I Got To Remove One From My List!

And boy did that feel good!!!  But then my OCD kicked in and feels the need to fill the empty spot from where I removed the Idea Book from my list that I showed you yesterday.  When will it ever end?  At least it's an ongoing list of fun things to do - and not something terrible like clean the toilet.





Okay, okay, so I found a moment of time this evening after dinner and was able to finally sprinkle on some glitter.  Let me back up just a little bit.

I found an old sketch book that was practically new.  I took a computer art class many years ago.  The very first thing that the instructor had us do was get a sketch book and "carry it with us to be sketching all the time".  Well, I bought the book and I think I attempted to sketch a few things before I said forget this and promptly dropped the class.  You see, I cannot for the life of me sketch anything!  I have never really understood the need for sketching when you are dealing the photography.  I mean I'm not going to go out and sketch a shot I would like to take before I take it.  That would be a little strange.

I have decided to put this book to good use.  I collect images.  I always have.  I collect them and use them for inspiration.  Now, I have a home for those little images that I cut out of magazines.  You know a pair of shoes that I like, or color combinations that look good, or soft lighting that I would like to try in a photograph someday.  Now, they will all go in my brand new Idea Book.  Yeah!

And, this project used several items from my newly reformed hoarding ways.  Two birds with one stone . . . or some such thing.

It has already taken up residence on top of a file cabinet next to my desktop file organizer.  I love it and cannot wait to start putting in some great ideas.

I Am A . . . Hoarder?

Have you ever watched any of those shows on hoarders?  Wow, they kind of freak me out.  And, I'm sorry to say, but I am a bit of a hoarder.

Okay, okay nothing at all like those people.  But, I do tend to hold onto things and "save" them for just the right project.  So, they sit and do not get used at all.  And really, what is the point of that?

For example, I have so many pieces of beautiful decorative paper that has been sitting in a pile, not getting used because I do not want to "use it all up".  Because if I did that, I may never be able to find another piece of paper for another project some other day.  Give me a break.  There are companies out there specifically coming up with new products every day.  And so no, I may not ever find that particular piece of paper again, but I'm pretty sure I will find many more that I love just as much.

So, I have decided it is time to get to work and start using up all that stuff that I've been saving for just the right moment.  They are getting used - as they should!

I  have so many projects that I would like to get made for the holidays.  I'm not sure if all of them will get made this year or not, but I'm going to give it my best.  So, I made up a list on my dry erase board that is posted right above my computer monitor where I will see it every single day.  That should be some great motivation, don't you think.  Let's get crafting!!!

A portion of what I'd like to do.  Some things I
could not add on here - it would spoil the gift
for family members.

A sneak peak at another organizational project I've
been piecing together for weeks now.  I work on
it between projects.  Tonight it got worked on
while I was playing a computer game with my son.

Now, wait just a minute, we've already seen this before . . .

You're right you have.  This was featured a little bit ago.  A fun project to make.  And now it is time to put it to use.  But, first, I have to organize some things.  OH NO!  Do I really have to?

Well, yeah I do.  You see, there are three specific areas of my life that are going into that file organizer.  My creative endeavors - stamping and paper crafting; my photography bits & pieces - customer info, wonderful locations to photograph and visually inspiring items I have collected from magazines and books and cards and anywhere that I find visual stimulation (which is pretty much the entire world);  and then items that I would like to try out - cosmetic items, websites to visit and the like.  So far that is the beginning of the breakdown that I have come up with. 

I have been collecting papers, and more papers and more papers with ideas, and images and directions and all sorts of things that I desperately need to get organized.  And now, they have a place to call home.  Or at least very, very soon they will. 

As I sit here tonight, I have three piles of papers to sort through.  And those three piles have already been sorted once.  I have some really cute file folders that are just ready to be labeled, stuffed and put in the organizer. 

If only my eyelids could stay open just a little bit longer.  That will have to wait for another night.  Instead, I think I'm going to try to read one chapter in my book before calling it a night.

