Preschool Picture Book

When Gunnar was in preschool last year, he would come home with tons of fun projects. He loved it there. The only problem is that there was no way I was going to keep all of that stuff. I slowly collected and kept it in a pile/bin until I decided to finally go through the clutter in early December and do something about it. I took pictures of all of his projects/art, edited the pictures and compiled them into a bound picture book through Inkubook. I kept the few pieces that I loved and tossed the rest without feeling guilty. I love this book. It is a fun reminder of what Gunnar did. I also added in pictures of his first day, preschool parties and graduation. This will be a really fun thing to show his kids someday.

What Have I Been Up To?

Besides being with my mom for about 8 hours per day. Which I totally love by the way. Just a little background. Jeff has been at POST which is Peace Officer Standard Training for his job. Thankfully it is just in Meridian (about 20 miles away) however he has to stay there the entire week and can only come home on the weekends. Thankfully it is only two weeks long and he is into his second and final week. Anyway, he was home this weekend and we both became so motivated to get projects done. I had so many, oh ya, you guys read about that.

So lets get started. I found a few cute things at Savers the other day and thought spray paint. They were not spendy so why not. The first is this cute little bird.

So I am also not very good at taking before and after shots. By the time I even remembered a camera, this little guy was well on his way to white. He is pretty small but heavy. He was a blue "stone" look before. The other thing that I found was this something. Honestly I have no idea was it it. But I thought that I could spray paint it and eventually find a cloche to go over it. Right now my bird is sitting on it. As you can see I forgot the after picture on this one but will post it later. It was spray painting all black.I f.i.n.a.l.l.y. finished Gunnar's dressing. I am just warning you, that if you are thinking of painting red, just take this as a warning and don't do it. I swear to you that you will curse your way through the entire project and then after really like the results. Much like I did with this dresser. No lie here, it took about 15-20 layers on this thing. I went through 3/4 of the pint of paint. That is a lot of paint on a project like this. I painted and painted and painted to finally end of up with this.The drawers are chalkboard paint. Super easy to roll on. Of course it doesn't have that freshly painted look to it because you have to rub a piece of chalk over the entire thing to prime it.The knobs are probably my favorite. The white knobs were the originals that we on it before. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them. In the end, I decided to keep them as they were. The washers on the backs are the fun part. I was reading a magazine a couple of weeks ago where they primed washers and then spray painted stripes on them. They used metal knobs in front of them with the fun bright washers behind. Gunnar's room is more kid industrial with CARS as the theme so I decided to keep them as they are. I also wanted to find a H.U.G.E. frame for Gunnar's room where I could turn it into a chalkboard for him. I started to notice that thrift stores wanted an arm and a leg for really ugly large pictures and the frames really weren't worth it. Hmmm, where am I going to find one? I decided to search craigslist. You never know. Low and behold there was someone selling huge, empty frames. A lot of them to choose from. I met with her and all that she wanted was $5/frame. Holy Cow, I was stoked! I bought two. One that is going in our bedroom (more on that later) and then this longer one that is perfect for Gunnar's chalkboard. This thing measured 52" long x 28" tall. Go ahead, grab your tape measure just to see how big it is.

