regular 12x12 album pages. For some extra visual and textural interest I added this large chipboard piece and glued on all the postage that was on the mailing envelopes. I just couldn't let all those pretty little pictures go in the garbage :-)

I accomplished two things with this dash of inspiration: 1) I got that stack of Christmas cards received off my craft desk. Who put them there anyway!? Oh yeah, me, whoops! Anyway they are cleared and there is more room for crafting yeah! and 2)Now we have the names and addresses of those thoughtful clients and family members who spent the time and postage to let us know they were thinking of us over the holidays. Every year it seems like I hear of more and more people doing away with card sending. Even Ray has made the comment a few times, but of course I still make him take my homemade cards around to all his clients heehee.

I even included an extra Christmas letter card Rainier helped me make for my Close To My Heart friends. I think this is a really neat way to include a little summary of what I thought it was important to share with people I don't see very often but think of while crafting regularly. Since I didn't do any journaling yet on my Christmas layout, I now am feeling completely guilt free about what I consider to be "unfinished business."

Last bit of this post, and then I'm going to spend some time on a new process video I'm hoping to release in conjunction with this Saturday's Valentine Die Cut Crazy Blog Hop... I've got a couple other blogs started up and put some new posts on there tonight as well. So if you're interested in what I have to say about the latest in our families lifestyle/food choices, or what I'm up to with my PartyLite business, just click on my blogger profile and you'll see them listed under my name.

Thanks for stopping by!