Inkin' & Thinkin'

A Planner Thought & A Freebie!

Yesterday my friend, Dayna, asked on FB if anyone had ever made their own planners.  Of course that got me thinking about how much I love and hate my planner.  I love it because with three kids, a home business, sports and Andy's rotating schedule I have to have it to keep our lives organized and on schedule.  I hate it because I can never find one that really fits the needs I have.  I have always wanted a planner that I could use for me the way I wanted to.  So since Dayna brought it up, I thought, why not?  So this morning I sat down and started creating a planner that I would actually use.  I made it the size of a half sheet of paper so that it would be small enough to fit in my current planner.  Here's what I came up with...

I wanted a place to check off the things I want to do each day and prefilled in some things that I know I'll need to do each day.  I also wanted a place to jot things down as they came to mind...thus I needed a notes section.  I also want to be better about planning meals so I created a menu section.  And lastly, I want to be better about daily scripture study so I added a place for that and will fill in my reading assignment before I print out the sheets.

Then once I had the daily pages done, I got to thinking about how I have to have my month-at-a-glance page because that's where all the details happen for each month.  So I made up 12 monthly pages that look like this:

And then I thought...a grocery list would be great and so would a page to just jot down some notes now and then so I made these:

And then I thought that maybe I would share these planner pages with you so I made them all blank and added a non-scripture study daily page for those that aren't into it.  And now that you've made it this far into the post, you can see what you can download for free today!

Yep...you'll get all 12 months + 1 blank month (in case you don't like the monthly labels I did), the grocery list, the notes page, a daily page that includes scripture study and a daily page that does not.  They are sized to be 5.5x8.5 so you can print two per sheet of paper.  You could even size them down to 5x7 so you have some more room around the edges if you like!  Have fun and I hope you'll find them useful!

You can download them here.

Don't forget that if you're looking for more freebies you should check out DigiFree to find hundreds every day!

Lexi's 5th Grade Memories Mini Book

Man, where does the time go?  It seems like I have been saying this all month but I am so stinkin' busy lately!  We are down to our last two days of school and I can't wait for summer to get here.  I plan to spend the first two weeks of summer vacation simply getting my house back in order and creating some kind of semi-normal schedule for our family.   There are so many projects that haven't been finished this spring that need to get done.  I think we started switching Lexi and Izzy's bedrooms around in January and we still haven't finished.  It's crazy. 

I know I need to tackle the girls' bedroom upstairs and do some serious cleaning out all over the house.  I can't believe the amount of junk that piles into our house in a year's time.  Where does it all come from?  We do a clean out of the girls' room at least once a year and every year we throw away a couple of leaf bags of broken toys, trashed clothing, etc.  And then we make them go through their things and we donate at least another 3 to 6 leaf bags full of toys to the local police department or churches.  It's crazy!  It's looking like we are going to do it again this year...next week!

But enough about what is making me crazy today.  LOL!  Izzy and I got up and went for a nice hike this morning with a friend of ours and it felt good to be out there just enjoying the day.  Andy and I use to do that all the time before we had kids but when we had to carry kids and diaper bags and strollers and everything with us, we kind of lost interest in doing it together.  He still hikes all the time but until last fall I didn't really go out and do it anymore.  Now Izzy is big enough to walk a while on her own so we get to go out exploring every now and then.  It just feels good to do that.

I haven't had much time to create this past week but I thought I'd show you a few things I've finished.

First of all, I'm hosting a challenge at Pretty Scrappy this month that involves making a mini album so if you're feeling up to it...go join in and get your creative juices flowing.  I made my mini album this past Sunday.  I sat down with Lexi and we pulled up the pics we've taken of here at school activities this year and went to work making a 5th Grade album for her.  We started out by using the brag book album Teri is offering made with the kit School's Out 4 Summer.  We simply added our pictures and our journaling on making sure we left plent of room for binding and adding some extra embellishments after we were done printing it out. 

