What to share??

What to share this week. There isn't really too much yo share this week since most of my free time has been spent purchasing gifts, watching Christmas movies and just working as much overtime as possible.

But on another note I did take a few time this last week to update the boring bland corner of my kitchen into a cute little area to add to the great room. It was super simple and really cute.

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Checking in to show you the calendar pages that I have completed during this relaxing (after all the cooking) Thanksgiving weekend. I love long weekends and this one is really refreshing. 


I was able to get March 2015 completed. The colors look different and match 100% better than on the photo.

And here is May 2015. May is a huge around here because it's two of the four kiddos birthdays and also its when we go on family vacation as well as the beginning of summer. It will also be the first May that we have a son graduating from High school. But here is the beginning of that calendar layout. And since this is my personal calendar I went with fun feminine colors. The papers are actually from the Simple Stories hey mom collection. I saw this collection on YT and was off to find it at the scrapbook store the following day. I love it because it has purple in it. (What I was looking for). Super cute for Mother's Day themed calendar pages.

Here are journaling pages for my two birthdays that are in May. I realized after the fact that I didn't leave a lot of room for journaling but I will journal the main points on here so that I can create scrapbooking pages later. And although this color doesn't match the other colors for the month, it still works perfectly in my planner.

April's page isn't done. I have tried to stick with one color for April but I keep looking through my stash and getting more stuff out. I really wanted to stick with the AC papers but I couldn't. Once I started looking through all these wonderful scrapbooking papers that I still had, I just had to open up the color range.  Well until next time...Smiles, Tracy

A new calendar is full of potential...

Honestly there just is something really exciting about a new calendar. The pages are empty and ready to be written on. There is so much that you can schedule but my planner means that there is so many more fun things that I get to think about. Like when will we get to go on vacation this year, when will school be out for the summer, what will we be doing for our 15th anniversary? So many fun things to think about. Of course there is also the things that you have to think about like when bills are due, when are doctors appointments and so on and so on.

But if you have gotta use a calendar make it a fun one. I really like this calendar so far. There is so much fun in making calendars every year, but this one has been a lot more fun because I haven't crafted like this in forever.

I have finished January 2014 ....

I really love how it has turned out. I actually am not done with the monthly page but it is real close. I just need to add all upcoming appts and other schedule info and a photo of me on my birthday.

And then I worked on February....this is the most completed month. I LOVVEEE it. What do you think? I love being able to see my hubby and I together on this month. And I can't believe that we will be celebrating 15 yrs of marriage in February. I'm excited about it too. I can't wait to be able to go somewhere special with him that weekend.

I still have several months to go but the months have been printed on their corresponding patterned papers. I love this paper pack just for this reason. It is the Amy Tangerine pack from M's that I talked about in my previous post. I am using other paper lines in the calendar to add to the design. For instance the older WRMK Valentine's line will be used for the weekly and daily pages.

Happy planning scrapers. Smiles, Tracy

Planning Ahead...

I love finding a great product that inspires me to be creativity. And while exploring instagram I found a photo of a new planner line coming in the scrapbooking world. And immediately I was intrigued. Seriously the line is almost perfect for my style of planner I wanted for this year. But there are things about it that don't fit my style of what I want too, so I sat down at my computer and came up with the monthly calendar that I wanted to use. It wasn't a great design not anything close to what I've designed before using Adobe but it was plain and right now plain is perfect so I can scrapbook it up. And since I'm looking more for a scrapbook that is a planner, the colors where printed in basic black too. I just love it.

I have always made my planners fit my style of planning and added photos and washi here and I've done something similar to this before but this is much more about the scrapbooking and writing it down then the supplies for me this time around.  And I can't wait for that line of scrapbooking planner to hit the shelves but I know that the monthly calendars and the weekly pages aren't going to work for me. I don't like being stuck with certain colors or products.  But even though I haven't seen it in person, I do know which products I want already. And yes I've added those to my wishlist already. LOL  I want January to be all about purple (it is after all my favorite color and also my birthday month) so I got to it....what do you think? It looks pink but there is a shade of purple and pink in there so I can rock purple on the weekly calendar pages for me and purple for the last week in the month for my daughter. Perfect comprise to the purple pink contrast without having it be girlie. I love it.

