Name Book - Word Album

I'm not really sure what these things are called to be honest. I have seen it called a Word Album or a Name Book and I remember when they were all the rage a few years back and everyone and their mother on the Cricut message board were making these things. I made one for my oldest Goddaughter Ashley not long after I got my Cricut and it was a CHI-OMEGA word book. One weekend my cousin Teresa came down and we made 3 of them for her grandchildren at the time and her daughter Amber, not to be confused with my youngest Goddaughter Amber, loved them. It was actually Amber's idea that I make one for her sister Marissa's new baby Lane. 

Since Marissa had the baby early Saturday morning my daughter and I opted to wait until Monday to go see her and the baby because I knew the hospital has so many rules and there would be visitors in and out and I wanted some quality snuggle time with little Lane, as did my daughter. I worked furiously over the weekend on the frame that I posted yesterday and then the Word Album that I am posting about today.

Now my skills as a paper crafter have improved since making the word albums years ago as has my stash of supplies, tools and machines so this book is probably the most sturdy I have made. Months ago I found some packages of comic book boards at Zipp for like $2 a package and bought them with no certain idea in mind other than it looked like chipboard and I love chipboard. There are 100 boards in a package and are acid free. When I went to get chipboard out of my craft closet to make this album I opted to use the comic book boards and the Explore cut them wonderfully! I used the deep cut blade housing and set the dial to custom and then chose the medium chipboard setting. I cut each page 3 times so I could have a good sturdy book, or album *okie is still confused about what to call the dang thing*. With previous books I used tape to put the pages together and such but for this one I used glue and I think it will make it last longer. I used my brayer to go across each layer after gluing them together to help spread the glue and make the layers adhere to each other better. 

I'm sure you guys know how to make these things and they aren't really hard. The hardest part for me is to figure out what font to use to make the name stand out. I used White Vinegar for the letters and had to break the letter apart and get rid of the pieces that I didn't want that was in the font. I also set a shadow to the letters because I love shadows. Oh yes, I designed it Make The Cut and then exported to SVG and uploaded to the Explore, which I think is probably obvious since I still don't like designing with Cricut Design Space and most importantly MTC has the wonderful shadow feature *okie grins to herself thinking about all the other cool features that MTC has that CDS doesn't have*.

If you can see in the picture the turquoise letters look a little leathery and I achieved that look by spritzing some Coredinations cardstock and then wadding it up into a ball, crumpling it up really good. After I let it dry I got out an Emory board and sanded across the top, giving the paper an even more distressed look. After all that I then cut the letters out with the Explore. The shadow of the letter didn't have anything special done to it other than a little inking. 

I can rarely find a good way to decorate the back of the first letter in these books so I normally just ad a strip of paper for some decoration. The second letter didn't have a lot of room but there was enough for a space for a small photo. I cut out some deer heads in several different sizes to use through out the album. When gluing the "plaque" down I made sure not to add glue to the top where the white piece of paper is so a photo can go behind the plaque. 

Generally I try to add more than one photo space to a page when there is enough room. Sometimes it is difficult to adorn a page and work around the holes of the letters but a well placed deer head added enough little embellishment to where the page didn't look too plain. 

I did have to print some paper to use in the album because I didn't have much of anything in my stash of papers that matched the theme or colors. Luckily I did have enough cardstock in the colors I needed. 

Another way to add extra photos is to make a pocket and put tags in the pocket. On this page I was able to add two tags and also had enough room on the pocket for a photo. I was able to find ribbon in the closet that was masculine enough to use on the album, which I used not only on the two tags but also on the o-wires. 

With this page I had to work around the holes of the N and some narrow arrows worked great and once again a deer head was able to add some interest. The deer paper and the chevron paper are some that I printed. I really like the Canon Matte photo paper for this purpose as it grabs color well and can be cut with the Explore and holds up well with being embellished. 

Why yes people that is a piece of burlap on this page! I did try to tie the book and the frame from yesterday together with colors and theme and I think I was able to pull it off pretty well. I did use Sobo glue to put the burlap down and also the arrows and deer head. I really don't think my beloved Scotch Quick Dry Glue would keep the elements down on the burlap but that Sobo just don't play!

