A Peaceful Thursday in Portsmouth

Well I am still in Ohio; will be heading home on Saturday.  I was able to have dinner with my dad tonight at Bob Evans ... one of his favorites.  We had their farmhouse burgers (really good) and vanilla ice cream.

Worked on my crazy quilt project yesterday.  Will post pics of the new stuff this weekend.  For some odd reason, my iphone won't load my pics the last few days.

Stopped by Big Lots and got a letter P monogram rubber stamp ... the only one in the store, so it was meant for me, lol.  Got a scrapbook techniques book and a watercolor technique book.  Since art school isn't in the cards; I'm gonna try to learn something to improve my drawing this way.

Used the watercolor technique book and did a page in my art journal; except I used colored pencils instead of watercolors.  My sketchbook won't do watercolors and I only brought colored pencils and markers not the watercolors.  Again I will post a pic of the art journal page this weekend.

Helping my son's girlfriend to learn to quilt; so far we have finished two baby quilts this week; and are going shopping for the supplies for a third tomorrow.

Opened an ecrater store - Heritage Scraps

I opened an ecrater store to sell my stuff in, currently I am listing die cuts, but have much more to add. 

Heritage Scraps ecrater store

Hope you will stop by and see what I have and find something you can use in your craft projects; I have 1000s of more die cuts to list, but am listing some everyday as possible.  If you are looking for something in particular, you can email and ask.

First I am focusing on getting all my small green Sizzix dies listed.

Got a New Cricut Cartridge - Heritage

I got a package in the mail today, woohoo!

My second daughter, got me a Cricut cartridge for Mother's Day; and it arrived today.

It is the Heritage cartridge and I am about drooling over it here.

So many images that are so cool; and will be useful in scrapping those old heritage and heirloom photographs.

Another Article Published at Associated Content

Have been published again at Associated Content.

This article is about

8 Simple Ways to Use Paint Chips in your Scrapbooking

Lots of great ideas to use this free resource creatively in our scrapbooking and paper crafts projects.

Woohoo! Published at Associated Content

Had an article published at Associated Content; hope you will check it out.

How to Find Free or Dirt Cheap Scrapbooking Supplies
Scrapbooking supplies need not be expensive to be creative. In fact, creativity often increases as we focus on cost-saving ideas.
Read More

New Article Published!

I just received notification that an article of mine was published on Associated Content.  Hope you will take a look and find it helpful.

How to Find Free or Dirt Cheap Scrapbooking Supplies

It lists free or extremely inexpensive items that can be used in your scrapbooking; and gives some useful tips on using them.

Cricut Cartridge Master List

These are all the Cricut cartridges that I currently own: updated as of 16 Feb 2010

50 States
Animal Kingdom
Basketball
Cuttin' Up
Dreams Come True
Fabulous Finds
George and Basic Shapes
Going Places
Home Accents
Jasmine
Jubilee
Learning Curve
Makin' the Grade
Mickey and Friends
My Community
My World
New Arrival
Paper Doll Dress Up
Plantin SchoolBook
Pooh and Friends
Printing Press
Simply Sweet
Spongebob Squarepants
Stand and Salute
Street Sign
Stretch Your Imagination
Walk in my Garden

Organizing Family Photos

In another chapter of my ongoing organizational efforts, I am trying to get my family photos organized.

I am also an avid scrapbooker, so have some photos that are in scrapbooks. Most of the other photos have long since been removed from those destructive magnetic photo albums that were so popular in the 1970s. They absolutely will destroy your photos. These photos are stored in 3 photo boxes made specifically for photo storage. Originally I had divided the photos in the boxes, placing all of my dh's family pictures in one box, all my family's pictures in a second box; and then all of us and our children and grandchildren in the third box. This has gotten a little unorganized over time; since when the kids look through the boxes they see no need to return them to the proper box. I have also made an effort to label each photograph on its back. I include who is in the picture, where it was taken, when it was taken, any occasion that it may be of, etc. Again this is not 100% completed, as I occasionally find unlabeled photos in the boxes.

The biggest problem for organizing photos is trying to organize all the digital photos as they number into the 1000s. With digital cameras, no requiring any expensive developing, to see our images, we shoot infinitely more pictures. A birthday party now can have 200 photos; instead of the 24 that the roll of film limited us to.

Also being a genealogist, I have scanned 100s of family photographs from near and far family members.

The problem comes in labeling, organizing, and ultimately being able to easily and quickly locate a picture when I want it. And I admit that I am probably only doing a C- job of digital photo organization.

