Paper review: Graphic 45-All that Jazz

This is a short comment review on Graphic 45 scrapbook paper.   I am trying to find what it takes to be a wholesaler. Why?  Well because i am trying to pump some money into my business.   I have been watching some You tube videos lately, and a lot of people are starting to get into scrapbook kits.  I love kits, but I can never find what I am looking for,  I want kits that feed the creative mind, and some (not all) of these kits have one or two kinds of paper, a little bit of embellishments, and not a whole lot of creativity.  If you want it to be completely yours, you have to add more stuff, which means going back to the store, and finding something that may not match.   I rather have leftovers to make something matching (a card, mini book...etc)

So today starts the day for something I think will be kits to make and sell.  I have seen it on the YT channels  Paper Phenomenon, follow the paper trail, and others.   even if it is a few, it would help.   I am researching for about a month, and testing with a few kits in April and May, then I will see as I go along.   My hope is that I do not rush into this.  If this is not too much work for me, I will continue.

so as I was researching for my first kit supplies, I ran upon this piece:

All That Jazz

I instantly thought 4x4 mini book and it is perfect for it.   The Graphic 45 All that Jazz paper can instantly be cut apart and decorated with embellishments.   In the next few days I will see.  To be honest, any of the Curtin Call paper would work beautifully with it.   I will see.

About Organizing pictures

hello-

I am up in the wee hours of the morning.   I have several projects that will keep me busy, busy for the next several days.   first off, I need to complete my mom's cards (will show them when I am finished).   My parent's just returned from a cruise, so I need to work on their cruise trip book.  It is a small scrapbook with a challenge for me:  24 pages-6 x9 format.  I am not saying that I cannot do it.  I have actually worked with less room then that.   When I get the pictures off of my SD card, I need to get the cruise pictures off of my dad's camera.  It is not like he needs help doing it.  I just want to know what pictures I am working with for this little book, and possibly make a hand crafted one in addition to the first one.   Things like this need a plan, and this is the reason why I call this organizing pictures.

You do not have to make a big deal out of organizing.   Back when I was little, and my parents took dozen of pictures, the task was not bad, but it was time consuming.   Between taking the pictures, going to the photo store to get them developed, waiting a week or so to get them back, and finally having them stored in these flimsy envelops, that was enough to bare.  Now with the age of digital, 33mm film is almost a thing of the past.   Now you can develop pictures from a computer, store them on a hard drive, and print them out at home.  If no computer is available there is a store nearby to print them out quickly.   No negatives to worry about (I think I saw my last negative in 1995)  What to do with pictures?

You have three filing choices when dealing with printed pictures.   File them by subject, Chronological, or using the number system.  I will tell you that using the number system is out.  too time consuming.  You have to develop a system and then put the subject under that number.   The best way is subject/chronological .    So your system would look like this :

As you can see, I put what the subject is all about, followed by the year it was taken.   If I find any pictures with anything that has to do with that house being the focal point of the photo, it goes in that envelope, and it has to be from that year.  Now for that extra touch:  do you see the "2" in the left-hand corner of the envelope.  only put it there if you have more than one copy of the photo.  Purging Tip:  The "2" also means that you can give it away to family members who care.  If you are a scrapbooker, it means that you might want to crop it up for layouts.  Another tip about this type of filing, The envelope in the photo is archival safe, which means that the photos can stay in the envelope without it decaying.   It takes about 10 years before it starts doing that.  

There are other ways of organizing your printed photos.  I am just showing you how I do it.  I bought mine at Archiver's, and I love how they mimic those old envelops, and still keep them safe.  If you took them with the 33mm film, negatives can easily store in the front for easy access.  For the other photos, I just store on a CD, or my 2TB hard drive, unless it is the current year, then it is on my regular drive until December of that year, then I archive them on the external drive.  

Well that is it for now.  Have a wonderfully blessed day.

Baby Shower invite

Baby invite

This card was created with my youngest nephew in mind.  Leon will be 2 in August, so before he was born, we were not sure exactly what he was going to be.  The baby shower was in July 2010, so in case he ended up being a she, the green was still appropriate, but we knew that he was going to be a bouncing baby boy.   Today, Leon (named actually Sidney Leon Logan III after his Great-Great Grandfather, his Grandfather, and his father) is a healthy, happy toddler with the whole world ahead of him.   

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sheet of blue cardstock-folded in half.

Half a sheet of green cardstock-originally 4 x4

1 sheet of patterned blue paper 4 x 4

1 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of skin color cardstock (I used tan)

1 12x12 sheet of bling cardstock

Ribbon

Cricut cartridge Everyday Paperdolls.

Cricut Machine.

I made this with my favorite, but if you have a different machine (manual or electronic) with a crawling baby, you can use it.  I cut the baby die cut at 3”. 

I hope you would visit Card a Day Blog, and enter in the challenge.  Until then, I will see you next time.   Have good weekend.

