My Visions

So now that I've waited a day and thought about it, I guess I'll be okay if I expose my inner visions and feelings with you.  I would if I saw you in person, so I guess it's okay if I do on the web!  Here is the project I was working on over this past weekend.  I'm not going to tell you much about it - so enjoy the pictures and the view of "My Vision."

A vision of the future?

On Friday night, my husband enlightened me, and inspired me.  He told me of a movie he watched called The Secret.  After his summarizing, I came up with a million and one things I would like to have in life and envision myself doing or being. No, I have not watched the movie; however, I do intend to.  My husband did question it's ethics based on my religious practices, and said that he believed that some could interpret this energy as God.  So, as far as the movie - I'm not endorsing it, I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it follows my life philosophy. . .

BUT  the story he told me gave me some true inspiration.  Some crafting inspiration.  So much, so that I dreamt Friday night and Saturday night of this project.  Friday night I dreamt of the things I truly want in life; where I want to be, my goals, my desires, my needs and wants and prioritized them a little while sleeping.  So, I had some ideas in my head.  Just lucky enough, I had a crop this weekend supporting one of my favorite causes:  the American Cancer Society.  So, on Saturday, I did the pages I thought I needed to get done and started crafting on a book.  I took three hours to make this beautiful book from scrap cardboard that comes with paper packs, album pages, and page protectors and cut it to the size I wanted it, found the paper I wanted to use, adhered it, sanded it and inked the edges.  I even put hole punches in the sides to get set for the rings I was going to put in there.  I was content with my project.  It really is beautiful.  Then it was time to go home for the night.

So, I go to bed Saturday night and again dream of my project.  Turns out - my mind's eye had something totally different in store.  Something bold, something striking and something very creative was necessary for this life changing vision book I was going to make.  Yes, I had to put aside the ideas I had for my other book, consider selling it for some other person to enjoy.  Sunday morning after signing at church, I had a mission of a new project.  This new project involves BLACK, RED, WHITE & SILVER.  It is striking.  It is bold. It is creative.  It fell into place so much easier than the last one.  It is done in some ways, but needs some more visions in other ways, so it will be done in no time flat.  I was considering sharing it with you, but will have to think on that some more.  It's personal, and although there isn't anything on/in it that I wouldn't share with you, I'm not at the open-hearted stage to share it.  So maybe tomorrow night!  ;)

Whatever your thoughts will or will not be on my project, my true point is inspiration.  I cannot believe how taken I was with this inspirational moment.  I have been a very typical scrapper by doing only scrapbook pages and cards and rarely venturing out.  I'll tell you that the last time I did something like this my life was in turmoil and I did a book of New Year's Resolutions.  This book helped get me through what I was dealing with, and helped me see what I wanted in life.  Again this book is helping me see what truly is important to myself.  I am completely in awe of how this came about, turned out and what it means to me.  I hope you will enjoy seeing it when I do decide to share it with you. 

A weekend I enjoyed

Although there are many weekends I enjoy that include my family, this weekend did not.  This weekend included some of my best girl friends.  It included some time to rejuvenate.  It included some good food.  It included some great memories.  It was a scrapbook weekend!!  And I loved every minute of it!  Most weekends, I end up leaving or getting distracted and not getting as much done as I'd like; however, this past weekend I went to at the end of January with Kristen was absolutely amazing. 

 There are a large group of girls who get together with Kristen, my Creative Memories Consultant, who rents a house on the lake for us to get together and be creative.  Here are just a few of the memories we shared.

This is one of my friends, Laura.  As you can tell by another of my friends pictured on the left - not many of us are wanting our picture to be taken.  We are in the zone, and not looking our best.  Although, my girl Laura, is looking wonderful while working hard.

 So many times, people ask me what I bring to a weekend.  I bring everything, including the kitchen sink.  Because if I don't, I always want what I left at home!!!  So, here's my work space from a distance.  I have a lot of junk on the table - and there's some of Laura's and Kate's!  Since we have so many people, I also bring my lights.  I can't expect the CM consultant to have 2 lights for all 17 to 23 of us!    

