Easter Card Class Fun!

We had an absolutely wonderful Easter Card Class this weekend and we even had 4 new people join us for the festivities!!

 The cute Bunky Bags my mom made for the girls put their supplies in!

 He he he I couldn't resist!  (Hobby Lobby Shopping Trip!)

 The yummy kabobs I made from a recipe I saw on Pinterest!

To Plan or Not to Plan...That is the Question

We had big painting plans this weekend, but unfortunately, the best laid plans are usually messed up when it comes to "worker people", if you can call them that.  Being 400 miles away doesn't help much either, which bothers me more than I care to actually think about.  Our time frame is now kind of messed up by two weeks and since we have a hard deadline (G and I moving TO Bloomfield) every moment is precious.

Having been a professional organizer makes it even harder to swallow and since I have done dry wall work before, it actually makes it that much worse!  Stephan has been amazing, thank God I have a husband who is calm when my red hair goes a flaming and my inner Boadicea comes out!  If only I had a chariot!  But Stephan redirected my consternation to figuring out the courtyard for the cottage.

The "courtyard" at the moment is a piece of dirt with an electric pole, a Direct TV dish and a whole heck of a lot of nothing!  However, I grabbed out my graph paper, sat at my patio of the porch and off I drew.  Erasing, re-drawing, erasing again, cursing the rap music from the house across the street, and finally I came up with a design!   (Help from a bit of Pinterest!  I knew my "Sprucing Up the Dirt" album would come in handy one day!)

The last thing I have to figure out is what kind of bushes to plant.  I have to use pots, because nothing grows in the dirt out here.  Which works for me because that just means I can rearrange things if need be! I didn't think going from Arizona to New Mexico would be THAT big of a difference as far as zones go, but I was wrong.  The good news is, I get to go to Nursery's!  If I can find one in Bloomfield or Aztec, I will be MOST happy!  Hmmm, now that I am thinking of it, maybe Flagstaff is in the same zone as Bloomfield!  If that is the case, I know the PERFECT nursery to play at!  AND I may even try to talk Stephan into buying me one of those super cool garden clocks!  (hint hint!)

Although a few things have been a little wonky this weekend, it has been nice.  The kids and Stephan are having a fun night watching scary zombie movies while I blog.  On commercial breaks he comes in to see if I need a drink refill and I even popped by famous popcorn!  

We go back home to Gilbert tomorrow, but it has been a very nice 24 hours!

Once I get home, I have a card class to get ready for, a wedding card to complete, an Easter Card order to start and a birthday card order to finish!  My little fingers are going to busy in the next 4 days!

Well off to see if I can whip up a few more posts and then screw around on Facebook and Pinterest before going to bed!  (This Daylight Savings Time thing is for the birds!!!  Arizona definitely had it going on when we opted out of that!)

Happy Stamping!
Suzanne

Designing the Layout

Gooseberry Cottage is almost all finished with the drywall!  They are going to be texturing today and then this weekend we will get to painting!  YES!!!!  It is all coming together quite quickly and it has been beyond exciting!

While the guys are busting their butts getting everything ready for carpet and final move in I have been bashing my head together trying to figure out where I am going to put all of my goodies!  I originally tried to "draw" my ideas, but that failed miserably!  (I don't draw well!!!)  So then I figured I would do what I do best!  Cut paper!

All of my furniture is cut to scale and I can move them all over the place to see what I like and where.  I am sure I will end up changing the final design a half a dozen times before May and then at least two more times when I actually get it IN the cottage, but this makes me happy in the interim and that is all that really matters, right?  =)

I did have a bit of a snafu with the size of the patio which caused me GREAT ANGST!   Thank God my husband is calm, rational and has a ton of great ideas!   We will be fixing my 7 foot debacle with some really cool stuff from Ikea!!!!   And let's face it, any excuse to go to Ikea and buy stuff is a good thing!

So here we are, almost all set and getting ready to be painted!!

Happy Stamping!
Suzanne

Elvira

Meet Elvira!

The Elvira card is another Feature Card from our Card Parties!  Miss Elvira hosted the Card Party so I named our featured card after her.  This was an absolute BLAST to make and sold out that night.  I have been dying to make some more and try out some different colors.  I am thinking a Regal Rose or Melon Mambo would be absolutely cheery!