I think I might have gotten back into my crafting groove a bit now and while I am running out of ideas for projects right now I think I can likely walk into my craft closet and find something to create. 

Baby Frame

I have seen a lot of the "baby frame" ideas and while I have plenty of canvas and a few frames around when I got ready to make one I wanted it to be a little more than just the name, date of birth and other birth information so I got a little inventive. 

Remember the shadow box frame I showed a few days ago and I said I had a few more of them? Well I broke another one out for this project. If the store would have had 20 of these I would have bought them all but I think I actually only ended up with like 5 or 6. I think I ended up spending about 80 cents or so on each one as they were like 90 percent off. Anyway, back to the frame.

My niece had her baby Saturday morning and by morning I mean like EARLY! My daughter and I had went up on Friday and stayed until about 10:30 that night and since my niece wasn't progressing I decided we would go ahead and go home. If I had thought to take a contact case, some solution and my glasses we would have waited it out but I really thought it was going to go faster than that, but there is no rushing things when it comes to birthing them babies!

Well dang, okay now about the frame *okie so hates the squirrels that tend to run her life*. Like I said I love the idea of the frames but I wanted it a bit more personal so I got information from my other niece, Amber, and her mother, Teresa *okie would say her cousin but then would have to explain about why her nieces mother is her cousin and thinks that needs a post of it's own* about what Marissa was going to have for the decorations of Lane's room. After they sent me a few pictures I had a good idea about what to do in the frame and what colors to use. Amber was good enough to send me pictures of Lane and didn't even complain when I told her "okay now I need one of him by himself". 

I knew I needed a deer, some chevron and an arrow and I wanted to add a picture of Lane to the frame to make it more personal than just the information so I got into MTC and played around with a few things and once I got my pieces that I wanted I started finding different fonts for the information. Since the deer head was going to be large I knew I could put it in the background and allow lettering to cover it but I needed open space for the other items. Once I got the all the elements in place I moved and resized the information to make it fit where I wanted *okie so loves Make The Cut* and it was rather easy to do. 

Once again I used some burlap for the background *okie wonders if everyone has pieces of burlap laying around like she does* because on this particular frame it just went nicely with the elements. In order to get the pieces to stick to the burlap I use some Sobo glue and guys if you haven't tried this stuff let me tell ya it is beyond A-MAZE-ING! I cut the vinyl in mirror image format so I could put it on the back of the glass, this makes for easier dusting and protects the vinyl a bit more as well. I did make registration marks to make placing the vinyl easier and then just pulled them up after I got the vinyl in place. 

My niece was very pleased with the frame and even posted it on Facebook to show it off. I'll post the other gift I made her tomorrow. 

HTV On Canvas Tote

When I was in Houston last month Carmen got in her craftroom closet and pulled out some of her goodies to share with me. One of the things she shared was some canvas totes and I knew my daughter would want one because she has an addiction to such things.

I wanted to do something with HTV on the tote but wasn't sure how to do it or what to put on it. I remembered Carmen had made a mandala file and I thought that would be nice with my daughter's initials. The tote is white and navy stripes and I wanted something sparkly so I sacrificed some of my glitter HTV *okie figures her daughter is worth the sacrifice*. I was able to use MTC to make a rhinestone template, simply because you can never have too much bling. I had to ask on Facebook about settings for using HTV on canvas and I was still nervous about trying it *okie wonders why she is always scared she is going to mess something up*. 

Luckily I was able to get everything cut and pressed on to the bag. The pink glitter doesn't show as nicely on the navy as it does the white but my daughter was still very pleased with the tote. 

I still have two more of these totes and  not quite sure what I will do with them yet but I hope it is something fabulous!

Police Officer Quote - File Available

Ya know there are plenty of times when you are browsing through Facebook that you see something and you think to yourself "OMG! Self you need to make that" but you really don't have a reason or purpose for making such a thing you are looking at so you just toss it to the wayside. 

When I saw this quote about police officers and their families while scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed I had that thought but I knew exactly who I could make it for. There is a young couple that my kids know, actually the wife was my daughters matron of honor and the husband played football with my son-in-law, and the husband is a member of the police force here in town and I just knew I had to make it for them. Having a degree in Criminal Justice also tends to make me have a very strong respect and love for officers of the law. 