Goodnight everyone!

And on to the rest of the project

Here is the whole purpose of this two part project, my new desktop file folder sorter (thingie).

The finished project.

I finally found a home for my M.  Do you remember this?
I made it at the distressing class and have been waiting for just
the right piece to add it to.  Well here it is.  Love it!

An M with a knot.  How can you go wrong?

Gotta add some bling - pearls, chunky glitter and rhinestones
on buttons the perfect touch!

I just had to sneak in some purple!  Love it with these
wonderful metal accents.

Both finished projects.

And for the smaller piece first

I can't wait to share these finished projects with you.  But, first I must talk.  Because that is who I am.  A talker. 

I've been looking for a way to organize some of my officey type items.  You know file folders and such.  I am in big need of organization.  That is not my strong suit at all.  I've decided that something that would really help me would be a stand, of sorts, to sit on my desk and hold some key file folders.  You know keep everything in one place but do it very stylishly.  I've been looking for months and nothing was really appealing to me - in my budget.  It's really hard to find anything other than those black plastic containers, silver mesh or faux leather.  And to me all of these say snoozeville. 

And then finally, I saw the one I wanted to get.  I mean it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was a good start.  A teal colored desktop file sorter!  I was out shopping for Halloween supplies and there it was - and on clearance no less!  It was my lucky day.  And then a few days later, I saw the cutest matching pencil holder - and it was on clearance also.  I must be doing something right!

Now, teal is not the first color of choice, but I knew that I could make it work.  All it needed was some Designer Paper and some embellishments and we would be in business.

I redid the pencil holder first.  It was smaller and easier to work with.  Whenever I am creating like this, I pull out all the supplies that I might possibly want to use on the project.  Set them all on my desk and then just start mixing and matching until I get it just right.  What do you think?  I absolutely love it!

Add a flower, a stamped tag, some bling and you are good to go!

I am loving the idea of adding Rhinestone or Pearl Jewels to
buttons.  It really jazzes them up.

A little personalized tag of black glitter attached with
black Shimmer Brads.

This was super fun to make.  After I completed the pencil cup, I was so ready to get going on the file folder organizer, but ran out of time for stamping.  That was the hardest part - waiting until the next day to get to work on it.

And because I took tons of pictures - well would you expect anything else?  - I'm going to share the rest of it tomorrow.

I hope you took some time to find some creativity in your day today!  See you tomorrow.

What Do You Get When . . .

Question for the night:

What do you get when you add this . . .

And this . . .

With a little bit of this?

You get a whole lot of fun.  And a couple of projects that I will be sharing with you tomorrow.  I need more daylight to photograph the larger project properly so that you can really see what it is.  So, sorry, but you will just need to wait a bit longer.  Can you make it?

And here it is . . . A Little Joy

So, I'm hoping that you don't hate me too much for my little tease yesterday.  And hopefully it was well worth the wait for here is the finished project.

My tabletop Joy display.

I initially planned on making it all red, black and vanilla.  But once I got started, I really liked the idea of sticking with just black and vanilla with some sparkle added in.  A little bit of ribbon, glitter, silver and pearls.  All the things any crafting girl needs to have on hand.

 I love all the textures here.  From the chunky glitter to the embossed card stock (from the Big Shot - lovin' it!) to the ribbon.

And for the O I just felt like a lot of circles were in order.  The ribbon slide and the 3 black brads were just the perfect items to add on here.

And the Y was a little trickier so I decided on a "dot" at the end, made out of paper flower, button and some pearls for the center of that flower.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Joy project as much as I enjoyed making it.  Happy crafting everyone!

Fragile Music Monday & a bonus

I can't believe it's another Monday upon us.  I never know what song I'm going to pick for my Music Monday's until the moment I sit down to start typing it up.  I completely leave it to the mood that I am.

So, I started this blog as a means to share my stamping items.  But I decided that that was not enough.  I really wanted to have a place to share all my creative endeavors.  For, I have come to realize that all of life should be approached creatively and with lots of care. 

