Sunday Crafty Goodness and Welcome Back!

Hello friends!  So, it's been a bit since I've blogged....
My life has been INSANE!  First, my husband had surgery to repair 2 pinched nerves in his RIGHT arm, therefore making me his right arm slave for a few days and THEN I lost my job!  I know, you're thinking, "Well if you've been unemployed, doesn't that mean you would have MORE time to blog?"  And, yes, in a perfect world that may be true...I, however have discovered that being unemployed takes up twice as much of my time!  Not to mention that both my boys have started baseball, which just adds to my "To Do" list.  Now, in addition to dropping off the childrens I have to pick up Farm from preschool every day at 11:30 am, except for Fridays when he doesn't have preschool at all, apply for jobs, interview for jobs, take boys to practice because dear hubby has been trying to work overtime as much as possible AND since I'm home, I do all the cooking.  NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING! Sincerely, I try to do as much cooking, cleaning and laundry as I can BECAUSE I am home all day.  But between trying to do my weekly sketches for the blog, being a SAHM, baseball and trying to find a new job, blogging kind of fell by the wayside...but now I'm back!  If you're coming from Nuts About Sketches, WELCOME!  I promise there will be more to ready now :)

But now we're back and I'm going to try to work it in as much as I can!
Today's Sunday Crafty Goodness is going to be a little different in that I'm not going to show/tell you a step-by-step on this craft (it's pretty darn self-explanatory), but I wanted to show you what ELSE I've been up to to try and earn a little extra $$$.

You guys know baseball is very big at our house, so here's my latest craft:

Yup, flowers made from new baseballs, old baseballs and new softballs!  On the back I have glued metal clips lined with felt so that they can be clipped to flip flops, clipped to in your hair, to your purse, your hat, whatever!  I saw them here.  Full disclosure: the DIY video does not show you how to make flowers from REAL baseballs.  So, I MacGyver'd my own :)

Some folks from my home town saw the ones I've made and now I have a few orders coming in :)

So, crafty goodness for today and a commitment to blog more!  Also, if you haven't already, check out my pages and the pages of my wildly talented fellow DT members at Nuts About Sketches and the awesome scrapbook sketches available :)


Maymie

Sunday Crafty Goodness: Decorated Tray

Hello friends, happy Sunday :)  Today's crafty goodness is one of 3 wall hangings I've been working on for my boys.  I LOVE decorating trays and shadow boxes to hang on the wall :)  I like that you can use a photo and add little details that really tell the story of a photo or the person in the photo.  OR not use a photo at all and make something cute to hang in your office or bedroom or wherever.  These are two that I've made--one with a photo, one without:

For the white one (lil' Miss's) I used 3 photos from a photo shoot she and I did in 2011.  I loved the colors of her scarf and hat and tried to incorporate those in the ribbon streamer.  It was so fun for me to make because I rarely get to make really girly stuff!

The black one was my first attempt at tray decorating.  I loved the Live. Laugh. Love. card from my Simple Stories stash and decorated around it.  Some burlap, lace, vintage buttons and we're set!  The gold button on the upper left corner actually came from an old coat of my grandmother's :)  It was destined for the trash pile but I snagged all the buttons first!


So today I worked on Mr. J's tray; gathered all my supplies:

 6x6 paper pads are AWESOME for this :) I seem to waste less paper and the prints are sometimes smaller and better for smaller spaces.  This tray is a 6x6 and the big opening is just under 6x4 inches.  Easy to trim a piece of paper for the photo backdrop!

Once I had the big opening covered I used my 1 7/8ths square stamp punch to punch out my 3 squares of paper.  For this tray I kind of like the jagged edges that allow the black to show through a bit in the small squares.

Then, I used my detail scissors to cut out the framed saying that I put on the upper left corner.

Next, sorting through metal embellishments!

I love the copper coins with letters on them :)  They're actually reversible, with the upper case on one side and the lower case on the other.

Now to finish it up :)  I use glue specifically for metal to attach the coins, button and metal key to the paper and then glue dots to hold the paper to the tray.  I used my hot glue gun to attach a piece of jute twine to the back for hanger.  And then, the hardest part:  waiting for all the glue to dry so I can hang it up!  I generally try to leave any project that I've used metal glue or Elmer's glue laying down in my craft room before I hang it, just to make sure that glue is really dry and my embellishments aren't sliding around :)

Happy crafty Sunday friends!  Take care and have a great week!


