My Favorite Era Layout - Harlem Renaissance

On Your Paper Pantry, the 2011 Travelogue Swap is well underway. The latest travelogue I received from Tamara was fantastic - the theme - Your Favorite Era. Only one problem ... I cringe when I have to go back into the past for a favorite era, for a couple of reasons ... but creatively, none of the paper companies seem to want to celebrate the fabulous vintage era of African Americans. I want to scream - WE SCRAP TOO YA KNOW!!! LOL




As much as I love Graphic 45 - it irks me that the selection is next to nil ... but you know what? ... there's this thing called GOOGLE!!LOL

I googled fabulous images and printed them out on vellum paper ... then dug into my stash for mainly black and white paper, charms and other pretties ... and I came up with my Harlem Renaissance lay out.



I found some wonderful charms from a company called Creative Charms ... and it was perfect. I also used some of the stick pins that I'd made last weekend.



The lesson? Don't let commercial unavailability stop you from creating. If you can't find it - make it!

~Happy Crafting!

Crop Occasions Event - Feb 18-20, 2011

Hello Fellow Bloggers!

I've been missing in action recently - my job sent me on some intense training (still studying!!) ... then, I had a little fun time at my first crop! My fellow SOC sister, Pam, hosted a crop event here in Northern Virginia, and I had such a good time!

I managed to complete nine 8x8 layouts and a make and take! I didn't do ANY spending, as I had previously entered a challenge to not purchase any craft related items for the month of February ... but I still had an awesome time.

I learned a LOT from my tablemates, Nikki, Lori and Nadine ... and it was wonderful to meet some local vendors!! I put together a little slide show below, and will be posting more pics soon!

My next trip coming up in October, will be flying to Oregon to paint with my favorite artist Jamie Mills Price!!

Hope to hear from you out there about craft events you've attended recently or are planning on attending!

Tiare's Technique Tuesday Challenge - Week 2

Tiare at Classy Scraps has some good challenges so far...and they are challenging me to finally do these scrapbook pages. I can't believe I have completed my 2nd page!! The challenge for Week 2 was to incorporate flowers. Here is what I created:

Mellow Yellow Card

Well, on the Art For The Creative Mind list, our swap for cards was Mellow Yellow. I am not a "pastel person", so the thought of thinking in terms of YELLOW were not easy,LOL.

I don't know how other folks lay out their cards, but I start with the cover, and then for me, it determines the rest.


I don't lay out my colors or anything beforehand, because I don't really know what I am going to do...I like to let the designs of the papers guide me. It took a while to decide what to do to the inside, but I kinda like the idea of giving a little something extra and making things "useful"... so I added some cute tags ready for the recipient to play with.

Brrrr...it's A Chilly April..Anyone Heard Of Paper Bag Books?

Well, I'm still burrowing in my house as the last couple of days its been in the 30's!!!...and it's April!!

What better way to pass the time waiting for the sunshine, than to play with paper. I've taken a little break - not too long - from painting, and I have totally immersed myself into paper crafts.

Most recently, on the Art For The Creative Mind yahoo group, we were issued a challenge to create a paper bag book. I was REALLY skeptical about this, but dove in, as it has been cold outside and I needed something to pass the time!LOL Well, how surprised was I to totally love it! Now, since this is for an upcoming swap, I'm not going to post any of the inside pages - YET - but I promise that as soon as I mail it out, I'll post some of the step by steps and inside pages.

Organizing Your Scrapbook Supplies

This weekend I tried my hand at making cards. For the past 4 years - yes, FOUR YEARS - I've been "collecting" all the beautiful papers, gadgets, brads, ribbons, inks ... all to make scrapbook pages.

Nope, nada - I didn't like it. I preferred digital photos and didn't like cutting up my pics - even if they were copies. But, I STILL bought the supplies, thinking well...maybe ... maybe I'll try again.

ATCs!!!..I entered a couple of swaps, loved the fact that I could use the scrapbook supplies for the ATCs ... and then this weekend, I spent Sat and Sun just making cards and doing some ATCs.

What fun I had ... and what a mess I made!!LOL


But, I took some old suitcases that I bought from EBAY a couple of years ago, and intended on painting - but found they were perfect for storing all those scrapbooking supplies I've accumulated.


Also, I picked up a wonderful set of chip board boxes - they will be painted one of these days, trust me - and put away the rest of my supplies. These boxes are so nice, and make everything so much easier to store my supplies right out in the open.

That's it for now, hope you got some ideas for storing some of those paper craft supplies you have hidden all around the house!