Happy New Year!

Hello everyone! It's New Year's Eve and I am alone tonight on New Years for the first time in my life. But I have work tomorrow and had no choice but to stay at the school.

This is going to be a short post about what resolutions I plan to make (and probably break)

Resolutions 2013:

1. Make sure to blog all the projects that I make. Whether they be big or small. 
2. Be healthy. (this I will probably break. Lol)
3. Use up my stash of art supplies. I'm going to try to not buy any art supplies or anything unless I run out of it. 
4. Get an apartment in May. 

Well. There you have it. I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year.

Christmas Time

MERRY CHRISTMAS

From my family to yours!

It's been a while!

Hellooooo world! Hahaha!

It's been a very long time since my last blog post. But school gets in the way and I got a job that takes up most of my time. I started therapy at the school for my depression. I've been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism. I got a D in a class that is only a D by 9 tenths of a point so I was sinking again.

This year is coming to an end very quickly and I feel like all my time goes into work and school and trying to think of new ways to make art.

I don't have a long blog post for you today because I have to be to work at 10 (yep. Working 10-6:30 on Christmas Eve). So I have a few videos for you to watch and see what I'm working on at the moment.

The first video is a "haul" video. Which. I don't think it is. It's more of a rant that tells you to use coupons and look at how much I got (and these are things that I needed and finally had the money to buy them).

This second video I have for you is a video about what I'm calling my "Rosewood Album" (original, right?) that I'm working on. It's an Altered Baby Book that I took the pages out, separated them, paint the edges with brown acrylic paint and I'm going to add the papers to them after I buy a new corner punch. 

The final video I have for you is my Christmas album that is another altered book that I started showing you in the first video (I need to start using all of my baby books that I've been hoarding and get rid of them). I'll do a step by step post about that when I start working on it completely. :)

My hope for the new year is going to be a better blogger about the things that I make. I'm going to try and document all of my journal pages from the Big Mama journal and every project that I make to be on this blog. 

I hope that if you celebrate Christmas that you have the most blessed day ever and that you have an amazing new year!

Cardboard Chit Chat.

Okay. I'm going to go on a little rant about cardboard and chipboard because I see basically every single scrapbooker I see I on YouTube using chipboard.

Yep. I own chipboard. I spent an entire $1.50 on it. And guess what? It's still in the package! I don't understand the whole "quality" difference. Maybe if I actually used said chipboard and then bought a good quality (which is way out of my budget) and saw the difference, I would understand. But seriously. Why should I go out and buy chipboard which, the least expensive price for a good amount of it is still 11 bucks at  Walmart. I'm sorry. But no. Cardboard in my opinion has a thicker quality to it and I like to be able to rip it and get a that cool corrugated inside to show!

I love cardboard. I've actually started to hoard my cardboard like it's going out of style. In some of my last posts you've seen being used to make all sorts of different projects (here, here and here) and it is literally free. FREE PEOPLE!! F-R-E-E! You pay NOTHING for cardboard. You can go behind any store and look in their dumpsters (unless it's wet. Then don't pick it up.) You can look in your own pantry and use cereal boxes, pop tart boxes and any other BOX in your cabinets and WHAM! Instant canvas, 'chipboard' and scrapping material.

I don't understand why people insist on spending so much of their money on something that can be found right in your own home or around the corner at your local store. I have a store local to me that SELLS their cardboard. Really? ...Really? You want people to buy it when a majority of your clientele are students who live on the same campus as I do and can get the same cardboard I do out of their very own recycle bins? That's beyond insane in my opinion. I can get an unlimited amount of cardboard for the rest of my life (well...my school life at least. Maybe I should start stocking up now for when I move off campus!!!) for not a penny out of pocket and turn it into something beautiful.

So here's my suggestion, ditch the high priced boards and use cardboard. Use it up. If it never hits the recycling bin then it never hits a place where it doesn't need to be (in a landfill or on a beach somewhere) and you can make something utterly gorgeous out of it.

Okay. I'm done ranting now.

My First Mini Album

I DID IT! YIPEEE!!! WHOO!!! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!! 

....well, kind of. Today I made my first mini album using ONLY scrapbook paper that I have I have this box that I bought at a garage sale for I think $2 or $3.

Look at all the cheesy goodness. :)

Here's the flip of my adorable little mini (can you tell I'm excited? Lol!)

And here are the close ups of all the pages.

