I'm back!

Sorry for the unexpected break.  My mom got really sick 2 weeks ago.  She ended up in emergency surgery and had a 9 day hospital stay.  I was finally ready to get back to business when my son's cat, Lucy, died.  Holy cow!  The questions he asked.  lol!  I'm glad that that both ordeals are done.  Now, back to scrapbooking business...

I got a fantastic email last week!  I applied and was accepted to be a part of the "Hiding in my Craft Room" design team!  Starting next week, I will be making a blog post a week for this design team.  Exciting right?!  I'm very excited!

I got to scrapbook last weekend.  Yep!  3 whole days of scrapbooking.  I didn't get a ton of stuff done, but I did make progress on Design Team projects and I worked a bit on a book for Caleb.  I can't post most of what I did because they are for future posts, but I can post part of Caleb's book.  All of the paper I used is October Afternoon.  I really like October Afternoon for boys.  Their lines are always adorable!  Without further adieu, here it is!

Who am I talking about?

WARNING!  This is a non-crafty post.  Yep.  I am working on a layout right now that I may want to save back to submit to magazines.  This means that I can't show it here right now.  I gave you sneak peeks of it in an earlier post, but it's changed a bit and I really do want to save it.

I guess I should show you who I am talking about all of the time.  You will hear a lot about Cate, Caleb, and Anna.  Cate and Caleb are our 5 year old twins.  Anna just turned 1.  My husband is Tony.  Here we are back in December.  Julie from New Edge Studio took this photo.  We had one heck of a time getting Caleb to behave that day.  You can see it in his eyes.

Anna is older now.  My hair is shorter now.  I look a little more tired.  lol!  Here are a few other great photos Julie took.

In the next week, I won't post much.  We are coming up on a weekend crop, so I will be packing bags starting tomorrow.  I do not look forward to this!  Everything used to be so portable.  Now that I have a craft room, it's no longer portable.  Saran wrap might be involved in the packing this time.  I'll update you on the progress!

Let's visit the past a bit...

Anna is sick.  This means I'm not going to make it in, again, to work on the layout that is just sitting on my messy work table.  I was able to make a tutu today for my sister-in-law's wedding.  One down, four more to go!  Since I have nothing "new" to show you, let's revisit an old page or 2.

I seriously love these photos!  This is Cate in her one and only dance recital outfit.  We went out and took these before going to the studio to take the pro photos they had to do.  During the recital (about a month after the photos were taken), she hit another student with her lollipop while onstage.  Afterward, she informed us that there was no way she was ever going to do that again.  She is obviously not a dancer in the making!  It's been too long now and I'm not sure of the paper lines that were used.  

 

Ugh.  I didn't realize how awful the photo for this came out until I just looked at it blown up.  Oh well, it's still one of my favorites that I have done for Caleb.  Again, not sure of the paper lines because they were scrap.  The snowmen were just circles cut out and glued together.  It was a cute one that was done years ago.  

Now, hopefully Anna will be feeling better tomorrow and I'll get that layout done.  I have a deadline this time.  It has to be done and off the table by Monday.  Next weekend, Jen will be here from St. Louis and it is scrapbooking weekend!  WOOHOO!  This does mean that I have to get everything packed up.  I dread that...

Sneak Peek and Ribbon Tutorial

Since I currently have no followers and just a few people that read this blog every day, I am taking the opportunity to experiment.  Today I have a sneak peek and a ribbon spiral tutorial for you!

First up, I will do a quick tutorial on how to make ribbon spirals.  I used to refer to them as flowers, until Cate decided they don't really look like flowers.  She renamed them spirals!

I used Cosmo Cricket Glubers (the large size) and grey grosgrain ribbon.  The wider your ribbon, the fuller your spiral will be.  The easiest way to do this is to leave your ribbon on the roll until the end, then cut it.  You never know how much you are going to need.

First, take the end of your ribbon and put it at the edge of your gluber.  Notice that I didn't put it all the way in.  It's just enough to hold the ribbon down.  

 Your next step is to pleat the ribbon around the outside of the gluber.  After teaching many people how to make these spirals at my scrapbook store job, I have found the easiest way to do this is by grabbing the ribbon between your index finger and thumb...

Then use your index finger to stick a small section of the ribbon down, creating the pleat.  Be su

Eventually the your fingers and your ribbon end will meet.  At this point, you will...

Start a new row!  Go in about 1/5 of an inch and go around again..

And again until you reach the middle.  I made it 3 full times around.  Sometimes you will not make it around 3 full times.  We considered it a perfect spiral if you made it around 4 times.  I've never done that.  lol!

Cut your ribbon and stick the end down.  Typically I would fold the corner down a bit to hide the edge and stick it under what I use for the center.  Since my flower doesn't have a permanent center yet, I have not done that.  

For this illustration, I have used a purple button with bow. I used embroidery thread to make the bow.  I stick my centers in using a strong adhesive. Right now, my favorite is E6000.

