August 2015 Crafting Goals

A recap of last month’s goals:

• Finish twins’ 2014 scrapbook pages —Success! Their albums are actually caught up to this June. Only two months behind! Woohoo! I am planning on tackling their summer pages in August.
• Finish June PL pages —Fail. With the twins and my mom being here, I completely forgot to edit and print my pictures. By the time i realized and completed the task, the pictures didn't arrive until two days ago. So of course, I haven't actually gotten these done at all.
• Organize the kid crafts cabinet —Success! As part of my big craft area overhaul, I tackled this cabinet first. Lots of stuff to donate, sell, or trash. The rest was put back in a reasonable order.
• Make one other non-card craft project —Success! I started some traditional scrapbooking pages for the Find Your Voice class.
• Make Beautiful Butterflies and Technique class cards —Fail. Well, I guess not really my fail. No one signed up to take either of these classes so I canceled them.
• Schedule July and August classes and open houses — Success! I took most of July off, but started up my classes again the last week. And I went ahead and scheduled out August.

This month’s goals:

• Catch up Arthur and twins' PL albums -- I am three months behind in Arthur's book and two months behind in the twins' books. Very doable if I focus for a day and catch up.
• Finish June and July PL pages -- Because of my fail last month, now have two months to do in August. Doable, but need to buckle down. I hate getting far behind.
• Complete a Week in the Life album -- I preordered Ali Edwards' kit and it has arrived. The week is set for August 17th-23rd. I want to make sure I have my kit ready to go before that week and my goal is to finish the album by month's end.
• Inventory my completed cards -- I need to swap out the old retired product cards to my for sale pile, inventory my for sale pile, and organize my current products cards.
• Pull, price, and sell craft items for the garage sale -- A few demos and I are having a huge craft garage sale on August 22nd. I have a craft area bursting at the seams. Hopefully the sale is successful and I can weed out the old, tired, or just plain ugly stuff from my area.

The Happy Planner

A few weeks ago Blitsy had a sale on mambi's Happy Planner and accessories. I had seen these in stores, but didn't necessarily want to buy one... However, my current planner-less life was not going well. J always insists on using digital calendars and planners, but I need paper. I like see to the month laid out before me. I had weighed the pros and cons of many different planners, but most were filled with boxes I wouldn't use or were just too expensive. I took a chance and ordered The Happy Planner.

Turns out, I love the set up! First of all, it has a spiral type binding. I love being able to lay it flat on it's own or pull back the pages. Definitely helps! Secondly, I love how the planner includes a monthly goal setting page. I love pulling together my important events, dates, and goals onto one page. I decided to keep these pages unadorned to focus on the events. This is my August page. For the goals section, I didn't include all my monthly goals, but focused on the bigger or month-long ones (i.e. new movie month).

Third, I like the size and layout of the monthly spreads. There is enough space to jot down bigger events or plans. Plus, there is a column on the left for notes. I'm still deciding what to do with those left hand columns. I saw someone use them as a space for inspirational sayings and other person use it as a "currently" list. Maybe I'll settle on one of those two ideas.

Fourth, check out these weekly spreads! I love how the days are divided into Morning, Afternoon, and Evening chunks. With an afternoon napping toddler, this divide fits my day perfectly! I've taken to adding our dinner plans right under the Evening bar. I also appreciate that Saturday and Sunday are kept together at the end of the week. I can't wrap my brain around the idea of Sunday as the first day of the week. On the left hand side, there is a column title "notes." I've chosen to use the column as my weekly to-dos. No appointments or activities, but documenting the few things I really want to focus on or complete.

So that's my new planner. I've already bought some sticker accesories (as seen in the above pages), but I'm sure I'll think of other little extras to add as the weeks go by.  And best of all, this planner is an 18-month planner. I am set until December 2016!!!!

A Minty Birthday

Today’s card is being featured on Stylin’ Stampin’ Inkspiration. Our theme for today was birthday cards. I've been relying heavily on the bright palette of the Cherry on Top DSP stack. But today I wanted to try something monochromatic and subtle. I decided on a Mint Macaron, Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, and Whisper White color palette. And I love how this turned out! I even challenged myself to use multiple embellishments and it actually turned out great. I can't wait to give this card to someone special. (It could also double as a wedding card!)

• Stamps: Build a Birthday; Papillon Potpurri; Chalk Lines
• Inks: Basic Gray; Mint Macaron
• Cardstock: Mint Macaron; Smoky Slate
• Accessories: 2015-2017 In Color Blossoms; Rhinestones; Candy Dots; Tea Lace Paper Doilies
• Tools: Decorative Dots Embossing Folder; Bitty Butterfly Punch; Elegant Butterfly Punch

Sea Street Card

Today's card features on of my favorite carry-over stamps: Sea Street. I love this happy little octopus and the extra little stamps. I used this card as part of July's stamp club projects. Everyone really loved this card. I can be for a boy or girl and used for many different occasions. It's the perfect all-around card!

