Stamping & Scrapping with Jen

Tip of the Week: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

When you order many of the Stampin' Up! embellishments, they come in these small Ziploc bags.

I always save them because they can come in handy for so many things!!  Here are a few ideas:

• packing embellishments as part of page kits when you go to a crop
• packing your jewelry in when you travel
• use on your scrapbook page to hold keepsakes
• collecting shells on the beach
• storing ink refills when traveling to crops so they don't leak, and (my favorite)
• they are the perfect size for storing 50 Box Tops when you need to send them in!!

And if you can't come up with an alternate purpose, you can always recycle the bags with your plastic bag recycling.  Most grocery stores and large department stores like WalMart & Target have bins and accept them.

 

America Recycles Day

You may not know this, but November 15 is America Recycles Day!  This community event was started in 1997 to draw awareness to the importance of recycling.  Personally I prefer to try & reuse things before recycling; I think reusing is even better! So I thought I would share a few ways you can recycle and/or reuse some of your Stampin' Up! products!!

1. Recycle (or reuse) your Stampin' Up! boxes that come from UPS!  They are GREAT for moving, packing, or storing!!

2. Reuse the plastic containers that brads, buttons, and embellishments come in!!  They are great for holding small game pieces, jewelry when you travel, aspirin, change, tokens, screws, nails, and probably a lot of other little things!!!

3. Don't throw out your scraps!!!  Save them for smaller punches or diecuts!!!  Then once they are really "done" add them to your paper recycling!

4. When you remove the plastic from packs of cardstock, envelopes, or any other packaging, put them in a larger plastic bag and drop the bag off at your grocery store.  Most of them have a receptacle to recycle your plastic bags.

5. Look around your "stash".  I bet you can find things you don't use or want anymore.  Pack them all up & donate them to a school, camp, or church.

Good luck and let me know if you come across any more good ideas!!!

 

Tip of the Week: My Ten Favorite Facts about My Digital Studio

I am becoming addicted to My Digital Studio.  I have been playing around with it since Convention and I think I really like it!!!  Now don't get me wrong!  I promise I won't give up traditional scrapbooking!!  And I promise not to digitally scrapbook at a crop weekend.  In fact, the way I see it, I'll still get the same amount of traditional scrapbooking done, but now I can get more overall pages done because I will get to scrapbook in places and at times I can't do it traditionally.  (Like on an airplane, at a hotel, while waiting for my kids at their activities, in the car, at the pool, do you get the idea???)

Here is a list of my 10 Favorite Facts about MDS:

1. It still contains all the same Stampin' Up! colors that we know and love INCLUDING retired colors!!
2. Nothing ever retires!!!
3. The software is compatible with MAC and PC.
4. The software out of the box contains over $500 worth of content, including hundreds of papers, hundreds of embellishments, dozens of stamp sets, and MORE!
5. New downloads are released almost every week!
6. You can now sign up to be a demonstrator and customize your kit to include the MDS software!
7. MDS makes creating duplicate gifts a BREEZE!!!
8. MDS is VERY user-friendly!
9. There is a HUGE online resource if you ever get stuck, have any questions, or would like to learn more: http://mydigitalstudio.net/.
10. YOU CAN SCRAPBOOK ANYWHERE!!!

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Tip of the Week: How to Clean Up without being Overwhelmed

I am getting ready to leave for convention and it's crunch time!!  So I have a quick tip to post today!

I know I talk about cleaning up my desk a lot, and that is because I do it A LOT, so I might consider myself a bit of an expert, LOL!!!  But since I know that cleaning up is probably a common problem, I thought I would tell you how I tackle it.  Maybe it will help you when you look at your daunting pile and have no clue where to begin! (and Maybe it will help me when I have to do it again!! HAHA!!)