Ok...Now for our great sneak peek!  I wasn't sure about it, but the more I work on it, the better it gets!  I'll even be using some of my sister in law's art in it.  Since it matches her wedding colors (total coincidence!), I will either give it to her, or use it for photos I run off for my family for the wedding.  I can't wait until it's done!

Things you discover when you start a blog

In the last few weeks, I have discovered that there is more to a craft blog than just writing and posting your photos.  Designing this blog has been a pain.  I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.  You can't just have people follow your blog.  You have to add a button.  I had no idea.  Now I have a button.

Followers.  Yep.  These are important.  Right now, it appears I am writing to thin air.  But I know that followers will come with time.  If you are reading this, please follow me and send your friends.

Having a blog has opened many new doors for scrapbooking.   I participated in my first Blog hop.  I could never really participate in them before.  I could go look and pin great ideas, but I couldn't comment easily.  It was pretty great and the prizes are fantastic.  Hopefully I win some of those prizes soon!

And the contests.  These layout, card, and theme contests are keeping me in the scrap room.  At least something is.  If I don't have something motivating me, I tend to let my crafting slide.  I found one today that I am entering.  Your layout/card has to have something to do with time.  I started a time themed page on Tuesday.  Photos of that to come later.  Then there's this "link your project" issue.  I had no idea what that was.  Thankfully that became clear quickly.

Also, you have to have blogs to become a member of MOST design teams.  Some don't require it, but most do.  On occasion, you'll certainly see posts that refer to design teams.  It's just me trying to participate with another group.

All in all, this blogging experiment is going well.  Since I'm not feeling quite on top of things today, I didn't get in the room to take photos or work on the layout, but I think I've figured out what it is missing!

Paper Quandary

How do you store your paper?  Mine go in the three drawer 12x12 stacks.  Right now I have 3, but I really need a 4th.  I tried the whole rolling rack thing.  Didn't work because it isn't portable.  It has to be portable in some way.

The problem with the stacks is that I can never find what I need.  I had everything divided into girl paper, boy paper, and then 3 drawers of misc.  Who can even begin to try to find something in that mess?!  The other day, I was looking for paper for the Fancy Pants Design Team call.  I couldn't find any and thought I had very little.  Maybe I had used it all.    Tonight I tried something different.

I went through all of the paper and divided it by Brand.  Imagine my surprise when I found about 75 sheets of Fancy Pants paper mixed in!  Ugh.  I was so irritated.  At least I can find everything now.  I love using different paper collections from the same company together.  They tend to use the same color patterns and hues in many different collections.  This definitely opens up some new possibilities.  Let's see how long I leave it this way.  Any bets?!

Bigger than you think

You know how you buy something at a flea market or antique mall and then when you try to put it in your vehicle, your husband is slightly (ok...maybe a lot) worried when it won't fit in without moving people around?  Yeah.  That happened.  This is what I bought...

This thing is 6 foot tall!  I only paid $5.00 for it at an antique store in Kansas.  I had this genius idea of using it to replace this...

This is all of my ribbon and thread.  I have wrapped all of my ribbon and baker's twine around wooden spools that I have spend 6 months collecting and placed them in shadow boxes.  I paid $2.50 for the small one and $2.00 at an auction for the big one.  For those of you that say you can't organize a room cheaply, think again!  That means I've spend under 5.00 for the storage containers.  You can't buy a new one for that!  It is literally my favorite thing in the entire room.  It even beats out my jars of buttons and other items that I have hanging (look back at the previous blog post!).  But I have so much that I need another one.  What's the solution when you can't find one?  Make do because there's no way that 6 foot tall shelf will fit in there!  So, I have stacked everything on top for now.  Ideal?  Nope.  But it does work and I can see everything.  Here are some close ups.

Even my washi tape fits right in!  Seriously...I love looking at all of my ribbon and washi tape and thread and twine.  It's pretty fantastic!

Now...what to do with that huge shelf that's leaning on the wall in the scrap room?

New Blog Name

Ok.  Photos, Paper, Scissors was an eh name.  Yep.  Time for something more creative.  You are now reading "My Creativity Exploded!".  This came from a facebook photo caption.  I captioned the following photo "My Creativity Exploded."  It was quite the popular post, so my husband thought it would be a great blog name.  I have to say I prefer it!

My scrap area is a hot mess right now.  Since we will have the paper train at the next K.I.S.S. event, I need one more paper tray set.  Who knows where I'm going to put it.  I think there will have to be some rearranging soon.  I have to say that I do love being able to look up and see all of my buttons organized by color.  It's pretty fantastic.  In all of those boxes and baskets, there is chipboard, stamps, adhesive, extra storage containers, and flowers.  Next to this is my sewing and cricut area and all of my ribbons, thread, and washi tape is hanging in shadowboxes on the wall.  Speaking of shadow boxes, I need another one of those too.  As soon as I get another one, I will get that side of the craft room posted. 

Since I am just starting out here, I need your help!  A big part of a blog is having followers and following people.  I would love for you to follow me and to let me know you are doing so!  In turn, I will follow you and hopefully we can gather some good ideas from each other!