Nerd Nest Challenge 13 - Make It Fit

Another layout for Megan Anderson's Pocket Your Year 31 days of Challenges. This challenge is called Making It Fit and even though Megan focuses on making your pictures and embellishment cards fit on the backside of a page protector you used for a previous layout, so you're kind of stuck with it for the left page of the next layout, I focused on a different aspect of the idea of making it fit.

I'm finishing up the album I've made for our Walt Disney World trip in December 2014. All I have left is to make layouts with the journaling cards I wrote, talking about the items I liked of the trip (which I wrote 1 1/2 months ago) and talking my husband into finally writing his impressions and making his layout. My boys did this months ago for me so their layouts are done. I made this fit in two ways: I have ten cards to mount on 3 pages, with 12 openings in the pages and I want to do one 4x6 card per opening. So on this first page I didn't use a journaling card for the first opening, I used a title that I hadn't used elsewhere in the book (and since I don't know if we'll go to Disney World again, this page made it so the title didn't go to waste) and the last of the twelve openings has a Mickey Mouse that is part of the patterned paper instead of a journaling card. So I made the number of openings I had verses the number of journaling cards work for me, instead of trying to somehow put two journaling cards in two of the pockets.

The other way I made this work was for the background paper I used on this page. I thought it would look cool to have alternating squares of two patterned papers for this page. The problem? These were both 8 1/2 x 11 paper that I only had one of and the pockets are 6 x 6. I cut each paper into 5 1/2 x 6 pieces. The 5 1/2 side is the vertical measurement, which worked for my idea to make it fit. I cut each of the 5 1/2 x 6 pieces at a point that a 1/2 inch gap would either be covered by the line of washi tape I used to anchor the title or the 4 x 6 journaling card. I then cut a white piece of card stock into 6 x 6 squares to mount the patterned pieces on. For the title card, I used some of the leftover scraps of paper to cover the 1/2 inch gap since washi tape isn't completely opaque and I didn't want a white line showing behind the washi tape where it's not covered by the title. The seams in these scraps are covered by the title so it worked. On the other 3 cards I made sure the 1/2 inch gap of white was covered completely by the journaling card. I made sure the washi tape was in about the same place on the bottom of each segment so that it would go well together. I used washi with dots on it because it reminds me of other Disney patterned paper I've used in this album.

I think this layout shows off the idea of making what you have work with a little imagination really well!

Nerd Nest "Pocket Your Year" class: Challenge Number 9 from 31 Days of Challenges

This year I've been doing an online scrapbooking class from The Nerd Nest called Pocket Your Year. It's a class about pocket scrapbooking (Project Life by Becky Higgins is the best known pocket scrapbooking line). I started pocket scrapbooking last year after going to a scrapbook convention for the first time in years and seeing all the new products and page protectors that were available. I had hoped that maybe it would help me to catch up a little in my scrapbooking. This year I decided to take an online class about it since I was hoping to get ideas and inspiration and loved the ongoing nature of the Pocket Your Year class.

In August, the teacher is doing 31 Days Of Challenges, with each of the days of the week devoted to a different type of challenge. I admit that I'm not doing great about watching each challenge as it comes out, usually watching a few challenges every few days. Today I watched this week's Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday's challenges and was motivated to share for Sunday's challenge. Sundays have the theme of using your stash with this Sunday's theme being using difficult page protectors. The idea is that not everyone is going to be totally comfortable using every type of page protector they've ended up with and if you buy the big value packs, you'll probably end up with a few you don't use often and so you have a huge stash of them. The teacher showed how she used a page protector with 4 6x6 pockets, which she often doesn't use since the pocket page protector items out there are 4x6 or 3x4 cards, for the most part (though I do have a pocket life monthly kit from Citrus Twist that comes with an assortment of 6x6 pages each month, so I do think people are trying to change this). I haven't had an issue using this type of page protector, but that could be because most of the pages I've done recently were for a Disney World trip we took the week before Christmas last year. I got a bunch of 12x12 Disney Scrapbook papers and just cut them up to match the page protectors I decided would work best for the pictures on each page, which made it easier to use this page protector, since I wasn't depending on pre-made cards for my pocket backgrounds.

