Organize your Stuff: Week 17 (round 3): Punches Part 2

OK, Readers! It is time to party like it is 1999! …or not. I had a 1 year old in 1999… not nearly as much fun as today! Maybe we should party like it is 2010! At any rate, it is time to make those New Year’s resolutions, …if possible, complete those ones from 2010 …or just let them go…

As a bit of fun, Marit of Marit’s Paper World in the Netherlands has been hosting Blog hop 2000. This takes the top 2000 songs of 2010 from Netherland’s Radio 2 and has them put to paper art. Kind of neat, eh? This is the page that follows my “I’m Dreaming of a White…” Snow page during Week 15.

It represents Queen’s “The Show Must Go On” as we almost had no turkey or egg nog or pumpkin pie due to the snow and horrible road conditions. That morning, however, we did make it to the stores (but did not tell the kids) and got a proper Thanksgiving (a la Safeway Thanksgiving Feast) done for dinner.

Creative Me has been pushed to the back lately, as the POW and OCD Me tried to make the Perfect Christmas… maybe next year. Let loose again, Creative Me did not fail. Since this week was punches, Creative Me used photo corner punches on the left page, and Fiskars threading water on the journaling tag.

This is pretty neat actually.

You start with a strip of punched threading water.

Score at the indents.

Cut along score marks (if thick paper and this was).

Stagger pieces… with a space slightly smaller than the pieces… (blogspot has decided that this picture needs to be rotated and I cannot fix.  Sorry!)

Place remaining pieces. Voila! Pleat on a curved surface!







Punches that everyone should own:
At least 1 corner rounder, a circle punch (at least ½ inch), a scalloped punch. (Level 2:Threading punch like Fiskar’s Leave it to Weaver). However, like everything else in scrapbooking, the more that you use your punches, the more you will seem to need, and remarkably, they will breed like rabbits (or Gremlins with a cookie after midnight) when you are not looking.

As for Punch storage, there are many cool ways to do it. I have seen every manner of Ikea gadget (where were we before Ikea?) to shoe racks on doors (another cool idea). However, my room only has 2 walls and no doors, so neither of these storage solutions worked for me. However, if you were blessed with 4 walls (darned you open floor plan!!!) and a door, Zen Master Wookiemouse did a fabulous job of gathering all sorts of links with different ideas, if you need them, here.

OCD Me did the punch organizing last round. Since Creative Me LOVES to go to crops, OCD Me had to find a solution that worked. For now, I have three (3) Iris 12x12 clamshells that hold my punches. The first has shapes, the second has border punches, and the third has corner punches.

They store in my hutch on a roll out shelf that was originally meant for a printer. Great Easy Access! So, as a New Year’s challenge, break out that dusty punch in your drawer, and like the Velveteen Rabbit, remember why you loved it and play!

Next week, Miscellaneous Tools. (Remember that eyelette setter and some of those other tools you may not have used in a while?) Uggh! We will get through this together!

Organize your Stuff: Week 17 (round 3): Punches Part 1

I hope that everyone has survived the Holiday Season! This week is the beginning of the last milestone of the year- New Years! (Or is it the first!) So shake of that eggnog and cookie coma, put away those latkas, and let’s get Scrappin! New Years is a time for resolutions and a chance to start anew!

Speaking of New Year’s Resolutions- here is my Tuesday Trio New Year’s Eve Card (Sketch 47). For any of you who want to put in a Christmas Card for Sketch 46, you could win a blinkie (it closes Saturday Jan 1st!).

I used a Fiskars Notebook border punch on this card to create the resolutions piece of the card. It started as plain paper, but I used two CTMH ink pens to add the lines and make it look as if it really did come from a notebook!

Punches seem to be one of those things that you love or you hate. It does not mean that you are a punch snob if you have 5 or less, but that you might not have had the right teacher to inspire you! Believe it or not, these are not your 1980’s punches, and to be honest, Creative Me used to be a punch snob too! Until 2008, I probably had 2 (and 3 pairs of those scalloped type scissors). Now I find that a couple of punches can add that something to a layout (especially at a crop or workshop) to bring it to the next level without having to haul my Cricut or die cutting machine. Even the magazines are using punches again! ...and you thought that punches were dead. (I’m not dead yet!-Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Besides, Girl Friday and the Illusive Middle Child can be entertained for hours with a couple of punches and some scrap paper. The end of the week will have my storage- which may be very different from yours, and a Layout!

