Still playing catch-up

Do you ever feel like you're thisclose to being caught up, but you can never quite get there? Yes, that's me this week.

In my futile attempt to achieve complete catched-uppedness (oooh, a new word!), here are a couple of projects I finished before CHA and haven't had a chance to post yet.

You may have spotted this one in my scraproom tour a few weeks ago, but you'd really have to be looking. It's an IKEA shadowbox frame that I altered with paper from the Pebbles Happy Go Lucky line.

I handstitched the gridlines onto white cardstock, then added a variety of embellishments, including Pebbles felt embellishments, flower brad and dimensional stickers. I also created epoxies with the Epiphany Shape Studio tools. I used a Round 14, layered onto a Vintage Setting (in a beautiful muted orange), and a Heart 25.


It's a perfect decoration for my scrapbook room -- a.k.a. my "happy place"

I also used an Epiphany Round 14 with part of a Spring Flowers Chocolate Strawberry felt embellishment on this layout:


I cut the round mats with the Doily Details dies from Papertrey Ink and layered patterned paper circles on top. Here's a closer look at the Epiphany felt embellishment:


And now I'm off to see how much more catching up I can get done before I fall behind on something else.

Have a great Thursday!

25 more days until...

...school starts! Can you believe we're already under a month away from the "back to school" rush?

As much as my girls are enjoying their camps, I'm looking forward to school starting for two reasons:
1) One stop drop-off, same place, same time every morning. Because my overloaded brain can't handle the weekly change-ups from one camp to another.
2) No more fighting over what to wear -- hooray for school uniforms!!!

To get myself back in the school mindset, I created this little School Years mini book for a class at Scrapville:


I used papers from October Afternoon's Schoolhouse collection, along with a great little Library Pocket book kit from Creekbank Creations.


I love the fact that I now have a place to store Avery's school photo from each year and record a few details about her classroom experiences. I also left space on the back of each card in case there's a small piece of artwork or other memorabilia that I want to paste in.


I labeled all the pages using My Little Shoebox Tiny Alphas, and it will take us all the way through 5th grade. (Which I really don't even want to think about -- I mean, really, how could Avery be old enough to be a 5th grader. Why, that would make me, like, ANCIENT?!!!)


Here are the class details in case you're interested:

Date: Saturday, August 6
Time: 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Location: Scrapville, 2304 Stonewall, Greenville, TX
Cost: $25

There a still a few spots left, but space is limited, so if you're local and want to sign up, give Scrapville a call right away (903-454-3323).

Hope to see you there!

Christmas in July!

It's now day 24 of consecutive double-digit temperatures in Texas, and today we're expecting a high of 104.

So what better time to be thinking about Christmas!

Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking. But this week kicks off the release of Imaginisce's new Christmas Collection: Santa's Little Helper. Because, when it comes to scrappy projects for the holidays, you've gotta start early!

Since I'm already counting down to cooler weather, I figured why not create a way to count down to the holidays:

I started with a raw wood IKEA frame, which I painted and then used Mod Podge to apply the polka dot paper to it. The numbers are just printed from my inkjet printer onto plain paper and trimmed to approximately 1 1/2" squares. I say "approximately" because I found that it looks a lot more interesting if the sizes are slightly different. I attached the numbers using a mini clothespin that I glued onto the backing paper.

The Santa and presents die-cuts were perfect accents, and I used alpha stickers from My Little Shoebox to create the title.

I also created these ornaments using some shadowbox kits I found at the Great American Scrapbook Convention last month:

The kits are made by a company called Darcie's and come with several layers of chipboard that you can cover as you like, then top with a sheet of acrylic and clip together. I added some white iridescent glitter to turn them into shaker ornaments. I also finished them with a few i-rock jewels for some added sparkle.

It's a perfect way to create a winter scene, and my kids are going to love hanging these on the tree.

If you're looking for more inspiration for the upcoming holidays, be sure to check out the Imaginisce blog this week as more projects will be revealed each day.

Answers and Giveaway Winner

Thanks to everyone who commented about my deceptively clean scrap room. You'll all be relieved to know that it's messy once again. But yes, even when it's messy, I still love being in there. It's my happy place.

A couple of you asked questions in your comments, so here are some answers for you:

IrisGoddess -- The white desk is from Target, and you can order it online with free shipping. It's called the Madison Large Trestle Desk. Assembly was pretty easy and, for the price, it's a good quality, sturdy desk. I love it!