I messaged the wife and asked about what color frame and was glad when she said off white because I had picked up some of these frames at Wall's quite awhile ago and hadn't used any. They were actually for a retirement picture and had a bit of a shadow box look but I figured I could rip out the guts and use them for my own use, which obviously I did with this one. She also said she liked the burlap look of the original quote and luckily I had burlap. On a side note, thanks to my Aussie friend Janell I know know that burlap is called "hessian", so if you are ever on Jeopardy this information might come in handy. 

The process of removing the guts and getting the burlap on there was a process. I tried several things, and I won't bore you with the details, and ended up just cutting the piece of burlap the size of the back of the frame and gluing it down. 

In this picture you can see how there is room between the glass and the back of the frame where the burlap is glued and if you look at the bottom of the frame between the glass and burlap you will see a thin line of chipboard. In order to get the glass to stay in place I had to come up with something and since I don't have any glazier points handy and it was around midnight when I was working on this it was the best I could come up with. I think I cut about 4,827 *okie wonders if she might have just exaggerated a little bit there* strips of chipboard at 3/8 of an inch and then glued strips together until I got the thickness I needed, which oddly enough was about 3/8" of an inch as well. I used some Terrifically Tacky Tape on two sides of the strips, with one side going on the glass and the other on the lip of the frame, to hold it in place. 

Since I have a number *okie is too lazy to walk to her craft closet and count them* of these frames I will be picking up some glazier points for future use. 

While I probably could charge for this file I won't and offer it freely, I figure what's the difference since if someone wants it they can just do a trace of one of my pictures and make their own and it just saves someone time in the future if they want to make one *okie figures she has probably give thousands and thousands of dollars of cutting files away over the years for this very reason, plus she is too lazy to email people back and forth about such things*. 

I Pulled Out The Heat Press

While my daughter has not blessed me with grandchildren I am blessed to have young children in my life via her friends and also my eldest Goddaughter *okie thinks she is gonna have to make a post about her God Grandson that has stole her heart*. One of my daughters friends asked if I could make her children some shirts for their first day of school and she sent me some pictures of what she wanted. The designs looked simple enough and I told her no problem. What I didn't tell her was that I hadn't used my heat press in quite sometime and I wasn't even sure I still knew how to work it.

I was able to do the designs in Make The Cut in no time and it was of course a simple transfer to Design Studio and then cutting out the design and weeding. I love weeding! Carmen and I often talk about how much we love to weed vinyl. I know there are other weed lovers out there! Uhhh, I mean weeding lovers....hhmmm, people who love to weed vinyl *okie won't mention she probably does know some of the other weed lovers*. Anywho, when it came time to do the shirts I got a little nervous because I was afraid I was gonna screw them up!

After doing some reading on the internet I quickly remembered how to use the heat press and I was able to get the shirts done. 

Here is a picture of the kids on their first day of school wearing their shirts. These are two of the most adorable children I have ever met and their parents are doing the most wonderful job in raising them. I had the privilege of baby sitting them one night and we had a blast watching movies, drink juice and eating snacks. 

Here is a picture of Marcus modeling his "Kindergarten Stud" tshirt. I had to laugh when his mom said he didn't understand about the shirt but he is the definition of a kindergarten stud and his sweet nature is going to have him be the boy that every mom wants her daughter to date!

Little Miss Kay-Kay loved the bling of her shirt. I used glitter HTV to make her shirt, it's pink and black. As you can see she is a sassy little thing by her modeling pose and the child is absolutely gorgeous inside and out!!

The Elusive Stainless Steel Tumbler

Like everyone else I heard about how wonderful the Yeti Stainless Steel Tumbler was but I just never could justify the cost of the thing and then all the off brands started coming out and I began to consider getting one. Then...THEN...Walmart came out with one that was only 10 bucks and I knew I would get one for that price. But alas, I never seemed to be able to find one in the store.

Evidently everyone and their mamma has these things and there are kinds of brands such as Rtic, Corkscicle and Kodiak to just name a few and being a crafter I am aware of all the cool colors you can get now and how everyone is decorating them. When I was in Houston Tuesday Morning had gotten some in and they had some nice colors but Carmen and I were too late to buy any when we made it to the store. I was really beginning to think it just was not meant for me to have one of the damn things. And if I am honest I have been quite skeptical about the whole trend so I wasn't like dying to have one but by this time it was a mission. A mission that I had to complete!

