Projects with a purpose

Hi it's Sizzle today. Jules and I switched days so now I have Monday and Thursday for a couple of months until Toots comes home (yeah!).

My creative projects this week and probably for the next few weeks are going to be focused on organizing and preparing for my baby's 1st birthday. Now, you should know that I am not one of those people who goes all out with decor, cupcakes, homemade pinatas etc but I do want to have some cute presents and pictures from her birthday.

The organization part comes preparing to get our house ready to sell. We aren't doing it anytime soon but we have a lot of in-depth projects (tile, resurfacing, painting, back splash etc) we want to get done this summer so we are getting rid of all the non-essentials and all clutter. I already have a pile in my garage. I LOVE projects so I am excited about all the work we have ahead of us but I want to get on top of it asap; plus less stuff = less mess.

Before I get into all the things I am doing to keep on top of things I thought I'd share some pictures of things in different phases.

First a scrapbook page of ultrasound pictures:

Then I started making all sorts of binders for everything. All my pattern books or pdf patterns I printed off are going in here in sheet protectors.

This is my daughters birthday present, I plan to make two dolls so they can play. This one is cut out -except for the hair. Hopefully I will get it done in time - it is coming up fast!

Make sure to set some time away to be creative today.

Sizzle

Embellish it - make your own

Finally Thursday...and May is right around the corner. We are still getting random snow storms here -doesn't stick but still...depressing. My way to deal with stress or being stuck without a car is to do something crafty; so today I made a couple embellshments for my set of scrapbooking pages I have been looking at forever.

I really need to make some time to work on the kids first year scrapbooks - I am sooo behind. I HAVE to find a way to make it faster. I am considering digital but I think I need an external hard drive first. I don't know though - part of the fun is making somthing out of simple items like paper...it just takes a while.

Okay so my first embellishment it this monogram G. I cut a stencil with the Graphically Speaking cartridge with my cricut and painted the g onto kraft cardstock. Then I used a white pen to add the stitching and added the word girl - cut from the same cartridge (sorry my pictures are fuzzy I couldn't find a setting that would work for this stuff.)

I was going to have this in a different place on my page but I tried to draw a flower and it messed up - then I messed it up more by trying to punch a little flower and it ruined the bottom so my solution was to move it and have it pop out of the journaling.

Then I wanted to make a monogram A for her name. I got these blue chipboard letters on clearance for a couple dollars.

Yikes, that is a terrible picture - the point was to show you that they started out as blue. 

I got the A, mixed pink and blue to make purple and painted the a purple. I inked the edges with colorbox chestnut roan cat eye (I use this all the time and it is awesome). Then I added stitching to the A as well.

Then I wanted to decorate the A so I cut two slits around the leg of the A and tied a ribbon. I clipped the ends.

I had a lot of mistakes on this page but I tried a lot of things and it is better to try for the sun and land in the stars then not even bother to jump.

I jumped - tried some different techniques - some failed some succeeded. 

Here is the result:

Yeah for chipboard, blue paint and flowers

Sizzle here. I have been drawn to chipboard for awhile now. I love it. It is thick and you can paint it, cover it with paper, embellish it and it has its own dimension. I bought a pack of chipboard from the craft store years and year ago. I still have it because I could never figure out how to CUT IT.

They say you can cut it with scissors or a craft knife but it reality that takes a long time and doesn't provide professional results. I got the deep cut blade for my cricut hoping that it would cut chipboard.

It cut it but it didn't go all the way through. I had to do multi-cut the maximum x of times but it still didn't work. I had to cut through the rest with a craft knife and it ended up looking like this.

Not good. I COULD sand it and make it look okay but what is the use of using a tool if you end up doing all the work. So I decided the cricut doesn't work for chipboard - how disappointing.

The next step was finding these little tags at Michaels for 4.99:

I thought these tags would be darling in chipboard and I'd see if the cuttlebug would do a better job.

It did.

See how sharp that little tag is? I love it and it was so easy. I decided the manual die cut machines can cut a lot thicker material and a lot better. Now I am looking for a thick alphabet I can use with my cuttlebug to cut letters.

Here is my newly painted scrap desk. I decided that it works better for me to have all of my supplies in one place so here it is. You know something works for you when you make time to be there everyday. I LOVE the blue. It is bright so it motivates me.

Here is the page I finished. I am still working on the corresponding page.

See that little me and you piece I showed you before? The flowers fold so if it is flat you can see it better. I cut the flowers at three different sizes, inked them and used a blue brad in the center to pull in the blue from her hair bow. The flowers are from Mothers Day cartridge. I like flowers...

