Work Space - a Brighter Garage

It was interesting to find out that many of you share my preference for scrapbook pages with more photos than embellishments.  I do love some of the layouts I see that go "over the top," but to my mind those are pages that I would hang on the wall, not pages I would include in an album.  I like my pages to be nearly flat and my albums to close neatly.  I will try to do more posts with this type of pages and I encourage you to find the "happy medium" in your own albums.

Spring cleanup is upon us - if only the weather would get warmer.  We had temperatures in the low 30s on Saturday - not the weather you want if you plan to work outside.  I did a bit more organizing and thought some more about my latest ideas for making my crafting space work better.  I predict a second trip to IKEA very soon...  If everything works out according to plan I should be able to complete another project that I have been trying to do for over a year.

 

I imagine you are wondering about the photo at the top of this post.  I decided to share one of our home improvement projects - partly so I could tell you about the clever name that Matt uses for his company.  We needed a new garage door - ours was original to the house and the springs had broken.  My husband thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the door to one that would work more smoothly and would have better insulation to keep the house warmer.  The door arrived the day before we left for the cruise.  Fortunately that was an unseasonably warm and sunny day so it could be installed right away.

 

Here is a photo of the old door - very plain and rather boring.  This photo is from January and the snow was not yet at the highest depth of the season.

 

It was amazing to see how quickly the old door could be dismantled - power tools are a great help.  It makes me think of the difference between using scissors and using an electronic cutter - you can get the job done manually but it is so much more efficient to use the best tool for the job.
 

At this point it looked like we could open an ice cream stand.  There are many garage type structures in the Northeast that turn into seasonal ice cream shops with half doors and counters (in case you didn't know what I meant by that).

 

In a very short time, Matt and his assistant had the new door in position.  The windows still need their grids and the finishing touch - the handles to make the door look like two pairs of old style barn doors - still must be added.

 

The light in the garage now is amazing - the row of windows makes such a difference.  This new door has three sections instead of four and is much quieter.  Now my husband can help build my new project with lots of light and still stay relatively warm with the door shut.

Putting the handles on took about the longest of all of the segments of the installation process.  Fortunately Matt is familiar with the "measure twice, cut once" rule and made sure he got the handles on straight and in the position we wanted on the first try.

 

So here is our new door - it will need painting to match the rest of the house and we are debating on whether it should match the trim, the door or the body of the house.  I think it is a big improvement and the added insulation should be a bonus for the next heating season.

 

So do you see the name of the company?  The owner is named Matt and he named his company "Mattadoor."  I thought this was clever - and then I saw the horns on his truck and I just had to take a photo.  I mean really - isn't that funny (and rather charming).  I'll always remember the name so I think he has a good marketing plan - just drive that truck around town  - people will talk. 

I hope you are having a good weekend - I am finishing up the "Martha on Monday" post for Scrappy-Go-Lucky and working on a couple of other projects to share tomorrow.  I also just received a package with a few new cartridges I ordered and I can't wait to try them out...

There are just a few days left for the current Deal and Kit of the Month at Creative Charms.  If you want to stock up on lots of lovely green embellishments don't miss the chance!

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Scrapbook Pages

Every so often I have readers ask about my scrapbooks.  I am sorry to say that I haven't been doing nearly as much personal scrapbooking as I intended to when I bought my Cricut.  The reason I wanted the Cricut was to make my scrapbooking easier and now I mostly make cards and other projects and run out of time to do pages.  One of my goals this year is to get back to completing some scrapbooks.

I have been working with a friend and Creative Memories customer who is making a scrapbook for each of her three grown children.  We have finished two and now are working on the last book - for the oldest child.  I thought I'd share (with her permission) a few of the pages we have done recently.  We are working with older photos and using the originals (gasp!).  Occasionally I scan or photograph one of her photos to do some digital editing, particularly if a photo has some damage or is drastically different in tone than then others to be used on the same spread.

In sharp contrast to the current popularity of pages with one or two photos and lots and lots of embellishments, our pages are filled up with photos with some sort of title and a little bit of journaling space.  When we are feeling adventurous we add borders or strips of colorful paper.  I think of what we are doing as "paving the pages" with photos since we usually work out a grid and even have "grout lines" between the photos.  There are usually (but not always) some Cricut cuts - often as the title.