Ever since I bought my first big pack of Becky Higgins page protectors at Michael's craft store with a 40% off coupon, I knew I'd have a hard time with the protector that has one 4x6 pocket in the top corner and the rest are 3x4 pockets. I've learned over the years to try to fill my view finder (or equivalent, since most of my photos are now taken with my smart phone) with the subject of my photo. I don't always succeed, but a good portion of my pictures tend to have something I want to keep in areas bigger than 3x4, so these are hard protectors for me to use.

One reason I decided to take an online class was that my scrapbooking, which I had done so well jumpstarting with the pocket page protectors in March of last year, was sidetracked by a fairly severe flair up of depression triggered by a tragic event in July of last year, along with generalized anxiety triggered by that event, which I'd never had before. In January, I was trying to get scrapbooking again, thinking that a hobby that I enjoyed might help with the depression. In March, I got to a part of a book my therapist had recommended that suggested that keeping a gratitude journal would be helpful because it helps you to focus on the positive at least once per day. Instead of using a journal, I decided that I wanted to make a gratitude scrapbook, including pictures of the things I write about each day if I want to. I have to admit I don't do it daily, sometimes not even weekly, but it's better than nothing.

When I decided to do this scrapbook, I realized that this page protector design would be perfect for it. It's a lot less intimidating to face a 3x4 journal card at the end of a day than a 6x8 page in a journal, which is what my current journal size is. If I need more room, I just use more than one card. I make a note of pictures I need to print for this scrapbook in Evernote on my phone, which I use to organize pictures of my papercrafting supplies, since I tend to collect things like stamps and die cuts to run through my die cut machine (have you looked at my organizing my stamps post from 2014?). I haven't printed any of the new pictures I want to use but since I finished the journaling cards on the newest two page spread today, I decided to post about it to fulfill this challenge.

The first picture is of the two page spread. I alternate between a purple and pink pen each day, so that it's obvious where one day starts. Since I live in a house full of men, I don't often get to use these colors on my scrapbook pages and they are my two favorite colors, so I decided to journal with them. The cards that are blank purple and pink are where the photos will go when I get them printed. The 4x6 pockets are either used for a title (one page on a spread) or for more pictures (so far ones that I found in left over pictures that I hadn't used on scrapbook pages that I've already finished). On this spread, I used an Amy Tangerine stitching kit I bought on clearance at Studio Calico to stitch the word love on one of the 4x6 cards surrounded by stitched flowers and on the other one included older portraits of my boys (who are now 21 and 19 and are consistently two people I am grateful to have in my life, though the book challenges us to write about new things every day, so they only appear sometimes in the journaling). You can see I need to print photos for 4 places on this spread (I swear when I was looking at the page in the album I saw 4 photo spots but in the picture I only see 3). The hearts on the spread came from a monthly kit, though I can't remember if it was Studio Calico or Citrus Twist.

The second picture is of the page I just finished the journaling on today. The last three cards are filled with today's journaling, which was about how I was glad I went outside my comfort zone and signed up for online classes this year, since they have been inspiring to me. Today's journaling was inspired by how the Nerd Nest Challenges I watched made me think and get excited about scrapbooking, so thank you for all your hard work! I'm horrible with names, so don't remember the teacher's name off the top of my head and I've restarted this blog post 3 times on my phone because I'd go to look something up and forget to save so lost everything I wrote, so I don't want to chance forgetting again but I am thankful for her inspiration and hard work!

She had a side challenge going that if class members post 500 new spreads during August and September, she'll expand the class to last through January 2016 instead of ending in December 2015, so I wanted to make sure and post at least one spread. I hope this counts, even though the pictures aren't printed yet!

Organizing My Stamps

I had purchased some of the stamp storage sheets from Stamper's Best when I bought my birthday presents there. I bought them because when I was doing my Christmas cards I found it was hard to look at everything that might go together since I had the stamps separated by theme on CD cases (such as all the Christmas decorations in one case and all the Christmas trees in another). I found, after doing all the cards, that I had missed one of the stamps from a Stampin' Up set because I hadn't thought to look in one of the cases. Because of this, I decided I wanted to try organizing a different way and the storage cards seemed like a good idea, it would make it easy to flip through all my stamps. I discovered, as I was organizing stamps onto those first cards I bought, that some of the clear stamps I own had started sticking to the CD cases, almost bonding to them, so I decided to move all my stamps to the storage cards.

