Using Your Smash Book to kick start your scrap Mojo.

Hallo scrappy people!

I've wanted to start an "art journal" forever but it seemed like double effort since I tend to experiment with color combos and materials on most of my projects.

Some pages work out. Most fail the awesomeness test.

Michelle's Page Awesomeness Test

• Are the colors, patterns and item sizes vibe-ing with (or BETTER yet- against) each other? 
• Does this page make me wanna do a karate chop while yelling "DAUM! That's HAWT!"
• Does this page do something different from the ones I've done before?
• Do I feel like I used up all my energy and ideas making this?

If the answers are yes- we are good to go.
If not, I redo the pages at a later time.
But, while educational, that way of working is getting incredibly inefficient.
A solution was needed.

Enter K & Co's Smash line.
I've actually had 2 of these books in my stash for over a year without ever opening them up!

Then I got the "Eco" Smash book as homework.

My assignment:
Fill 5 pages using only products available in the store.
The book was to be displayed to hopefully entice shoppers to get their own.

What I came up with:

Sorry for the crappy iTouch photos.
These were meant to record the page as a sketch for my next project.

All stamps, papers and embellishments are available at Paper Source.

The book on display:

So how did this help my with my scrapbooking?

1. I made a page made in about 2 hours (a third my usual time).

2. The Smash pages helped define color combos, embellishment placement and photo sizes.

A Flair For Buttons Sunburst White/Color and Woodgrain Days of The Week pins. LOOOOOVE!!!

3. It helped me define what I actually wanted to say. 

I had 3 theme ideas and 6 photos all jumbled up in my mind. This is actually a huge sticking point for me in a lot of pages and I avoided it entirely this time. 

Scrap FX Kraft journaling notes item #2012191k

I'm also glad I finally got to use some of that Basic Grey Wander paper.
When I first got this in a kit a year ago I really hated the colors. Not anymore!

I also found some graph pattern vellum online. I did a little jig for joy when I saw the listing! You'll be seeing a lot of it in all my pages.

GRATUITOUS TODDLER SHOT!!!

Salome at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sound off!
How do you kick start your creativity?

MuChOs SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Working Moms and scrapbooking: A space and time dilemma

HIYA!
The last friday of June! Aeeee!
Where did my favorite month go?
It's been so CRAZY here!
I'm working 10 hour days and on my days off I have to do the laundry, the grocery shopping, the last minute scrapbook assignment finishing(not a good way to work AT ALL) and squeeze in Mom and wife time as well.

A page I made for the Gauche Alchemy newletter.
New washi prints are in at the Gauche shop! Thereare also new individual rolls available.
Swing by and check out the offerings! Gauche Alchemy on ArtFire.

I had NO IDEA how organized and truly amazing some of my favorite bloggers where till I tried working full time myself.

WAIT! Before I annoy a lot of people- being a Mom is full time but my two year old naps twice a day. I used nap times to do the chores so my evenings and weekends were free.
Well no more!

I'm on my feet most of the day- when I get home all I want to do is lie down and feel sorry for my poor exploded feet.

THANK YOU Aerosoles! I found shoes I can stand on for hours.  Soft soled, comfortable leather
and the color is awesome- yes they still look sort of grandma like but WHATEVER!
I need my feet TILL I am a grandma! :)

I'm having so much fun it's hard to admit I'm letting people down. The work I'm making could be better, the family wants me to PAY ATTENTION, my friends are all wondering where the heck I went.
Something has to give.
I salute the women who "play this game" every day- you are AWESOME! You are MORE than AWESOME!
You are heros.

AAAA!!! LOVE!!!! From gifbin.com

I'm currently working on a schedule of ALL my time and how I spend it.
I can't believe how much awful tv I watch and how much time internet shopping eats up!
The click through time and the waiting for photos to load is also telling me I need update my computer.
And my shopping was already a problem so it's getting cut off from the schedule entirely! (Except for Two Peas newsletters. I need to keep up somehow!)

I'm a hard worker but even scrapbooking can turn into a chore if you have to schedule it in.

Chevron paper is from my LLS- I believe it's intended for invitations.
I used my Smash tape for the first time- the machine is kinda flimsy but I love it anyway.

Is that the world's smallest violin playing JUST for me?
I take that jammy and SMASH it on the floor! Like THIS: SMASH SMASH!!!
No. self. pity!
I'm gonna WIN at this working Mom stuff!
All I need is a better schedule and I must admit- a strict routine.
Instead of seeing that as a bad thing I will remember I don't HAVE to scrapbook- that I love it and that  routine will enable me to keep doing it and getting better at it (which was my goal with this blog and with joining DTs in the first place)

So wonderful friday readers- what do YOU do to ensure you create consistently? Any hints on scheduling or organizing your space for most efficiency? Let's chat!!

