Halloween Topiary

Right now all I can say is that my scraproom is a terrible mess...counters are covered in crafting supplies, stuff all over the floor, yet I didn't even scrap this weekend. I did make a decorating project, however, but I made it at the kitchen table.

I've seen so many Christmas trees on 2peas lately using styrofoam and folded patterned paper. I literally made an emergency stop to Michaels on day this past week just before they closed because I was dying to make the Christmas tree. Problem was that I couldn't find any double sided Christmas paper...LOL. I was thinking about it more and came up with an idea to make a tree for Halloween but different. I'm pretty happy about this tree, what's even better is that everything here came from Michael's or Hobby Lobby's general crafting section. Its so fun to take some basics and turn it into something of your own. OK, I'm going on...but here's the supplies and instructions:

Supplies: Terra Cotta Pot, 2 different sized styrofoam balls and one square one, a wooden dowel, black and purple paint, glittered modge podge, wired glittery ribbon, straight pins, potting grass, double sided halloween paper, small foam black and orange glittery balls, wooden fence, and Krylon glitter spray.

Instructions:

Paint the terra cotta pot with black metallic paint, let dry and add a coat of the glittery modge podge, hot glue the square piece of foam inside of the pot. Let dry. Spray paint the styrofoam balls (this is where I messed up, I let my kids paint them black and it took hours to dry). Use a skewer or other tool to make a hole in one end of the smallest one and push through until you reach the middle.

Cut the dowel rod to size and paint purple or any other color.

Cut up the patterned paper. I used 12x12 sheets and cut about 16 pieces that were 12" long. I stack 4 of them on top of each other and wound it around the pencil to curl it. Cut the curled piece into 6 segments...don't measure, just eyeball it, you don't want all the pieces to be the same lenthwise or across. Start pinning the curled pieces with normal length straight pins. Leave the area around the hole bare until later. Take the second, larger ball and skewer a hold through the middle all the way through to the other end. Cover the ball with the patterned paper leaving space around the holes again. Put a hole in the middle of the square styrofoam and pour some hot glue into the hole. Put the rod into the pot, then feed the larger ball, then the smaller one, leaving space in between, do not feed the smaller ball all the way through the rod. Fill in the bare spaces with more PP strips and add ribbon and small ornaments with hot glue. Take project outside and spray the PP with glitter spray. Fill in the pot with the potting grass and add a broken fence.

Hopes this helps...if you have any questions, please ask.

Check out this party happening at Be Inspired Party at Rooms to Inspire!

In a couple of days I'll be sharing some more infomation about my trip to California and also a great piece of furniture I got for my scraproom!

Indian Summer Cards

Just a couple of cards I made using the new Indian Summer paper by Basic Grey. I promised myself that I wouldn't buy any more BG because I have a ton of it. Couldn't resist the 6x6 pad of it when I saw it at Archivers. Perfect for cards! I embossed the birds and butterflies with some American Crafts Copper embossing powder. This stuff is gorgeous. I think it works pretty well with the paper colors. Thanks for looking!
Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey
Cardstock, Sentiment, Slot Punch, and Definition Stamps: Stampin Up
Textured Cardstock: Bazzill (bling)
Corner Chomper Punch: We R Memory Keepers
Border Punches: Fiskars and Stampin Up
Ink: Papertry Ink (cream) and Versamark
Embossing Powder: American Crafts
Glitter Pen
Ribbon: Michaels
Photo Corners: Craft supply (left card) and Heidi Swapp (right card)

My Scraproom Updated

OK, this is going to be a long one...its been a year since I posted pics of my room. I've been doing some minor changes here and there and lately my dilemma is figuring out how to organize my paper. I was using Cropper Hopper vertical storage files, which I love, but I just wanted something different, something that makes it even easier. I'll talk about that more in a bit. OK, ready for a tour? We'll start on one end and work our way to the right.

My Expedit mounted on top of 4, 2 drawer file cabinets...all from Ikea. My ribbon storage. I cut the pieces of cardboard and wrapped the ribbon around them...tried to keep the same color family on each card. I also wrote down the manufacturer on the cardboard underneath the ribbon. I cannot tell you how easy it is to find what I want. I got this fabric box from Michaels but I haven't seen it around lately.
I'm a bit obsessed with border punches...when I first started scrapbooking 6 years ago it was just punches in general. I used this basket I already had in my kitchen and switched it out to hold all my border punches. It stays on my Expedit now.