What is your Scrapping or Organizing New Year’s Resolution for 2011? (OCD Me wants the Inner Hoarder to take a long vacation so that she can clean!)

Organize your Stuff: Week 16 (round 3): Paints, Glitter, and Stickles

For those of my readers who are Christian, Merry Christmas!!! Feliz Navidad!! God Jul!! Joyeux Noel!! Or however you say it Happy (and hopefully not to stressful and busy) Holidays!! It seems that many of us get caught up in a tug of war with our selves as the POW tries to make every commitment, OCD Me tries to channel Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell, and PA Me keeps thinking that if we keep ignoring it, December 25th will never get here. PS- Out of state Family- PA Me regrets to inform you that she has yet to get to the post office, so presents will probably be late.

Today starts a Christmas Card week at Tuesday Trio, and this is the Design Team card that I posted for Sketch #46.

It has both paint and stickles…but no glitter.

Creative Me loves paint. However, it is very understandable if you are a papercrafter who does not paint, or a painter who does not scrap or make cards. I love adding a touch of something with paint, or painting up the edge of a chipboard. Creative Me has also recently started an addiction to Glimmer Mist (LOVE IT!) To Creative Me , this week’s tools are the things that have the potential to bring Dorothy to OZ in full Technicolor.

In a kind of trip down memory lane... here are pictures that you have seen before, but OCD Me will not allow pictures in the scrap room while it looks like a seamstress shop threw up on it (Creative Me is making Christmas Pagent costumes right now.  One Wise man down...one Angel to go!)

 
 
Here is my sack of acrylic paints and glitter.  Big jars are on the bottom and small jars are on top.  Girl Friday loves paints and uses them often.
 
 

 
 
Then here are my stickles and glimmer mists.
 
 
 

 

I am off to do more baking and sewing and at some point actually get to that post office!

Organize your Stuff: Week 15 (round 3): Inks, Ink Pads, and Embossing part 2

The POW apologizes that this is a little late as the power keeps trying to take a winter vacation along with the kids! Right now we are lucky that all we have is wind and rain, but with all the snow that the rest of the country has seen, Creative Me was inspired to scrap our Thanksgiving Week snow.

In keeping with this week’s theme, the trees have liquid appliqué that was heated with an embossing gun to form “snow” and the background snowflakes were acrylic stamps and white pigment ink.

Also, while I know that it is not punch week, the cracked vellum was from a Martha Stewart Halloween border punch. When Creative Me saw it in the store it made her think of cracked ice (although I am sure that was not Martha’s intent).

Here is my half way photos:

So there we are!  Is it better?  We hope so!  However, it is still a work in progress!

Organize your Stuff: Week 15 (round 3): Inks, Ink Pads, and Embossing

Woo Hoo! Turn up the Bon Jovi! We are half way the-r-e! We have hit week 15 in a 29 week process of organizing and the POW has just a few grey hairs from the experience! However, through much negotiation with all of my inner selves, we have come a long way baby! OCD Me is not quite happy with our spaces, but it has come a LONG way from the disaster that we started with at the beginning of round 2!

This week is inks, ink pads, and embossing. All of these things are items that OCD Me has taken care of beautifully (in theory)but Creative Me is very messy (my kids get it from somewhere) and PA Me is usually left to clean up the mess. Therefore, I find that simple solutions are best (even if they are sometimes a little more expensive).

Here is my Design Team Card for Tuesday Trio Sketch 45. Oh, and it is MY Sketch! (Yeah Me!) you can enter too and share a card or layout (holiday craziness permitting!)

If you look at the card, you will see an embossing resist technique that can be used on both cards and scrapbooking layouts.

I just used my Versamark Ink Pad to stamp a clear image on the paper. Then, I used clear embossing powder to emboss the image. I then watered down some brown acrylic paint, and painted over the image. Finally, I wiped the still wet paint off of the clock image to get this weathered look. Creative Me thinks it is pretty cool.

I have found my last four blogs to complete my obligations for the Stylish Blogger Award.

http://www.keshetstarr.com/ Keshet does some pretty stylish stuff and is on some cool design teams. Also , having grown up in the New Jersey/ New York metro, I feel like I am sending this award home!

http://pasigmom.blogspot.com/ Nina first caught my eye when I saw how she changed an ordinary padded manila shipping envelope and turned it into art! I love her style as she has the ability to layer ephemera and create things that make me look positively bland!

http://www.paperpilekitten.com/ OMG! Her 12 days of Christmas are over the top! Talk about stylish for the holidays! Definitely deserving of this award!

http://heaven-sentscrapbooking.blogspot.com/ Ingeborg is my last Stylish Blogger, but definitely not the least! She does cards and layouts and they are all fabulous!

