more altering

Did a little more altering in the past couple of days for our room. This is another kit that I won at a crop awhile back, and it came with it's own paper, but I used mine instead to make it match a little better in my room. Just Mod Podged it like normal. It didn't take too long. And then I did the clothespin too. Not too hard. And aren't Blake and Luke adorable. Man, it was forever ago!

Some Home Decor

Who says scrapbooking is only for scrapbooks?? Check out some ways to use your scrapbooking supplies and display some of your artwork in your own home.

Some of you might recognize the brown box set of albums that was sold on QVC forever ago. I had always planned to decorate it. So, since I've been decorating my room, I thought I would finally get to it. I adhered some chipboard, ribbons, flowers, and a picture to it after finding out that rub-ons didn't work. There are four miscellaneous 8x8 albums inside of it. Here's where it sits on my dresser with a few things that I got this past weekend...not to mention my jewelry box that's almost as old as me! (Oh, and of course, everything was bought at 40%-90% off. You know me!)
I bought this picture frame for $6 at Hobby Lobby. I originally was gonna put Eric's Father's Day present in there.....a collage of firework pictures, but then I changed my mind. I added these pics of the kids, and then decorated the mat that came with it with rub-ons that I had had FOREVER! I like how it turned out.
And here's some more more altered letters that I did for the new baby and also for our dining room wall. The new baby's are embellished while the ones in the dining room are simply covered with paper.

Altered Letters

Looks hard, but soooooo isn't, and it's tons cheaper than paying $10-$20 per letter to get them custom made. I did Makenna's for her room, and I'll be doing the new baby's too. In fact, I already bought the letters for the wall. I did these for a friend. The picture is not that great, but believe me, the letters looks so cute in her room.
My friend Terani and I just did these for her son's room. We kept them simple, plus we couldn't really figure out how to embellish them since it was a for a boy. Couldn't use flowers now, could we?

All you need is to do them are:
- cutting mat
- exacto knife
- mod podge
- patterned paper of your choice
- embellishments of your choice.
- Glue to apply embellishments. (glue dot, liquid glue)
- some type of roller/brayer to help get the bubbles out. (you could use a small cup)
- letters from craft store (I got mine at Hobby Lobby...for once again....50% off.)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Trace the letter on the back side of the paper (front of the letter face down on the back side of the paper)
2. Cut letter out.
3. Apply Mod Podge glue EVENLY to your letter.
4. Lay cut out paper carefully on top.
5. Roll Brayer over it.
6. Wait till it dries, and then use exacto knife to cut off any edges left on.
7. Here's where you have the option of sanding and inking the edges if you want like we did with the Jayden letters.
8. Apply Mod Podge on top again for sealant now.
9. Embellish with Ribbons and flowers or whatever.
10. Repeat for the rest of the letters.

Seriously, if I made this sound hard...it's not. And stick with my motto: "You can always fix a mistake!"

Cuttlebug ideas

This, my friends, is a nifty fun tool for scrapbooking and any other paper making craft. It's a manual die cutting machine, and I know that you're thinking..."I'd rather have the Cricut." Well, the Cricut can't emboss, and this baby can. It's made by the same people as Cricut, and I've heard that you can make your own embossing folders with the Cricut and then use them in the Cuttlebug, but I've never seen it done or used it. Don't know what embossing looks like? Check it out. See the raised part on the words below....that's what embossing does. Makes it just a little bit cooler than flat paper. They have tons of designs for the embossing folders, and they are pretty inexpensive (less$6 a piece...or cheaper with a coupon).

You can get the Cuttlebug kit for about $35-$40 online plus shipping, but it's uses are limitless. I bought mine here last year, and I know you can get them here also for a good price. So it's well worth the money. Or use a 40% coupon in stores in town although it's still more expensive this way.

Oh, and I just found out that you can use the folders on acrylic shapes in these. Check out this website here and here to get a few more ideas. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and did I mention that they have sets of dies that will be embossed and cut out too.

new organizer

Check this baby out: There's plenty of room for everything, and I still have plenty of room left! I didn't even show you guys the back side. Did I mention that it spins? Oh,and of course I used a coupon on it, a 50% off coupon.

Letter sticker organizer

I recently got this little basket at Hobby Lobby for 40% off. I wanted something to store my letter stickers this way, so they would be a little bit easier to get to. I divided the colors with a sheet of cardstock. I hope it works out. I plan on putting in on one of the shelves on the bottom of the desks.