Have a creative day. And here's a challenge. USE YOUR STASH OF PAPERS. I know you have it!

Creatively Crazy

I have 2 new videos up on my YouTube and I'm going to put them on here as well so I can explain one of them in depth. 

Start your engines!

This video is just what it is. I seriously am in awe that someone would be so gracious as to send me so much stuff out of the goodness of her heart and I am truly blessed to be in 2 amazing Facebook groups with such amazing women and have met her. Check out her YouTube channel too! Thank you again Fairy Craftmother!<3

Here is another video that I made while I had my Flip out. This is about my cardboard journal that I made a few weeks ago. I think that when I finish my art journal that I'm working in now (which is just a plain Artist's Loft one) I am going to switch to my cardboard journal. It's a great way to keep more trash out of where it doesn't need to be and you can turn it into something beautiful. :)

I say this all the time, but I do love comments on my work ( I guess I'm one of those people that loves feedback I guess). 

Have a creative day!

Stamp Mania!

I'm making stamps like crazy today. First I started with making my own foam letter stamps and then I decided to do a video on how I make some stamps with just hot glue and cardboard. I have no pictures. I have something better. VIDEO!!! Haha. My roommate probably thinks I'm a little cookoo for talking to myself but hey. It's all for the good of art.

For each video, I'll list the supplies you need (they're in the video too. but that way you can make a list if you wanted to.)

The Cardboard Hot Glue Stamp:

Supplies:

• Piece of cardboard (this one was just a piece of cardboard I was using to keep my desk clean)
• Hot glue
• Pencil/Pen to draw with
• Computer paper 
• Mod Podge 

Here's the process!

Foam Letter Stamps

These stamps only cost me $1 to make. I have the stickers at home already. But since I forgot to pack them and don't have them up at school, I went to Dollar Tree and bought them. 

Supplies:

• Foam Letters
• Two pieces of cardboard (this isn't in the video but I glued two pieces of cardboard together to get more a more sturdy stamp)
• Mod Podge
• Aleene's Tacky Glue
• Computer paper

Here's the process for this one!

If you make your own, show me because I'd love to see that I helped another!<3

Have a creative day!

Finished Gratitude Journal.

I could not be more proud of this journal. Even if I hate the page (there's 2 that I really just want to throw away but can't) I still kept it in my journal. I'm learning to accept the flaws of my abilities as an artist.

Without further adieu, here are the 12 pages (they're even scanned. Fancy, huh?)

 I hope that you all enjoyed taking a peek inside of my Gratitude Journal. :) If you haven't checked out my YouTube channel, please do so. I love comments on there and here!

Have a creative and fantastic day!

Page 2 of Gratitude Journal

I've completed the second page in my gratitude journal and to put it simply, I am very grateful for my creativity. It brings me happiness, joy and a sense of accomplishment when I create something new. This is going to be a short post because I'm not feeling too swell today. But here are the pictures and I also did another speed process video of this page. :) Enjoy!

I will explain for a second though. haha! Since it is a gesso'd (how the heck do you spell it?! Why is that not a word yet?!) canvas journal, I decided to see how it would react to watercolors and well...it's beautiful. I absolutely love it. These pictures from my crappy little camera phone do it no justice. 

And here is the video.

Have a happy and creative day!

Gratitude Journal Cover

So as I promised, I would make a post about the cover of my Gratitude Journal from my previous post. Well. Here it is!

Supplies: 

• Pre-gessod Gratitude journal
• Paints that you're going to use
• Bubble wrap (not shown)
• Homemade stencil (not shown here but it's in the video!)

Click here to watch the video of the process!

Here are the close up pictures and I did add those flowers after the end of the video. :)

Gratitude Journal

This month's dare from Tracy Weinzapfel is all about gratitude. What are YOU grateful for? Well. Tracy put lots of time and hard work into putting together canvas journals for those who wished to purchase them from her for a small fee. But. Being a Creative on a budget, I had to opt out on buying it and made it my own. Well. Here's how I put mine together! 

If you're going to make your own, here is what you'll need (unfortunately, I didn't think of this part until writing this post. Oops!)

Supplies:

• recycled cardboard (cut in 5 X 5 squares)
• Canvas
• Iron (This is optional. My canvas was folded and I had to iron it out)
• Glue of your choice
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Binder rings

I cut my cardboard in 5X5 squares (because that's the size that is being used for Tracy's). 

