Thursday, December 29, 2011

Scrappy Nook in New House

 Finally I have finished organizing, cleaning sort of and taken pictures of my little piece of Peace LOL. This shot is from the top of the stairs looking into the nook. You can see my favourite piece of furniture here, the wall unit with all my paper storage. I need at least one more of this with nothing but paper storage LOL have me to many DCWV stacks. Beside it is a little computer desk that I have reused for storage.Hanging from the ceiling are large plastic gems on black ribbon. Adds some sparkle!

 This is a close up of my paper stacks. All DCWV, LOVE their CS find it nice heavy weight and I enjoy the glitter and foil they use in the paper. Lower left are plastic storage folders for other collections, Imaginisce Bubbliscious, Enchanted as well as other company's lines. The lower middle are my cutters, scor-pal, different craft mats and a wooden cutting board. This comes in handy when using my craft knife for cutting or trimming. No damage to my craft mats and no pitting on the blade.
  
Here you can see the repurposed computer desk. On the top shelf  in the 3 containers are Spellbinders dies, Cuttlebug dies, Sizzix dies. The keyboard shelf holds my cutting plates for the Grand Calibur. On the bottom are more embellishments separated in to some colours, Princess, Disney, Boy and Girl.
 On top of the shelving unit are my embellishments sorted by season and Holiday. 3 containers are ribbon, my ATCs, Cards, Bling and Journal cards. Been working on using my stash but need to use it faster or I will not have more room for more items in those containers.
 Here is a picture of my desk from the door to my son's room. Not too clean as I am working on different projects, mostly cards right now. And of course my Favourite tool Spellbinders Grand Calibur.
 Above my desk and the storage unit is my display wall. Here you can see a banner with my Screen name "Drayia" on it, this was made for me. On the right hand side of the picture is a purple butterfly that my DH purchased for me our first Christmas together. On the left hand side is a purple S for my real name "Shana", again this is something made for me, on it reads "home, joy, I love my family". Top of the unit are some jars with more ribbon, my altered tin for lace, which I need to buy more of, a made from scratch index card box that I keep addresses in for my scrappy pals that I send cards too.

Starting from the top left, Martha Stewart punches, corner, boarder, and doubled sided. Next is paints, Mod Pod and a wooden tray that I altered with special beads, paperclips, and pencil leads. After that comes my containers of brads, eyelets and asst. charms separated by colour, Finally in the 2 containers are my i-Top accessories, and my SewEasy with different heads, flosses and twine. Also here is my baby wipes that I use to clean my clear acrylic stamps with and all the glitter I get on my desk LOL.

 This shelving unit is on the wall between my desk and my large paper storage unit. The Clock on the wall is waiting for me to print some pictures of my beautiful kids to put into. Displayed here are several things that have been made for me.Top shelf holds a paint can, 2 tags and a purple box that were made or altered for me by several different people. I wish I could remember who but I have been collecting them for that past 4 years and don't recall all their screen names. On the second shelf is my iHome that my wonderful DH bought me this year for Christmas so that I might listen to my favourite music or Pod casts in my scrappy area. You can also see another S that was altered for me that I hang my Glue Arts Pro Glide from. As well is my hanging ornament I made for Spellbinders DT call. The 2 pockets are altered by friends, they started with a jean pocket and then went from there. Also is a beautiful picture of the Washington DC Latter-day Saint Temple.


Coming into the space is a pony wall that I have placed a lot of different small storage shelves on. These hold various items, coloured staples, mini stapler, etc. You can also see my mini Cropping Cutie, my altered recycling pail and my sewing machine that does not work right now. I installed the wooden shelf from Ikea to hold my Cricut Cartages, miscellaneous craft projects and on the end an altered book box to hold all my Cuttlebug embossing folders. It is full so I need to purchase a new one to alter and start filling to LOL. On top of the shelf are more projects that were made for me. On either end are suit cases, the one on the left also contains a mini album. There is also 2 other mini albums there as well, one made with tags the other one with toilet paper rolls. The album in the middle is my first paper bag album that I won from http://marticadesigns.blogspot.com/ It was a great learning experience.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

2012 Wishlist and comments about 2011's list.

It is that time of year again. How many of you kept your New Years Revolutions? Well I can say that I tried LOL. 2011 saw a lot of changes for me and my family. The biggest one is a move. We moved into a larger place but I lost my craft room, now I have a nook for crafting in. The light sucks so working on lighting in there and its a third of the size of my old room. Now the move was for several reasons, we needed more room, we might be fostering my sisters 2 boys and our landlord was raising the rent but not making the repairs need to the place. My oldest applied to University and got excepted to start in the fall of 2012. She plans on living at home while attending which should save her some money and cut down on the need to have a full time job too. I now have a full day home so the extra room helps, larger back yard and hopefully by this spring the use of the garage.

Now on to my wish list from last year.....
Listed first was the i-Top by Imaginisce, have it love it and have several other new tools from Imaginisce as well. You can check out my archives to see my reviews of the different tools I purchased in 2011.
Second is the Crop-a-dile, it is on its way from http://www.ohmycrafts.com/ , had a gift card from there so used it to purchase the Crop-a-dile and a piercing mat for SewEasy piercing tool.
Third was more punches from Martha Stewart, picked up 2 new ones but would like more, I used my scrap money on other tools.
Fourth was the Cricut Expressions 2, I have chosen not to purchase this tool. I hardly use my Cricut cutter as it is so why spend the extra money on one that would just gather more dust?
Fifth digital camera, that is still un-bought at this time. I have looked at several but not sure what I want.
Last a computer, still don't have one but now I know what I want just need to save to purchase.
I did pretty good with my wish list of 2011 but it is time to make a new one for 2012.

