WK2 jingle belles card challenge

Wow - I've shocked even myself with this one. The challenge was posted at midnight and less than 24 hours have passed and I've got my card done!

The prompt this week at jinglebelles "comes from the song ... Have Yourself a Merry LITTLE Christmas ... which to us inspires making cards that feature Inchies and Twinchies (2" squares) in the design (or perhaps a twinchie-sized gift tag)."

I have to tell you - this was a REAL challenge for me. I don't own any of those cute little inchies stamps - I have a very limited collection of acrylic stamps - mostly some flowers and things that I can use for elements on my scrapbook pages. (Can you tell I'm not really a card maker?) I kept looking around my scrapbook room trying to figure out what to use for my "inchies" when my eyes fell onto one of my old class posters. I taught a class on "serendipity squares" - basically collage with a fancy name. So, I pulled out scraps of Christmas papers left over from this years card making and created a little collage and cut out some squares.

So, NOW WHAT? My card base is silver metallic cardstock from AC. I cut a smaller piece of red, embossed it with Cuttlebug Divine Swirls, and then inked that with MS silver ink. I tied a thin silver ribbon along the lower edge of the red cardstock and then added a red ribbon with a tiny rhinestone buckle (this is off of a stickpin from Joanne's - I'm really digging deep into the old stuff here). Next, I cut some scalloped squares from the Scalloped shapes collection at SVGCUTS. Added a little bit of that same MS silver ink to these squares. I added some tiny letters to each of my inchie squares - spelling out love, joy, and peace. I adhered love and joy to the background squares using thin foam dots and glued peace directly to the background square. When attaching the background squares, I glued down love and joy and used a thicker foam dot for peace - giving an alternating height effect. I finished up with 4 round gems from Paper Studio. Inside says "Season's Greetings."



I have a few more collage squares left so I may play around and try my hand at another sometime this weekend - but, for now, thanks for stopping by and taking a look.

Chinese Take Out?

I was talking to a friend of ours a couple of days ago about her daughter's approaching wedding. We were tossing out ideas for wedding favors and that led to mini Chinese take-out containers. I have been working up a couple of samples to show them. If they like them, I can create them in the wedding colors and decorate them to suit the theme.

I have made two different versions - the argyle patterned one in the picture below is made with cut flaps that overlap for the ends. The white patterned box has gussets that fold over - I like this style because you don't have any openings for things to protrude from.


I didn't have a take-out box on hand to disassemble to make a pattern so I searched and found some links on-line with free printable templates and worked from those. I will try to get the files uploaded to my 4shared account and add a link for download later tonight.

Big Thanks!

The couple of months leading up to Christmas found my life in absolute chaos - I struggled to get anything done this holiday season. I have been really working hard to turn things around in the past week. I'm not making any resolutions because that is just like dooming myself to failure. Instead, I have decided that I am going to try to participate in a few blog challenges to help keep me on track. I am going to start with just 2 - one organizational and one creative. And, sharing my progress with all of you will hopefully provide the motivation to stay on track!

As I embark on my new year/new outlook, I realize that there are some people that I need to thank. These are people whose friendship and/or blogs have motivated and inspired me - some for a long time and some just recently. I'd like to recognize them here:

1. Celeste at Touched by a Butterfly - I've known Celeste for almost 2 years now and have watched in awe as she has undertaken so many challenges and community service type projects. Your journals for cancer patients and OWH cards are wonderful endeavors! Celeste, you are such a thoughtful, kind person and I'm proud to call you my friend.

2. Jeanne at Creative Chaos - Jeanne has been a supportive friend for many years (We even served on a design team together - way back when!) Jeanne is an awesome card maker and scrapbooker and I love to see her new creations - they motivate me to try new things! Thanks Jeanne for continuing to challenge me to step outside of my comfort zone.

3. Dawn at Lost in Paper Scraps - Met Dawn (and Jeanne too) on the first Yahoo group I ever joined. Dawn you seem to always find the bright spot in life and your optimism and sense of humor cheer me up when I am down. Thanks so much for sharing your light with others!

4. Karel at One by One the Flamingos are Stealing my Sanity - Karel is a very special person who inspires me with her energy and zest for life. I don't know how you do all you do but you have made me realize that I don't make the best use of the time and resources God has provided. Thanks for opening my eyes.

5. Melanie at Scrappily Ever After - The Organizational Boot Camp is a great way to start the new year and it has motivated me to really dig deep and organize - not just stash it away to make it look good. Thanks for the challenge - I can't wait to see what is next!

6. Stef and Lauren at jingle belles - I think your Christmas Card Challenge is one of the best I've seen. The concept and pace of the challenge is perfect - anyone can find a few minutes a week to create a card. I struggle with getting things like this done so I am very excited to embark on this year-long journey with you! I want to thank you for providing much needed motivation and I look forward to the next challenge!

I encourage each of you to pass this along to at least one person who has inspired or motivated you!

Christmas Card Challenge

Christmas cards are a last minute thing at our house - I normally dash out and buy some after we start receiving ours. I know - shame on me! This year, I did actually make my cards and mail them out - but I was rushing to get them done and there were several people I would have liked to have sent to but I didn't have time to make all of them.