I have made many stabs at getting them organized. Some of my efforts have been:

1. I created a folder on my desktop that I named Pictures; and I drag all pictures on my computer into it. So that they are at least all in one place.
2. I have created subfolders in the Pictures folders in the following categories:

• Crafts - pictures of crafts I have done, or pictures of crafts I have seen that I would like to do or use for inspiration. There are sub-folders within this sub-folder for the various types of crafts I do; such as: Quilting, Crocheting, etc.
• I have a subfolder for each family surname that I research, and place all photos of that family in each folder. Within the Talbert folder I have a subfolder for each of my children, one for pets, one for places we go (trips, vacations, etc), one for reunions, etc.
• Scrapbooking - I am hugely obsessed with scrapbooking and have a massive folder with numerous subfolders about scrapbooking, such as: Sizzix, Cricut, Titles, Tags, Page Layouts, Pages I Have Done, Alphabets, Fonts, Borders, etc.

Now this may seem very organized but not really so much so. As there are 1000s of photos in there and there are many, many folders which are only labeled by the date that the computer imported them from the digital camera. Also when one of the kids stops by they pull their memory card out of their cameras and download a copy of all their photos onto my computer. Which is good because I have all the pictures and also good because they have a backup else where of their pictures. However, if they don't delete the photos from their camera after downloading to my computer; the next time they download it will download not only the new pictures they have taken since then, but they will redownload additional copies of the photos that were downloaded last time. This makes for tedious matching up to find the duplicates and delete them.

I guess, to put it into perspective. Yes, organizing is a necessary but tedious part of this; but that is only because we are blessed with the technology to save our littlest memories so easily. Our ancestors, would have priced as a priceless heirloom even one photo of that dear baby or of mother and father. So we are blessed, just overwhelmed. Like anything else, working on it bit by bit and having an organizational plan can help us get organized and remain organized.

Good luck with preserving those visual memories.

Cardmaking Organization

I have been organizing and decluttering all my crafting items. Giving away any that do not work for me, to make way for what does.
My dh seen how much I was getting rid of and asked if I was getting rid of all my good stuff. But I told him that I wasn't getting rid of my good stuff; I was decluttering so that I could find and use my good stuff.
I went through all my rubber stamps and on the first cut got rid of anything that I didn't like or could not imagine using.
Then after they were pared down some; I went through them a second time and separated the ones that I would use for greeting cards or ATCs or for mail art; from the others that were mostly for scrapbooking or altered art and art journaling.
Then I found a very large decorative tin and I put all my cardmaking rubber stamps in the tin; so even while they are just sitting on the shelf they are decorative looking. Plus when I decide to work on cardmaking I can just grab the tin and move it to wherever I am going to work at.
All my blank envelopes are in a box, standing on edge so I can flip through them to get to the one I want.
I got the majority of them at the local flea market; the lady had a large box about the size of a medium microwave and it was full of envelopes also all were Hallmark greeting card envelopes. She had a sign on it saying $4.00; so I asked her how many do I get for $4.00? She said the whole box and naturally I snatched up that deal.
I have also found at the flea market embossed greeting card blanks; using some of them last Christmas to make my own Christmas cards.
The scrapbooking rubber stamps I have stored in 3 drawer white plastic cabinets that I got rather inexpensively from Wal-mart. I have them organized by theme; like frames, Christmas, doodles, etc.
My idea is that the easier it is to grab my things and get working on a craft project when I have a few minutes, the more I can accomplish.

New Squidoo Lens on Journaling

Here is the link to my new Squidoo Lens on Scrapbook Journaling. Check it out for help in finding the right words to write your memories into your scrapbooks. Journaling breathes life into your scrapbook pages.

http://www.squidoo.com/Scrapbook-Journaling

Organization or Lack Thereof - Argh!!

I seem to be on an unending quest for organization.

I need to organize:

• my scrapbook supplies - I literally have more than many small stores - I am blessed to have all this but it needs to be organized to be utilized.
• 20+ years of genealogy research - I have almost stopped researching because I need to get a handle on the boxes and computer files I have already made. I still have genealogy in old word-processing files from before I bought my first genealogy management software.
• growing rubber stamp collection - so I won't buy duplicates and so I can find and use what I have bought
• large personal library which includes reading for fun books, craft books, cook books, reference books, etc
• photos - boxes and boxes of photos and according to my computer I have over 19,000!?!? digital photos.
• fabric - I am a quilter - therefore I have lots of fabric.
• paper - oh my! scrapbook paper, cardstock, vellum, chipboard, and not to mention that I adore stationary. I love paper and can't stand to waste it.

These are just the first things that come to mind. I have made many attempts at organizing each of these areas; but seemingly before I can blink they are out of control again.

