spring wish list 2011

(note: clearly i wrote this a a couple of days a go when it was 60something and not snowing again, like it is today! come on spring! why you gotta tease us like that?)

finally! instead of just raining like it's spring, it is spring! and, it's actually beginning to feel like it! it couldn't have come soon enough. spring is possibly my favorite season, mostly because of all the associated feelings of fresh, exciting things to come. i've been carefully cataloging possible spring necessities for a few weeks now, and with today being the beginning of the first week of spring, and my very first day of work at anthropologie, the timing seemed perfect. here's (just) 26 of the items on my spring wish list (of which i will probably end up with 7 or 8, haha)

01. share a sweet tweet bag 02. encircled effulgence posts 03. military henley 04. paige roxley high-waist trousers 05. word of the year necklace 06. after party flats 07. spangled stripe sweater 08. pierce eyeglass frames 09. gold chevron dangles 10. joe's denim shorts 11. ecote knotted fan thong sandal 12. fossil limited edition tote 13. autumn mixtape necklace 14. blurred chevron scarf 15. decade-by-decade skirt 16. fennec fox 17. urban ears plattan 18. equinox spectators 19. chelsea crew carly peep toes 20. liberty convertible satchel 21. tuileries dress 22. columba necklace 23. your sweet self socks 24. totes ditsy umbrella 25. borrowed boyfriend cardi 26. sheswai perfecto laquer 27. wooden heel oxford 28. striped grass fedora 29. eastpointe garden top 30. grey star canvas plimsoll 31. sunny soiree dress 32. p.s. i made this diy pom pom necklace 33. monster family flip video camera 34. sugar work skirt 35. raised teardrops hoops 36. matte is murder manglaze

friday five #41

01. i work at anthropologie!!! - well, i start monday! yes, after 3 months of pretty much totally freaking out, feverish attempts and business plans and a lot more freaking out i am crazy stoked to have been offered a job at anthropologie! i'm the new assistant home department manager and i can not even freak out enough about it! we all know how much inspiration all of us crafters, nesters and clothing & accessory addicts get from anthropologie, and now i get to be surrounded by it. the word, "blessed" comes to mind! i'm so excited to start on monday, and so relieved to not be freaking out anymore!

02. instagram - here i was all hooked on the hipstamatic app, but then sarah and simone put me on the instagram path when they were here for the martha stewart show. i love how easy it is to share your photos and really love that you don't have to pick your "film" and effects before you shoot and then chance it, you just take the photo and then try out a whole bunch of effects/"films" before you post it. plus... you get a square "viewfinder" rather than having to guess where it's going to crop it down from a rectangle. love it. oh! and it's free!!!

03. on my way - with my little home sales venture, a muse studio, and i love having the catalogs and product in my hands! i'll be able to sell from a consultant website also, which will go live on april 1st, so i'm going to have a whole launch weekend on my blog (with a giveaway) during the first weekend in april. more details and nerdy crafty gushing to follow.

04. the essie train - i'm officially onboard and, now that i am, i can't believe how long it's taken me to buy a ticket. okay, done with the train metaphor now, promise. i've been drooling over the colors on various tumblr's (and now pinterest) and i can identify a lot of the colors on people when i see them, but for some reason i hadn't purchased any until a couple of days a go. i'm currently rocking "sew psyched" and i also got "chinchilly"and, even though lavender is not usually my thing, i think i'm going with "nice is nice" next. love.

05. my first publication! - my, "walking on a dream" layout is in the april scrapbook trends, and my "london rain" layout will be in the create: embellish idea book also out in april/now! this is my first scrapbook magazine publication(s) and i'm so excited to see it in actual print, so far i've only seen the online version of one of the layouts. i'm really flattered that northridge picked my layouts, and love the little scene they shot the layout i've already seen in. i can't wait to see the set they shot "london" rain in!

inside my craft room: part two

welcome back! i hope you liked the peek into my craft room itself, but now onto organization! i know that most crafters are always looking for the best way to organize or reorganize their stuff, so i thought i'd share what's been working for me lately. my way is nothing close to the end all be all, but maybe it will inspire you!

this is a trick that's been around forever and something that a scraptasia customer told me about. it's just a simple over the door shoe organizer (although it was not so simple finding a clear one!) these aren't all my punches, but they're my basics (marvy plain circles and ovals and scalloped circles, ovals, squares and rectangles) i use them on so many of my cards!

since so many of my cards use these punches i wanted them close at hand. cheiron carries around a ring of these punch samples with her so that she knows what she has and what size punch will be perfect for each stamp or project.

then i took it another step and also saved and labeled the pieces i punched the shape samples from so that i can just hold them over a stamped image to figure out exactly what size punch i'll need!

i scored this stamp cabinet when we cut down on the amount of sample stamps we had at the store. i organized all my woodmounted stamps in the cabinet by season, occasion or theme and labeled each drawer.

here is what one of the drawers looks like just partially open! there is room for a ton of stamps in here. these cabinets are quite and investment, but i really love the look and how easily they store so many stamps.

i use 6x6" cropper hoppers to store my clear stamp sets that are 4x6"ish and of course have them organized with labeled dividers.

