Rather than trying to store all my scraps, I'm trying to use more of them in my projects. This first card is a birthday card for my niece. I'm happy to say that it's made entirely of scraps! (I love that floral paper! It's by Doodlebug Designs, which explains why I think it's so cute.)


Next is a graduation card for this same niece. She is graduating with her Bachelors' degree and going on to med school to become an osteopath. I used images from Stamping Bella to illustrate her journey from shiny new grad to D.O. (I see a lot of sleep deprivation in her future, that's why I used Grumpabella to represent that middle step!)

Lastly, this is a quickie anniversary card for my in-laws. (Their anniversary was last Monday!)

Secretaries Week Celebrations

I found these adorable little Marjolein Bastin/Hallmark photo holders at my local dollar store a while ago - what a great deal! I thought they would make a cute gift for the secretaries at my youngest daughter's school. (They are all such sweet ladies.) Time was short and I've been itching to try to use up more of my paper scraps, so I decided to embellish some brown paper bags. (I'm proud to say I didn't cut any new sheets of paper, and really did use only scraps.) I used Juliette paper and the Flower Collage Trio set, all by TAC. Both are a favorite of mine. The top of the bag is a piece of Brown cardstock, cut into 4 1/4 X 5 1/8 pieces, then folded in half lengthwise. (The Scor-Pal is perfect for this, as has a 2 1/8 mark for scoring.) I cut about an inch off of the top of my paper bags, but that was just personal preference. I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch the holes, since it let me punch through all of the layers at once. I colored the images with my Prismacolor watercolor pencils and a Dove blender pen. It was fast!

As for me, I got the royal treatment at work this week! Our principal actually served all of the secretaries lunch on Wednesday, with a little help from some of the other administrators. (Our principal is a really nice guy!) I support two departments and each departments gave me a card and gifts. Someone asked me if I preferred "Secretaries' Week" or "Administrative Professional/Assistant Week". I like the former better because it's shorter, but I don't care which you call me, as long as you respect me. All of the people I work with are really nice and really appreciate me. I'm very lucky!!

Stamp projects

It's been so long since I posted any stamped cards! I have been stamping, so I'll share some recent projects.

Here is a card I made for a Scor-Pal swap. This card is from the Scor-Pal site, although I don't remember where. I was happy with how it turned out (and I didn't think I would be), but it's too small for regular envelopes. I'll have to try that Scor-Pal tutorial for making your own envelopes.

Here it is open:

I am happy to say that I've finished my first Christmas present! I made a set of cards for my frient Karyn, using her favorite colors of peach/pink and green.

You can see close ups of some of them at my Splitcoast gallery.

I hope to start posting more regularly and sharing more cards with you again.

Spring Cleaning

I wish that my big accomplishment over spring break was to get a ton of projects done for the charity bazaar I'm doing on Saturday. But, I am just as happy that I finally got my craft room cleaned (again). I gave away a ton of stuff, as well as throwing away some things. (Why do I have such a hard time throwing away scraps of paper?!) I managed to get the whole family involved. DH hung up a few things. Jess and Ali helped me with organizing in exchange for some extra money. Jessica is donating her money to a service project for her French class. Ali appreciated the chance to earn a little extra spending money.

Here's a before picture:

Here's the after:

This is just one side of my craft room. (Sad to say other parts of the room were even worse before the cleanup!) I am so much more productive now that I can find stuff!