Karin's ScrapBlog

I have a tendency to leave things unfinished just before the end. I'm breaking that cycle now, first I finished my Me: The Abridged Version a few weeks ago and now, yes ladies and gentlemen, I finished my December Daily 2010!

I'm leaving to spend Christmas and New Year's at my parent's tomorrow so yesterday was my last chance to finish the album before the end of this year. And I did it!

I did five pages before dinner, and finished the final five by midnight. Well... technically, "The End" rolled out of my Silhouette exactly at midnight. Kind of fitting, huh?

It only took me about a year.... Ahem, let's just try to do better for this year's DD.

I've also been using my Silhouette more. I usually search my dies for what is in my head for what I want for a page but I've often not been able to find what I want, and then I'd think, hey, wait a minute, I can make anything I want using the Silhouette! It started with the "2011" on my December Daily 2011

For the DD2010 I've done three elements with the Silhouette, and I've also made a birthday card with pennants cut using the Silhouette.

You'll see another trend in the photos above. For this year's December Daily I started taking pics using Vignette (A sort of Instragram/Hipstamatic for Android) and decided that it would be fun to use those types of pics for my December Daily. Something about the grainy and grungy quality of the shots and edges fits really well with the album I have in mind for this year.

Here's a few shots I made for this year's DD

Well, I have to go now and pack, so I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So I did a December Daily last year. You wouldn't have been able to tell from my blog because, well, uhm, I didn't finish! I wasn't going to scrap each day as it was, so I was planning on sharing the album when it was done. Which didn't quite happen.

Now it's December 2011 and I knew when I saw The "25 days of Christmas" line by Simple Stories that I wanted to make another one this year.

Another motivator for me to get going is that apart from the Smash books I blogged about earlier I also am now thinking very hard about doing Project Life next year. I have more or less settled on doing that digitally, after finishing my "Me: The Abridged Version" (MeTAV) digital book which is now in production at Blurb. And then there's One Little Word which I started early this year but never got beyond the first month, thanks mostly to my year not going quite as planned, which I'm now thinking of trying again next year, and I'm also seriously considering joining Cathy's Move More, Eat Well class.

So I had to make a pact with myself, to at least finish last year's December Daily and get well on the way with this year's as well, before the end of the year. It felt really good to finish MeTAV, although that's another project I know there will be a sequel to, I even started a group on Flickr for everyone doing or having done a MeTAV album. Anyway, finishing = good and I want to do a lot more of it.

So, today, I'm sharing my December Daily 2010 as it is now, and my new December Daily 2011 cover. And check back with me by the end of the year, I will be showing you the last page of that 2010 album!

I'll only show you a few pages here, but I can tell you that I got up to day 21 so far.

And now, here's my just finished cover for 2011

The cover size is 9" x 7", I used the chipboard that came as packaging in the QuicKutz magnetic books for storing Cookie Cutter dies. Papers and stickers from 25 Days of Christmas by Simple Stories and Basic Grey Basics line. "daily" letters are velvet thickers, and 2011 was cut using my Silhouette. I've used Fiskars and EK success border punches for the top and bottom borders.

I've made this cover using this video tutorial by Following the Paper Trail for making a 3-ring mini album.

The rings go through holes punched in the spine, and are embellished with ribbons on the outside.

This was a really fun cover to make. I love how it looks now and can't wait to start adding pages. Like last year, I've chosen not to make foundation pages up front, because I like to adapt my page to the photo(s) I add, so I won't be done quite as fast as others.

Oh yes, who would've thunk it. I've actually gotten into this Smash Book idea.

I'm a clean & simple scrapbooker. Give me some paper and I can make something with just a few pieces. And pretty much all of it will be straight, and pretty flat on the page.

So the idea of a smash book where you just, well, smash stuff in should be a bit frightening to me. It's not. I think the idea is pretty genius. I have a box full of boarding pass stubs, theater tickets, passport pics, and all of it I know will never make it into a scrapbook album. But now I will have a place to put them!

I'm actually not sold on the actual smash books, I'd rather make one myself.

