I Have Been on a Creating Spree!

I don't really ever seem to run out of inspiration but when I know I have some of my wonderful friends and customers coming to a Project Playground soon I just go crazy with wanting to create some new things that they will just love. I got my inspiration this time from a book I picked up at the library on mini scrapbooks. I love the concept of mini's because you can usually get them done within an hour or less and the cost is minimal. There are lots of ideas I want to try from this book but I went with a simple accordian album and WOW! I am loving the results. I made them using Miss Moxie and Willoughby Soar With It collections from The Angel Company because of the whole sheet of tag embellishments it comes with. It made it super easy to put together and with all my word stamp sets it was easy finish it off. I have put a couple kits together for the Project Playground so you can make one too. You can also buy a kit and make it on your own time. I will be ordering and making more in all the Soar with it Paper collections which you can see on www.theangelcompany.net Let me know if you would like an accordian album kit and in what paper collection. They will be $9 for the kit or $12 made up and embellished just for you. Project Playground is on Sat March 13th!

PROJECT PLAYGROUND SPRINGING INTO SPRING

Spring will be here soon and with that comes, Baby Showers, Weddings, Graduations, Spring Birthdays and the end of school. Be prepared for all these events to come with some cards and fabulous projects made by you from my Project Playground. They do mean so much more to people. Take a couple hours and make some cards for those you care about and invite a friend to join you for the afternoon. As always, you will have a good variety of cards and projects to choose from on the Project Playground Shelves. You choose what you want to make in the time you have and pay only for what you make. There are simple projects, more elaborate projects and everything in between. This is cheap afternoon entertainment and you take home your projects to boot! This makes a great date with your daughter, mom, sister, friend, co-worker or neighbor.



Date: Saturday, March 13th

Time: Anytime between 1pm-5pm

Place: Oasis Angel Studio at my home 235 Sedona Drive, COS, CO 80921

What to bring: a snack to share and a guest if you wish, otherwise just get on over!

Payment: Accepting cash or check only

Sidetracked in a good way!

I got a little bit side-tracked with my current goal of getting my scrap flip cards up and available for purchase on Etsy.com. I will do my best to get that accomplished by the end of February! In the meantime, I did get side-tracked with some of my left-over card parts for cards I designed for my project playgrounds of the past. I decided to do some card make-over's! It was actually very cool to take the parts and the sample of the original design and come up with a different card. Changes were mostly simple like changing the orientation of the card from horzontial to vertical or vise versa and/or changing the stamp and sentiment used. Some changes required a little bit of cutting here and there but in the end it was so cool to see the results. I had to keep going and do all that were in the shoeboxes on my project playground shelf. I will have to get a slideshow up of my results so you can see how cool this concept is. My next mission is to go through my boxes of card makings from my card buffets I use to do. No sense letting all that cutting go to waste! Another goal I am slowly working on is a ministry using my cards. That's all still a dream in my head but I am slowly getting things down on paper to plan it out. I did have to clean out some of my craft supply room which is one of our basement bedrooms. We have to make it liveable for when my mom comes out in August! Anyways, I was just going through stuff to move and so forth and realized I had started lots of projects but haven't gotten around to finishing them. Pathetic! I will have to probably start a list of to do's in terms of my craft stuff. I definitely need to get going on my own scrapbooks and have to get my grandparents heritage album done before my own memory is totally gone. So much to do and so little time. That's one thing I have realized in going from an at-home mom to a working mom, you don't have a lot of time for extracurricular activities like making cards and scrapbooks. So for all those people out there that gave me that excuse when I was trying to sell it to you, I totally get it now! Which is why I still love The Angel Company because they are striving to help us create even when we don't have a lot of time. Okay, my lunch break is about over so off I go to my working mom world for a while but I will be back...

Oranization Goal Finished!