So this is why I got myself into the busy mess I'm currently in.
Family.
The number 1 priority.

MuChoS SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Vellum circles ROOOOCK!

Over the weekend I had sort of a mini scrappy break down.

I gave away 3 boxes worth of stuff to my aunt who wants to get into scrapbooking.

I threw out a lot of "scraps" I had been saving for Project 360.

Have you noticed I haven't posted a Project 360 page in over 6 weeks?

It's just so much effort!

I think I will re-imagine the project as simple paper and photos- no matching embellishments. 

Just till I get back into the swing of things. 

I LOVE looking at the 8 pages I have from January but they took several days each to complete.

Here is a quick page I made while Miss Lola napped for today.

Materials: Crate Paper, Gauche Alchemy washi tape, Ormolu fabric strips and journaling spots,
Ali Edwards sentiment stamp (I wish my hand writing looked like that), Fancy Pants coffee filters,
Smash arrow clips (LOVE!!), vellum and Fiskars circle punches. Also the new K & Co label maker.
 I LOVE that thing!! It's so easy to use!!!

This is just a fun page to get the creative juices flowing.

I only made 4 original pages in May! 

Scrappy disaster! Everything else was a redo- all I see in my pages lately are the mistakes.

The photos on this page were taken with the Photobooth app. 

The photos are incredibly well defined for low rez so I think I will be using that app more often- each photo in the strip is 600dpi do you can enlarge them to 3 by 4 with very little noise.

A few detail shots:

Loving turquoise and red together lately.
K and Co arrow shaped paper clips will need to come home in multiples.
They are so tiny and perfect!

Punching vellum should have occurred to me sooner! I love using transparent items on my
pages because they add so much detail without cluttering things up. I'm given to adding
and adding till I just can't fit anything else so making pages like this is new for me.

So what did you accomplish this lovely long weekend?

The Eastern Oracle by Heather Hart over at The Brooklyn Museum.
You get to climb a roof! Awesome sauce!

MuChOs SmOoChEs!

Michelle

Punky Scraps Team Choice Challenge

The nefarious minds in Punky Scraps' Team A have conspired and come up with this list of items:

Tamara - Use Paint

Kat - Use sequins

Cheryl - Use a transparency (branded or homemade)

Kerry - white space

Marie - something you found in your bag

Jolanda - Use something orange

Can I work it? What do you think?

Altitude Adjustment
MATERIALS- Crate Paper woodgrain paper and buttons, Studio Calico stickers and Fab Rip, Pink Paislee Mistables ribbon, Making Memories Paper Reverie butterflies and glitter alphas, Cosmo Cricket black chipboard flowers, Divine twine from Reasonable Ribbon.com, Smashbook pocket, frame tranny from Hambly Studios, Ranger Glossy Accents

Left-over Euro and a card from the church where Letty got married go in the Smash pocket.

I finished this page in about two hours and felt really proud of myself- don't I rock? Yeah- no. I forgot that I was supposed to leave lots of negative space. This works perfect as a journal page though so I don't feel too bad about it.

Oh- second reveal- those orange sequins are TOTALY digi! I only had 1 so I just copy pasted the others using Photo Shop- aren't I clever? No, please don't answer that.
Go on and try your own Punky page now- time is awasting!


MuChos SmOoChEs!


Michelle

Punky Scraps Challenge 1,2,3,4,5

Eeeeeyy- How you doin'?
For this Punky Challenge I knew I wanted to do 3 things:
1, Use my Studio Calico filmstrip stamp- LOVES it!
2. Feature my Brooklyn bridges pix (There's 4 featured here, some are detail shots)
3. Start early (Failed)

Materials: Bazill cardstock, Making Memories metal rim heart, Tiny attacher, Top Boss Watermark ink pad,
Blue Jeans Zing embossing Powder, K and Co Smash tape and sticky note

The challenge for this week is to use
5 photos
4 alphas (All Sassafras sticks)
3 print papers (Ripped page from the black Smash book and a couple of Studio Calico prints)
2 colors of mist (Tattered Angels Patina and Emerald)
1 stamp- SC filmstrip FAVE STAMP EVER!
You also have to incorporate blue into the layout.

So this was a fast page but took all week for me to figure out how I wanted it laid out. I think the design could be more cohesive. Perhaps the film strip needed to be on the other side with the words running down the side.  I'll probably redo this page. I'm still trying to get a handle on misting and dripping- here I did those first and they dictated where all the other elements would go.

Ok so hop on over to Punky Scraps and give the challenge a try. The pages by my fellow teamies are AMAZING and put this little number to shame but there's always next week.

Chinese Scholars Garden- Staten Island

MuChOS SmOoChEs!
Michelle