no such thing

this is the page I did last night during the sg chat...

I love the chevron pattern of this paper. it was actually the starting point for the page. I was finishing up with my rearranging and reorganizing and stumbled across it. I left it out on my workspace and it all just sort of fell into place from there.  

this page was inspired by the idea of life always having a plan a (the perfect one) and a plan b (the way things inevitable seem to work out) - unfortunately, sometimes you just have to make the best of it.

have a great night!

rearranging and reorganizing (2013).

almost every time I bring home new stuff, some part of my space gets rearranged and reorganized. I periodically take pictures to post on my blog - definitely once a year, but usually more than that.

these are the latest ones...

these shelves are in my closet - they mostly hold overflow - old album kits, themed stuff, class kits, canvases, albums and page protectors, cardstock, and mini albums.

these shelves are to the left of my workspace. They hold mixed media texture supplies, rubber stamps, albums in progress, and I recently put most of my patterned paper on these shelves as well. the pink basket is full of things I need to use sometime soon.

this is my workspace - sewing machine, 2-tier serving tray for mists and distress stains, and the organizer that was made for me with washi, embellishments, etc.

these shelves are to the right of my workspace. the top two baskets hold punches and acrylic stamps. below that are some embellishments that I wanted to keep out... my printer, ofcourse. the little white tin is actually a utensil holder, I thought it was cute. right now, I have blank journals and my corner chomper/I-top/crop-a-dile in it. the bottom shelf that you can barely see has mixed media projects in progress. my project life stuff is on that shelf too.

this is a closer look at the embellishments. the muffin tin holds brads and buttons. the little glass dishes have flair in them. the stainless dish holds blank chipboard (non-alphas). my wood veneers are temporarily in the little iris container, which I hate. Sooner or later, i'll find a container that I actually like.

this is how I organize my project life stuff. everything that I typically use is in this tray - core kits, mambi cards, corner rounder, date stamp, etc.

I love this little cart. as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted one. from top to bottom, it holds more embellishments, letter stickers and smash stuff, and thickers.

these are the infamous black bookcases. they hold, more or less, everything else. lol... die cutters, books, paints and inks, watercolors, adhesives, mixed media ephemera, etc. the little divider with the pink canvas bins has 6x6 paper pads, stamps for mixed media/art journaling, and big brush pens. All of my black pens and water brush pens are in those baskets as well.   

hope you enjoyed taking a look around! I know I love to look at others' spaces.

have a great week!

studio sunday - cleaning up around the studio...

I did some major shopping Friday and Saturday. Went to Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's, Michael's, IKEA, and Target. I also ordered some things online. Picked up one of the infamous Raskog carts from IKEA, which prompted ripping apart my entire studio (as usual) and reorganizing/rearranging...

Here's a pic of the Raskog cart - top shelf is embellishments in an Antonius tray. The middle shelf is letter stickers and smash stuff. The bottom shelf is all of my thickers.

The other thing I bought was this cute little 2-tier tray from Target. I put all of my mists and such in it.

Ah, organizing... almost as much fun as scrapbooking... Leave me a comment and let me know all about your latest and greatest organizing find.

Have a great week!

more on organizing - out in the open...

out of sight, out of mind... well, that's the way it works around here atleast. because of that, this is how i organized my brads and buttons and some other miscellaneous embellishments.

hope you have a great week!

studio sunday - organizing at it's finest...

all of the recent shopping meant it was time to find a better solution for storing my wood veneers. for the moment, this is it. obviously, i'm going to have to dig another one of these boxes out of the basement.

this isn't necessarily a long-term solution, but... for now, it works. i also spent some time organizing all of my brads and buttons. i'll post about that a bit later.

happy sunday!

retail therapy - there should not be an m's between work and school...

there should not be an m's between work and school... there also should not be a certain message board that's quite known for enabling, but it doesn't look like there's much I can do about either of those things, does it?

a friend and I stopped at Panera tonight to grab dinner then went to m's. totally loving all of the new stuff - ss snap, recollections veneers, and the mambi card packs. here's what I left with:

I still want to get pink and aqua ss snap albums and two black wrmk 12x12 albums, but i'm hoping I can use coupons for them. besides, it's not as if there isn't still 3 more weeks of class this semester, right? lol...

leave me a comment and let me know what you've bought at m's lately.

have a great day!

making mists...

This was my project for tonight - bought some 3oz. spray bottles and made mists.

I used Dr. Ph Martin's Bombay Inks - teal, magenta, violet, and blue.

this is what they look like... love these inks!

have a great week!

sudio sunday - a week of art journaling...