The first thing I did was decide where to start.  If you are doing a whole room pick a corner or a side of the room to begin.  When you are working on all different parts at the same time  you feel like nothing gets finished, so don't set yourself up for failure!!!  I decided to start at my desk, and I started at one end.  If I picked something up I had to put it away (no pushing it further down the desk!!)  I had another table cleaned off to create some piles to take care of later, but that still counted as putting the item "away".  Some of those piles were things for the kids to take care of, things that I would scrapbook, cards, Stampin' Up! pins & awards, etc.  Any tools, receipts, Girl Scout stuff, Box Tops stuff, and other things that already had a "place" went right back to where they belonged.

Granted, this took me hours, but I was able to consolodate things, throw a lot of stuff AWAY!, and get organized!  Now I have downline gifts, and convention swaps all over the place, but as soon as I am done with those projects, all the supplies are getting put back!!  I can't wait to have a clean desk again, and this time it's only going to take 3 minutes to put it all away!!

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Tip of the Week: Cheater Bows

So many people who come to my classes get anxious when they see ribbon on a card and stress out about having to do it themselves.  STRESS NO MORE, MY FRIENDS!!!!  Here are a couple ways you can create some cheater knots & bows!

Hope that helps!!!

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Tip of the Week: Cutting Photos

As many of you faithful readers might already know, I love to scrapbook with sketches.  So much so, that I even wrote my own eBook, Scrapbookers' Shortcuts about it (complete with sketches and lots & lots of layouts) and have six different sketch books published for the Kindle.

But back in the beginning, before I was drawing sketches, and when I was just following them, I noticed that many times the sizes of the photos was already pre-determined.  And if you wanted to follow the sketch exactly (or even closely), it made sense to stick to those dimensions.  Sometimes when you were cropping down a photo from say 4x6 to 3x4, it might be hard to determine where to cut.  If you make a wrong cut, your photo might end up too small.

To solve this problem, I took some sheets of vellum cardstock (#101856) and cut them to different sizes and labeled them with a black Sharpie pen.  I used some typical sizes that you'll often see - 2x2, 2.5x2.5, 2x3, 3x3, 3x4, 4x4, 4x5, etc.

Then, once you have your vellum cut, use it as a template over your larger photos to know how to crop them.

It makes cropping your photos so much easier!!  And it's a pretty minimal investment.  Heck, you might already have a few sheets of Vellum Cardstock hanging around somewhere that you could use!! 

Hope you enjoyed today's tip and I hope it saves you some time & makes your scrapbooking life a little easier!!

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Tip of the Week: How do I Organize My Retired Stamps?

I don't know about you, but I like to only keep my "current" stamps out & accessible.  Anything from past mini catalogs or retired, goes one of two places - either in a box to sell (someday) or on a shelf in my closet if I think it's something I may still use for a future class or project. (I save most of my kids sets and sayings sets, the rest go in a box.)

Once the Last Chance Lists came out, I took a hot pink sticker and marked all the current sets that will be retiring.  I'll leave them on my shelves for now and at the end of the month, I'll pull them off & make room for new ones!!!

To see how I organize my stamps in general, you can read this post.

I had a great weekend in California!!  Even though I stayed in Santa Monica, we were all over the place - wine tasting north in Santa Ynez, dinner, touring around, and drinks in Long Beach, and my friend Becky & I went south to San Diego yesterday to meet up with my running buddy Theresa and her friend who was running the Rock & Roll Marathon.  It was SO COOL!!!

I'm actually looking forward to my crazy busy week this week.  Lots to do and lots to work on.  It was just the break I needed to get me through the rest of the school year and into the summer!!!

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Tip of the Week: Transporting 12 x 12 Paper

I am still on a quest for the best answer for this, but here is something that happens to me at every crop.  I used a new solution this time and I definitely like it more than anything I have done so I thought I would share.  I might still be on the hunt for ways to improve it over time, but let me know what you think so far.

First let me give you my whole problem, which I would think is something many of you might also experience.  I have a lot of 12 x 12 paper ranging from cardstock to textured cardstock to patterned paper.  Since I am a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I use some of it at home for classes and for the occasional time when I scrapbook at home, but much of it I really just need to take with me to crops, which AT BEST will happen once a month.  So I need it sometimes at home, but I need it to be easily transportable.  And much of it I don't need at home ever.

