Organize your Stuff: Week9 (round 4): OWH Blog hop & Embellishments part 1

This is just a quick post this morning to celebrate the Men and Women serving this great country during Memorial Weekend! To help Celebrate, Creative Me made some more cards for the fabulous folks at Operation Write Home (OWH).

If there is any doubt in your mind that this is a for real and awesome charity (sending blank cards to the troops to write home), fear not! Awesome Auntie has received two OWH cards from her husband (my brother-in-law) since he left for Iraq in April.

Here are my cards…

Since it was embellishment week, we had to use buttons (LOVE them!) even though Fabulous Spouse put us on button probation for overuse… (that’s okay, Creative Me snuck a clear button on to his Iraq layout on the previous post on the Bingo Travel Card…maybe we do have a problem!)  We especially love the heart button with the yellow ribbon.  The POW does, however, want to show that we can be more than just buttons, so...

We also made a much simpler card using the same liquid glass that was the adhesive for the buttons to add dimension to the patterned paper and stamped phrase.

The POW did snag us some blog candy for this weekend. One name will be drawn from this post (don’t really need to be a follower, but it is easier to get a hold of you!), one from yesterday’s Iraq layout post, and the final one from our June 1st post! Winners announced June 4th! So, that is 3 chances…Woo Hoo!

Happy Hopping!!! And a great Memorial Day Weekend!!!

You should have ust come From Trish at Mouseprint Creations
and next is Sharon at Sharon's Shenanagans!

Organize your Stuff: Week 8 (round 4): Projects, Pages, and Kits part 2

It has been a busy week here at the shoe. (For those of you who are not regular readers, it is our family of 5, our cat, Fabulous Spouse’s SIL (whose husband is IA to Iraq), her two little ones, her 2 cats and her dog…therefore our home has become that of nursery rhymes “there was an old lady who lived in a shoe…”) However, we did manage to get two layouts done from when Fabulous Spouse went to Iraq during the surge in 2007 in honor of the Operation Write Home blog hop tomorrow morning. (PS- thanks for scrolling down if you are reading this after the hop has begun!).

Speaking of Kits, here Creative Me used the Destinations kit from Simple Stories that was purchased by the Inner Hoarder at CKC Portland in March… this is currently my current new favorite paper manufacturer!

The POW has been instructed by Creative Me that layout #2 is not perfect yet, but OCD Me wanted it published anyways, so that we could show that we are making progress (the rest of this album… so far… can be viewed here in my Facebook album).

Here is some blog candy with which the POW has convinced the Inner Hoarder to part.

We have three prizes. One for those who are followers and comment to this post, one for comments to followers who post to the blog hop post, and one for the comments of followers posted on June 1st. There will be more than the 4x6 journaling elements page, one of the three playing card strips, and ribbon in each…but we are not sure what. We work at a scrapbook store all this weekend, and SOMETHING will speak to Creative Me, we are sure of it! Since Oldest Child was my random generator for the last blog hop (and truly, is there anything more random than a boy in middle school?). Girl Friday, Illusive Middle Child, and Shark Bait a.k.a. The Toddler will pick the winners this time around.

Organize your Stuff: Week 8 (round 4): Projects, Pages, and Kits part 1

Here is our Tuesday Trio layout for this week: Sketch #68, New Beginnings. This card was made using BoBunny paper that Creative Me received in the May Heartstring Designs’ Kit. It was already cut to 6 x 12 and we did not know what to do with it! But ta-dah! It is done!

 It is kind of like Willy Wonka (the non-Johnny Depp version) with bubbles, bubbles everywhere and not a drop to drink… but like Charlie and Uncle Joe, we cannot resist and a few Fizzy Lifting Drinks and before you know it the Inner Hoarder has amassed a small…ok not so small… stash of stuff that just never seems to make the page. It is not that it isn’t good stuff, it is just that the Inner Hoarder cannot find the right layout…or in the heat of the moment goes out and buys even more stuff that is “just perfect” for that layout.

The other thing that Creative Me seems to amass is piles of un-journaled layouts (to be honest it is because OCD Me is paranoid and does not want the POW to disclose too much about our family…but seriously-we have a blog!). That and PA Me just gets us distracted by the time we have to put in the journaling! We tackled a bunch of them today. Now we mostly have Iraq layouts that just need journaling from Fabulous Spouse.