Paper Craft Tuesday with Sizzle

Good morning. I am slowing starting to feel better although I am still getting over a cold. The change of seasons really gets to my family and it is definitely changing to Spring here in Utah.

Today I wanted to share some cards I made last night. I love paper crafting but I haven't really gotten into as much as some people have. But it is really fun and I enjoy it when I do it.

Last night I wanted to play around with my Cuttlebug (a die-cut/embossing system) and use some embossing folders I got to make some birthday cards. Some turned into one birthday card and then another just for you card.

For the birthday one (above) I cut some card stock into 4 x 5.5 and folded it (I really need a score buddy because I am not a good folder) and then cut some green card stock a little smaller and ran in through my Cuttlebug with a happy birthday embossing folder (that's how I got that background.) The little present was a small embossing folder that I ran through with a small piece of red card stock cut to the size of the folder and then I sanded it to expose the white core.

This card I tried a card on my Cricut. I cut it from A Child's Year cartridge but I folded it a little crooked but just a little. I cut out this little bird tag and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the swirl embossing folder and sanded it a little. I also inked the edges with cat eye color box ink and stamped the sentiment.

I love the Cuttlebug. Those embossing folders make a big difference and I am so happy when the finished product looks like what I have in my head.

I am going to make some more birthday cards so I have some on hand to send to family when their birthday's come up.

Make a card today - it is fun and easy and gets your creativity going.

Christmas Treasures

Hi, Sizzle here and I have to say it is WEIRD getting back into a normal schedule after having some time off. I am excited for 2010, this is going to be a great year!

I told you earlier how I was going to do a treasure hunt for the boys to find their presents from Santa. Here is what it ended up looking like:

In the morning when the kids FINALLY awoke (I was up and pacing early they woke up late) they opened their stockings and some family presents. The map was in the stocking.

(still tired looking - it is 8:30 am and they went to bed at 7pm - I don't get it)

If I was to do it again I would put all the presents together or hide them until we got back because the boys got sidetracked playing with the few things they had under the tree (like 2) and were perfectly happy. I had to practically force them to be excited about our treasure hunt but once we started to get ready the excitement came. We got in the car and they found all the landmarks and the excitement mounted. It was fun. (note: they would have been just as excited to walk around the house and find a hiding place)

Santa made the map using resume paper, a stencil made from my blackletter cricut cartridge and then he crumpled it and inked it - he probably could have used pen instead of pencil but of well. I am sure he was busy.

A picture of them opening one of them at Grandma's house where we ended up. We went a round about way so they didn't recognize where we were until the last minute.

That weekend I made a scrapbook page with the map so they could remember our little adventure.

I just had to throw these random Christmas pictures in because I love them.

The favorite present of this one - Scooby-d00 underwear! He laid them out on the table so I could look at them and made me take a picture.

First time seeing Santa - he is a little stunned that he is sitting on Santa Claus' lap. The older boy refused to sit on Santa's lap but told him he was a very nice man. LOL.

Being thankful

I know this is the time of year to show gratitude, but I think I would be there regardless of the holiday. However, I'm really excited for Thanksgiving this year and for the break from everything. I admit I didn't get a chance to complete my personal Thankful project yet, but I wanted to share with you my idea.

One thing I've never been good at when it comes to scrapbooking is not only journaling (because I'm not good at that either) but recording the things about life that aren't the who, where, why. In this case, the little things in life I'm thankful for. So my first step is to record 100 things I'm thankful for. As my friend Whitney challenged:

Make a list of 100 things you're grateful for. You'll be surprised at how many things you'll have to leave out.

Sounds like a fun activity and starting point, huh? Then I want to find some way to creative record my thankful thoughts. I'm thinking a 12 x 12 scrapbook page with squares with each item...and some represented with a specific image or something. I've never been great at focusing on thoughts and words rather than pictures so this will be a challenge—but a fun one—for me. :)

Here are some other thankful pages that I like and that I hope can motivate us all to remember the tiny things we are grateful about with life.








If any of us get a chance to complete a thankful project over the break, send in a pic. We'd love to feature it. :)


As I was thinking about Thanksgiving crafts, I was reminded of THESE amazing cookie turkeys. Every Thanksgiving at my Grandma's house growing up featured these at each plate.

I also love the yarn turkey idea and sticking the feathers with the Thankful notes in the back. If I had thought of it earlier, this would have been fun to do in my apartment with my roommates and any friends we had coming over.