I would have to say that music is a huge part of my daily inspiration.  Music speaks to the soul in a way that nothing else really can.  If you will let it, it will touch your heart in ways that very little can.

I do feel the need to give you a little background on today's music pick.  For there is a bit of history with me and the featured artist.  Today I have chosen a song by Sting.  And, I will tell you right now, there will be more selections by Sting to come.  I find his work to be highly inspirational and beautiful.  But, there is more than just the musical connection for me.

I remember in the 8th grade, Sting did a documentary about making his first solo album called Bring on the Night.  (Which happens to be one of my favorite Police songs).  I went to the documentary with my best friend Jae Kyung.  We loved it.  Both of us being big Sting fans already.  There was one moment that really stuck with me all these years.  In one scene they have a photographer come to shoot the band for artwork on the album.  And I remember sitting in that theater and thinking to myself, "that's really a job?"  And I fell in love with photography at that moment.

I have had the pleasure of seeing Sting live several times over the years.  And had my lifelong wish of seeing The Police together a couple years ago when they reunited for a tour.  Made my year!

So the song selection for tonight is a beautiful song titled Fragile.  Listen to the words.  Amazing.  This song will be featured on the video bar to the right.  Don't let a week go by without checking out the song.  It's beautiful.  The most amazing version of this song I am unable to find recorded.  It was performed with Sting and Yo-Yo Ma at the Utah Olympics some years back.  Just remembering that performance gives me chills.  A truly inspired song.

Over the weekend I had my Halloween class.  It was a great time & thanks to those that attended.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  In preparation for that class, I started looking into other Halloween projects I could work on.  I found the cutest Halloween item at Walmart and went to town decorating it.

I know that these little candies are intended to decorate baked goods - cookies, cupcakes and such.  But they are packaged so cute that I want to keep them as is.  Besides, I totally love that the white ones are bones.  How fun is that?

I applied Stampin' Up!'s Spooky Night Rub-Ons on each "test tube".  I was a little nervous because of the curve of the tube.  But the rub-ons went on wonderfully.  Then just added a bit of ribbon and I have a great decoration.

Halloween

Just a few hours until my Halloween stamp class.  And, I have been looking over some ideas for next months Christmas class.  I hope you will be able to join me for the class.  Should be a fun one!

This project uses the Spooky Night Rub-Ons from teh Holiday Mini Catalog.  Rub-Ons are so fun to use and beautiful.  I mean look at that detail.  And it doesn't really show well in the photo, but they have a metallic finish.

Bad To The Bone

Last month, I got the opportunity to spend the evening with a friend of mine who now lives in California.  Hi Lisa!  It was great to see her - although too short.  Next time we get together for lunch or dinner - okay?  Anyway, she showed me some pics on her camera of some really cute Halloween items that a friend of hers did.  I absolutely loved this little candy holder.  So, I borrowed the idea and changed it up just a little bit.  Different paper, added a tag and such.  So easy and fun to make.  I'm thinking about making some for my son to take to his school class.

We will be making this as a part of my Halloween class on Saturday.  Too cute!

Stamp Set - Batty for you
Paper - Nite Owl Designer Series Paper
Ink - Pear Pizzzazz, Elegant Eggplant
Accessories - Pear Pizzazz ribbon, Silver Glass Glitter
Miscellaneous - Pixie Sticks

I also whipped up another one using some retired paper from Stampin' Up.

Just two more days until my class.  I will be showing another project tomorrow so be sure to check in for that!  Happy Thursday to everyone.

Fangs for the Memories

Today was a girlfriend's day!  Woohoo for wonderful girlfriends!  I met up with some wonderful friends - Diana, Rhonda and Marlene - today for a brunch/lunch deal.  Some of us had breakfast, some of us had lunch and one of us just had tea (Rhonda!!!).  We went to Paradise Bakery.  I love that place.  Their sandwiches are so yummy - but huge!  Luckily, Diana and I enjoy the same sandwich there - Chicken Walnut - so we split the sandwich, each got our own chips and 3 cookies.  Well, I mean it was buy one get one free so how could you say no?  And the meal comes with a cookie.  Besides, when you are eating with your girlfriends calories do not count, didn't you know?