Once I returned from Houston I had decided to order one online from Walmart and when I check it said they were in my store! I went the next day and looked and looked and couldn't find it. I finally went up to the sporting good counter and there was another lady there asking about them. The worker told us that he had some in the back and would go and get them. He came out with a box of the 30 ounce tumblers and the lady that was there before me said she wanted 4 and as we were discussing the tumblers another lady came up and said she had came in looking for them as well and needed 2. Both ladies already had them and were singing the praises of how wonderful the tumblers are so I ended up walking out with 3. I figured if they were flying off the shelves that fast I better get one for my daughter and son-in-law as well. 

Now ya know as a crafter who has a wall of vinyl I knew I had to put something on the tumbler. Okay I don't have an actual wall of vinyl but I have a nice collection of different colors. This is actually an older picture and there has been a bit of an addition but I was too lazy to take a new picture. Also the crates have dividers that I made out of cardboard that are more sturdy that what was used in the picture and also keeps the rolls from falling out of place when I pull a color. 

But back to the whole vinyl thing. My concern about putting vinyl on the stainless steel tumbler is that it is not truly smooth and when being washed was the vinyl going to peel up. I know a lot of people are adding vinyl and I have heard a lot say how it doesn't stay but since I have a plethora of vinyl I didn't think the small amount that I would likely use would hurt my stash.

The Samantha font is one of my favorites and I wanted something nice on my tumbler so I pulled a swash from it and then worked with the letters to find some that would swirl but also not swirl too much and this is what I came up with. Now ya may say what many others did "WHAT?? NO LADYBUG??" and I did use ladybug colors so I think that counts for something! 

I did this about two weeks ago and I do hand wash carefully and the vinyl is staying on so far. I did have someone ask me to do one for her and I initially said yes but then said no after all the complaints I heard about the vinyl coming up and I didn't want something returned or someone demanding a refund for what they feel is shoddy work. With that said I am suppose to do one for someone and she promised not to complain if the vinyl starts to peel. 

I haven't done anything to my daughter or son-in-law's tumblers, and not sure he really wants anything on his but I know my daughter does so I will be doing hers sometime in the future. 

Oh and as far as liking the tumbler...ERMAHGERD I LUVZ IT!!! I stop of a morning and get a Diet Coke and the store I go to has the slushy ice and even when I leave my tumbler in the car during the heat of the day my slushy ice is still in there! 

GoVino Beer Glasses

Well they aren't really glass, they are plastic but saying GoVino Beer Plastics just doesn't sound right so GoVino Beer Glasses it is. Anyway, I got a few sets of these at Zipp a few months ago and they have been in my craft closet and when I pulled a set out looking for something else and my daughter saw them she said she wanted a set with vinyl on them. She made a list of what she wanted and I told her I would get them done for her *okie is quite impressed that it didn't take her a year to get them done because it usually does*. 

I couldn't get the saying's completely straight because of the double curve of the glasses. I had to take my time putting the vinyl on and work with it a little to get it to lay flat and thank goodness I was able to pull it up in some places and then put it back down *okie thinks working with a double curve is a bitch* and smooth it out more. I guess I need to work on that double curve issue since I think I have like 3 more sets of these. I couldn't buy just one set when I was able to get like 4 sets for the price of one set. 

My daughter was pleased with the results, at least I think she was. If she wasn't she didn't say anything about not liking them. The glasses say, from left to right -

It's 5 o'clock somewhere

Drink Me

Good Beer Good Friends

It's Beer Thirty 

CTMH Flower Market - Bee Happy Card

This will be my last Flower Market project I post for a little while because I have some other things that I need to get busy on but I know I will be using this cart quite a bit in the future.

I have made cards in the past with bee's on them and I always love making those type of cards *okie thinks it rather odd that she makes cards with bee's and not ladybug's since ladybug's should be the obvious choice* so when I saw the bee and honeycomb on the cartridge I knew I was gonna be hittin' those images up. I was pleased with how this card turned out and I didn't even ink any edges. I think with the bright colors of the patterned paper inking just wasn't necessary. Some folks might recognize the paper but for those who don't it's Graphic 45 Bohemian Bazaar. 

