Post 101...

Wow, my 100th post was on Friday the 13th!! I thought it might be bad luck to celebrate that, so I will celebrate post 101! YIPPEE!! I have only been blogging since July and it is surprising how much more confident I feel about my style and abilities. I have participated in lots of challenges and spent hours researching, watching videos, looking pictures, magazines, and other blogs to learn and improve. The challenges have motivated me to create. The videos have taught me techniques and craftsmanship. The pictures give me inspiration and ideas. Blogging has improved my paper crafting ten-fold. I love it!! Last week, I mentioned that I was busy...well, I went from a Sunday to a Sunday and I didn't create anything!! So on Sunday night, I organize my craft room and made 8 cards. Yesterday I organized pictures all morning and started scrapbooking my wedding stuff. Today I will work on that a bit more and I am going to a friend's to crop.



Okay, so here is the story with these cards. I challenged myself to use scraps, and a new big letter stamp set that a friend traded me. She ordered two 2 capital letter stamp sets and she didn't know what to do with this set, so I happily took them off her hands so that I could experiment with this Close to My Heart Giggle Caps letter set. Other things on this card include a Martha Stewart butterfly and cupcake punch, CTMH rhinestones, and some buttons and shipboard that were cluttering up my scrapspace. I used mostly Desert sand ink as it matches craft cardstock perfectly.









Oh, and when I was cleaning, I found these great metal-rimmed tags....after I just ordered some new ones so I thought I would use these up too.




The blue card is a mini-3-by-3 using twilight cardstock.

Some sweet cards to go with my sour attitude. :-)

My favorite thing to do is sit in my crafting 'space' when the house is quiet and create, for hours. Lately, it seems like my husband is always home, with the t.v. blaring. When he is there, all I want to do is be with him....Last night I went to dinner with some girlfriends from work. I was a little annoyed when it took a long time to get our food. I was totally counting on using the time when I got home to make cards. A 5:30 dinner turned into not getting home until almost 8:00.

Luckily, I raced inside, opened a new shipment of supplies that arrived yesterday, and then straight to my craft table. The house was empty. Seconds after inking up my brand new stamp set, I heard a car pull up...my husband was home....grrr....I didn't know what to do. I just wanted to make something!!! Anything!!
I did not make one thing this weekend. I was having crafting/blogging withdrawls. I just want to participate in a challenge. I want to use my new supplies. I want to use GLITTER!!!

So, I compromised with myself. I worked in my craft room for 1 hour. Then I watched American Idol until after 10:00. This makes for a long night when you get up at 5:30 a.m.!!

Tonight we are going to the art gallery for an event which includes free dinner, I should have some time to create when we get home because I don't have to cook. Thankfully Friday night I am going to a crop. It is bittersweet though because all of my friends are getting together for a game night....I haven't had time to wash laundry in weeks because I am so busy with family and friends...I am completely out of socks...and towels! I can't get everything done that I need to do and still find time to do thing things that I REALLY NEED, like crafting. I am looking ahead to my schedule and I see it filling up fast....Saturday high school reunion with my husband, Sunday MY family (who I haven't seen since Christmas is coming over for dinner...I must cook and clean before they get there...it WAS my idea so I am not complaining), Monday watching the Bachelor finale with girlfriends, Tuesday night, Close to My Heart Home Gathering....and that is just the next 5 days. Beyond that my weeks are scattered with busy days and nights.

I know that since I am a teacher I should be able to get home by 3:45 and craft until 5:00 when Jeremy gets home, but it never works out that way...I am always staying at school until 4:00 for meetings and clubs and other stuff. I rarely get home before 4:30...and I am usually stopping at the bank or the store and these simple errands cut into my crafting time too!

Making a card is my stress reliever. I feel guilty when I am in the craft room and my DH is watching TV alone. I feel like I should be spending time with him. I had the craft table in the living room for weeks, but it is not the same....If he had a hobby, I think I would feel better about mine. I am also worried because spring is my busiest time of year. I am worried that the past 2 weeks is a prelude. My husband told me that he wanted to take a day or 2 off during my spring break...and I was like NOOOOOOOO!!! I need to be off, alone, working on designing, I NEED IT!

I just don't know how people with children do it. I envy those great multitaskers who can work full time, be involved in extracurricular, take care of a family, and find time to create. Whew, it is exhausting!! Thanks for listening!! I feel a lot better and I think I just need to set up a schedule with myself. I really love it so I know I will make time for everything.

Now on to the cards and what I made last night...I have really been excited about cupcakes lately. I am even teaching a cupcake unit at school focusing on the artist Wayne Theibaud. We are making clay cupcakes and painting cupcakes...Super fun!! I got a great new stamp set from Close to My Heart with some sweet cupcake stamps and a new cupcake punch from Martha Stewart. I made several cards with glitter, the pictures are always so-so when you are photographing glitter, in real life they are always waaaay prettier. I layered the punched images with foam tape. Super fun to make in my one-hour cram session.

GREEN Christmas Creation

Last night, I had all my supplies laying around that I had used to make my canvas with images from recycled cards. I wanted to make another canvas, but I didn't have any that were blank so I decided to come up with something. I have been really thinking about ways I can reuse packages and products. This blog gave me a really good idea. I looked around my craft room and spotted a box flat. I use these constantly to store scraps and art supplies at school. They are free and reusable over and over again. I remember one time in college I had to set up an Art Interest Center as a place to hold art supplies that could be changed throughout the year. I used a cardboard box and my teacher actually told me that I should invest in a tote. I remember thinking....a cardboard box is free...and recycled....now they are my most basic staple as a teacher. I use them to cart materials from school to school and as glitter trays. They are free!! Anyway, sorry to rant. Here is the box I had at home.



I decided to cover it with some Martha Stewart paper. I have several rolls that I got on clearance last year. I used those sheets of sticky dots on the large flat side of the box and then folded it over and taped it inside the box. I learned how to fold the paper like this in college when making canvases. Nothing too fancy, but it is just tucking the corners in without cutting them.


I had a bunch of shapes left over from the canvas. I used my Martha Stewart craft punch to cut them out. It was the exact perfect shape to fit inside the bottle cap. When I was thinking of how to arrange them on the canvas, I remembered a really cool technique I had seen on Alli Edwards site from 2007 using bottle caps. I ran to the kitchen.....and scattered all over the counter tops (did I mention that I had a Christmas Party Saturday night and I spent Sunday working in my craft room rather than cleaning.)



Anyway, nearly 2 dozen bottle caps littered the counter tops so I grabbed them up and started arranging them. I put the little punched shapes from Christmas cards inside each one. I could've added beads, glitter and gloss...but I liked how simple they were with the tiny image, and lots already had glitter. I arranged them in the shape of a Christmas tree, added glue dots and VIOLA!! A little Christmas masterpiece.





One other thing to help me hang it up. I used a glue dot on each end of this ribbon. The ribbon is from the a Christmas ornament package.



Anyway, file this in your idea box...It was so easy and almost made completely from re-useable products that you might have laying around.