The Great Purge of 2013

Remember back in September when we moved into the new house? It took me nearly a month to pack up my carefully organized (well, kind of organized) craft room.

It went from this...

to this...

to this...

to this. Sniff, sniff.

After about a month in the new house, the projects were piling up. CHA was only a few months away. New product rolling in. I was forced to get the room unpacked. So I got it to this point...

It's now June. Another CHA is looming and I've just finished the first round of convention classes. The room is a nightmare.

It's time for an intervention. I can't work like this. I need order. I need organization. I need a calmer rug on the floor. (Sheesh, that thing is ugly!)

And so it's time. Conveniently, my kids are out of town for the next week. Most moms would be ready to let loose and party like there's no tomorrow. Me? I just want my craft room clean and organized.

Yeah, I'm crazy like that.

It's all about the details

Well, I did it again. I created a whole slew of classes that are way more complicated than I originally intended for them to be. Conveniently, I had this "epiphany" last night, less than 12 hours before I was set to teach the first class.

I got to the classroom an hour early, determined to somehow make up for my overly ambitious class-creating by making sure everything was perfectly in line. And it was. For the first class...

In the end, everything turned out okay. In fact, it was better than okay. Verging on awesome.

Partly because I had 60 amazing (AMAZING!) students who appreciated all the stupidly complex details I put into the projects and executed them to a tee! And also because I had two freaking amazing (volunteer) assistants who rocked my world, working their butts off to help every single student get every single one of those crazy details into their project. Thank you Barb and Judy!

Today's experience reinforced one central point: I love teaching. I really, really love it. It fills me up with all kinds of happy.

So there will be more teaching, and more projects that are probably more ambitious than they should be. But that's just who I am. I don't do simple.

And hopefully -- fingers crossed -- I will see some familiar faces in future classes. In addition to Stitch Craft Create in Charlotte, I'm working on a few opportunities to teach in the DFW area.

Stay tuned...I will be posting future classes here and on my Facebook page.

In the meantime, now that I'm done making kits for my classes (did I mention they were crazy complicated?), maybe I'll have some time to post some actual work on this blog. We can only hope.

Oopsie

My brain doesn't work the way it used to. I blame it on having kids. Pregnancy and childbirth have been scientifically linked to the loss of brain cells. Really!

Aaaaanyway...

These are the three layouts I created with the Say Cheese kit from The Little Blue House.

I used the plastic rings in the kits as masks and sprayed over them with Maya Mist to create the background.

See the wooden camera piece? I created that patina effect by first misting it green and then pressing it onto a black stamp pad.

Fun and quick layout using the Sn@p collection from Simple Stories and layering my Instagram photos onto the printed frames. 

These Maya Road banner pieces were fun to layer with papers and fabric.

I struggled with this one a bit because the "Say Cheese" title was originally a deep golden yellow and it just wasn't working for me. So I misted over it with blue to get more of a turquoise color. It was a "Make It Work Moment" in my craft room.

 

I've been playing with paint droplets lately. The trick is to dilute the black acrylic with a tiny bit of water to get a nice fat drop. I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm getting better.

I had some ribbon scraps left over, so I stapled them around the paper clip.

I seriously thought I'd posted these, but no. Never happened. Sorry about that. Better late than never, I guess.

Have a great weekend!

Life documented

Sometimes I look at the growing collection of scrapbooks on my shelf (and the growing stack of pages waiting to be put into said scrapbooks), and I think: why do I keep making these things?

Well, (a) it's fun! It's my little creative blast of energy after a long week of delivering the mass emails and corporate-sounding videos that make my work customers happy.

But the more visionary answer is (b) I'm capturing little moments in our lives that are fun to look back on. Because they go WAY too fast!

Case in point: I made this layout for the CHA show back in January, using the For The Record collection from We R Memory Keepers.

I listed out the likes/dislikes of each member of our family.

So my list hasn't changed, but Avery now thinks Webkins are "so yesterday."

And Cecily is done with Gap. Apparently Old Navy is where the cool kids are shopping now. Guess I missed the memo.

Thank goodness I captured these important, yet fleeting, moments of "likes." Three months later and this page is completely out-of-date.


Oh, and in case you're wondering how I made that cool notched punch at the top of each tag, We R Memory Keepers has a punch for that now. It's called the Euro Hook Power Punch and it's shipping now.

Thanks for stopping by!

Good Friday

Happy Good Friday to those who are celebrating Easter this weekend! I have a few spring-themed projects to share from the We R Memory Keepers Simply Spring collection.

This is a Cinch book I made to hold Easter photos. I love using the binding spirals with the Cinch -- so easy to get this really professional looking binding!

Next, a couple of layouts I created using WRMK's awesome punches. This one uses the Classic Wreath Lucky 8 punch. I also punched the journaling spot center out of the frame so I could use it for the photo.

This layout features the Doily 2-Edge Punch, which they debuted on HSN in February. The cool thing about this punch is you can do a circle, oval, border, or even just punch one corner, as I did here. I backed it with a patterned background paper for extra pop.

I altered this round gift box by making a 3-D flower to go on top. I just punched some circles, pleated them at one end to form the leaves and layered in a circle to get this effect. I finished it off with some ribbon and chipboard tags.

And finally, a cute Easter card that shows how all these beautiful patterns can be mixed together. I used a Kraft base to keep the background neutral, then went crazy playing with all the colors. It's a bit hard to see, but I used the Sew Easy tool to create the looped stitches along the left side.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Easter weekend!