Katie -- I had to trim about a half-inch off the top of each of the Cropper Hopper vertical paper holders to make them fit in the Expedit. After that, they fit perfectly. I looked for other options that would fit, but never could find anything I liked as well as the Cropper Hopper folders, so I just gave them all a little trim.

And the winner of the giveaway is:

Kelly Sas, congratulations!!!! Please email me your address to robmab at yahoo.com and I'll get your prize pack shipped out next week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Counting down to Chicago

Just a few more days until I board a plane to Chicago for CHA Summer. I'm very excited to see my scrappin' peeps and spend a few days surrounded by the newest, coolest crafty stuff.

Here are a couple of projects I created for the Epiphany Crafts booth:

I used the Shape Studio Round 14, Shape Studio Round 25 and Shape Studio Heart 25 tools to create matching epoxies with these gorgeous papers from The Girls Paperie. The Vintage Settings in Clubhouse were a perfect match for the colors in the papers.

I layered one of the Vintage Settings on top of a felt flower (from these Spring Flowers) and I tied a Charm Setting onto the tag.

Next up is a simple card I created with the Delightful Doilies stamps and a Doily Details die from Papertrey Ink.

I used Epiphany Round 14s, including a Vintage Settings and a Felt Flower as the center for some of the doilies. The papers are from American Crafts, and the inks are Jenni Bowlin.

The giveaway from yesterday's post is still open, so be sure to leave a comment. I'll do the drawing on Saturday morning, so get your entries in by 12:01 a.m. (Central) on July 16.

I have one more CHA project to share, but I'll save that for the weekend. Stay tuned!

A Peek at My Crafty Space + GIVEAWAY

Warning: this post may not portray me in the most realistic light.

My room never looks like it does in the following photo. I don't think there's ever a day when I don't have at least one project splayed out on the desk. But Imaginisce asked all the design team members to do a feature for their blog called i-Space and give you a little peek at where we create. And today it's my turn (a.k.a. time to clean things up!).

So here's a rare look at my very clean (for the moment) room:

Lots more photos and descriptions of my storage solutions are on the Imaginisce blog today, so hop over there and check it out.

GIVEAWAY

But while you're here, leave a comment below to win an Imaginisce prize package, including papers, embellishments and stamps from the Little Cutie line AND the very cool d-stress tool!

Hope you enjoy the tour!

Party on

It's birthday season around these parts. Between late April and mid-July, three of the four members of our household (not including the dogs) celebrate birthdays. Throw in Mother's Day, anniversary, Father's Day and Independence Day and it seems like we're partying for three months straight. I feel like Ke$ha. But with kids.

In honor of "birthday season," I created this little envelope/tag album as a display for Scrapville. The entire album is on display at the store, along with some tips and instructions.


The album itself is by Melissa Frances (it's called the Tag and Envelope album), and the papers and embellishments are from the American Crafts Confetti collection. And of course, all of these supplies are available at Scrapville.

Apologies for the bad lighting on some of these...ran out of natural light.

My intention was to scrap the photos from Cecily's latest party, but the colors weren't really working for me, so I went back to the photos from her 4th birthday and they were a perfect match.


I used Glimmer Mist on all the envelopes in colors that matched the papers to create a quick and easy background that I could layer onto. The die-cut scalloped circles are from the Nestabilities Eyelet Circles die.

I realized I would never come up with enough journaling to fill every tag (six tags with two sides each = a LOT of words), so I cut a square out of one of the envelopes to create a little frame; then I adhered the photos to the tag to show through.

For the tags, I went around the edge of each one with a Jenni Bowlin paint dabber to frame it. Then I added a ribbon "pull" with my Tiny Attacher. I layered on a square of patterned paper, then I wrote the journaling onto a spiral-bound memo pad (the kind you buy in the office supplies aisle at Target) and stuck on top.


I love the way the album came out, but I still have to find something to do with this year's birthday photos. I have some ideas...

Pretty Little Things

Happy Friday, especially to those of us in the U.S. preparing for a long holiday weekend! And it's an especially happy Friday for me because I finally get to announce that I've been selected to join the design team for Pretty Little Studio!


I discovered Pretty Little Studio products a little over a month ago from a post on Jen Chapin's blog, and I loved the mix of vintage images with contemporary patterns and color schemes. I ordered some papers and journaling spots to check them out, and they were perfect for my mixy-matchy style.

Here are a couple of projects I created:





And this week, they released the Antique Store collection, which I can't wait to play with:


They also have digital elements and printables (some of which are even freebies!)...so much fun stuff! I love these little cards...


I've been busily working away at some projects that I can't post yet, but hopefully, I will have more to share after the long weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!