Scrap Control

I know Scarp paper can become a big deal for some of us.  If you check the craft world scene you will find lots of posts and tutorials on how to control this aspect of craft supplies.  I have my own solution and after a few years of crafting and selling crafts/crafting products I could have had a mountain of scraps.  I Have a friend Shaz in Australia and she has in inspired me to use all the "bits" and not let them go to waste.  So that is what I am now doing. Using the "bits" and not accumulating them as "scraps".

I also have a box of things not used going to the kids club here at my apartment complex.

Last year I had a Use your scraps Challenge on my Face Book Group and it was really fun to see what everyone came up with. Part of the challenge required weighing your scraps before and after. I had a scrap stash that weighed it at 7 pounds, many had 20+ pounds!
I think I made in two weeks about 40 cards with mine and that was it what was left I either tossed or donated and I have not created a new scrap stash since.  When I make a card and have scraps, I make a card with what is left over.

I wanted to show you a few of my "bits" cards I made this weekend:

I made this card for a friend, I Initially made two of the focal images and the paper is double sided, you can see both sides in this card:

I had a focal image and some of the pretty black paper left over (it started as a 12x12 sheet)

These bits were in my glass container:

So I made this card :

and then this card:

and yes it is okay to use Mary Engelbreit calendar pages to makes cards!

I save my calendar pages for that  purpose!

From this card I made last week:

I also had these  (again that black paper):

and made this 

Which leaves me with this:

From the scraps of two cards I made 3 more!

I don't have room to store leftover papers nor do I really want too.  When I have classes I have lots more scraps I try to use those up right away too.  Sometimes they will get shredded for packing the things I sell and I also hope to start making hand made papers - that will require paper being pulped and reused , so they will be like me, Born Again!!

I hope this inspires you to use up your scraps not pile them up and then end up having a storage problem!

Thanks for stopping by,

Ginny M

LA Cantera

Anyone do any shopping this weekend?? We went to a place called La Cantera, it is supposed to be one of the best malls in the country! It is huge and very beautiful, it share grounds with hotels, golf courses and lux apartments. But it was COLD, this mall is all out doors, huge gardens with waterfalls and walk ways. I'm not a mall shopping person but this place was really beautiful!

I picked up a few things, mainly thing to go in the journal kits I will be making and selling. A thrifty find, craft mats for 7.00 in a cooking shop (they call them cookie sheet liners).

I'm leaving you with a vintage drawing freebie, The napkins inspired me.  I love coloring birds!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny M

Your personal why, and why it is so important

I don't normally share videos like this but this was Such an important statement!  I hope it blesses you!!

https://www.facebook.com/ProVerbFam/videos/10153189070711589/?fref=nf

Steves' Great idea

I am very fortunate to have all the re-inkers for the complete set of Spectrum Noir markers, Tim Holtz distress , Stayzon, Encore and Memento ink pads.  That is a whole lot of little bottles to try and find a home for !  It was also a pain to try to find a marker refill, 168 bottles in one tub. I could order the refill and get it faster on Amazon!  ( My oldest son would say something like "extreme problems of the 1st world").  I think the inks refills were the last thing I needed to get organized, I was talking about it to Steve and he said "how about those over the door clear shoe holders?  Brilliant and perfect!
So I ordered 3 from Amazon:

There isn't any space left in my room other than the door so I put the holders on the giant closet slider behind my desk.

Next I had to decide how to organize these. I first thought I would put all the bottles in order

Then I thought , well that will take all night!

So using the order that the pens are stored in

I put Stickies up on the plastic pockets

then just pulled them from the containers.

What I didn't count on was the weight of these 300+ bottles.  After getting it half full I checked the slide on the door, and it wasn't working very well!

So I went to plan B and put them on the back of my hall door.

  They are all in order , the lower rows are the ink pad re-inkers and I have them in order by company and then by ROYGBVB.

Total cost $17.00!!

I hope this gives you a good idea of how to store the reinkers in your stash - thanks Steve!

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you are having a great weekend!

Ginny M

Contact card idea.

I think I've mentioned we have found a new church home here in San Antonio, a great place called Hope Center Church.  Everyone is really friendly and during service times - busy.  I've met a few people and hurriedly scratched down my contact info.  Well this is just not the way to go about this so I planned on making up a new contact card. Then I had an idea, why not make a pretty book mark.  All these people are carrying bibles so they will tuck it in and have my info!!  .I thought this was pretty brilliant!   I really enjoyed making these, so much nicer than a business card!  I love creating with the Word of God and putting it in peoples hands any way I can!

 I picked out pretty papers

Prepared the verse and my info

Cut to size, production style

Worked on the layers

And here they are all tasseled and ready to hand out!

This took about 3 hours and I made thirty.  It was relaxing and fun - I had everything on hand.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are enjoying your day!!

Ginny M

The Thankful Chair

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  

I am thankful for the many, many Blessings The Lord has poured into my life. The Scripture says in Luke 1:50 His Mercy is on them that fear (love, honor and revere) 

Him from Generation to Generation. 

I know the standup meaning of this is from the generations of time in families.  BUT I want to say I am thankful because from Generation to Generation in my time line, God has poured out His mercy and grace.  His Love and Care has been unfailing, he has never left or forsaken me.  In the Generations I have walked with him, he held me tight and wrapped me in his love.  Thank you Jesus, I am so grateful for your love and presence in my life and in my families.