So to the right of the Expedit on the backwall of my room is a small counter space with shelving above. You see those 2 clear red cubes there? Those are from Ikea and they are made for the Expedit. Until last night I had those in my Expedit to hold my patterned paper and cardstock...I had to pull them out to look for paper and they are heavy. I also added a Clip It Up to hold my stickers and embellishments...not all of them, most of them. I keep my journaling cards in a drawer and my Thickers in a special spot. Here is a close up of one of those cubes. They are both filled up. I have the CH file dividers in there since I organize by manufacturer. I keep my smaller papers, and stack packs in vertical folders on the other side.
I gotta say that I really love having my paper in these cubes...its so easy to thumb through them. But they won't work if they're not filled.
Some jars above the cubes that hold my large buttons. I divide my buttons by size, it may seem unconventional but I have a harder time looking for the size I want rather than the color. Sometimes the color really doesn't matter. My ribbon that I get by the yard at the scrap store goes in a jar too. They're too pretty to put away. And my candy jar on the right.

I got this MM embellishment organizer a few months back from Crop Chocolate. I put my newer loose embellies in here. I like to know the manufacturer of everything I have so I clip the name of the company and stick it in with the product.

To the right of that back table is my MM embellishment center and my Ikea beno towers. I keep jars of goodies here and they are all labeled with tags. I added a 3 tiered basket (which I got from goodwill) to hold my string and fibers. I have a drop ceiling so I can just hook it right up there. When I'm scrapbooking the beno towers are right behind me so I can look for product.

A close up of the Embellishment Center...I have another kitchen wire organizer thingie below that...it has 6 rows in it. To the right of that is my thicker storage. I think I have about 30 packages...yikes! The hooks are from Scotch, I believe. Its a hook with an adhesive that really holds up. Some of my punch storage...I keep small ones in a drawer below my expedit.

Ok, wall 3...the short end of my "L" shaped work station. I just updated this last night. I purchased 3 jetmax cubes for extra storage. Last year I added the wall vinyl saying "Be Creative Everyday". I also added a hook rod from Ikea and hung it above to hang my most recent 12x12 layouts.

On top of the cubes is my Crate and Barrell tiered basket to hold my wood stamps...everything but Stampin Up sets. Got my Cuttlebug there and in the basket on the counter are my Cuttlebug plates.

Got the cute little bulletin board from Goodwill for $1...love it.

My wide format Epson printer (which I only use for photos) I got about 9 months ago. Its so big that I had to put it under my countertop. I was looking for a printer stand...finally settled on this old Ikea TV stand we had in storage. Under that I store computer paper, photo paper, my camcorder, and my Slice.

I've only filled up the right drawers so far. This one holds embossing powders, stickles, flock, glitter, alcohol inks, etc.

The top one is for adhesives. I have an entire drawer under my Expedit stuffed so this one will be the ones I use most often. Paints, crackle paints, glazes are here.

The 4th wall and to the right of my computer is my workspace. Its about 7 foot long...to the right is my trimmer and my MM carousel and to the right of that is a large Tonic trimmer, not shown. Just got this Cropper Hopper Ink Pad holder yesterday. I love it. It holds 12 ink pads...I have a lot more than that so I just put the ones I use the most. I use my ink pads a lot so this will come in handy.

I have to add that my room is in our basement so I don't have a window. I decided to use white shelving and counters to brighten it up.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little tour.

Making Life a Bit Easier

OK, so I love my Slice...love it! I have 6 cards now and 2 on the way to my mailbox. The cards come with a little folded guide book that shows all the designs. There are so many designs on them that it gets a little time consuming looking through all of those pamphlets. Well, I solved my problem tonight by printing all of the designs on 1 sheet of paper...printed on both sides, 4 on each side. Here is my final result. First I found the images on the internet and saved them to one folder...I even saved ones that are on my wish list. I used the collage feature in Picasa (a free picture editing site by Google), selected the "contact" feature, and added a shadow frame behind it. Its so easy to use. Unfortunately I can't enlarge the pics in the collage so they are a bit small but I can still see the images. I printed both sheets on a nice white Stampin Up 8.5x11 cardstock.
Here are the images I made...


Now I can put this is a page protector and keep it next to my design cards.

First Grade

Two blog posts two days in a row...must be a record! Anyway, just wanted to quickly post this layout I've been working on for the past week. There's lots of stamping, collaging,embossing, etc...this took forever but I had a blast doing it! I really wanted to finish up Kendall's first day of first grade. I used the AC teen line paper here, which I totally love!!
The number stamps are embossed and I had Kendall write her name on the name tag stamp...I did this last year for kindergarten and will do this every year. I put the name tag inside a clear hero arts card (one that had messed up stamping on it) and stapled it to the page...wanted to look like one of those name holders that you wear on your shirt.

I colored the stars on the patterned paper with a clear glitter pen and some stickles to the buttons on the flowers...you can't see it in the picture too well. Oh well. And my "s" glued on crooked...I glued it last night and this is how it looked this morning. Not much I can do about it. Thanks for looking.

