I majorly need your help!  I have agreed to participate in a craft show with my daughter and a friend of mine and her daughter.  The girls both make jewelry and have been unsuccessfully trying to sell their wares at garage sales.  It really is nice stuff, and my friend and I thought it might sell well at a craft show.  And then my friend makes beautiful cards, so she announced that she was going to sell them as sets at the show.  That's when I panicked because I hate feeling left out.  What would I do while my party is selling stuff and making money left and right?  What would people think of me, the unindustrious mom, just sitting there eating a bake sale brownie, while her daughter and friend grow richer and richer?

I am crafty to a degree.  I scrapbook.  Sometimes.  I buy a lot of scrapbook supplies.  A LOT.  So, I thought about what I could make with my ever-growing stash, and thenI remembered these little paper bag albums.  I've made 2 so far, but I have not idea how to price them.  That's where you come in.  Take a look at the pictures and tell me....honestly...what you think.  I don't know any of you in real life, (well, except my sister Debbie....oh, and Adrienne, but I haven't actually laid eyes on you in years...oh, and then I forgot that Susan and Amy and Jay and Ma post on her sometimes...I know all of you, of course...but the rest of you, I definitely do not know) so feel free to tell me how stupid my product is and how you wouldn't pay two cents for it.  I will cry uncontrollably and try to OD on my women's complete vitamin, but go ahead and tell me.  (Oh...and if you're one of the ones that I really know in real life and you think this idea and product is stupid, you better lie to me...please.)

OK...here's what I'm dealing with.  This is the cover:

I left room so the buyer could customize it with a name or a year or a smudgy fingerprint of cranberry sauce or whatever.  The following are the inside pages where they can place their own pictures and journaling or their receipts to Toys-R-Us.

Because these are made from paper bags you have open ends on some pages (which are actually the tops of the bags), so I made a couple of little pull-out inserts.  On the first one is a blank letter to Santa, if you believe in that nonsense, and on the second is a place to list your Christmas wishes.  On the backs of both of these is more decorated space for pictures or whatever.

OK...a few things you should know before you give me your verdict.   These albums are 6x6.  They are not put-together now, but I am going to sew the seams and then cover with a paper binding.  Everything (except the bags, which are completely covered) is acid-free and attached with acid-free adhesive.  The colors are a  little off due to my camera, computer screens, the lighting and my shadow, but I used papers from a coordinating kit, so it all matches.  Basically, I want to know what you would expect to pay for something like this at a craft show.  Have you seen anything like this before?  Do you think I could sell a few of these?  Let me know...honestly, sort of, in a nice, delicate sort of way, what you think!

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Tonight is the night.  The night that VBS at our church begins.  The night that children flock to our small worship place from miles and miles.  The night where we sing, dance, and eat a lot of goldfish crackers.  The night where I ultimately lose my mind, along with all the other adult workers.

I am craft woman.  I have been craft woman for 3 years now.  Craft people generally last about 3-5 years, and then they usually get committed to an institution, so I may be good for another round or two....you never can tell.  I like crafts, which is why I volunteered to head this up a few years ago.  However, I've decided that I like to do crafts by myself.  Leading a cramped room of about 30 hot, sweaty kids in crafts is not something I like afterall.  But someone has to do it....might as well be me.

Actually since I discovered Oriental Trading Company it's not half bad.  This year was especially easy because our theme is "Where the Wild Things Are" with a jungle-type motif, and they had jungle crafts out the wazoo.  They package all their crafts individually with all the pieces included.  Basically all that I and my co-workers have to do is open the package and hand it to a child to assemble.  There are always a few glitches though.  Tonight we are supposed to make these beaded animal necklaces.  I got one out earlier to make a sample and discovered that the jute twine they include doesn't fit through some of the wooden beads.  Brilliant.  So I spent a good part of my morning trimming lengths from some thinner jute that I, by the grace of God, had around the house.

Every year I have at least one person ask me how I go about picking out the crafts.  My guidelines are that I generally avoid anything that involves paint, glue or glitter.  Sounds tricky, doesn't it?  Not with Oriental Trading Company!  They have self-adhesive everything and paint pens at very reasonable prices.  And glitter is just evil and needs to be shot.  We don't do glitter...ever.  Our crafts are very non-shiny.

No matter how much I simplify the craft process, everything I choose still makes Mr. B nervous.  Mr. B is an elderly man who helps out in the craft room every year.  He will come back every night, hover around while I'm getting things ready, and ask, "So Craft Woman, what do you have planned for tonight?"  I will show him the foam door hangers or the string art crosses, and he will inevitably have the exact same reaction.  He shakes his head, sits down, and says, "Oh dear."  (You see why we can't use glitter....it would probably make Mr. B faint.) After he's recovered from the shock, however, he gets up and proceeds to be one of my best helpers, bless his heart. 

Every year we never have any idea how many kids are going to show up.  It could be 15 or it could be 150.  If it's 150, you will find me hiding in the bathroom, sniffing my forbidden glue.