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes, Baroque Motifs (all Stampin' Up! products)
Inks:  Elegant Eggplant
Paper:  Elegant Eggplant, Black, Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Regals DSP
Punches:  Lg Scallop, Modern Label, Word Window, Round Tab, Itty Bitty Shapes Pack
Accessories:  Pearls, 1/8" Black Taffeta Ribbon, Perfect Details Texturz Plates

Happy Stamping!
Suzanne

Dino Love

There was a time when my daughter and her girlfriends would control the TV with watching Land Before Time repeatedly!!!  It wasn't as bad as Wee Sing Train, but it definitely was one of those moments in time that I don't really want to repeat.  HOWEVER, when I came across this stamp set I couldn't help but think back to those girls watching their favorite dino's on the TV and fighting over who was going to be Ducky and Cera.  I may not have the original crew, but these guys are a close second!  (Yes, I know my originality in the names need a little work!)

Meet 

 Larry

 Pete

 Rex

Sara

These guys were part of one of our card parties and sold out very quickly AND the original set was sent off for a fundraiser auction for "Crafting for a Cure".  Can't wait to hear how these little cuties did!

Stamps:  Dinoroar SU

Inks: Pacific Point, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo

Paper: Pacific Point, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo, White, Brights DSP

Happy Stamping!

Suzanne

Emily

Meet Emily!  I love naming all of my cards after friends, family, cool names I have heard or whatever name I flip to in my big book of baby names!  Not only do I name them, but if they end up going onto my website they also get a little history!

For example, Emily's description on our website reads:  "Emily will be one of the nicest people you will ever meet.  She always has a smile on her face, a kind word to say and brings sunshine into every room." 

She is also named after a friend of mine from pre-school!!  Emily was always beyond nice, extremely tall and amazingly sweet!  There is seriously no one more genuinely nice than Emily!

The best part is you can have an Emily all of your own!  Get Emily

Stamps:  Short & Sweet SU, Dandelion Garden Border from Rubber Necker

Inks: Versa Mark, Daffodil Delight, Pacific Point, Melon Mambo

Paper:  White, Pacific Point, Crumb Cake

Accessories:  Rhinestones, white embossing powder, sponges

So Many Stamps So Little Time - Part Two

Remember those little stickers with the numbers on it from our last post?  Well, those colors and numbers actually have a purpose and this is definitely where my organizing bone comes into play.

All of the Stampin' Up! sets have a specific size which makes it fairly nice to stack them one on top of the other.  So each "size" has a specific color associated with it.  The biggest sets are yellow and the smallest are sporting the pretty color circle.

Next, we started numbering them.  There is no rhyme or reason behind the numbers, but each color starts with 1 and goes until I can't buy any more stamps!

Here is the super cool part!  When I am flipping through my Stamp Book and I find a set I want to use all I have to do is look at the color and the number of colored dot and I can go right to it on my shelves!   Talk about saving me LOADS OF TIME!

In conjunction of having the wood mounted stamps, I also have the clear ones.  The clear stamp sets are alphabetized so it is very easy to find them quickly.  In my book, the clear stamp sets are marked with a C so I know it is Clear and I know where to go to find it. What used to take me two or three minutes to find a stamp set now takes a matter of seconds!

Of course, what do I do when I know the name of the stamp set I want, but don't necessarily know the number or color?  Oooh I have a solution to that too!  But that is for the next post!

Happy Stamping!
Suzy

Finding Inspiration

When I sit down to make a card that is strictly a "Suzanne" card, it can take me up to two hours to find all the right papers, the perfect stamp and the best sentiment for the inside.  Don't get me wrong I love the creative genius behind it, but I just don't always have two hours to kill to design an entire card all on my own!  I need HELP!

So I spend some downtime every day scouring the internet looking for the perfect inspirations.  Some of them are so perfect that I CASE the whole card.  Other cards I absolutely love certain elements, but maybe I want to change the colors, the type of ribbon, maybe the quote so I use it as a guide and get to work.