Sometimes we just let the photos completely fill the pages.  It takes a lot of calculating and creative cropping to get a nice even grid with older photos.  If you are working from digital photos you can make a grid and size your photos to suit when you print them.  I enjoy the challenge of working out the page designs.  I try to keep a strong vertical or horizontal line for the eye to follow.

As we work, we might leave some gaps for photos that may still turn up.  In some cases we use mats to even up the photo sizes to make a grid layout work.

 While this style may not be for everyone, I think it is a good solution for situations when you want to included lots and lots of photos and still keep the album to a manageable size.  You can still be creative and add bits and pieces that personalize the book without overloading it with "stuff."

You can even have a photo serve as your title - as it does here for photos of the house they lived in for many years.  There is room for some journaling in the green textured box and you can also write a few details along the "grout lines" between the photos.

You can add more than just photos - these were bits and pieces (stamps, a card, images printed from websites) that represent some of her son's favorite things.  A page like this is not one that will win awards but it accomplishes the purpose of preserving childhood memories.

 I wonder if you can spot all of the Cricut cartridges we used.  I find that with so many cartridges available now, there is usually something that will add a nice finishing touch to a page - either as a title or an additional decorative element.  We started to notice a trend for the page titles to also be song titles so we have built on that idea as a theme throughout the book.

What do you think of this style of page?  Is it something you would do or do you prefer less photos and more decoration?  The wonderful thing about scrapbooking is that there isn't really a right way or a wrong way to do it.  If  your photos are properly adhered and the memories are safely recorded in journaling  and you are happy with the results - that is all that really matters.


I had a chance to go to IKEA with a friend today - I saw something that gave me an idea for a big improvement to my scraproom so I am working on a plan for another small building project for my very handy husband!   I'll have more details soon if we decide to go ahead with the plan...

One more thing - Happy Birthday Margie!


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Time for some coloring...

I spent time doing some organizing today.  There has been so much going on that many things have ended up in piles.  I try to be a fastidious crafter who always works at a clean desk and returns all supplies to the proper place as soon as the project is done but it just doesn't work for me!  I like to have bits and pieces on my table to inspire random thoughts and unusual combinations.  Every so often I am visited by the organizing fairy who tells me that I'd be happier in a neater space - so I try again!

Last month, I received the full set of ProMarkers from Letraset.  I have enjoyed working with the markers and now it is wonderful to have the full range of colors.  There are 148 markers in the set.  It is difficult to keep all of the colors in your mind so I made myself some color charts.

You can download color (or colour) charts from the Letraset website - here is a LINK to the page.  You can download a printed version of the colors or blank charts to color yourself.  I decided to print out the chart on two colors of cardstock, white and ivory, since these are the colors I would use most often.

On white the marker colors are bright and clear.  I used the same cardstock that I am using for my stamped images right now - just basic white cardstock from the office supply store.  I have ordered some "fancier" cardstock to compare the results and when that arrives I will print out another blank chart and have fun filling it in.

On the ivory cardstock the markers appear deeper and more jewel-toned.  The difference is small but the color does change a bit.  I am also doing some experiments with using the markers on different colors of cardstock - I'll share those another day.

 

The image that I colored was a gift from my friend Enfys.  When we were at CHA together in January with the Scrappy-Go-Lucky team, Enfys brought some stamped images to share with each of us.  She marked the backs with initials and this image is from Lili of the Valley (you can see it on their site HERE).  I colored it and then added more color for the background sky and grass.  I was just practicing and did not keep careful notes on the colors I used - I did try to blend the shades and place darker colors in the shadowed areas.  I cut out the image with an oval Nestabilities die from the petite scalloped ovals set.

 

The alcohol ink colors will go through the cardstock so you need to be sure to have a few sheets of scrap paper below the piece you are coloring.

I cut the next larger size scalloped oval to mount the colored image.  I chose the card base to coordinate with the grass colors - it is "spring moss" from Papertrey Ink.  The image alone on the card looked too plain so I looked around on my table and saw some leftover pieces of pink cardstock and added a 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 inch square behind the image.

 

The sentiment stamp is from Hero Arts.  It was part of the class set I received at CHA and it is part of a sympathy set - you can see the set HERE.  While it is from a sympathy set it could also be suitable for other situations and would also work for a get well card.  I stamped it in brown ink to coordinate with the little dog.

This is not at all my usual type of card but it is fun to try something different.  I am continuing to experiment with the ProMarkers and have found them easy to work with.  I do need to more practice but the beauty of working with these markers is that they do a lot of the work for you.  Sometimes the colors have to dry before you can get the full effect and I need to learn to be patient with the process.  It is relaxing to "play" with the colors.

