Taking Stock

I have been sorting out layouts that are in my existing albums, basically taking some layouts out of the kids' albums and creating some new themed albums: Celebrate, Travel, and Family. I think that all of my layouts have homes in an album now. I do have ideas for future albums, such as making a School album, or a separate Family album for extended family as opposed to immediate family, but this is good for now. I have a ton of school-related stuff to scrap for both kids this summer.

I've been planning a bunch of activities for me and the kids this summer, trying to work in educational aspects with each so we can learn about new things. For example, I'm thinking of taking the kids to Concord to where the Revolution started so we can talk about America's founding and birthday around July 4th. Also a trip to the Worcester Art Museum and then do some painting, etc. I am thinking of making a simple journal/scrapbook for Perrin to put photos and his notes, maybe a 6x6 spread per week.

I need to take more pictures anyways, I've hardly taken pictures at all this year. I took some at Perrin's party last weekend but I haven't even looked at them yet. I need to go through my pics and get a whole pile of them printed. I think that's been one reason I haven't done much scrapbooking, I haven't had any photos to scrap.

Fun Fair Results

We had the Fun Fair at P's school this past weekend, and I had my craft table set up. Mind you this is the first time I've ever done a fair, so I really had no idea what I was doing. I basically broke even, which considering my thoughts afterward, really wasn't that bad.

I realized I hadn't really considered my audience. While there were plenty of moms who looked at my stuff, the fair was mostly for elementary school kids, and if I did this specific fair again, I'd want to have more items that appealed to kids in that age group. Also, I definitely need more cards, including a better assortment of birthday cards.

I am thinking about doing another fair in May. It's a larger fair, and just for crafters. _E might make some wood items for me to sell too. I'm thinking I might alter some birdhouses and make some more canvases. In the meantime, I think I'm going to add some of my stuff to my Etsy store (I have nothing there yet, which is why I never mentioned it). I took a couple of pics at the fair this weekend, see them below.

And I actually started back in on my scrap space reorg last night. In the last few days before the fair I made a huge mess of my space as I finished things up. So, I cleaned off my scrap table last night, and sorted out some of my stuff. I need to make a run to Ikea sometime to get some drawer sets for my shelves for embellishments and other things.

*sigh*

Creative endeavors have been delayed a bit.....we've had some issues with ice on our roof and DH and my FIL have been out scraping snow and ice off our roof. One of these methods involves hanging out our skylights in our attic, so all my craft stuff had to be moved so they could set the ladder up under the skylights. So, things are on hold.

I've been brainstorming items to make for my craft table at the fair. I've made four more of those notepad holders, and I have the coasters to make a few more. I've found a few pre-made albums that I made at conventions or classes that I never used. I think next I'm going to make some cards. I have a bunch of ideas in mind, so if I can make six or so of each, I'll have a good batch. Some of the SBO sistas suggested that pre-made pages sell well. I have a whole bunch of pages that I made while teaching classes that I never added photos or titles to, so I think I'll embellish them up a bit. So far, all I've spent is the $15 for the table, so I'm in good shape.

Featured Article at Helium

An article I wrote was featured on the front page of Helium.com, an information portal. Oddly enough it was the lower ranked of the two in the category, go figure? It's a beginner's article, but go read it anyways, LOL!

Getting Started with Scrapbooking

Bad Blogger.

Nothing to report. Nothing new. Although my scrap table is mostly cleared off, and I've picked out some ribbon to make some cute coaster notepad holders (instructions HERE if you want to make your own).

Side Project - Craft Fair

Well, I found out the other day that P's school is having a Fun Fair in March, and they are renting tables for vendors. So, I got the bright idea of using up as much stuff in my stash as I can, and selling it at a table at the fair. E thinks it's a good idea, and the gals at SBO gave me some good advice and ideas for products that I hadn't thought of. So, I need to clean off my scrap table, and actually scrap and organize at the same time. *cringe* I could really use the extra $$, and I have so much extra paper and embellishments and alterables and albums that I could really put to good use, rather than just taking up space in my stash.

Sooooo......you may see some more crafty creations here too if I can get my act together. :) I have to pay for the table now, so that will get me moving!

Sorting, sorting, sorting

I haven't updated in a couple days, because I'm not doing anything too exciting. Right now I'm sorting through all of my scrap materials and putting like things together. I took a box and put all of the cards I've made, card blanks and envelopes in there. Any other cards I come across will go in there. Another box for ribbon, and so on. So like I said, not too exciting.

According to the book, you shouldn't even think about buying any new containers until you've sorted and purged, so you can see how much storage space you really need. Makes sense, but still hasn't stopped me from perusing the Ikea web site. I like their stuff because it's simple and cheap. So, later on after I've done my sorting and purging, I'll be making a road trip to our nearest Ikea (1+ hour drive, unfortunately).

I have been coming across a lot of scrap projects I've never photographed or scanned, so maybe I'll share those here occasionally so there's at least some interesting content once in a while.