And yes those are paint sample cards...I'm using them to create the tabs for my months. I know clever huh. LOL I say that knowing that most know that it something that I've done many times before. And the photo sample card I usually use on the actual week of my birthday and put a photo of me on the other side or journaling card. Either way it's a cute element that is just my style. 

This page has changed so much already just from me sitting down to type this up I've decided that I'm going to stamp each day in the colors that match the doodlebug washi tape and I have pulled out some other washi tapes that match these colors to add to the daily pages...so the above pages were printed on plain computer paper but aren't these cute too....

This was printed on American Crafts Amy Tangerine papers that came in a stack from M's that was 8.5 x 11 and plain on the back side. Perfect match for both printing on as well running it through my printer.  These hearts are going to be for the month of August 2015. I have a ton of these colored embellishments and such that I can use with so many of our summer photos from 2014. That's why this is the perfect color for August. I'm serious about my planner life ladies and gentlemen.  So this is the beginning of a beautiful thing don't you think?

As for the scrapbook planner line, there are just a few items that I want  but the colors seem to be along the line of deep primary colors. And honestly I'm a bright in the spring and summer and bold or darker in the fall and winter kinda girl. As I type that I thought about explaining that to my boss and co-workers the other day. They seem to be thrown off when I rock all black or browns. It's the season for those colors. And I do love them just as much as bright pink and purples. And although they are awesome colors, I need to have flexibility I want bright fresh and airy feeling for my planner too. So although I'm designing the monthly calendar pages, weekly calendar pages, and maybe notes too; I do know that I want to get the daily pages. And I'm hoping that they will eventually expand on this product brand and lines. It would be nice to have different choices. But  I'm glad that I picked up the  Chevron binder this week from M's using the 50% off coupon and a gift card that I hadn't used. I don't know if M's gift cards expire but I figured I should use it before this year's Christmas came around.  I have had so much fun raiding my stash. I showed a photo of my scrapbook desk (not the entire space) to a co-worker and she said it was a nice little space. I wanted to laugh. Photos never show the actual size of something. My desk is the space of more than half of a 8ft by 13 ft room. And my cabinets are 36 inches and 24 inch kitchen cabinets from IKEA. When most people see it in real life they say your desk is bigger than your kitchen island. Which by the way it is. LOL...
See you soon. Smiles, Tracy

The office space

My little cubicle at work was really hard to enjoy. Honestly I love my job. I really do. I like the people I work with, and I have some of the coolest knick but and ask questions later kinda bosses. And that is why I think I fit in perfectly. I'm about my business. Well my space wasn't. It was a little cubicle (they are all the same size LOL in my boss's voice) but it felt smaller. Its literally in the corner. It like dark too. But I have been personalizing it for the last few weeks. It needed some personality. And here is the finished project.


I don't love it...but it sure is getting closer to feeling better. I can say right now I like it a lot. Love would be a perfect canvas quote about hard work in some pretty teal purple and black colors. I'll take some close up pictures of things that I made. Like the chicken wire frame, clothespins to hang items and cute flag pins to hang things in the cube. It isn't done. But it is getting there. And I've only spent $15. The lamp was $6.99 from the thrift store. The frame was $3. And I got the chicken wire from Hobby Lobby for 40% off which made it less than $5. And everything else was from around my house. I'm love looking at my space now when I'm working. And yes I work with the lamp on. That light is needed. Now I can't wait to decorate it for Christmas.

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Well who can wait a couple of days...

LOL I know that I just posted see you in a couple days but honestly I couldn't wait to share just a little fun I did decorating at work.

It was fun decorating. But next year I won't be decorating for this event. But isn't it super cute?

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Well now I'll be back in a couple days to show off my new decorated work desk and chicken wire frame.

