Holiday crafty storage....

Note:  This is my second post for today.  Scroll down for more organizational tips for your holiday crafting items!

Last week I did a little junkin' and I found some wonderful treasures.  I'll be sharing some of the photos soon that I snapped that have some wayyy cute ideas for using vintage items in holiday displays.  But for today I have some items that I'll be adding to the shop shortly.  These little ensembles will be perfect for storing your holiday crafting items, vintage ornaments and holiday decor...or use for serving appetizers at your upcoming holiday parties.  

First up is this pretty metal tray with glass coffee cup. I love using metal trays like this to dump out a package of crafty items and sort and sift through them.  

 The little glass coffee cup has such a sweet red rim that it just begged to come home with me.  I'd use her for storing your sequin mixes, wood veneer pieces or small embellishments.  For a different idea, you could place some vintage mugs on the tray (maybe 4) and mini marshmallows in the coffee cup.  Add a few vintage silver spoons and you'll have the sweetest hot cocoa station.  You can find this ensemble in the shop right here.

Next up is an eclectic little mix of a plastic coated wire basket and metal muffin tin.  You all know that I love the muffin tins.

 With this pair you can store your papers and embellishment packages in the wire basket and set it towards the back. Then fill the muffin tin with small items like sequin mixes, wood veneer pieces and small paper embellishments.  The muffin openings are not the full depth, they're narrow like 3/4" deep. Another idea for the muffin tin is to place mugs or holiday glasses in each muffin well.  Use other bread pans filled with napkins and utensils for an entire party set up.  Or place a beautiful vintage ornament in each muffin well for a pretty and simple display.

 Last up is this set of 2 enamel dishes.  The larger is a baking pan, maybe 9 x 12 and the smaller is a tin with lid.  Both pieces have red trim.  You can find this duo in the shop right here.

 The small piece is in great shape and I want to keep it for myself.  But I'm not.  The larger piece is chippy and shabby and has seen lots of wear and tear.  If you're the artsy type, this small piece would be great for holding clean water and the lid can be used as a paint palette for mixing.

 Enamel pieces are a hot item right now so these were fun finds.  I would add some vintage Jello molds to the larger piece and arrange my small crafting items in there.  The smaller piece could hold packages of paper embellishments, stamp sets or journaling cards.  The red ensemble can be found in my shop right here.

These items will be showing up in the shop very soon.  I hope you enjoy!

My holiday crafty stash & vintage organization....

Hello everyone.  Can someone tell me how November came along so quickly?  This Fall season has blessed us with some beautiful Kansas scenery & the brightest yellow, red and orange leaves we've ever seen.  I wish this season would hang around a little longer before the colder temperatures hit.  

As much as I love celebrating Fall, the glimpses of Christmas are everywhere we turn.  So my plan is to  get my lists organized and to have all my holiday crafting items ready to go when it's time to start creating.  I'm not ready to get into that mode just yet because there's a lot of Fall to hang onto this month.  But when the time comes, all my goodies will be waiting for me.  

So today I'm sharing my holiday crafting items and how I organized them in my vintage containers.  Before I get started you should know that I have a similar post up today over in the Gossamer Blue December Memories classroom.  You can access the class by signing up right here.  The Gossamer Blue December Memories Kit is now sold out but you can still get a ton of inspiration all throughout November by taking the class.  Class starts today and you'll get special access to 16 private blog posts, a photo gallery of the Design Team's base pages and so more more.  Registration closes today so act quickly.  

Today in the GB classroom you'll see all of my December Memories Kit items arranged in vintage containers. I had so many supplies that I thought I would have plenty leftover for other crafty projects like cards and notebooks.  Once I completed the base pages for my album though I knew that I would  need some more crafting items for my own personal use.  So I headed to Two Peas in a Bucket and purchased a fun mish mash of items to create my own holiday crafting kit of sorts.  You can find all of the products I ordered in their online shop.  I'll list the manufacturers with the items so you can search for them by brand under SHOP on their main page. 

This year I'm loving everything GOLD.  I'm loving the Gold Foil Doilies, Gold Clothespins and Gold Baker's Twine that I have in the shop now.  I'll definitely be using those items for my own personal use.    I also have a new batch of the popular Woodland Sequin Mix in the shop now....this will be the last batch so get some while it lasts.  This looks great with all of the gold products out this year.  And DEER, I love the deer motifs I've been seeing. The papers I selected for my stash have lots of gold, deep red, aquas and greens.  This entire lineup is from Pink Paislee (Snow Village), my favorites for this year.  Many of these styles were in the December Memories kit and I just had to have more. 