Remember, to accept the award, you do the following:

Link back to the site that gave you the award when you accept it.

List 8 things about yourself that your readers might not know. (here's mine)

Pass this award on to up to 8 Stylish Blogs (here are my first 4 blogs)

Congrats!!!!

Alright, now for the reason that you guys keep reading, a peek at my scraproom.  Like I said, OCD Me tackled this a while ago, so here is my ink and embossing storage.

Here is my Close to My Heart Ink Tower. It has its own carrying bag to take to crops.

My Stampin’ Up Pigment Inks. I don’t use them as much as I used to in the past. However, sometimes you just need a good pigment ink that stays wet for a while.

My Quick Quotes Powderpuff Inks that are a chalk ink/pigment hybrid. They live upside down (to keep the ink on top) in this little tote that I got at a CKC Seattle class with my small Glimmer Mist collection and Stickles.

Finally, my embossing box.  I took out the embossing gun for this picture, but it all stays together in this box (with flock too!).

On Friday, I will post a picture of my room with the before and after and after so far! Have a Happy December! Two batches of cookies down, a million to go!

Organize your Stuff: Week 14 (round 3): Crops

Ok, OK. The POW is aware that we are behind, and PA Me has been ordered back to therapy, or at least to TRY to allow us to keep up during the holiday season! …I apologize in advance. We are up to our eyeballs in December commitments, and sinking fast! So, until January, you may just get this Tuesday posting, but I will try to sneak in a Friday or Saturday post when I can.

Here is my Design Team card for Tuesday Trio Sketch #44- circle challenge. Creative Me finally tried out punching out the same color punch-out as base page, and loved the result on this card. I think that it is definitely something that Creative Me will have to keep in the mental rolodex for future layouts and cards!

Also, the POW promised to share some blogs to pass on the Stylish Blogger Award from last week to some people who have not received it yet (and so many of my favorites already have!!!). Here are some, because *gasp* we have only been on the computer like 30 minutes all week! (Sorry!) These four are great, and PA Me has volunteered to keep searching… but that means that nothing else would get done! Congratulations on being a Stylish Blogger…at least in my mind!

Just link back here when you accept your award.

Tell your bloggers 8 things about yourself.

Send this to up to 8 Stylish Bloggers you know!

http://craftystorage.blogspot.com/ -because I envy every one of those scrap rooms, and it gives me some great inspiration! I spent HOURS here the first time I visited (PS- Tracy-saw your room on Nov 29th entry! Congrats!!!)

http://orlishamir.blogspot.com/ -This is Orli’s blog from my Tuesday Trio Design Team. She always does fabulous work, and I considered here stylish before she made the team…plus it was her birthday this week!

http://justanotherdayherein.blogspot.com/ -Debby really inspired me when she entered a card contest at Tuesday Trio, and she definitely has scrapping style! Debby you rock!

http://kawaiisb.dropper.hacca.jp/ Aci does some really neat and different stuff! I found her on 2 peas, and always enjoy peeking at her site! I love the way you think outside the box and get creative!

So, crops. Every crop starts with PA Me in charge. I do not think that the POW has ever negotiated a pack out more than 48 hours in advance (and that would only be the order photos part, and sometimes that is only an hour or two prior to the crop! I love you Costco!!). Mostly I think that is because I am a mom and too busy … and I am a mom, and packed boxes in the hallway means the Scrap Fairy has left presents for Girl Friday… and they will never make it to the crop.

So, at least 2 hours prior to crop time… The POW finally gets Creative Me and OCD Me together to pack. It goes amazingly well, as I crop like once a month since 2005, so my once written out OCD Me lists are now mostly memorized. My key tools are as follows:

Crop Bags (I actually have 3 plus one mini for my ink tower).  These are important here, as we have a rainy season from  November to July!

a wooden rack that I got at Fred Meyers (a Krogers store) from the kitchen/ bath/ storage section.  This way you can overpack, and fit it on your table!

mini folding table-when I think I can get away with it, or know that the table space will be really small.  Currently a works in progress catch-all!