Maymie 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello friends and Happy LOVE Day!  Valentine's Day has always been one of my most favorite holidays!  I think it's because it's so close to my birthday ;)  I love everything about it!  Okay, except that it's in February when it's cold and snowy and yucky.  But I love the hearts and flowers and chocolates and all the yummy pinks and reds and purples!

SOOOOOOOOO, in honor of LOVE day, how 'bout a quick and easy (and cheap!) craft to celebrate!?  I think yes :)

I took this collection of goodies:  (much of which was already in my stash, always a bonus)

And made this!

And here's how:

I picked up four different sized frames from the "value" bins at Michael's (I think they were $1-$2 each) and then gathered some cream-colored watermark paper from my stash, my sheet music stamp and some black ink. We'll get to the diecut machine pile in a minute :)

I tried to stamp the sheet music sections paper as close and even as I could (without overlapping) to cover the entire sheet, that way I didn't have to be overly careful about cutting out pieces to fit my frames.  I made sure to cut my new sheet music paper out using the background paper inside each frame as a guide so that each would be sure to fit.  I also kept that paper inside the frame, just behind the sheet music paper so that the black backing of the frame would not show through my light colored paper.

On to the diecut machine!  Depending on the size of your frames, you could use larger letter stickers or even sketch out your own letters!  My frames are approx. 3-3.5" so I pulled out my trusty diecutter and a loopy, cursive-y font cartridge and some very shiny black cardstock.

After I got my letters all cut out, I ran them through my handy dandy sticker maker:

And then it got fun!  To make sure I had my black letters centered in the frame where I wanted them to be, I took out the plastic "glass" of the frame, put my sheet music paper in the frame and then placed my letter :) Once each letter was stuck in the right place I took it out, replaced the "glass" and put it all back together!

And so, here's our finished product, one more time:

So cute and fun and EASY and cheap!  Which is how crafts should be sometimes :)   Really, the hardest part for me?  Deciding which letters would go in which shaped frame!  Couldn't have the "O" in the circle frame...would the "L" look better in the rectangle or the oval???  Not counting the great letter/frame debate, this cute craft took me about 15 minutes once I had all my supplies gathered :)

Happy Valentine's Day friends!  I hope you have a happy day filled with lots of lovey-dovey!


Maymie 

Whaddya Do?

Hello friends and welcome to Whaddya Do? Wednesdays!  Today's whaddya do involves: scrapbooking embellishments!

Here's my dilemma:

I have a very cute set a photos that I am DYING to scrap.  They are of Mr. J riding in a red wagon down a sloped sidewalk at my mom & dad's.  They are adorably blurred:

 (I STILL don't know how I managed to blur the background and keep him mostly in focus!)

And I kind of have a layout in mind, but it centers around having a dimensional sticker of a little red wagon!  I have looked EVERYWHERE for one!  I know I've seen them before; I think it's a JoLee's item, but I cannot find one anywhere.  Whilst looking I began to give up finding EXACTLY what I wanted and just tried to find any sort of red wagon...no dice.  I could find COVERED wagons galore!

So, this week's Whaddya Do? is:

Do I put these pictures and this layout on the backburner until I find exactly what I'm looking for?  Or should I change the theme of the page to embellishments I can find?

Next week I'll post the top solutions to the problem and show you which direction I went!

Happy Crafting friends :)

Maymie

Sunday Crafty Goodness: Washi Tape Holder

Hello friends, happy Sunday and welcome to what I hope will be a weekly post: Sunday Crafty Goodness!  I'm always trying to figure out new and better and cuter ways to organize my craft and scrapbook supplies and other things around the house and since scrapbooking is generally what I focus on, I thought it would be fun to take one day a week and showcase crafts other than scrapbook pages!

Today I finally figured out a better way to store my washi tape so it's easier to see and much more accessible to use and I wanted to share it with you :)  I've seen the cute tape dispensers coming out, but sometimes I really hate spending lots of money on something when I can rig something from supplies I already have!  And I like having something I can personalize and decorate and make my own ;)

This is where my washi tape used to live:

A random piece of ribbon that has a velcro fastening :)  All my washi tape was on it and when I needed a particular color I shifted the the rolls down to get the one I needed to the opening, pull it off, use it, put it back.......not very convenient!  And not very pretty either :)

So, using an empty Snapfish box, fun colored duct tape, a box cutter and wooden dowels I set out to make something better :)

 I cut the lid off the box and, using my Crop-A-Dile Big Bite, I punched two holes in either end, equal distance from the edges and each other to give my washi tape room to spin :)  Then I got busy with the tape!  I used the white tape to reinforce the corners and cover the inside and out.  Wherever possible I tried to avoid taping over the holes I'd already punched but when I did cover them I used my small, non-stick scissors to punch through and keep the holes visible.

