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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Halloween Layout Using My "Stash"
We all want to use up our "stash," whether it's to clean out our craft space because we just don't have anymore room, or it's to make room for all the new stuff we want to get. My purpose here was a little bit of both. I've had this stuff for so long that I just wanted to use it and not have to look at it anymore. As you'll see, by jazzing it up a little bit, and by adding a few new elements, I was able to make good use out of old materials. Here's the layout, and below it is an explanation of what I did to my stash to make the old products new again.
Cardstock: I used what I had on hand. I have a lot of cardstock. To make it a little more interesting, I drew lines with a ruler, using my gel pens to make a border around the pages.
Patterned Paper: The circles are from a pack of 4 that I bought for $1 in JoAnn's several years ago. They're made by Colorbok. I sliced each one in half and made a zig-zag edge with my pinking-edged scissors from Fiskars. The circle paper is from a K and Co. 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 pack that I also bought several years ago.
Embellishments: The circle embellishments and tab are from a sheet of punch-outs that coordinate with the circle paper, also made by Colorbok, and also purchased for $1 at JoAnn's. I glued the circles onto chipboard circles and sanded the edges even. I added a decorative eyelet to the tab and used it as part of my title. I've had that green ric-rac for a few years, and the transparent ribbon is from Hiedi Swapp - found in the clearance section of one of the big craft stores last year. Layering them added interest and dimension. I bought the spider brads at a craft show last year, and I they are from Eyelet Outlet. Those are probably the most expensive products on this layout! :) The ribbon sticker words are so old that I'm not sure who made them. I cut one of them apart to adapt it to my layout.
Title and Journaling Block: The words in my title are from a sheet of cardstock stickers that I found in my holiday stash. The journaling block is relatively new, and I think it's from Basic Grey. Although I usually hand-write my journaling, I had too much to say, and it didn't fit. So I typed it on my computer, printed it onto regular printer paper, cut it out, and adhered it to the block.
Border: Finally, we come to the border on the bottom of my pages. I created this in Cricut Design Studio and cut it out of some very old Basic Grey paper. I'm not a big fan of BG paper; but when I bought it, I thought it would look very good on a Halloween layout.
It felt great to use all of these products from my stash, and it was a quick and easy layout to complete. I hope I've inspired to you to put some of your older products to good use and to make some old stuff new again. Happy crafting!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Scrapbooking Tip: Make Some Lists/Charts
I am the proud owner of a Cricut Expression that I got back in August for my birthday/Christmas. Before that, I had the original small Cricut, so I've had a Cricut for about 2 years. That means that I have a lot of cartridges, and it's kind of hard to remember what's on which cartridge. To keep track of this, I've printed out sample sheets that can be found at Cricut.com. Today I went a little further. Since the Paisley and Wild Card cartridges have a lot of words and phrases, I decided to create charts with all of the words. I listed them by page and included all of the words and phrases, plus the keys where they can be found. (I number all of my booklets so that I can easily find what I'm looking for on the keypad.)
Here they are in both .doc and .pdf format, in that order. Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Crafting!
Friday, January 1, 2010
It's official. I'm no longer an Angel.
Well , those of you who know me know that I've never been much of an Angel to begin with.
I've been thinking about this for quite awhile now, and I've come to the conclusion that I no longer wish to be a demo. for The Angel Company (TAC). I've tried to make the best of the ever-changing policies that TAC has been trying to implement for months, but I just can't do it anymore. I cannot be a demonstrator for a company that will not pay me for sales that total less than $100 per month. Many demos are trying to work the math so that they can get around this part of the new compensation plan, but I take issue with any policy that expects me to work for free. If you are going to accept a small order, then you need to pay your demo for that order.
There are several demos on the demo website to which I belonged (up until about 20 minutes ago) who have criticized me and other demos who have voiced our concerns, chastising us and telling us that we should keep our negativity to ourselves. After having one of my posts deleted because of "flaming," I have decided that I want nothing to with this company anymore. I don't think the moderators on that forum actually know what flaming is, because my post wasn't a flame. I was merely answering a snarky post with a fact, and that fact is that one of the demos found it necessary to take her criticism to the blog run by the owner of TAC.
Anyway, this opens up another door for me. Now I can pursue teaching classes that aren't tied to The Angel Company in any way. I will no longer sell another product for that company, so I can feel completely free to use so many of the other wonderful products that are out there. Please post here and let me know what classes you'd like to take, and I'll do my best to schedule some within the next month or two. Please note that your post might take a little while to show up, because I will be approving all posts to this blog from now on.
It's a great time for new beginnings. Happy New Year!
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