Totally Trash to Treasure!

In my Andy's garage is a stack of about 40 corrugated plastic campaign signs. You know--the kind that you might order if you lost touch with reality and decided to run for the school board. They come in really handy sometimes.  I used a couple of them when I upcycled an old foot locker. (I was told that the term "upcycle" is much cooler than "recycle" or "repurpose." So there you go!) The signs are about as thick as a good piece of corrugated cardboard, but being plastic, they are much more durable. I have a  plethora of projects for them knocking around in my brain! One is ready to share with you today.

We spend most of our vacations on a beach, reading, dozing, enjoying the local beverages. I read almost exclusively on my iPod. Yes, iPod, not iPad. I enjoy my iPad, but I like the size of the iPod for reading. It probably sounds strange, but it's kind of like water skiing on one ski instead of two. No one believes it's easier until they do it. But I digress.... The one drawback to the iPod is the glare on the screen when you are in the sun. Since we will be on a beach again very soon, I decided to eliminate that problem by purchasing a Nook Simple Touch. It has an e-ink screen that looks like a printed page, even in direct sun. I chose it over a Kindle partly because it will open library books, while Kindles need a program to convert library books to their format, and partly because I already have 30 or 40 books in my Barnes & Noble library, as opposed to 4 or 5 in my Amazon library.

Of course it needs a cute protective cover, so before I even loaded it with books, I came up with a plan.

I've made covers for iPads and other tablets before, but they've always had three sections. Two sections fold around the tablet and the third works kind of like a flap on a purse or satchel to hold everything closed. 

This one really only needs two sections--a front and a back. 

I traced the shape of the Nook onto a sign two times and cut out both pieces. 

Then I dug out an old ripped out pair of jeans that one of the boys thought I could salvage (could or would?) and cut pieces big enough to wrap around the plastic. 

I basically sewed two pockets with a one inch wide strip of fabric between them. The plastic slips into the pockets to protect the Nook, but can be removed easily so the cover can go through the washer and dryer.

I used strips of clear vinyl sewn into the corners to hold the Nook in place. Some covers have fabric corners, some have elastic, and I've even seen some made with ponytail holders, but I like how the clear vinyl almost disappears. I used the same vinyl on the iPad cover I made over a year ago and it has held up very well. 

Next I got to "cute-ify" the outside. I didn't want to make it too foo-foo-ey because Andy will probably want to use it, too, so on the front I used an iron-on "P" that's been hanging around my craft room for years...

 and I made a pocket for the back. It's just the right size for a room key so we don't get locked out of the room. Or some cash to tip the housekeeper that lets us in if we do get locked out. In the rain. At night.

Not that that has ever happened....

I've been told that I should try making some video tutorials to put on YouTube. I think one of these covers might be a good project for that. They can get pretty complicated if you try to do silly things like have the hem of the jeans line up at the edges of the cover, but I think I can simplify it so it's not so confusing. If I decide to give it a shot, I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you would like to have a go at making your own cover (for any device) and want some nice sturdy plastic to slip inside it, leave a comment or send me an email. I'd be happy to share!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

Free January 2013 Calendar and Desktop

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! We're down to having just one day left in 2012. Can you believe it?! What? You can't believe it? Well, here's proof. January's calendar is ready to put on your iWhatever, other device, or desktop. Or you can even print it, like my grandmother does, to hang on your refrigerator. 

Enough chit-chat! Here you go....

I really liked having the desktop version for December on my computer, so I made a new one for January. I apologize in advance if you have to move all your desktop icons to the other side of the screen. The little snowman just didn't look right gazing off the edge of the page when I put him on the left side. I think most people probably have their icons on the left side of the monitor anyway. For some reason I like mine on the right side. Maybe because I'm right-brained? 

I made both of these with Coolibah on my iPad. If you would like to make your own, feel free to use the January calendar below. You can find help for making your own here, or get instructions for saving one of my calendars to your device in this post.

I made the calendar, too, with a program called Micrografix. I know--you've never heard of it. But I love it. Mostly because I'm familiar with it and know my way around. I'm perfectly capable of learning new things, but why fill my head with multiple programs that do the same thing? Isn't that redundant? Repetetive? Doing the same thing over and over? (Hee hee! One of my favorite lines from "Cheers!") 

Besides, I need all the space I can get up there for my new job. Yes, I got an honest-to-goodness J-O-B! On December 4 I started working at a locally owned bank, opening new accounts and trying to help with whatever comes in the door. I think the left side of my brain effectively shut down the right side for a few days at first.  I know that sounds crazy, but after four days of dealing with numbers, I couldn't solve a single puzzle on Wheel of Fortune, and I usually beat everyone on the show! Fortunately everything seems to be working normally again.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a Safe and Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2013! 

