A clean room

well sort of. Cleaner than it has been. I found a use for that canvas box I got at Target forever ago. When I bought my Expedit, I bought some canvas totes to go in there. I ended up not liking the way it looked.

So this guy sat empty in my room for a long time. And now, he holds all of my new stuff. Everything that comes into the store that I MUST have is in here.

My Clip It Up - all organized again! And yes, those are all sheets of letters. Mostly Thickers.

My Bazzill collection. Not that I use it. I just look at it.

My post-it note section above my desk. Whenever I'm out and a layout idea comes to me, I jot it down on a posty and stick it here.

And for those of you wondering where I came up with the idea for Rascals Corner, well, he really does have a corner in my room. That futon chair is his. Complete with pillow and down filled blanket.

Busy.....

Making things. I'm in a creative vortex right now.

Be back later with more layouts.

To answer a question left in the comments about the Clip It Up. Is it worth it? Well, I got it on sale so yes I think it is worth it. And before, I had no really good way to hold all of my sticker letters. I hated not knowing and the 'filing' system I had never allowed me to see what I had without sifting through. And as I collected more, the more difficult it became to maintain the filing.

So I think my CIU allows me to better see what I have, how many of them I have (because you can never have to many sticker letters, you know) and to organize them by color. Actually within each color section, they are organized by chipboard, felt, plain stickers, vinyl etc. So I can see ALL of the red chipboard fonts I have in the same place.

I know some people make their own and if you have a room where you can do this - I say go for it!! Personally, I didn't have a place to do this without drilling more holes and covering up my pretty blue walls. So I chose this route. I have enough extra space in my room to do this.

And hopefully, part of this creative vortex I'm in right now will allow me to clean some of this room up. The piles are getting to me!!!

What Makes me happy?

These little Maya Road chipboard keychains. Here is my 'What Makes Me Happy ATC keychain. I used the new Collage Press papers and some Making Memories Tiny Alphas.

For the title, I took plain chipboard letters, inked them and then coated with a thick coat of Glossy Accents. I love the epoxy look this gives things and you can personalize any plain chipboard to match your project. I use the Cats Eye chalks but you can use any ink/chalk available. When I coat with GA, I used the pigment inks instead of the chalks. I get a deeper color.

And some pictures of my room right now. There are literally several piles of projects and I'm slowly working on each of them. The awesome pumkpin patch photos from last week are going to be put in a mini album this weekend. Looking forward to having at least one less pile in my room.

My way-too-full Clip It Up. I love this thing! I can display all of my AC Thickers (I think I have just about every font in every color) and other sticker letters. I have them sorted by color and then by texture. seems to work best for me. I hate putting them away though. I get a bunch out and then let them sit on top until I can't find what I'm looking for. I hate to organize!

And my Martha Stewart Spiders. Found these at Michaels the other day and my husband wanted them for his haunted porch on Halloween. Yes, Haunted Porch. I glittered them up so they catch the lights from our front yard. Thinking about adding some red crystals for eyes, but maybe not. I have serious arachnaphobia so I can only work on these during the day - and even thats hard!

I still have to scan the layouts I've been working on.

Pumpkin Patch

We took Nicholas to the pumpkin patch for the second time this year. The first time, he was a little scared of the pumpkins and wouldn't go near then. So we tried again. This time, he wandered all over trying to pick them up. He kept going for the larger pumpkins which was funny. He kept trying to pick them up. Finally he tried smaller ones and was then able to pick them up. (Nice, only one of my frames shows up. Oh well!)

He also stole some ladies blow up bat that she won playing carnival games. Good thing she thought it was funny. Some 15 month old just comes along and swipes her huge blow up bat. I was laughing to hard to figure out what he was doing and actually capture that in a picture.

So now, he loves the patch. I figured we'll go back once a week and let him play. Still too young for the rides but maybe next year.

Long Weekends

I love them. You can get so much done.

More time with family and more time to be creative. Just one extra 'off' day every week would be nice.

How was your holiday? We took Friday off to celebrate the 4th of July and then it was back to work filling orders! A lot of you took advantage of the sale this weekend.

If you missed it, don't worry. We're working on the CHA Summer Sale. Its time to clear out the old stuff and make room for the new.

If you haven't seen some of the Sneak Peeks from the manufacturers, you can find link to our favorites on the sidebar. We'll be adding more as the weeks go by and definitely after CHA. We're bringing in more new companies to the store after this show. Very excited to expand again.

Some of our favorite sneaks would be from October Afternoon, Pink Paislee and American Crafts. Did you hear about the fabric Thickers? Sounds like another must have!

So many new things coming. We've seen a lot of holiday lines coming up. Even though its only July, the holidays are right around the corner and that means projects, cards and more! I'm sure we'll see some amazing samples at the show and we'll be sure to update you.

We'll be checking in each day to show you everything we've seen and done!

I've added some ideas to my Gallery. And of course, the Design Team is amazing as always. Lots of different projects, layouts etc. A different aspect from each of the girls!

Don't forget the October Afternoon contest. Post a layout using any of their paper lines (or embellishments etc) for a chance to win their NEW line - Hometown. This will be shipping mid-month but to give them time to actually ship it, we'll end this contest on 7/27/08. The prize will include the entire line of papers, embellishments and rubons!!

I'll leave you with some pictures from the 4th:

4th of July Banner

I made this really quick last night for the 4th.

Jenni Bowlin Chipboard Banners

Scenic Route Liberty papers and chipboard.

First....

we want to thank everyone who's placed an order this month and taken advantage of the free shipping.

And now on to the links and pictures. This is going to be long and picture heavy.