Tool bag (I need to upgrade to a larger model…hint, hint Santa-they have them at Wal Mart).  I use it at home and away, and it carries all the essentials from Crop-o-dile to exacto blade to staples.

CTMH reversible mat (self healing/ stamping)- I forgot this once, and it was horrible!

Scrap folder (with my scraps) to add that extra bit of color or whatever...

The rest depends on the project, and the time of the crop- 3 days or 3 hours or somewhere in between.  Those things get stuffed into those crop bags and I am on the road. Since I have all of my cardstock in Cropper hoppers, if it is a BIG crop, I can just pack them up in a cardboard box from Costco, and they come with-easy peasy!

Organize your Stuff: Week 13 (round 3): Stamps

This is a busy entry, so let’s get too it! Well for starters, let me wish my fabulous Jewish readers a festive and Happy Hanukkah! May there be plenty of gelt and latkes to go around! (and I will totally accept any fabulous latke recipes as my Nana never passed hers on…) Here is my Design Team card for Tuesday Trio’s Hanukkah Sketch #43.

You may not be able to tell, but the vellum in the background has the lyrics to Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song, literally the only Hanukkah song to make it onto the radio waves, at least here in America. It is fun, irreverent, but not mocking. The words are stamped using CTMH Giggle lowercase, and I hand drew the dreidel with a coordinating ink pen.

Next, is a super THANK YOU!!! to Scrappy-ness for passing along the Stylish Blogger Award to me! It is definitely an honor! The rules for this award (kind of like a chain letter but one that is cool to recieve!) are to link back to the sender (here), pass it on to 8 others that have not received it yet, and share 8 things about yourself.

8 things about me…

1. My favorite food is East Coast Chinese food (because Washington State’s Chinese is just different)- specifically Won Ton Soup and Chicken Lo Mein (which is Chicken Chow Mein here). To make up for it, I will eat sushi and Japanese Steakhouse!

2. I grew up with 3 television channels, but I do not know how anyone can survive married life without satellite TV and DVR.

3. When I was little, I wanted to grow up and be Cinderella’s Step Mother because she made all the rules, got breakfast in bed every day, someone else did the chores, and I wouldn’t have to marry some stinky old prince (but I love you Fabulous spouse!).

4. I would rather eat something salty-like potato chips- then something sweet- like cookies.

5. I do not have a favorite color, but Girl Friday has arbitrarily decided that mine is Purple.

6. I have a really hard time finishing projects. Ok that is something that you already know. PA Me is probably my most dominant personality!

7. I have a broken NO button. My husband tells me to NAVY: Never Again Volunteer Yourself!! But I always seem too.

8. I have a black thumb. The only plant that I haven’t killed is the hops that we grow in the backyard for homemade beer. …oh and the roses in the front yard of which I am very allergic, and actually would prefer that they died.

Now, who else is stylish out there?...find out next week (because I actually have to find you)!

Stamps are my downfall! The Inner Hoarder has never seen a stamp that she did not like! That keeps OCD Me on her toes. However, Creative Me uses these stamps (and inks!) on just about every layout or card somewhere! So, it is always important to keep these organized. As you can see, all of my wood mounted rubber stamps are on the left side of my new work desk, and the acrylic ones are on the right. OCD Me does not know why we keep the wood mounted ones, they are clutter to her. However, since they are mostly corralled in this old VCR rack, the POW has allowed my Inner Hoarder to keep them. I am thinking of cataloguing them, but I have thousands…I counted them last round, but the Inner Hoarder has collected more since then!

Here is my final entry for the Kitchen Keepsakes Food Network Challenge. Week 4 is Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and I made my Thanksgiving Turkey Soup! Like any meal worthy of being tried on the show, it is a multi day event. Day 1: Cook the turkey (Thanksgiving). Day 2: Boil the Carcass and drippings all day in a stock pot. Day 3: Strain and retrieve any meat from the carcass (and put in containers to freeze-aprox 9 cups) then make the soup for the restless horde!  since last time I did 12 pictures, this time, I did one! Definatly Yo-bama-lama. Or whatever!

Organize your Stuff: Week 12 (round 3): Ribbons Part 2

This Week’s ribbon layout:

I used my solid color cardstock, so that the ribbons would really pop, and a couple of pumpkins from my stash from Jolee’s (from like 2004).