I also chose some beautiful papers from a few other manufacturers. The red deer paper is from Webster's Pages (Allison Kreft), the gold foil/kraft paper is from Studio Calico and the three papers with the aqua are from Webster's Pages also (Brandin O'Neill).  They are gorgeous!  I plan to pair these up with a new shop item I just released.  It's my Shimmer Swirl Envelopes and Paper.  Photos cannot show how beautiful these papers are.  It's like a shimmery snow storm just landed on paper.  I plan to use the papers for layering on top of the patterned papers.

Here's a shot of the beautiful Shimmer Swirl Envelopes and Paper.  The papers are just silk smooth.

Next up I chose some whimsical papers and chipboard pack from Crate Paper's Bundle Up line.  I will most likely use these for notepads like my Holiday Planners.  Sorry, the photo is blurry.

Here I have a fun assortment of stamps, papers, stickers and embellishments.  Thickers are from American Crafts.  Snow Village stamp set, 6 x 6 paper pad, and 2 embellishment packs are from Pink Paislee.  Deer stamp set and enamel dots are from My Mind's Eye's (Vintage Christmas).  Gold rub ons are from Jenni Bowlin and gold star washi tape is from the shop too (?).  Those chipboard stickers with the candy cane and ornaments are my favorite this year from the Pink Paislee Snow Village line.

This year I'm using these fun, vintage Ovenex pans, some small tins and a wooden letter fox for my storage.  I love the dimensional starburst pattern on the pans.

I've been able to find several styles and they go perfectly with my little tin molds. 

So here's how I organized all of my supplies.  I pulled some other items from my stash but I didn't want to put my holiday mind into overload.  I kept it pretty simple this year.  I did add in some doilies, baker's twine, other gold washi rolls, gold spray, gold glitter, gold embossing powder, embroidery thread, letter stamps and a holiday date roller stamp. I nestled all of the crafting items into the tins and then placed them in my wood letter box.  

All of the larger items are in the back, smaller items in the front. I used the Gold Clothespins from the shop as little organizing dividers.

Here's some of the smaller items tucked into the bread tin.

Washi tapes go in the small jello type molds.

As I want to use specific items I can take out the bread tins as needed and take them over to my work table.

This year I've mixed up several varieties of holiday sequin mixes.  I love to use these with clear bags or vellum bags from the shop and pair them up with all the pretty papers.

I placed all the varieties I've made so far along with my Jolly Jingle Bells into small jello molds.  These were placed into a baking pan all by themselves....just in case I have some spillage. 

I'll store my little holiday crafting station on a table I cleared off in my craft room.  I like to keep my work table cleared off for big projects so I'll just take these items back and forth as needed.

So pretty to look at and to me it's just as much fun organizing the supplies as it is doing the actual creating.  I hope you're inspired to find some unique storage items and set up a holiday crafting area too!

Note:  Check back here later this afternoon.....I'll have a second blog post going up today with some special vintage finds for you.....and they might just show up in my shop too.  :)

Christmas cards in the making...

Hey everyone, it's been a very busy week here with lots of basketball games.  The girls are in a tournament an hour away and we've had games 3 days in a row.  Tonight we play for the championship!  

I had some time to sneak in some Christmas card making sessions and am happy to share with you today how I mass produced my cards this year. It's always nice to create special cards for friends and family....I know it means so much to me to receive a card in the mail with a handwritten note.  

I had a handful of cards already made for Design Team assignments but I needed a dozen or so more.  I reached for all of my October Afternoon Make it Merry goodies + a few items from my shop.  

I used an A2 base cardstock for my cards, my usual size. I've found that a very simply way to create cards is to create a collage of sorts on a piece of patterned paper then attach it to the card base.  I wanted some of my base card to show through so I cut my patterned papers to approximately 4" x 5.25".

Next I used some of the vintages images from the OA Make it Merry collection to just build my card collages.  Using these cut images made for some quick card making.....no tedious stamping or die cutting.  I also used some doilies from my shop, Washi tape and a little vintage sheet music.  I kept the collage layout pretty much the same....all the cut images were placed on the bottom right edge of my patterned paper with a doily peeking out on the left side.

Next I used my red stitching that I'm loving this holiday season to add some detail to the collages.  This gives a real homespun look to my cards. On each collage, I also the Christmas date stamp + a few images from the stamp set from the Very Merry December 2012 Mini-Book Kit.

Next it was time to adhere all the assembled collages to my card fronts.  By assembling the collages separately from the card fronts, the card bases are kept nice and clean and any mistakes you make can be covered up or fixed more easily.  To finish up my cards I tied on some red and white baker's twine and added some sparkly wood accents, Washi tape, brads and enamel dots.