First, the link. I know a lot of people love Prima products but some can be intimidating. I was recently showing someone a Prima Paintable and how I'd used some of it on a card for someone. (I'll post a picture of the card later in My Gallery). I took a class once with Kelli Crowe. She's a designer for Autumn Leaves. It was actually her first class but she did a great job. We stamped images and then used watercolors to paint them in. Very cool. And it distresses the paper a little bit. Anyway, when these Paintables came out last year I'd been wanting to try it. Well, as any scrapper knows, sometimes we just can't do every technique and layout idea we have on our list to try. It wasn't until I saw THIS from Prima last week. Its a Youtube video on how to use Paintables. Its a few minutes in on the video but its a really good idea on how to use the watercolors to paint in the areas you want. I even had a package of watercolors I'd purchased after taking Kelli's class so this was perfect. Its something everyone should try - at least once.

Of course, I wasn't satisfied buying the regular, old 99 cent case that we send to school with our kids. You know the one, the store brand with 8 colors. No way, Jose. I got the deluxe case. 16 colors from CRAYOLA!!

These babys go on bright. I mean, very bright. If you want color, buy these. They are not your ordinary watercolors. They even dry with a slight 'waxy' look/feel to them. Almost like a crayon but without the crayon marks. But really cool effect. I mounted the painted area of the Paintable on black cardstock so it would pop out more.

And as any busy card-maker knows, I waited till the very last minute to make this card so I never got a picture of it. I will be getting it back from them so I can get a quick picture to post.

So, the Paintables are available in the store. Very cool product to use and at the Winter show, they introduced CLEAR Paintables. So you have cardstock ones and now clear acetate ones. Very cool.

And a mini book I've been working on. I only get 45 minutes for lunch at work so I make the most of it. Of course, by the time I drag supplies out and tools, its pretty much time to clean up. But, I did manage to get this little cutie done. I used the Book It! Chipboard pack from Fancy Pants (on clearance in the store) and painted it orange. I used all kinds of good stuff. Bazzill Scalloped papers, new Lil' Davis Designs Epoxy letters (these are fun to work with!), new Prima felt letters (another fun thing to work with - and so much more. I posted the supplied used for each page in My Gallery. But here are a few pages.

The Book It Chipboard comes with pre-cut chipboard pieces to make 2 mini albums. One 4x4 square and the one I used, the tabbed one. There are some extras like flowers in the pack as well. You can see them here. Just something cute to have on my desk at work.

And finally, I'm always searching blog out there. I love to see what you guys are creating. Its awesome when you leave comments and I can link to your blogs. There is so much activity out there in blogland. I see people posting pictures of their scrapbook rooms and 'studios'. This is my creative space. Just a note, the last time this room was this clean was when I painted and moved into it almost 4 years ago. So, consider yourself very lucky to get to see the clean room. It probably won't be this clean again once I get started on projects. (Remember when I said June was dedicated to finishing my started projects? Well, I'm working on that and cleaning up this room!)

1. Rascals Corner. Yes, he really does have a corner. Thats his chair. Thats where he sits and watches. He's truly spoiled as most pugs are. The story with this room (or loft) is that when we first moved into this house, it was out second family room. We had a futon chair and full futon in this room with an entire entertainment system set up. We had the builders install in-ceiling speakers which ROCK! This was our other space to watch movies and just relax. Or a place for me to watch tv while Bryan was wathcing the one downstairs. In true male fashion, he bought the largest tv known to man to fill the gaping hole that is the media niche downstairs. My first scrap room in this house was the spare bedroom. I outgrew that. So, I started designing the loft as my next space. Our master bedroom is large. Larger than a normal master and very hard to fill. So we moved the futon in there. The futon chair, however, stayed right where it was and became Rascal's Corner. I have my Ikea Expedit shelf there for all of my idea books and stamps. I file my clear acrylic stamp sets in 3 ring binders. I love this idea since I can see everything I have just by flipping through the pages. Oh, and I love that big window right by my desk. Lots of light during the day.

2. Computer desk and some storage. These cabinets are actually garage work benches from Lowe's. All laminate material. The printer is on a shoe rack from the closet section! Who needs the Target cubes?!? And this is where I run YSS.com from.

3. My Donna Downey Storage system. I love this thing. It holds all kinds of small things! And my Pug Webkinz sitting there.

4. Main Storage. Once again, who needs those Target Cubes? I priced those but for $25 or more a piece (!) I couldn't shell out that kind of money when I knew there was a better solution. My dad is an engineer so I worked with him on this. I designed it and he made sure it was installed properly and to every building code there might be. I spent about $175 for this. The bottom left corner are 3 of the tall cubes from the closet section at Lowes (or Home Depot - they carry the same stuff). Just the laminate stuff. I got these on sale at the time, so I paid $18 for each of them. Those Target cubes go for $25 EACH, so thats $75. See, I told you there was a cheaper option. They fit side by side.

On the right side, I used their drawers. Two stacked equaled the same heighth as the 3 cubes. Perfect. I bought a piece of laminate thats 48 inches wide and 8 feet long. Thats the desktop. More cubes on top with another piece of laminate across the very top. This piece is 24 inches wide and 8 feet long. The bottom half sticks out from the wall allowing for a little storage behind the cubes and drawers. The desktop is secured to the wall and has a piece of wood as a bracket to support it. (see, it pays to have an engineer in the house!) The upper layer is flush with the wall giving me a lot of working space. I mainly use my drafting table and this space is for visitors.

5. Music - still loving those in celing speakers!

6. My collection of KI Gloo and Glossy Accents. My two 'go-to' wet adhesives. And my bling storage. Yep, thats my Swarovski crystal collection.

7. My lamp. Curious George.

8. Journaling tags. I just keep a basket handy and all journaling cards go in there.

9. My comfy chair and craft apron.

10. Paper storage. By company.

Oh, and Elle has some new goodies in the shop. We already ordered some so look for those to start showing up with your orders!