Getting Creative again!

So the expected withdrawals from the scrapbooking world only lasted a week.  It's just not in me to stay away from creativity for very long.  A few things in the last week have motivated and inspired me to get creative once more.  Let me lead you down the garden path (so to speak) along the trail to my inspirations.

It all started on Monday when I saw the empty coffee canister by my desk.  Such an innocently empty vessel just sitting there waiting to be picked up, smelling of fresh ground coffee and hinting of a wake up call.  But first..my cluttered desk space was bugging me.  I needed to find room to put away the supplies from the workshop I had taught the Friday before.  In my space everything has a place and it bugs me when I can't put something away neat and tidy.  So I spent a half hour decluttering my work cabinet and in doing so I found 8 perfectly good binders filled with old resources.  The resources I chucked but I just couldn't get rid of these 8 perfectly good binders..there had to be something that I could use them for, some crafty upcycling that would give them fresh life..so for the time being I piled them up on a chair and returned to looking at the coffee canister.  My co-worker has been faithfully saving these canisters for me, with the idea that when I collected enough I would use them for something crafty.  Well I believe that time had come because as I looked at the empty coffee canister on my desk, my mind was doing a mental tally of how many canisters sat on the shelf in my craft room.  Surely there had to be enough now to create a class around, but what to make?

I took the empty coffee canister and one of the binders home and put them in my craft room.  There they sat for a few more days while ideas percolated in my brain.  After another conversation with another co-worker around scrapbooking and papercrafting ideas, a few visits to pinterest, some time spent on my favorite crafting blogs, and reading my various weekly RSS feeds, the ideas started to coalesce into that tunnel vision I mentioned before..sitting there at the back of my brain and digging a path through my consciousness.

The coffee canister became an easter container wrapped in pretty paper and covered in paper flowers made from all the paper posies I have been punching out like crazy this week (thanks to an article my co-worker shared on waste not/want not scrapbooking tips) and filled with plastic easter eggs hunted from my family's easter egg hunt.  I can picture how each container will look, all soft and pastel coloured, or perhaps they will become container's for Mother's Day and I will go fresh and vibrant with the paper selection?!  so many visions playing around for what these will become, but for now they will sit on the shelf until I can post a finished product..their time is coming soon so stay tuned!

The project that really took hold in my creative mind, the one I had to actually try first..is the binders.  I would love to say that I came up with the idea for their final vision myself but rather I was inspired by those continued conversations with my friend and co-worker.  I could picture covering the binders but ran a bit blank from there.  It was my friend's suggestion to turn them into a card holder/organizer.  From there I came across file folders and envelopes in the local grocery store, which made me think of an idea I had seen on Pinterest about a cardholder made out of a folder and several pins I had seen about using envelopes for mini albums.  I bought those and returned home after work to play! 

I am in the midst of creating this project, which I will call my "Creative Card Carrier" (sorry, I have a think for tongue twisters lately).  I've been taking pictures of the various stages of it's development, since the idea is that once I finish the prototype, I will promote it as a class (I do after all, have to find something to do with the other 7 binders!), but for now I want to share just a teaser of how it's coming along.  My next post will have all the photos and finished project.

I've taken the opportunity to use up all my extra Stampin' Up! Designer Series Papers

Before I finish for now though, I will say this, this is a great project for getting rid of scrap or mismatched sheets of paper, I've finally found use for my washi tape collection, AND it uses far less adhesive paper sheets than I originally thought so it shouldn't be an overly expensive project to do.  I just love when ideas come to fruition and projects become a reality!

I've started this project and should have it completed this weekend, which means stay tuned next week for more photos and a final product reveal!

Cheers!

Go All Night Recap!

Oh my gosh...I am so tired and stiff today and it's two days AFTER the 6th Annual Go All Night Crop Fundraiser!  It was such a blast but people don't realize how hard on a growing girl's body all that cropping can be LOL.  I was on my feet most of the weekend, I stayed up late, I helped to run various raffles, taught a Mixed Media Canvas class, visited with 48 other Amazing crafters, and I got 11 layouts done ( I think that was the most amazing thing of all with all the crazy busyness!).

some of the prep work for the Mixed Media Canvas class I taught

One of the finished canvases

I won this tape gun in the silent auction!  Makes me feel like a secret agent..or super crafter LOL!

One of my fave layouts I finished

Another layout I loved!

We had a Tiki Bar with Yummy Non-Alcoholic Daiquiris..I had two..they were soo good!

This is only half of the room we were in.  This place was packed to the nines!

Here are some highlights from this wonderful weekend. We had 49 crafters, 5 vendors, 3 project classes, and 42 hours of Scrapbooking Heaven, to say the least.  I haven't even mentioned all of our relaxation services, Silent Auction and Brown Bag Deals, and Raffles galore.  Seriously it was like Nirvana for Crafters! We may just be a small community but we go BIG or go home and in this case, none of us wanted to go home!  I think I am in for some serious withdrawals after all the planning, organizing, prepping, and just plain fun I've had these past 6 months to get ready for this event and now that it's all said and done, I kinda can't wait for the next one! 