5x7" protect n store containers are the perfect way to organize all my smaller clear sets, individual clear stamps and completely unmounted rubber stamps by theme (yes, those categories are pretty ridiculous.)

for my cling mounted rubber stamps i use the thin stuftainers from stampendous and trim down and punch a hole in the stamps packaging so that i can attach them to the top of the stuftainer using a binder ring and easily leaf through to see the stamped images going the correct way.

this cute little panda container is from target and 2 rows of 6x6" paper pads fit perfectly!

for my pre-made card bases i use wood media crates from michael's! they are super easy to grab with a coupon and then just attach a fun piece of patterned paper to the visible bits to snazz it up a bit.

for my glitter, flocking and embossing supplies i use the two different depths of rectangular snapware.

both variations of the doodlebug glitter kits and the flocking kit all fit in just one shallow layer!

and you can also store 2 rows of stickles in each of the shallow layers and you are still able to see the colors from the side of the snapware. (i'm also working on color swatches of these to hang next to my desk!)

my buttons and brads are stored by color in those little supply organizers that you can easily find in the bead or sewing section of most craft stores.

my twinkling h2o's are stored in these cool nesting wooden trays from a shop called stamp hideaway that makes them themselves and ships! i love having them all in one place, and in rainbow order of course!

my ribbon bin is a little shameful as far as "organization" goes, but i don't mind sifting through for that perfect piece. i don't think there's really an end-all-be-all answer to ribbon organization quite yet.

for my paper i use 12x12" cropper hopper paper files. i gave them a general label on the front and then they are divided and labeled by company or holiday. i've gone through a ton of ways to divide my paper;bagged by project (back when i began), by color (in an idealist faze) and now this. i think this is the way i'll be sticking with.

cheiron also turned me onto these little copic shelves from studio 3 and i was really impressed when they came in the mail. they are so nicely constructed, and i love how the "shelves are mounted just slightly lower in the back so you're not accidently knocking markers out.

i think that the square snapware is the best way to store the dew drop sized ink pads.

and when you mount a little stack of scrap chipboard in the center and place your dew drops around it you can easily see all your ink colors while the container is still closed!

i use an old repurposed cd case to store my nestabilites. i bought a box of adhesive backed business card sized magnets and attached them to squares of paper labeled with each die sets name and then they slide perfectly into the cd sleeves!

ronda inspired me with her cutlery ink samples, but i tweaked them just a little bit and stamped an outline stamp with a more solid stamp inside so i could get the best representation of each color of ink that i have. these hang on the rail right next to my spot for easy reference.

last, but not least, i use the good ol' cropper hopper wheeled tower (i think from costco) for projects that are in progress, or at least pulled together already.

like i said, there's always some new organization idea out there, if you have one you think i'd be into, let me know! i'm clearly a sucker for organization!

inside my craft room: part one

the boy and i moved into our apartment in august and i've been pretty happy in my crafty room. until recently though, i had not been spending a ton of time in there since scraptasia closed and i wasn't designing classes and samples all the time. but with my newly (semi-) launched a muse studio venture (more on that soon!) and my new staff reporter status over at craft critique (yay!) i've found myself spending more and more time in my craft room and "that's," as martha would say, "a good thing!" as i've been spending more and more time in there i've also just about finished all the little touches and organization, and i've been wanting to share for a while. i was originally going to shoot a little video because i couldn't get pictures that were very helpful, but when sarah and simone visited at the beginning of the month simone luckily had a wide angle lens and shot these great pictures for me. thanks simone!

this is the view when you walk in the door. those little doilies on the side of my shelf are hambly and they always make me smile when i walk in the room. i'm lucky enough to have the corner room and therefore two nice windows for a whole bunch of natural light. oh! also, that couch there is actually a futon for guests, and that galleria quilt from garnet hill was actually my color inspiration for the whole room (and is currently on clearance.) you can't quite see, but the two walls with windows on them are a hot stone warm grey and the other two are the robin's egg-ish blue-teal.

i really, really lucked out this past christmas and my mom got me that wall mounted flat screen and the boy got me a new ipod dock and a tiny little dvd player, so my crafty time entertainment is totally covered. my "L" shaped desk is 2 unfinished ikea table tops that i painted just the edges of, and i love wheeling around in my fancy (not really, it's cheapie ikea) chair to get to my different table top tools!

those little cubby shelves (ikea) work perfectly for so many things and the fabric bins are all from target (including those 2 liberty of london ones.) the gallery lights mounted on the top of my cubby shelf are great for nighttime crafting! (do you like my cuttlebug doorstop? haha. i swear i use it for it's intended application as well!)

we all know that i'm a total organization junkie, and this rail system (ikea) and all that table top space really helps me out with that. those paper sphere lanterns are from ikea and those metal birdcages are from the good ol' dollar section at michael's, the stone grey/brown & white worked perfectly for the room, and for the third birdcage i just spray painted one that was originally orange!

i'm going to share a little more about all my little storage & organization set-ups and tricks on wednesday!