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: Bazzill (black and white textured), Stampin Up (green and white)
Patterned Paper: American Crafts
Cork: Contact
Stamps: Hampton Arts (number borders), Maya Road (Name Tag), and Hero Arts (owl)
Stamping Ink: Memories (brown), Colorbox Queue (blue), and Papertry Ink (white)
Embossing Powder and Stickles: Ranger
Photocorner Punch: Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper
Frills: Doodlebug
Clear Card: Hero Arts
Acrylic Letters and Glue: Ki Memories
Photo Corners: Heidi Swapp
Stickers: Jenni Bowlin

Staples: Making Memories
Die Cutting Machine: Making Memories Slice (Fa La La Card)
Glitter Pen: Sakura
Buttons: Autumn Leaves
Flowers: Prima

Thanks for looking!!!

OK, I'm a bad bad blogger. Shame on me. Well, I've been so super busy so I have good excuses. Kendall just started first grade, Aydan turned 4, my husband turned 40, we had our 11th anniversary, school started for my students, soccer started, I went on a short vacation, etc. Crazy, crazy days I tell you. But the results of those crazy days are great pics! I have 3 weeks to share and a few projects.
First a disclaimer...if you see heads cut off, its only in the collage. My actual pics are fine. I use Picasa to collage them and one bad thing is that you can't drag them or choose where you want the pics to go.

Week 33
Sunday: The night before Aydan turns 4...I always do a mini photo shoot of the eve of my kids b-day.
Monday: Kendalls first day of school (first grade) and Aydan's b-day celebration at a train restaurant.
Tuesday: My 8 new xray students first day at the hospital. I took this pic at 7:30 in the morning, lol. they were scheduled for ID pics after that so I knew they would look their best.
Wednesday: Aydan hanging around on the grass. He is wearing his Bear's jersey but he always wears it backwards so he can see the name and number. LOL
Thursday: A pic of my kids in my car looking through the rear view mirror.
Friday: Finally meeting my good friend Laura for the first time after knowing her for two years! That was quite a moment! More about that later.
Saturday: A group of people that I did a project with...more about that later.
Week 34
Sunday: My friend Cindy and I on a beach in a place far, far away from here. More about that later.
Monday: Kendall is really good on the monkey bars.
Wednesday: Soccer picture day.
Thursday: Kendall's new shoes for school.
Friday: My husband's 40th b-day
Saturday: Our 11th wedding anniversary but I don't have a pic yet.
Week 35
Sunday: I love this picture of Aydan peeking into the sewer! I think he wants to know where the heck that leads to.
Monday: Kendall does this frog jump all the time. Its so cute! I did this photo effect (b/w focal) in Picasa...love that program!
Tuesday: Kendall being a goofball while playing in the backyard.
Wednesday: Kendall, Aydan, and our neighbor having a picnic.
Thursday: Curriculum night at school. This is my daughter's first grade classroom.
Friday: Aydan's whole soccer team all piled up in the goal. So cute!

And I made these projects last weekend...
Both of these layouts are 8x8...so fun to do. Most of the papers are Making Memories. Used the Just Chillin line on Aydan's "Almost 4" page.

Other Supplies:
Scalloped Cardstock: DCWV
Chipboard Letters: Basic Grey
Chipboard Accent: K and Co and American Crafts
Punch: Fiskars

Woodgrain Stamp: Hero Arts

Ink: Ranger
Letter Tab: Autumn Leaves
Jute

And my daughter is loosing teeth like crazy...5 so far in 9 months. This was when she lost her first top tooth. I can't capture how cute she looks with all those holes in her mouth! Used the 8x8 Noteworthy line from Making Memories for Archivers. I have nearly used up that entire 20 page pack. You could only get it with a qualified purchase...wish I had more. Love it!

Supplies Used:
Everything Making Memories except the pearls and the Fiskars Border Punch

And a card I made for my wedding anniversary...
Supplies Used:
Cardstock: DCWV and Hobby Lobby
Patterned Paper: Stampin Up and Scenic Route
Embossing Folder Cuttlebug
Stamp: Hero Arts
Ink: Colorbox Que
Transparency Definition, Staples, Heart Brad, Mini Letters: Making Memories

Are you still with me?? Thanks for looking!!!
Oh and I have to thank my friend Laura for taking my new profile pic and to Cindy for letting us use her camera and for editing it!! Thanks girls!

Project 365 Weeks 30-32

Wow, its been 3 weeks since I blogged. There is a ton going on around here. Aydan is 4 today and Kendall started First Grade. Tomorrow I have my new students and on Friday I leave for a short trip to California. I'll share details on that later.

