Thursday, November 24, 2011

I Keep Chugging Along…


Last weekend I was able to actually take a class at The Crop Shop, where I teach classes. It was a great change of pace to see how another teacher approaches instructing students in a class. The project was wonderful and the instructor, Jean, was very patient. I cannot wait to show my mom how to do it too when I visit her next month.

I’ve been up to a few things this past week and they are mainly swap driven. I completed my 12x12 ‘June’ layout for a calendar swap I’m running at The Crop Shop. 

I also, finished two sets of ATC’s (artist trading cards) for the ATC club at the store too. One theme was ‘Retro’ for last month’s swap, which I couldn’t attend since I was on vacation.

The other is ‘Wild Card - Designers Choice’ for this weekend’s swap. I figured out I do better when given a theme. It took me awhile to figure out what to do for it. I wanted to definitely use paper and embellishments I already had on hand. I started digging through some old scrapbook paper from K and Company and was able to come up with something. It’s simple but I think it works and looks nice.

I also finished assembling the kits the 2012 ‘Inchie' Calendar class I’m doing Saturday, December 3rd from 10a-12p. I only have four spots left in the class so if you would like to take the class or a kit please call the store at 781-792-2767 or go to the website and signup via PayPal.

 
Last but definitely not least my new Silhouette Cameo arrived this week. Yes, I’ve had it since Monday but have yet to take it out of its box. I hope to tackle that next week after the holiday weekend. I’ve been just salivating over this machine since I saw it at CHA in July. I bought my original Silhouette just as the Silhouette SD was about to come out, so I was able to get it pretty cheap. The one feature I always wanted was for it to cut 12x12 and now the new Silhouette Cameo does just that. I’ve already started making room for it in my craft room.

I’ve several more projects I have to complete over the weekend so I hope everyone has a wonderful Black Friday weekend.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Moxxie mini album and more Inchies

Here’s the class that I taught today at The Crop Shop. I saw this paper by Moxxie and just had to have it. I knew I wanted to create a mini album with this line and that it would be perfect to showcase photos of kids and family at Christmas. When my mom came to visit in September I was looking through her stuff and saw an example of a circle exploding book. As soon as I saw it I knew that it would be perfect to use with the Moxxie Party at the Pole collection. I also wanted to use the character die cuts as pop ups in the album. After a little bit of trial and error I was able to figure out how to make it work with this type of album.  We had a great time in class this morning and the ladies enjoyed making the album too.
Between teaching the Doodlebug Advent Calendar and the Moxxie Exploding circle album I held my first Inchie swap at The Crop Shop. The ladies from the swap at the other agreed to transfer over to the new store and continue swapping inchies. We had a good time swapping and meeting a couple of new swappers to join the group. We swapped our ‘Thanksgiving/Fall’ and ‘Wild Card’ inchies along with the ‘Black Friday’ challenge inchies.
'Thanksgiving'
'Wild Card - Cat's Meow'

'Black Friday'
We decided our next meeting would be Sunday, January 8th 2012 from 1-2 pm.  The two themes we decided on are ‘Elvis’ and ‘New Years Resolutions’ and the challenge is ‘Asian.’

I also put the finishing touches on my next class at The Crop Shop, which is a 2012 inchie calendar. Here’s a sneak peek of January.

 












The class is Saturday, December 3rd from 10a-12p. You can call the store to sign up or go to the website and pay via PayPal.