Craft Organization

My Sister has me wanting to reorganize. Well, her and the fact that we need to do a whole-house-furniture-shuffle in order to create the nursery for the new baby. See, the baby is due in Jan., so my third trimester will be during the holidays, which sounds like a bad time to be moving furniture and painting walls. So, I really need to start now reorganizing my office so it can become the office/guest room. I suppose then, that the fact that I'm focusing on organizing my scrapbooking stuff (which I've been told is already fairly organized) instead of working on my office closet is a form of procrastination.... oh well.

As Deanna mentioned, I've been keeping my stamps in clear pencil pouches that I got on sale last year at back-to-school time. They've held up well and I'm happy with them. However, I've been keeping them in a tool box and that's been ok, but it's hard to carry for very far because there's no shoulder strap and I'm constantly on the move with my paper stuff. So, I pulled a dusty rolly-briefcase from the top of my closet and moved in. Now I can pick the thing up of roll it around!

The next problem to be solved was having to flip through all the pouches to find the one with the stamps I'm looking for. For example, let's say I'm trying to make some Christmas cards. I know all the Christmas related stamps are in the Christmas pouch, but I have to pull out every pouch until I run across the Christmas one! So, I pulled out my trusty P-touch Label Maker and labeled them all- even the pouches with felt and ribbon! There's just nothing I love more than neat and tidy labels!!!!

Lastly, I moved all my inks to my cute little pick tote that I got full of paper craft stuff on clearance for $4. I had tried the stamp pouches in it for a while, but that wasn't working. Having the inks in there works nicely because they aren't buried anymore.

Now if I could just figure out how to make my paper lighter. I weighed it today, and my paper bag is 31 pounds (and that doesn't include the new pack of 300 sheets of paper I bought on clearance this week!!!) Suggestions anyone?

Vote Now!

I'm trying to make some cards appropriate for guys. It seems like every time I have an occasion to send a card to a man I'm really stretching to find something that doesn't have GIRL written all over it. So, I made this set of cards last night as Man-cards. I was so proud and showed them to my husband and he informed me that they weren't really all that masculine... huh.

Now, I need to know, is my husband crazy or are these too girly for guys? Help me out here. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being all man and 1 being all girl, how manly are they?????

Journaling, Cut in Half

I know I posted almost the same pic yesterday, but since I got the journaling done, I had to post an update. I really wanted the journaling to run right off the first page and onto the next page like a photo cut in half, but I didn't want to cut any words in half, so I did a crazy amount of work with two text boxes (as shown in this screen shot) and some extra spaces where needed. I really love how it turned out! (Click on the photo to zoom in) Surely one of you wants to share an easier way to do this- I tried right and left tabs, but apparently, I don't know how to make those work either.

32 Photos in 2 Spreads? No Problem

Christmas 2008 is done! ...except for a little journaling, of course.

Retrofit

Several weeks ago (maybe even months ago) a friend and I went to a local expo for women. Now that I think about it, I think it was on Mother's Day weekend... Anyway, one of the businesses there let you sit down and make a fun layout right there. It was a neat takeaway and it involved some techniques I hadn't done before, so it was double cool. Here's a photo of it.

However, as soon as I got home I realized I had no idea what I would do with it. It seems like such a crime to create something so pretty and then never use it, but trying to retrofit a completed layout to my photos is sooooo hard for me. I usually start with the photos and then figure out a layout to show them off.

In early May we got some great family portraits done, so when I picked them up in June I decided I wanted to use them for this rouge layout. Of course, then I realized another problem: I only had one layout and I always do spreads (two layouts that are meant to be seen together). Ug- a retrofit with a challenge...

In the end, I decided to cut the layout and put part of it on one layout and part on the opposing layout. Then I stole some white paper (see photo at right) from where it wouldn't show to frame NJ and added some blue as accents around the other two photos. I did my journaling on the computer and printed on vellum again (even though the snooty lady at the out-of-town scrapbooking store swears it doesn't work). Here's the end result! Now I just need some embellishments...

Happy Father's Day!

Just one more week of class left and then I can get back to the fun stuff! Of course I couldn't let Father's Day go by without a card for my baby's daddy and my daddy!

Nine Years of Marriage

As I'm looking for inspiration to make two father's day cards, it occurs to me that I never shared any photos of the card I'm made my hubby for our anniversary last month (can you tell I've been going crazy?) So, here she is. What I love about this card is that I finally found a use for some of the "beads" that were on this necklace my mom gave me. She said it was just too heavy (no wonder with a bunch of washers on it) and maybe I could remake it into something else. I've been tinkering with some jewelery making, so that's what I original thought I'd do with it. However, when I took it apart and saw how industrial the whole this was, I moved most of the pieces to my card making stuff. I have to say I really like the effect- the photos really don't do it justice! Thanks Mom!!!

She's crafty in a whole different universe

I've been way too busy with getting my lesson plans together lately, so I'll direct you to another crafty girl's blog- although she's crafty in a whole different universe! In this post, she's giving away a dress she found at the thrift store and completely remade! Wow! Very cool! She said it looked a bit like a Hawaiian moomoo before... I actually own a Hawaiian moomoo- my dear husband went to Hawaii without me when I was like 7 months pregnant with NJ and he decided the best thing to bring me back was a moomoo because, now that I was so big, nothing else would have been comfortable to wear around the house! Hum. Maybe I can remake that moomoo into something wearable...

