December Daily: Day 2

There wasn’t really anything fancy about this page just pretty much straightforward scrapbooking for this one. I did write around the edges and use some glittery chipboard letters & numbers. The picture was printed on our printer again which is just awesome.

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This page is about the birth of my friends’ baby.

The supplies I used on my “Day 2″ are:

December Daily: Day 1

I feel like I should call mine “Holiday Daily”, but I have already started with the name “December Daily” with published posts, so I really should stick with it. At least most of my pages will be in December. And, I hope Ali doesn’t mind. :-)

This is my “day 1″ and thus my first page. I embossed the date. This is my first time using embossing ink and stamps like these. They so cool since I can place the little stamps in any configuration I want on the stamp block. Very neat. The “page” is an acrylic circle.

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This page is about setting up our tree. The writing on the page says: “Setting up the tree… …nothing but lights right now, but it is out of the attic! Usually this happens after Thanksgiving, but this is a busy year. The holiday season has started!”

The picture was printed on Ilford Premium Pearl 4″x6″ Inch Photo Paper. This was my first time using our printer as a photo printer and the photo looks great.

A picture of my work area and process – all my necessary items on my ArtBin storage case.

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As I was putting this post on my private blog, I realized that I should post my completed December Daily pages and parts of the process on this blog too to show them off and then have the ability to share my pages with Ali since she loves seeing other people’s December Dailies.

The continuing challenge now will be to find something mini scrapbook worthy to include each day. I know what tomorrow will be!

The supplies I used on my “Day 1″ are:

December Daily: Creating Pages

After I received my December Daily supplies, I put them in the purple bin below and waited for a time to work on my holiday scrapbook. A week or so later, I put all of the pages on one of the 3″ rings. That was as far as I got until today.

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I got out my tools to drill some holes so that I could put use 2 of my 3″ rings. It was a lot of fun combining my tools with scrapbooking items.

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I added my 6″x6″ paper into the page protectors and then put all of the pages on two 3″ rings. I am so excited how good this turned out. I counted the pages and realized I have the exact amount of pages to go from Nov. 20th – Jan. 3rd. I have to put numbers on the pages, but it is just about ready for the pictures and notes.

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December Daily: Supplies

I was reading Ali Edward’s blog about a month ago and learned that over the last few years, she created a scrapbook called December Daily. I really like the idea and love many of her ideas, but I want to put my own spin on it.

I decided to do a 6″x6″ due to cost and how many pictures I plan to include.

Between Michaels, Target, Amazon, and Scrapbook.com, I purchased a bunch of things for my 6″x6″ album.

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Pages:

Embellishments:

Stamping & Embossing:

Other necessary materials:

Flower Shirt

I took an online class to learn about decoratively sewing flowers on a shirt from Elizabeth Kartchner. It was a lot of fun. I look forward to learning more from her.

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Everyone who is taking the class is posting comments to try to win a package of free scrapbooking goodies. Here are her ways to leave a comment and my actual comments:

  • Leave a comment if you share a picture of your project (whatever stage it’s at… pinned, finished, no pins yet) on our class message board. Under the thread called: Where I’m at: giveaway.
    I posted my “not started” picture under the Where I’m at: giveaway. Hopefully this Wednesday, I will finally get to work on it!
  • Leave a comment if you completed all the answers to the Handout from Lesson 2.
    I completed my handout! I am still not happy with all of my answers, but more than 1/2 are the best ones I could think of and the remaining ones I can work on improving. I am trying to figure out what to do with my answers now. I don’t want to get rid of them, but I don’t know if I want to publish them on my private blog either.
  • Leave a comment if you blog or Facebook or Twitter something you’ve enjoyed in this class. (Leave 3 comments if you do all 3… or 2 or 1.)
    I blogged about how much I was going to enjoy this class a while back before I even got my flowers. I really did enjoy everything about this class. :-)
    Facebook comment and picture of final product posted!
  • Leave a comment if you blog about your finished project.
    I blogged about my finished shirt and included all of my comments on this post in my blog post to remind me of my answers.
  • Leave a comment if you are already thinking of another fun thing to make with what you’ve learned.
    Even before the class started, I was trying to think of other applications for hand sewing flowers. I definitely want to try adding some flowers to gifts for friends and family for the holidays and/or their birthdays. I know my cousin would love a flower decorated outfit for her little girl’s 2nd birthday which is really soon.
  • Leave a comment with something you’ve enjoyed about this class.
    There are so many aspects of this class that are wonderful: self paced, easy to follow, thought provoking, something new for me to learn… in addition, I have to say my FAVORITE thing about this class is my friend Carla came over today and we worked on our shirts together. This may not seem like a big thing to some but this is the first time she has been to my house for more than a few minutes in over 4 1/2 years (she has 2 children and another one on the way)!
  • Leave a comment if you hand cut your flowers… that deserves a prize in itself!!
    I didn’t hand cut my own flowers, but I helped my friend Carla modify a few of her very large Martha Stewart flowers. I trimmed a few down, but the best one was the tiny daisy I hand cut for her. I really loved helping her. :-)
  • Leave a comment if this was a stretch for you and you loved trying something new.
    This has been a stretch for me, but not in the way you’d expect. I have used my sewing machine a bunch and used to cross-stitch all of the time, so I am not new to sewing. However, sewing flowers on something that I am going to wear is what is the biggest stretch for me. I am not a gurlie girl, but when I have my moments and do go gurlie, it is all out – this shirt will be perfect for those times. So, thanks for expanding my horizons!
  • Leave a comment if you just would love to have some new scrapbooking goodies.
    When I realized how much I spent on scrapbook items last year and how much I had accumulated, I stopped my increasing spending habit. So far this year, other than some rhinestones, a silver pen, and page protectors, I haven’t purchased any fun scrapbooking supplies. I would LOVE to have something new and try out beautiful Lizzy items!
  • Leave a comment if you lost your needle at least once. I wonder if I’m the only one that does this.
    Nope, no losing of any needles. (I didn’t post this comment.)

