Clearing the Clutter Challenge #10

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not posting this week. I've been playing catch up ever since we got back from being gone for Memorial Day weekend. I'll fill you in on what we did later today.

Today for my Clearing the Clutter Challenge, I did something that I told myself would be the first thing I did with my Expression. I had previously cut this with my baby bug but it was only 5.5" and I wanted it to make a bigger statement than that. So when I was brainstorming on what to do for this month's challenge this came to mind. No, I was not sitting on the toilet when I thought of it. haha For some reason I can't find the original post.

One of our wedding presents was some seafoam green towels (we registered for an olive color) so I decided to make our guest bath a sea theme. I have some shells we collected when we were on our honeymoon in Captiva, FL and it went from there. The walls are white and pale blue. There is horrible lighting in there with no natural light but it works for now. I'm still slowly adding pieces to the room to finish it off.

If you're new to my blog, welcome! You can head over to this post to get caught up on what this challenge is about. Feel free to play along. If you do, add a link to your blog in a comment. If I get enough people linking, I'll add a link button. Have a great weekend!

Details:
Create a Critter - castle 10.75", seaweed 5"
Expressions Vinyl - white & key lime

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #9

Welcome to another month of Clearing the Clutter! For those of you who are new, go check out this post to get caught up to speed. In a nut shell, it's my personal mission, once a month, to clear/finish something that's been sitting on my desk for too long. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and cleans up my desk as well. :)

For today's post, I was clearing out a shelf on my desk and found all of these cuts that I'd been accumulating. They were either the wrong size for the project I was working on, I made extras, or I just decided not to use it. So I decided to make some cards out of them and use up some of my scraps as well. A two-fur, you might say. :)

For this one, I took a bunch of flowers that I'd cut and layered and curled them so they'd pop up. I may go back and cut out the it's a girl again since this is the shadow feature.


Details:
New Arrival 2.5" ?
Accent Essentials ?"
Core'dinations Lipstick
scraps

I LOVE how this one turned out. I got the idea from a blog, but can't for the life of me remember whose it was. If this was yours, please let me know so I can give you credit. It had an N on the onesie. Thanks!

Details:
New Arrival 3.5"
heart - ?
Bazzill Mud Pie
Rhonna Farrer paper
CB Swiss Dots embossing folder
ribbon

I'm still not too sure how I feel about this one but I know that my niece will love it. Her name is Alea and her bedroom is filled with butterflies. :)

Details:
New Arrival 2" ?
A - ?
Core'dinations Lipstick
scraps
Divine Twine

Last one. This one turned out really fun. I used Pink by Design's 'Here Comes the Bride' for the sentiment. Just goes to show that just because the set is for one thing, it doesn't mean they don't fit other occasions.

Details:
New Arrival 3"
Heart - ?
Bazzill Limeade
scraps
Pink by Design "Here Comes the Bride"

If you want to play along, just add a link to your post in a comment. If I get enough people wanting to play, I'll add a link button.

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #8

For this month's challenge, I finished something that's been sitting on my desk for a couple months - except for when Carver would take it to the living room and stuff it with toys, that is. I guess he'll be able to use it next year.

If you're new to Clearing the Clutter, head to this post and see what it's all about. I post on the first Friday of the month. Feel free to join in. Just put your link in a comment. If I get enough people I'll start doing a Mr Linky.




Details:
Rhonna Farrer paper
Offray ribbon
scraps - paper & ribbon
New Arrival: Circle 2.5", Monkey 3.5"
Cuttin' Up 1.5"

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #7 - Finally!

Better late than never... right? Carver's feeling a little better. He's still got a nasty cough but his nose isn't running anymore so I think we're on our way out of the woods.

Ok, onto the project! I was asked to make a banner for baby boy shower since I was making this one for a girl. These will be used for every shower that my church hosts. And I figured, since I'm making one, why not make two? I'm toying with the idea of doing a few craft fairs and I'd sell this there.

**Carver's actually taking a nap in there while I take pictures. haha Gotta love a good flash!**


Details:
Old West 3.5"
New Arrival 4"
Recollections Blue (98939) and White
DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Boy
DCWV Summer matstack
Bazzill Limeade
Michaels ribbon - cut at 7'

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #7 - POSTPONED!

I'm dealing with a sick baby right now so I'll post my CTCC later today, at latest tomorrow morning.