I put the storage cards in 12 x 12 page protectors so that if a stamp comes off, it won't get lost. The pages themselves fit in 8 1/2 x 11 page protectors but when I put any stamp mounted on foam cling on the pages, they no longer fit. I only ruined one stamp taking them out of the CD cases, which was a really small number, given how many stamps I own. I had previously, a few years ago, ruined a couple stamps when they stuck to the CD cases, but somehow had never connected that the CD cases were causing the issue back then.

I bought both the clear and colored storage sheets for my birthday to see which ones I liked better. I like the colored sheets better. They are a little thinner than the clear sheets, since they are laminated cardstock but it was hard to tell what clear stamps looked like if there were some on each side of the clear sheets. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might to change the stamps from the cases to the sheets, which was nice.

I bought this organizing rack at Costco to organize my bills, but found that I only had 2 folders I needed to use, so I decided to use this organizing rack for my stamps and use a smaller organizer I had sitting in my craft room not being used for bills. I also am going to use a paper holder I had siting around from Cropper Hopper (like this one) since I have a few more pages that aren't in the holder above and trying to force them into it made it too hard to be able to flip through the pages.

Some of my saying stamps. The computer is from Stampin' Up's Computer Quips set. We're all computer geeks in my house so when I saw it a few years ago in the catalog, I knew I had to get it.

Some of my animal stamps. My husband loves polar bears, so I bought these two polar bear stamps years ago when I saw them. The blue stamps are from The Angel Company, which I understand went out of business. That's too bad, I really like their stamps.

I've been buying a lot of costume stuff for Steampunk costumes, so I've also been buying gears and Steampunk related stamps. I even made a Steampunk Mardi Gras mask at a mask creating party before our friends' Mardi Gras party this year (I put a picture of it at the bottom of this blog post in case anyone wants to see my mask). These are my gear/Steampunk stamps with shape and scrapbook related stamps behind them.

My flower stamps with flourish stamps behind them. I mounted some of my clear flower stamps (from the Build a Flower set by Katie Pertier and marketed by Autumn Leaves) on foam cling so I could use them with a stamping gear by Inkadinkado I bought at Joann's. (This round set is the one I got.) I tried the stamps on with the gear without them mounted on foam cling, but because there's a raised area at the edge of the block where it attaches to the gear, it didn't work because the stamps were below that raised area. I think the gear is perfect for getting the petals exactly where I want them, so I mounted just the petals on the foam cling. I over-estimated how much foam cling I needed last year when I was replacing the tack-it-over-and-over glue I was using to coat the back of my unmounted rubber stamps to get them to adhere to the stamping blocks, so I had plenty left to do this small project.

My food and liquor related stamps.

This is how many CD cases full of stamps I used to have. I bought 23 storage sheets between the two orders and I already had one storage sheet I had gotten for free last year with an order, so I have 24 storage sheets. I think I still have one empty one, so this whole CD tower was consolidated down to 23 storage sheets. Not bad!

The mask I made at our friends' Mardi Gras Party

Me in the mask I made, wearing one of my corsets and a bolero jacket I bought to go with my corsets.

My birthday presents from Stamper's Best

This year I bought myself a bunch of stamps from Stamper's Best. I had dressed up in a Steampunk costume a few times over the last few years so I bought some Steampunk stamps.

I also bought two types of the cards to organize the stamps (the clear plastic and the laminated cardstock) to see which I liked. I was storing them in empty CD cases but I now have so many it's hard to see what I have. I discovered I like the laminated ones better because I have a bunch of clear stamps and it's hard to see what is on each side with clear stamps and the clear sheets (as you can see in this picture). I want to put the stamps on both sides so when I ordered more, I got the cardstock ones. I noticed my clear stamps were sticking to the CD cases and were hard to get out, so I'm putting all my stamps on these cards.