The table saw that it is propped up on is not small by any means. Okay, so I decided to go with red on this too. Why, I don't know why. I am still in the process of spraying coat after coat on this thing. It is slowly looking better. I plan on checking out Michaels to see if they can cut me a mat that I can paint with chalkboard paint for this. It is really so big I am not sure what to put in the center. Okay, so maybe I do know why I picked red. Gunnar's walls are tan right now. I have the paint to paint the bottom half blue with white chair rail on top. So red naturally worked. At Ross last week, I found two wall ledges cheap but they were white. I don't want white. I originally wanted these for my front room but I really wanted three.I just planned on buying a third that looked close. My reason for buying them was that I know that I could easily spray paint. So that is what I did and decided to put them in my bedroom instead.About two summers ago, I found this yard sale with all of these super old things. She was selling them sooo cheap. I was immediately drawn to these frames. They are old and the paint is wearing off of them but they are perfect. I believe they were around $.25/each or two for that price.I love finials! I have several. So I gathered them from the family room and stuck them here. The silver thing is a mystery. It is not a candlestick holder. I think I found that at a thrift store many years ago. Just liked it. But it looks good in that spot. I have since added a family picture below the higher shelf and plan on hanging smaller pictures of Gunnar inside those frames on the wall. I will post a more complete picture when it is done.This weekend we also chose (I had already narrowed down my choices and Jeff helped with the final decision) and bought curtains for the sliding door in our room. Does anyone have or remember the vertical blinds? We have those in our house. Now that we are nearing 4 years in this house, I figured that it is about time that they come down. We chose a brown lightly lined curtain. I really like them and they look good in this room. I plan on collecting the cream version of it for the front living room. I need 6 panels in there. I really like this rod that we picked out. Usually something that I would not be drawn to but it works well in the bedroom. Just look past the odd coloring behind the curtains. I still need to touch the walls up where the other blinds were taken down.Now this was probably one of my most exciting things of all time. We have this store nearby called Graples. It is one of those places that is only open on Thursdays and sells in style home decor at deeply discounted prices. Really quite cheap. They open Saturdays a few times per year and a couple of Saturdays was that day. Normally I wouldn't go but I figured that I would when I saw through the window to their clearance section. Heidi and I took Noelle there and wanted to go to the clearance area to only find out that it was closed until this Saturday. So I went that day and headed straight to clearance. When the doors open at this place, it is an absolute zoo! Drives me rather nuts. A bunch of ladies grabbing things like crazy, whether they probably really need them or not because they don't know if it will be there 5 seconds later. Nuts I tell you. The clearance is actually across the parking lot in a part of the warehouse where larger items are picked up. So that is where I headed. I found several cool things and snagged them but then I noticed two twin headboards. I have been looking for a sturdy twin headbaord for Gunnar. How strange seeing these even there. They don't sell headboards. I've never seen one in the store. I ask how much because they weren't labeled. I was told $25 and then 30% off of that. Home Decor in the clearance section was 40% off and furniture 30%. Holy Smokes! That made it super cheap. There is always something wrong with the stuff in clearance. Heidi found a frame there once that was perfect except for the glass that was broken out of it. No big deal. So I searched this bed and the only thing that I could find that was that the paint was coming off of the top. I can handle that. So I bought it and was stoked. I tell ya, this thing is heavy! It is sturdy beyond belief. I asked the sales person where it had come from. She was pretty sure that it was the owners and she just stuck it in there. They were also selling another one that would have been perfect for a little girl. The detail work on it was really cute. Anyway, My plans are to paint it white. I am thinking spray paint to get an even, smooth coverage. I love it! And did you want to see what my garage looked like? Jeff had me all set up with different areas.We have the kitchen cabinets pulls which are turning out awesome! The kitchen already looks updated and better. I am about half way done. More on that in another post.The frame station, the chalkboard drawers, and the wall ledges.

On top of this, I had an order come in through Etsy for a baby boy album. I really need to get on that. And then within the last couple of days, one of my all time favorite clients wants to get 2 baby albums and 2 wedding albums for various people this year. She is so fun to work with and all of her friends now expect these as gifts. So I really appreciate her business. I just need to make the time to get Brent and Noelle's album finished and off of my desk so that I can get moving on these others.

New Member of the Sweet Digi Scraps Creative Team

So like I do often, I browse the free digital scrapbooking sites. A few weeks ago I happened upon one with pretty cute stuff. It is called Sweet Digi Scraps and the persons name is Liz. In her blog she also stated that she was looking for 5 new Creative Team members. I thought to myself why not and applied. Through tons of applicants I made it. Is that not the craziest thing. I have only been at this since the spring of this year. I was pretty excited. I found out right before Thanksgiving and have recently been getting into it. I have access to all of her stuff for free in exchange to creating layouts with it and posting it in 3 scrapbook site galleries. I have really enjoyed it because people post comments about your layouts. I really thrive on the comments. I love to read what others have written. It makes me happy to know that I have inspired someone else.