• Stamps: Sea Street
• Inks: Coastal Cabana (retired); Real Red; Night of Navy
• Cardstock: Fresh Prints DSP (retired); Whisper White; Night of Navy; Real Red
• Accessories: Denim Washi Tape (not SU)
• Tools: 1" Circle Punch; 1 3/8" Circle Punch

Desktop Monday #6

I spent all weekend attempting to completely clean out my craft area. Here's the state of the counter today. I didn't take a picture from Friday, but I promise you it was piled high with stuff. I ended up with multiple bags and boxes of things to sell at our upcoming craft garage sale. Almost 174 priced items ready to go! Now I can actually get back to crafting...

Sunday Haul #24

First delivery of the week was July's Messy Box. For awhile i didn't know what to use these for. And then I hit upon using the kits for the Find Your Voice class. Perfect combo. I'm itching to use those silver stars for something soon.

My monthly SU stamp club order arrived. After one of my customers ordered it, I had to buy the Happy Happenings stamp set. It is such a great collection of sentiments. I also finally bought the aqua painters to experiment with watercoloring. And I snapped up the metallic sequins and Everyday Chic washi tape from the weekly deals. Can't wait to use my fun new supplies.

And finally look what showed up on my doorstep! Ali Edwards' Week in the Life kit! I preordered the kit almost a month ago and couldn't wait to get my kit! I opted for the grey "Stories" album and it's absolutely perfect for my style. I quickly looked through the supplies, but I want to keep everything together until we get closer to the appointed week in August.

Second delivery (from store to my house via me) was this haul. I went in for page protectors for my 8.5" x 11" household binder and came out with all these pretties! Thankfully I remembered the page protectors.

Project Life Delay

Usually I highlight my previous month's Project Life pages the last two Fridays of the month. With all the crazy of guests and travels, I completely forgot to edit and print my photos. By the time I remembered and ordered them, the prints won't be arriving at home until next week. So my pages will be delayed at least a week. I'm hoping to dive in as soon as they arrive and get June knocked out of the park. And I need to do another catch-up with Arthur's pages and finish the twins' summer pages. Next week is going to be busy!

Christmas in July

Today’s card is being featured on Stylin’ Stampin’ Inkspiration. It's July and you know what that means: Christmas! Well, okay it's 6 month away, but let's celebrate anyway! I'm so excited that the Festival of Trees stamp set and punch were carried over from the Holiday 2014 catalog. I can't wait to use it for more Christmas cards.

I decided to go with my faovirte Christmas color combo: Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green. Can't go wrong with the classic color scheme. I tore some Garden Green paper to create my ground, added a few trees and some gold ribbon. The card looked to plain, so I embossed the white piece with the Lucky Stars Embossing folder. Perfect! Add a sentiment and the card is complete.

• Stamps: Festival of Trees
• Inks: Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green
• Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green; Whisper White
• Accessories: Candy Dots; Gold 1/8" Ribbon
• Tools: Tree Punch; Lucky Stars Embossing Folder; Hexagon Punch (banner ends)

Find Your Voice - Part 1

I ran across rukristin's free 6-week workshop Find You Voice. I love her blog and her products, especially the Currently line. I have a ton of things going on this summer, but I had to stick this project in somewhere. If you want to join us, head on over and sign up. For the project, I choose to add these pages into my household binder along with my OLW pages. Once I decided the where, I had to decide how. Looking at all my crazy supplies, I had to narrow it down. I often get overwhelmed in choices. I started with my Messy Boxes from A Beautiful Mess that have been piling up on the counter. I kept saving them for no good reason, but yeah for this project apparently. I added a few stamps, some embellishments, and alphas to complete my stash. Time to dive in.

I started with my title page using a pattern paper page and an overlay. The entire class is based on finding my inner storyteller and I feel like "Life is Beautiful" was the perfect mantra. From there I focused on the pre-workshop questions and built a page around those. It's nice to get back into traditional scrapbooking for a project. I've been focusing so much on Project Life that I had to rethink my approach to these pages. 

After the pre-workshop page, I dove straight into Weeks 1-3. Sometimes I based my page off of the questions and sometimes off of the creative challenge. I love that this class is very free in its structure. My basic strategy was to grab a focus piece and just see where the page took me. Overall I am loving where the class is going. Below are my pages for the first half of class.

Currently...

Watching: J and I are finally on the last season of Newsroom. We'll probably finish it this week.

Reading: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not expecting it to be as amazing as The Great Gatsby but hoping it's a good read.

Listening: Brandi Carlile's newest album The Firewatcher's Daughter has been on repeat. Love her voice!

Making: I'm right in the middle of the Find Your Voice 6 week course. Along with contemplating the weekly questions, I'm completing a traditional scrapbook page with thoughts, actions, and reflections. I'll be sharing the first half of my pages this week on the craft blog.

Feeling: The twins and my mom left on Sunday. It's been very quiet in the house the past few days.

Planning: I'm trying to wrap my brain around all the big projects I want to accomplish in the second half of 2015. I'm thinking a brain dump day may be in order to get all the random thoughts and ideas down on paper.

Loving: Arthur woke up vomiting on Sunday. It was not a good day. I think he was/has a sinus infection as most of the throw up was mucus. Monday he's doing a lot better, but we're not out of the woods yet. Overall, sick toddlers are miserable. Glad he's feeling better quickly.