Well, we survived the snow, Thanksgiving, …and Black Friday (BTW whichever retailer decided to start black Friday on Thursday…I loathe you! And my family is not happy to have a truly functionally sleep deprived mom walk in the door at 7:15 AM to go to bed after a day of Thanksgiving cooking followed by black belt marathon shopping- when all they want is waffles).

Here is the after for ribbon. 

After spending three days snowed in with 6 inches of snow (seriously, people who see snow more than once every 2 years, it is not polite to make snarky laugh sounds come out your nose! It was CRIPPLING! I almost did not get my Safeway Thanksgiving dinner in a box!...The POW almost had to go all Donner Party (for non US followers or those who slept through Pioneer expansion, look it up in Wikipedia) and eat the cat…not really, but it would have been Otter Pops and frozen peas, and that scary thing from the back of the fridge that has freezer burn, but the Inner Hoarder hasn’t thrown away yet) not only did OCD Me have the ribbons organized, but Creative Me knocked out two pages from Fabulous Spouse’s Iraq album (from 2007 and totally on my to do list) as well as the above Halloween layout.

As for the Kitchen Keepsake Challenge, we are entering our last week, so look forward to a layout that represents: Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. As Luck (and weather) would have it, after Thanksgiving, I always make from scratch Turkey Soup! It is totally worthy of any Jersey Diner, so I hope you like it!

Finally, welcome back from the hospital, Dailly!!! Tuesday Trio is back and running! I am reposting my Design Team entry for this week’s challenge below, and will have a new card on Tuesday for them. Welcome back Dailly, glad that you are doing better and Happy Holidays!

Organize your Stuff: Week 12 (round 3): Ribbons Part 1

Well, today we are snow bound! Don’t laugh Midwesterners or people who see snow more than once every two years… we had 6 inches in two days in our little town in the Greater Seattle Metro. That is worse than a full fledged ice storm in the south! Our weather bunny made a point of telling us that we were warmer than Barrow, Alaska (the northern most point at 34 degrees Fahrenheit), but one of Fabulous Spouse’s co-workers in Montana told us we were insane, as today they had 12 inches of snow, it was a high of -4 with a with a wind chill of -20 degrees Fahrenheit, and everyone went to school and work no problem. I bet they have more than 3 snowplows for the county too!

Since I could not go out, we ate in! Here is the Chicken Marsala that I made on Sunday…and braved our horrible not really that snowy roads to get the pictures from Costco to enter at Kitchen Keepsakes (If they don’t plow soon, I am nominating Fabulous Spouse for Snow removal director. The county cannot hear your theories on snow removal from living in the land of the Alberta Clippers while growing up through the TV…I’m sorry. It is true. Same with the football coaches, dear. The sound only works one way)!

There are two techniques that I used for this quilting panel (a total scrap user upper! So there Inner Horder!).  First, I used bamboo ink to distress the bright whites that did not go with the Graphics 45 base page.

Then, rather than cuttung up another sheet to put squares that match the base page, I just broke out the exacto knife, and cut holes in my "quilt"!

This week is ribbon week! Last round, OCD me did a pretty good job of collecting the ribbons that the Inner Hoarder had collected over the years, and put them in a DMC Floss style container (actually a fishing lure tackle box with removable dividers). The fibers are mostly all on bobbins, roughly by color. I found that suddenly, Creative Me was using ribbon more!… well because she could find it! However, the POW has noticed that the Inner Hoarder has been holding out on us, just a little. Also, it seems that the more ribbon that Creative Me uses, the more ribbon I seem to have!

This week is really a tidy up week for OCD Me rather than a reinvent the wheel one. This is good, as I am theoretically busy…if I can ever get out of our development! Fabulous Crisann at 2 Peas asked us how many of us used sewing machines on our pages, and so far it has been mostly a resounding:
 BAAAAHAAAWWAAAAAHHA!!! LOL –from Luvs2lilboyz,
DO I sew? BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh sorry...um, no- scrappin usmc,
Uh - no!-weaser,
SEW what is that? Oh that was based on the class I took in Jr. High and was doing so poorly I was flunking-lovesribbons.
No! I don't sew on layouts!-scrappinJudy
She [MIL] keeps the machine, I give her my sewing. It's a win-win really-Kris74

The only real yes was:
LydiaInk- Yes! Mostly by hand because my sewing machine is generally stored away and I'm too lazy to set it up

My sewing machine lost its electrical attachment when we moved in 2008, and PA Me has not made it to Sears to get a replacement cord yet.
See you at the end of the week!