Lots to Cover & So Many Photos

We're back from vacation and there's much to cover in this post.

Crafty Secrets & Cricut Haul

EDIT:  Picture Revised.  The original photo posted reference a haul from last week.  This photo was the one intended for this area.  Apologies from the author.

 Several items ordered before we left arrived in the mail today.  I referenced a vintage stamp, paper, postcard company a post or two back, the order shown to the left.  The order was a sampling of some of the many products available and not surprisingly, was happier with some items more than others.  The various stamp sets are perfectly suited for several projects I'm due to begin in the coming weeks.  The little boy alpha stickers will quickly disappear.  The postage card/journaling tags will slowly find secret spots as other projects evolve.  I'm not sure how much the baby book chipboard stickers and chipboard pieces will actually end up in the Graphic 45 Little Darlings mini-album I begin work on this month, but with product in hand I'm now certain the colours match perfectly.  This was more luck than anything else. The Flower Shoppe cartridge from Cricut also arrived and this one will save over $100 within a day of work.  These cartridge offers endless dimensional flower combinations that, for under $20, cost about the same as one standard punch of this type.  My deepest regrets, EK Success. 

Butterfly, Turtle & Potbelly Pig charms

Dinosaur charms

Along side the need for a quick buildup of paper and fabric scrapbooking flowers, I've also found my charms collection miserably lacking. 

Charms are used extensively to decorate the outside binding of mini-albums; a charm bracelet for a book, as it were.  During each major phase of the vacation I bought several charming (ahem) charms representing that event; and, other pieces I thought might come into use down the road.  The dinosaur charms are precious!  I plan to use these within the Texas vacation mini as tag danglies.  I'll post pictures of how they're used once put into pace.  The cute little pot bellied pig will be seen again in the upcoming mini album project using the Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe paper collection.  Unfortunately, the gift shop at the Japanese Gardens didn't have a koi charm of any sort, which was a major disappointment... the quest will continue.

July 27th, 2012

 I couldn't resist posting one of my favourite photos of Martin feeding the koi during our visit to the gardens. The fish practically climb out of the water for their kibbles.  The little guy's mouth is wide open waiting for him to drop in the pellet.  Is this a great shot or what?  I love it!

Next are the photos of the book's layout almost naked, before attaching the vacation photos and other memorabilia inside.  I've flipped at a breakneck speed through most of the pictures we took and can already tell I'm going to add a few more pages to the album.  I suspected this would be the case, and planned accordingly, but waited until knowing exactly what we had before committing to the work.  (See post: TP & Thinking, June 26th, 2012) Those, of course, aren't represented in this showing because they are still locked in my head and scattered throughout various parts of the scrapbooking room.

Front Cover

Inside Front Cover

Japanese Garden Pages

Museum Pages - Info Bundled, Ready to mount

Self-descriptive

Family Photos & Small Pocket Page

Flip Page Details

Glen Rose - With Back Inside Cover

 ( How nice it would be to quickly figure out how to neatly arrange the photos, but this is a first and it's late! :D  

Oh, well)

I'm particularly proud of this mini-album because, although I've learned many of the techniques from other great scrappers, the layout, paper combinations, and design are 100% mine... no scrap-lifting involved.

School starts back this week so I'll have many hours each day to devote undivided attention to several upcoming mini-album projects.  The baby book, the boy's younger years, and two identical copied-to-the-letter Old Curiosity Shoppe albums - one for here and one as a Christmas gift.  The album I plan to shamelessly copy - not once but twice - is shown on YouTube here.  Almost needless to say, but said, is that all the paper lines will come from various Graphic 45 collections.  Does the company sell stock?  If so, buying in could prove a solid investment.

I promised to cover a whole bunch.  Delivered, with a smile.  Blessings!

PS... The vacation was positively awesome.  We had a blast.

Card & Haul

I'm finishing the second created card of the year.  It's for my brother, and boy did all sorts of inspiration take hold on this one.  It's not just a card, but also a little note pad should he ever choose to use it as such. 

Face

 

Inside with working notepad and assorted vintage tickets

Envelope

 

 I went shopping yesterday making the usual circuit.  I found all sorts of good stuff!  The associate store had recently restocked their hobby aisle, and most of the stuff I picked out ranged between 25 cents up to $1.00.  Nothing more than that for a very generous bag to bring home.  The best find was a spool of Tinkerbell ribbon, which was more of a strand of tiny green rhinestones mounted on a gossamer ribbon not much wider than the rhinestones.  It took my breath away.  HL had a few steals, the best of which included a Madonna Christmas stamp I've had my eyes on for awhile (reduced from $11 down to $3.50) and a chain of square metal jewelry charms, also deeply discounted.  I found a large, delicate flourish stamp set at TM that will be used at every opportunity.

July 23rd Haul

The prize of the week:   I found a box of deeply etched resin roses that I couldn't figure what possible function these could serve until pulling one out of the packaging.  They were bulletin board tacks.  The packaging leads me to believe these were meant to be sold as individual pieces, maybe a dollar each?  The outside box original price listed at $11.00.  TM reduced them to $3.00.  Because three were missing, the manager reduced it all to $2.40.  This was theft, I say!  My plans for the tacks are to cut down the tack portion and use the top as a closure button for a mini-album.  Or even, how about... using some as very pretty bulletin board tacks until using or selling them for scrapbooking purposes.