Creative Excercise

****Don't forget to enter the giveaway - I will draw a winner on Thursday!****

Hi - Its Tuesday and that means it Sizzle's turn to blog. So here I am with a creative exercise. I think that creativity is an exercise, sometimes you have to try something new, get out of your comfort zone and learn by doing. Scrapbooking is my creative exercises. It does not come naturally to me, I stress about it; it takes me ALL day to do just one page. For most things I don't think it is worth it but I do it sometimes because it helps me think creatively and using that part of my brain. I don't follow patterns in scrapbooking so it all has to come from ME. That is different from what I usually do. I like to follow a pattern that I know works; that other people have tried and had success with. I feel uncomfortable without instructions or a pattern.

Thus scrapbooking is my creative exercise. Get it?

The only thing I scrapbook are first year baby books. I try (I haven't finished my 2 year old's yet) to keep a scrapbook of each babies first year. It is so hard for me but I try.

Today I started the baby's (Let me warn you that I was so excited to be able to use flowers). Here is what I came up with.

Can you believe that it took me all day (actually part of two) to come up with these two pages? That is a record for me too, usually it would take longer but now I have a Cricut and that really helped me. I suppose part of the time was in getting used to how it works and experimenting.

I am new to it, this was only my second time to use it but it is a pretty cool tool when you get the hang of it. Most everything in my layouts came from the Basic George cartridge with one exception (miracle came from Home Decor). I just have the basic Cricut so I can cut things from 1" to 5.5." I am pretty sure that is all I would ever use it for. I used to want the bigger one but now I think I am glad I got this smaller one.

Let's take a closer look

The letters for Bloom are American Craft thickers and the In is a Memory makers rub on. The brackets came from the George cartridge, I cut them at 1" I figured in bloom was a nice way to say REALLY PREGNANT. Don't you think so?

The little flowers came from a punch and the bigger flowers were cut from George. This page is for my pregnancy picture - which I had to photo edit a wee bit so I don't have the actual picture yet. (I am not clever enough to print them on my own computer even though I am pretty sure I could if I tried)

All the above flowers (the bigger ones) came from George I just printed them at 1" in white and then 2.5" in blue and inked the edges and layered them. The orange flowers are from that punch again.

I have a hard time figuring out how to journal. I HATE my handwriting, it is terrible so That is NOT an option for me. I guess I could feed the card stock through the printer but I am not sure how I would cut shapes around the words if I did that first.... so I use vellum. I run the vellum through the printer and then use vellum tape. It took me awhile to find out about vellum tape but it is the only thing that you can't see - at least as far as I know.

The word miracle was on the Home Decor cartridge, I used the shadow feature for the white and left the cutouts in the a and the e and then cut it again in the orange paper just regular.

(the Cricut has a shadow, blackout and image feature so you can layer and get three different effects)

I haven't figured out the bottom half of this page for the journaling, any ideas? I had a decorative box there but it was too small so I have to re-cut one tomorrow and maybe I will just use my crappy handwriting. Journaling is definitely the trickiest part. What do you guys do? Tips?

Your assignment this week is to try creative that is OUT of your comfort zone, something new or something you don't normally enjoy. Then send us an email with a picture of what you did and what you learned and I will post it next week. Our email is cjuices2@gmail.com

Keep the juices flowing!

Mod Podging a memory book

Hey - It's Jules again! Traveling is one of my main passions, so I wanted to post about making artwork out of memories from travels or experiences. Scrapbooks are great, but sometimes you want to put up something on the wall or on the coffee table that you can look at everyday.

About two years ago I went to France with my boyfriend Than. He kept a beautiful journal of his perspectives that was inspiring to read, and in addition to the photos we took, I wanted to give him a Christmas present that would showcase both of these.

 - I bought a small black cardstock photo book with a spiral bind - I liked the small pages. 

 - I love buying old calendars to put in frames or use in colladges, so I had one with old pictures of France that i cut up.  

- Then I typed up portions of Than's journal with a cool font.

- I made a background colladge of the old paris photos along with our own pictures. Mod Podge is my favorite thing ever. You can just paint it over and it drys clear. 

-Over the pictures I put strips of the phrases that explained the photos beneath them. 

- I separated the pages that they should dry - and wha la!(Is a good idea to put some tissue between the pages or they'll stick)

For some awesome modpodge ideas - and until I put up my photos - check out this blog

Mod Podge Rocks!