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #6

Today's the first Friday of the month - which means the Clearing the Clutter Challenge! This was a small thing that left my desk but it's been sitting there since November. Yes, November!!

We repainted our laundry room (read: a majority of the house actually) and the front of the shelf really bugged me. So I decided to get some ribbon and glue it to the front.

*Please don't look at the clutter. This house has NO storage. So I stash stuff wherever I can!*

This is how it turned out.

I love it! And all it took was some super glue and ribbon.

Don't forget to head over to Lorie's blog and see what she did!

Clearing the Clutter #5

We're doing something a little different this year for Clearing the Clutter. Instead of posting every two weeks, we're going to post on the first Friday of each month. Between Lorie's and my schedules we're a little too busy this year. Go to this post if you want to read all about the challenge.

Now onto the clutter! Between the holidays and being out of town, my desk has disappeared. So I decided to take the challenge literally and clear all the clutter from my desk. That way, I have space to actually craft! See what I mean?!?

I still have a little more to do but it looks A LOT better! Just looking at that desk was getting me stressed. haha It helped that I had my new cart. It's already been filled up! Top drawer is for buttons, jute, etc. The middle drawer holds my punches and the bottom drawer is for my Bind-it-all. I'm still trying to figure out a child proof way to store paper in the bottom slots. Any ideas??

Here's the finished product of my desk!


Now, head over to Lorie's Blog and see what clutter she's cleared from her desk! As always, if you would like to participate in the challenge, just leave a link in a comment!

Have a great weekend!

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #4

OOPS!!!!! I totally forgot to post this morning. Maybe it was because we (me, Carver, mom and Charlie) woke up at 4:00 am to go shopping. We had a BLAST and I got almost everything on my list!

I don't have any pictures this week for my challenge. Let me explain... Our power went out on Monday after a big storm and just came back sometime today (we're out of town). So since the power was out you'd think that I'd have a lot of time to craft since all my distractions were taken away. Wrong. I wanted to craft... but I wanted to use my cricut. So instead, I cleared a bunch of stuff off my desk and put it in it's home. It wasn't anything that was worth taking a picture of. It was stuff like...

• Putting new ribbon in my ribbon holder
• Putting all the things I'm going to need for a couple projects into bins so that it's all in one place
• Putting away the embossing folders I got awhile ago from Oh My Crafts (see this post)
• Since I couldn't post the pictures from the baby shower and Sarah's welcome home card, I wrote down all the details so I could post from my Mom's house.
• Coupons tend to take up residence on the corner of my desk until I can get them into my coupon organizer so I caught up on that (that hadn't been done in forever!!)

I think that's it. I had the great idea to glue some ribbon to the front of a shelf in the laundry room since I couldn't use my cricut... until I remembered that you have to plug a hot glue gun in. DUH! It was very frustrating. Especially when you've got your creative juices going. haha I'll definitely be crafting when we get home on Sunday.

I'm pretty sure that Lorie forgot, like me. But if YOU remembered, leave a link in a comment. We'd love to see what you've cleared off your desk. :)

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #3

Today is the Clearing the Clutter challenge!!! Lorie's out of town so it's just me posting this week. I only have a small project this time since we were gone for about a week. I found this letter coat hanger in the dollar section at Michaels back in May/June so I got one for Carver and an R for my friend's daughter. And Carver's has been sitting ever since. :( This is why I LOVE this challenge!


I used Rhonna Farrer paper (never heard of that brand but I got it at Michaels, I think) and mod podged it to the coat hanger. After it was dry I took my Tim Holtz sanding block and distressed the edges a little.

What have you done to clear the clutter? As always, feel free to post a link in a comment to any projects you've created. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #2

First off, I'd like to apologize for not posting in TWO WEEKS!!! WOW! We've been caught up in sick babies (flu -- cold -- then fever yesterday and rash today). And to add to that, work has been pretty busy. This all means, no time for Tana to craft. :*(
--------

This is week 2 of our Clearing the Clutter Challenge. You can go to THIS post to find out all the details about it. Since I haven't had much time to craft I didn't get any 'big' projects off my desk. I did get a couple small ones done though. So I got something accomplished, right???

