Just a quick second to post a couple more layouts from my trip.
My Silhouette got a work out on these two layouts. I just love that machine. I also can't get enough of the Lawn Fawn stamps and dies. The Giraffe on the journal block is from the Lawn Fawn Critters on the Savanna set and there are matching dies available. I'm now on the hunt for the new Lawn Fun Summer release of stamps and dies. I will be contacting my LSS this week to see if they have them.
So, as you remember from a previous post (which you can find here) I was involved in a recipe swap while I was in Surry Va at the Eastover Baptist Retreat Center. There were 17 cards total so I'm super excited to have a bunch of new recipes to try. Of course I had to alphabatize them because I'm a little OCD, HA!! Anywho, I used the 8x8 page protectors from We R Memory Keepers for the pages and the 9x9 chipboard from Zutter. I have found that the 9x9 chipboard is better for the 8x8 pages. It just seems to cover the pages better. To cover the book board, you know the fun part, I used the new Jinger Adams Sweet Tart paper pack. The paper pack also came with chipboard titles and cardstock tags. The delicious title on the front is one of the chipboard titles. The cherry pies were cut using the Silhouette and popped up using foam dots. The design is Sweetie Pie by PPbN Designs and available in the Silhouette Store. The cardstock title on the inside of the book is one of the cardstock tags. For the lined card that I will write the date and the name of the retreat on, I used one of the pre-cut cardstock sheets from the Jade Project Life cardstock pack and stamped it with Cornish Heritage Farms Lined Paper stamp. I die cut the edge with the My Favorite Things Notebook Edge Die. I binded the book using my Cinch. It was super easy and so much fun. I hadn't made a book in a while, so it was nice to do something a little different.
What a great weekend away. I spent it with 26 lovely ladies at the Eastover Baptist Retreat Center in Surry, VA. The drive from my house was 5 hours, but it was well worth it and I think Mom and I have decided that it will be a yearly event. So for Mom it was camping, for everyone else, not so much. Yes we were in the woods, all the the way in the woods. No TV, no wifi (unless you had verizon hotspot) and limited cell service. Thankfully I have Verizon so we were ok. We rented a mini-van because we thought we needed to bring everything under the sun for 4 days of cropping with no store within 45 minutes of the retreat center, but it was worth all the packing. I finally got started on scrapbooking the pictures from Disney. I have a bunch but I finished the majority of my Animal Kingdom Pictures. Here are a few of the layouts.
My Cricut and Silhouette got a workout over the weekend. I also managed to use up the Zoo paper from Creative Memories, I had 2 packs of that. I also used up a few packs of old stickers I had laying around in my stash. My goal over the weekend was to use up a few things and to use some new things that I had purchased. I did use my new Lawn Fawn Critters on the Savanna stamps and the matching dies. They were a ton of fun to color with my Copics. I also got to use my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher that I purchased from Scrapdoodles a few months ago. The girls in the store were hilarious, they said that having the tiny attacher would be life changing. Well....I LOVE IT!!! I used it a lot over the weekend and it will be a "staple" for sure in my stash now, HA!!!
I switched to a new Die cut storage. Actually I just made it bigger. I've been using the binder storage method for a while now, but it was in a small binder. I've switched to a regular size binder. I'm using the Martha Stewart binder from Staples. You can use any binder though I had a coupon so I bought a Martha one. I'm also using her page protectors that have POCKETS!!!! I bought the one with 4 on the front and the one with two on the front. I used the post it tabs to divide the pages instead of dividers. The tabs are are good enough for me, I didn't see a need for an extra thing between the pages. I sorted the die cuts by manufacturer. It does fill up pretty quick so if I was a huge collector of metal die cuts this might not work for me or I would have a larger binder or multiple ones. I have 22 pages or so in here. I also have embossing folders in the back and in the front zip pocket, also by Martha Stewart, I put in a couple of the embossing folders with the die cut that Cuttlebug used ot make. I took a few pictures with my cell phone when I was finished.
This is the 4 pocket page protector and you can see the post it tabs that I used.
I used the 2 pocket page protectors for both of these. For the embossing folders I embossed cardstock so that I would know exactly what the impression looked like when it was embossed.
I talk about organization ALL the time!! There are a ton of reasons for that. Other than trying to make my space super efficient so that I can get more pages done it's just plain a pain in the behind to pack for a scrappy weekend away. I'm gradually getting better about not brining my entire scrapbook room, but as with all things I'm a work in progress. So, todays organizing post is about my new favorite Thirty-One Tote. Now I'm not plugging it because I sell it, but really I just like the darn thing. I actually love it! It's probably up there with the Large Utility Tote for me. The Super Organizing Tote is new to Thirty-One. I think it came out in the 2012 fall catalog (yeah I'm a great consultant, huh). Anyway I actually hadn't paid the tote any attention at all until a few weeks ago while relaxing at a friends house going through the summer catalog. So, if you ever actually read a catalog Thirty-One makes solution sets to help us consultants sell the products. Well they put in a solution set for scrapbookers!!!!! Yeah that's right they gave us crafty folks a shout out!!! So it's just bag right, nothing exciting. NOPE, that's not the case with this bag. IT HOLDS A 12" TRIMMER!!! Yeah I know you're sold now, right! I know I was. I travel with 2 trimmers for a weekend away. My new Carl Trimmer of course and everyone's absolute favorite the Making Memories Trimmer. You got it and they both fit and you know what else fits in this bag...The Creative Memories Power Sort Box and Two additional Power Sort Dividers. So now you want to see it to believe it, right..HERE YA GO!!
