Prairie Paper & Ink

First Pages

CS and INK: Very Vanilla, Pretty In Pink, Sage Shadow, Lavender Lace (all Craft Inks). SETS: Retro Alpha Upper, Welcome, Little One (both retired). ACCESSORIES: SU Buttons (tied on w/ embroidery thread), and non-SU ribbon.

FYI - you can click on the picture and it will pop up in a separate window as a bigger image - HTH!

This 2 page layout was the very first 12x12 scrapbooking I ever did. I had NO clue what I was doing - my only goal was to get the pictures and information on the card stock - I didn't know a thing about layout and color combos or anything else about scrapbooking for that matter!

I used SU's old paper saving template (no longer available) that basically showed how to use an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of CS over the 12x12 to have an alternate color and where to cut the 12x12 to save on CS.

This was when my oldest daughter was born. We took *tons* of pictures - and I do mean tons - I think we had 3 or 4 rolls of film developed before we left the hospital (I was in for almost a week b/c of complications - everything went well tho).

I picked out my favorite pictures for these 2 pages. I did the letters w/ SU's (retired) Retro Alphabet Upper and the sentiment (on page 2), baby image and flowers on the main pages were from SU's (also retired) Welcome, Little One. The blank square on the first page has personal info that I blurred out.

I used grosgrain I bought at Michaels and SU buttons as embellishments. I pressed the buttons into Craft Inks that matched the CS and dried them w/ the heat tool (it took a few layers of color to completely cover the buttons and I'm pretty sure I sanded them before hand to better hold the ink).

So there you have my first attempt at scrapbooking. Some of my other pages look even worse than these 2 - those ones I may change but I plan on leaving these as is just to remember my first attempt!!

Bad Day

I am SO mad at myself right now!!

I got everything set up to take pics of all my scrapbook pages and everything was going along smoothly until I dropped the camera. It completely stopped working and I was in tears. Nothing I was doing worked and it wouldn't turn on anymore.

I brought it to Tim (who couldn't figure out why I was making such a big deal about it - um I can't live w/out my digital camera!!!) and he *thankfully* was able to get it working again. Whew!!

I've learned my lesson - I need to be MUCH more careful w/ my camera. I use it *every* day and totally depend on it for all my uploads here and on SCS (not to mention my tutorial gig for SCS!) and would be totally useless w/out it! We have a really nice 35mm camera that I use for all the family pics (it takes better pics I think) but obviously I can't upload w/ it - and we live over an hour away from where I get all the film developed so I can't use that for taking pics of my cards and SB pages.

The digital camera I have isn't fancy by any means (it's a 6MP Casio I got at Costco) but I really didn't want to take $$ out of our new car fund to buy a new camera b/c I was an idiot and broke it after having it only like 6 months! I'm glad Tim got it working again and I really *hope* I didn't wreck anything - we'll see tho!!

Anywho it feels better to let it all out here - you guys will understand better than my hubby!! Now I have to go get Josie up and give her a snack and then I need to check and see that all the pics I managed to take before the "accident" uploaded properly and get to editing them if they did. More to come later...

Ribbon, Prima, Paint and Prismacolor Storage

OK I finally did it! I got pics of how I store my ribbon and am blogging about it right now!

I bought these 4-Tier ClosetMaid racks at Home Depot and LOVE them. They're about 18" wide x 4.5" deep x 25" high. They fit all my ribbon spools wonderfully - I cut pieces of "chipboard" (I used the backing from paper pads and the ones that come w/ order forms and whatnot - I knew saving those would come in handy someday!!) and placed them on each shelf to prevent some of the thinner spools from falling through.

I have all my ribbon arranged in a spectrum of sorts: brown, black, silver, white, cream, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green. That way when I want a certain color of ribbon for a project I only need to look in one spot.

All my loose ribbon is stored in small bags. I punched a tiny hole in the side and used a paper clip (slightly bent apart) to hang the bags of ribbon on the shelf in front of the coordinating colors. This has worked well but I'm starting to accumulate a LOT of ribbon (ya think?? lol) and I am thinking of changing to something else - I'm just not sure yet as to what.

I bought 3 of these racks altogether b/c I loved how all my smaller items fit on them and they take up a lot less space than regular shelves.

All my MM Paint is on the bottom shelf making it easily accessible. I store all my Prismacolor pencils and stumps in the next rack (also on the bottom shelf) using formula cans that I spray-painted white. They are now right in front of me and I can just grab the colors I need.

On the last rack is where I keep all my Primas (I said I had a lot!!). I am addicted to these things - every time I go to the LSS it's nearly impossible to leave w/out a bottle.

I had bought a TON of them (including the daisy rack (top) and the crate (bottom)) on line from a site that had had a big sale a few months ago which makes up most of the collection.

I keep telling myself I'll cut back on buying them since I have so many but then I saw all the pre-order ones that will be coming out this fall and I'm screwed!! They are SO pretty!!

Anywho here's the pic of the whole set-up:

 

My stamp space might be in an unfinished basement but sitting at my desk in front of all this is certainly a stampers heaven!!