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Month: April 2008

ORGANIZING YOUR CRAFT SUPPLIES – Part 3 of 3

Continued From Yesterday:

** Don’t Over Buy – Use what you have. Try to resist the urge to buy new papers, punches and embellishments until you’ve used the craft supplies you have. I know this is really hard to do. I can open up a store with all the papers and embellishments that I have. Take a look at your inventory before you go shopping, this will save your wallet of unnecessary items and you might just find something you forgot you had. How cool is that it’s like going shopping in your own craft room.

** Shop Online. You’ll save a lot of time running back and forth to your local craft store if you decide to shop online  for your craft supplies. Everything you need can be shipped right to your doorstep and sometimes you save money on the product and also the sales tax. Come on people we all like to save money so we can buy more.

** What to do with things you just don’t use anymore. If you have something you haven’t used in a year or more, such as craft scissors or stickers, paper, donate them to a local church or daycare facility. Some times even senior centers are looking for crafty items. This is a good way to give back to your community.

** Multitask. Looking for a few minutes here or there to catch up on your Scrapbooking or Card making? Take and make phone calls in the same room that you designated for your Craft Room for Scrapbooking or Card making. Then, while you’re on the phone with your friends or family, you can crop, frame or mount at the same time. Or, instead of making punches when you need them, make a bunch of punches at once while you’re watching television, or are on the telephone, or when you’re waiting for a pot of water to boil because where I live that takes awhile. This will save time later because your punches will be ready when you need them.

** Clean up scraps. Always keep a wastebasket near your workstation, all the scraps that you’re not planning on using can be tossed immediately. Don’t leave trash on your work surface.

** Put it away. Always have a place for your supplies, and when you’re finished using them, take a few moments to put everything away. You should be able to start fresh with a clear mind and a clear surface. Plus I am a clean freak.

** Spare time. Those spare minutes that we all have can be put to good use. Have to wait at the doctor’s office for your appointment? Sketch out a quick layout idea. Waiting for the wash cycle to finish? Sort some photos or gather supplies for tomorrow’s Scrapbooking or Card making project.

** Write it down. I am known as the list person, everyone always busts me about it, but I rarely forget anything. So don’t ever leave your home without a small notebook in hand. You’re bound to come up with a thought or cute caption for your scrapbook. Inspiration is everywhere, but if you don’t write down your ideas, they may disappear forever. You may also want to keep a small pad and a pen near your bedside, in case you have a bright idea in the middle of the night. It is amazing what your brain can think of in the weee hours of the morning.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Organize Craft Supplies Part 1

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 2

ORGANIZING YOUR CRAFT SUPPLIES – Part 2 of 3

Continued From Yesterday:

** Storage Containers. Do a little bit of research and purchase a Scrapbooking and/or Rubber Stamp organizer, which will hold papers, rubber stamps, supplies, etc. There are many products on the market that can help you keep it all together. Many office supply stores carry six-drawer organization stations. They’re vertical and have 6 see-through drawers of equal size. Each drawer can be designated for a different purpose -papers, templates/die-cuts, stickers, etc. Plus, they have wheels, which make them very easy to transport from one room to another. Or, if you often bring your Scrapbooking or Rubber Stamping supplies outside of your home when attending a crop party or to a friend’s house, use a portable system that isn’t too heavy and comes with a handle and wheels for easy transport. Again my favorite is Crop-In-Style Navigator. It holds everything that you need for a night out or weekend scrapping event. If you are a Stamper, Crop-In-Style also has a tote that has drawers inside to hold your rubber stamps and supplies called the Stamp Store that works really well.

** Try a kitchen gadget caddy. If you always Scrapbook and make Handmade Greeting Cards at home, use a kitchen utensil caddy with a number of divided compartments, like those you normally keep tall kitchen spoons, ladles, and spatulas in. They hold your markers and embossing powders in them perfectly. The ones that spin will you’re your most used supplies at your fingertips.

** Hang it up. If you’re lucky enough to have a Craft Room specifically for you Scrapbooking and/or making Handmade Greeting Card, hang a large pegboard above your work area. You can then attach scissors, templates, crimpers, rulers, stencils and more, all within easy sight and reach. In addition, you might hang a small ledge or shelf nearby, to store all of your corner punches, paper trimmers, embossing powders, and so on. If you prefer everything out in the open, this system will work like a charm. Check out the new Rack system by Lisa & Becky.