I'm Kind of Obsessed With This Ribbon!

Yes, I am aware that this ^ is not a photograph of ribbons. The ribbons to which I refer in the title of tonight's post are the same ribbons that inspired the brightly colored version of my December calendar and desktop. Mom and I saw them at Michael's a few weeks ago and I couldn't leave until I had a cart-full! Here's a peek:

The colors and designs are just so fun and cheerful, how could I resist?! Don't be surprised if they show up in at least one more post!

Ok. Back to the card....

Each year at "Stamp Club" we have a Christmas card swap. It's really fun to see what everyone comes up with. It's also nice to know that each recipient appreciates the effort that goes into every card.

You know where I got my color scheme. The design came from a card Andy's Aunt Sharon sent us. (Thanks for the inspiration, Sharon!) She used stockings instead of ornaments and her card stands vertically, but other than that I flat out stole scraplifted it!

To make my card I used the following: 

green glitter cardstock (Recollections Leaf from Michael's)

bright green cardstock (I used Paper Accents Sour Apple but SU! Wild Wasabi would work)

dark pink cardstock (SU! Rose Red)

bright blue cardstock (SU! Pacific Point)

white cardstock

white pigment ink

holographic embossing powder

SU! Ornament Keepsakes stamp set

SU! Holiday Ornaments Framelits dies

blue glitter embossing powder

"Happy Holidays" stamp

brick embossing folder

When I make several cards of the same design, I use a bit of an assembly line. 

First I stamped and embossed all the ornaments I would need, then I ran them through the Cuttlebug with the matching dies to cut them out.

Next I ran the white background pieces -- 5.25 x 4 inches --through the Cuttlebug with the brick embossing folder. I left about an inch of the paper out of the folder so I could stamp "Happy Holidays" across the top and emboss it with the blue glitter embossing powder.

I cut strips of the green glitter paper half an inch wide and 5.25 inches long.

 I cut, scored, and folded the cardstock for the base of each card. I made some from the blue cardstock, some from the green, and some from the pink.

Almost there.... 

I adhered the white brick background to the base, layered the strip of glitter paper across the top row of  brick, and placed the ornaments on the brick. 

There are a lot of steps, but each one is pretty easy. 

Now I need to get busy on the rest of our Christmas cards! These have WAAAAY too many steps and pieces to make forty of them! I'm still using the ornament stamps and dies, and there is an embossing folder, but the design is much simpler. I'll share that one with you once they're all in the mail!

Do you have your Christmas/holiday cards finished? NO? Then why are you sitting there reading about mine?! Get to work!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

The Grand Tour

Whew! After several weeks of moving and reorganizing, my new room is finally (insert loud screeching sound here)!

******************************************************************* 

One week later....

OK! Let's try this again! My new room is finally ready for me to use! WooHoo!

I thought it was ready about a week ago, but there was a glitch with the computer. We had to move the biggest piece in the room away from the wall so Andy could redo the wiring. Ugh! 

But now we're up and running and I'm ready to make something! I have several pictures to share, so here we go!

This is what you see when you step into my room. Do you Stampin' Up folks notice that color on the top of the walls looks a lot like Baja Breeze? The bottom of the walls was already black, and I just really didn't feel like painting that much, so the black stayed! The wall to the left faces north and has a window. The wall to the right faces east and lets in great light. The desk in the corner holds the computer, scanner, and printer. To the right of the sewing machine is a tall narrow chest of drawers that holds fabric. Several jars of buttons and sewing notions sit on top. The old library table in the center of the room makes a great work surface since we had a new piece of glass cut for it. The original piece of glass met an untimely demise when it found itself at the wrong end of a shotgun in Andy's childhood home. That's all I have to say about that. 

Moving on....

This little storage cart fits between the chest of drawers and the cabinet perfectly and can be rolled out of the way if I need to reach deep into the corner of the cabinet. Before the move I had border punches on a shallow wall shelf, but I added the top two boxes so now all my punches fit here. Each box has Sharpie drawings on the front to show what kinds of punches are inside. Nothing fancy or elaborate--just practical.

