Designing with my Cameo

This week I played along again over at The Cameo Spotlight blog.  The challenge this time around involved using triangles.

For some reason, I had this design in my head:

This is the first time I designed something "from scratch" on my Cameo.  I design a lot of titles, but that entails using either a font I already have or, like the Wizard of Oz title in my last post, finding something on the Internet and tracing it.  This time, I actually started with a blank page and, using the drawing tools, created this cut file.  There are a few places that aren't "perfect" in my slightly OCD brain, but I didn't want to spend hours and hours on it.  I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was fun to do.  What you can't see in the photo very well is how pretty the papers are.  They all have a slight shimmer to them.  The background was actually a scrap I had, and then I happened to have solid papers that coordinated.  This has inspired me to try designing some other things.  It can be time consuming, but so rewarding when you finish!

Old Photo...New Papers

Please, no one laugh at this photo.  Yes, this is me...as Dorothy...a lifetime ago.  This poor picture has been languishing in the basement in a box labeled "Misc. Mementos" for years.  But when I got these gorgeous Farmhouse papers, I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them.  I fussy cut the little hot air balloons from the 6X6 paper, and the blue balloon is stamped with the Farmhouse stamps that go with this line, Fair Skies Dawn and Dusk.  I found the title online and traced it and cut it out with my Cameo.  My intention is that this is the title page for a series of pages about this show, which is why it has no journaling.  It will be nice to have at least one show of mine scrapped!

My paper. Organized.

This week is paper week in the Organize Your Stuff challenge over at Two Peas.  Being the organizational overachiever that I am, I got this done last week.  Because I'm doing two organization challenges at once.  The one at Two Peas and the one on the ScrapRack website.  Yep, that's how I roll.  If one challenge is good, two are probably better.  Haha!

Actually, my cardstock already looked pretty much like this, except I had little random stacks of cardstock in a different place that needed to be incorporated into these Cropper Hopper boxes.

The bigger project was reorganizing my patterned paper.  I decided to (GASP!) take all of my collections apart and put the papers together by color!  Actually, this wasn't as huge a deal as it would be for some people, because I don't buy a ton of collections.  I usually buy a few papers that I like from a collection, but I had been keeping them together.  However, I scrap by color almost exclusively, and even though I like to use coordinating papers, filing by color seemed to make more sense for the way I scrap.  Also, as you can see by the photo (the patterned paper is in the two middle cubes), I don't have a ton of patterned paper.  So I can still easily find any coordinating paper if I want to.  Each color is also separated into "themes", like flowers, stripes, plaids, ledger, etc., so I can find the type I want pretty quickly.  I was a little anxious about doing this, but as I went I got more excited about some combinations I found that I wouldn't have before.  One thing I did discover was that I have WAY too many pink papers.  I do have a girl, but I don't scrap with pink much at all.  It makes sense that I'd have a ton of blue, because that's my favorite color, but pink?  Weird.

And, just to make some of you hate me even more for being ahead of the game...all of my scraps are organized, too!  I had them organized by color already, so it just was a matter of purging some stuff I'd never use and putting them into page planner pockets (the ones with a 12X12 pocket on the back and smaller pockets on the front).  They are filed right behind the corresponding color.

Scrapping Cat, Jr.

For my birthday I got myself a new kitty.  We'd been talking for a while about getting another cat, but I was worried about Lily because she's not the nicest cat to outsiders (that's really an understatement...she's downright mean to anyone not in the immediate family!).  But Hubby loves cats and thought Lily needed a playmate.  So the day after my birthday I went to Petsmart and found the sweetest kitty on the face of the planet:

She loves to cuddle, which is the complete opposite of Lily.  At first Lily was NOT a happy cat.  But gradually she has decided that it's not terrible to have a friend to chase and play with.  They're still not the best of friends, but it's only been a few weeks.  I'm hopeful they will learn to live in perfect harmony!