** Save stickers and shapes. Stickers and punched shapes can be kept in acid-free sheet protectors, plastic baseball card sheets, business card sheets. Each sheet should be categorized and labeled by theme: birthday, Christmas, Halloween, wedding, springtime, etc. Insert these sheets into a 3-ring binder. If you have a large number of stickers and shapes, you may want to purchase a sticker binder designed just for stickers. My favorite is from Crop-In-Style sticker binder.

** Minimize and organize magazines. Are your bookcase/shelves full of Scrapbooking magazines and or Handmade Greeting Card magazines? You can go through your magazines, find the articles you wish to keep and organize them into file folders by category, or in a 3-ring binder. In other words, keep the articles, toss the magazines. There are many Special Edition Magazines that I store in a large 3 ring binder all in tact.

** Choose a designated work area. Scrapbooking is more fun and less of a chore when everything is in one place. If possible designate a room, or a portion of a room, in your home for this activity .Organize your work area for increased productivity. Make sure it’s well lit. Find a comfortable chair to sit on and keep your supplies and tools within arm’s reach.

Organizing your craft supplies Part 1

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 3

ORGANIZING YOUR CRAFT SUPPLIES – Part 1 of 3

Organizing Your Craft Supplies:

Find the system that works for you. Different personalities require different organization systems. Just get a system that works for you and the space that you work in. Also get a system that will allow you to grow as your supplies grow. You don’t want to keep changing your system all that does is confuse you and then you have no idea where you put things (I know, it’s happened to me).

If you find things easier when they’re alphabetized, then use that type of system. Perhaps you’re better at finding things by color, or maybe you prefer to organize by manufacturer. It’s all about finding the style that makes you most productive.

** Storing photographs. Once your photos are developed (or printed), you need to store them safely until you’re ready to put them in your scrapbook. Keep them separated by year or event. There are so many different products out on the market to store your photos in, just make sure that they are acid free and archival safe. Don’t forget to Label the outside this will save you time later when looking for a specific photo or event.

** Store embellishments and other items. Sometimes, for the purpose of creatively decorating your scrapbook, you may wish to keep tickets, brochures, maps and postcards, golfing score cards that are related to a particular trip or event. Use manila file folders, and label them so you know what is inside. File them away until they’re ready to be used. Once you want to add these articles to you scrapbook page, a good idea will be to spray them with an acid free, archival quality protective coating. Again there are many different kinds on the market. I use a spray from Rogers Craft Source called Scrapbook Protectant Spray.

** Organize paper. Where do you keep all of that cool paper until you’re ready to use it? Many Scrapbookers use paper racks to organize their paper. Vertical paper storage also is a great alternative this is my choice for storing paper. It is easy to pick out your favorite colored or pattern paper quickly. You can get a plastic, portable filing container just make sure that it is archival safe. There are also hanging file folders available. Label the hanging files by theme or color. If you don’t have room for all of these racks and filing cabinets, Crop-In-Style has a portable Paper Taker tote that also works fantastic for all size papers.

You may also want to buy acid free photo boxes to hold blank Greeting Cards and Envelopes for your handmade card. You can label the outside of the box with the size of the cards and also the color of the cardstock. This helps when looking for a specific size/color blank card.

** Storing Rubber Stamps. Shallow, plastic containers work best. You shouldn’t stack rubber stamps; the reason is that it will be easier to see the top of the stamp that shows your design. In my case I have thousands of stamps so I do have some that are stacked but I also have then in plastic containers that are labeled with the theme of the stamps inside.

** Store tiny stuff. For very tiny die-cuts and other small items such as brads or eyelets, check out storage containers at your local craft store or even hardware store. They have great items for organizing. Baby food jars or any clear containers serve the same purpose.

** Keep it together. Already have a pretty good idea of stickers and die-cuts you’re planning to use with a particular set of photographs? Keep them in the same storage product that you have chosen for your photos until you’re ready to put them into your scrapbook. This way, everything will be in one place and ready to use.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Organize Craft Supplies Part 2

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 3

CORRECTING SCRAPBOOKING SCREWUPS

The Scrapping Screw-Up

Every Scrapbooker has done it, I know I have. I know that you will one day. I am talking about A Scrapping Screw-Up.

Picture this – You have just finished the most beautiful, totally awesome Scrapbook page, and you are sitting back thinking that this is the best one yet and all of a sudden you find “IT”, a sticker that ripped, a miss spelled word, a rub-on that has worn off, a finger print. Well do not worry about it; here are a few tips to fix up your “scrapping screwups” instead of starting over or the worst throwing out what you thought was your best ever scrapbook page

What happens though when you have a ripped or misplaced sticker?