1. Raspberry plate for my Grand Calibur, this is so I can use all my cuttlebug embossing folders.
2. More Spellbinder dies, love their dies, very detailed and make lovely cuts.
3. Martha Stewart punches
4. Digital Camera
5. New computer

Now there are several other little things that I want but not going to list them here. This is my wish list for the truly prized things I want this year. One other thing that is not listed would be to belong to a Design Team. I entered 2 different calls for 2012 but did not get selected. It is time to up my craftiness and be more creative. I have some great tools for me to use to make some incredible projects. Time to make/create something new every day.

Here are my other goals for 2012, Create something new ever week, blog every other day, include more pictures in my blog posts, apply for more Design Team calls for the 2013 year, organize my scrappy space so that all my new and must have tools are within hands reach. Plus increase my followers, not sure how to do this, will most likely talk to a couple of fellow bloggers to get ideas on it.

Lets see how well I do in this coming New Year.
Wish you all the best and a wonderful and Happy New Year!! :D

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Design Team submissions

Well now that I know I have not been selected for Spellbinders or Imaginisce Design Teams 2012 I can show you my projects that I created for them.

This hanging pendant/ornament is open at the top so you can put a little gift or treat into and hang on the tree. I made this with Cor'dinations CS and Spellbinders Nested Pendants. This was my submission for Spellbinders. I used my d-stress tool to the lacy edges to take the colour off so the white core could show through. I applied the clear crystals with the i-Rock. I scored the edges with my Scor-pal and used Glue Arts pro glide to attach all 3 sides together. The snowflake is an acrylic snowflake that I added Icicle stickles to to add more sparkle. The silver glitter brad and snowflake ribbon were miscellaneous pieces from my stash.
 The next projects were 2 of my submissions for Imaginisce Design Team 2011. The card is made using their Christmas Cottage collection from 2010. The silver studs were applied with the i-Rock tool and I used one of their stencils to get the swirls just right. There is like 4 different layers on this card and really enjoyed making one like this. I love the fact that with any of Imaginisce's collections you can get stamps, ribbon, die cuts and stickers to match.
Here is the first page of a 2 page LO I also made. Using pictures of my little Cara who is now almost 2, I matted them and then made my own brads using the i-Top tool and fabric. Then using different fabric flowers I placed them on the page. On her head is a jeweled crown sticker, I thought it was the perfect touch for that picture. I love her little bum in the picture with the wings she was such a tiny thing at first.
 Here are a couple of other pics from the same photo shoot. Again 3 fabric flowers with my own brads, also a tag I made that says "my princess". Again matted the photos to help them stick out more. I also used some mesh and a paper boarder.
Here are the two pages side by side. It is hard to see in the pictures but I used several elements on each page to marry them together. There is the paper boarder strip and the pink iridescent mesh on both pages as well as the mats on one page match the paper used on the other one. Looking at these makes me realize I need to either get a better camera or learn to take better pictures because some of the detail is missed and that would impact the judges decision for the DT call. Well I know what I want for my birthday in May. A new, better camera!


I have already started to think about and plan what I want to do for next years design call. Imaginisce has a really cute Spring/Easter collection coming out that I will have to go get. I know just what I want to make with it, and then I have to put it aside some were and not post any pics about it so I can use it for next years DT call. Spellbinders will be a little bit harder, but I hope to buy more of their dies so that I can come up with something incredible. I am thinking of a LO for them instead of mixed media but we shall see. I have a large project sitting in my craft room that I cant think of what to do with it right now. I have a whole year to plan so might be able to come up with something for it LOL. Thanks for all the well wishes as I tried my hand for the first time at a couple of DTs. It means a ton to me, and I am grateful you all wish to continue on this journey of crafting discovery with me.

Friday, December 9, 2011

One more week

All I have to do is wait one more week! Next Wednesday I should hear from Spellbinders and about the same time from Imaginisce. I am more excited for next week then I am about Christmas right now. These are 2 amazing companies that make great products and I got pass my self doubt to apply to them. Crazy I know, but so exciting. OK really its just the first part of Spellbinders DT call but still I am a little giddy about it.

In the mean time I am collecting so supplies to show you a new technique I learned and believe me you will LOVE it as much as I do. I plan on using it on the next submission to Spellbinders if I make it that far. I also plan to do a different project for you so you can see it. I am planning on making a LO for Spellbinders and a Card for you.

I am also reading up on how to tweak my blog to make it more personal and (if I can) sparkly like me LOL. My blog right now is pretty run of the mill just like everyone else's so my goal over the holidays is to learn and play with the design. I also have a friend who, hopefully, will help me and give me some pointers on how to take nice pics of my work. I figure if I am going to start pursuing positions as a designer for companies I need to look more professional. I can dress the part in person but now I need to add that professionalism to my blog and photos. I guess that means cleaning up my craft space, adding more light and taking some pictures so you can see the new area I have. Also need to learn how to take nice videos and post them here and YouTube. I have my work cut out for me but I have a easy week between Christmas and New Years with only one child other then my own to watch in my day home. That will be my main play week, in the mean time I will be reading and taking notes, creating and relaxing before the New Year starts and I start on my new schedule.

Happy Holidays everyone and I will be doing a give away January 1st for my loyal readers and followers. Now to figure out how to use random.org LOL.