And, I even use the shelves from the house we rented!!  I like to make sure everything is organized, and believe it or not I like to make sure that things are about where they are when I'm scrapping at home.  It makes it easier to find things, I don't have to think, "Now where did I put that THIS weekend?"  So, on the shelf are the things I don't need at the moment, which include the completed parts of my album, the album pages and page protectors.  I, sadly, even bring my mini shelves from home and put the little shoe boxes of things on them that are the same things I put on them at home.  Organizing in children's shoe boxes is very easy.  Each shoebox is large enough to put a few things in, but yet small enough to keep them from floating around and becoming a disaster.  For instance, one box has my glitter containers, one box has my velum quotes, and one box has my heat embossing powders.  Moving left to right (if facing the table) is my pages to do, the bag of letters and eyelets, markers, and can of necessities, tub of letter pages, carton of mat stacks, and then in the middle is my work space (with work in it at the time).  I really try to utilize all of my space.

I even use the floor space!!  If I were sitting there, to my left is my three drawer cart, which fits under my scrap table.  Then behind me is my big shot.  In the black cart is various colors of cardstock.  The shelves I had already mentioned includes a craft sewing machine, and an iHome on the top.  You have to have your tunes, and a place to charge your iPod!  It also has three "book" organizers of metals, buttons, and ribbons.  On the bottom are clear "envelope" type folders that are 12x12 that hold random papers, tags and stickers.  Those make organizing by theme or kit so easy!

What do you bring on your weekend crops?  You'll have to let me know. 

Life is a journal of memories!

The post is rather late; however, I made this as a Christmas gift for one of my aunts.  I like to make her something, and I think she appreciates a home made gift. 

When planning what to do for her gift, I was out shopping and found those composition notebooks for cheap.  Not as cheap as the beginning of the school year - but cheap enough.  I didn't have any idea what exactly I would do with them, but I knew I could manage to get something crafty done with them.

The paper I used was from an older retired Creative Memories pack that was the smaller than 12x12 size.  In the power palettes they had, all of the paper was coordinating, so I chose the background paper, the mat stack pieces and then reduced the size of the layered mat to fit within the bottom mat.  I stamped the "memories" in a color from Stampin' Up!.  Then took the edges of the notebook and sanded them so nothing had a cut edges other than down the right side.  After sanding, I used an ink pad to distress the notebook.  Also, for the memories edges, they were distressed using Close To My Heart's edge distresser, and then inked to give it that aged look. 

There's more coming - and I hope you enjoyed this project!

I'm off!

To Scrapbook that is!!  I'm headed with a couple of my besties to go to a condo for the weekend and scrap!  As I copy off of Ali Edwards, these three things are the new purchases I have made to make my weekend fun.  First, a storage unit for my ribbon.  It is from Michael's.  And unfortunately, I cannot find a picture of it anywhere online, so sad for you :(  It is made by Store in Style, and has 20 compartments for ribbon (if you buy extra dividers).  I am quite excited about it because, although earth friendly, I need more  space than the kids shoe boxes I have the ribbon stored in currently! 

Second:   Dymo Caption Maker.  I am quite excited about this one as well.  I have often wanted to add this piece of flair to my embellishment bag of tricks.  So now, I have this pretty cute little tool that came with three different font thingies (how do you like that for technical?) and I added the primary colors to my purchase so I have four colors to choose from!!  Now, let's see how many pages I have that can boast this product!!!



And finally: Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons Cricut Cartridge I am looking forward to using this wonderful cartridge for my Cricut.  This new cartridge offers some wonderful things to the line of designs I have.  I am so excited!!!  I purchased this through Kristen and her website is linked.  Since I was her "down line" when I was a Creative Memories Consultant, I stick with her still.  Her website does offer shopping and can be shipped right to you.  There are two cartridges that are Creative Memories exclusives, and this one was my favorite! 

So now, you'll have to wait until I post about the weekend!  Have a great weekend yourself!!

A small refurbishment

I had purchased some embellishments on the clearance rack from a random scrap store, and loved the little container that they came in. I saved it thinking someday I would create a use for it. . . I still haven't found a specific use for it; however, I have refurbished it.

The printed paper is from a stack (from Hobby Lobby, one of their brands) and the purple is from Creative Memories (Shades of Purple).

I left the top kind of open so when I find an official use for it, I can embellish it a little more with the intent of what it is being used for. Another good punch to have around, is Stampin' Up!'s Scallop Circle. It seems to be that the scallops are appearing everywhere these days. I hope you enjoyed my small project, it didn't take much, but I'm happy with the little changes I've made.

:) Enjoy!