But until then..I will keep crafting, creating, and sharing!

Cheers!

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!

Okay this post isn't really about swimming, but it's one of my favourite lines from 'Finding Nemo'!  I've been busy swimming this week, or rather doing what I do..which is crafting.  I've spent the better part of this week trying to get things ready for the Upcoming Go All Night Scrapbook Fundraiser taking place March 1-3.  This is my third year attending and I've enjoyed it so much that I joined the organizing committee this year for it.  I get to be in on the ground floor planning this amazing event and I also get to work with a fabulous bunch of ladies too!  What more could a girl ask for?!  I have been trying to be smart and get things ready in advance instead of running around going crazy last minute (like I usually do!).

I did manage to get quite a bit done.  1st off, I finished the Stampin' Up Cards for the Make N' Take Bar..can't show you everything but I can give you a sneak peek:

 

Had to include the Swallowtail stamp for one of the cards, it's such a beautiful stamp!

Then I got busy and started assembling the kits for the Canvas Class I am facilitating.  The class is full and I'm pretty excited to teach some new techniques and share a project that I loved doing, but I know I'll be nervous when it comes time to run the class, as usual, because I'll worry I forgot something, forgot to teach some part of the project, didn't do it right, messed up, or.....(okay breath).  IT WILL ALL BE FINE (just gotta keep telling myself that).  Anyhow, here's a peek at the preparations:

 I also started getting items ready as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.  I have plenty of product on order, just waiting to arrive and show at the Crop.  One of the coolest things I have for sale are the 'Flash Cards to Go' kits as seen on Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Connie Stewart's site www.simplysimplestamping.com .  I have absolutely no problem promoting her website because the flash cards she has made and shares have inspired some of my own great ideas, and they are just so simple to make - which I love!

I have a Flash Card to Go kit in each color palette from Stampin' Up!

Finally I have some of my projects that are near completion but need to be finished or vamped up a bit with photos and embellishments.  I'm hoping that I can either finish these before the crop so I can start something new OR I will finish them at the crop and just need to bring along the tools for completion (but really who am I kidding, I'm still going to pack up my entire craft room to bring to the Crop, otherwise I'll be worried I forgot something).

Just one of the many layouts I've done that needs photos and embellishments to be completed

Love how this star turned out, but I need to finish it's mate!

See how much I've managed to get done this week, this break from work came at the perfect time for me to catch up on my crafting, and I even got to spend some downtime watching t.v. and hanging with the kids!!  Now to spend some quality time with my hubby..he's on days' off too!  :)

Cheers!

Wonderland of fun Part 2

This will be a short post today, just updating on material I posted previously.  I finally got my butt in gear and wrote up the tutorial for making the Mad Hatter Hat. So anyone that wants to try this at home, here are the instructions to do so.

I hope you can see the instructions ok, I'm learning as I go and enjoying the journey :)

I also got the chance to show a couple more ladies how to do the Hatter Project and their creations turned out beautifully as well! I just love how the Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante Paper coordinates with these hats.  I do want to try making one more hat with my Stampin' Up papers though, because I'd love to see what effect a different style of paper has on the overall look.  I'll keep you posted.

Take care and have a great week.

Back to life, back to reality...

I am currently in denial that School is about to start and that it's time for me to be back at work.  I've had the summer off and it was relaxing enough to make me feel refreshed and just busy enough that I didn't want to pull my hair out.  My oldest son starts grade three this year and he's happy to be going back to his old school and seeing his old friends that he's missed; my youngest son starts kindergarten this year and he can't wait for his school to start so he can ride the bus (meanwhile, mommy is still in denial that her baby is old enough to go to the 'big school'); and my little girl starts Headstart Preschool this fall as well and I can't believe how much she has grown this past year and the things she has picked up developmentally..sigh...can't we just keep them little forever :(. 
Strangely enough I'm looking forward to the teenager going back to school because I feel like we haven't seen much of him this summer and we seem to touch base more often and chat more often during our drives to/from school each day and I missed him even though he was right under our noses, I feel the need to reconnect.
Creatively I can't say as I've been taking advantage of these summer months to do much.  I didn't do much baking, crafting, or cardmaking.  About the only thing I took advantage of was my photography - taking wedding photos and vacation shots.  I made a summer to-do list and I procrastinated until the very end of summer in completing it (which is a good thing I guess since my priority was to hang out with my family, which I did!). 

I did finally get my creative juices flowing and finished two papercraft projects that I was very very happy with the final results.  I'll post the picture for the one project here: My Mad Hatter's Hat, which I will be teaching as a class for an upcoming crop.  At first I wasn't happy with the grungy modge podge look of it, but after a day or two I realized it worked for the final result and I'll keep it.

I loved the challenge of making this and the final result.  I made it completely from scratch using thin chipboard, papers, and embellishments.  So cute and it's inspired me to make a matching Hatbox to go with it!  I'll post pics when I get that project done.

Anyhow that's it for me this Friday afternoon, gonna enjoy my long weekend and hopefully get inspired to do a lot more crafting while the motivation and ideas are percolating in my brain.

Talk to you soon!!