Please watch this and remember to pull out your thankful chair. Jesus makes all the difference in this life and in Eternity.  

The thankful chair

Thank you for stopping by and may God bless you abundantly!

Ginny and Steve M

Word Art Wednesday!! Challenge #211

Today Word Art Wednesday is host its' 211th challenge!!  Karen L has written a beautiful devotion and Karen M has gifted us with a beautiful scripture verse.  Enough devotions to fill a book and if you were to have purchased the digital scriptures, it would represent an investment of at least $300. and it all been gifted to everyone around the world!  What a blessing and commitment by Karen and Karen!  What  great week to head over to word Art Wednesday and of course join in the challenge and maybe win a prize, but this week why not leave a little comment of gratitude so that these ladies and the rest of the design team know they are appreciated!  We all ( the admins and the DT's) put our time and heart into this blog to keep it running and be an inspiration, we receive no compensation of any type, it is truly labor of love and of ministry! Feeling appreciated is very nice!

Here is our verse:

My card:

and my own little gift to you for your card making!!

I hope you join in the Challenge and have a wonderful day!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny M

What's on your work desk # 338

Basicly it is the usual working mess on my desk: My husband walked in and said, "What happened? I thought you were making just on card?"  Ya, I was and this is what happens.  And Today I get to share it with the rest of the world for the WOYWW blog hop!

I need a asian card for a swap, so I went to work 

Nothing overly complicated, I just wanted it really pretty!

Here is the card:

Colored, paper pieced and hand stamped.

I should have used my misty to get it in the right place and while I was inking up the stamp, the sane stamper in my head kept saying no, don't do it. you know you're not very good at this, use the Misti!!!!!

I didn't listen, I stamped off on a peice of scrap cardstock and the image was good, so I went for it and for once I did it right!!

The test stamp came out so good I hated to toss it so I made a Book mark for my card swap partner and included it!

Which gave me a brilliant idea for another project and another post!

And since I have started it, Wow what a mess this one is!!

Make sure you stop over to Lovely Julia's blog to pick up the hop, it's really fun, you will learn things and be inspired!

Thanks for stopping by:

Ginny M

ATC and a freebies

Last night I made an ATC for a swap, I Love making and receiving  ATC's!

I keep them fairly flat for mailing and storing.

ATC's are always 3.5x2.5

The back of the card is Important too, you need to have your Artist info on the back.  ATC's are made to be collected.  Knowing  who and when and why you received the ATC is a big part of the fun!

I created an ATC back for you, you can print these off on your printer and hand write the info.  I made to print to  correct size, download and then copy and paste into  word for the set a or change up the sizes with the individuals

I hope you find these helpful!

Thanks for stopping by,

Ginny M

What to do with ATC Collections and weekend organization,

On Friday I had a great idea to create a display board for my ATC's.   ATC's are Artist Trading Cards 2.5x3.5 in size, we make and trade these for all kinds of events, they are really fun to make and receive.  After the move I had my little basket full of them and really no place to put them.  So I grabbed a piece of foam that came in the box of the desk we bought for Steve on friday and covered it with the paper from the K&Co pad that I have used throughout my room.

While Steve assembled the book case I mounted all my ATC on little black frame cards, noting the artist and the date - that information is on the back of each card along with the event of the ATC trade

Here is the first board and the two more for room to grow!

Next project was prettying up these Iris carts.

These Iris carts are about 20 years old, they have held up through fire and flood and a cross country move!  I keep all things for my ATC's , Tags, Postal art , Stationary,Watercoloring, Chalks.  All of my ink pads are stored in drawers - I have over 200, this is the only way I can keep them in their color/brand families. I also have the reinkers for all of these - which reminds me I need another  6 drawer iris cart for pad the reinkers and the reinkers for my Spectrum noir markers - I have all of those too! 

                                                                         Before:

After

A little nicer

Next 

My Stamp Drawers.  I had to unload these drawers and ship the towers separately and a good thing I did too.  If it were a short distance  move and on to a 1st floor I would have shrink wrapped everything and I think it would have been fine.  However, once we decided to take a 3rd floor apartment that all changed.  And Yes I wanted to cry, it was a little overwhelming, not only did my stamp storage have to be packed, but my paper dressers also had too.  Good thing; the dressers weighed around 90 lbs each and there is no elevator here. 

Each drawer filled a postal box, I had 45 drawers of stamps, 15 drawers of ribbon, fibers and bling. I fit 6 postal boxes in one packing box

When I started unpacking, I just poured the postal boxes in a drawer. It wasn't a bad way, but I needed to label and straighten out the drawers - I did that this weekend.

They are all labeled by theme, I also have my cello bags for kits and swap in these towers

I spilt the towers up and put the fiber/ribbon/bling tower near my standing desk and I also put my personal stacks - the ones I don't use for kits in a tower.  The papers are in order and labeled.

From this end of the room I can pull papers and ribbons and assemble. The large black thing on the end of the work area is a paper scoring machine.

This room is 12x12 and I am pretty sure I need about double that space!  I have room for a friend or two, but not for a class, I'm going to have to get a large dinning room table or find a separate venue for classes.  But for my little card making business and ministry this will work. 

I hope some of these ideas help you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny M