Fun Quiz & Crop Update

Good morning!  Happy Thursday! Here is a link to a fun quiz "What's your organizing style?" It was originally published in Creating Keepsakes, March 2009, but it still had me totally pegged!  I took it yesterday and it was right on the money for me with a score of 42. Let me know if you take it what  your results are and if that's true to your organizing style. 
In Crop for a Cure news, the registration form is now up.  Find it here or on the Crop for a Cure link above.  Please forward to anyone you know who would enjoy this event or like to donate! Here is a pdf version of the flyer also. See you tomorrow for the Mystery Scrap Friday reveal!

Mystery Scrap Week 4 (Wednesday)

For this layout, you will need a 12x12 for the background - solid light color, or light colored patterned paper.
3 tiny tags, small punches, small embellishments or buttons.  Journaling area ~ 3x3. Title - up to you - however big or small you want this time.  Mine was teeny tiny - fit on a Stampin Up! Word Punch!

Mystery Scrap Week 4 (Monday)

I can't believe it's already week 4!  This week's layout is a super simple one.  You will need 3 landscape oriented 4x6's.  2 of them will be trimmed to 3.5x6" and one to 3.75x6". This page should come together in no time at all, so any overachievers out there may want to pull a couple sets! 

Mystery Scrap Week 3 (Friday)

Welcome to the big Friday reveal!  This week's layout is based on a layout by Celeste Smith - it is almost at the bottom.  Here is my interpretation.... 

Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea!  Also, the measurements I gave you are slightly different from the way my page turned out.  Here's a close up of the title - hopefully it makes more sense now!

Don't forget to upload a picture of your completed layout in the our Flickr Group, tag this one Mystery3.

Storing Those Pesky Paper Scraps

Storing scraps of paper leftover from projects is something that was once a waste of time and space for me, but now I love it!  For a long time, I would separate scraps by color into gallon zip lock baggies. This was perfectly functional, kept them corralled and I didn't waste any.  The only problem, was that I NEVER went back and used any of the scraps.  About a year ago, I found this link (can't believe I was able to find it again!) http://www.newenglandstamper.com/my_weblog/2010/01/scrap-storage.html  I thought it looked great, appealed to my Type A personality, was very contained and orderly.  I knew this would work for me if I could get over cutting up a piece of paper of which only a 2x2 section had been used.  So - I got started with a plain white photo box that I already had from Walmart - (LOVE those boxes, but sadly, I don't think they carry them anymore.)  If I could get a 4.25x5.5 rectangle or two, I would - otherwise, I'd trim the paper into rectangular or square pieces.  I try not to keep anything smaller than about 1.5"x 3" unless it's an absolute favorite. I filled up one box and then started on another just from cleaning out my zip lock baggies.  I cleaned up weird cuts so everything had a straight edge & threw away any that were bent or wrinkled.  You can see below I have one box that is P(ink)ROYGBIV and then a second that has all my 4.25"x5.5" pieces (great for card fronts) and neutrals.  

This was very freeing - I gave myself permission to throw away those itty bitty scraps and only keep pieces I can do something with. These are great to use with punches, for cards, to cut letters on my Pazzles.  I have a ton of white cardstock scraps and those are great to stamp on for pages or for cards.  Even my girls love it because if they are working on something they can pull out a couple pieces for their projects.

A couple months ago, I was participating in an online class and realized it would be helpful to have some 12x12 strips (out of which to punch borders or cut thin borders to go across an entire page) so I have started 1 ziplock baggie and will put 1-2"x12" strips in that sometimes just to have a little stash of those.  I'm also now in the habit of going to my scrap boxes first - before reaching for my full size sheets. 