Project #1 - Halloween Cards

I've been procrastinating as much as I could on these. I don't even know why I send them out. The only reason why I like Halloween is dressing Carver up and candy corn. But when Carver was born, I sent out Halloween cards to all the babies that were born around the same time as him. And I expanded it this year to family.

Recipe:

Paper -- Black -Recollections; Orange - Bazzill 'Orange Slice'; Pumpkins (not pictured) - KI Memories 'Pumpkin Party'; Halloween words - DCWV Halloween

Designers Calendar -- Halloween 2", Spider 2.5"

Project #2 - Carver's Potties

We bought the green potty for Carver a few months ago and finally decided to spend the $4 to get a second one to keep at my mom's house. We bought them from Ikea and they only had the two colors. :( I kinda wanted the white one they had on their website.

Recipe:
Monkey --> Create a Critter 3"
Carver --> Cuttin' Up 1.5"
White vinyl, Ikea potty

That's all I got finished but I have a couple that I was working on but need some supplies to finish. You'll get to see those next time. :)

As always, please feel free to play along. Just add a link in your comment. If we get enough we'll add a Mr. Linky.

Now hop on over to Lorie's blog and see what she's cleared off her desk.

Clearing the Clutter Challenge #1

If you remember back to THIS post, I accepted a challenge to make time to craft. Well I followed through! And a friend of mine is doing it with me. We'll be able to keep each other accountable and we'll link up to the other's blog. We'll be posting every other Friday.

Ok, enough lead up. Here's the project that I finished. I started it a couple months ago when I was inspired by THIS post by Creations By Christie. I thought it would be a great idea to keep track of everything and it feeds to my OCD. haha

The front. I used all Tim Holtz products for embellishing. The cover, book strap and o-wire are Zutter. I used Cuttlebug embossing folders and alcohol inks for the tabs.

The back. The only stamp that wasn't Tim Holtz is the script stamp.

I put the logo on each tab divider.

This is how I laid out the pages. I listed all of the current Cricut cartridges. There were some that came out after I printed the pages so I added those in. The ones in pink, and those highlighted pink, are ones I have. There's also 3 pages after this.

I couldn't get the Cuttlebug logo to look right. :(

This is the Sizzix and Tim Holtz embossing folders.

EK Success border punches.

I copied and saved the thumbnails from EK Success's website and pasted them on here. Again, I highlighed the ones I have.


I got all of these from the Ranger website.




This section just has the Changito monkey stamps. Since Carver's theme is monkeys, I have a bunch of these stamps.

The last tab is blank pages. This will have wishlists and additions that come out.

The reason why it took so long was that I did the covers and then punched with my Bind-it-All... except I put the metal spockets too close and it was too thick to fit in the Bind-it-All. And then to top it off, I punched the back cover on the wrong side. haha So I ordered more covers (5 to be exact!) and punched first! OH! I guess I should tell you how big it is. It's 7x5. The covers came at 7.5x5 so I had my husband cut it down with the chopsaw. It worked great! Good to know for future projects. I feel like I'm leaving something out. Feel free to ask questions.

Now, hop on over to Lorie's blog, www.live-love-laugh-create.blogspot.com

Want to join us? Just finish a project that has been sitting on your desk for awhile. Then send us a link in a comment! If there's enough people we'll add a Mr. Linky!!

My Monthly Challenge

I've decided to do a monthly challenge. Linda over at Just a Scrappin' had this great post. She said...

Our calendars are being formed for the new month so right now, get it out and write in at least one hour a week for designated scrapbooking time. Yes you can find it. It is there. Plan for it. Write it in and DO it. SO you have to give up reruns of CSI or Friends....No more wishful thinking....grab that time before it slips away. Make your time work for you. Use those supplies like papers and stickers. Zip out a few pages. Your family really does NOT want to have to dispose of 3 carts full of paper at an estate sale after you are gone....They would much rather look over your finished albums full of treasured memories.

So I'm going to try it. I may need to lose a little sleep to get this accomplished but

• I AM going to start my Christmas cards early
• I AM going to make Halloween cards for Carver to mail to his friends
• I AM going to start scrapbooking again (I haven't even started Carver's birth pictures yet)
• I AM going to finish a bunch of projects that are taking up space on my desk
• I AM going to take pictures of everything for you guys to see! :)

Just as a precaution, you may want to leave comments and encourage me to keep going. Life can sometimes get in the way and I NEED to keep focused. :) Thanks!