I made this layout for the Big Idea Festival, Challenge #8.  Karen Grunberg challenged us to make a layout about something that has brought us joy, and this little sweetie has certainly done that for me!  I used Basic Grey Out of Print papers, Lily Bee letter stickers and Thickers.  The Hello name badge was designed in Silhouette Studio and cut with my Cameo.

Another challenge card - The Play Date Cafe

I don't know why all of a sudden I've been inspired to participate in challenges, but it's certainly getting me scrapping!

The colors for this week's challenge at The Play Date Cafe wouldn't have been ones I normally would have chosen for a card, but I knew I had some Basic Grey Plumeria papers that would work perfectly.

This card is the perfect example of why sorting all of my embellishments by color works really well for me.  I just went into my purple drawer and instantly found the flowers.  The pearl centers were colored by my Copics.  That's really the only reason I have Copics, because I don't color.  But they are amazing for custom coloring gems, pearl, ribbons and just about anything else you can think of!

Another organizing challenge...

Another "Organize Your Stuff" challenge has started at Two Peas, and I'm going to play along again.  The first time I did the challenge I made AMAZING strides at getting my area organized and working well for my crafting needs.  However, according to this picture, I seem to have backslid just a tad:

 I've already put a shelf up beside the one that's there to hold stamp pads, so the current shelf can hold some other stuff (not sure what yet).  I need to get the miscellaneous crafty stuff off my desk that's left over from when the girl took over my craft room this summer.  Her "corner" is on the other side of the stairs...I'm not tackling that since it's not "mine".  Haha!
Behind me looks a little better:

My paper has stayed relatively organized, although I just realized I have a few places where I have random cardstock stashed.  And there are a few things on the floor that need a home.  I've redone my embellishment organization (I used to have it all in a variation on a ScrapRack), and the drawers are all my color drawers (including the drawers in the black unit).  My Clip It Up needs a big purge...I don't use rub ons hardly at all and the ones I have are mostly so old they probably wouldn't work anyway.

I actually feel fairly good about my organization at this point.  I can find things really quickly (well, except for paper...I do a lot of rifling through to find what I want) and layouts seem to take me less time now.  As an example, here's the layout I did in less than a day (amazingly fast for me!), because everything was already out:

The prompt is from Big Picture Classes Big Idea Festival.  Cathy Zielske provided the template, and it was perfect for this photo of Hubby using all three of his Apple devices at the same time!  The papers are all scraps from Simple Stories Life Documented and Yearography.  I've used these lines for the past year in my monthly review journal (my version of Project Life), so I had tons of random pieces lying around.  And, amazingly, my Cameo didn't make an appearance on this!

Playing with my Cameo

I was really excited when The Cameo Spotlight appeared in the blogosphere, offering card challenges to those of us who adore our Cameos.  I hadn't had time to participate in a challenge yet, but the current challenge really inspired me.

Love the slate blue, sage green, and beige, and I had the perfect papers from my current Simon Says Stamps card kit!  These are My Mind's Eye Bright Side papers.

I used design #2877 for the card, and #20612 for the sentiment.  Both files are by Lori Whitlock, who, in my opinion, can do no wrong when it comes to designing files for the Cameo.  SUCH a talented lady!

Happy 25th Anniversary to my wonderful sister and brother-in-law!

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been 25 years since my little sister got married!  She beat me to the altar by three years.  Haha!  Her husband was my brother's best friend in high school, and he finally convinced my brother that it would be OK for him to date his sister.  And now, 25 years, 4 kids and multiple homes (he was Air Force for many years), they are still happily married and having the time of their lives.  We are so blessed to live close and be able to see them frequently (actually, my whole family lives in the same county here in Indiana now, which is unbelievable considering that both my brother AND brother-in-law were in the Air Force!).

Here is the card I made for their anniversary:

I used papers from my July Simon Says Stamp Card Kit and the sentiment is from the June Simon Says Stamp Card Kit.  I'm not sure where the number stamps came from.  I just added a little silvery pearl (because it's their silver wedding anniversary...how clever of me! Ha!) and sent it off.

I hope they have 25 more wonderful years together!