I bet you are wondering how I keep up with all the scraps as the multiply like rabbits... Do I meticulously file them away after every project?  Those of you who know me, I'm sure already know the answer to that one (wink, wink).  No way! I keep a plastic shoe box/tub thingy on my desk or on the floor next to my desk and throw the scraps in there.  Then once a month or so, I'll go through and cut them down to rectangles and file them.  Doesn't take long at all and everything stays nice & neat! If I'm working, with them, I leave them out with the lids off, but when I clean up, the lids go back on and they go back to their designated spot. As Mattie would say "Easy Peasy Pumpkin Squeezy!"  (I have no idea what that means!)  Anyway - I'd love to hear how you store your scraps!  Stop back by tomorrow for the Friday reveal of Mystery Scrap Week 3!

Mystery Scrap Week 3 (Wednesday)

I hope you've got your picture picked out for this week! You will need a 12x12 for your background and 4 2"x2.75" pieces of patterned paper or solid color paper (you can use 1-2 different or all 4 different & scraps would be perfect!).  You will also need a couple embellishments with which you will create kind of a scattered look - small punches work well, small stickers - I used about 15 that were .25" or .5".  Finally letters in various sizes to create a title.  (For this, just pull a variety that would work together and you'll see what I mean on Friday!) 

Punch Storage

Over the door shoe organizers are great to organize scrap supplies of all sorts - I use one on the back of my closet door to store my punches.  Now, if you have a ton of punches, this is probably not the best solution for you.  It works for me now, but if I get many more, I may have to come up with a new method... I also have one of these on the closet door in my kids' playroom - great for putting away Barbies, potato head pieces, Squinkies & any other little pieces.

Mystery Scrap Week 3 (Monday)

This week, we are going to try something a little different.  Our focus is going to be less on a particular event, more on a person. You only need one small picture of someone - a portrait 2"x2.75".  For your journaling - think about what is important to you about that person. It could be things you love about them, lessons you learned from them, things you want them to know, what is important to them at this point in their life. Use one of these or come up with your own. This page will be very focused on the journaling. You can do it as a list, phrases, or in paragraph format.  

My Three Loves

When it comes to scrapbooking, I have three distinct loves.  I think you could really even say I have three separate scrapbooking hobbies.  The first (obviously) is the act of scrapbooking. Getting pictures and words down on paper to tell a story about a particular event or to tell part of the story of our lives.  The second is information collecting.  I love to gather ideas, read about techniques, new products. I (somewhat obsessively) collect sketches & layouts to scraplift.  I spend hours reading magazines, books & blogs about scrapbooking.  The third is organizing my stuff.  I love finding new ways to organize that work for well for me. There are so many different ways to organize paper, stamps, stickers, embellishments, etc. that I find fascinating.  What works for one crafter may not work for you because of the space you have to work with, because of how your brain works or because it's not visually appealing to you.  In between our Mon/Weds/Fri Mystery Scrap posts, I'll share some things related to my other two hobbies.
Today I'm sharing one of my favorite simple and inexpensive organizing tips.  Binder Rings! You can find these at Staples or maybe even Walmart and they come in a variety of sizes. They have so many uses - here are a couple of the ways I use them...
1.  To organize & store stickers, rub'ons, etc. You can separate by color, by theme, by season, by person you plan to use them for, etc.  I have several rings - one for baby related goodies, one that is mostly decorative, one for holiday & seasonal.  Letter stickers would be another good one.  I hang these in the closet of my scrapbook room from the wire shelving. You could also hang these on a peg board, from a curtain rod (like in one of my first posts), on a coat rack, or put them in a basket. This makes it so easy to grab to take with you to a crop.

 

If you are anything like me, it's difficult to throw away birthday or special occasion cards.  So, after each birthday I add the cards to a binder ring for that person (if someone gets a Thank you card or Valentine's card, I throw it on the ring also).  This is a picture of Evan's (see the heavy chipboard E?) I should probably add some ribbons to the binder ring to make it a little cuter!