Blueberry Pie Refashioned Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!:

Sell it or Give it Away??????

It's strange, but it's hard not to just post every card I make for sale on etsy.

When I started selling cards on etsy, I wasn't sure I could charge enough to make it worth while. Making a card takes way too much time and most people would just as soon have a bought card, so how could I ever put a price on one?

Then I had my first sale and the buyer (and every buyer thereafter) mentioned how lovely they thought the card was! I was hooked! It turns out that it's rewarding to give it to someone who appreciates it so much they're willing to pay for it!

My sister was recently at my mom's house and noticed a stash of all the hand made cards we'd given her. My mom's not really the type to keep everything, so it means a lot to me! :) (Mom, don't feel like you have to keep them all forever! I'll understand!) All that in mind, after selling four Mother's Day cards on etsy, (almost as soon as I listed them) I decided that I should make 6 for the moms in my life and hold them in reserve, to give them away (even though I was really tempted to sell them all).

Once I got going on the card making, I really got going and made some birthday and thank you note cards too! I think I made 18 cards this week!!! This is especially crazy to me because I usually really struggle to make more than 2 in one night!

Here's a collage of some of the cards. I'm really enjoying working with fabric, felt, buttons, and ribbon. I think I have my sister to thank for that- she's always encouraging me to put more stuff on each card!
It's so exciting to be on a roll, and it's so hard to get there, but now every other part of life has piled up and is waiting on me! So, I am reluctantly breaking my card making streak and resolving to focus on all that other junk.

Thankzzzz

My friends have been so good to me lately that I had to take a break from the Mother's Day cards and make some thank you cards. Here's one I gave to the awesome friend who loaned me their Altima for three weeks while I was in between cars!

Don't you just love buttons!?!

A New Light Box

My sister-in-law recently completed her flight training and is now officially a Flight Surgeon. (Yes, she's a doctor and a Navy pilot.) My husband (her brother) was really bummed that we couldn't afford to take several days off and jet out to Florida for the graduation so he requested that I make a special congratulations card. I think he specifically asked for "something with an airplane on it," but that might have been one of my all-too-real dreams. I'm sure that he made a comment about her golden wings.... So, I hit the internet and found some cool drawings.

Now, I'm a shameless tracer when the occasion calls, but I don't have a light box. I've been looking at them for a long time, but I honestly don't want to have to store one. They're bulky and I'm already short on space, so I just keep pining away.

Today, I was once again in a pinch. I don't have a light box and I don't want to practice enough to draw a good airplane... As I was sitting in my office, it occured to me that my laptop screen was almost like a light box- too bad using it that way would probably damage the LCD screen.... WAIT! My old classic TV isn't LCD or Plasma. hum...

Turns out, the TV is a GREAT light box. I had to use my DVR to find and pause on a mostly white screen, but the best part is that the static of the TV held my paper in place! Way cool!

Anyway, here's the finished card!

Sellin' Like Hotcakes!

It's wrong to complain when a card sells really fast, right?

My sister's been hassling me to put more items up on etsy ("still on 17 items?"). So, I worked on a few more Mother's Day Cards this weekend and put one up Saturday and waited until today to put another one up. But the one I put today sold almost immediately! I told my sister to go check it out and it wasn't there! Here I am thinking I'll get a bunch of cards made, put them up for sale, and then get out my scrapbook stuff, but the darn things keep selling! How silly of me!

So, I'm sorry Deanna, but now there's only 16 items for sale at Arizona Made and it's going to have to stay that way for a few days because I have homework to do!!!

Mother's Day Is Just A Few Days Away

ok, so actually it's 43 days away, but it's the sort of holiday that always sneaks up on me! ("Sir, you underestimate my sneakiness") So, I am diligently working on getting some Mother's Day Cards made- some for family members and some for my Etsy shop, Arizona Made. This picture here is of the latest card I just put up on etsy and I have to say it's my favorite!!! The felt is a real trial to work with and the buttons take forever to sew onto the paper, but look at the result!!!! I love it! Fun Fun Fun!

Felt!

So, I've started experimenting with felt! I was inspired by the etsy shop Adore by Nat and I'm trying to incorporate them into some mother's day cards I'm selling on my etsy shop. I bought several more sheets of felt, but they don't seem dense enough- anyone know anything about where I should be buying my felt??? I'm hoping I start getting a lot faster at working with felt because right now, it's slow slow slow going... it moves around, making it hard to cut and it looks best if I sew the detail by hand (see my attenmpt at ballons in the pic above? I did those on the machine). So, if you receive a card from me with felt, feel VERY VERY special!!!

Trademarks

So, there was a certain item that I had posted on etsy for a few hours when it was suddenly removed due to some possible trademark infringement... I'd guess my first mistake was titling the item for sale with it's copyrighted name and then my 2nd mistake was making it look as close to the real thing as possible. Honestly, it never occurred to me that this would be a problem. Silly girl!

Interestingly enough, in the email explaining why the item had been removed was an additional blurb about the confidential nature of the email... To me, this is the strangest part. When I asked why it was confidential, this was their response:

"This is a legal matter and out of respect to the person that contacted Etsy and to the Etsy members affected by this issue, we request that you refrain from discussing this issue in the public forums. As well, such discussions could result in "calling out" or specifying private information which goes against our Forum Dos and Don'ts."

So, I guess I'll be making some things as give-aways only now. Trademarks don't stop you from making something, just from selling it, right?