My room

The view from the doorwayFull room view (well, almost)

another corner of the room where I keep my paints and foam stamps

The Storage Wall

Up close of the storage wall

Can't forget the movies to watch while scrapbooking. I'm a ALIAS, Gilmore Girl, Remington Steele, and I Love Lucy fan. Can you tell?
Wooden Stamp Storage

Drawers of tools and punches

Beads

Fiber storage - I used to have my ribbons on the spools, but I used them too much and they would always get too messy, so I put my loved, but less-used fibers on them instead.

Buttons and Brad storage in the tilt a bins

Cuttlebug folders and dies

Clip-It-Up - This has also been revamped. It's not so crowded. I put all my alphabet stickers in another place and just kept the clip-it-up for themed stickers and titles.

Foam stamp storage

Miscellaneous tags and frames

Cricut and accessories My printer is no longer down there. It's been moved to my computer table to keep little hands from playing with it.

book storage and layout storage along with unused albums and a few other miscellaneous things.
Ribbon Storage

Acrylic stamps storage


Chipboard letters in the little drawers

Magazines and Idea books

I love magazines and idea books to look through when I'm not in the mood to scrapbook. It usually puts me in the mood. I was scouring over them a couple of weeks before the crop I went to recently. While looking through them, I sometimes will sketch out layouts from the magazines especially if there are a lot of pictures per page. (like the picture above) I love to use sketches because sometimes my little mind just won't come up with cute ways to place a bunch of pictures on a page. But with sketches, then you have a chance for some variety. I have quite a few websites on the side of my blog that gives sketch ideas, but my favorite books for it are Becky Higgins' sketch books. You can't go wrong with those. Scrapbook Etc. also made a layout book that I enjoyed. And so did Becky Fleck. There's one more set of books that I've heard only good things about, but I've yet to get them or even see them, but they are called Blueprint Layouts.

I also like to look for cute ways to use all those embellishments that I just "had" to have like flowers, stickers, and chipboard. Magazines give countless ideas to scrapbookers.

I must admit though I used to be obsessed with them. I received every scrapbook magazine that was made, well almost all of them, but now I don't receive any. I usually get them from the library or I look over them in Barnes and Nobles (if I ever make it there.)

You can even get inspiration from regular magazines too for colors to use together and even layout ideas.

Croppin Day

I had a great time at the Cougar Crop in Kentucky this past Saturday. I got almost 33 pages done. I say "almost" because I still have to add a title to one of them, and a sticker to the other. Regardless, it was so much fun. Here's the pages I got done minus the unfinished pages.I still can't believe that Mindy won the grand prize...a brand new Cricut!! Who-hooo!!!!

Pages

Here's my latest scrapbook pages that I actually like. The one with Kaleb and all the flowers makes me laugh. I dont' usually make girly pages for my kids. Sure, I might use flowers every now and then,but not this many....but man, the kid has a purse fetish, and so I thought a little girliness was slightly appropriate. Can you blame me??
The other one is just of some cute pictures of him last April or March of some funny faces he used to make....and yes, the pictures are supposed to be crooked. (I found this idea in a magazine, so I thought I would give it a try!) Oh, and see those litle triangles next to the red and blue ribbon...and the circles?? Know what they are? They're photo corners that I thought would work as arrows. (No, I'm not a genius. I saw it done in a magazazine!)

Cougar Crop

I can't wait. The yearly Cougar crop is coming on Saturday, and I'm getting ready to P-A-R-T-Y!!!!!! Who-hooo!!!!!!!!!!

Great things come in small packages

Brads are one of my favorite embellishments. Okay they are probably my very favorite because they are cheap and you can use them on almost every page.

1. You can decorate embellishments. See the plane?
2. You can add a border with shaped brads. See the snowflakes? 3. Decorate a frame.
4. Separate a word. B*Day
5. Put brad in the center of flowers or to attach other embellishments..i.e. the arrow.
6. Make design elements on your page with the brads. See the circles made with brads?
7. Hang charms on....the & sign. 8. Attach ribbon in a fun way. Oh, and the keys on this page...they're brads too.
9. Decorate a title simply.
10. Make a fun border.

Seriously, brads are probably the second most versatile scrapbooking supply around..paper being the first. Gotta love the little things