Moved

Hello All!

Well, we moved over the weekend. It was a LOT of work. I'm excited about my new scrapbook room and am slowly working on getting everything just where I want it. I picked up 5 matching Ikea tables at a garage sale and they look so nice! I had multiple workspaces in my room before, but none of them matched. I haven't decided what color to paint the walls, and right now most of my supplies are still in boxes on the awesome shelving that my hubby installed in the closet. I will post photos once I get everything where I want it and functional again--I'm hoping over this long holiday weekend I'll tackle that project. The rest of the house is mostly unpacked thanks to some wonderful friends! We're excited and it's starting to feel like "home" the dogs seem to be adjusting well.

Back to it! I hope to post more by next week. Stay tuned :0)

Paper Bag Albums--Homemade Gifts

Some special young ladies graduated this year from high school. I've known them since they were six years old, and I decided to make a special gift for their graduation. I made them each a paper bag album for them to take with them to college. The compact 6x6 size works well with dorm room life, and will allow them to bring photos of people they love with them into the beginning of their new worlds.

Paper bag albums are not new creations in my scrapbook room, they are one of my favorite homemade gifts. I make them in a variety of sizes, but the 6x6 is still my favorite.

Here are Eeva and Anna's albums.

The Front of Anna's Album

The Back of Anna's Album

The Front of Eeva's Album

The Back of Eeva's Album

I love giving these homemade albums as a special personalized gift. I just made one from my cousin with her first baby, and I have seven more baby albums to make! Three girls and four boys. I need to get three of the boy albums completed by next Tuesday. With that said, I'd better go to my scrapbook room and get working on them. :0)

Happy Scrapping!

Thrifty Thursday: Tips--Punches

Hi All!

I realized that I got ahead of myself and posted the Thursday post on Wednesday so this is fixing that! Thanks for stopping by! HAPPY CRAFTING!

Today’s tips are regarding those expensive punches that I’m sure a lot of you have. Do you ever get frustrated because they don’t cut as smoothly as you like, leaving a rough paper edge? Do they stick when you push the lever down and trap your paper in the blades? I know how frustrating that is, but I’ve found some tips that work to remedy these issues most of the time.
Tips:

• Sometimes it’s worth paying higher quality punches. You can still do this on a budget. JoAnn’s Crafts, and Michael’s, are the main craft store chains by me and they regularly have punches 40-50% off or have coupons for 50% of one regular price item, so you can get a great quality punch for a very reasonable price. You can look on eBay, at garage/estate sales, on Craig’s List, and many other places to get a deal.
• Wherever you get the punch, the first thing I suggest is working the punch on some scrap paper to test it. If it’s new, it helps remove the films that can be left on the blades from the manufacturing, helps you see how it works, and determine if you need to do anything before using it on your projects.
• If your paper isn’t looking smooth when it comes out of your punch you can try a few things to sharpen the punch and to help it slide through the paper more easily. o Take a sheet of heavy duty tin foil and use it as if it were the paper you were punching. Punch a few times and if it doesn’t seem to be helping, fold the foil in half and continue punching. o
• Once you’re done punching foil, the blades are sharpened and you can punch through wax paper to “coat” the blade so that it moves through the paper more smoothly.
• If the punch is still sticking (trapping the paper) try using a very small amount of WD-40 spray. Make sure if you do this that you punch on scratch paper until all residue is gone.
  If these tips don’t help your punches work more smoothly, it might be time to consider acquiring a new one—you may have just loved it to death.

Two Challenge Tuesday #5

Well, it's that time of week again. Time for our Two Challenge Tuesday. Two challenges, one final product. I've been working on finishing graduation and baby gifts (paper bag albums--I know you're all just shocked!), so I haven't been creating many cards at home lately. Today's sample card is a result of the stamping club workshop that I go to each month. I wasn't able to attend this week, but they made this adorable card at last week's session.


Challenge 1: Make a masculine card.

Challenge 2: The main image of the card has to be made of paper, not stamped.



Sample: This card is made using punches! Do you see it? Wide oval, large oval, 1/2 " circle, Modern label, word window, and horizontal slot punches from Stampin' Up!



Here is the sample!

Let me know what you come up with for the challenge! Happy Stamping!