Mini Mini

This is a little mini mini I did last night.  I went to a High School in the County for a sort of college fair last night.  I learned so much that I did not know, that I should have known.  When we got home I had some pent up energy/frustrations so I sat and made this mini mini.  It is only 2"x3".  I think it came out cute.  I think I will put some pictures of my family in it.

I think the paper is by Prima, it was from a 6"x6" stack.  I like how it came out. I may add a little more embellishments, but I like the simplicity of this mini, so I may not do much more to it.  This would be a cute key chain mini, and you can make it as small as you would like.  All the base pages are made from chipboard so it is pretty sturdy.  The chain is thread through an eyelet so the chipboard doen't tear.  I may tie some shear ribbon on the chain.

I forgot to put the magnet in, so I just made a loop to thread the closure through.  It works. The strap is made of chipboard that is matted with the paper line.

I kept the book simple as you see in the next photos.

 



There are six chipboard pages and the hinge system is similar to the way most put a paperbag album together.  Thanks for looking.

More of My Scrap Room

I took a few more pictures of my scrap room.

This is the original bookshelf I made to house paper.  I like vertical storage.  My paper tends to not get dog eared.  I do have some horizontal storage as you can see from the left side of this picture.  That is one of the black racks that HL sells.  I just built a box around it so it would be sturdier and would stand up to being moved.  The papers in this bookshelf are stored a couple of ways.  Mostly by theme, but there are a few page collections, and some miscellaneous papers.  I am going to re-label, once paper has been resorted.

This is more vertical paper which goes about 3/4 of the way across the counter.  Under the counter to the left are some wheeled units I made which house either ribbon, paper or punches.  Under the counter to the right is a cabinet I built that houses stickers stored in plastic cases by theme.  Oops forgot to take a picture. The papers in the picture are either themed papers, or specialty papers.

These drawers are across from the vertical paper shown in previous picture.  They house page kits and odds and ends, for example zutter boards, zutter rings, binding supplies.

Excuse the mess under these clip it up type storage units.  This is where most of my embellishments are stored.  I have tried many ways of storing small embellishments, but this tends to keep it in sight and easily available.  I have 5 of them.  One has nothing but Tim Holtz finding/idea-ology, the others are mixed, but in a way that makes sense to me.  The two units on the ends are actually Clip It Up double decker units. .

This is what I see when I am standing at my table.  The clip it ups are behind these white boxes.  The big plastic container on the left houses liquid or spray adhesives.  The 12 x 12 box (under the peppermints) houses my stickles.  The drawers hold odds and ends and need to be cleaned out and organized.  Saving that for another organizing fit.

This is what I see from my work station.  I placed two 6 foot table, long side to long side, and placed the cubes on the back table.  The front table is my work surface.

Here are my Cricut Expression, Cricut Imagine, and Cricut Expression 2.  The shelf above the E2 will house one of my wide format printers.  Probably the one that is wireless, even though I don't have WIFI at home. This stand is located to the right of my table.  I wanted my machines so I can easily cut using either my gypsy or cartridges. 

Forgot I had taken this picture.  This stand is another of those stands I have had forever.  There are actually three columns of these drawers.  The ones in the middle house page ideas I have cut out or printed, the left multi color ones are adhesive refills, most of which I donate to the church when we scrapbook there.  The unit on the right, which you can't see houses odds and ends.  As you can sense, I really need to use up all those odds and ends.

This is the basic gist of my room.  Of course you haven't seen it all, but from what I have shown, you can tell I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies.  I am going to spend some time doing some serious scrapbooking in 2013.  My children will be graduating in 2014 and by then, I would like to have made a good dent in the pictures I have taken of them over the years.  I also would like to get some of my pictures scrapped.  I hope to continue sharing my projects with those that visit my blog. 

Have a Blessed Day.

Vintage Camera with Mini

I started on this camera project at a Notorious Scrapaholics weekend crop and have not had time to finish the mini album that goes inside.  This is one of Kathy Orta's  patterns.  She is an amazing artist and I love that her instructions are easy to follow.  Check out her website at www.paperphenomenon.blogspot.com.  I finished the camera as shown here.

I plan on replacing the picture in the front with a picture of my mom.  I did not glue the face on so I would be able to change out the picture.

This is a side view of the camera.  Those bellows were interesting to make, but I like how they turned out.  The graphic 45 metal plates really do a lot to make the camera look vintage.  The metal plate on the top front of camera is a paper holder that you buy from an office supply store.  That just goes to show that scrapping items can be found just about any where.  My friend Kisha has added to  my understanding of that.

This is the back of the camera.  The D-ring is what holds it closed.  I love the handle.  Instead of chipboard I used grunge paper.  I have so much of it, thanks to Tuesday Morning, that I decided I would use that instead of the chipboard the pattern called for.