The little bee didn't have any wings so I had to make some. Well I guess he had wings but just the outline and line down the middle. I had to use the contour feature to hide the parts that I didn't want on the wings that I cut out of the transparency paper and I like how it turned out. I used some yellow mica paper for the body of the bee and the just some black cardstock for the top layer. 

Sorry for such a short post but I'm low on time today. 

If you would like to order this cartridge just go to CTMH FLOWER MARKET COLLECTION. 

CTMH Flower Market - Bike Card

I wish I would have had access to this nice little bicycle years ago when I did a LAYOUT of my mom and dad back in 2009 but back in those days *okie thinks that sounds funny saying back in those days since it was only 7 years ago* but I did not and I had to make a bicycle out of what was available to me and that meant using the George cartridge and it's basic shapes to design a bicycle. 

Fast forward to today and this great bicycle cut can be found on the CTMH FLOWER MARKET cartridge and I couldn't wait to cut it once I saw it. The problem was that I had to think of something to use it for and obviously a card was the choice I made. 

I cut the bicycle a little bigger than I had intended and that is due to me...yep, you guessed it - still not use to using Design Space for figuring out what I want to cut *okie isn't sure she will ever get use to the program*. 

I really should have cut the little flowers a different color but when I did cut them I didn't know I would be using orange for the mat of the card. The darker flowers were a lighter orange and it just looked washed out so I hit them with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze to help break up the color a little. The green fluff is Flower Soft and I love this stuff to add dimension and embellishment. 

The "HI THERE" is a sentiment that came with the CTMH FLOWER MARKET collection and I inked the "HI" and stamped and then inked the "THERE" and stamped so I could put a little bit of a curve to match the banner. The banner is also from the cartridge and I cut it about in half and used the piece I cut off to go behind the stamped sentiment. The pole, well it's actually a stem image from the cartridge. I was looking for something to use as a pole and when I saw the single stem I opted for it and I liked how it had a slight curve to make it look like it was blowing in the wind a little. 

I'm having a lot of fun with this cartridge and am looking at more images on the cartridge so I can see what else I can make. 

If you would like to order this cartridge just go to CTMH FLOWER MARKET COLLECTION. 

CTMH Flower Market - Mason Jar Card

I got with the Mason Jar trend a few years ago when I bought a stamp and die set and I haven't used it lately and when I saw a Mason Jar and it had a little doily label that went with it on the CTMH Flower Market Cartridge I decided I needed to revisit my love of Mason Jar cuts. 

The one thing I have problems with is making a jar look like glass. For this card I went with the palest of blue's cardstock and then used some transparent paper over it and while it doesn't look clear like glass I thought it could pass for a milky colored glass. 

I went with the Sweat Pea cut for the flowers in the jar and they were really easy to put together. and luckily I was able to get it sized about right. I tell ya this whole not using Make The Cut is driving me bonkers since I am so use to how that program works. I still don't like the "glitchiness" of Design Space or how I get lags at times and I know it's due to it being connected to the internet *okie still thinks that's about a crock of chit* but in order to use the Flower Market cartridge I have to endure the pain of using the program for more than just cutting. 

To give the jar some dimension I curved it around my Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive bottle and applied some mounting foam down the middle of the jar and ran a thin like of glue down the sides of the jar. This picture doesn't really show the dimension all that well and I couldn't figure out any other way on trying to show the effect. 

The "thinking of you" was from the stamp set that comes with the Flower Market Collection and there are a number of great stamps in that set for quite a few different occasions. I totally lucked out that this stamp fit on the doily ban after I got it cut because I didn't even think to measure it first. And I would like to add I was a bit nervous about cutting that doily due to the intricate details and the small size but the Cricut Explore handled it like a champ and gave me great cuts on all 6 doilies. Why 6 you say? Well because *and okie thinks everyone should know this by now* I usually always make 6 of a card so I have extras when I need them. 

To order the Flower Market Collection just click on the link below:

CTMH FLOWER MARKET COLLECTION. 

