One more

Lots of Thank You cards with baby gifts coming in. :)

Bazzill CS
Gin-X patterned papers (that I'd been hoarding)
Fiskars border punch
Cuttlebug embossing folder & butterfly
Cricut Mini Monogram (scalloped circle)
Hero Arts sentiment

Trying to find my groove

Almost 8 weeks ago I gave birth to my second son, and since then I've been trying to find the time and energy to get back into scrapping. So I'm starting small with cards. For two days in a row now I've made my way upstairs rather than to the couch (to sit with my laptop).

Here's what I've come up with:

Cardstock: Bazzill (green) & DCWV (pink & black)

PP: Tinkering Ink

Prima flowers

Hero Arts sentiment

Fiskars border punch

Cuttlebug embossing folder

Based on the bonus sketch this week on 2S4Y

Bazzill cardstock

Tinkering Ink & Scenic Route (small blue dots) PP

Cricut Storybook & Mini Monograms

MM letter stickers

Fiskars border punch

Martha Stewart glitter

Based on CPS #111 sketch

Bazzill cardstock

Scenic Route PP

Heidi Swapp journaling spot

Hero Arts stamp

Colorbox ink

Cuttlebug embossing folder

Cricut George cartridge

Based on Laura's sketch #24

We R Memory Keepers PP (stripes)

Scenic Route PP (dots)

Bazzill CS

American Crafts felt stars

Stickles

Cricut Opposites Attract cartridge

Based on CPS sketch #112

This one is from Valentine's Day, but I never posted it. It was for my son whom I call my Cuddlebug. :)

Bazzill CS

Teen font

Stickles

Cricut Doodlecharms (bug & hearts) & Mini Monograms (scallop circle) cartridges

Cuttlebug embossing folder

CPS #98

A circle card instead of square. :) I used up some OLD scraps. MOD to be specific.

Papers: MOD by Autumn Leaves & Bazzill

Cricut carts: Celebrations & Wild Card

Embellies: Dew Drop, AC flowers

Clean Room

I spent some time the last few days doing some reorganization in my craft area. We moved the armoire upstairs when we got a flat screen TV for Christmas. I'd really like to paint it white, but I think it'll have to wait until this summer. BUT, I put all my Scrap Room kits away and labeled all my papers. :)

This summer I think I will paint the armoire white.

Baby Shower Card - 2S4Y

I spent some time reorganizing my space this last week. I got all my Scrap Room kits put away. I just hope I can start USING all of it now. I also sat down with my sketch book and sketched some of the sketches. LOL! Follow that? My scrap space is small and I just find it easier to have my little 3x8 book on my desk than my laptop. Plus, I tend to get distracted by the computer.

I had to make a card for a baby shower, so I used Kazan's sketch #17 from 2S4Y as my starting point. I used some OLD paper scraps here, but that's another one of my goals. To use up some of those SCRAPS. My goal is for 5 cards total this week - 4 more to go! We'll see if I can accomplish that.

Recent Pursuits of Crafy-ness

I'm trying very hard to be creative. I mean, I have the creative mind and ideas, but the energy itself is severely lacking.

Here are some recent projects I've been working on though.
This is just a little "soft sculpture" for Evan's nursery. Basically, I didn't feel like paying $15 for a stuffed animal. I free handed him on a receiving blanket and then cut him out, sewed him up and stuffed him. Then I added a fun coordinating ear and button eye. It was fun! I haven't done much "fabric" sewing before. I tried once upon a time and SUCKED, but apparently all the time/effort sewing on paper has made me better on my machine in general. :)

More Sewing Projects - a pillow and burp cloths

All kinds of fun patterns here. The pillow was also from a receiving blanket. The animals/colors somewhat matched my bedding set and the flannel is so soft. I figure I'll be spending a lot of nights/time in this chair!

The burp clothes are diapers. Some of the fabric is more receiving blanket material - the green was leftover from the elephant, and there's another that uses the same flannel from the pillow, but others were just fun fabrics I ordered awhile back for this and another project I had in mind for Baby Evan.

Artwork for Evan's Wall

I've had that frame for at LEAST three years. It was almost last year's garage sale fodder, but for some reason I held onto it. We don't really have any dark wood anywhere else in the house which is why it never got used. I'm going for simplicity in Evan's nursery, so the artwork is simple too. I used the Zooballoo cart and my Cricut to cut out the animals. I mounted them onto the cardstock and that was that. Very quick project.

