Working Through My Stash and Tales of De-cluttering….

Good afternoon! In December we decided it was time to turn our office/my craft space into a bedroom for Weston. This was great for him, not so great for us in some ways. We had to find a place outside of our home to office (we’ve officed out of the home for 10 years now!) and I had to give up having a dedicated craft space. In order to do this, I had to really go through and purge a lot of stuff and get back to the basics. That means having 2 closets that contain two Ikea Expedit 16 cube shelving units. I had to be able to close those doors and have everything crafty contained in there. Plus, I had to move my beloved stainless steel top desk out to the garage 😦 So now I work in his room in the corner on a folding table, which I have pretty much ruined with paints and ink already. OK, not ruined in my opinion, but maybe in someone else’s 🙂 This would also explain the fact that I rarely use my Silhouette Cameo I got for Christmas. For some reason it’s in my bedroom on the other side of the house. It wouldn’t fit in the closet.

The reason I tell you all this, is that I need to publicly acknowledge that I may have a hoarding problem. 🙂 I have kits going back almost 2 years full of cute papers, neat-o embellishments, stamps, stickers…you name it. Tons of really cute stuff that I just put in a box fully intending to use, but never got around to it. I did an honest evaluation of my stash and determined first of all that all of those paper stacks (you know…the K&Co, DCWV, etc. stuff you get at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s) needed to go. There was no way I was ever going to get through them all. Plus, I once had hours on end to mix and match and coordinate different products and manufacturers. I have since learned the beauty of buying stuff that is already pre-coordinated for me. It takes the guesswork out of having a really well designed and cohesive page.

So that brings me to the point of this post. I have recently purchased some new goodies like the Maggie Holmes stuff from my last post, but I am seriously working on getting layouts done using those old kits. I have picked through some of them, so I may have to mix in a few new goodies. 🙂

That said, please don’t judge when you see (gasp!) paper lines from 2010, 2011, and early 2012. 🙂 I think that good design can trump the use of older products, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!!

Here are a few pages I have been working on. I continue to struggle with 2 page layouts, but sometimes they just have to be done.

So go ahead and dig through that stash, who knows what you’ll find!! Have a great week!

Gettin’ my scrap on :)

Got a few layouts to share today now that we are back from vacation. I finally think I have figured out how to consistently squeeze out some time for scrapping and other projects…I just quit going to bed a reasonable hour!
This first layout was for Erika’s Issue Challenge at Club CK last week. We had to use a monogram. I also had fun using my new Studio Calico hexagon mask, some mists, and fun Echo Park papers to complete this Easter layout. I also busted out some ancient chipboard from my stash and it matched perfectly!

Next up is one that I just did for fun. I had been wanting to scrap these photos for a while and I recently bought this beautiful new Carta Bella paper (a line I’ve never used before, but love)

This layout was done for my friend Ashley Horton’s Sketch it Out Challenge also at Club CK. I love Ashley’s sketches and I think this one is one of my favorites. As soon as I saw it I knew exactly which photo I wanted to use. This one came together super quick using some of my This and That by Echo Park and the cool little “Adore” folder from Heidi Swapp.

And last but not least, my favorite…it’s a layout for Weston documenting his very first vacation. It’s a hybrid layout that I did using multiple photos and lots of journaling. I used some really old curly paper clips and some baker’s twine to form the border around the layout. I submitted this one for this weeks’ Issue Challenge, which was to use paper clips. I recently bought a ton of new product, so I’m trying to incorporate a lot of old stash with the new stuff to help use it up.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!!

Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesday 3.6

Hi everyone! So sorry that I am posting this late, but as some of you may know we had a serious incident with our three year old daughter, Sophie, late last week and through the weekend. What we thought was just a lingering cold turned out to be a viral pneumonia and resulted in a long hospital stay and a diagnosis of asthma. Two days after we got home we found out that our two month old son, Weston, had RSV. It’s been a long and difficult week, but they are both on the mend now. And I am grabbing a few moments in between breathing treatments and nose sucking to post my layout for this weeks’ challenge at Frosted Designs. Here is the sketch:



And here is my layout of Weston hanging out on his playmat and enjoying some tummy time:



Make sure to link up your project using this sketch to Frosted Designs for a chance to win a prize from Apron Strings designs.
I will try and get back later today with a few layouts that I’ve been working on for a few other challenges.

Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesdays 1.10

This week at Frosted Designs, we were given a great sketch by Roberta to work with. At first I wasn’t sure how to approach this one, but then I received my baby boy’s birth announcements in the mail and I was inspired to scrap one of them using the sketch. Here is the sketch:

And here is my layout:

I am still experimenting with scrapping “boy style”. I thought I’d try to keep this one very clean and simple, which is normally not really my style, but I like the way it turned out. I’m sure I’ll be trying all sorts of different stuff before I find my comfort zone.
Thanks for looking and be sure to link up your project based on this sketch at Frosted Designs for a chance to win a fantastic prize assortment from Paper Issues.

Sketchy Thursdays 8.11 Guest DT Layout

Hello everyone and happy Thursday! This is my second week of getting to be a guest design team member for Sketchy Thursdays. This is my first layout for my sweet baby boy, who is due in December 🙂 It took me a while to get this right, I am so used to scrapping for girls…had to make sure to “man it up” a little bit!
Here is the sketch:

and here is my LO based on that sketch:

I hope you all enjoy your day!