Kitchen Backsplash

I was looking for something quick and easy to cover up some holes in the wall where I removed a spice rack from above the stove in the kitchen. I found these large plastic faux tin tiles at Lowe’s that easily affix to most surfaces. They aren’t the cheapest thing, but I only had to buy one sheet for $20 and it was enough to cover the area. When I got it home, I had to cut it to the shape I needed it. I affixed it with some foam squares that were sticky on both sides. The nice part is this is a quick fit until I figure out what I really want to do with the backsplash and it looks nice. I might even like this for the backsplash – who knows – it has been added to my list of options.

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Padding A Chair

A bunch of years ago, I purchased 2 folding bar stools from IKEA. I have used them off and on, but they aren’t very comfortable for any length of time since they are wood with no padding. After recovering a friend’s chairs, I knew I needed to add padding to these chairs and I knew how to do it.

I purchased the foam and already had a microsuede that would work great. I cut the foam and fabric and stapled it on like last time. The seat went well. The only difference was this chair had a back to cover. It wasn’t the prettiest job, but when I cover the second chair I will know how to do it right that time. I cut the fabric a little small, so the wood and edge of the fabric shows. The back of the chair was curved too which wasn’t fun. It was really difficult to get the fabric stapled but I think I will use something to wedge the curve next time and it won’t be so bad.

Pictures of before and after.

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Pictures of the process.

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Reduce

Adding to my tags… Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… in the spirit of the week of Earth Day.

Sometimes cleaning out the house is an easy as finding friends who could use the items you don’t want/need anymore. It isn’t always easy to match up a friend with an item, but knowing that a friends will be receiving the item(s) makes it easier to let go usually.

I’ve used plastic hangers for as long as I can remember. I had them in my closet at home growing up. I took some of my mom’s unneeded ones with my to college and my first apartment. Then, I started accumulating some of my own. Different bright colors for different sections of clothes like long sleeve and short sleeve (easy way to find things quickly in a dark closet).

Recently though, I have been slowly converting to the fabric covered slim hangers. They sort of give more room in the closet, but I was looking for the non-slip quality in particular. Over the last few months, I was slowly converting my hangers and yesterday, I officially converted all of the items in the closet to the non-slip hangers.

This meant that I needed to find a home for the hangers. My friend Carla accepted the hangers and now I just have to get them to her. We will be seeing each other this weekend for Earth Day at the Zoo, so what a perfect time to reduce the items in my house and reduce her need for buying new items.

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Laundry Room

My laundry room is just big enough for the washer and dryer. I installed some additional shelving over the appliances which works pretty well but it is open and never looks nice. Luckily, I can just close the two folding door that close in this laundry cubby, but sometimes I just want it to look nice for me. So, I think I may have finally made some progress on working to keep it clean and looking nicer. And, everything got cleaned up in the process.

Picture from shortly after I moved in…

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With some modifications over the years. These are the before pictures…

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All cleaned up. The after picture…

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I used some of my smaller canvas bins to store cleaners and a larger one on the top shelf for paper products. My cleaning kit even has a home now (the blue container on the top shelf). All my often used cleaning and laundry supplies are in easy to reach places. Oh, this is so nice!

Closet Redesign

Back at the end of September 2009, I removed the existing shelving in our guest room closet and replace it with shelving to more suit our needs but make it easy to change as our needs may change.

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It is amazing how many items come out of a closet. Vertical storage really is an illusion.

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Old closet hardware vs New closet hardware.

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In September 2009, I had all of the items back in the closet, but found that for more support for the few clothes in the closet, I needed another upright and bracket in the far right corner. In April 2010, I finally finished my project and here are the pictures of the finished closet redesign.

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