Finally, we have the Scrapbook Store Projects! Creative Me has a bunch- that are just lacking photos! Why is it that we never seem to take enough 3x3 and 4x4 photos to use in these projects? Due to space constraints, The POW made a rule two years ago that Creative Me could not take a class unless she finished a class project…so we have not taken a non-CKC weekend class in 2 years…hmmm.

In the arena of projects, hoping (cross my fingers) to get more 2007 Iraq layouts done by this weekend (as it is Memorial Weekend). Wish us luck!

Organize your Stuff: Week 7 (round 4): Ideas part 2

While publications (yes, PA Me and the Inner Hoarder still have not done anything about them yet) and the net provide ideas and inspiration for many layouts. Sometimes it is really just a picture or the paper that makes it happen.

In a time where so many paper companies are closing…remember Rusty Pickle and Shabby Green Door? …There is a new paper company on the scene with some pretty cool stuff- Simple Stories. When we went to CKC Portland in March, Creative Me just fell in love with their Life Documented line, and the papers just shouted “Buy me! You will love me!”

The quote and photo mat page is what inspired this layout! Girl Friday is my Pepto-Bismol pink tomboy, and the Simple Stories papers just spoke to Creative Me as it managed to be grungy and girly at the same time. While OCD Me, PA Me, and the Inner Hoarder are still in seven ways negotiations via soup cans and waxed string, ideas still keep coming and the inspiration is there. (So don’t fret if your pile of ideas is still just a pile).

As for the rest of the week, everyone had scouts, Girl Friday and the Illusive Middle Child finished swim lessons, we celebrated our birthday (yeah!!!), and we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (better than 2 and 3, but still not as good as the original). 

Finally, we went fishing with Oldest Child’s Boy Scouts on Saturday, and Illusive Middle Child’s Cub Scouts on Sunday. Therefore, we had rainbow trout for dinner last night… and the POW had to have the talk with Illusive Middle Child about how it was not nice to poke out eyeballs…even if it was your fish, it is dead, and we are just going to throw away the heads anyway. Seriously?! This was NOT anywhere in the parenting handbook.

Tomorrow: Projects, pages, and kits!

Organize your Stuff: Week 7 (round 4): Ideas part 1 & WOYWW

For those What's On Your Workspace Wednesday-ers...Here is my workspace… chaos as usual!

 

This week is Ideas and Inspiration... and how to store it.  Where do you get your creative ideas? What gives you your mojo the ability to go-go?

When we started scrapbooking, Creative Me and the Inner Hoarder were the Magazine Queens! However, these days, not so much. (However, do not even think of touching my Simple Scrapbook collection, or the Inner Hoarder will carve out your heart…with a spoon! (vague Kevin Costner Robin Hood reference…sorry)).

Today’s Card inspiration is from Tuesday Trio. This is my Design Team entry for Sketch # 67... a love card.

This is Sketch # 66 (as we did not post it last Tuesday!) ...a blue and white card.

This is where we get most of our inspiration these days, the net. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of talented people and sketches and challenges out there to help you get out of that rut and get crafting!

Speaking of which, Memorial Weekend, we will be partnering up with always inspiring Operation Write Home for their card blog hop to support the troops! There is still time to join, if you want to share too (registration deadline is May 25th).

Organize your Stuff: Week 6 (round 4): Photos part 2

It has taken a while…and a completely new photo printer at Costco after several failed fix attempts, but the photos are here!... and therefore a layout!

This is Oldest Child’s wrestling season. This layout was selected from about 150 photos taken. Do you have the same problem that we do trying to capture our children’s sports in photos? For Football season OCD Me probably took a minimum of 200 digital pictures a game over eight games (that is 1600+ pictures). Then, it is left to the POW and Creative Me to figure out what pictures to use… and when the Inner Hoarder is involved, the choices are even harder to make and cull down to The One (or ones) for a layout.

As for new photos, here is a picture of our Mother’s Day camping in the rain. The POW was boycotting the holiday as the Reserves will shift everyone’s drill for Super Bowl Sunday, but not Mother’s Day. We are pretty sure that Somebody up the food chain must have Mommy issues. So, my tribe went camping, Awesome Auntie and hers went to the zoo (and stayed dry), and a fun time was had by all!

Also, here is the Illusive Middle Child as center of the universe…if only for a moment at his First Communion. Talk about hundreds of photos from which to pick! We have at least four camera’s worth of pictures to sift through to find The Ones. Well, tomorrow we will talk ideas, and have a card or two!