I rolled out my canvas on my dorm room counter (Glad my roommates weren't home at the time. Hahah!)

I ironed out the section that I was going to use for the journal.

I then laid out my squares and traced them onto the canvas.

I cut them into long strips to make it easier to cut them in my paper trimmer. 

So when you are done cutting the canvas, you'll have 12 pieces of canvas and 6 pieces of cardboard. Adhere the canvas with your preferred glue to each side of the cardboard. 

And voila! All finished. There is a step that isn't shown and that's just me punching 2 holes on the side and putting in two small binder rings in!

I'll have another post up later tonight with my cover page!

Have a creative day!

New Storage Ideas for Die Cuts and jumbo stickers.

So today I bought new set of nice stickers for $1.29 on clearance at Michael's today.

I took a binder (the same one as I used for the Washi Tapes) and I thought to myself, "Sarah. What can you use these photo slips for and not have them be wasted?" Well. I came up with a solution! There is a video for it that I'll post so I won't go into extreme details because it explains everything in the video. But one day, when I own those adorable unmounted rubber stamps, I'm going to put them in this same binder! It's cute to organize.

At the beginning of the video though. I kind of sped through the contents of it so far. I like to keep my K&Co Die Cuts together (as you can see in the second picture here) and they were just sitting in a box I had. So I decided to shift them all to the right side of the plastic they come in and punch holes in them to keep them in the binder! Cool right?

Anyway! Here's the video I promised. I hope you like it. If you don't like The Beatles, mute the music. But I love that song and it fits with the time of my video. So. I couldn't do much else! :)

Leave questions and comments on the blog or video.

Have a creative day! 

Embossing Die Cuts

I know that I haven't posted in a while but it's all because of school. I moved back up to m University and started classes. So between packing for school, moving to school and starting school, I wasn't creating all that much. But I am back and here with another tutorial! I found a video by esthercraft on YouTube and she made a mini-album and she took her paper Die Cuts and embossing them. I thought to myself, "GENIUS! Why do I never think of these things?" So here is a step by step picture tutorial of what to do.

Supply Time! Here's what you'll need:
*Die cuts of your choice. I have a ridiculous stash of K&Company ones because they're on clearance after new seasons end and when I have a coupon.
*Embossing powder or enamel. I have the Melt Art one and another one that I'm not too fond of. But you live and you learn.
*Embossing Pad- If you've never embossed before, this is what keeps the enamel/powder to whatever it is that you're embossing.
*Tweezers. You'll definitely need these. Because after you heat gun your Die Cuts, those suckers are gonna be hot. (and yes, I did burn my hand last night doing one. Haha!)
*Catch all tray. I got mine for I think a dollar or two at a garage sale (They're 6.99 in Joann's!)
*Heat gun - pretty self explanatory. you need this to heat the embossing powder/enamel.

This is my ridiculous stash. Haha!!

This is my amazing tin that I keep more of my Die Cuts. Tins are my favorite way of organizing and this one is small enough to where I can put whatever I want in it and take it with me!

 Okay. So here is the process:

1. Pick your die cut! I chose this beautiful flower (I think it's a peony). 

2. Take your Die Cut and push it into your Embossing Pad to saturate it. 

 You can see how it's shiny here. 

3. Get out your catch-all tray, lay your newly inked up Die Cut and pour the enamel/powder over it. You'll want to do this a little on the quick side because you don't want the embossing ink to dry or you'll have to do it all again. 

 4. Tap off the excess from your Die Cut. (If you don't, you'll be sure to make a mess and get enamel everywhere.)

 5. Heat set it, You'll know when it's melted because there are no holes in the enamel and it becomes smooth. 

 Now. You can let it dry, dip the Die Cut in the Ink again and dip it back in the embossing powder/enamel OR while it's still hot, you can put it back in the enamel like in the video. But. I'm not too good at that so I just re-ink it and dip it again! :)

6. Repeat this process until you get the look you want. You can make it super thick or you can leave it at one coat. You may need to go back and fill in the spots that you may have no gotten the ink on (that's what happened with this flower) and I repeated this 3 times. (I like things to look thick and glassy.)

And here is the beautiful result! It looks glassy and thick. I'm happy with it! :)

I went a little crazy with them after that. As you can see here! :)

I hope you all have an amazing time doing this if you try and please please let me know if you made some and share! :) Have a great and safe Labor Day weekend.