december daily: re-purposing & catching up

December Daily, with Ali Edwards. I decided to play along this year thanks to the friendly nudging of my pal Sandi. She has been playing for years and has the most awesome collection of memory books to prove it. There are a million different way artists, scrapbookers and journalers are interpreting this project. I chose to keep it real. No buying new pretty stuff. No staging photos. Just good ole' daily life in December and a whole lotta leftover papers and trims from projects past.

I didn't want anything too big either. In my mind I was thinking coffee table book. SMALL coffee table book. MINI coffee table book. Short, squat and chunky. I love the way this book feels so much I decided to create a quick mini workshop on how to make one. It will be available sometime after the New Year.

I stitched vintage style papers the base of each page of my book and added nature cut outs, stamped tags, fabric tabs and punched words. A little bit of doodling and paint plus some sparkle made it more "me" and less "scrapbooky."

I have to admit. I jumped on board for this project with more than a little skepticism. I just wasn't sure I would stick with it. What I should have been more worried about was actually STARTING the project. In all honesty I didn't start it on the 1st, but I DID start it and am now playing catch up.

I have enjoyed working in a small format, with everyday photos of "us" AND re-purposing the art supplies I had in the studio. As far as catching up- well I will be there soon! But the very best part of this project of all is the VIEW!

I will post more page peeks soon. Hopefully in December, wink wink! Have a very Happy Christmas and a Merry Merry New Year! Enjoy!

newsworthy: social print studio rocks

I recently printed some photos with Social Print Studio and they ROCK! Once you hold one of their prints in your hands you will know what I mean - they feel great! Chunky and smooth and perfect. Their little books and stickers, well, just order some to see how great they are - saaaweeet!

Their site was user friendly, fast and affordable. I will order again very soon! Just thought I would spread the word since I was totally thrilled with my order! (p.s. they didn't pay me to say this stuff and probably don't even know I am posting it - I was just really loved my photos!)

newsworthy: time to party with ART POPS

Today I am super excited to share my first project using the all new ART POPS by Roben-Marie Smith. These beautiful cards are perfect for all sorts of activities, including Project Life and all of your favorite mixed media and art journaling projects.

I am in LOVE with these ART POPS! Having a variety to choose from, including blank and lined ART POPS make journaling easy and pretty!

The ideas that come to me when I look at these are endless! I will be sharing more projects over the next few weeks so check back often!

Click here for more inspiration and to see what other talented artists are creating with ART POPS.

I promise you will have loads of fun playing with these! Enjoy!

on the worktable: memory keeping & pocket pages

Making memories are the one most important things for a family and I love to document them. I found my way into mixed media art through good old fashioned scrapbooking. My problem with a layout was dimension. ONE doesn't cut it for me, so my pages ended up thick and expensive. Layer after layer after layer, but I loved my pages. In keeping with my budget for this year, I am trying something new that will save a bundle in money and time.

I really fell in love with the idea of assorted pocket sizes when I took Ali Edwards class One Little Word, so when I found these sleeve protectors by me & my big ideas I knew I would love this system style. I could save money without sacrificing layers because I would be working on a smaller scale.

 

I am loving mixing up photos with plain blocks of journaling or an oversized word that says it all. I am loving using up scraps that I haven't been able to part with because they are just too pretty! And I am loving getting a months  worth of memories down and ready to read in such short bursts of time.

   

In an effort to make this a productive and efficient  on going project  I did a little reorganizing. Next I printed a few sheets of number stickers that I made using different fonts in photoshop. Now I can easily label a pocket with the day of the event or memory. I printed tags and labels for layering some journaling.

I am still experimenting and will probably tweak each "page" several times more, but I like this system so far and will continue to play around with it for the rest of 2012's photos.

 As a side note - I was not in any way contacted by or paid to advertise any of the above mentioned classes or products, I just like them and so thought them worth mentioning!

storage worth stealing: re-purposed photo carousel

I have started a little ongoing photo project, and with it a bit of organizing. Don't you just love this thing?! It's a photo carousel - intended for displaying your favorite photos, but I needed it for something else.

  Well, I am finally getting caught up on some memory keeping. That's right - good old fashioned scrapbooking. I am behind in this effort and with my budget for the year in full swing I am on a mission to get this project rolling- but more on that later. This is an image of what usually happens when I get on a "week-long-catch-up-on-this-project-roll."

This makes it tough to get things done efficiently because I am forever digging through the piles to find the perfect embellishment, letter or paper tag. So I started shopping my home for storage to organize these pretty little things. After a little digging, I found my old 7 gypsies Photo Carousel and emptied it of a summers worth of miniature layouts. After transferring these to an album I sorted all my favorite embellishments and organized them into the carousel. Now I can easily get to everything I need and waalaa! - storage worth stealing for my little things.

This is the perfect storage solution to my problem. It is small, portable, and easily revolves so I can find just what I am looking for in a matter of seconds. Now my work area looks like this - yea!

I love it - and more importantly, I re-purposed something I already owned, so I am staying on budget. Perfect!

storage worth stealing: studio drawers

This is a new piece of storage for my studio - a small metal drawer unit - a recent gift from a friend I don't get to see very often. She saw it and instantly thought of me and my space. How sweet. I love it.

The piece I was using, while I loved it, was tall and wide and didn't leave me much room for sewing. I need to have my basic supplies near me as I use them daily.  This drawer unit was perfect for close by storage.

 I love the tiny tart tins on top. i use them for storing the extra feet for my machine making switching them easy.  String. Need. Love. Use. DAILY. The tiny burlap "wastebasket" was a happy find on a trip to Utah with friends. I use it to catch all my threads and tidbits as I create at my sewing station.

PERFECT!