Friday, January 7, 2011

Taming the Closet Monster Part Three

I'm still working on my closet. Today I picked up the stack of finished pages and divided them by themes. I scrapbook by theme now and never feel like I'm behind anymore. These pages are divided as follows:

Left to right - Hall & Oates (concert photos and such), the brothers (my two boys), Me, school, birthday, friends, places far away (vacations), "just us" (pictures of my family around the house), holidays, other celebrities (I tend to meet a few), places nearby, Alex, and finally, Sam. Now I'm going to go upstairs and see if I can find albums with spaces for all these stacks. If not, I will put them away in a 2 gallon ziploc bag while I'm waiting to purchase new albums for them. On Sunday I will continue taming this monster so stay tuned!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Keith Urban and Studio J

Imagine meeting your favorite singer or movie star? I've done it and it's amazing!

Well, here are some Studio J layouts I made for a customer who had that dream come true when she met her favorite country singer, Keith Urban. (More layouts coming on Friday too).

Have you had a fabulous experience that you're just itching to scrapbook but don't have the time? I can help you out. Contact me and I can complete your pages for you with Studio J. Prices are reasonable and your pages will be done quickly, sent to you ready to slip into your own album. Call me and we can get your dream scrapbooked! (989) 906-6420



















Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Taming the Closet Monster Part Two

So, for these past few days, as I suffered from a flu/cold mixture, I worked on my closet. See the before pictures a couple of posts back. I took out one album at a time and stayed on the couch looking through each page, sometimes cringing, other times thinking that I might be an okay scrapbooker! I then tried to organize the albums by size to make them fit into the cupboard better. Even though it looks much nicer, these albums still need work. I want each one labeled as to what's in it, in general. I now scrapbook by theme but many of these are by year so they need to be labeled as such even if it's just a post it on the side. Also a lot of these albums have missing pages...more on that later.

I truly regret starting out as an 8 1/2 by 11 scrapbooker. It's not easy to find 8 1/2 by 11 albums anymore to replace these junkie notebooks. Even Close to my Heart doesn't sell them which means I'll be limited as to which albums I eventually switch them to in the future.

These are my 12 x 12 albums, there is quite a variety and if I were to do it all over again I would have chosen one album and stuck with it but, that's life. Under the 12 x 12 albums are albums in various sizes including accordian albums and 6 x 6 sizes. I actually remember a time when I thought I wouldn't make mini-albums but now I love them.

Now this is my collection of negatives and cds which contain tons of photos. A lot of them have already been scrapbooked but I don't which ones so this is definitely another monster I have to take care of.

These are the leftovers. The stack on the left are album page protectors and inserts that go with various brands of albums. I will need to figure out which albums they go to and decide whether to use them or sell them. The stack on the right is over 100 12 x 12 layouts that have no place to go currently. Guess I'd better start buying new albums from myself.

This is a stack of Christmas 8 1/2 by 11 pages that were all in an album together. Unfortunately there was actually mold starting to grow on this album so I had to throw it out. On Friday I'll show you where these are going to end up for now.

This is the stack of pages that I made without adding photos. I'll be taking them with me to my 3 day Shipshewana crop and trying to find photos to fit into them. There's also some empty albums and a few pages that need to be completed or fixed in some way.

This is a bunch of mini albums that have no photos. I need to find pictures to go into them or sell them. I love the Easter album and am thinking about putting it in our silent auction for Operation Smile at our Shipshewana crop. All of these items are in my living room and need to be taken care of in some way or another. Stay tuned for my next steps.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Christmas layouts from New Year's Day!

We had a second mini-Christmas on New Year's Day when my brother's family came up from Illinois. Luckily, with Studio J I was able to whip out some more quick and easy layouts right away. They'll go into my Christmas 2010 album. Since I did all the layouts in the same paper, everything will be very uniform and beautiful.


