In progress

For easter for my preschool children I am making some paper cake slices. Here are some pics of them. Their not done yet.. but thought I'd post the in progress pics. I'm going to be adding some fake baset grass around the eggs!

Time to play

I have found when I'm stressed the most with the day to day things of life. I look to my crafting the most. It's a release. I have to admit I also use cleaning for this as well. Somethign to bury myself in. Makes you feel as though there is some progress in life. Even when other areas are in choas. Scrapbooking is one of those things you can sorta control... lol. I say sorta as often you make mistakes that you have to learn how to turn around and make it work. I tell all the girl's int eh classes I teach..

There are no mistakes.

They have learned this so well, to where the moment they ask me oh no I messed this up.. they answer themselves by saying "I know I know there are no mistakes." and they tell others who are new tot he class the same thing.

This week is a very high stress week for me. There's alot of very personal things going on.. and I plan on diving face first into my scrap area. I do not plan to come out until the week is over.

I plan on working on some easter things. I never know why I wait until the actual holiday to work on things but I do it every year. I wait until the week of Christmas to work on Christmas items. Makes no sense at all. I know.. its just me!

What do you dive into when stressed?

15 Minute Project

Here's a little project I did the other night. Took me only 15 minutes. A few pieces of paper, few pics, a little ink, some hot glue, and a few embellishments. Pretty darn simple. I also added some legs to it on the bottom to sit on just to add a bit of affect. I used some papers and embellishments on this I bought maybe 2 years ago but have yet to ever use for anything. They fit quite well with the lake pictures I used on this.

Thanks for looking ladies.

ALAS it's not always soo pretty....

So, like many of you out there... I rarly take pictures of thigns at their worst. But, with this blog I think its only appropiate to share the good as well as the bad. This is some of the "bad". This is my scrappin area when its not necessarily in use. Here's what happens.. I have no tv or radio in my area and sometimes it's sorta lonely in my little "nook". It's only about a 6ft by 5ft area. So, sometimes I pull thigns to work on a project into my livivngroom onto a craft table and work on a project.. byt he end I'm not feelign up to putting everythign away so it sorta gets put whereever there is a little space for it.. as you can see there's not much space persay. I like to share this as often I post pics on other networking sites of my site and everyone oooowwwww and aaaawwww's over how pretty n in place everything is. However, it's not always pretty adn in its place. In fact this very mess is sometimes the very reason I go a few days without scrapping, as I dont want to have to get back there and do the "putting away" I know is necessary. It sucks. When I used to have a room for my thigns everythign had a place and there was plenty of room for everythign to even be a bit spread out without being unbearable. I've learned to work with the area I have as there's only 2 other solutions.. move my supplies upstairs in the spare room.. where I fear my daughter would get into my stash without a proper lock on the door and well I prolly wudn't scrap near as often beign so excluded from the rest of the house. And the other solution, would be to have no area at all and well.. thats no fun at all.

Anywho I thought that maybe I would show you all that even me and my pretty prohects don't always come from a pretty place. It's often messy and disorganized. But, somehow I deal with it and make it work. Always stepping into it tryign to come up with better solutions to store things.. never coming up with anything better than the time before. Anyways, I just thought I'd share the not soo sunny side of scrappin.

I don't always get to cleanign up the scraps on my floors. And with runnign a daycare often throughout the day toys make their way into my area as well... Such is life.

When in a crafting slump..

Have you ever had a feeling like you wanted to be being creative.... yet you had no motivation to actually do it. Or maybe you felt guilty. I'm often overwhelmed with the fact that I know I should be doing something else.. like laundry or cleaning or something of higher priority. So, then I sit guilty I don't want to do those "important" things and shouldn't be scraping. Then what happens is.... I do absolutely nothing at all trying to convience myself I am fine to scrap.

Does this happen to you? What do you do?

Lately I've been going on ahead and scrapping. Knowing that all the other things can wait an hour or two or even until the following morning. Crafting is my release. So, I have been tryin to make more of an effort to make sure I do it. I still feel a bit of guilt. But, I've learned instead of making a page I may do some work on a project or work on some little things. Like maybe create a new type of flowers or a new distress technique. Just something. Anything. I have found that keeping a folder on my computer of things I find that inspire me. They could be layouts I loved the colors of, or see somethign ont hem I want to try myself, or a project that inspired me or a tutorial. Then onthose nights when I want to do something but not really sure I have one of two options... just start playing with things until I make somethign I like or.. look through that folder. I find that to work super well to spark my creativity. What do you like to do when you need motivation?

I find I am not scrapbooking as many layouts, but when I do scrap the layouts cause I am really "feeling" it i love them so much more than making them because I feel like I should be doing and want to be doing something crafty but not sure what.

I mostly scrapbook in the evenings. I find it relaxing and well I have no other time. I scrap after the kids have gone to bed and a silence and peace falls over the house. When do you scrap? Why does that time work for you?

How do you balance the things that need to be done and the things you want to do?