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?

Life is busy but I still find the time to create.

The last few months have been crazy with a new job, health issues, school starting and lots of other things on my plate that I sometimes wonder why did I say yes to. You ever feel that way? Anyways, regardless of how much is going on in my life, I make the time to create. It is my therapy, my form of relaxation, my joy and makes me feel just GOOD! With Halloween coming upon us, I got inspired with a new stamp set called Spookacilious in TAC new magaloge called Inspiration Avenue. You can check it out on my website at www.janiner.ismyangel.net. I created a couple Halloween cards and made up a mini album that is just too freaking cute. Another angel gave one to me at Seminar and I figured out how she did it and like magic created this too cool fold-out mini album. I call the peek-a-boo album because it has doors you open. I hope you can make it to a project playground this month or sometime soon to try out some of the awesome projects I have come up with.

Latest creations

I have just finished 3 school days albums for a customer and started playing around with some stamped images from some of the new stamp sets in Inspiration Avenue that Julie, my up-line angel sent me. Thanks Julie! It's always fun when you get new stamp sets because it just gets those creative juices flowing. I also plugged away for a few days getting together a card order of 40 birthday cards for a customer. I ended up using my stash of scraps for cards that I organize by sizes small, medium and large. Wow, that was so fun! So, I will get slide shows of both my Christmas designs I just did and the birthday cards made from scraps probably tomorrow. The bus is going to be here any minute so no time to add the pictures. Sorry. Check tomorrow or the next day!

What's changing at the studio!

The last 2 months have been a whirlwind with starting a new job and adjusting to life working outside of the home. I knew that I spent most of my waking moments in the studio before making cards, scrapbooks or doing stuff like this for my business but you don't realize how much time you put into things until you don't have that time available anymore. I love making things for people and I love having people over to make things so it's not something I am going to just give up. I have invested the last 3 years of my life to growing my business and I love it! But I did have to come up with a way to balance my life with new job, family and business without business taking every moment of my free time. So, what I am going to do is combine all the little classes I was having into one class called Project Playground. Project Playground will take place on one weekend day and one weeknight a month. I will several projects for you to choose from. You will be able to come choose your project or projects and pay for what you make. The projects will be anything from mini albums to specialty cards and lots of other paper crafting projects. The slideshow is a representation of the projects that are currently available. If there is a project you see that you really want to do, you may reserve it for one upcoming project playground day or ask about purchasing the kit to do complete on your own. When a project is out of supplies, that's it so it is a first come first serve kind of thing. I will only be making enough supplies for a project with what I have. If it is wildly popular, I can always re-stock the supplies for a future Project Playground day. Sept Project Playground days and times are as follows: Thurs, Sept 17th 7pm or Sat, Sept 26th 1pm-5pm. The daytime Project Playgrounds will be more flexible as you can come and start your project anytime within the open time frame. All my projects will have an approximate time it will take on it so you can know ahead of time if you will have time to do another project, etc.
My card buffets will continue on the third Sunday afternoons of the month and my crop club is on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays from 3pm-9pm. Email me for more information on anything happening at the studio! janine@coloradorobertsons.com

One Stop Shop

Many business women in Colorado Springs are joining together to raise money and donated items for the ONE STOP SHOP Back to School Fundraiser! This will be held on Saturday, August 15th from 9am-3pm at The Multi-Purpose Bldg. 1025 Ford Street COS 80915(East of Powers, Corner of Galley & Ford Street). There will be all kinds of advertisement, T.V. and a radio station will be present to help us raise money and get school items donated for all the needy families in our community. School supplies add up and some families have 3-5 children or more. It's just too heavy a burden. I hope you will come out and help these families and have some fun shopping with the 28 business women who are putting this on. Your putting money right back into your community when you shop local! And I am not talking Wal-mart! I will have lots of fun items to help preserve your child/children's school memories, some great items to get your teachers and some other fun stuff you just gotta have. I hope you will support this cause. Any of my customers, friends and family who attend and order from me at the One Stop Shop will receive 10% off their order! I don't know about you but I can't wait for school to start!
This event is sponsored by Step up to Success and the Giving Circle, a new organization that helps our local community. There will be a chance to win over $500 in gift certificates! Admission is Free but we are requesting that you bring a school supply or $$ donation to help this cause and double your chance of winning!