I know I've mentioned before that I tend to "batch" things as much as possible, especially when it comes to gesso - no sense in getting it out and getting it everywhere to only gesso one page, so...

Tonight, I took a few minutes and started enough art journaling pages to last the rest of the week.

I also started the background for each page. I really wanted to try the Heidi Swapp Color Shines. I got primrose, black, teal, and peach. I also used a little Glimmer Mist and Mr. Huey's.

Here's to hoping I can find a few minutes throughout the week to work on these.

Is there anything in particular that you "batch," either because it's messy or, maybe, because you hate doing it? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Have a great week!

studio sunday - retail therapy

About the only thing I've had time to do lately is shop. My lab mid-term is tomorrow... and then, it's on to bones and muscles, so...  6 more weeks! maybe, just maybe, I'll have some free time between this semester and next semester.

I spent some time on Amazon and Etsy and stopped at M's. Got some Heidi Swapp Color Shines, lots of Studio Calico wood veneers, and fell in love with A Flair for Buttons. I also confiscated some little glass dishes from the kitchen. lol...

I also got the wood veneer cameras from Studio Calico and the school ones from Recollections.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen my workspace in weeks. Right now, it's occupied by my A&P book, flashcards, etc.

Someday soon...

What's your favorite Etsy shop? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Have a great week!

studio sunday - tissue slides mini and kitchen storage...

my studio sunday project for today was making a little "mini" of slides of tissues to study for my lab mid-term. sad, but true... i've been putting this off for a while because it almost qualifies as a scrapbooking project - and dh didn't waste any time reminding me that i was supposed to be in here studying, not "scrapbooking." lol...

i made color copies of all of the slides, cut them out, and adhered them to one side of the little cards. i wrote the name of the tissue, location, function, etc. on the other side, punched a hole in each card, and used a binder ring to hold them all together.

i'm sure if you're in school (or have kids that are in school), you've found some useful things within your stash, right? i know, around here, dh is constantly asking questions along the lines of, "do you have..." - he's asked me for everything from spray adhesive to felt circles.

scrapbooking supplies always seem to come in handy for something other than scrapbooking...

along those same lines, i've noticed that i have a tendency to confiscate things from the kitchen to store scrapbooking supplies. i posted a thread about this on two peas today.

here's the current list of useful storage items that i've found in the kitchen:

1 set of cookie cutters - for clay
1 pink visionware pan - for melting wax, etc.
2 cake pans - to put plife stuff in
3 bowls - for jewelry findings
4 cups - tools, brushes, etc.
4 little glass dishes - full of flair at the moment
1 colander - mixed media supplies
1 spice spinner with jars - little embellishments
1 muffin tin - remember stacy julian's twelve?

so, what have you confiscated from your craft room for school projects or from your kitchen for craft room storage? leave me a comment and let me know.

have a great week!

project life - working my way through january

just a really  quick post today - i spent some more time this weekend working on project life...

pulled out the old typewriter to make this:

love this! i'm obviously going to use my seafoam kit, but the cards i make - love this! need i say more? lol...

have you been making your own journaling cards or subbing to a monthly kit or just using a core kit? leave me a comment and let me know...

studio sunday - a beautiful mess...

since i know how much everyone loves organizational posts and i haven't had much free time lately between work and school, i thought i'd post a few of my favorite organizational finds...

 

a serving tray + 2 vanity organizers + 2 cake pans = portable project life storage. i found the cake pans at m's and everything else at target.

 

 

this container is from target as well - from the organizing section. it holds all of my thickers. they fit in here perfectly and it's easy to flip through them to find the pack i want. these are all organized by color.

 

eta: someone asked me for the dimensions on this bin - this is the one: itso fabric bin. hope that helps!

 

 

 

i brought this little non-magnetic stainless steel dish home from work - one of the benefits of working in a scrap yard. it holds all of my chipboard, metal, and wood veneer embellishments. i'm sure you could something similar, though.

 

 

 

these black cubes came from staples, along with the pink bins. one of the pink bins holds 6x6 paper pads (again, they fit perfectly) and the other is filled with packs of mm vintage findings. the little brown baskets came from m's a few years ago, but i've seen them recently as well. they are full of th and christy tomlinson stamps and markers and watercolor brushes - basically, stuff i use for mixed media and art journaling.

 

 

 

this organizer was made for me, but it'd be easy to make. it's similar to the mm embellishment center, but a bit larger - washi, mists/spray inks, twine, sequins, and distress paints/stains live here, along with jars full of embellishments that are organized by color.