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My poor little blog

So I came to my blog this last week to show off my previous works of art and share my love for all things crafting/decorating and more and I saw lots of my photos with an explanation mark on them. My heart sunk. Where did all my images go? Did someone mark them as inappropriate? What's wrong with it?? Well from all the research I read it could possibly be an update that I pushed through on my old cellphone or it could be that I deleted the images on a Picasa account. Well first off I knew nothing about having a Picasa account but maybe I had one. And somewhere in my memories I remember deleting images I had on an album because I didn't need them in said album. Is that my fault that I deleted them on one album and it directly affected my blog? I say yes and no. Had I been made aware that said album was directly connected to my blog I wouldn't have touched it. But I had not. I feel frustrated because over several years of blogging about my family, my life, my work and just stuff I drafted added photos but never shared (I wished blogger as a diary while being on bed rest for 2 or my last 3 pregnancies) is gone. Will I be able to recover a lot of the photos. Well yes and no. Yes if I have a way to and no because a lot of them are on my laptop that was destroyed and my hubby wiped and used it as an external hard drive without sharing the photos etc. No because hundreds I mean hundreds of cards and classes and projects that I taught, sold are gone because 2peasinabucket has closed their gallery. So in the mist of all that sad and whoa is me pity party I'm having I thought wow it gives me a chance to start over. To not be stuck on this used to be an amazing blog. Now this could be an amazing blog with a fresh start. I can start uploading old works of art that I have and share the memories of them again but with fresh spins on them. I can start sharing once a week again. So to my followers and fans and people who once loved seeing my work. Sorry it is gone but I am will have more to come. See you in a couple days..

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I just wanted to come and say hello. I have been really busy working on my new planner and it has been a lot of fun. I can't believe how much I love writing in this planner and it really is shocking to me because I thought that I would really not like it as much. But I really do love it. I haven't even thought about the ARC system at all. My son however is loving the planner.

And I haven't done any scrapbooking lately but I have been using many scrapbooking items on my planner. I have been stamping and creating all over the place. I absolutely love the fact that I have been using my stash on something that I want to use it on. And that is perfectly ok with me.

I wanted to share a couple of the pages that I recently completed. I really like having something to write in that is so fun.

On another note...we just celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I have to honestly say that I love my hubby so much. And it has been an interesting 14 years and I can't wait to see what we will share in the next years to come. I look forward to every thing that we will do and share together. Mostly because he will be by my side, that's what really makes it worth it.

And here is a photo of us then...

 

 

And a photo of us now...

 

Smiles, Tracy

Love at first sight...

Since it is February, the month of love, I decided that it was time to tell you that I got a new planner. Well I haven't changed anything over or gotten rid of my ARC yet. And I had no plans of doing that until recently. But while roaming the thrift store and finding absolutely nothing that I came for, I was about to leave out of the store without anything. And then I thought well go look at backpacks because;I need a nice tote to use when we go to the lake again. Well to my surprise all the planners were in that area. And I almost screamed when I saw this Franklin Covey classic sitting in the bin... She and I feel in love immediately.




She is beautiful although the strap is missing. I think that I could create a new binding. Or completely take off the ring altogether. But for $2, I wasn't going to pass it up. It truly was love at first sight.

I know that I was excited about my ARC planner but honestly I haven't bonded with it. And I have been using it since early December 2013.There is one thing about it that I haven't liked for day one. And honestly I haven't mentioned it because I wanted to see if it got better, and then I wanted to get bigger rings but then I thought that I didn't want to spend anymore money on accessories when I really didn't like other things about it too.

I use my planner everyday several times a day and the fact that when I lay it flat and then try to close it, it's hard to close. I have never experienced this with any other planner so I know that it isn't because it's stuffed. Something is off. I don't know what and I have made many books and used several types of binding options but this one has some issues. The pages never come out or at least they haven't for me, but I can't stand that when I attempt to close it or turn to another section it's hard to do. But I have been trying to deal with it until I figure out what the issue is but why should I just deal with it for the rest of the year? But I bought the punch...well I guess that Staples store credit will be nice for purchasing planner pages. And if I decide to get rid of the planner, my youngest son has already said that he wanted it. So it won't go to waste. I just have to figure out if I want to keep trying to make it work or just move on. And so I decided that I should just move on at this point. I have been working on her cover page and deciding on scrapbooking pagers for her binders. I really can't believe that she was so inexpensive since she really is in great condition. And here she is again with some of the supplies I found in the sections that I will be keeping.
  