Being offered this experience has been fun. It has forced me to work on my pictures. It causes me to learn something new. The ladies there are also fun to work with. Can't wait to post more of my layouts in the future.

Wow Haunted House

For all of you crafty or scrapbooking friends, you just have to check this out. Cam is so incredibly talented. We used to be on an Ebay Design Team together called Pocket Full of Papers (PFOP). She was actually the founder of the group which is still going strong today. For personal reasons we have since left it but we both still love to create. This is her latest creation. Is this not incredible! She is amazing. Check out her blog here for more detailed pictures and descriptions. Everything is made by hand...no templates or punches here. PFOP consists of members all over the USA and Canada. However three of us lived in the Treasure Valley (Boise, Nampa, Caldwell). We have gotten together a couple of times to scrap or chat before all of our lives have gotten out of control. I feel so blessed to have become friends with Cam. She is such an awesome person.

Happy Father's Day

I just thought that I would post a quick thing about the fathers in my life. I would like to wish my own dad a Happy Father's Day. I made this scrapbook page recently of him and Gunnar and love it. This is my dad. He is so silly yet serious and responsible when he needs to be. He always worked super hard at providing for our family growing up. We always had all that we needed. I never felt that I went without as a kid. He is so full of love for others. He is a friend to all. I don't know anyone that did not come to my parents house and leave feeling unwelcomed. Everyone was welcome. I love getting his phone calls from Iraq. I feel lucky that I am the one that he knows he can reach pretty much anytime throughout the day. Gunnar also loves talking to his grandpa and we can't wait to see him with the year again.

Jeff is the best daddy any kid could ask for. He is a hands on father and not a dad that states that he babysits his own kids. It drives me insane when I hear dads say that. He is a super hard worker to make sure that we are taken care of. He takes time for Gunnar each week and makes sure that he spends quality time with him so that I can have a little break from him. I love that. He lets Gunnar help out in whatever he is doing even if it takes twice as long to get it done. Gunnar knows that his daddy loves him and will do anything to make sure that he is taken care of. I think that is important. So Happy Father's Day to all of the dads and future dads out there.

My digital scrapbooking slide show

I thought that I would start a slide show of all of the pages that I have done. I can just sit here and stare at them over and over. For some reason I just love looking at stuff that I do. Is that vain?

Digital Scrapbooking Organization Tips

I am quickly accumulating kits, etc and would like to hear how all of you digiscrappers organize your "stuff" on the computer. I do have mine in seperate files like paper/kits, alphas, elements, etc but it still seems hard sometimes to find maybe a staple buried in a kit.

One of my friends also wanted to know if I miss playing with the real thing. You know, that is kind of a hard question. I do but I don't. I feel so thrilled and excited that I am able to catch up on some of these pictures without the huge mess or time spent on the other. I am in love with the fact that I can create one layout for multiple uses like siblings books. I plan to print a second copy of my sisters dress layout for her. No way would I recreate a paper one for her and I probably would have never scrapped it. I am also working on actual paper projects for Etsy or custom orders. So this is nice that I can take a break and get pages done without needing to clear my entire desk off to do it. Or wait until my paying projects are done which never seems to end.

The other thing that makes me really happy about this is that it is so cheap. I have been lucky enough to find all but two kits, etc. for free. There is SO much free stuff. If you have girly layouts, there is even more for you. I did buy to boy kits because they were so cute and boy stuff is not offered for free. However they are so cheap and can be used over and over again. They are generally about the same price as a packet of great 3D stickers. You can't beat that. It is then very minimal to have them printed off.

I do plan on scrapping both ways. Sometimes I will run across something in the LSS that I know will go with a great set of pictures. Of course I would traditionally scrap that. I have yet to run across digi stuff for zoo visits that I really like. However I have great paper for them that I will most likely use. Oh ya, the other great thing is that I don't have to pay to have the pictures printed the first time around and then I can tweak them and change them easily if I go the digi route.