Finally, a new card. About my new folder

I have not created anything new in terms of cards, scrapbook layouts.  NOTHING lately.   Finally this morning, in the wee early hours of this morning, I finally made a card.   This card may not get on my Etsy page, for everything I make does not have to be sold.      I will not have a duplicate of this card on the Card a day blog I am a designer for.This card is for a friend of mine and fellow consultant, Jeanne, who is sick.  so this is the card, and it is a quick card.

This card is what I like to call my stash card.   Stash as in I did not use a new piece of paper.  It was in my scraps of paper accordion folder.   I will explain about the folder in a minute.

The recipe for this card:

Pink cardstock
Pattern paper
1 brad
black ink for edging purpose only (I used CTMH's black ink)
Recollection's blue butterflies
Kraft card blank

First of all, I edged the cardstock with the black ink.   Next, I adhere the pink cardstock to card blank.  I have it off center just a little.   Usually it is like that, because I could not center it, but this time it was intentional.   Set it aside.   I took the pattern paper, which I eyeballed the size, making it more inline with the width, as opposed to having it match both width and lengthwise. I folded up one corner, pierced a hole, so I can put the brad in.  adhere it to the mat.  I pooped up the butterflies, and stuck the "Get Well soon in the corner.   I will write a personal note in the morning.

My new scrap paper folder...

If you are wondering what to do with your scraps of paper,and you have an used accordion folder, you may like this tip.    I am currently in the process of organizing my office to accommodate my scrapbooking projects.  I have been in this town-home for about 10 years next month.  I really do not like it, but at the time, I did not have much choice.   I was making very little money, and my parents were helping out.   My rent in the old place went up from $650 to $750, and this seemed to be the best solution.   The problem was not that I had to move out of a place that I loved, but I thought that I would have a better choice then what was offered.   I wanted a single family home, and my father thought that a condo would be better suited for a person with no kids and husband.

OK, enough of that.  I really did not do anything to this home, except a few things, and now I want to really fix this place up, so if by chance I get to move this year, I could have my stuff paired down, and the place looking like someone really cares about this place, and less about a spoiled brat still wanting her way after 10 years.  Yes, I admit it, a spoiled brat.  This is also about re-purposing items that I previously bought for storing something else and using it in an new way.  In this case, it is a legal accordion folder.   For months, i stored my scraps of paper in an old boot box from a pair of boots bought in 2010.  It was perfect, except, I could not find the colors of paper I wanted, so I recently rearranged some business files to another area, and I had this empty accordion folder.   so I told the scraps out, re-sizing some of the pieces that were not quite full sheets of 12 x 12 paper, and sorting them by color.  So now I can just leaf through and find the color I want, without turning up pieces of paper, and bending the corners.

I also have a You tube video out.   I took a challenge, and it is called my top 20 scrapbooking faves for 2011.   A little late for it, and it was Injoystamping who issued the challenge.   You can find it here:   Well that is it for now.   God bless you all and good night.

Things are wonderful, really. New blog for my ramblings.

I apologize for not posting lately.   I am changing a bit, and it takes time.  I did start my new blog, and it is called My Blessed Life, and the address is http://patricialogan.blogspot.com.  Blogger said my name is available , so I took it as a sign to use it.   This blog is still available, but it is moving in a different direction.   I am now going in sort of a business phase of it.  It will still have the personal touches that it will always have but not as much as I like it to be.  I started feeling like I was not showing you as much of my work as I should.  After all, that was the real reason behind starting the MDN Creates blog in the first place.  I want this blog to be a inspiration, not a ramble session.   I think it was something I read in December.

I was thinking about why I only have 169 people following me.   So, I saw on a couple of newsletters I follow that you have to have a focus niche.  Scrapbooking, card making, and making journals is my niche for this blog.   Then I was asking myself, "was am I giving the readers or the people who look forward to reading this stuff, My take on the subject at hand, not what is going on in my family, not what happened to me two years ago, or my views on the world?"   I will have that, but only if it ties into what I am about to show you.

I also think I have too many affiliations on this blog.  I knew it for some time, but some are not related to the subject of crafting, so I need to refine it to where it all relates to crafting.  I also want to get involve with being part of a design team, and that means people looking at my blog for determination of my entrance application.

Two years ago, I pulled my Longaberger business stuff off of this blog to separate the two, and now I am doing it again.  Its called "cleaning house", and I am doing it once again.   I only have Two posts on the new one, but if you would like to hear what I have to say about life in general, from a short, black woman's point of view, come over to My Blessed Life.   It will be fun, I promise you.   I gave it that title, because I feel like I have been blessed.  Despite my situations in life over the years, I feel like God has given me more that I can ever ask for.   I will be honest, I have act like he has not, but you know what?  he has given me what I need for the moment.  I act like this spoiled, person, who just wants to be able to afford material things, but for Him, it does not matter.  I am trying to make a new change for this year.