This cabinet is eight feet long, twenty-one inches deep, and thirty-six inches tall. It was headed for the trash when I found it at our old high school. It's had three different homes in the last five years. Do you know how difficult it is to move an eight foot long cabinet?! Of course this is the piece we had to move when the internet went out! It's staying put for a while. Andy raised it about 6 inches so my work surfaces would have different heights and maybe my neck and shoulders wouldn't get so stiff from always looking down at the same angle. Isn't he awesome?! Just wait--you still haven't seen the closet!

An old Coke crate is the perfect size to hold Starbucks bottles. I really need to clean out some of my embellishments. Am I ever going to use thirty spice bottles full of brads and eyelets?!

Inside the cabinet is still a little messy, but the top is ready and waiting! We've worked our way around to the door (on the far right of the photo ^), so we're almost done.

Here, behind the door, is my curtain rod full of ribbon. 

I bought cheap shower curtain rings, added badge clips, 

and clipped the ribbon on by color. I think that's the 

best cheap storage I've come up with so far. 

Here's a close-up:

The shelves to the right of the ribbon hold my stamps, 
and to the right of those shelves are some shallow 
shelves that hold ink pads, re-inkers, and embossing 
powders. The small table below is actually a sewing 
table. Andy added an outlet to this wall, so it's a good 
place for the heat gun.

To the right of the "stamping station" is the closet. When you open the doors, sometimes you can actually hear a choir of angels singing! lol

It's so well lit that in person, it looks like a store display! The switch is wired in like a refrigerator switch. The closet in our bedroom is wired that way, too, and we've always said that if we ever build again we will put those switches in all the closets. (I really think Andy just did that so that I will keep the closet picked up. If I let stuff pile up in the floor, I won't be able to close the doors and the lights would always be on! He knows me so well!)

Last stop on the tour, around the corner from the closet, is what I have dubbed the work table. Andy built this for me several years ago when I was crammed into a 30 by 40 inch alcove in the corner of our bedroom. There's a pull-out under the table top, mounted on drawer guides, kind of like a giant keyboard tray. I can have things laid out on the pull-out but still have room to work on top. Nifty, right?!

The shelves to the left hold envelopes, card samples, and lots of tools and dies. I plan to leave the BigShot out because I use it quite a bit. The Silhouette has a nice home there, too, with the computer just to the right of  the shelves that hold paint, glue, and brushes.

So there it is! Now maybe I can get back to making! I HAVE to get my Christmas cards started!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

Free December Calendars (Yes, Multiple) and Desktop Backgrounds

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving. Most of our family had dinner at my cousin's house that day. She and her husband did a lovely job of hosting and even volunteered to have Christmas at their house!

 It's a new month, so I have a new calendar for you, but you have a choice to make! I made TWO calendars for December--one bright and fun, the other more traditional with reds, greens, and golds. Of course, you can always refuse to choose and just download both versions! I always use the calendars I post as the lockscreen on my iPad and the interior screen on my phone, so this time I'll have a different calendar for each device.

My mom and I went shopping Monday and found some beautiful ribbons at Michael's. Both of us bought far more than we will (ever) use, but we justified that by telling each other that we could sell the remnants in our flea market booth. Some of the ribbon I bought was so bright and fun that I decided to make the calendar using the same colors. It would make a good January calendar, too, and I thought about saving it for next month, but I've never offered a choice before and wanted to see what would happen if I did. So...here is the first calendar....

And these are the ribbons that inspired it....

Don't they just make you smile? I think these will look great on the silver foil paper I will use to wrap my gifts! I also picked up some jingle bells and glittery plastic poinsettias in the same colors. I can't wait to wrap everything!

When I finished the first calendar, I could hear my mom saying, "That doesn't look very Christmas-y," (Sorry, Mom!) and I had to agree, so I made another. Easy fix.

Both pages were made on my iPad with Coolibah, my favorite and most-used app! Each little sparkly gem on that tree was lovingly placed there for you by my caring fingers. If you need help getting the calendar to your iWhatever or phone, click here for instructions. This post from last January tells how you can make your own calendar using Coolibah. You can use this blank December calendar if you want to try it.

Andy thought I had lost it because I spent so much time on these, but I have a plan. I am going to use one or both of these as a scrapbook page! I realized recently that most of the calendars I've posted could be used that way. If you are a digi-scrapper, just use the page as your background and layer your picture over the actual calendar. If you are a paper scrapper, print the calendar (I'd probably use cardstock or a matte photo paper) then print your photo to fit right over the days and dates. 

If I can manage to corral both boys at any point during the next few weeks, I'll try it and show you how it turns out. 

I'm trying something else new this month. I would like to use the calendars I make as the desktop on my computer, but there's so much going on that it's hard to distinguish the icons. Soooo.... 