Of course, life, and having 7 children and 7 grandchildren and 1 on the way complicates things, lol. But they are happy interruptions.

I'm on Squidoo Now - Check it Out

I have started on Squidoo; actually I put up a "lens" (what they call a webpage) there about Die Cuts for Scrapbooking. I had put this web up a while back but this week went back to look at it and no one had seen it, so I Twittered about it and posted about it on Facebook and I am up to 22 views. Which while it may not seem like much to you, just tickles me that I have finally a start on Squidoo.

My lens on Squidoo is about Die Cuts for Scrapbooking. Here is the link for it. http://www.squidoo.com/scrapbooking-4

I hope you would take a moment to go visit my page and rate it. Thanks!

Cricut New Arrival Cartridge

Today, I thought I would add a few sample die cuts from Cricut's New Arrival Cartridge. They are so cute, this one is a baby buggy.

The little diaper pins are adorable.

There are many words like this included.

Here is a link to a detailed article that I wrote about the Cricut New Arrival Cartridge:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1171218/cricuts_new_arrival_cartridge_has_over.html?cat=24

Cricut Animal Kingdom

This is a cat die cut from the Cricut Animal Kingdom cartridge.

This is the elephant from the same cartridge.

This is the bear from the same cartridge.













This cartridge also includes:

1. Horse
2. Pig
3. Piglet
4. Cow
5. Goat
6. Duck
7. Lamb
8. Goose
9. Chicken
10. Rooster
11. Turkey
12. Bird
13. Bear
14. Deer
15. Moose
16. Skunk
17. Raccoon
18. Owl
19. Squirrel
20. Camel
21. Elephant
22. Hippo
23. Ape
24. Giraffe
25. Kangaroo
26. Zebra
27. Monkey
28. Tiger
29. Rhino
30. Seal
31. Lion
32. Polar Bear
33. Penguin
34. Snake
35. Parrot
36. Alligator
37. Turtle
38. Rabbit
39. Fishbowl
40. Fish
41. Frog
42. Mouse
43. Hound dog
44. Lab type dog
45. Jack Russell type dog
46. Scotty type dog
47. Petey type dog
48. Cat
49. Lying cat

This is a paper bag album that I made. It has a vintage looking mirror on it, and a red heart jewel. The background is painted gold and textured, with purple tissue applied over that in a random pattern. The yellow fern and flower lace trim is vintage from my grandmother. The antique hat was a sticker. The purple granny boot is a Sizzix die cut. There is a piece of a paper lace doily that I antiqued in the upper left corner. And a purple round sequin. The old newspaper is from a patterned scrapbook paper and I cut out the specific definition that I wanted and then burned the edges with my Hot Marks tool. It is held together with loose ring binder clips, that are accented with purple and gold ribbons and a faux tortoise shell heart charm.

This was my first attempt at a paper bag album.

I Like Sizzix

Here is a picture showing most of my sizzix, they are stored on a bookshelf that is narrow depth because it is sold to store your CDs on.

I have my alphabets like the Lollipop, Fun Serif stored in white plastic drawer containers. Each complete set of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and punctuation fit in one drawer. So I can easily get out the alphabet I want to use and cut and then easily put them away.

The yellow drawer cabinets above hold buttons, beads, laces, trims and all little items like that.

Gingerbread House die cuts Available!

Sizzix Gingerbread House die cuts now in my Heritage Scraps store.

Check it out

Available in your choice of color.

http://stores.ebay.com/Heritage-Scraps

File Folder Die Cuts Available!

Sizzix File Folder die cuts available in my Heritage Scraps store.

You pick your color.

http://stores.ebay.com/Heritage-Scraps

Mini Scallop Cards & Envelopes Available

I put up another ad in my eBay store, Heritage Scraps.

This one is for 10 Mini Scallop Cards and 10 Matching Scalloped Envelopes.

You can pick your color.

Look here to see them:

http://tinyurl.com/57kv5v

Here is a link to my eBay store, Heritage Scraps; you can see what else I have for sale.

Stop by and take a look around.

http://stores.ebay.com/Heritage-Scraps

60 Gelly-O Bookplate Die Cuts in 6 Shapes For Sale

I put up another ad in my eBay store, Heritage Scraps.

This one is for 60 Gelly-O Bookplate Die Cuts in 6 Shapes.

You can pick your color.

Look here to see them:

http://tinyurl.com/5u46xm

Here is a link to my eBay store, Heritage Scraps; you can see what else I have for sale.

Stop by and take a look around.

http://stores.ebay.com/Heritage-Scraps