And here's the first six of my completed cards.  Something about a grouping of cards together just makes me happy.  I completed all 12 of the cards I'm showing today in just a couple of hours.  I think I had two card making sessions. You'll notice that instead of centering my collage pieces on the card base, I placed them all in the bottom right corner.  Just a little something I've been doing with my cards lately.

Here's the next batch of 6 completed cards.

The snowmen are some of my faves, just so holly jolly.

And the cute vintage images of the children are so cute.

Some of my favorite features are the paper doilies peeking out.  I cut each doily in half for each card.

The Washi tape was another fun accent I pulled from my holiday product stash.  Just another fun way to add some color to my cards.

And all the glittery accents.  You can see how I altered my wood embellishments in this post.

And that's a wrap.  I'm so glad to have this big stash of cards completed.  I need to snap a family photo and get these sent out the door.  So, did you create your own cards this year?  I'd love to hear your process and how many cards you send out.  I know that some of you make astonishing amounts of holiday cards.

Well, I'm off to wash some basketball uniforms and put a cheeseburger meatloaf in the crock pot.  I'll be working on my Project December pages early next week so stay tuned for my first update near the middle of the week.  The temps are supposed to drop and I have to admit I'm looking forward to spending some time in my big green chair by the fire and staring at my pretty Christmas tree.  Have a great weekend everyone!

A little reminder.......let the stress of the holiday hubbub go this year.  I see people scurrying around and  sometimes it all just gets to me.  I still cherish the "everyday" of December....watching my girls play ball, sitting down to a family meal, playing with my naughty little puppy.  The holiday is magical time of year but I always need a reminder to keep it simple.....don't stress....just have fun.  :)

Project December 2012...the products

Hey everyone, I've been working hard behind the scenes to get my December Daily and Project Life organized for December 2012.  I'm combining both into my Project Life album this year thus the name Project December.  Project Life + Daily December = Project December.  I'll discuss more of this concept and my reasons for this decision in my next blog post but for today I have all of my holiday product picks to show you.  These products have been selected from my stash and/or purchased specifically for this year's holiday projects.  If you remember my Inspiration Stations, this is kind of like that....all of my holiday product picks in one location.  Let's get to the products (with links provided where I could) + I'll also be showing you my storage ideas for this year.  

First things first.  Let's do some clean up.  I definitely needed to and I bet you're in the same boat.  Swimming in a sea of craftiness up to your eyeballs.  Maybe a 12" spot to work on...if you shove some things to the side.  I was right there with you.  But I knew that my holiday projects would come together easier and it would be so much more enjoyable to work in a tidy space.  It took me days and days to clean, I won't lie.  But now I have 2 full tables cleaned off and ready to go.  For my main table, I covered it with Kraft paper so that I don't have to work about clean up.  Ink stains, adhesive, coffee mug rings....no worries.  

October Afternoon...Make it Merry Collection

My most favorite stash of holiday goodies this year comes from October Afternoon's Make it Merry collection.  It's not in stores quite yet but it will be soon.  I'll be sure to link you up.  In the mean time you can look at the OA website here to get a glimpse at all the patterns.  It's all right up my alley...whimsical, vintage images...fun colors of red & green plus some aqua and yellow thrown in...great embellishments.  Love it all and you'll be seeing it all throughout my projects in December.  Plus, be sure to check my previous posts and the OA blog for lots of Make it Merry Inspiration.

Elle's Studio
Elle's designed some fantastic journaling cards, tags and stamps for this holiday season and I think I got just about all of it.  You can find many of Elle's items at 2Peas right now...and at 25% off!  That's the brand new stuff too! The Exclusive Christmas Stamp is fantastic!

Gossamer Blue
Lori from Gossamer Blue has a stellar line up of December Daily products this year.  All of the items below are pieces from some of the various kits that are mostly sold out now.  The Daily December Tags are still available and I just love the vintage images.  If my husband ever gets a big buck this, not including the one he hit a week ago with his car, I'm totally going to use those deer images.

Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday
I've already dug into this stash of Story Cards and they are a go to item...for the holiday projects and every day!  You need them.  You can find them at 2Peas here along with some of the stamps I have shown too.  The Story Cards are 25% off for a limited time.  The back sides of the Story Cards are similar designs but with no words so very versatile if you want to stamp in your own sentiments, etc. I've used and really love the December Daily stamp set and the December Joys stamp set.  Great designs this year, Ali.

Studio Calico
The Wonderland collection offers some great holiday designs.  Some of my favorite papers are the B side of Glad Tidings, Toboggan,  and Mistletoe.  I'm also using lots of wood accents this holiday season so the Wood Veneer Snowflakes and Trees are a must have item. I also got a 6 x 6 paper pad, some journaling cards, a sticker sheet and other various papers and such.  The entire line of Wonderland is on sale for 25% off right now at 2Peas right here.  Great sale at 2Peas so act quickly!