So this is a wrap up of things you will see from me:  (just click the title of each blog)

MDN Creates (where you at now):  Scrapbooking, card making, and journal making.   also a link to my Etsy page.
Tricia's Baskets:   Longaberger products, specials, and a link to my Longaberger My Shop page.
My Blessed Life:  Ramblings about the world, content you can put on your own blogs, organizing, travel, and household stuff (cooking, car, and family)

Well that is it.   Oh, and take a look at something I made last month:

It is a tree made out of old sheet music.   a fun and simple little project I made at my stamp club. This Monday, I get to make something out of a soda can.  I will take a picture when I get finished with it.

Until then, or the next time I post.  take care of yourself.

I invite you to a golden anniversary

Last July, my parents celebrated their 50th anniversary.   Everything was wonderful, we celebrated it at our church after services.   My dad's sister was not able to come, but her family was well represented.  Mom had 1 brother and 2 sister's attended the celebration.   My brother and sister helped with the planning, and dad decided to continue the celebration with mom and they are going on a cruise next month.   I do not know what to do with those crazy kids.

It is my turn on the Card a Day blog to show you what I did to create the perfect invite of this nature.   At first, I was going to show the original invite, which had a white and gold pattern paper, and mounted to it was a lavender paper, with the invite printed on it.  I had already taken a picture of it from last year, but  as I reviewed it, I had some personal information on it.   So I went in MS Publisher and changed it around.   In the spirit of Valentine's day, I recreated the invite to look like this:

I think it turn out better than the original.   I double matted the invite.  the first mat is a patterned paper of paper stack given to me by my Secret Sistah over the holiday season.  It is 4 6/8" x 4 6/8" just about.   The Red paper (the second mat) measures about 5" x 5 1/2".   The kraft colored invite measures 4 1/2" x 4 3/8".
The only thing that is the same is I centered the text on both of them.  You can add a fake bow to it, and that is what I had on the original invite.

I invite you to go the Card a day blog to enter in a new challenge started for the month of February, as well as check out the other cards on the blog.   All of them are really nice.

Thank you for stopping by my little blog, and have a wonderful, blessed day.

%^&*%$^ my niece says

I have not written anything this year for this blog.   The last thing I wrote on this blog was Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.   That was it.   I sort of took time out to readjust and to unwind from all of the holiday affair.  You know what I mean.

I am doing a last minute blog hop, but instead of my normal "see what I made for you to see" blog hop, this is a ramblings blog hop.   I was given 4 topics to possibly write about, since I need the practice, and since I have not made anything yet,  I thought why not.  Besides that, I have a porker in the oven (I will be eating late tonight)

OK, the first topic I saw was one of those "get something off my chest" topics.   OK, I rather not.   I want to keep my readers, and add new ones.   The third one, I did not like.  It was about love, and when was the last time someone made me feel special.   I am currently not in a relationship, and the last time was when my father gave me money.   I cannot elaborate on that one.   The 4th topic is on New Year, New You, what am I willing to change or want to change in my life this year.   OK, do you have a year to read this post?  Does Blogger allow posts of that length? I don't think so.

So we have come to the second topic, and that topic is the things kids say.   As an aunt, I always get an earful of things that my niece and nephews say.   I have a 16 yo nephew who is typical teen.  My take on teens these days are they think that aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents are the scum of the earth, and we just do not get it.  What I want to know is, what is it that I am suppose to get?   If you would kindly explain it to me, I may just get it, and hopefully I am your best friend for getting it (whatever IT is).   Next is the 4 year old nephew.  I like to call him the little professor, because he is always talking, and questioning.   If I do not get it, he will explain it to me.   Last in the nephew line is the 1 1/2 year old.  He says ball, bat, his name, and other cute things.  Repeat it once, and he has it.   He thinks kissing the mirror is wonderful.

Now we come to the meat of this topic, my niece.   she is 3 years old, and just like her 4 yo brother, can talk your ear off if you let her (must be a competition thing).   This particular day, me, my sister (her mom), and the niece had a girl's day out.   We grabbed something to eat, and did some running around. You know, girl stuff.  We were sitting at the light when all of a sudden, something strange came out of this girl's mouth.   It was...a curse word.   OK, we have all had a slip of the tongue every now and then, but for this to come out of my niece was not a shocker to my sister.   The niece said it once before, I just have not heard it.   I whipped my head around, and yelled, "what?"  I never yelled at her before, except to halt her from hurting herself one time.   Foot firmly on the brake, I whipped back around to pay attention to light changing.   The last time I heard cursing coming out of a family member's mouth that young was when the 16 yo told me at age 2 what he was going to do to my bottom.   That was a shocker too.

This is the portion of the topic where I ask, "Is this cute?"  I say no.  Kids get these words from all sorts of sources.   My sister did correct her, but I would have liked for my niece to not say it at all.  The best thing to do is not make a big deal of it.  We got to our parent's house, told mommy about it.   she had some grandmotherly words of wisdom for her little granddaughter, and that was it.   The subject has not been talked about since that time, which was before Christmas.  The matter is closed.