Or three. Because what I would like to do is one that contains random bits like the stubs and tickets and other fun things that you might gather up in everyday life, one containing inspiration ideas like cutouts from IKEA catalogs (shudder, gasp! Cut into IKEA catalogs?? Yes, that's why I get a second copy :) Which are all still intact right now so finally time to get out the scissors!) and so on, and the third will be for quotes, which I'll mostly be printing off Pinterest

Because I'm making my own I'll have to figure out what to use. I have a stack of scrapbook paper that I'm fairly sure I won't be using for albums or layouts anymore (although I did give a bunch of paper away a couple of years ago, I finally do some "use it or lose it" and now I regret it. I'll never be able to throw anything away now!) and some other novelty paper that's sitting in the basement in a moving box. I'll be throwing those through the paper cutter and the Cinch.

But I have found a book, or album that I couldn't resist for this purpose, at one of my favorite places. IKEA.

I'll give you one guess which color I bought it in.

The pages are white. Not so much fun then, but the coil binding is Cinch/BIA compatible so I figured I could dismantle it and put some of my own paper in. But then I saw this pin. Now, this is actually a page from the blue smash book by K&Co, but it looks stamped and either someone thought it was, or figured that you could make that yourself using stamps. That's pretty genius. I would still have to take the coil apart to be able to stamp all the way to the edge of the paper, but this would be a fun way to play with stamping.

I haven't decided yet which of the three smash books this one's going to be though. I have other projects to finish first anyway, but my box of smash book things is filling up pretty well in the mean time.

First I'm off to finish my "Me: The Abridged Version" album, finally. Started over a year ago but now I'm really motivated to get it finished before the end of November. And after that, finish last years December Daily album, start this year's December Daily album, and then I'll restart One Little Word. Oh, and I'm thinking of doing Project Life next year too. Argh. I might be taking on too much here.

Edit: Ok, so I'm supposed to be finishing my MeTAV but I couldn't resist. I have a gazillion stamps that are just great for this idea that I've practically never used. So here's my first attempts at stamping the IKEA album pages.

I started scrapbooking at the Kreadoe 2005. I went with my mother and that's when I bought my first scrapbooking supplies. I still have & use the Silent Setter I bought at that fair.

For those who don't know, the Kreadoe is an annual fair for all things creative. With 250 booths I'm pretty sure it's the biggest craft fair in the Netherlands (and if I'm wrong tell me right now because I'd be missing something! ;-))

Ever since that first time my mom and I have made it an annual thing. We go to the fair to shop for our own and our shared crafty hobbies and do workshops, mostly in crafts that we don't do ourselves to learn something new and take something nice home.

Because my parents just moved house in September I thought perhaps this year we weren't going, but my mom said sure, so I went ahead and bought the tickets. I noticed on the Kreadoe website that there was a contest, when you bought your tickets at Pipoos (dutch craft store chain) and filled in a form online you had a shot at winning a Kreadoe Gold Card, which would give the holder lifetime free access to the Kreadoe. I figured hey, why not, so when I was at the Doe@ding demo days a month ago I went by the Pipoos at Rotterdam Zuidplein and bought the tickets, filled in the form, and figured that would most likely be that.

We'd agreed to go on Wednesday, so the day before I was pasting together info on the workshops that were there when I got an email. At first I didn't think it was anything special, another newsletter about the Kreadoe or something. But then I read the subject again. Did it really say "Congratulations for winning the Kreadoe Goldcard"???
I opened the email and my mouth was just hanging open. It really did say I won!

I was even more shocked when I got to the agreed upon location yesterday afternoon and I was told I was the only one. Only one shot in 600 participants. Oh My Goodness........

So here I am with the biggest smile on my face, the biggest bouquet of flowers, the Gold Card (well not the actual card, that would be a bit small on the photo) and the price Pipoos threw in.

I've never won anything like this. It's very cool, I have to say.

So I really need to thank my mom for coming this year, and of course the Kreadoe and Pipoos for this amazing prize. I will be seeing you next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and, well, you get the picture.

The rest of the day was a blast too, we did a workshop at Dilian's Art World which was a lot of fun and a great result. This is one you really should see for real, the photo really doesn't do it justice, I'll try to make a better one soon.

