Thursday 5 May 2011

Wooden Stamp Storage

I'm on an organizational roll...

Thought I would share my wooden stamp storage in the hopes that some might respond with their own acrylic stamp storage ideas...A product that I have not fully organized yet!

I keep my wooden stamps sorted by theme in these 6 drawer rolling iris carts from Costco.
My themes are Inks; Alpha; baby; birthday; Florals, nature, Odds and Ends; Shapes; Wedding/Love; Words/Phrases; and Xmas.

Some of you may remember that I have memory problems since we hit a deer a couple of years ago. I can't remember what supplies I have (or where they are) anymore!!! I  took the Wookie Mouse Organizational Challenge at Two Peas and she showed this great idea to create a binder of stamped off images.
As you can see, the iris cart drawers have a couple of layers of stamps in each one. Stamps can become forgotten when they are hidden on the bottom layer. I guess there is truth to that old adage, out of sight, out of mind!


To keep all my stamps visible, I stamp them off  (by theme) onto cardstock. These are then stored in a binder that I can peruse when trying to decide on the "perfect" stamp to use on a project.


Now I am trying to find a solution for my acrylic stamps. Currently I store the little Studio G stamps and simlar size in baseball card sleeves in the same binder mentioned above.  I haven't found a solution for all the other zillion different sized acrylic stamps I own.  I don't really have room for a Clip it up although I think they look great.
Any ideas or pics would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

My Scrap Room

I have a room that is my very own:)
It is in the basement and doesn't have a window:(
My husband calls it the dungeon.
I call it paradise!

I have been on a bit of a scrapbooking hiatus due to some health issues. I still shopped, re-organized my stash, played with creating tags, flowers, journalling spots, cards etc...but wasn't actually getting any pictures laid to paper. I soon realized that whether I was "playing" with bits and bobs or actually creating layouts, I still enjoyed my room.

Thought I would share a few random shots...


I found these Ikea cupboards on Craigslist for $100     What luck!!!             
Here are some random shots of the inside of the cupboards.



The chest of drawers that is holding up my countertop was DH's when he was a child. He was delighted to see them reused...They hold my card  and envelope supplies as well as finished cards. Here is the inside view of a drawer...as you can see my trusty labeller was once again put to good use.


These little woven fabric drawers came from Jysk and I just happened to find the matching baskets at Dollarama.  I was lucky enough to find a couple of different sizes of the baskets.
These little stickles shelves were being cleared out at my LSS. I picked them up for around a buck each...what a score! I bought a bunch and haven't filled them all up yet...

I think that means it is OK to go do some more shopping!!!

Hope you enjoyed my picture tour...feel free to leave any questions or comments...

Wednesday 27 April 2011

April Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop

 
Welcome to the April Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop. If you are just joining us or got lost along the way, you can start this blog hop at  http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/.  This months challenge was to find inspiration from a Counterfeit Kit Design Team members blog. What fun it was paging back through all these blogs!
I was inspired by Crystal at Crafting for Caitlyn, specifically her March 11th layout, Trash 2 Treasure. You can see it here at  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihU6XJ7H25KbFZR6JHyCiErgoPchMvYPvktjt6je_piJg9u2bUL6s03porzPWVbQYX0HvndQ6uIGTOtPdZyjYydktpUXGbjHhc6qfyDjSliKmp1FtACOAa5wEKPGNZUdBtwlV-db7UHJx/s1600/P1250319.JPG    I really liked the use of the burlap on the center of her flowers. .

Here is my take on using fabric...The photos are of my garden finally breaking into bloom in mid April.
I appologize for the blurry photos of my layouts.  The actual pictures on the layouts are in focus as DH is the normal photographer.  I took these and I think it will be the last time I do that!!!!




 I used canvas instead of gunnysack as I already had some canvas on hand.  I chose to ink up the edges of my canvas to give it a little colour. The clouds, parts of the flowers and my bird are all done from canvas. I freehand cut that canvas bird on the Kraft tag...I kind of frayed the edges with my fingers just so it looked a little old and worn!

I used  sketch #150  from Creative Scrappers as further inspiration for this layout. This was my first time to use a sketch... It  really helped with all the decision making involved in completing the layout.

Another first for me was the machine stitching...I think I will be doing it again! I scrap lifted the idea of the butterflies on the stitching from Jody Rogers who is on the design team for Creative Scrappers.

Hope you enjoy this first layout that I have ever posted on my blog!

Next on the blog hop is Bethany at     http://inspiredscrapper-bethany.blogspot.com/

Thank you for taking a look at my blog!

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Art

Little Miss C and little Mr. P. LOVE art time.  Here are a couple of delightful projects they made for me this week. This first project is Miss C.'s creation. What is it, you say?

Well...............
Look up, look way up, as the Friendly Giant would say.
 Look way up, to the top of the creation...By George, it's an Elephant!
Can you see the head and trunk?  




Not too bad for a 4 year old and a pair of scissors!!! She cut this freehand. I wondered what she was creating as she was working so dilligently.  She knew all along what she was doing  and had great fun creating it. 
Sadly, Mommy and Daddy didn't look closely enough and this lovely treasure was found by Miss C and I when we went to  put some trash in the recycle bin!!! Oh my!!! After a few tears and a bit of glue, this mighty blue elephant was soon right as rain.

Even little Mr. P came running and threw his arms around Miss C. when he realized that she was sad. He listened to her sobbing story of how her elephant was in the bin and suddenly he gasped and said...Oh no! Did they thwow your winosaurous away too?".  A quick recheck of the bin revealed no rinosaurous...Sadly enough, it appears he had joined Great Grandpa in heaven! 