Sewing

It's been awhile since I hit the craft desk. I can't seem to motivate myself to get off the couch and CREATE, so I brought the create to my couch. :) I have a laundry basket full of fabric/sewing notions next to the couch and my sewing machine on the coffee table. I managed to make: an elephant, a pillow and several burp clothes. Fun stuff for the baby mostly.

The kit club kits from Scrap Room keep rolling in though and I REALLY want to get back into paper crafting, although at this point I'm intimidated and don't feel like I remember HOW to. So, I think I'll start easy with cards. I'm going to make it a goal to make at least one card per week. From there, well, we'll see what happens.

I need to get my photos and stories organized for myself SOON - I have all of 2008 and part of 2007 to finish - we're going to have a whole 'nother person here in a few short weeks. I'm going to do a better job of keeping track of Xander's quirky little sayings this year. I think I'll start a notebook that I devote just to those things.

I'll have to make a list of goals and get on that. Luckily I can do a lot of this from the couch since that's where I've been relegated to.

December Daily

I've commited to doing the December Daily album this year. I made all the pages and then, ugh, I started having lots of contractions - whenever I'm on my feet for more than 30 min. Unfortunately, my scrap area is counders. :( So, I want to keep track of what we've done so I can go back later and add my pictures, etc. I need to go back and look through some of my pictures to figure out what we've done!

November 28th - put up Christmas tree
November 29th - wrapped gifts and put them under the tree
November 30th -
December 1st - Lost tooth
December 2nd - Day at the hospital
December 3rd -
December 4th -
December 5th -
December 6th - Christmas wreaths
December 7th -
December 8th -
December 9th - snow day!
December 10th - Christmas concert
December 11th -
December 12th -
December 13th - made Chex mix & peppermint bark
December 14th - visit to Santa Claus

UPDATED - January: I didn't do a very good job with the December daily. Due to some pregnancy complications I wasn't feeling very spirited. I think I may just do a "Snapshots of the Season" page where I put all of the pictures on a 2 pg. spread. And since my album is done - I'll just peel the "8" off and replace it with a "9" and consider myself ready for next year. ;)

Dusting this thing off...

It's been awhile since I've done any type of crafting at all. Sad. Of course, it hasn't stopped me from BUYING stuff, just making it. I *think* I'm finally getting some energy back, so I'm going to devote at least a few hours every weekend to creating. Today is chilly and drizzley outside so what better thing to do! I've already been out to pick up sticks and spray painted them silver for one of today's projects, and this morning while lying in bed, I had another brainstorm for a project. :)

Stay tuned.

Bug Boy Etsy album

Bug Boy

I love SEI papers and tend to hoard them a bit. I thought these papers would make a fun spring album for pictures of a little boy. I was right. ;)

Click on the title to go to the Etsy Page

Bug Boy

Etsy Beach Album

Last week it was warm, sunny and 80. HERE in MICHIGAN in April. Unreal. Of course, today it's semi-sunny and a cold 45 degrees. Yeah, that's more what I'm use to. ;)

I cannot wait for summer when I can devote more time to my new Etsy store. :) I've decided not to teach summer school this year because of some burn out issues I'm having. Instead, I'm going to scrapbook for a living this summer. Don't worry, I still get paid by the school for the summer so I'm not a starving artist. :)

To kick off that sentiment: Summer, I have a cute album I just put on Etsy today!

CLICK the title to be taken to the Etsy store:

BEACH

Combo of the moment - blue, green and orange

Here's my tribute to green, blue and orange I guess.

My son's 5th birthday card - Cricut Celebrations cart, cuttlebug, Sassafrass Lass, Basic Gray papers, dew drops



CPS Sketch #59- Cuttlebug stars, KI letters, AC Thickers, Sassafrass Lass and Bazzill, dew drops

Speaking of oldies

I wasn't going to do last week's CPS sketch. But today I was working on a mini album (coming soon ;) ) and was inspired to make a card based on the sketch. So here's my take on CPS sketch #58



I have a sentimentality toward that SEI paper. I'm using it grudgingly because I still love it so much I want to hoard it. My first ever published layout used that SEI paper. It was a 4 generations layout. :) Good times. Maybe someday I'll get the nerve to start submitting again, or maybe even make a scrapbook page again.