For example, this card (which I apologize for NOT knowing where I found this at) I love the flowers as the focal point for the cross.  I know it is a sympathy card, but I have been dying to use it for my Easter cards this year.

So I changed a few things, added a couple of others and voila!  I have an evolved version!

This is one of the cards we are making in our Easter Card Class in March.  It was an absolute blast to make and I love all of the textures, layers and how cheery it is.

Happy Stamping!
Suzy

Almost Ready!

Well Gooseberry Cottage is coming right along!  Stephan and my father in law have been busting their butts to get the cottage all insulated so the dry wallers can come in next week!  Hoping to have the dry wall finished so the kids and I can start the painting process when we are up there next weekend!  It is just so exciting and heartbreaking at the same time.   Not being able to physically see it, not to help out on the day to day activities of getting it ready for our big move.  It makes it beyond hard for both of us.  BUT Stephan HATES to paint so hopefully my little crew and I can eliminate that portion of the job for him!!

Lots of fun and excitement in the coming weeks!  Between the dry wall, paint and carpet, it will almost be done!!!  Bring on May!

Cool Craft Spaces

My girlfriend Krys told me to go out and check out Connie's Scrappin Shed and holy cow, what a great space!!!

I absolutely love stalking the internet for pictures of great craft rooms. Some of them are WAY too cluttered for my taste, other's too sparse with no personality, but this is GREAT!  The color of the room is soothing, the use of the black shelves to bring the black drawers together without it looking too utilitarian is wonderful.  It just has this great vibe!

You can't really tell in this picture, but she has double French doors that go into her space and it looks super cool!!!

Thanks for sharing, Krys!!!

So Many Stamp Sets So Little Time - Part One

Organizing is not always pretty.  Sure, you can spend time and money to make the little things look down right gorgeous, but at the end of the day it is just prettifying your crap.  Organization takes thought, it takes an understanding of your needs and it takes dedication.  Not to say that having something aesthetically pleasing can't also go with your organizational flow, it just shouldn't be the MAIN focus on being ORGANIZED.

Being a former Professional Organizer has its perks that's for sure!  There was a time when I would have cringed at the thought of organizing a craft room!  Home offices were my forte and where I felt the most comfortable.  Craft rooms?  Scared the living daylights out of me!  Now look at me.  I have a craft room.  I have crafts.  I have to organize all of my goodies!

One of the biggest areas of my extreme consternation were my stamps.  I think I have over 250 stamp sets and let's face it, there is no way to keep them all in order just by memory.  I can barely remember what I had for lunch today let alone which stamp sets I have, their names, what designs they are and where in the world I put them at!  So between my lovely daughter and I, we kicked some major organizing butt!  It ain't purdy, but it sure as hell is effective!

My organizing system has 3 parts and soon to be 4 as soon as Jordyn gets the next phase completed.  She is really hating me right now, but it is all in the name of keeping her mother sane and I am sure staying on my good side since a graduation present is in the works!

The first part of getting a handle on all of my stamps is creating an inventory so to speak.  First, I circle all of the stamp sets I have in my current Stampin' Up! Idea Book.  This ensures that I don't purchase duplicate sets.  Well, it should if I don't forget to circle a stamp set!  Oops!

Second, I have my "Tear Away" catalog to actually cut the stamp sets out and put them in my Inventory Journal.  Again, it isn't pretty, buy it is VERY effective!  I can flip through my book, look for the perfect sentiment, the most ideal design and quickly find it on my massive shelves!

You will also notice the colored stickers on the pages with numbers on them.  THAT is the second part of my Stamp Set Organization method!  I will also admit, it is probably the most time saving solution I have in place!  Which we will discuss in the next segment.  =)

Laura Corset

I absolutely LOVE this corset stamp that I bought at a Rubber Stamp Show here in Mesa last year.  I have gotten a lot of use from it and thoroughly enjoy making a different version and naming them after my friends!  This is the second corset card that I made for Laura's Card Party so I HAD to name this beauty after her!

Stamps:  En Francois SU, Corset Stamp from The Rubber Cafe
Paper: Black, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Grey, Whisper White
Ink: Versa Mark, Black
Other: Clear Embossing Powder, Black Bow, Turquoise fringe, Black ribbon, Black Pearls