To add a pop of color and make the bottom look nice and finished I used the pink tape:

 
Once I trimmed the dowels to a more manageable size and slid them into the box I added a "stopper" using teal duct tape, just so the dowels wouldn't slide out and dump my tape out and get lost!  I cut a 1/2 inch square of tape and folded it around the top and then took a strip of tape and wrapped it around to make the stopper.  At the other end I took another strip of tape and wrapped it once around the bottom; enough bulk to keep it in place, but not so much that I can't pull it in and out to add/change/remove rolls of tape as I need to.

 Wanna see the finished project?  Here she is:

My most often used and basic colored washi tape!  Nice and organized and VERY accessible and so cute, with the added bonus of being very portable!  My new WT dispenser measures 9in long by 4in wide by 1.75in tall; and since the stoppers make things pretty solid and secure, it'll be easy to throw into my scrapper tote to take to crops :)  I do have some more specialty varieties (Disney, Christmas, etc.) but I keep them in their individually themed drawers.  I did toy with taking apart some aluminum foil boxes and adding a nice serrated edge on either side, but since washi tape is so easy to tear anyway, I figured why risk the blood shed?  Lol!

So, there you have it, today's Sunday Crafty Goodness!  How do you store your washi tape?

Maymie

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Maymie's corner!  This is not my first blog, but it is the first I've done that will center on my crafts and photography and SCRAPBOOKING :) and not my family.  You'll get a peek into my family life and also get glimpses into my journey to become a healthier ME!

So, a few things about me!  My real name is Amy but I have 2 sweet nieces and 4 studly nephews (with a new niece or nephew coming soon!) that all call me Maymie :)  Growing up my grandfather used to call me Maymie Ree and I never realized how much I loved being called that until he passed away in 2000.  When my nieces and nephews started coming along they started calling me Maymie, so here I am!  I am married to the sweetest man on Earth and the lucky mom to 3 sons, ages 9, 6, 4 and 1 stepdaughter who is 15.  About 4 years ago my oldest stepdaughter, Kaitlyn, passed away at 16 after a 5 year battle with cancer.  She loved to dance and we miss her every day.  I'm still working on her scrapbook and so occasionally you'll see pages that feature her and parts of her history.  And you'll get to know my other babies too!  Mr. J, who is 9, plays accelerated league baseball, which, even in Utah is an almost year-round sport!  Practices for spring ball began the 1st week of January and we'll play probably through June, then we'll have a break until August, then fall ball starts and goes through October, then a 2 month offseason!  But we love it.  J has a really great team with great parents and it's a lot of fun :)  Ralphie, who is 6, wants to be just like J and today he took another step in that direction!  We signed him up for Little League today and it will be his first "real" team.  He's pretty excited and it will be fun to have another kiddo on the diamond.  Farm is 4 and our youngest...for now! And he's going to be an adventure, I think.  He's very different at 4 than the other boys were, but given that he was our "surprise" baby, that's not a shock :)  He came to us at a time when our lives were complete chaos, but we wouldn't trade him for anything!  Our Miss is 15 and sweet, smart and full of her own challenges :)  She lives with us half the time and her mom half the time...we're lucky that we can share time that way and have her be a part of things at our house too!

I do work full time for a doctor as a medical assistant and I love it :)  I have a great boss and great co-workers and I really enjoy what I do!  I'm lucky in that they allow me to feed my creativity by decorating the office for the holidays :)  

And on top of 4 kiddos and a full time job I try to carve out time to craft, scrapbook, take and edit photos and now, I'm trying to become a healthier me!  My husband and I are trying to eat healthier and take walks together and set a better example for our kiddos.  Our goal is to start running this summer and start completing a few races!

I'm glad you're here!  Please, leave comments, invite your friends!  I'll be posting photos of my latest projects and pages and all kinds of crafty goodness :)  You can find some of my favorite projects from the past here on my Flickr page or follow me on Pinterest at amyadams04.  You can also see my work at Nuts About Sketches beginning in March 2014 as part of the new Design Team :) 

Welcome to Maymie's Corner!