10 CHA faves + some extras.

l.a. was a weird, but good time! i highly recommend staying in little tokyo when you're in l.a. the amazing sushi, ramen (which i'm still dreaming about) and prime availability of hello kitty goods were all amazing, as well as the nearby yogurtland and weiland brewery! i had a great time with the craft critique girls and loved seeing a bunch of my other fave scrappy peeps. the c.c. girls kept me mostly sane during my flight home drama (4 canceled flights) and had a really great time seeing more of l.a thanks to sarah, and her cousin, who let me crash their family time while i was not-so-stranded in l.a. for an extra day.

the actual CHA show was pretty much a whirlwind, as always, and there was a whole bunch of new & inspiring things! now that i've had time to decompress i thought i'd share just 10 of my favorite new items/releases.

01.SMASH* from ek success - i pretty much fell in love with this the second i happened by the booth. i think my text to sarah went something like this, "ohmygodsmashbookdrooling." you can check out more pictures of the bits and pieces and my article all about it for craft critique here, the main break down is that there are 4 different styles of SMASHbook (at least now) that you use the SMASHpen (half glue stick, half pen) to SMASH things into the book with. then there are a whole score of cute accessories and embellishments to help tell your stories and save your memorabilia! it's kind of like a gateway drug to scrapbooking, or a modern approach to old school, o.g. scrapbooking. my favorites are the awesome date/saying stamp, washi tape with words, metal clips, pockets and the little jotters!

02. wrmk sew easy add-ons - i've already been loving my sew easy, but now there is even more to love; new floss (including bakers twine), new wider heads (including 2 different banner shapes) and a storage case that you know i'm dying to own! check out my full craft critique article here.

03. lawn fawn stamps - i'm loving this little company even more now that i've met the designer and friends who run it, they are so sweet and really love what they do! i really can't wait to get my hands on the "say cheese" & "critters in the forest" sets. i see so many cute paper piecing and copic marker-ing opportunities here! check out how cute their booth was, and some more of their new release in my craft critique article here.

04. hambly washi tapes - i didn't run across any scrappy ladies at the show who weren't loving hambly's brand new addition to their repertoire, washi tapes! they pulled from their new and existing paper/transparency patterns for the washi tape and it's something a lot of people, including me, are stoked to use, plus it was so fun to see a very pregnant allison, so cute!

05. sprinklers from october afternoon - awkward name aside, this mist-able paint, a new product for o.a. at least, is something i'm really interested to try out when it starts shipping. the basics are something i've already seen around the industry, but i'm pretty smitten with this set of colors here, especially "robot blue" which happens to match my nails right now. check out my october afternoon article right here.

06. "campy trails" thickers - it's no secret that i am thickers obsessed, and the fact that i'm picking just 2 new thickers fonts from the new american craft release is a testament to my desire to keep this post short-ish. i love, love, love the colors and fonts that coordinate with the "campy trails" collection. the "meadow" font is printed glossy chipboard, and usually i don't love all caps, but i am obsessed with the fact that these have a cream background. "forest" is woodgrain patterned glossy chip and just super yummy in general. you can check out the 4 new collections, and the rest of the thickers, in my american crafts article here.

07. crate paper's "portrait" collection - this is crate paper's wedding/heritage collection but i just see so many possibilities for this collection that it's crazy! the colors, patterns and chip bits are to die for. can't wait to get these in my mitts. crate paper's entire release from CHA is pretty awesome, if they can make me love a floral, they're doing something right. check out all 4 new collections in my crate paper article here.

08. new "double dot" patterns - the original double dot (tone on tone polka dots on one side, tone on tone distress on the other) has been popular for a while and now they have come out with 3 new double sided basics patterns! i love the new "journal" best and the hexagons on the backside of the "stripe" are pretty cool in some of the colors as well. i just think that the "journal" will make such a rad base for many a layout. you can see the rest of bo bunny's new stuff here in my craft critique article.

09. mme "stella & rose" - this is the newest rack collection from my minds eye and, as always, the colors are so saturated and beautiful i'm kind of drooling over them. 4 different color families, lots of new little bits and the 6x6" paper pads are pretty cool too.