Organize your Stuff: Week 6 (round 4): Photos part 1

It is ironic that it is photos week this week, as we sent about ten layouts worth of photos to Costco on Saturday, and the photo printer has been broken since.  The POW is not happy. Last we heard, they might have the parts tomorrow night…. Hmmm…

Go figure, Creative Me finally has a little free time with the WMD asleep, and Awesome Auntie and the Toddler at swim lessons, and no photos… during photo week!

However, Creative Me and the POW did complete the tutorial as promised for Tuesday Trio and their pink and black challenge for Sketch 65. (sketch is flipped upside down).This is a pretty easy technique that we have seen floating around the net, most recently at Operation Write Home a few months back.

Paper pieced embossed papers

Step 1: Hand cut, die cut, or punch paper shapes.

Step 2: Glue shapes to desired area of paper.

Step 3: Place paper in an embossing folder and run through die cut or embossing machine (I have a Cuttlebug).

Step 4: Remove custom papers from embossing folder.

Step 5: Embellish!

Hopefully, the planets, the pets, and the people will cooperate!

Organize your Stuff: Week 5 (round 4): Scraps & OLW Blog Hop

First, our stuff… As for scraps, even before our first round in the Organize your Stuff Challenge, we had our scraps in order. Mainly because Girl Friday… and sometimes the Illusive Middle Child… like to craft alongside Creative Me, there is really not the hoard of scraps that Inner Hoarder would otherwise collect. It is recycling at its finest! My kids know that if it is in this accordion folder it is fair game, and that seems to protect the rest of the stash.

This is a card we made using 100% scraps from our stash. It uses the same sketch as the Tuesday Trio card that Creative Me made for Tuesday. So if you want to know how Creative Me made the paper pieced the embossed paper background, there will be a tutorial on Tuesday as well!

Today is May 1st, and that means another chance to share our homework, and the work of others for the One Little Word class with Ali Edwards and then get on to our stuff!

Junior Residents of the Shoe

Our word for this year is Embrace! … and Embrace we have. This month, we have learned the following:

WMD sucking our thumb

…to let the Clutter Fairy do her thing…it makes her happy, that in most cases we can sleep through the WMD (side note: WMD turned 5 months old this past week, and the colic wail has gotten much better… except for when it’s not. She is definitely not shelf stable yet.) however that is not the case with the dog or the cat they wake us every time, that being the Lady of the Shoe means that you spend much less time on the computer- but that is not necessarily a bad thing, that finding scrap time is also harder because you can find 5 minutes to surf the net…but not an hour or more to do a layout, that no matter how many personalities you may claim to have on your blog, they cannot be in 3 places at once…therefore at least one of 3 children will be disappointed, that Fabulous Spouse will always be the favorite parent as he flits in and out of the shoe when he is not on travel, and that it is really nice to have family close by…even if close is the guest room.

The Family at Sky Resturaunt
(I'm far right)

This month we were asked to add a letter to ourselves to our OLW scrapbook. The theory is to go back a year from now and read it. PA Me put this off for as long as possible, one because we were busy, and two because we just did not know what to write. Then, feeling a bit nostalgic, and with the POW knowing that there was a blog deadline, we got down to it. The biggest thing that we realized while writing this is that all of the upheaval that we have endured and embraced will be coming again. A year from now, Awesome Auntie, the WMD, the toddler, and the menagerie will be heading home to wherever the Navy takes them. Meanwhile, Fabulous Spouse will be three months into a 400+ day deployment to Afghanistan (unless his orders change again), and we will have gone from three parents to one. That change will be harder to Embrace than this one… even if it means that we have lots of Me time and get to officially retire our Lady of the Shoe status.

MAY 1 BLOG HOP LIST
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog
Lisa Allen www.backtoallen.com/writers_blog
Abbey R http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
Jill C. http://jillconyers.typepad.com/
Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
Amanda K. http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/    <---You are Here!
Cheri A. http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Rebekah P. http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Lynn W. http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Monica B2 http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Chrissy http://getcraftywithchrissy.blogspot.com/
Jen S. http://www.byjen.com/
Monica B1 http://www.scraplifters.blogspot.com/
Katrina http://k84mansramblings.blogspot.com/
Julie Ann http://julieannshahin.blogspot.com/
Jenn http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Donna B http://www.donnabryantdurand.blogspot.com/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/
Karen D http://womenontractors.blogspot.com/