Anyway, there are just benefits of both I think. And both right now work for me.

I really have to THANK my friend Amber for all of her help. She was so gracious to put together a Word document on getting started and email to all interested. She is one great friend!!

I am slowly getting the hang of it

I have had a little time here and there to sit down and figure out digital scrapping a little. It is a lot of fun and I will still be doing some the traditional way, but this has allowed me to get a little more done much faster. Here are two pages that I did this weekend.

Going through the pictures and deciding which ones I want to work on has made me realize how many pictures I have that are not scrapped. There are a lot!

Another one down...a million to go!

I worked on another page last night. This too is from a quick page. Pretty soon here I am going to need to actually put them together myself. It is just so nice to do these because of the limited time that I have.
I posted the picture of my brother the other day but this is the entire series of pictures that I took of him and Gunnar. Gunnar is up to having a tickling war with anyone!

My first in Digital Scrapbooking

Lately I have been dabbling in digital scrapbooking. Not really to replace the traditional kind. More to catch up a little and do something new. Boy has the learning curve been steep for me. This really is not my element. Thankfully all of the papers, embellishments, etc have been free and printing them is pretty inexpensive.

One of the things that I really like about it is that when I have more kids, it is easy to print out multiple prints instead of creating multiple prints the traditional way. I can already see the effectiveness of it now. It has also been pretty fun to mess around with it.
My very first layout was done using a quick page. It is kind of like a fill in the blank type of thing. You just feel in already created areas with the paper that you want. These things were harder to figure out than I thought. I have Microsoft Digital Image Suite 10 and most instructions are not written for this program. Thankfully I found some incredibly helpful tutorials online just for this program. They have been a lifesaver. Look for more layouts in the future as I really start figuring this out.

My Scrap Studio

I really wanted to take pictures of my space when I got it more organized. I moved it from a large bedroom to part of our large office. I just needed the push to organize and purge many of my unused things and this was it. I really like it in here. The large windows looking out to our backyard are great and bring in a lot of light. I hope you like it.

This is my little shipping area. To the right of this photo is a large bookshelf seperating the two sides of the built in desk area. The other side is exactly identical to this side. We have the computer on the other side. This area is usually much more cluttered than this. Of course it was cleaned for the photo shoot.

This is on the corner of my desk. It has been one of my great finds. It is actually used for plates in a cupboard. It is supposed to lay flat but I put it up like this for my projects. The sides are nice and tall so that the paper does not flop over. This is why I liked it. I found it at Ross in town.I always watch TV when I scrapbook. I got this fantastic desk from my parents when they got a new one. It has this nice built up shelf in the corner. Perfect for the TV. Next to it is my Cricut. To the left is my light box for dry embossing things. On the wall is a corkboard. I really like to put embellishments up there that I don't want to forget about.This is the far left side of my desk. My sewing machine is super handy there. I will be talking about the things on the wall later. I was not sure how to store my paper and I had a bunch of these wire storage units left from my other room. So I downsized them and zip-tied the extra panels to the cube for dividers. I then put brown cardboard in between the solid and patterned papers. On the bottom are my spare albums and page protectors, etc.In our previous house, we had a bunch of the cabinet organizers. I took them with me. My cupboards here already had a bunch installed so what can one do with them. I screwed them into the wall and put little things in them. I have way more ribbon than this. It is wrapped around clothespins and put into one of the canvas baskets on the shelf.There is so much here. It could have been organized prettier but I didn't have to spend any money of any of this. I just found ways to work with what I have. All of my smaller albums and idea books/magazines are on the bottom shelf. The white basket holds all of my craft paints. One of those striped baskets has all of the ribbon in it. The black metal tin holds my acrylic stamps. I love that there are doors here. The bottom is obviously my 8.5x11 and smaller paper in clear holders. Everything else is just the random stuff that everyone has.This organizer is underneath my desk on the left side. I have a drawer for Gunnar stuff, and then other themed projects. It fits all 12x12 stuff.Underneath on this side are these tubs that I got from Walmart really cheap. All of my themed papers/embellishments are in these clear storage things and labeled. They fit so perfectly in these tubs. I love it.This organizer is the greatest. My good friend Monica Scott bought this for me as a house warming gift when we moved. She has sinced moved herself to Illinois. Honestly it was in its original box until recently. I had no idea where to put it. It can also be arranged vertically. I didn't have a wall that it would work on. Finally I found the spot, above my desk. The top left basket has all of my Cricut stuff in it. The top right one has all of my Making Memories rubons in it. The bottom one has envelopes in it for handmade cars and the right one is pictures. I have had this pretty much since we were married. I think that I got it at Ross too about 7 years ago. It did not serve a usefull purpose at this house so I moved it into my studio. It now holds all of my essential items. It is so handy. I love it and it is nicely nearby. The little key hooks on the bottom hold my photo sqaures or corners.