Banana Fish Studio
France, owner of Banana Fish Studio, designs the coolest tags, journaling cards, numbers and stamps.  You have to act quickly because like me, she is a one woman act and supplies are limited....and mostly sold out right now.  I just saw a tweet of hers and it looks like some new stamps are coming soon though.  Just let me get mine first then they're all yours.  :)

Mish Mash

That's my little shop.  I've pulled out some of my favorite, basic, go to items and gathered them all in one spot.  Tags of all kinds, clothespins, paper doilies, sacks....it's all being used this year.  Most items in my shop are very neutral in color and design so they work great for not only the holidays but all year long. I've got a few sale items there + the regular basic items.  

I've got other little tidbits of papers and embellishments in my holiday stash but the items mentioned above are the biggest part of my product picks this year.  Below, I snapped a photo to show you how I use my small clothespins to keep all like items clipped together.  I tend to get a little crazy once I get to working on a project but I really like to keep items clipped together for organization as much as possible. 

To jump start the holiday crafty season, I've been doing a little prep work ahead of time.  Not only will all of the supplies above be used for my Project December pages but they'll also be used for handmade cards, tags, gift wrapping and more.  For items that need to be cut apart like the October Afternoon numbers and images sheets, I went ahead and trimmed them all in advance.  You might have seen all the cards I've been creating already with the vintage images on the right side of the photo below.

I also did the same thing with many of the Elle's Studio sheets.  A total time saver to have them all ready to go come show time.

Washi Tape
Oh, the Washi tape.  You didn't think I'd forget about it, did you?  I tried to pair down my picks but this is as low as I could go.  Many are from October Afternoon, Freckled Fawn from 2Peas,  and some from Etsy shops.

Storage Units

So how do you store it all? This is the most fun part for me because I love digging out my vintage boxes, trays, cutlery boxes and tins. No plastic for me please, I'll take something old and worn for my goodies. I've got three main storage units this year that sit on a table next to my 2 big work tables.  This old cutlery drawer holds my doo-dads like the wood veneers in old jello tins, my Washi tape, all the small tags, buttons, twine, etc.  

This wooden cheese box was chosen for it's red and green holiday fonts.  It holds sticker sheets, chipboard letters, and some stamps.  Notice that I labeled each box with a tag that I added some lined paper to with red machine stitching.  That red stitching is going to be the signature look for my holiday projects this year.

Here, my third storage unit is an old sewing machine drawer.  It's perfect for all my patterned papers and paper pads.  A thick piece of cardboard in the very back helps to keep items upright.

And here's the handsome threesome all lined up.  There's a ton of product here...more than I'll ever use this holiday season....but I limited myself to the 3 boxes and just stuffed them full.  I have to say that I've been working behind the scenes a LOT to create some of my Project December inserts and pages + lots of holiday cards and I've been able to keep my products organized.  Each time I'm finished with a certain project, I've been cleaning up.  So the next time I need to work everything is neat and tidy.  It's really like shopping your own stash if you organize it this way.  I highly suggest you find some fun and unique storage pieces for your holiday goodies.  This way it just becomes part of the decor.  Fun!

Scrap Box
You might have noticed in my very first photo that I have this empty old in/out tray on my work table. This is where all the small scraps of patterned paper, doilies, old book paper, etc goes.  I can leave this sitting out to collect little odds and ends without a big mess piling up on my table.  Plus I love to dig through my scraps to find just the right pieces for a project.  Those little tiny pieces make for some great gift tags!

Sewing Machine
My sewing machine gets quite the work out.  I use this Audrey one from Baby Lock.  Red thread is going to be my go to color this holiday season so I have a spool ready to go at all times.  I might want to change up things a bit and use a green, white or cream so those are handy too.  Tip:  use a plain white or cream thread in the bobbin with any color.  It doesn't show, you can have lots of extra bobbins ready to go and it's a good thing.  Nothing worse than having to stop and wind a bobbin.

Typewriter
My vintage typewriter is my best friend in my work room.  I love to use it for tags, typing out journaling cards or pecking out the perfect sentiment on a greeting card.  Look for these at garage sales and thrift stores...or Ebay and Etsy.  I wouldn't pay more than $20 bucks or so for a good working model.

Okay Holy Holly, that was a long post.  Are you still here?  Good.  Cuz I'll be back with my next Project December 2012 installment very soon.  I'll actually be sharing Week 34 of my Project Life album so that I can give you visuals for how I want my Project December 2012 to look.  If you're doing Project Life and want to take on a December Daily this just might be the ticket for you.  I'm excited!  :)