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Chalkboard paint and finally a look into that office supply drawer...

I have been saying that I wanted to paint my pantry doors since forever with chalkboard paint and I even bought the paint about 4 months ago. And it sat in the garage for the whole time. And I although paint isn't something that I'm afraid of trying, this project intimidated me a little mentally because I didn't want it to look bad. Or make my kitchen look less than what I wanted it to look like long term. I want to do some major changes to the space, but those plans are long term. And although the idea of the chalkboard walls/doors seems practical for our family, I just wanted it to feel classy or something. I can't really explain it, but I wanted it to be pinterest quality I guess. Well finally I decided to do it last week. And I absolutely need to do some touch ups to the paint job because I didn't follow directions and let it cure for a week (so the chalk pens I used originally on it have left a permanent staining) but here is a photo of it all painted and decorated for my seven year old's birthday.

Can I say that this is the second best small thing I have done to this builder grade spec home to make it feel more like my own. I have had a chalkboard/message board in our homes in the past and it finally is starting to feel like this is something that is truly my style. Ok the office is the first thing but I should say the first thing in the kitchen. Those walls are still builder beige, which is another project that I have planned on working on before 2014 is over. Hopefully I'll have the space completed by then.

I mentioned before in other posts about the top drawer of my desk being only office supplies. And honestly I had no intention on showing that drawer to anyone, but while on twopeas the topic was brought up and I thought why not show it. It isn't messy, there isn't anything wrong with a person having 20 packs of post it notes open in all shapes and sizes Right? LOL well if you use them in planners and on school binders and all things organizational, then yes it is absolutely perfect. So here is a photo of the drawer.

 I have to say that most of the items were purchased during school supply sales. Or at the 99cents only store while I was on my lunch break. That place is great to walk while trying to deal with stress at work. Well only if you spend less then $5 that is. And I didn't buy lunch each day (because I packed my lunch) but I would go and get a tea and check out the office supplies. And I could say that these are all the stash that I have but that would be a lie. There is still a front pantry closet of school supplies for the kids and then I have a small stash in my cabinet above my desk. I honestly have run out of post it notes so I try to stock up when I see them on sale or really cheap. I have to say that it doesn't take much for me to follow the organizer/planner/Filofax obsession since I already was a office/school supply/scrapbooking one.  And honestly it is kind of nice to know that there others out there that are just as nerdy and silly about paper, planners, and post-it notes as I am. I can remember buying my school supplies for high school with my Target paycheck and how I loved the fact that I got all that I needed, what my brothers and sisters needed and still had enough money and supplies left to donate some supplies to my best friend (as well as have over half my paycheck left). I love supplies but I especially love good deals! Well until next time. Smiles, Tracy

Planner update...

I promise that all my future posts won't be about my planner. Well not all of them. But I wanted to come and give some feed back for anyone that may be considering an ARC planner.

I still like the planner. Although I'm wondering about the wear on the covers. I have had my planner for a little over a month and a half and plastic cover is rounded now. And that is ok. But it is something that I think about when I look at my planner. I am not in love with the paper quality of the monthly calendar/weekly pages. They don't fall out but I feel that I must washi tape the edges because they aren't that strong feeling. Although not one page has ever fallen out.

I also have decided that whatever planner I get in the future must have 2 page per week and also notes too. I'm finding that I need more writing space (as I thought I would)and the only way to solve that issue is add a note page.