I got all my stamps into CD cases or my notebook, all images stamped in an image notebook so anyone can flip thru and look and see what I have. I have the stamp sets labeled in the notebook and on the CD cases. Plus, I put them in categories and labeled the shelves with the category names: Shapes & Letters, Animals & Insects, Fall & Winter, Spring & Summer, Misc. and Words. My stack of Word stamps is considerably larger then the rest so I guess you can figure out what I like to use. I think sometime in the near future I will go in and color all the stamp images using different mediums so people can see what they look like colored and see different mediums used.
My next goal is to work on getting my Photo Wallet Card Designs on Etsy.com. I did a class with them last year which was my most popular class, even sold a few kits to people who couldn't come. Well, I improved the magnetic closure so it works better and is easier to add to the design. I already have 6 completed and another 15 kits done! So be on the look out for a slideshow of them coming very soon and I will let you know how my goal is progressing. Thanks to all posters for your comments and suggestions! Many minds working together can do wonders!

Organizing our Creativity Stuff

This is one area I have found that people love to see when they come to my studio. They just go "ah, ha" when they see some of the ways that I keep my stamp sets organized. I have probably close to a hundred stamps sets at this point and it's almost impossible now to locate what you want or even remember what you have without some system. I initially started put my TAC stamps into CD cases and labeled them. I started marking the stamps sets that were discountinued with a yellow dot on the label so I knew they were no longer available to customers. I have let the large stamp sets that just can't fit into CD cases just sit in there original clam shells for way to long and finally got the notebook/page system that TAC sells to put them in but haven't had the time to do it. I am committing myself to the goal of cleaning up and finishing my organizing attempts by February 3rd. I figured if I can do a little bit everyday for a week I will be hopefully caught up on it. I also started a notebook that has all the stamp images I have on white cardstock and labeled with the stamp set name to make looking for what you want easy. Everyone loves this concept when they see it. Now, I just have to organize the stamps on my shelf into categories so you only have to look through one stack for the set you want rather then the whole entire collection. I will take some photos along the way on this journey and keep you posted on how things are coming together on my organization goal. It will really help to have it all organized so I can get back to creatiing without the "where is that stamp set?" problem.

Stretching the Creativity

I was looking through the photos of the note cards I made and thought I need to share about what happened as I contemplated making these cards. Well, the customer had 9 different themes for the cards like flowery, cooking, ducks, teddy bears. Okay, my stamp collection is fairly large but I just did not have all the stamps I needed to make these cards. I had absolutely no cooking stamps, my duck stamps were limited to one little rubber duck and only had 2 bear stamps. Now, I am not about to go out and buy more stamps and blow all my profit for making these cards so I stewed on it for a day or two and finally my brain said, "CLIPART!" So, I found some clipart that I could either color in with my markers, chalks, pencils, etc. or enhance with coloring, shading or adding some sparkle from the stardust pens. I managed to get out a whole lot more variety using clipart. Of course, I was limited to what I have but now I know there's more clipart available. It's just a great option if you want to make a card with a certain something and have time running against you. So, if you try this out, let me know how it comes out for you.

2010 goals

There are so many things that I want to improve upon in my life. To get some of these things actually happening, I created my own customized daily planner. I only made it for 3 months and will re-evaluate towards the end of that period to see what needs to be added or tweaked. So far, I have been taking my fiber and vitamins daily as I should. I have done bible study or bible reading everyday! I make the phone calls I need to make. Get my dinner planned before leaving the house for my day job and even have a bible memory verse and affirmation statement to keep my focus where it should be. My plan is to offer customized planners to my customers next year after this year of implementation and experimentation. I will have to invest in a really good binding machine. My Zutter works good for small projects but a planner just has too many pages. I still need to do a little design for my cover when I have some time. I had to finish a 100 card order, a school portraits scrapbook page order and my monthly scrapbooking clients pages and now have some baby shower invites to make up. I am wondering if I will ever have time to get my own scrapbooking done but I figure as my kids grow and move out eventually that my evenings and weekends will be open wide to do whatever I want but for now it's all about balance. I am gearing up for my first project playground on the 17th. I focused on birthday cards since I was designing 100 individual designs for one of my clients. I killed two birds with one stone. I will have to put a slide show together of all the cards I have made in the last half of 2009. I think even I will be surprised by the number but it's always fun to look at the designs and evaluate if I will ever do them again or not. I will be adding updating my blog, doing social media like Facebook and LinkedIn on a daily and/or weekly basis to my planner. I will have to write it in for now so that I can start getting into the habit. Many goals to accomplish this year but I know the Lord will help me. Happy new year to you all! Let me know what your goals are?