Another week that has flown by. Not sure how it happens that I don’t even touch my blog for a week at a time. That being said, I have been working on creative pursuits whenever possible. Well that’s not exactly accurate…I did waste a bunch of time one day on YouTube watching other people exploring the great outdoors when we were cooped up inside.
Getting organized has been a priority for me over the last few months. Trust me…I’m just scratching the surface. I’m sort of an organized chaos type of person. I want to change that so I’m working in baby steps.
I’ve gathered my paper scraps into this bin to make them more usable and visible.
But along with getting organized I trip myself up… I hate waste. Throwing stuff out really bothers me which is why I always seem to have a mountain of scraps.
With that in mind, I’m continuing my efforts to use scraps in creative ways. Mini-collages for cards and journal pages mostly.
Now that I have my sentiment stamps all in one spot, I have an easier time finding the words I want to use.
I wasn’t sure I was going to get this posted when I started to write, find and edit photos etc yesterday. But I guess my brain had other ideas. I woke super early this morning soI was able to sit and finish my post with my first cup of coffee before getting ready for work.
This week is one of change. J heads back to college for the Spring semester. Our school is having its final week of the semester. Next week brings new classes for me and Mini-me, just to name a few. With J heading back to college I’ll once again be expanding my crafty space to include the desk in his room. Perhaps then I’ll catch up with a couple of projects that have hit the back burner over the last month.
New projects
I’m creating an embellishment storage booklet. I was inspired by Gayle Agostinelli. So far I only have one page of the booklet completed. It’s not pretty but that wasn’t my purpose. I’m using up papers and extras that I’ll never use. It’s strictly utilitarian. Waste not, want not.
I slipped a few random paper pieces in the pockets so they’d actually show up…
It will make better sense when it’s all put together but basically I want to have a book or booklet with all my small or fussy cut embellishments at the ready instead of searching through half a dozen places for just the right piece I know I own.
Another new project is actually an old one that I never started. The sketchbook project that I purchased over the summer. Of course, at the time the due date seemed so far away…now its only weeks away.
I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of these pages in the weeks to come. My only disappointment is that the pages are so thin…any wet media really soaks through very quickly. I definitely have to keep this in mind instead of just intuitively creating as I prefer.
Last weekend we finally put away all the Christmas decor. I snapped this late even photo the night before for my obligatory T Tuesday beverage reference.
Something fun that just came in the mail that I had to share was our “free” Marvin puzzle.
I say “free” because for the puzzle itself we had a coupon code making it $0 but then the shipping seemed a bit overpriced so they definitely were making their money somehow.
I snapped this pretty sky photo when I got to work this morning. The sun was behind a veil of thin clouds…it was a perfect orange disk. The view almost made up for the slick driving conditions from the overnight snow. Almost.
Such a bummer…we’re getting snow again right now…in fact, we are getting snow basically every day this week during one or both commutes. Not fun.
Because it’s January I start to think about summer. You always want what you can’t have..right?
So let’s have a Second on the 2nd look at the summer of love swap
9/27/2009 Summer of Love ATC swap
These were so fun to make!!
I started with an 8.5×11 sheet of periwinkle cardstock. With an old credit card, I spread out some orange and yellow craft paints.
After that was dry, I used rubber stamps, more paint, markers, and stencils to create lots of background interest.
When I was happy with it I cut 9 ATC’s from my full sheet of cardstock.
I freehanded a VW bug to make a template then cut little bugs out of discarded book pages. Paint and marker were applied in a very loose manner.
I punched wheels from black “handmade paper” …I put that in quotes since it was actually store-bought. I then used little flower sticker for some fun hubcaps.
The part that I love the most is the genuine VW key attached to each one. I grew up with tons of Volkswagons. My dad and his friend would buy them cheap, fix them up and resell. Sometimes they would just part them out. Dad never threw out anything so I had just enough VW keys laying around to give these ATC’s just a little extra punch!
Hello and welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday! You may have noticed that I’ve been gone a while. I talked about my back saga in the previous post so we are moving on to something more festive and fun!
Since we were hosting Christmas (because I love it!) I had to lean on the rest of the family to do all of the heavy and not so heavy lifting.
Even the simple things like getting a cake in and out of the oven.
The past few years I’ve made a rum cake for Christmas but this time I went for a Fireball Whiskey cake. It was so good. I forgot to take a photo of it with the icing…likely because it wasn’t very pretty.
We had overnight guests on Christmas eve…Mini-me gave up her bed and slept on the couch. Of course, this meant that she was up even earlier than she usually is. She is my early bird kid.
It was a long wait…even with me making all kinds of noise in the kitchen.
This was my favorite present under the tree…it’s hard to wrap arrows. Mini-me needed a new set for archery season which is just days away.
Marvin had to be a part of the chaos…bows are his favorite.
I suppose the whiskey cake could have been my “beverage” for T stands for Tuesday but instead, I thought I’d share the tiniest cocktail I’ve ever seen. My BIL brought this over. It wasn’t anything I cared for but the can sure was cute.
I’ve been working on purging my rubber stamps. I was so frustrated digging through them trying desperately to find a Happy Anniversary stamp since I had promised my MIL that I’d make her some cards. I had a bunch of bases completed they just needed a sentiment and the also requested “shiny butterflies”. Thankfully I have a very crafty neighbor who is willing to share. Thanks, KW!