Here are the last 3 weeks of my 365 and I'm proud to say that the book is updated until August 4th! I'm happy with that.

Sunday: At McD play area.

Monday: Painted Aydan's room

Tuesday: Petting zoo at a local chicken restaurant.

Wednesday: Ozan fixing one of the computer's at his work. He is actually in my kids school there.

Thursday: Giant ice cream cone

Friday: Aydan "emailing" my friend Laura.

Saturday: My husband is an avid bicyclist...he has these huge muscular legs!

Sunday: Slip N Slide!

Monday: Kendall lost her first top tooth

Tuesday: playing around in the kids tent

Wednesday: outside of Kendall's new elementary school for a meeting.

Thursday: school registration

Friday: A sign that Kendall made for her door. Basically, it says to keep out and this means you! LOL...

Saturday: When Aydan "dances", he gets on all fours and kicks one leg in the air. Crack me up!

Sunday: Aydan on his scooter

Monday: First veggies from my garden

Tuesday: Kendall at soccer practice. My husband is an asst coach.

Wednesday: A very cool rainbow!

Thursday: Aydan at his first soccer game!

Friday: Kendall's last day at her school! These were her kindergarten teachers.

Saturday: Kendall's first soccer game this season.

Thanks for looking!

A Mini Album & Project 365 Week 30

The last couple of weeks I've been working on Kendall's Kindergarten album. I'm so lucky because they take tons of pics and give copies to the parents...and not all the pics, just the ones your kid is in. How nice is that?
I selected my pics and collaged them in Picasa, making them into wallet size pics (2x3). I cut them out and then divided them into smaller categories...field trips, art, etc. Then I printed out a "Mini Map" from Pagemaps and hung it on my wall for inspiration. I didn't take a picture of the album itself but its a K&Co by Carolyn Galvin and so is the double-sided PP and the embellies (die cuts, borders, rub ons, etc). I added a few Jillibean Soup Sprouts here and there and a library checkout cart to some. I have about 4 pages left...a cover page, a page with her teachers, and her last day pages. We have 2 "last days", the one from May and one coming up at the end of August. She goes to Kindergarten Camp there for the summer and its with the same teachers she had for Kindergarten. I can't believe she starts first grade soon...
My goal was to make this simple and get it done! Nothing really exciting here but I do love the colors on these papers! Also love how it works with the kraft cardstock and the kraft journaling sprouts. I also gotta say that I made 2 of these pages while riding in our van on our way to Wisconsin!
This LO and the next one I used the Basic Grey mini chipboard letters...OMG, I {heart} these! I haven't journaled on any of the pages yet, I want to wait until its done.
Here I rubbed some of their rub on phrases to the die cuts...

This one is a little overdone!

Also used a few punches: Ek Success large scallop, Fiskars Apron Lace, McGill Index Tab, and some circle ones.

Funny how they have a picture of Ozan and I there together...that didn't happen often. I work pretty far from the school so I didn't get to attend as much as I wanted. And yes, I'm wearing my ugly, gray work scrubs.

I love the Science page. Kendall's school is at a junior college so they take trips all over campus to learn different things such as the radio station, science labs, recycling centers, art center for plays, weather station, etc. Its been such an incredible learning experience. I love the picture of her looking through the microscope and using the seeing impared stick.

Well that's the album so far...hope you enjoyed it!

And...goodness, are we at week 31 already?? Seriously? I finally got my pics from last week edited and just ordered some more prints. Right now my actual 365 album is up to date until July 4th. Getting the pics, editing them, and ordering them is the hard part. Putting them in the album is a cake walk.

Week 30:

Sunday: My garden is finally producing some veggies. This stone in the front is from my sister. She calls me LaLa and had to get this for me. I love it.

Monday: Fishing.

Tuesday: Obama on facebook. I thought it was funny that he asked us to "Tweet" our senators about health care reform. Funny hearing a president asking us to Tweet. I copied the elements from the post and redid it in photoshop.

Wednesday: Kids playing in the sprinkle but all they did was fill up their buckets and pour it on the pation.

Thursday: My son is a carnivore!! He loves hamburgers and can finish the huge ones.

Friday: My son also hates eggs. I had some hard boiled ones and he wanted to try. He did eat some of it.

Saturday: Trip to DQ!A card I made for my best friend Tracy. Used some of the K & Co diecuts and MM Just Chillin Girl. I actually purchased a Fastenater that was on super clearance...don't like how crooked they came out so I put some gems in-between.

Also the sentiment is a rub-on from American Crafts...

Well, that's it...I think I made up for the last three weeks. Are you still with me??? Thanks for looking!