I wanted to give you a little tip about making a title and ending page for your albums in case you fill an entire one like I did. Just because there are photo spots on the template you choose doesn't mean you have to use them for photos. You can actually hit the little garbage can button and get rid of them altogether as I did on the "Players" page. It originally had 3 photo spots on it. I just got rid of them and added journaling boxes instead. Did you know that Studio J has an application where it will help you line up the journaling blocks (or the brads or buttons or whatever) so they are perfectly even and straight? I love it!


On the top page here, my title page for the album, I changed the one photo block to a journaling block instead. There is a little button right on the tool bar that lets you do this easily. I then added a title instead of a photo along with a ton of cute Stickease that I layered around the half circle. Now, when these come in the mail this week I will just put the page below on the first page of my album and the 2nd one on the last page of my album, so simple! I hope you enjoy looking at these layouts and that they inspire you to at least try out Studio J (remember, it's free unless you want them printed and sent to you, just play with it)!! You can do that RIGHT HERE!


















Monday, January 3, 2011

Taming the Closet Monster

Now this is scary. After spending a lot of time on the couch due to the flu this weekend I have found a lot time to really look around at the house.

This closet is supposed to be a linen closet but instead has been taken over by my finished and a few unfinished scrapbooks. You can see that after 13 years of scrapbooking I have had to use desperate means to store all the layouts including putting them in school binders. I don't have intentions for them to remain in those, of course, but out of sight out of mind unfortunately.

Since it is a new year I've decided to tackle some things I've been putting off. This is the first. Following the advice about resolutions I'm going to tackle this a little bit at a time. I will let you know of my progress. In the meantime, do you have a closet monster at your house too? I'd love to hear about it. Post a comment and let me know!




Sunday, January 2, 2011

Okay, here you go! New Products!

Check out this set of sales and deals on the brand new Wings paper and Inspiration sets! Click on my website to see these items in the brochure.

When you purchase the new Wings Workshops on the Go™ kit (G1016) for only $29.95 US / $33.50 CAN, it opens the door for you to participate in three exciting promotions. With the purchase of the Wings Workshops on the Go kit you can choose any or all of the following:

  1. Purchase the following new Spring/Summer Idea Book My Acrylix® stamp sets at a super discount:

    My Acrylix® Stamp Set

    Discount Price

    Full Retail

    A Game (A1113)

    $5 US / $5.50 CAN

    $7.95 US / $8.75 CAN

    Rosy Regards (B1369)

    $10/$10.95

    $13.95/$15.50

    Take a Picture (C1440)

    $15/$16.50

    $18.95/$20.95

    Dreams Come True (D1470)

    $18/$19.95

    $22.95/$25.50

    Bohemian Alphabet (E1019)

    $25/$27.95

    $34.95/$38.95

  2. Get the January Stamp of the Month set, Find Your Style, at a discount or free by purchasing new Spring/Summer 2011 Idea Book products found in the [insert MyCTMH catalog name here] as follows:



    Purchase a Wings Workshops on the Go™ kit AND…Get Stamp of the Month

    1 item from the Inspiration brochure

    25% off

    2 different items from the Inspiration brochure

    50% off

    3 different items from the Inspiration brochure

    75% off

    4+ different items from the Inspiration brochure

    FREE!

    You can also mix and match new products from the [insert MyCTMH catalog name here] and products from the Autumn/Winter 2010 Idea Book, and we will automatically calculate the greatest savings between the standard program and this promotion for you to get the best deal possible!

  3. Celebrate National Papercrafting Month in January with a My Creations® banner project. Simply purchase a My Creations® Banner (Z1378) and you will be able to make the project with the remaining supplies from the Wings Workshops on the Go™ kit and the E-size Bohemian Alphabet stamp set. The how-to instructions are included with the Wings Workshop kit exclusively through the month of January.

    For details, see your Independent Consultant today!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy 1-1-11!!! How cool is that?

My new newsletter comes out Tuesday! I'll be able to show off all of our new Inspirations products tomorrow in my newsletter. You don't want to miss them, the papers are beautiful and the stamp sets are on special!! Sign up to the upper right of my blog. Don't worry I won't share your email address with anyone. Happy New Year!!!