Enter my friends Dawn and Jeanne - they posted the cards they had made for a card challenge hosted by Stef and Lauren at the jingle belles blog. They are hosting a year long challenge to create one Christmas Card every week and then take the month of December off! I am not the greatest card maker in the world - it's kind of secondary to my scrapbooking. However, I am always up for a challenge as they help me to stay on track. Plus, by posting my ambitions here on my blog - I have all of you to help hold me accountable.

Last night, after finishing my task for the day 2 organizational boot camp, I created this simple card for the 1st jingle belles card challenge - the prompt was

something old, something new!

To make this card, I raided my stash for Christmas stuff - and guess what, I've purged so well, I didn't have anything old except this Paper and Ribbon. The paper is from an old Chatterbox Holiday collection - 3 or 4 years ago at least. The ribbon is something I picked up at Michael's probably 4 or 5 years ago.

I don't hardly buy embellishments any more - those of you who follow my blog know that I make pretty much everything on my Cricut. The elements I used for this card are freebies from svgcuts.com (click the links to get these great files): Holiday Cheer and Jingle Bow. Both of these are OLD files from 2009 - however, I just cut and created them last night so I am counting them as my NEW elements.

I inked the edge of the background paper with Certainly Celery from Stampin' Up and glittered the Holiday Cheer caption with some micro fine glitter from Hobby Lobby.

Thanks for taking a look! (Oh - and I cleaned up my desk again AFTER I created the card! YEAH!)

A couple of Organizational Challenge Pics

Okay, here's the promised picture of my clean work surface resulting from the Day 2 assignment:


The pile of completed layouts on the top shelf are waiting to be put into an album - need to pick up some sheet protectors in order to be able to do that. The small stack behind the layouts are cards and card blanks - more about that in my next post.


And the day 3 challenge is: For today's assignment, take 15-20 minutes and clean one box, basket, bin, cupboard, or area of your craft room. Again, if an item has a definate home, go ahead and put it away, if not, put all lie items together and keep cleaning. (Edited to add: this is part of Scrappily Ever After's Organizational Boot Camp - Sorry I forgot to include the link!)

Here is the stack of stuff I plan to tackle for today's assignment - I know it doesn't look that bad but you would not believe the ecclectic mix of stuff in those bottom 12x12 boxes.

Organizational Challenge Update

Today's assignment was quite easy: Take 15-20 minutes to clean off the top of your craft space. You can put items away ONLY if they have a specific spot. If they don't simply group like items together (i.e., cardstock in one spot, patterned paper in another, tools in another, adhesive in it's spot, etc.).

But, I couldn't stop there - I went out and got some storage drawer units to add to my shelves and re-organized all of the trouble spots outlined in my goals.

That's not to say that I don't still have challenges to overcome in this room - but what is left is not "scrap" related - it's setting up the sewing area and making Melissa a little "classroom" space for working on her courses.

I will still follow along in the challenges to see what else I can tweak - I'm sure I will get lots of awesome ideas by seeing what everyone else is doing.

I'll try to take a picture and post in the morning - just too tired tonight to do it. Thanks for stopping by.

Whew! What A MESS!

I don't care how hard I try, I cannot keep my craft room clean. Part of it stems from just having TOO MUCH stuff in this room. My craft room is my computer room, scrapbook room, sewing room, and also houses much of my daughter Melissa's crafting stuff as well - she has sewing stuff, knitting and cross-stitch stuff, jewelry making, and scrapbooking stuff in here. In addition to my L-shaped desk, we try to keep a 4 foot table as well so that she has a place to work or I have a place for the sewing machine - the table is normally in the closet opening which works out well. In the space where the table is now, I am going to be putting a small desk for Melissa to do her classwork on - she needs a place where she can be held more accountable to help her stay on task.

It's pretty sad actually - when we moved here 4 years ago - we had TONS of room. We upsized from 3 bedrooms & 1300 sq. ft to 4 bedrooms and 2000 sq. ft. Now every closet and cabinet is stuffed to overflowing. How does this happen?

So, I've decided to start with my craft room - I'm going to try to participate in Scrappily Ever After's Boot Camp and see if I can get the craft room under control. If the process works here, then maybe I can follow the same steps and tackle other rooms in the house!

To get started, we were supposed to take pictures of our mess and post them for all the world to see - here's my mess (and this is actually MUCH cleaner than it was 2 weeks before Christmas - I cleaned before the kids came down). With the exception of the closet, most of this mess has happened in just a week.







The closet is actually stuff I crammed in there before the kids came - stuff that was sitting around that was not safe for the grandkids so I put it in there. No clue where it's going to go now.



Here is my Day 1 exercise as well - establishing goals I want to achieve:

What Works What Doesn't Goal My actual scrapbook work space - love having most everything within arm's reach. Stamp pad & Ribbon storage - have to get up to get them so they never get put back away. Find a way to incorporate these items into my work area. Paper storage - organized and visible - easy to return things to proper place. Stamp storage - in cardboard photo boxes - out of sight/out of mind, and a real hassle to get them out and return them. See if I can free up some drawer space for stamp storage. Clear front drawer storage - I use what I can see, it's more likely to go back to the right spot since I can see it and don't have to move boxes to put it back. Photo storage boxes - cheap storage but they just don't work out for keeping a room organized - can't see what's inside and hate having to unstack to get to the bottom boxes. Shop for some drawer units that will fit my shelving units - or replace shelving with some drawer units.
If you stuck it out to read all my ramblings - thanks so much. I hope you'll stop by and help me stay on track.