I also got a few other stamps. I love the saying on the coffee one and the alarm clock one (You may have to click on the coffee one to see the saying. It says "Coffee gives me unrealistic expectations of productivity). I loved the Japanese star background stamp and the Christmas ones. I also loved this beach chair stamp. I figured it would work well for beach pictures from several of our vacations.

I also got a camera stamp as a free gift. I love it! I had thought about getting a stamp set with a camera in it but I didn't think I'd use the other ones, so this is perfect!

One of my Christmas cards for 2013

I decided that I'd try to make some of my Christmas cards this year. I had bought a Christmas ornament stamp earlier this year from Stamper's Best and decided to make a few cards using it.

I first stamped the stamp in black ink on white cardstock.

After that, I colored the stamps in in many stages using some watercolor pencils but mostly the Prismacolor metallic colored pencils I have. I varied the colors of the different areas so that every card wouldn't be exactly the same.

I then cut around the stamp, leaving a thin boarder of white, since there was no way I could trim all the white. I then mounted the trimmed stamp on cards made from half a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 red, green, or blue cardstock. I wanted those colors because they always remind me of Christmas. The result is fairly simple but I think they're striking. I may either buy a Christmas saying stamp from Stamper's Best  or have my husband, who has much better handwriting than I do, write "Merry Christmas" along the bottom of the cards.

Mounting my stamps on the cling sheets from Stamper's Best

I took pictures of how many stamps I had to mount, how I put them on the cling sheets and a few as I made progress. I stopped working on the project since I had some work stuff taking up a lot of my time (mostly adjusting to a weird new schedule) but I am done except for cutting out the alphabet stamps I have. I just need to decide if I'm going to continue using the CD cases or if I want to buy some more binder sheets and organize my stamps that way. I like the feel of the cling sheets better than the bare rubber and Arlene's Tack it over and over I was using before. The cushion on the stamp really makes a difference when using my acrylic blocks with the cling sheet mounted rubber.

Starting to put the stamps on the cling sheets.

I discovered when I went to cut out the stamps that I had put them on the cling sheet too close together. You do have to leave enough space between the stamps to easily by able to move your scissors. It felt like wasting the sheets when I started, but it made a huge difference when I was cutting the stamps out. So that's my one piece of advice, leave yourself enough room between the stamps to cut everything out. : )

More of my stamps on the cling sheets.

Even more of my stamps on the cling sheets.

Some of my stamps cut out and on the binder organizer sheet, ready to put into the CD cases I use for organizing right now.

A few more of my stamps on the other side of the binder organizer sheet.

The basket full of stamps cut out from the larger cling sheets but needing to be trimmed closer to the rubber. Next to the basket are some of the CD cases I'm using to store my stamps right now.

Some of the thank you and sentiment stamps I own before putting them on the cling sheet to mount them.

Some of the stamps on the binder organizer sheet before putting them in the CD cases I use right now.

Almost done!

Christmas Cards

My husband and I were at a thrift store a few months before Christmas and they had card sets with Stampin' Up paper, envelopes, and stickers in them for 50 cents. I bought two of them. They also had Stampin' Up rub-ons that are about time for the same price, which I bought one of. There was a lady behind me that got the remaining sets (or at least most of them). I probably should have picked up a few more of the cards sets, but I think I then would have been overwhelmed. Here are the cards I made. I also used ribbon from my stash and some stamps. Some of the cards I used Stampin' Up stamping wheels on them. The sticker set came with a bird sticker, a sticker with a house on it that says "Tis the Season" and the oval one has trees on it and says "To You and Yours." I liked the way these turned out. I used the Versamark stamping pad for the wheels to make it a subtle background. The sticker set came with red and green cards, cream, red and green cardstock rectangles to put on the cards, and green and blue grosgrain ribbon. There was also blue gingham ribbon included. The border stickers around the patterned paper on the cards also came in the package. The card on the right in the first picture has a stamp that says "Wishing you sparkle, wishing you cheer, for a bright Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" that is also Stampin' Up. I do love the ornament stamp on that card also. Our Christmas card list is longer than the cards I was able to make with these kits, so some people got homemade cards and some people got foil cards we bought at Target last year.