10. maya road mini sets - most of maya road's new mini chip sets are pretty cool and have ideas spinning in my head already, but what really caught my eye were these two sets of mini canvas banners! i know that banners are everywhere, and they will jump the shark soon enough, if they haven't already, but these little canvas guys (they're only about 1.5" long) are really kind of precious, don't you think? how sweet would they be misted with splatters of pigment?!?

there is a ton more CHA coverage up on craft critique including tons of new companies from every crafty persuasion, and here are the rest of my articles from CHA;

* my cute stamps

* clip it up!

* webster's pages

* sassafras

* fancy pants

* making memories

an anti-valentine.

even though i'm loving love, i have spent my fair share of valentine's days single so i thought it would be fun to represent the singles with a little anti-valentine for the craft critique valentines day blog carnival.

i dug deep into my stash for this card, using one of my favorite papers from the old "obscure" collection by basic grey. tina was nice enough to let me borrow her polaroid stamp from studio calico and with some masking i was able to combine it with the miss anya stamp from the "special autumn" set by the greeting farm. the "love is for the birds" sentiment is old school a muse! i also pulled out my wrmk sew easy tool for a little easy-peasy stitching detail. (copics used; w1, w3, w6, w9. rv19, bg75, yr000 & pitch black spica)

p.s. this is what happens in our house when you attempt to photograph anything on the floor, haha.

friday five #40

i've actually kind of missed doing these, i was over them for a while, but now i'm back! at least until i don't feel like doing them again.

01. cans! - hey! did you know that blue moon comes in cans now? "brewmasters cans" according to the case. i know deep down that this is a step down in the beer world, but something about it seems fancy to me. it's just so much easier!

02. tiny books - boygirlparty is selling this adorable set of 3 tiny books as well as some pretty adorable designer sudoku collections over in her shop. i have always loved hee adorable little illustrations, mini paintings & stationary and i even own a couple of her necklaces! these would be perfect to take notes at cha in, but alas, i am trying to be thrifty!

03. craft critique - i'm super stoked to be reporting for craft critique! and, at one of the 2 most exciting times of the year for crafters, the winter CHA tradeshow in l.a. this time next week! you can check out my first article/review over on the website and look for tons from all of us during CHA!

04. nerd alert - you know how blog hopping can be, you click on one thing and an hour and 20 blogs later, you have a new favorite! that's kind of how i happened upon kinsey wilson's blog, and now i really want to take her "nerd alert" week long blog class for crafty organizational nerds. it's only $15, but like i said trying to be thrifty. i think i may just do it anyway, we'll see!

05. spring clothing fantasies - my fall and winter wardorobe has been pretty blah this year. basics are awesome, but not when you're just not feeling them. this upcoming l.a. trip has me thinking warmer weather clothes (although thus far the forecast is rainy and 60 while i'm there, but that's better than snowy and 5!). so i've been doing that horrible thing i do to myself where i go around bookmarking adorable spring-y thingies that i will not be able to buy, but will drool over about once a week, like this adorable open back ruffly top from jem that was featured on papercakes today. i love it!

and i'm done with week two...

i'm pretty sure i'm just destined to be about 2 weeks behind on this thing, but i'm okay with it, because at least i'm getting my notes and journaling down on paper each day, and that's what i wanted this album to be about. i'm also kind of loving the process of getting a whole bunch of miniature (well, 8x8) layouts done every few days.

cover re-do: my album was already getting a little too thick for binder rings even after having only done 15 layouts so far, so i made the switch over to an american crafts 8x8 modern album. with this album i also don't have to worry about punching holes in my pages. yay for that!

december 8th: the sights of christmas

for this one i had some fun with paper piecing, stamps & embellishments that i don't always reach for.

december 9th: ornaments

i used this prompt to document the first time we're combining christmas ornaments, i never knew there were so many fire truck and hockey ornaments in existence.

december 10th: wrapping paper

i was inspired by those awesome "what's in your bag" blog entires and diptychs for this one.

december 11th: rfd holiday party

apparently it is impossible to get a good picture at the roseland fire department holiday party, not last year and def not this year, so i documented that with this layout.

december 12th: the christmas tree(s)

i liked the idea of scrapping about our big tree, and including our little charlie brown tree so i landed on big tree & little tree, but then when it came down to putting it down in thickers i liked how it kind of sounded like a kids story or comic book, so i decided to go with "the adventures of big tree & little tree"

december 13th: christmas music

@heyjenrenee sent me a couple of mixes a while ago that she added the track listings to by printing screen captures of the playlists in itunes and i loved the idea. for this one i just printed a couple of my winter/christmas playlists from last year to do the layout about.

december 14th: opening gifts

this one was a struggle, but i like how it turned out. the journaling is about how some sort of gift giving shift has happened and i find myself enjoying the giving of gifts way more than the receiving.