That is a little peek at my Studio and where I create. I hope you enjoyed.

New Design Team Challenge

A while back I posted about how I will no longer be a part of the Pocket Full of Papers (PFOP) Design Team in order to take time for family and some of my other endeavors. I told them that I wanted to stay around until the end of April when the new design team challenge will launch.

This new challenge is so incredibly fun. PFOP is throwing a baby shower along with another design team. We are all so excited. Who does not love a baby shower or babies for that matter. All of the members are allowed to make only one item for the challenge, so all stops are pulled for this. Check back towards the end of the week for all of the great listings.

I am excited for the challenge but a little pressed for time. I am wanting to create one of my 12x12 albums for it using the Basic Grey Black Tie Collection. Not typical for a baby album. However, I received 3 new orders for my 12x12 albums within the last week. Two of those orders were through Etsy and the other through a long time client of mine whom I love working with. All of them are for little boys. One of them will be using the Storytime Collection by Cosmo Cricket with more of an alphabet emphasis. The other two will be using Basic Grey. The first, Skate Shoppe Collection and the other the new Boxer Collection with an emphasis in vintage sports. I have a lot of work ahead of me, yet thrilled to see all of the finished products.

Super Cute Layouts

I have a fantastic client of mine that bought three 2-page layouts some time ago for her daughter-in-law. I did one of them a long time ago and finished the others today. Amber (the daughter in law) was not sure what the themes of the birthdays would be until recently. Her son and daughter will be turning 2 and 1 years old in May. She wanted a safari theme for her some and a brown/pink polk-a-dot theme for her daughter. I found the most fantastic safari themed stuff from Reminice. It is so cute and has inspired me to hopefully create a similar layout for Gunnar.

The collection had these cute little cardstock stickers that matched with baby animals and their mommy's. So cute!

Thankfully Mindy reminded me of some paper that I already had with the brown and pink theme so that is what I used for the other. It is from All My Memories. So cute.

My new Modern Frames

Lately I have been messing around with a bunch of different things. One of the things are these frames. They are pretty fun to make and can make a statement in any room.

This brown one is my absolute favorite. I actually made these to sell on Etsy but I may have to do another one for me. The picture is of Gunnar for staging purposes.

I like the polka dots on this one alot. Pretty girly in a modern way. I have found that I really like them more simple looking and not all dolled up with embellishments.

Baby Girl ABC Album

I just finished one of my smaller 8x8 ABC albums. I really love how it turned out. It really is so random yet goes all together in the end. It turned out really fun and bright. I made one of these before Gunnar was born and unfortunately it did not sell. I was so bummed. But when Gunnar came along, I was so glad to have it. It has been so helpful in recording everything important about him. It looks awesome with pictures and all of the blanks filled in. And the best part was that it was already made by me. I actually prefer the smaller size but the larger ones sell better. I hope to make a baby boy one next and then hopefully one that works for both.