This next idea came from my Stampin Up! Demonstrator, Traci.  It's a ring that holds examples of each of my punches. I cut out squares of cardstock - punched a punch, added any notes (like 1 3/8" circle), then had them laminated at Staples (you can fit several onto an 8.5x11, so it cost a couple dollars).  This is so helpful because you can lay the laminated piece over anything to see what it would look like if you punched it out - and works great to see which punches would work with which stamps.  I also got a couple of my friends to punch theirs for me, so I know what I could borrow if I needed it!

Finally, here's a link http://www.vimeo.com/13767412 to a video showing another great way to use binder rings. Just in case you can't view it, it's Lain Ehmann from Layout a Day talking about how she organizes her inspiration.  She takes pictures, gets them printed when there are sales wherever she gets photos printed and then punches a hole in the corner and sticks them on a binder ring.  She keeps it near her desk and it's always handy to flip through. 

I hope you enjoyed this - and let me know how you already use or will use binder rings!  See you tomorrow for Mystery Scrap Week #3!

Mystery Scrap Week 2 (Friday)

Wooohooo!!!  Friday's here!  Send your guy off to watch some basketball and get to work on your week 2 page!  Here is my page based on this week's plan.  I'd love to see your completed page in our Flickr group - here is the link: http://www.flickr.com/groups/kariscrap9/ you will have to "join" the group, but I will happily approve you!  Then upload your pics, tag as Mystery 2, and "add to group". 

And here is the link to the page it is based on the Feb 21 post on this blog - love her stuff!   http://wickysticket.blogspot.com

Mystery Scrap Week 2 (Wednesday)

Ready for the next step this week?  For this layout, you'll need a solid color12x12 for your background
White (or light) card stock 9.25"x10.25" & 1.5"x3.75"
Another color 9.5"x10.5" & 1.75"x4"
Ribbon - approx 18"
Title - Sticker letters, chipboard letters, thickers or Die cut letters ~1"-1.5" in height
(optional) teeny tiny letter stickers or stamps
Embellishments - mine range from itty bitty (.25") to ~2" wide. I used 4, but you can use more or less (die cuts, decorative stickers, buttons, etc)
Don't forget to get a Flickr account set up!  See you Friday!
 

Got Sketch?

A quick post today to tell you about another fun class online.  Valerie Salmon has a blog called Got Sketch. http://gotsketch.blogspot.com/  Her blog has fantastic inspiration - she's one of the regular contributors to Scrapbooks etc magazine.  She does terrific sketches that make for super easy pages.  (Another of my favorite ways to speed up my scrappy process.  Here are a couple photos of layouts created from her last Got Sketch class. See you tomorrow for our next step in Mystery Scrap this week!   

Mystery Scrap Week 2 (Monday)

I had a lot of fun with week 1 and I hope you did too!  It's time for another week & another layout!
For this week's project, you will need 1 landscape 4x6 & 1 portrait 4x6 as well as 2  3x3's.  You'll probably end up trimming a little off the 4x6 portrait & about 1/16" from two sides of each 3x3.
Not a lot of room for journaling on this one ~ 1.5x3.75 space.
I'll be posting almost every day - so keep stopping by!
K

Layout A Day

On January 31, I stumbled on a website for something called Layout a Day or LOAD for short.  The theme was Inspiration is Everywhere and the idea was to create a Layout every day in the month of February.  I made an immediate decision to try it - I figured it would be fun and even if I didn't complete a layout every day, I would get more done than I had been.  I signed up - it was $30 and every day just after midnight (eastern), Lain Ehmann (the genius behind it!) would send a link to a website with a prompt of some sort.  You could use that prompt to help you find inspiration and create your daily layout or just do your own thing.  Then, you'd upload your pic before midnight pacific - give you a 27 hour day - WOOHOO!  
Some nights I would stay up late just to see the next prompt.  I got so many great ideas on how to look at things in a different way to really start to see inspiration everywhere. There were prizes along the way and a grand prize for one person who completed 28 in 28 days.  I wanted that prize even though I didn't know what it was - I figured it would be something good! Unfortunately, I didn't win, but in a way I really did.  I did 30 pages in 28 days.  This project forced me to make decisions faster, commit things to paper more resolutely, go with my gut & not second guess myself.  One of Lain's main messages with Layout A Day is "Done is Better than Perfect."  How true is that?  Sure there are some pages that I don't love, but you know what? They are still completed pages. Each is one more story told about our life.  If you are interested, go to her website http://www.layoutaday.com/ (she has a class starting soon called True Scrap, and also a monthly subscription based program called ScrapHappy).  Check it out - and consider Layout A Day in May - I bet you'd love it as much as I did.  Here are two pages that show all the different pages I completed in February!