The “shiny butterflies” have the big wow factor but are pretty easy to make. I stamped each butterfly on white card stock with black Staz-on ink. I used watercolor paint to colorize each. After completely dry, I fussy cut each and placed on a non-stick surface. I coated each one with Diamond glaze. As they dry a slight curl happens quite naturally giving them an even more “lifelike” appearance.
I have now looked through every single one of my stamps and alas…I never even had a Happy Anniversary stamp. ugh. Well, now I do…I bought a set of sentiments at Michaels. I’m sure you’ll be seeing some cards in the near future with these words.
Today is Mini-me’s 17th birthday. I can hardly believe it.
I was planning to go out and get her favorite meal… Chipotle…but we are getting a snowstorm. It remains to be seen if we venture out or not.
Speaking of crazy storms and slippery conditions….have you seen this video?
The video was taken a few miles from our house. Mini-me had friends on that bus heading to a girls’ hockey tournament.
Hello!! I bet you thought I forgot all about blogging. December has been full of highs and lows….none of which had me racing to the keyboard to share. Since my last completed post was December 3rd, we have a great deal of catching up to do.
December 10th I actually had a partial post written for T Tuesday wrapping up November.
T Tuesday: November wrap-up edition
I’m a little slow on the draw lately. I’m finally wrapping up November. Technically, I’m not fully wrapped up since I haven’t completed the #junkjournalnov19 prompts. But just go with me on this.
11/30 Zodiac sign
12/30 Autumn evening
14/30 Dress
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As you can see I never finished the post including missing one of the days. That’s ok…I’m learning to embrace imperfection.
December really was a whirlwind. Lots of activities, snowstorms, J coming home for winter break, shopping, cooking, sewing, shoveling, cleaning, decorating and a little bit of creating.
Everything came to a screeching halt when I threw my back out on December 12th….the morning of Mini-me’s holiday choir concert…also a Thursday. This was really unfortunate because my chiropractor doesn’t work on Thursday! I always seem to break on a Thursday!
The last 2 weeks have been painful and scary at times. I’ve had an urgent care visit, 2 ER visits, 2 injections, 5 medications, an MRI, 7 days of missed work and numerous chiropractor visits…including one today.
In the end, I’m doing much better. Diagnostic tests came back good, the healing process is moving forward. My back still is easily fatigued and a bit fragile but something really positive came out of this. I’m learning to ask for help, let others do, letting go of things I can’t change and embrace the chaos.
Most of what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks is sewing in my spare time.
I can’t stop. I pushed off my junk journal November project a bit because of all my sewing. I still plan to finish the prompts…just a bit behind schedule.
I completed another quilt top with my scraps and some that were gifted to me. So many fun fabrics!!
I haven’t decided on the backing and binding yet to it sits for now.
Our school is having the annual craft boutique this week. After last year’s dismal turnout, I wasn’t sure I’d even participate but I just couldn’t help myself. Since I was in full sewing mode I decided to try a couple of crafty items that I wanted for myself but would be great and less costly made in bulk.
My first item is key chain wristlets. They are so cute! Since I have such a huge selection of scrap fabrics, I knew these would be perfect for another stash-busting project.
My next item has school staff written all over it.
They are lip balm holders on a clip. Perfect to attach to your lanyard, bag, backpack, purse….you get the picture.
Lots of fun varieties to fit anyone’s fancy.
Today when I set up I saw the cutest Gnome and snowmen decorations. I hope I make more than I spend. :)
Last week had my college student home not only for Thanksgiving but for two additional days due to bad weather on either end of the holiday break. You know its bad when they cancel college classes. But a blizzard with over 20 inches of snow will do that.
Today had me at school and then at a meeting until dinner time. Long day…but I knew I still wanted to stop in for T Tuesday before you all forgot all about me. LOL My own fault…I haven’t been very active in the blogosphere lately.
So playing catch-up is harder than I expected. But I’m not giving up in #junkjournalnov19
Repurposed 6/30
This page isn’t my favorite but I definitely nailed the prompt. I used all repurposed items or ones headed for the trash. Such as the end cuts off a quilt block, packaging from a makeup brush, a scrap of greeting card and it was all adhered to a magazine cover as my substrate. If that isn’t repurposed I don’t know what is!
Colored leaves 7/30
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I had a ton of fun with this one. I stitched a few pressed leaves into an interactive specimen pocket. After journaling about my love of fall and memories of fallen leaves I decided that a few punched leaves would add the right touch to the page.
Vintage 8/30
Not my usual style but I do love vintage!! Honestly, every time I create a super vintage page I wonder why I don’t more often.
I picked out a few pieces that seemed to fit with the embroidered piece that was on the book page before I started. I originally thought the embroidery would be a focal point. Nope..my mind took a sharp left. I ended up with a two-page spread since I had so many things I just had to use.
Foggy 9/30
This prompt had me a bit stumped…then I thought of waking from a dream. How the images are a bit foggy in your mind. Just out of reach. I used vellum to cover the existing page to give the illusion of fog. The found text story was super fun to come up with from my stash.
Autumn food 10/30
Ah, apples. The perfect fall food. Whether you grab one straight off the tree and polish it on your shirt before crunching into that beautiful gem. Or a fresh-baked apple crisp. Apples are a gift.