 

leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite organizational find is... have you repurposed anything from around the house for your space?

 

have a great week!

 

 

 

half our time wishin'

i finished up the other 8x10 canvas i had started tonight... i'm so much happier with this one than yesterday's.

"many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have, if we didn't spend half our time wishing."
     -unknown

leave me a comment and let me know how you add quotes/journaling to your artwork - strips of paper? your cameo? do you handwrite them? any other ideas? thanks in advance!

now, back to studying!

happy friday!

studio sunday - the science of backgrounds...

it was purely by accident that a copy of the periodic table and a few coloring plates from an anatomy and physiology workbook ended up in the basket i keep book paper and sheet music in as well as other things i use to make backgrounds for art journaling and mixed media.

this...

turned into this...

and this...

 

 

made me think to toss this in as well...

 

 

 

 

i'll be anxious to see how i can use these for the art journaling challenge this week...

 

oh, and don't forget to leave me a comment and let me know what unique things you've used to make backgrounds.

 

happy sunday!

 

 

 







grow your blog party - twelve from twenty twelve...

good morning everyone! so happy you're here!

my name's crisann. i've been blogging for a few years now. i originally started this blog because i wanted somewhere to post my pictures for project life, but as you can see, that didn't work out very well. it turned into a place to post my projects and pages instead. owell. live and learn, i guess, right?

i've come to love art journaling and mixed media. i still do some scrapbooking. i still make some cards. i make jewelry. i read. i write. i'm a little on the adhd side - can't help it! i love anything that offers me the opportunity to be creative.

because of the grow your blog party, i thought it'd be fun to post my favorite pages and projects from twenty twelve, so you could get a really good idea of the kinds of things i do. so, without further ado, in no particular order, here are my twelve from twenty twelve...

so, there you have it - my absolute most favorite projects from last year. what do you think? leave me a comment and let me know which is your favorite.

the labels on the right sidebar will take you to more of my altered projects, art journal pages, cards, mixed media canvases, or scrapbook layouts - basically, whatever interests you...

also, i'd love for you to follow my blog if you're interested in seeing what i'm up to this year.

eta: turns out there are over 400 blogs participating in the grow your blog party. it's going to take me a while to get through them all. wow! what an awesome event! thanks so much, vicki! here's a link to the grow your blog party. so, if i haven't gotten to your blog yet, i promise i will - it just might take me a little while between work and school.

have a totally awesome weekend and happy creating!

what's on your work desk and, while i'm at it, who's beside it?

i didn't get the opportunity to really work on anything today, in spite of being off, because i found myself at the doctor this morning - apparently, some sinus nastiness is going around right now, which i've been priviledged enough to have the opportunity to experience. needless to say, it's been an extremely unproductive day... but since i'm still off, i thought i'd post something fun...

so, a while back, i noticed that a number of bloggers post pictures of what's on their work desk on wednesday. well, yesterday was wednesday, so... just for fun... here's what was on my work desk...

and we can't forget about who's beside it... love him so much!

and just because - on the tablet is two peas and on my laptop i was working on brave girls art school - watching videos and taking notes (at the moment), but i got side-tracked looking for a quote....

so, what have you been up to? leave me a comment and let me know!

happy thursday!

simplifying (2013).

i spent some time today simplifyling, getting rid of some clutter, and mentally preparing myself for a productive year.

here are a few pictures of the changes i made this evening...

if you're curious - the closet is, more or less, "bulk storage" - printer's trays, album kits, page kits, supplies sorted by manufacturer or theme, projects and kits i haven't started working with, cardstock and patterned paper, albums, blank minis, etc. oh, and my rub-ons and stencils are hanging on the door.

all that's left on my desk is my sewing machine and my laptop - not for long, though. i have an idea! lol...

the black wire shelf holds, from left to right and top to bottom - acrylic stamps, punches, my plife album, washi/baker's twine in a colander, my plife tray (which is actually really light/portable), mixed media texture supplies, and rubber stamps.

i actually plan on making a trip to ikea soon. i want one of those raskog carts to put my art supplies in. right now, they're scattered on the bookcases in a number of different baskets (sorted by medium).

the infamouse black bookcases are still lookin' a little full, but... all things in their time.

so much better! still have a few changes to make and some things to sort through, but overall, much better.

i seem to do this about twice a year at this point - take everything out, clean, and put everything back - reorganize and rearrange... personally, i think it's therapeutic... there's something about going through your entire stash and touching and feeling everything and sorting through it all. i find things i forgot i had... it's inspiring, to say the least...

how often do you go through everything? leave me a comment and let me know.

happy wednesday!