This is the album.  It is not finished so I will share just a couple of the pages.  I plan on finishing the album and adding pictures this week.  Yes, I pieced together the polk a dot piece of paper in the frame.  I figured it won't matter once I put a picture in it.  Can't embellish the front too much, otherwise it won't fit. Put I will probably add some bling, some lace or some feathers. 

This is the inside cover and the first tag page.  Love Graphic 45 paper.  It gives you so many things you can fussy cut to add dimension to your pages.  For a long time I thought I could not scrap without my cricut.  Graphic 45 paper needs no extra embellishments.  But because I like dimension, you will see later how I added doilies and feathers and bling.

This is the back of the tag page and the next page.  The round postage cancellation is actually a tag that fits between the pages.  When the album is complete I will show the details of the page.  Thanks for looking.

My Organizing Update

I have been organizing my scrap space.  I have to clarify.  This used to be my sewing room but scrapbooking has taken over my life and my room.  Some of the big drawers still  have some sewing supplies. LOL.

Yes, I love zebra print.    I had thought about doing different color zebra prints but thought that would drive me crazy.  This is working for me so far.  I just took zebra print paper and cut it in strips and taped it inside the front of the containers.   It is only temporary and can easily be changed. The 12"x12" containers both on the counter and the ones in the drawer units are mostly specialty papers or page kits that I have created myself. Some of the containers are empty.  The 8 1/2" x 11" containers are just paper or embellishments.  I still need to label everything.  The little ziplock containers on the wire shelving are my flowers that are sorted by colors.  I got the ziplock containers a few years ago for about 20 or 30 for $1.00 with lids.  I just cut a piece of my zebra print paper and stick it in the front and put the flowers in and taped a flower designating the color to the outside.. 

I have had some ask about the big white drawer units, (some are still brown becaue I haven't finished painting them). I got those units from a motel that went out of business.  They were 3 drawer units that I reinforced and stacked and then made an extra set of drawers to go on top so that it would reach the line in my scrap room before the wall slants.  I got the drawer units for $10 a piece and purchased 6 of them.  I made the white stand that has the containers both on top and the bottom.  The bottom shelves actually pull out because I once stored my clip it ups in them.  I thought I was going to get rid of it, but since it has wheels and is easily rolled around, I think I will keep it for a little while longer.

Here is a better picture of the containers that have the flowers in them.  I had to put some of that shelf liner on the rack because some o the containers kept sliding off.

These are mostly my Tim Holtz dies.  I got the racks they are sitting on at a cost of 4 for $1.50.  I did not know what I would do with them, but they were metal and they were black and at lest than 40 cents a piece, I knew I would fnd a use for them.  That tells me I need to check thrift stores more often.  The are actually made to hold cassettes (for those that remember what a cassette tape is)

These are some racks I got when my favorite scrapbook store closed.  The paper rack holds 12"x12" stacks and the smaller rack hold embellishments, mostly Prima.

This is the right side of my table.  It has the glue stand I made at my right hand, and I used a container, I already had, to put some other tools that I like having readily available.

The right side of my room is not too bad.  I did not make any major changes to it at all.  I will post those pics at a later time.  Thanks for looking.

Organizing

I have been so busy organizing that I have not had any time to create.  I am so anxious to get back to creating.  I have learned some lessons during this process. 

1. We don't have to have every new tool that comes out.  I have so many tools and gadgets that I have never used.  Mostly because "out of site out of mind".  My goal with this organizing round is to put those tools and gadgets where I can see them so I can use them.
2. More is not better.  I have so much PAPER that I could not buy any for the next  5 years and I could scrap everyday and not run out.  So right now paper does not excite me at all.  The only paper I will be interested in, in the next two years is Graphic 45, because once that is gone you can't find it anymore.  I am so loving French Country.
3. Use it...It USED to be so hard to use some of my scrap things.  I was afraid I would have a different or better picture to use it with. NO more.  If it works for that layout, I will use it, even if I only need one of the two sheets for the project.  NO MORE SAVING.
4. Get Busy.  I love learning new techniques and have so loved learning the 3-D or 2-D projects of artists like Kathy Orta, Jim the Gentleman Crafter and Laura Denison.  And I will continue to do those projects. But I have had a bad habit of not putting pictures in the completed projects.  I will now put pictures in them.
5. It is ok to have empty containers. I have emptied so many paper containers in this process, and have learned, they can stay empty.  For now, I will just put completed pages in them until I transfer the pages to albums, which i already need to do.  LOL
6. Share...there are lots of people and organizations that could really use some of the stuff I have, that I am not using and have little plans on using.  I tend to already use a lot of it for my church and our library need to expand a little.  And maybe even sell a few items. 
7. Simplify... Everything does not have to be so detailed.  I have always been such a detailed scrapbooker that pages tend to take me a little longer and have several raised elements.  It is ok to go simple.  Probably the best rule I have learned since doing the 2-D and 3-D projects.  Sometimes simple is best.
8. Start Creating
9. Start Scrapping
10. Get Busy Now.