Another Fun Mail Day

I bought some other papercrafting related stuff the other day and it came today.

First was this paper holder. I bought a bunch of paper over the holidays when Joann's had their Die Cuts With A View paper stacks on sale. I now need to go through my old paper and decide what I'll actually use and what I should either sale or give away. I bought the paper holder because I have a feeling I'm still going to need room, regardless of getting rid of some stuff.

Next was this Provo Craft Cricut tool kit. I don't have a Cricut, but I do have a Craft Robo, which is close, except instead of cartridges, you can cut anything that you load into the Craft Robo program. This tool kit came with a bunch of stuff I'd been wanting to get for a while: a bone folder, a few tools to get stuff off the cutting pad that is sticky, a scraper to clean scraps off the cutting pad. I also like the scissors and the fact it comes in a cool little carrying kit. Makes it easier to keep track of. And Amazon had it for $10, which was nice. I also got some Cuttlebug embossing folders. I love both of the ones that have ornaments and both of the snowflake ones. The bird one and plaid one are pretty good too. The name of this set is "Winter Wonderland." When I was looking for the names of the folders I already had, the one with the hanging ornaments was one I really wanted to get. (a better picture at Joanns.com)

These are Cricut pads that will fit in my Craft Robo, since the cutting pad I have is pretty much hashed. I'm hoping that if I have new mats and the tools that I'll start using my Craft Robo again.

Lastly, I bought a 50 pack of page protectors for my 12 x 12 scrapbooks, since I'm out of them besides the few in different scrapbooks holding places.

All in all, a very fun papercraft mail day. I look forward to playing with all my new toys and not having my paper organized in stacks on my window seat.

My Stamper's Best Haul

I ordered some stamps and stamping accessories from Stamper's Best last week and got the shipment today. I'm impressed by how quickly they got everything out, especially considering that my order qualified for free shipping. Free shipping at some places takes forever. Here's a few pictures with my haul in them. : )

The main reason I ordered was to get 10 of these cling sheets. I've been using Arlene's Tack It Over and Over glue on the stamps I've unmounted wood blocks. While the glue works fine, it's sometimes hard to get a good, consistent image with just the rubber. It works better if you stamp on a mouse pad, but I don't always have a mouse pad with me. So I'm going to convert most, if not all, of my unmounted rubber stamps to the cling sheets.

Operation Write Home asks that we stamp the back of the cards with their symbol. If you don't have a stamp, they have to stamp the back of all the cards before sending them out. Stamper's Best gives you a free unmounted stamp with their symbol on it. So glad I can now stamp the backs of the cards I'm sending in instead of making more work for the people who box them up.

I ordered this bat because I thought it was cute. I also loved the spider web background stamp. Not sure why I like the spider one so much, but I do.

I loved this birthday small stamp set. Not sure why the love stamps went with it but I really liked them. For the slightly larger stamps, I paid 50 cents for them to be on the cling mount to begin with. I figured I paid $2.75 for each sheet of the cling, so if the stamps were 4 x 6 or larger, it'd make sense to pay the 50 cents instead of using 20% or more of the cling sheet. That was my thought at the time anyway. Not sure if it really was cheaper, but it definitely is easier.

I got the "Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year" stamp to put on the inside of any Christmas cards I do. I have very few saying stamps that I would put on the inside of cards and I thought this one was good. I loved this ornament stamp. It's so beautiful. I love the ornaments and the way it was put together.

Lastly is the free stuff that Stamper's Best sent. Their site says that they send a free gift with every order, so these ones are mine. I got a binder sheet to put the stamps on to organize them in a three ring binder. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go to this method instead of the CD cases I have my stamps in right now. I'm glad they sent me a free one so I can see if I like them enough to invest the money into changing over to this set. The other free item I got was a Super 8 Movie Camera stamp. I like the look of it but am unsure what I'll use it for. I guess I'll have to play around and see. Nothing like a challenge. : )

This is my first order from Stamper's Best and all in all I'm impressed with the shipping time and the quality of the products. Thank you so much for your good service.