Resin Tacks

Flowers & Style

This is the first post about flowers and scrapbooking.  The reason is quite simple; except for the few occasions I've used paper flowers - in very limited quantities - on a scrapbook page, I haven't seen a need from them.  There's a dimensional aspect that I figured would fail when used in a traditional, sheet protected 12x12 album-bound book.  

For the past couple of months when doing the scrapbook store run I've began picking up a package or two of assembled flowers when found on sale.  They aren't cheap.  Last week, TM had a sale on Prima Flowers (the industry standard) which reduced the $4.00 packages down to 99c each.  Talk about building a rapid inventory! 


Though I'm not quite sure where to start, I'm fascinated by the flowers made by I am Roses. You get a big bang for each buck there, and they are truly lovely.  They have a huge assortment of flower types, sizes and colours, and priced very reasonably.  Except that I have to restock on some very basic supplies, I would order enough to sample and play around with.


The big box craft stores all carry silk flowers, which they regularly have 50% sales.  This is an area to pay more attention, especially the bridal section.


And in no way least, there's virtually an unlimited range of paper flowers created with the Cricut.  I've watched scores of YouTube video demonstrating techniques of creating beautiful flowers I never would have thought possible.


Primarily through the warehouse sales, I've built a reasonable collection of Tattered Angels sprays and glimmer paints.  These consistently put out stunning effects, but they really need to figure out a better spray system.  I've yet to complete a project without having the sprayer clog.  Everywhere I turned I kept hearing about Lindy's Stamp Gang, a direct competitor of Tattered Angels.  I watched several videos from both the manufacturer and independent reviews, and I'm convinced this line definitely has a place in my growing spray paint/mist collection.  Lots of them!  The mention of the sprays and mists while posting about flowers is because these play such an important role in colouring flowers... and so much more.


The white flowers at the lower right corner are some left over from a wedding several years ago.  Cheap, cheap, cheap.  The coloured flowers are the same set but with a stingy application of differently coloured Tattered Angel's mist sprays.

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It's taken awhile to figure this out, but I do have a "style".  It is the colours and images predominate between 1910-1960.  Yes, that's a sizable range, but these are the colours I love working with best.  G45 probably helped with that, but it holds true across all paper lines and graphics.  When I heard yesterday about an online store, CraftySecrets.com carrying vintage papers, postcards, and images; I had to go check it out.  Using incredible ultra-human restraint, I left the site with only a large stamp set (perfect for the G45 On the Boardwalk line!!) and 32 page postcard collection, and two booklet sets.  Yes, all from the 1930-60's.  And as it happened, they had a sale in place.  I will go back to "visit" again, some time soon.  Oh, yes, life is good!


Then, as if the gummy karma worms weren't helping along most wonderfully, today I found a blog site here called The Graphics Fairy LLC, with free(!) vintage images... thousands of them.  Too good to be true.


On a sadder note, one of my all-time punches got damaged somehow.  The question becomes:  do I go out and buy another, or do I go with a similar punch? This is really discouraging; having to buy something a bit pricey twice.

Order from Nothing

Gosh, it's been almost 18 months now that I've began scrapbooking.  How far I've come!


How easy it is to forget the process of building skills and inventory along this path.  I've asked fellow crafters how? and when? and what order?  Then get the vaguest of answers.  How great it would be to keep a running commentary about how to build a workable inventory so that the general list could be shared with others just starting out. An attempt.

1. Paper, paper, paper.  Buy in pads, the quickest way to build a diverse inventory.  Buy card stock and paper, because you will learn there is a huge difference in function.  Buy paper only when on sale, preferably at 50% off or more.  Don't buy anything you don't like... the paper will be pushed to the back and a year later you'll still not like it.  (There are exceptions to this last part, but they are rare and few.)
2. Stickers.  The simplest and less costly embellishment.  Take advantage of sales, again, never at full price.  When buying for a specific layout, and the stickers are on sale, pick up at least another package you'll probably use (or that you think pretty) so you don't end up running to the store and paying full price during the next project.
3. Begin to build an inventory of "must have" tools.  A paper trimmer is absolutely essential.  Designate common household items such as rulers, and coloured pens as scrapbooking ONLY.  It's no fun having to track down equipment every time you want to sit and scrapbook, especially when time is a factor.
4. Invest in mixed batch of adhesive types.  A tape runner, acid free liquid glues, and sticky dots go very far.  Purchase the expense applicators such as an ATG gun only after comfortable knowing you will stick with the hobby.
5.  Stamps & Inks.  Whenever possible, buy stamp sets over a single wooden stamp, for several reasons.  Individual wood stamps take up more space, are generally very occasion/function specific and offer no variety to the occasion.  The same "Happy Birthday" stamp gets old very quickly.  Begin an ink inventory beginning with very basic colours, blacks, reds, green and blue.  Pick up a different colour at every opportunity.
6. Punches.  Begin with a circle punch, the most basic.  There are so many punch systems and types, any direction after that is best left to the user.

That sums up the very basics of inventory building.


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This hobby is still very thrilling, exciting and new.  There's so much to learn and so many ways to express thoughts and feelings.  Each day I sit down in anticipation of what can be learned or accomplished.