My solution was to purchase several 12 x 12 paper holders and organize the paper inside by type - textured cardstock in one, current SU DSP in one, retired SU DSP in another, and misc patterned paper in another.  (I actually need another one for Simply Scrappin kits.)  At Staples I found a collapsible crate on wheels that I can fit 5 of the 12 x 12 paper holders.  (I only have 4 in the photo above.)  So when I am at home, I take out the current DSP and Textured cardstock out so I can have it available for classes.  The rest I can keep packed away until I go to a crop and all I need to do is add the additional holders.

 

So, we'll see how it works for me.  My friend Jen has used one of these crates before to store paper, and she said you have to be really careful that it doesn't break.  It's not the bottom or the wheels, but the sides that seem a little flimsy and we all know paper is HEAVY!!!  I think the handle part seems a little "lightweight" too, so I just plan to be careful with it and hopefully it'll hold up okay.

If you have any portable solution ideas, please leave me a comment!!  I'm always on a quest for things that are functional in my studio, yet portable when I go away to crop!!!

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Tip of the Week: So Many Adhesvies, So Little Time...

I agree.  There are a lot of options when it comes to adhesives, so how do you know which one to use when?????  Here is a list of my favorites and when I use them.

SNAIL Adhesive (#104332, refill #104331): This is my go-to adhesive.  I use this to adhere card layers and in my scrapbooking.  Basically anytime I have a "2D" project (as opposed to 3D), and I'm adhering "paper to paper".  I would say I use this adhesive probably 75% of the time.  It's also GREAT for school projects (think presentation boards, or even just gluing little pieces of paper together - like my Kindergartner's homework to cut out these teeny tiny squares and glue them on to finish the pattern, or match the letters, etc., etc. - you get the idea!!!) :)

Mini Glue Dots (#103683): These are my favorite adhesive for attaching ribbon to cardstock and anything metal (hardware, brads, etc.)  It's always best to avoid touching the glue dots with your fingers, so I always take whatever I need to stick and have that pick up the glue dot and then attach it to the project.  For more tips on glue dots, check out this post.

Sticky Strip (#104294): This is the stickiest adhesive and it comes in a roll.  (You can also order Sticky Pages (#114300) which are 12 x 12 sheets.)  Sticky Strip is best to adhere paper to paper in your 3D projects.  Anything that is a box or a die cut that becomes a 3D project.  It's also cool to put a strip across a project and sprinkle glitter or beads across it.

Glue Sticks (#104045): In almost all my kids' classes I'll have the kids use glue sticks.  It's a little easier for them to manage and it's as sticky as SNAIL, (but a little wetter), but a whole lot less expensive!!!  I also use glue sticks to attach cardstock or paper to chipboard.

Stampin' Dimensionals (#104430): I use these guys a lot, too.  But these are almost always strictly for the embellishment factor.  Dimensionals do just what they say!  They are foam dots that give height to your layers.  So often times when I want to raise something up and create more of a focal point, I'll use a dimensional (or 2).

2-Way Glue Pen (100425): This is like a glue pen and I use it almost exclusively to adhere glitter.  I'll also use it to attach tiny pieces of paper together (like some of the Sizzix pieces and letters or punches (the Owl Punch comes to mind)).

There are a few more adhesives, but these are the ones I use most often.  I hope it sheds some light on what to use when and maybe help you with some of your paper-crafting projects!!

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Tip of the Week: Stamp First, Then Punch!

A lot of beginner stampers (and some of us novices who "forget"), end up punching out their paper first and then try to fit a particular stamp on the tiny paper punch out.  I've been there (and do it sometimes STILL, too).  Your best bet is to always SFTP - stamp first, then punch!!

Here are a few photos to show you the step-by-step:

Stamp first.

Line up your punch.

 

Punch!!!

Ta Da!!!!

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