Mystery Scrap Week 1 (Friday)

Please keep in mind this first week is a very very simple page.  We'll do some more complicated ones, but I wanted a bit of a warm up.  Drumroll please....

Here we go! The first layout for you to assemble! This is based on the layout at the bottom of the post from March 1here... www.jodydentpruks.typepad.com/
Half the fun of doing this will be to see what other people's pages look like - so I've created a group on Flickr where we can share our pages.  Once you have completed your layout, create a Flickr account for yourself at www.flickr.com.  Here is a link to our group - you may have to request access and I will approve as quickly as I can.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/kariscrap9/
Next, upload your photo - which puts it in your photostream. Then you can tag it, so tag this week's project as Mystery1.  Now, click on the photo and you can Add to Group (once you are set up with the Group). If you have any problems, let me know! 
I'll be posting most days (not just the days with prompts) so keep checking back!  And - don't forget to spread the word about our Mystery Scrap fun & Crop for a Cure!  Thanks!

Saving Time

My tendency when I sit down to scrapbook is to take FOR-EV-ER to decide on each part of the page.  I mean FOREVER!  I've spent as much as 6 hours working on one page.  And while that page may (or may not!) turn out to be a work of art, my time would probably be better spent getting 6 pages done. 6 pages that document our life - isn't that better than one?  SO... I'll tell you my secret.  But you've gotta keep it just between us. Ok?

Scraplifting.

 
Did you hear that? 
One of the best things I've found to streamline my scrapbooking.  And it's not a dirty little secret. In fact, it's encouraged.  Scraplifting is using someone else's design as inspiration to make one of your own.  It can be copying the title, the topic, the color scheme or the whole darn page.  I'm not artistic by any means, so when I scraplift, I look for pages that really grab me and then I try to figure out what about them I like so much.  When I'm ready to make a page, I go through my inspiration file until I see one I like and then I go from there.  I either look for a layout that I want to "lift" and then go through pictures until I find some that will work OR I pick out pictures, then flip through my inspiration until I find one that fits the pictures. 
The thing you need to remember, though, when you do scraplift a layout - you should never claim the work as your own.  Trying to get published in a magazine using something you scraplifted is reaaallllly not cool.  And, if you post your work online in any galleries, let people know where your inspiration came from.  For example, this layout is one of my all time favorites. Ever. (It did take me forever, but I knew that going in and it was worth it).
It was scraplifted from this layout  by Melinda Spinks (Love her blog)
http://thescrapfarm.blogspot.com/2010/10/brand-new-baby-girl.html

I used my Imaginisce i-Rock tool to do the little gems in the centers of the pink flowers. EVERYONE needs an i-Rock!  Have a great day and make sure to come back tomorrow to see how the Week #1 Mystery Scrap Layout comes together!

Mystery Scrap Week 1 (Wednesday)

Woohooo!!!  I hope you all have your pics picked!  It's time for step 2!  Before we get to that, however, a big THANKS to my mom for suggesting "Mystery" for the weekly layout project.  In quilting they do something similar and it's called Mystery Quilting. So voila - Mystery Scrap. Whaddya think? Anyway - back to business...