 I simply left the basic design and shrunk down the days and dates, leaving lots of free space for the icons. I was going to save this idea for January, but I'm really not very good at waiting.

There you have it! Now no one has an excuse for not knowing what day it is!

I'd love to hear from you! Let me know which calendar you like, or if the desktop idea worked for you. If you are able to use any of my calendars as a scrapbook page I'd love to see them or any calendars you create with Coolibah! Please send pics!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

Just a Peek at My New Room

Did you notice that I haven't been around for a while? The past couple of weeks have kept me hopping! I was in charge of the projects for last Friday's "Stamp Club." The next day I had a table at a local holiday show, so I had to make sure I had lots of Christmas cards and mini albums. Then on Sunday, Andy suggested that we move my scraproom--aka craproom! 

 When Cole graduated from high school in 2007, Michael moved into Cole's room and I moved from a tiny little corner alcove in my bedroom into Michael's room. Michael graduated in 2011 and ever since he moved out last January, I have been trying to decide if the extra space I would gain would be worth moving ALL THAT STUFF. 

 Oh, boy, is it ever! 

We started working Sunday morning, clearing everything out of the bigger room and piling it into the dining room, sitting room, and living room. We even had an antique rocking chair in our kitchen for several days! I moved, sorted, and rearranged all week while Andy was at work. We're still not quite finished, but we are getting very close! 

 I thought I had more pics of my old room, but I haven't been able to find them, so we'll have to make do with just one. This is what my work surface looked like on the rare occasion when it was clean: 

 It's an antique library table set at a right angle to an eight foot long cabinet, both topped with glass shelving that was headed for the dumpster at Andy's office (so it didn't cover the whole surface). On the other side of the room I had an actual sewing table for my sewing machine, a table Andy built for me several years ago that held the computer, and a small desk sat in the middle of the room like an island. I had lots of shelving to hold embellishments, stamps, and other supplies. 

 This is what you see when you walk into my new room: 

 The big computer desk in the corner is new to my room, but not new to us. We used to have it in our bedroom, but we don't have a computer up there anymore, so it needed a new purpose. I love the way it anchors that corner! To the right is the desk that served as an island in the old room. It's a sewing table again, as it has been several times in its life. There was just enough room on the wall between the computer desk and the sewing table to hang a couple of spool holders for my thread. Next to the sewing table is a tall narrow chest of drawers that I painted for my grandparents a few years back. They recently downsized, so the chest came to stay with me. It's perfect for holding all my fabric and sewing supplies. At the very edge of the picture is a plastic storage cart that holds all my punches. Well, almost all. The big cabinet is around the corner. You'll see it next time. The table in the foreground is the library table that was against the wall in the smaller room. I did a little work on the finish (just on the top) and had a piece of glass cut for it so it fits properly. It looks awesome! It might even be pretty enough to motivate me to keep it clean! You can't tell from this angle, but there is still a lot of open floor space. I could pretty much waltz all the way around the library table!

 That's all I have for you right now. I'll post more pics as I get the rest of the room situated. I can't wait to show you the closet--Andy wired a switch into the doorframe so the light comes on when the doors are open and goes off when the doors are closed! It's sooooo cool! 

 Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!

Free November 2012 Calendar

It's time for a new calendar for your iWhatever! Where did October go?! 

If you need a walk-through to save this to your iPod, iPad, iPhone, or other device, you can find instructions HERE.

Or, if you're not real excited about my design, follow this link to learn how to design your own calendar using Coolibah. Feel free to use this November calendar as part of your design: 

I thought the old skeleton keys and charms, along with the flowers and jewels felt very romantic and called for a "romantic" font, so I used Jane Austen. As soon as it starts to cool off I'm ready to curl up and re-read a few of her books, which never lose their charm, or watch "Pride and Prejudice." (My favorite version stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Mcafadyen.) I understand that Miss Austen once said that her main character would always find her true love. Who can resist a good love story with a happy ending? 

If you've never read any Jane Austen, you should know that it takes a bit to get used to reading the English language of the 1790's. After reading a book or two, you just might catch yourself speaking in a very different way. While I have thought  in Jane Austin-isms, I believe I've always caught myself before saying anything out loud, but a friend of mine said her husband has looked sideways at her and said, "You're reading Jane Austen again, aren't you?" after she used some archaic phrase or arranged her words peculiarly. I can almost feel myself slipping into that rhythm now....

Are you a Jane Austen fan? What's your favorite? 

Thanks for stopping by! See you next time!