Oh yeah and it ZIPS SHUT!!! You could totally do a day crop using the Super Organizing Tote. It has pockets on the outside for all kinds of stuff so that's great too. It's great!!!! Well that's my new favorite organizing thing!!! I have a few more posts coming up this weekend with some organzing tips so stay tuned!
WOOHOO!!!! I have linked my Gypsy to my Cricut Craft Room. Needless to say it took ALL DAY!!! I had to re-install Cricut Sync and Cricut Craft Room a few times and start over a few times, but it finally worked!!! I am running Windows 7 and had to set both programs to work as if they were in Windows XP. That seemed to work. I did have a problem with the Craft Room being able to see my Gypsy but eventually that worked as well. I'm hoping everything continues to work appropriately. Tomorrow I'm hoping to updated my Expressions 2 to work with Craft room and if it does, I'll be re-purchasing the Cricut Mini that I returned because I couldn't get it to work on my computer. I also have a few catridges to load tomorrow so I'm going to check out how that works for me as well. In other wonderful news, since all of us Cricut Fans have been so patient waiting for the Gypsy linkability to arrive we have received a $20 credit on our Cricut.com accounts. It Expires in Feburary so get it while ya can!!! Happy cutting!!!!
While I was surfing pinterest I found the absolute coolest thing I've seen in a long long time. I found a new way to store my sticker letters and of course by the wonderful company that all of us scrapbookers love, IRIS! Check out this super old post on Nichol Magouirk's Blog about her craft studio. The IRIS project case is the perfect size for these letters and they're clear so you can see through them and since they're plastic you can label them on the top. I just picked mine up at Office Max. The website says they're $14.99 online, but in the store they were $8.50. What I also like about them is that they will stand on their side. My plan is to keep them in the Thirty-One Fold 'N File. I'm planning to put two of the Fold 'N Files side by side in my Expedit (hopefully they'll fit) I'd like to keep my 8 1/2 x 11 paper in them too. I'll take pictures as soon as I get it all set up! I am so super excited about this!!!
The next big organization change for me also from Nichol Magouirk's blog. I'm going to move my wood mounted stamps into the Cricut Catridge Artbin cases!! So now you're wondering what in the world am I going to do with the Cricut Catridges....Well, I got a great idea from a super organized friend. So I'm taking the plastic cartridge holder out and the plastic handbook holder and I'm putting them into this Creative Options Case. I'm stacking the catridge holders on top of each other and the handbooks next to them stacked. With the empty Cricut Cartridge Artbins I can use them to store my wood mounted stamps! They can be labled and they stack you can't ask for a better plan!!
Tomorrow I'll be getting my Basic Copic Certification but as soon as I get home the reogranization will begin! I can't wait to get started!
So excited to finally make something, WOOHOO!!! So I'm taking part in a
recipe card swap while I'm on a retreat. So I picked a recipe by Rachel
Ray. I have her new book 365 recipes and drinks by her and her hubby.
Yeah, I love it!!! So, since the recipe is for crab cakes I went with
an underwater theme for the recipe cards. I used the Cricut for the
seaweed. The tall piece is from the Lifes a Beach Cartridge and the
smaller one is from Create a Critter. The sand came from the Miss Kates
Cuttables file Beach Day.
The large crabs came from the Silhouette Design Studio Crabby Word
Image Set. I deleted the word crabby and just kept the crab. The
smaller crabs are a Martha Stewart Crab Punch.
The little sea shells are a punch from the dollar spot in JoAnns. All
of the cardstock is also from JoAnns with the exception of the white.
The cardstock came in a pack called Minty Fresh, I really like all the colors together. The sand is Krafty cardstock. Oh and I couldn't resist googly eyes on the crabs.
So, I finally got a new paper trimmer. I've been putting it off for a while, but the my old one was DONE! I decided to stay budget friendly even though I would've loved the Cutterpillar Pro. I also wanted something that just wasn't huge to carry around. So I went with the Carl RT-200N. I'm so glad that I did. I read a few reviews on Amazon that it wasn't that great, but I really do like it. It cuts smooth ever time and it has the photo sizes pre-marked on the grid which I LOVE!! The major complaint that I read about was that there really isn't a paper holder so you don't get straight cuts. Well no there isn't a magnetic strip or something that holds the paper in place, but my hand on the lime green plastic piece that keeps you from cutting your fingers off did just fine by me. You line the paper up with edge and hold down the lime green plastic and push the rotery blade and that's it. I did get the size that's 12x12. I decided not to get the longer one for space reasons. It's uper light weight with easy to read rulers and that's really about all I need. I picked it up at Staples and I think it was priced wrong. Online this retails for $60-$70 and Amazon (one of my fave online stores) has it for $40, but Staples had it priced at $34. Not too bad if you ask me. I did notice that the replacement parts were not for the this model but the one below it which they didn't have, so I'm thinking they just didn't realize, but I'll take a sale anyday!! Here's a pic of my new favorite scrappy toy!!
So, I finally broke down and got a new rolling cart. Yeah, I know was it really that hard to talk myself into this one, nope not a bit. I have a friend who has one. Ms. Sara W Andrews posted a pick of her's in use in her scrapbook room here. My favorite twine using blogger, Debbie Bugjuiced, has one too, here's her review. So after these two ladies had purchased them I was in!! I'm currently storing my small punches, cuttlebug, and trimmers on it. I'm sure that will change as I keep reorganzing the chaos my scrapbook room as become. If you don't have an Ikea near you, here it is on their website!!! I hope everyone had a good Easter!
