Crafting Crazy!!!

I like to call myself a mulitrade crafter. I get so bored if I stick with anything for too long so when I do I just teach myself a new trade to keep things interesting. Here are just a few projects I have been enjoying lately...

My love of crafting started when I was in middle school but didn't really develop until high school and it all started with scrapbooking. Back then I was a traditional 12x12 kinda girl. I never really got the hang of it though. I felt like there was too much space for me to deal with and while I would luck into a few good spreads, overall I just never really fell in love. That is until I discovered mini albums. I discovered Laura Dennison from Following the Paper Trail and to this day I continue to be amazed by her creativity. From that day forward I never looked back and I don't think I have done a 12x12 album since. The album on the left I made for my son using All About a Boy page kit by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park and using a tutorial from SuperHappyScrapper on YouTube. She does a lot of constructed mini albums and fotofolios that she offers free tutorials for. I'm pretty sure I have made 90% of her albums. I've used so many of her tutorials that I have to appologize that I do no know which tutorial I followed for each of these projects. I believe the one I made for my son she called About a Boy tutorial though. On the left is a fotofolio I created using another pattern from SuperHappyScrapper and the paper is a page kit from Carta Bella's Soak up the Sun. I love using page kits for my minis because the usually have just the right amount of paper, stickers, and journaling cards I need to complete a book. I just need to grab chipboard and paper for making my base pages and actually constructing the book.

I have to ask if there are any listers in the house??? I'm not exactly sure how I stumbled on this project. I'm sure I was on YouTube and it was suggested to me or I found it from searching there but I am so glad I decided to give it a try. Every month Cori from TheResetGirl (on YouTube) puts together a set of journaling prompts and the idea is to do one everyday. The idea is to respond to the prompts by listing but I sometimes find myself journaling instead. I have to keep reminding myself to keep it short and sweet! Here I have my list books from June and July, which I did both in July. I started September but just had other things going on and didn't really have a drive to finish it. I think it was because  a lot of the prompts were school related and I just don't have the greatest memories from school so I just lost interest. I wish I had picked it up again in October but sadly didn't. Well November is here and while I am already 4 days behind I AM DOING IT! I hope to have a post up once every week reviewing my lists. Hopefully that will keep me motivated to keep up with it! I love the idea that at some point my kids may look back on my list books. I wonder what they'll think of them. You can get started by heading over to Cori's lister website here for more details!

This is a quilt I started making for my daughter before she was born. I don't think I actually finished it until she was about 9 months old but hey at least she got it! I started teaching myself how to quilt but quickly got lost in the lingo. Lucky enough for me I have a mother-in-law who is an excellent quilter. There is no way I would have been able to this with out her. This is just a baby quilt and I have two full size queen quilts that were supposed to be Christmas presents the last two years. I keep telling myself, this is the year my two lovely ladies finally get their quilts (you know who you are!).

 I wish I made more time for journaling. I have so many of these composition notebooks that I love to cover and decorate. It's so easy! This is a gratitude journal I made in 2011 and severely under used. The last time I wrote in it was 2012. I think it's about time to bring it out and use it everyday. My only problem I find looking through it now is that so much time has passed do I leave the pages in it or tear them out and start over? It's nothing too deep. Things that I would write again so I think I'll start fresh.

These are some books that I covered a few months ago. I find myself wanting to use them all the time but for what? THEY'RE SO PRETTY! I'm a paper hoarder and I can admit it. Especially when the paper is so pretty I would rather just keep it and look at it every now and again. This past summer we were on a very tight budget and I was determined to use these beautiful items from my stash in order to 'earn' new stuff. I think it's time I put myself back on the kind of discipline going into the holiday season. It is my goal to do a lot of DIY and handmade items as a way of using up some of my stash, I don't have pictures now but last Christmas I made some really pretty home decor items. I'll try to remember to post pictures when I pull out our decorations and start decorating, AFTER THANKSGIVING! There are other crafts I know how to do and enjoy doing but I would say these are the big ones. I didn't put any pictures of my planners but I guess you could call that crafting too.

Like I said I get bored really easily and like to try new things to keep my creativity flowing. I never stick with the same thing for two long. Take my planners for example. I had my Happy Planner maybe two months before getting my Day Designer and a month after that I tried bullet journaling not because the previous planner wasn't working but because I got bored and wanted something new.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for my next creation, whatever that may be! SB