New Goodies

*sigh* I ordered new goodies over a week ago from two different places - www.scrappindeals.com (whom I knew I'd have to wait for since they don't keep everything in stock) and www.cherishedscrapsandcards.com . That was my big order which said it would ship in 2-3 days but it's been 6 days and it still hasn't shipped. :( Big, BIG bummer since that was what I was hoping to play with over my spring break, which is now almost over. I guess I'll stick with the places I usually shop at from now on since I always get that stuff within 4 or 5 days shipped.

Guess I'll have to content myself with some oldies but goodies for now.

Cards

Just a few more cards I worked on last week. I can't believe I'm over 1/2 way done with Spring Break and haven't created a thing. Well, I made my 5 year old a birthday card, but that's it. Maybe later today.

Inspired by CPS sketch #56 & BBTB Contest - Cricut (Zoobaloo, AE, & Alphalicious), Basic Grey and KI Memories PP, and May Arts Ribbon



Inspired by CPS sketch #53 - Cricut (Walk in my Garden, MM), Cuttlebug embossing folder, MM PP, stickles



Inspired by CPS #52 and BBTB Contest - Cricut (Alphalicious & Zooballoo), KI & BG PP



Inspired by CPS sketch #56 and BBTB Contest - Cricut (Stretch your Imagination, Opposites Attract, AE, and MM), MM PP, stickles, buttons



Inspired by CPS sketch #56 and BBTB contest - Cricut (Zooballoo, AE, and MM), MM PP, vellum, Cuttlebug, stickles

Shopping . . . again.

Seems I've been a bit spendy on scrappy stuff lately!

- In December it was the Cricut Expression (and several cartridges)
- In January I was fairly well behaved ;)
- Then came the new Cuttlebug embossing folders and a few more Cricut cartridges
- And now I have several shopping carts filled up all over the web!

On my wishlist:
- New Prima Essentials 4
- Robin's Egg Dew Droplets
- Basic Grey Archaic and Cupcake
- DCWV glitter stacks, Blossoms and Butterflies, and Nana's Nursery
- K&Co Rough and Tumble and Berry Sweet
- Cosmo Cricket Cogsmo
- Basic Grey stamps (dinosaurs and swirls)
- More cardstock 'cause I'm running low so I joined Simply Cardstock
- Cricut Design Studio
- MME Just Dreamy
- Ribbon, running low again.

Doesn't seem like a ton does it? Yeah, I wish total wise it didn't EQUAL so much $$$! I did break down and order a few sets of the Dew Droplets and some May Arts ribbon from here this morning. They have free shipping for any order over $10!

I need to get listing on ebay! I think I've decided, reluctantly, to start submitting again. I'm going to start with cards. I adore the cards magazine but am too cheap to buy it (I just flip through it in stores *blush*). I made 4 baby cards last night - all scraps but I think they're really cute. :) I'll post those later. They were inspired by this week's CPS sketch #56 and are also for the BBTB contest, not that I need a ribbon bag, but I just want to stretch myself into entering things again. Alright, off to play Wii and dye eggs! Lovin' my laid back weekend!

So Spring begins in 5 hours . . .

do you suppose Northern Michigan got that memo? I'm going to go with n.o.p.e. Although I would not be heart broken to wake up tomorrow and find all the snow gone. Not even a smidgeon. ;) I hear that just maybe lower Michigan is going to get 4-6 inches Friday. Hmmm...tee-hee. We were in Grand Rapids this weekend to visit the ILs and see the circus and they had NO snow at all. People were out raking their lawns and my mother in law's tulips were coming up! Then we drove back, two hours north to see about 18" in our lawn still. So it makes me slightly giddy that they'll get a bit of their snow back while we're expecting none. If the whole state can't have spring, then no one can. ;)

And speaking of spring. . . only four more school days until Spring Break. YAY! We're not going anywhere, but in grand style I made a gargantuan do-do list that I'll never finish. You know, I like to set myself up for failure. ;p but I also hope to get some scrapping done.

Snow Mini Album

Listing Soon on Etsy (Check back)

Easter Card Set

A set of 4 A2 size cards: Click here to go to Etsy>>>>>>> Easter Cards

Lucky St. Patty's Day Mini Album

Lucky: Click here to go to this item on Etsy>>>>>> LUCKY