We also made some items using aluminium thread at Hobbytrend.nl. Tricky to get right, but they had some amazing creations on display.

Before we knew it was 5pm and it was time to go. This was one Kreadoe I will certainly remember.

Recently I got interested in coloring Magnolia (and the like) stamps using Distress ink. I'd been looking at Copics from time to time but I'm one of those people that would want all available colors and that's just WAY too expensive. Besides, I wasn't sure if the marker thing was for me. But then I read more and more about coloring with Distress inks. I had about 10 colors and I had some watercolor paper so I gave it a shot, and I loved it. So I went ahead and got the rest of the colors (some in ink pads and some in reinkers)

I haven't had time to do any cards yet, just tried out coloring a few times, but the organizational bug caught me up so I have some nice storage items for the ink pads and the drops of ink to color with.

I saw this system at a few bloggers that use distress ink reinkers for coloring. Unfortunately I forgot to bookmark them.

These are plastic boxes for beads I bought at Pipoos. They were on sale at the time which is always nice.

I watercolored and stamped using each color on some watercolor paper and wrote the name of the color on, and stuck that to the bottom of each box. Then add a drop of the colors in the box (in the case of the colors I have pads and not reinkers for, I used a bit of plastic sheet, in this case leftovers from used glue dots, and rubbed that on the pad and dropped it in the box)

At first I had all the pads in one long box that I could set up straight and lay down when I needed any, but I was looking for something better.

Soroya has made some wooden towers in the past but unfortunately she stopped making them. Then last weekend I was at a craft fair and I ran into some great storage towers from De Scrapheap . They store 12 pads each, so you need three to store the 36 standard colors. I don't have all the colors in pads, but I do have the limited edition fall pads heading my way and will probably get the christmas ones as well so I got three.

These are the towers as I bought them.

They're made from MDF, with slots in the sides to fit the pads. They fit perfectly, slide in and out easily. The only problem for me is that the oldest pads I had, which I bought back in 2006 seemed to be slightly higher than the rest, and they would get stuck. So I filed the plastic edge of the pads down a bit and now they fit just as well as the rest.

I painted the towers white using acrylic paint and covered them using GCD Rose Colored Glasses paper, which fits very nicely in my pink scraproom.

I haven't painted the inside, not because it was too much trouble, but because adding a layer of paint would mean the pads wouldn't fit properly anymore. I only painted the top edge on the inside. I love how they turned out. I think I haven't finished an alering project like this at all before but I'm certainly going to do more now. I have plenty of this paper left :)

I like diaries & day planners & organizers. Problem is, I don't actually use them. They just sit at home with a handful of entries at the start of the year.

Recently I bought a bigger purse so I could take some things along with me that I normally wouldn't because it didn't fit. So I figured I could try and find a small (but not tiny) day planner that I could take along. I like organizers because you can just find a new refill instead of having to try and find a whole new day planner that fits your requirements. So I bought a pocket size organizer at HEMA. Their refills are interchangeable with the big brands (I had one of their bigger refills in an organizer I bought in the US), so if I find a really nice pocket organizer I can switch. The pocket size pages are 81mm x 120mm, or 3 1/4" x 4 3/4")

What I also like are custom pages. So I decided to try and see if I can punch pages to fit the organizer using the Cinch binding tool.

Here's how to get the 6 holes needed for the pocket size organizer pages.

Pull out all pegs except 1, 4 and 7 (those three are the ones that will be punched). Keep the ruler all the way pushed in and punch your pages. Then pull out the ruler 3/4" (the 7" line on top is aligned with the 1 3/4" line of the pull out ruler, see photo) and punch again. Voila! Perfectly punched for your organizer!

Update: I also found the settings for punching pages for personal/slimline organizer pages (171mm or 6 3/4" high).

Pull out all pegs except 1, 4, 8 and 11 and pull the ruler out by 1/2". Punch your page, now pull out pegs 4 and 11, pull out the ruler by another 3/4" (total 1 1/4") and punch the final 2 holes.

When the year started and I read about Ali Edwards' One Little Word online class I was keen to join with my word for 2011: Alive!