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I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I love to look at pictures of other people's houses.  There is a scrapbook website that I frequent some, and there some people post pictures of their scrap rooms/corners/closets.  It's become my favorite place on the site!  Well, yesterday I did some cleaning and organizing of my space, so I thought I would post some pictures too.

 My space is roughly about a third of our bonus room.  The other 2/3 is our schooling area, which I also need to photograph, but that part is kind of messy right now and is in bad need of organizing.  I owe Damon for the shelf installation and desk painting a few years ago.  I really need a new chair.  Actually I think I would prefer a stool because I'm up and down quite a bit and feel a little confined in a chair like the one I have.  Whatever I get, I want it to be white to match the desk.

On the top shelf are my 2 ribbon organizers.  The top, messy one is actually a cd organizer, but I have it too full.  In the tilted jars are flowers, decorative buttons and loose ribbon.  The tall jar holds some of my rub-ons (the Making Memories tall booklet kind).  For my paint I bought one of those tiered shelves that are for kitchen cupboards.  On the middle shelf I have 8 photo boxes.  Six of them actually contain pictures (although I need more), and the two green ones have my foam stamp collection, filed by letter.  Next to that is my non-functional, but very cute sewing machine, my Sizzix and my small trimmer.  The bottom shelf holds my real sewing machine, some 8.5x11 paper and all of my 12x12 paper pads...I have paper issues.

Here's a close-up of my desk top, which is unusually clean and clutter-free.  It houses some frequently used idea books, an organizer that holds current photos that I'm working on, and my Cricut machine.  The book that you see is actually a paperbag album that I made for Damon for Valentine's.  Above my desk are my Cricut cartridges, some little galvanized buckets that I picked up at Target which hold my frequently used things (pencils, scissors, pens, etc.), an acrylic organizer that holds more ribbon (have issues with that too) and tools, a lamp and some little framed pictures.  You can also see the big clipboard which I have yet to hang.  My idea is to hang a current layout up for a time instead of putting it directly into an album.

Here are my shelves.  The top holds mostly empty albums.  The basket contains my miscellaneous stamps.  The middle shelf holds drawers filled with my Sizzix dies, adhesives, chalk, cutting tools, letter stamps, eyelets, chipboard and more ribbon (!!!) and fibers.  You can also see my tower of stamping ink there.  The bottom shelf holds my punches to the far left.  The middle organizer  holds embellishments organized by letter and type.  My cutting pads are also shoved in there.  The small drawers hold embossing powder, ink, grip punches and Zig pens.  And my radio is also there for listening to the John Tesh radio show and books on tape late into the night.

Lastly, here's my tower of paper...see, I told you...issues!  Cardstock on top, patterned paper on bottom, all organized in rainbow order.  Another thanks to Damon for putting the shelving together for me!

And that about does it!  It's where all my creating takes place.  And as you can see, I don't need to be shopping anytime soon....although I probably will be!

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Hmmmm....not sure that the title that I chose for this sounds all that wholesome.  Well, regardless, I just wanted to share a project that I used my Cricut diecut machine for recently. 

I have been scrapbooking for about 8 years.  In that time I have bought TONS of products that have come and gone from the market.  Some of these have been ok.  Some have been useful.  A lot of them have been real duds.  I think about my little Xyron machine.  I can't remember how much I paid for that thing that I had hoped would put an end to glue sticks, but I spent much more time picking off the little glue balls that it created all over my projects than I would have with a glue pen.  I once spent a pretty penny on some tinting pens.  I thought it would be so cool to print my pictures in black and white and then use the pens to tint certain objects, like a flower on a straw hat, etc. Well, I had one successful use with those, and not long after Damon realized that you could do the same thing with a computer program...with none of the mess!  Oh, and then there was the little mini sewing machine that I bought from, I believe, QVC.  It was so cute, came in green that matched my scraproom, and would be oh so easy to use.  The first time I attempted to use it, I broke something and have never touched it since.  However, it still looks cute sitting on the shelf.    Even my Sizzix machine, which I do use fairly regularly, has not been exactly what I had hoped.  I love the alphabets, but they are so expensive...and then you're locked into only one size.

Well, as I told you in a previous post, I received the Cricut for Christmas.  I had been drooling over this ever since it debuted last spring.  The machine itself is a little pricey, but the cartridges are half the price of what other diecut machines charge.  And then all you have to do is type in what you want it to cut, press a button, and a few seconds later, you have a beautiful piece, title, diecut, whatever to place on your layout or card.  It was amazing!

I'm sure Damon had to be skepitcal, but I think I've proved myself since I've been using it constantly since Christmas.  I already need a new cutting pad!  So I just thought I'd share my most recent creation.  It's actually  the February page for our 2007 calendar.  The Cricut elements are the letters LOVE and their shadows and the big hearts that they are matted on.  I am also using it to cut out all of the months' letters. 

I would encourage anyone who scrapbooks or makes cards and is considering this machine, to go ahead and take the plunge!  It is fun, easy to use and a BIG time saver.

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