This delightful project may fool you upon first glance. While it may appear to be random brush strokes of colour it turns out to contain a hidden treasure. Little Mr. P came running to tell me he had a present and proudly announced "I love you a little bit now and this fishy for you, Gwamma."
I stammered you love me...and he nodded and whispered "I love you sometimes Gwamma" and threw in a shy little smile!

This was a major breakthrough for me as I posted previously how he had announced that he didn't love me anymore!
So here is his "fishy" in all its glory. This second view below, shows the tail of the fish just right of the center of the picture. It is oviously a salmon just starting to turn colour.  He advised that it was not "wed" yet...not "wed" like the ones he saw last year in the huge spawning run. 

 
The salmon run was superb last year. The river was teaming with fish and they were really splashing in the water to hold their spot.  This "fishy" has been splashing the water too...you can see the big splash and the droplets in the first picture!!!

It always amazes me that their memories are so strong. He is not quite 3 so remembers seeing this fish run last Sept/Oct when he was only 2 1/2.

Little mini Miss C's braids


Little Miss C got her hair french braided...for the very first time! She was a trooper about staying really still and really liked the "new Miss C". She has very fine hair and it is still growing both in length and fullness. This "new do" made her feel quite confident about herself! She had the braids down and also keeping in family traditions,  pinned up, and across, in the mennonite style.





She had a little go at her own episode of Canadian pickers!!! While visiting me, she noticed that the garden was coming to life...spring is finally here!!! She asked if we could pick a bunch of Lenten Roses for her Mommy.  As we arranged them in the vase for her to take home she proudly told me that she was giving them to her Mom for...Mothers Day!   Didn't have the heart to tell her they may not still be alive in a month! My daughter and I had a little "awwwwe moment" when I shared the story.

Monday 18 April 2011

April Counterfeit Kit - Project 1 - Tags

Made up some tags from my April Kit...Finally have something that I created to post!. I scraplifted the clouds from Crystal AKA Caitlynsmommy. I have some plans in mind to use these on but will keep it a secret for now...Watch for the unveiling in the near future.
I also made up some journalling spots...can you tell I like Kraft paper?

April Counterfeit Kit Challenge

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge unveiled the new April Kit...A Little Birdie Told Me...from Front Porch Kits. Lucky we are only counterfeiting this kit as they are sold out already!

Here is my version of the kit...I had to buy a couple of the For The Record pages this month.  I still plan to punch, stamp and embellish tags from the cardstock colours.

Usually I know exactly what I will use the kit for...this time I have no idea!  Will have to sort thru my pictures and see what jumps out at me.  I love the colours of this kit. I have wanted to try these colour combos for a while so should be fun.

I was out at the building supply store and saw the Canadian Cancer Society's daffodil sale. I picked up some for layouts of my dear MIL and my uncle who both passed away from cancer. Added a couple of blue flowers from my stash to go with them and made a couple of extra yellow flowers by pulling apart silk flower bushes from dollarama. The little white and blue brad you can see below the yellow flowers are cloud brads...I just know they will come in handy!












Friday 1 April 2011

But you don't love me, Gwamma

Just wanting to record a sweet story that has been unfolding over the past few months.
Liitle grandson P. was startled into tears when he saw me fall just after having my cast applied  last year.
I was totally non-weight bearing and finding the crutches awkward and down I went.
I used to be the person he ran to and hugged when we visited and he immediately switched to DH and avoided me like the plague.

After a few months the cast came off and he was still cautious with me, even avoiding hugging goodbye. He started telling everyone, including me, that he didn't love me anymore!  I felt terrible and worried that the fall and the cast had scared him. No amount of cajoling could get him to reveal why he didn't love me anymore...

Finally, a short while ago, he told me that he didn't love me cuz "you don't love ME anymore, Gwamma".  I tried to assure him that indeed I did love him. I reminded him of all the fun things we do together, building lego's, playing trains, doing art, baking etc.

He shook his head and repeated several times in a sad little voice "no, you don't love me Gwamma".

Finally he revealed that since I did indeed do all those fun things with him at his house, he did know that I loved him at his house!  He just knew that I "didn't love at my house"!!!

When I tried to reassure him that I loved him at his house, my house and everywhere, he shook his head very determined and strongly stated " No Gwamma...you don't love me at your house...you never build twains with me...only Gwampa... You always COOKIN!!!!

I nearly died laughing...Yes indeedy, I am usually cooking if I have his family for supper!

Thursday 31 March 2011

Babbling brooks and fishing tales- March Counterfeit Kit add-on Updated embellies


Babbling brooks lead to dreams of rainbow trout, steelhead, sockeye salmon...DH loves to fish and go       boating. My "In The Woods" Kit will be used for our times in the woods up at the lake. I have 3 years of     boating photos taken in the old boat to catch up on (YIKES!!!). The new boat will be delivered this month. I think it about time to get the old ones into layouts.

Last year DH and SIL caught a huge rainbow trout. ..I  think it was 27 inches.  I will imortalize those fish photos into layouts with this add-on.  We have a photo of  the fish beside a tape measure, I think I will use the little blue grid flags to record the weight and  length.  I  am really looking forward to scrapping with this kit.  

Still having camera card troubles...will post the fishing embellishments tomorrow after yet another trip back to the camera store   

*****Finally******The Fishing/Boating Embellies for my Kit...