Getting Ready for a Crop

Getting ready for a crop is something that took me a really long time to wrap my mind around. The first couple of times I brought two rolling suitcases with a bag over my shoulder which was pretty much my entire scrapbooking supply collection just in case I needed something. This drove me crazy not because of the mass amounts of stuff I had to crawl through to find things but because when I got home, I had to reorganize everything put everything away and much like my filing it never got done. Plus I didn't get much done because I spent most my time trying to figure out what I was doing and where to find things.

So after a few of these times not knowing where anything is and spending most my time organizing my stuff at the crops instead of scrapbooking I created a system. This system allows me to scrapbook mass pages during a crop and have to put away very little when I come home.

First of all I pack my basics bag. This bag has the basic pens, cutting board, scissors, adhesive, ribbon, and tons of letter stickers in it.

Then I pack a bag of all my favorite embellishments. My current bag is a Clinique giveaway. (On a long trip I might pack two of these bags.) When finished this bag stays packed on my desk for me to pull from at any time. Pulling embellishments from a small bag saves me tons of time on my layouts.

Then I start on my photos. I take my memory cards in once a month to get pictures printed. Immediately after getting them printed I place each event in a 2.5 gallon resealable bag.

Then I place them in a Ikea storage cube until I am ready to make page kits. Sometimes I will have an idea or a piece of paper that really fits these pages right away and I slip those ideas and products in the bags before I even start making page kits.

Next, when I run out of page kits or before a crop I do a mass taking over of my living room and layout all of the bags with photos in them.

I start in one corner and work my way down the lines filling each bag with an idea from a magazine or printed online.

Then after all the bags have ideas I match the ideas and pictures with patterned paper. Making sure to Look at the idea I have and determining if I could use scraps or if full sheets of paper are needed

Then lastly I add my basic solid paper to all the bags.

There is one more step but I rarely get to it and that is journaling. I try to journal on all my pages and journaling is one of the hardest things to do at the crop. So if I am very organized I will look through all my page kits and write down the subject of each kit in a small notebook. I slip the notebook in my purse and while waiting for appointments or during breaks at work I bring out the notebook and pre-journal for the page. then I bring the notebook with me to the crop and I will have both journaling and titles for the pages ready to go. Like I said rarely does this step get finished but I try and when I have this done, that is when I can complete 10-15 pages in one night.

So in all the only things in my page kits are photos, ideas from magazines or printed online, patterned paper, and solid paper. Now when I am ready to crop I grab a bag, some page kits, and my embellishment bag and I am ready to go. On a short trip I can get away with just bringing my one bag and a cutting board. That is a big difference from the two rolling totes and and shoulder bags.

Live Laugh Love Wall Hanging Weeks 2-3

These are pictures from week two and three of my wall hanging. I created a canvas with textured tags this week. I also did the cutouts on the frames and glued a whole lot of stuff down on paper. The tags are made by Pebbles and the patterned paper from Authentique and My Minds Eye.

Lily's baby Gift

My cousin is having a baby shower today. Unfortunately I am sick and can't go but I am sending the gift I made last night. ;) I am getting much better at creating Subway Art now. My first project will ironically go on my wall and is not the best but that is OK.

This is a grouping of four 7x14 canvases and then I used vinyl lettering that I cut with my Cricut then put layers and layers of paint on to make the subway art. To make the subway art two different colors I painted the dark grey layer, laid done the letters, painted a light grey letter, laid down the flourishes, and then painted the last colored layers



I also made the card last week. I didn't even know they were the colors of her baby room. :) The background stamp is Hero Arts, the Butterflyes are made by Studio Calico and the paper is made by My Minds Eye. The sentiment reads "Welcome" "Little Cullen Cousin"

My newest crafty activity is to make a new camera strap cover for my new Christmas toy. I need some sewing practice. ;) I have only sewn on fabric a few times this last year. Paper is my sewing material of choice. The pattern is from http://littlebiggirlstudio.blogspot.com/2010/08/tutorial-camera-strap-cover-with-lens.html

Live Laugh Love Family Wall Hanging

It feels like I haven't posted in a very long time. But that doesn't mean I haven't been eating, sleeping and dreaming scrapbooking. lol

I know that the next Craft Warehouse Design Team call should be coming up in the next couple of months and decided to start a project that I can hopefully use. I have wanted something to hang in an empty space in my living room. I wanted it to be a big focal point in my living room highlighting our family. So after a lot of thought I came up with a three foot by 2 foot collage inspired by many, many things I have loved and seen this year. I love the wire wall hanging of Gina Hanson and all the canvas projects from last month's make and takes. I also love the covered frames of Athentique and few spins of ideas I have thought up and never used. I have incorporated all these ideas into one massive project.

Here's the plan:

After the first week this is what I have:

I will keep you posted on what I get done this week. I might, however, have to stop and make myself a quilted camera strap cover that I bought fabric for this week.

Elizabeth