CTMH Flower Market - Altered Box

My friend Melanie of Courtney Lane Designs got a hold of me a few weeks ago and asked if I would like to review the new Cricut Flower Market cartridge and while I haven't used cartridges in several years I told her yes. Of course she knew she would get me by saying it had a lot of flowers and she knows I am a sucker for flowers, especially when they can be made into 3D projects and there are quite a few on this cartridge that are 3D cuts!

The collection includes the cartridge, 3 sets of stamps and a set of CTMH cardstock. If you would like to order this cartridge you can go to Cricut Flower Market Collection.

Once I got the package I was a little nervous about using a cartridge because it meant I would have to use Cricut Design Space exclusively, no designing in Make The Cut and then converting, just totally Design Space, which is something I NEVER do. It did take me a bit to get the feel of the program to do the design and I know with some more practice I might get the whole thing down but for now I am plucking my way through it. As I flipped through the handbook I found a rose and knew I wanted to try it. 

I had gotten some little boxes to alter at Zipp last month and decided to use one of those for a project that would hold greeting cards that I can give as a gift. I used Paper Studio Mirabelle paper for the project. The paper is about the weight of designer cardstock so it worked well with cutting the roses as well as covering the box. 

Here is a side view of the box so you can see the dimension of the flowers a little better and also how I added a flower to the side top of the box to make it the flowers look a little more cascading. 

A view of the top shows the different sizes I cut the flowers. The pink flowers had a lot of layers and I did cut them all but it ended up over shadowing the dimension of the roses and to prevent this I did minimal layering and then some with no layers. Candi dots were used for the flower centers.

I tied some burlap ribbon and some sheer ribbon to the handle and it worked well to finish off the look and design of the box.

On this close up you can see more detail of the roses. I have done flowers for years but I will say it makes it a lot easier with flower making tools and I use the McGill tools, which I have discussed in the past. I added some Glossy Accents for a dew drop look. 

I didn't do anything to the inside of the box since it won't be seen most of the time but I wanted to show you how the cards look in the box. I did have to slant them slightly to get them to fit but the box does shut and clasp with the cards in there. 

Don't forget that if you would like this collection for yourself just go to Cricut Flower Market Collection. 

Organizing Cardstock and Paper

I am really a bit ashamed to say it had been over a year that I had done anything to my paper organization but it is true *okie hears a few gasps, looks out everyone with a bit of a perturbed look on her face* OH PUULLLEEZZZZ!! I'm so sure all y'all keep yours organized and update on a daily basis!

Anyway, I had cardstock here and there and packages of colors with scrapbook paper and my Graphic45 hadn't been updated in awhile either so it was quite a task I had before me but since it was too hot to do much of anything I thought I could use the time to get 'er done! I took this picture after I had already started doing a little. I got the blue plastic bins at Goodwill and I have no idea what they were suppose to be but I know they were used to stand vertical but horizontally they work great for holding my cardstock. They are really heavy duty so I don't worry about them tearing up and since they are solid they can't fall apart. 

I have a hard time trying to figure out colors and I thought the greens were bad but I quickly decided that I think blues are the hardest color to organize because there are just so many dang shades of blue and how I ended up with so many shades I have nodea and to be honest I still don't have the right shades of blue! I have tons of teal blues and I do remember how I ended up with all those. A few years back Consumer Crafts had an awesome sale on the Coredinations, such a good sale I got multiple packs of whatever I could and it seems that the teal is what I use least because it is what I have the most of left now. At this point I was begging people on Facebook to come and organize my blue cardstock for me. Not one person ever showed up to do the task *okie thinks she has a lot of slacker friends*. 

After much persistence, many paper cuts and feeling like I was going blind I got it all done!

Next up was getting my, for lack of a better word "glitzy" cardstock in order. If I thought my regular cardstock was scatter then my glitzy was like hunting for Easter eggs! I kept finding it in all different places and when I did find it somewhere that might be odd I would remember why I had it with certain paper but decided it needed to be all together. 

I had Bazzill bling, Coredinations gems, metallic, opalescent, brushed metal and mica to get in order. I did mix all those different ones together and put them with their color hoping it will be easier for me to find when I am wanting something glitzy. 

Since moving my regular cardstock to the blue containers I had a lot of the Cropper Hopper holders free and it worked out great for getting a lot of my other papers organized and labeled. I have one of those Brother P-Touch label makers and I absolutely love it! 