There are many ways of fixing a misplaced sticker.

* If you didn’t place the sticker down too hard then carefully use any really sharp object like the tip of a craft knife or even a pair of tweezers to help peel up the sticker. You can place another sticker in the same place of where the sticker is you have duplicates or you may have to add a different embellishment where you took the sticker off.

* If your sticker is stuck to the page and you can’t get it off using the technique above, there is a product called UnDo which takes off the sicker and if used correctly you can re-use the sticker once it dries.

* If these techniques don’t work consider placing a small picture in its place or a larger sticker or another embellishment over the top to cover up the mistake.
Ever have a Rub-On that gets rubbed-off?

Everyone loves rub-ons now days since they come in so many different styles. The alphabets come in a variety of fonts and colors and now they even have sayings that you can use inside your Handmade Greeting Cards, but at times rub-ons don’t love us. I know I can’t tell you how many times I have had used a rub-on where only some of the rub-on goes on so I have to get it off. Here are some tips for when rub-ons go bad.

*Lets say that you were rubbing on a word create and you accidentally rubbed on some letters that should not be in that work, you can use the tip of your craft knife to scratch away the letters that are misplaced.

*If your rub-on is incomplete. I mean that if you are rubbing on the letter “T” and the line on the top is missing, you can use an acid free pen of the same color and fill in the missing spots.

Using rub-ons are going to be so much easier and worry free now that you know how to fix your mistakes.

Found a miss spelled word in your journaling?

No problem. There are a couple of ways to fix that. If you have typed the word or hand wrote it, all you need to do is re-type or re-write that word on either the same color paper or different and cut it out and place over the word. If it looks out of place, retype a couple of other words even though they are spelled correctly and it will look like you intended for some words or sentences to be on different kinds of paper. You can even adhere with a small brad or eyelet for a cool look.

So next time you find a mistake with your spelling, stickers, or rub-ons don’t worry. There is always a creative way to fix it and no one will ever know but you.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

CORRECTING SCRATCHED OR STAINED PHOTOS

Have You Ever Had a Photo that is Scratched or Stained?

As a Scrapbooker you know that the most important part of your scrapbook is the photo, and if that photo gets messed up by getting it stained by your coffee cup that is on your work station or scratched by one of your Scrapbooking tools, then you don’t have a scrapbook page with a photo now do you.  Well do not worry I have some ideas that I have used personally and some that my friends have used and said that they worked for them and they just may be the ticket to save your scrapbook page. Never think the worse until you try some of these tips.  What do you have to loose?

The most common mistake I have is doing a wonderful layout and then when I think I am done I realize that I have scratched or smudged my photo. Don’t Worry. Reprint the photo and replace the bad with the new.

Well sometimes it’s not as easy as that so here are a few handy ideas:

If the scratch is on the corner of the photo you can easily cover it up by using a corner paper punch, or with a photo frame, or even photo adhesive corner tab to cover up this scratch.

Another method is using an embellishment such as an eyelet, brad, ribbon ties along the edge where the scratch is, or a sticker will work great too!

Another technique to use on a scratched photo, when near the edge, is sanding.  I have not done this personally but a lot of my Scrapbooking friends have and it looks fantastic.  Take a small piece of sandpaper and rough up the edges all around the photo, if you think this effect will not go with the theme of your layout then take some paint and give the photo a brushed border effect.

If you notice the scratch or tear before you have added it to your scrapbook page, of course you can reprint this photo especially if it is in a bad noticeable spot of the photo.  But what if this is the only photo that you have and can not reprint it.  You may want to use your scanner and scan it into your computer and clean up the photo using Photoshop or one of the many computer photography programs that they have on the market.  Doing this your page will be perfect and no one would ever know that there was a problem  OR  if you don’t have a scanner and photo software you can add the scratched  picture to your scrapbook with a little caption “sorry this picture is scratched, but it’s the only one I have”.  This to me just shows that everyone makes mistakes and it can still be perfect!

One of the other fears a Scrapbooker has is when you are scrapping and you spill a drink and the photo gets wet or stained. That is why I always print two pictures. I never know when I am going to need that photo, and if I don’t need to use that second picture it  can go into a frame or I will send it to that special someone who was in the picture or was at that event and give them a smile.

So do not fear, if you have a scratch or a stained photo there is always something you can do to make it look Great!

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!