You will need:

1 12x12 solid color cardstock for background

Patterned paper 1”x9.75” strip

White or light colored cardstock 2.25”x3.5

Colored cardstock 3.5”x3.5” and 2.25”x3.5” (you could also use patterned paper, but keep in mind the 3.5x3.5 piece is for your journaling

Letter Stickers, die cut letters or chipboard letters for title ~ .5” tall

A couple small embellishments (like i-rock gems, little buttons, bow, etc) OR a larger embellishment

Journaling Pen white or dark depending on the color of your 3.5 x 3.5 square piece (or you can format your journaling to fit on the 3.5x3.5 square piece of colored cardstock if you want to print your journaling.) 

Don’t get too bogged down – when you see the example layout, you can move things around or change where the journaling goes.  It’s flexible – just a guideline to get you started. You take it from there!  If you want to follow the formula exactly – feel free!  If you’d rather use it as a jumping off point, that’s fine too.  This week’s page is very very simple, but you can embellish it as much as you’d like to fancy it up (if that fits your page & style better!)

Gather these things (remember, try to stick to 15 minutes!) and I'll see you again Friday for your last step of this first page! By the way - I encourage you to forward this blog link to any of your scrappy friends.  Share the love!

Weekly Layout #1

Here we go! Unfortunately, I seem to be all named out at the moment and can't think of anything clever for the name of this... So - I'm open to suggestions!

Wish you could get more scrapbooking done?   If you can find 10-15 minutes a day a couple days a week, you can complete a page over the course of a week.  Try it with me…  Take 15 minutes today or tomorrow to decide on 2 landscape oriented 4x6 photos.  Set a timer - yes seriously!  The pictures don't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be just the right event. Take the first pics that you come to through which you could tell a story (using 2 landscape 4x6's).  Consider random pictures instead of pictures of a specific event - you can tell a story with your journaling about someone's personality or about a feeling you have when you look at the pics.  Print them or send them to your favorite photo processing place.   

Next, plan what your title will be (a short one will work best on this page, but if that doesn't fit there are ways to work around it!)  Finally, start thinking about what you want to say – you will have space for a subtitle if you want and 3.5 x 3.5 area for your journaling.   I’ll send you the next step on Wednesday! 

The name

When I decided I wanted to start a blog, I thought and thought and thought about what to call it. I wanted it to really say something about me, about my scrapbooking style.  I wanted it to be clever & cute. I spent a lot of time checking to see whether different ideas were already taken, playing with different words & word combinations.  When I typed this one in, I kind of giggled a little.  KariScrap could also be read Karis crap which seemed funny to me because that probably would resonate with my hubby.  (Although he has probably purchased half or more of the stuff in my scrapbook room!)  I ran it by my sis and it made her chuckle too, so I decided to go with it. (Thanks Court!)

Do you feel like you never have time to scrapbook, but wish you did?  Do you think you could find 15 minutes 3-4 days a week?  If so, then check back here tomorrow I'll be kicking off a weekly layout project and would love for you to join me! 

The beginning

I've been debating starting a blog now, for quite some time. To share pictures, ideas, inspiration and thoughts with my friends and fellow crafters.  I'm planning a scrapbooking fundraiser in May (in Southwest VA) and thought this would be a good way to post all the information.  If you are interested in more details, please let me know! So, while I continue getting that together, I figured I'd get started! 

Here is a picture from my most recent update to my scrapbook room.  Last night Chris hung two things for me - a new stamp pad holder & a curtain rod.  I've been wanting a way to display some of my favorite layouts as decor until I put them into albums.  I'm pleased with how it turned out, except for two minor details.  One - the clips are a little too strong and put little teeny teeth marks on the layouts - need to find a way to protect the layouts. For right now, they are not very noticeable, so I'll just deal until I think of something - anyone have any ideas?  Two - on the left hand side, the curly q on the end broke off. Unfortunately, I can't return it - our Joann's is closing and all sales were final.  Will try to glue it back together.