I didn't label my scraps, but that is what is to the left of the glitzy cardstock. At the time I took the picture I hadn't gotten to my specialty cardstock but it is now organized and on the shelf right below this one. Specialty includes, faux textures, foam, vellum, vinyl (thin for paper not my regular vinyl) washi sheets printables and also I was able to fit my birthday and kitchen category papers on the shelf as well. 

I got my scrapbook paper reorganized and the companies separated again, such as K&Co, MME, Stampin Up, DCWV, Basic Grey and Graphic45. This is a picture of my Graphic45 papers, sans any Christmas collections *okie thinks it is obvious those would go in the Christmas section*. I even finally updated my inventory of my Graphic45 so hopefully I wont make the mistake of buying duplicate packs, which I did do one time in the past. My inventory is done in Excel, just like my stamps, punches, embossing folders, etc, so it makes it easy to go in and add and keep things in alphabetically order. 

My poor scraproom looked like a paper flea market for about a week while I was getting this all done but I am glad I did get it done and it looks so much neater now and it will be easy to find what I m looking for when I want to do a project. Which was not long after I got it all organized! I was sent the Close To My Heart Flower Market cartridge to review and tomorrow I am going to show you a project that I did with that cartridge. Would someone get the lady in the back who fainted some water? I guess it was bit of a shock to her that I used a Cricut cartridge. Is she okay? *okie sees someone nod their head yes* Alrighty then, y'all be sure to come back tomorrow and check out the project!

Let's Catch Up!

First off I apologize for lying but I really didn't know I was lying at the time...I mean about posting more often. I honestly had best intentions but then I got to where I was really enjoying the swimming pool and having company quite a bit and well......yeah....

So in the last month I have been quite busy. I made a visit to Houston for  week which was a lot of fun. My friend Lori wanted me to come and help her get her scraproom set up and it also allowed me to surprise my friend Carmen and visit her for a week. And when I say surprise, I do mean surprise! I only knew a week before heading down that I was going to go and I never mentioned a thing to Carmen. I did text her daughter to make sure the family didn't have any plans and that Carmen would be home. Let me tell ya a little how that went.

I parked down the street from their house because I know Carmen always looks out the window to see who it is and if she saw my car she would immediately know it was me at the door. I knocked on the door and heard the sounds of boots clicking on tile so I knew it was her husband coming to the door so as soon as he opened the door I did the "SSSSHHHH" sign by holding my index finger up to my lips and whisper "she has no idea!". He was smiling and I heard Carmen say "who is it?" and when I walked around the door she had the most perplexed look on her face and I kept waiting for her to rub her eyes so she could make sure she was seeing what she thought she saw. Of course we immediately hugged and she said "What are you doing here???" and I said "Well you said you were lonely!!!". I had to explain to her that Lori and I had cooked up the scheme because I had posted on Facebook a few weeks earlier how I was sad because Carmen and I hadn't been able to see each other since October and we had gotten use to seeing each other about every 3 months and I wasn't sure when we would get to visit again.

Let me tell ya something folks....ya know it's a true friend when you can show up completely unexpected and say "hey I'm staying a week" and the person welcomes you with open arms!! And yes, I am blessed to have such friends!

My mission while in Houston really was to help Lori and it worked out that Carmen was able to go as well and while we didn't get it all done we worked hard enough that she would only have a few last things to arrange in her scraproom. I honestly felt like Lori and Carmen did the majority of it as I was organizing paper and embellishments and such, ya know the tedious crap that has to be done. I think this was the only picture taken while I was in Houston and Lori pointed out that we didn't get a group picture this time and we usually always do. I did have some help down on that floor as Lori's little Westie Callaway kept coming in and helping me and by helping I mean standing on the paper and waiting for me to give her back scratches or belly rubs! I would have brought her home with me if I thought I could have gotten away with it. Lori's other dog, a Boxer named Riley, wasn't quite as friendly and barked at Carmen and I anytime we were in the same room with her. 

I was able to pick up a few packages of Bazzill cardstock at Tuesday Morning while down there and when I got home I decided it was time for me to update my cardstock since it has been over a year since I even attempted to get it all in order. And speaking of which I will post about that tomorrow.