So they had a business meeting planned, and I crashed it.  Well, okay not really.  But it makes me feel all rebellious to say so, so I'm just gonna keep on saying it.  'Cause really I was invited.  And, we ended up visiting for like 2 hours.  It felt like 15 minutes.  Don't you just love those kind of friends?

After the "meeting", Diana and I set off to do some shopping.  She's getting ready to make a trip back east where it's quite a bit cooler than here so she wanted to get some fun new clothes to take along.  We had a great time (don't we always darling?)

As a little surprise - and I sure hope they liked it - I gave them a fun little gift.  Nothing big just something that I saw and wanted to share with my "Twilight" friends.  These three gals are a part of the group that I go and see the Twilight movies with on opening day.  Too fun!

While I was at Target with my family the other day, we were looking at the dollar items.  They always have such interesting things there.  And they have added in some Halloween goodies.  Not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but I really, really, really (okay you get the idea) love Halloween.  Well, I saw these totally cute little Vampire erasers and a cute skull and crossbones mini notebook and I just knew that I had to get them to share with my friends.

All in all it was a great day.  Thanks for stopping in . . . see you tomorrow night!

Joy

I am attending a stamp event tomorrow.  Meeting up with some really fun stamping friends and making each other's cards.  I'm very excited to be going.  And so, today was spent creating the Halloween card that they will be making from me.  I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do.  So, I sat and down and just started stamping random stuff on random cardstock.  And then all the sudden it just kinda started piecing together.  It was pretty fun to work on.  I was able to get them all completed and ready to go while the rest of my family was outside tending to some yard work. 

I can't wait to show the card to you, but will wait until tomorrow since I want it to be a surprise for the ladies tomorrow night.  So, be sure to check back tomorrow for a look at what I came up with.

In the meantime, since I was digging around in my stamp stuff for items to use on the card, I came across this framed piece that I made a few years back as family gifts for Christmas.  You know, it's never too early to start getting ready for some Christmas stamping.  As a matter of fact, I have already started on my Christmas shopping.  Gotta hit the sales whenever they come about!

M is for...

Meatballs...yum!  Or Mashed potatoes...even yummier!  Or peanut butter M&M's.  Wow, I must be hungry.  Which is weird, it's only 6:00 in the morning. 

M is actually for Me.  That's one of my nicknames.  Given to me by a nephew many years ago.  He is almost 21 now.  Most of my nieces and nephews call me Aunt Me and even some of my brothers and sister-in-laws refer to me as Me.  It's pretty funny to watch people's reaction to someone yelling "Hey Me!" in a crowd. 

I love my M that I made at Diana's.  It is perched right up against a favorite card (from my upcoming September stamp class - I will be sharing this one later on) on my stamping desk.  It looks so cute there.

I'm not really a floral type person.  If you have ever visited my photography website you will probably be disagreeing with me right about now.  There are tons of flowers on there.  And I do enjoy photographing flowers, but here's the thing, I like to photograph them for their texture and their shapes.  Not necessarily because I really love flowers.  And because my mom really enjoys my photos of flowers.

But, this is a flower I really enjoyed.  It was so fun to make - and so easy too!  I loved the feel of the cardstock in my hand after I wet it down and mushed it around to make the soft petals.  So very fun!

Thanks for checking in with me.  And don't forget only a few days left to take advantage of discounts on your orders.  Let me know if you are interested in taking advantage of this offer!

Have a great Tuesday and see you soon!

A Distressing Day

Well, actually it was not a distressing day.  Not at all!