Since the summer of 2007 I have been suffering from shoulder pain, up to the point I couldn't work and could do less and less in anything else. A real diagnosis didn't come, endless physical therapy never led to a real solution, just small improvements that allowed me to do something, getting back to work only to fall back again. So early this year I decided enough was enough. Last year I did experience that positive thought had a great effect on (the perception of) my symptoms, so I was determined to just power through and get my life back, I would feel alive again in 2011!

But in March, my physical therapist, after another fall back, decided to test me again. He had successfully helped me get rid of a lot of muscle tension, and underneath that... the truth finally came out. My shoulder was unstable. The shoulder capsule was either torn or too wide. I would most likely need surgery. Though I had been thinking there was something more to my shoulder problems, not just bad posture or overexertion, and had wanted a real diagnosis, this did startle me. I would be in a sling for 4-6 weeks, and then there would be a long rehab process. After the initial shock I was relieved. There really was something wrong that could be fixed. I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon specializing in shoulder problems, saw him early April and was up for surgery only 15 days later. It all went really fast. Unfortunately the same thing can't be said for my rehab. I'm now over 3 months on from the surgery and I can only just drive my car again. I can't lift my arm sideways beyond 45 degrees. I have a ways to go.

It's a waiting game. You mostly 'sit around' waiting for improvement. Something I have done in the years before the surgery, with the difference that I'm now actually working on the solution to those problems that I had no real idea of whether they would ever go away before. But it's still no fun having to wait to be able to pick your life back up. Thankfully I've found a really good physical therapist for my rehab who's helping me with both the physical and mental aspects of the rehab process. She works in my parents hometown, which is where I have been staying since the surgery, away from my scrap room. Now that I'm slowly picking up driving again I hopefully can go home soon, and slowly pick up my work and scrapbooking again.

So instead of working on my One Little Word of 2011, "Alive", my 'word' for the moment is "On-Hold". One of these days I'm gonna find that remote and press play, even if it's only at half speed. "Alive" is coming, one way or another.

Yes I'm still on the crochet hook :)

So much so that I started a seperate blog for it!

I moved this post to my new blog. Here's a little peek at the crochet hook wrap.

Meanwhile my december daily is coming along well. Over half the pages done, I'll post some of them soon.

No I haven't ditched scrapbooking and taken up another hobby. I do still scrapbook but I haven't had a chance to update my blog with the latest. I decided to do a December Daily 2010 and it's on it's way. I also joined Ali's One Little Word workshop for 2011.

But last week I came across something in an advertisement from a dutch hobby shop chain and it's now resulted in this new creation:

My first ami ami dog, from the dutch book "Minihondjes haken" by Mitsuki Hoshi which is translated from Japanese. There's an English version on the way too.

I love this book. There's a ton of great pictures (which sometimes instructional books tend to lack), and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow. The dogs are all very cute but pretty realistic too which is what appealed to me.

Lessons learned: I crocheted a bit too tight making the dog smaller which makes the eyes and nose a bit too big. I also need to try and be more consistent, it's a little uneven in places. And I did fill the body with plastic 'granulaat' filling but I think the heavier glass stuff will work better, the plastic isn't heavy enough for such a small dog. But all in all not bad for a first try when my crocheting experience consists of a bunch of flowers.

Wow time flies doesn't it? I thought I'd keep up with my blog this time but it's been over a month since my last post already!

Thanks to all the ladies commenting on my scrap room here and on the crafty storage and Maria's blog. It's great to know my room is an inspiration!

Winter is getting near, we've gone from DST to 'winter time' today. And because it was getting colder I decided to see if I could help out some local birds with some bird food on my balcony. I used to love watching the little ones around our backyard at home. And it's working! They're even staying long enough for me to make some pictures and I decided to scrap one of them.

And before you start laughing at the title, that's really what these little cute birds are called, I didn't make it up ;-)

I also made a layout and a few cards for Scrapware using Imaginisce Christmas Cottage paper and the Quickutz Special Delivery gift set.

I'm really starting to get back in my scrapping groove so hope to be back soon with more!