So I went to the thrift store recently and while in there just looking, I saw that there are several Franklin Covey planners there that look nice. They are all black, but still in really good shape. Two of them were $2.99 and another was $4.99. I decided to wait until I check a couple other stores because I would like a larger sized one if I'm going to use these again? I'm still debating because the rings bother me, but the more I use this planner, I realized that I still have the same issue with these rings. So really unless I'm going spiral bound for 2015, a ring is a ring is a ring. I have been doing a little more with the planner lately. I have started to stamp on pages now. And it is fun. I got to pull out stamps that I didn't even remember buying (there was a time while working fulltime that I was stressed so I'd go to M's for my lunch break). I also realized that if I purchased a planner it doesn't have to have lines because I have a ton of journaling line stamps. It is nice to actually use my supplies again even if it isn't for scrapbooking. Here is a photo.

Oh and the heart shaped small post it notes are diecut using my spellbinders dies. I was thinking about purchasing some heart shaped post it notes but most of the time the shape is off or is too big and this size is perfect. The actual lined paper is from the thrift store I got a pack of Franklin Covey and Daytimer lined notepaper for 25cents each. And I cut them down to fit into my planner. It is very thin, but that's ok for now.


I hoped to have completed my wall of Valentine's Day décor but since I am now preparing for my daughter's birthday I'm going to finish working on it after next weekend. Well I hope that everyone is having fun making crafty things no matter what the craft is. Smiles, Tracy

Valentine's Day already?

I can't believe that is has been a week since my birthday. But what I couldn't believe is that I went shopping and there was Valentine's day items out already. It was really without a beat that we moved from one holiday to the next around here. So this weekend I finally started packing up Christmas. Speaking of Christmas here is a photo of the family on Christmas Day at my Father & Mother in law's place.

 I wish that I could say that we had a great holiday well we we did have a great time after everyone got over the food poisoning that they had. It was truly a bad cause of it here.  We went to several Christmas parties in our neighborhood and none of them made us sick, but a neighbor came and gave us some cookies and my littlest one got into them. I honestly told my hubby to toss them because we didn't know the neighbors well enough to eat their food and the wife usually doesn't even speak to me or my kids at all when we speak and wave to them. So I asked him to toss the snacks. He didn't listen and he gave some to our youngest and he had some too. They both were sick within an hour (maybe more like 30 mins) and it was bad. Real bad. So my rule of tossing things like that will be honored because he now understands.

Well I went to several stores because I wanted to get some items for our mantel and get it decorated why I was motivated to do Valentine's Day because usually Christmas would be up until the end of the month and then I would just do Spring. Not Valentine's Day but because our anniversary is two days before I decided that the mantel this year needed to celebrate our day of love. I'm working on it...it is a process honestly. I really want it to look nice and somehow that in my mind includes a bunting, a couple of frames, photos and more. I'm excited because I haven't done much with photos of our wedding. And somehow I have been consumed with getting this mantel done. I have also been reorganizing my space. I have also been sucked into the washi tape world too. I do have to say that I never got the whole washi tape craze when it first started but using it on the edges of my planner pages makes it a necessity now.LOL.

But here is the start of the mantel that I'm working on. I realized something today. I have lost my picture taking skills. Photos that I have taken all seem to be blurred somewhat. I think I need to learn my new camera, but really I also think that I haven't been taking photos so I have lost a really good skill of not taking blurred photos.

I also see now that I need to finish painting and correct some paint issues. I think this is going to be cute and most items were things that I had around the house. I will add more photos of the finished product.

Happy New Years!!

I enjoyed our family's New years celebration this year. It was spent at home with our immediate family, snacking and listing to music. I also got to sneak off with the girls and we went to the office to craft a little. Well they came to paint and I came to work on my planner. And I accomplished a lot of more that I had planned on doing tonight/this morning.

So this is what I have completed so far, there isn't much done. But the cover is finished.

all the photos of each family member is added to their birthday month/actual day of their birthday.
And here are a couple inside pages as well. Not a lot going on, because if you can't tell from my scrapbooking style I'm a less is more kinda girl. But I do like cute stickers (on my planner only lol) and while working on this planner I'm realizing just what I'm going to change next year...well that is if I still love this style planner in December??

And of course I started my wishlist and supplies that I need to order for 2014. It wouldn't be my planner if it didn't have that section in it lol.