Yesterday I got to be the stamper.  I attended a class at Diana's (thanks for a great day yesterday) using Stampin' Up!'s new distressing kit.  What a bundle of fun that is!  We made three projects.  It was really fun using that kit to add "wear and tear" to the projects.  I think the blank stamp is so fun, and very relaxing.  The way you work it in on the edges of your projects.  Well, it just takes all the stress out of distressing.  And if that isn't enough, the sanding tools let you really work out some aggressions - that is if you have any to work out!

Anyway, it was real fun going to class and enjoying the company of other stampers that were learning this new technique just like I was for the first time.  We had a great time gabbing and stamping.

After class was over, Diana and I headed out to do some shopping.  I'm always up for shopping, but this was right up my alley.  She's been wanting a new camera.  So off we went to take a look at different styles.  She had two picked out two that she was interested in looking at.  We went to Costco first.  I haven't had a Costco membership in years, so wasn't really sure what to expect.  Really, their camera selection was pretty limited.  There seemed to be either pretty high end or low end.  And nothing in the range that she was looking for.  So, off to Best Buy we went.  It was just down the road a bit and they had a much better selection.  Immediately we had it narrowed down to two, but really it was looking like the one.  And it turned out to be one of the two that she was originally wanting to take a look at.  She did buy that one.  I think she's going to have a lot of fun with it.  It's got a lot of options and will be as simple as she wants or will allow her to "expand" her horizons if she decides.  After that we grabbed a quick bite at Paradise Bakery.  Yum!  Love that place.  And then I decided it was time to head home to see my family since I had been gone most of the day.  I finished the day out playing computer games with my husband and son.  We had fun.

Now, I'm off to take my son in for his first before school band class of the school year and then I am getting to walk the mall with my brother and my father for the first time since school got out in May.  I'm really looking forward to that.  The exercise is great and so are the conversations that we have!

Don't worry, I'm not leaving you without any pictures to check out for the day.  Just a couple from yesterday.

Here I am getting ready to go to the Distressing Class. 

The distressing Kit in it's cute little pouch.

Here are the contents all laid out.  We all joked that the sticks on the bottom were weapons.  But they sure made distressing things easier.  And everyone fell in love with the cute little sanding block.  I didn't even use mine yesterday, it's just too cute!!!

Here are the three projects that we made in Diana's class.  She had put her initial on her Distressing Kit.  I love my M.  It's so darn cute and those flowers were so easy and fun to make.  I'm not sure where I'm going to put my M yet, for right now it's on my stamping desk ready to help inspire me to create.

Two of my Favorite Things . . . and then one more!

What a crazy busy day - but what an awesome one!  I got to do two things that I absolutely love!  How can you go wrong there?

My day started nice and smooth.  I was up and getting things done earlier than I needed to and that makes for a happy me.  Then, due to a communication issue, I was suddenly an hour behind.  Oops!  I hate being late.  But, what I was late for was a good thing.  I was taking my oldest brother's family pictures.  I got there at about 8:40 in the morning.  And already it was hot.  I finished up all the photos in about an hour.  Really, I was doing my best to get them done before we all melted.  I haven't had a chance to look them over yet, but hopefully there are some fun ones in there.

After that I had to do my "day" job.  I work at home, so really I cannot complain.  I get to work at my own pace and schedule for the most part.  There are some parameters that I must follow, but really it's not bad.

Just before I sat down on my computer just now, I spent the past hour or so stamping.  My husband and son are outside getting some much needed yard work done and I was informed that that would make a great time to get some stamping in.  You don't have to tell me twice.  I jumped right on that.  I was feeling a little bummed because I hadn't had a chance to get to my stamp desk for a couple days.  So, it was a good day all around!

And since today was a double good day for me, the item I have chosen to share with you combines these two things - and another "thing" that I love.  I made this a few years ago and so some of the items have retired and are no longer available, but you will get the idea and hopefully be inspired nonetheless.

This used to sit on my desk. It's fun to look at. I have moved it to rest on my dry erase board for the moment, or until I can find another place for it. Don't you just love all the attitude in the last picture. He is definitely my child. I can't get mad at him for all that attitude because I know exactly where he gets it from!