If you'd like to try some of these markers, Enfys is hosting a great giveaway on her blog right now.  You can get all of the details HERE (and I already told you the answer to the question!).  You could win all three of the new blending sets - that's a total of 36 markers!  Good Luck!


The snow stayed away but it is still cold here - here's hoping the weekend weather improves.

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Adding Layers to an Image - Angel ATCs

 

When I started to think about the angel Artist Trading Cards (ATCS) I decided that I wanted to use a Cricut cartridge that I hadn't used before.  Quite a few of you answered correctly yesterday that the cartridge I used was "Once Upon a Princess".  I purchased this cartridge during the great sales around Black Friday last year.  I had resisted buying it because I thought the princesses were odd looking with their large heads and legs that ended in stumps instead of feet!

There is so much more to this cartridge than funny princesses - you always have to remember to look through the entire handbook before you judge a cartridge.  (You can find the cartridge handbooks on the Cricut.com site under "Information" and then "Cartridge Library" - here is a LINK).

There is a font (upper case only) and another font with the letters inside crowns.  There is an elaborate 3D castle to build and fabulous shapes for card toppers in the Tag feature.  There is a 3d wand, cute party invitations and envelopes, favor bags and cute layered images (including, of course, cupcakes, but you can leave the faces off!).  There are a lot of outfits for the princesses and many of them can be used on a regular paper doll from one of the paper doll cartridges if you prefer princesses with feet.

There is a gem feature with a nice hexagon and a true 60 degree diamond (something I had been searching for!).  The final "gem" of this cartridge is the phrase feature with cute "girly" sayings and it was in this feature that I found my angel.  I needed to adapt the shape to fit a standard ATC so I placed the base shape on the mat at 2 inches and used the right center handle to change the width to fit the card.

I wanted to use vellum to make the wings on the angel word  so I cut two of the base layers, one in light pink cardstock and one in vellum.  The vellum I was using had a very hard finish and I needed to use multi-cut (3 times) to get a clean cut.  I also wanted the halo on the word angel to be gold so I cut the top layer twice, once in a patterned pink paper and once from metallic gold cardstock (DCWV).

I set up a mat with the top layer repeated 12 times - more than I needed for my cards but I like to have a few "spares" in case something goes wrong with the cut.

 When I cut the top layer in the patterned pink cartridge I hand-trimmed the halo from the word so the gold layer would show when everything was assembled.

 I used a chopstick to help curl up the vellum layer of the wings.  The final image had four layers - twice as many as it was designed to cut (I omitted the shadow layer due to the small space I had in which to work).

To add more interest and help the angel to stand out, I added a strip of white cardstock cut at 1 1/2 x 2 1//2 inches and embossed it with the Japanese Scales Cuttlebug folder from the Asian bundle.  I thought this looked like clouds (as JANLYNN mentioned in her comment yesterday).

I used foam squares to raise the angel up to "fly" on the front of my card.

 When everything was assembled the card still lacked something - I decided it needed just a touch of bling.

So I added a tiny "diamond" to the "a" for a nice finishing touch.

My original intention had been to make a much more traditional and "arty" card - maybe even involving inking and glimmer mist(!).  Since that didn't happen I gave a nod to tradition by using this angel rubber stamp on the back and handwriting in my details.

There were only eight of us in the swap for February which made it easy to cut all of my pieces from single sheets of cardstock.

To save time in cutting the base cards (2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches), I used this rounded corner square and changed the size in the Shape Properties box.

I hope these cards make my swap partners smile - I think they are cheerful and cute.  Next time I'll go for the "arty" look...

The latest reports say that the snowstorm might miss us - keep your fingers crossed for me please!

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Angel ATCs

The theme last month for my Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap group was "Angels."  ATCs are often far more "arty" but the past few that I have made have been based on Cricut cuts and leaning more to the "cute" side.  
   

 

 

One of the things I like to do with Design Studio is to try different variations on an idea for a card.  I was determined to find something I could use for this card that was on a cartridge that I owned but hadn't used yet.

I got this cartridge in the Black Friday sales and I am happy to say that I finally used it.  Can you guess which cartridge I used?  I did end up cutting some extra layers to get the look I wanted for my cards.

My Tuesday went a little differently than I had planned so I'll have to write up all of the details later today or tonight.  It looks like we are getting more snow Wednesday night - this isn't funny anymore!

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