So we made 26 pages and then printed them out 5x7 on regular photo paper.  Then I put Andy to work cutting out 13 pieces of 5x7 chipboard to go with it.  While he was doing that, Lexi and I chose the embellishments and got them attached to the photo pages.  Then we simply glued the pages to the chipboard (one on front, one on back with chipboard in the middle) and filed away the edges so it was a nice smooth finish.   I popped them into my bind-it-all and bound them together.  Of course we added a little ribbon to complete the book and voila!  Her 5th grade highlights are scrapped in 3 hours!  WOOHOO!

So you want to see it?

These are the digi pages we made up...keep in mind that there are some blank spots that we later filled with embellishments.

Now if I can do it, you can do it!  Go sign up and make a mini for you!

Ok...I was going to add more to this post but now I think I'll retitle it and send it to you.  Come back later and I'll post again today.  A twofer!  LOL!

An Altered Journal

I decided to try to journal more often...more privately than my blog anyway.  LOL!  I also wanted a place that I could randomly write quotes, techniques and things like that in.  I wanted it to be fun and freestyle so even though the pages inside are lined, I'm not using them.  I'm writing at angles and in circles.  I'm letting my kids draw on certain pages and really am just using this book as my crazy brain on paper.

These are before and after shots.  I stamped on the cover, used alcohol inks and embossing powder.  Oh yeah, and of course I used some glitter too!  I am happy with how it turned out and I hope it will continue to be this fun to write in.

 

 

A Few Christmas Gifts...

These are a few of the projects I made as gifts this year.  I was a procrastinator and seriously put these off until the week before Christmas...I so suck!  But hopefully everyone liked them (they seemed to ... unless they are all good liars!  LOL!).

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

A Starbucks Tumbler for Izzy

There is a challenge at Pretty Scrappy in the forums to create a tumbler insert from a template you can download there. 

This was my attempt...it must go to Izzy (can you tell what my favorite pictures are right now?).  Now I need to make them for the other girls and buy some tumblers!

Foxy Ladies ~ ATop Note Creation

A few days ago I was blurfing and found this cute little cat card made with SU's Top Note Die and I thought it would be fun to make with the girls.  I can't remember where I saw it now though so I'm not sure who to link the original back to.  If you know, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

This is the original:

 

Of course I don't follow directions well and it wasn't long before my cute little kitty took on a new form.  I thought maybe she was a sex kitten but then as she matured I found her to be more of a foxy lady.

  

Lexi joined in and decided she wanted to make one like mine.  Kaylee on the other hand decided to make a wolf instead.  I think she did pretty well.  She even added blush and blue eyeshadow to her wolf...now that's creative!  Izzy took her pieces cut them into little bitty pieces and painted all over them and then threw them away (thus no picture but the effort was there!).

  

 

Wild Card Wednesday ~ A Fuzzy Poster

I don't remember having fuzzy posters when I was a kid.  I do remember having the books with the clear marker that changed the colors on the page.  Maybe we did get fuzzy posters but I just don't remember them.  Maybe you can let me know, Mom.  LOL!

Anywhooo....My girls love these posters.  They are always begging for them and occasionally I give in.  About a year or so ago I bought each of the girls a poster and bought 2 for myself...1 to give to each of the older girls (so thinking of this, it must have been more like 2 years ago or I would have bought one for Izzy too.).  I colored this giant picture of a diva for Kaylee...attached the included stickers and jewels and gave it to her.  I found it about a week later torn to shreds on her floor.  Lesson learned. 

So I put the other poster away because I just wasn't in the mood to color another one at the time.  Well, eventually it made it to my craft house and Lexi found it the other day and asked if I was ever going to finish it for her.  GUILTY!  GUILTY!  GUILTY!  So I told her to take it in the house and I'd finish it at some point soon.

Then we were watching Anne of Green Gables, The Continuing Story (My favorite books and movies!  LOVE ANNE!) and one of the hats Anne was wearing sparked some creative inspiration and I decided to make something the next day with those colors. 

Well, I wasn't really feeling productive the next day and so I didn't create but I did color that fuzzy poster finally!  I used CTMH markers rather than the cheapy markers that came with it.  I used Sunflower, Goldrush, Indian Corn Blue, Cocoa, Desert Sand, Garden Green and Olive to color the poster and I actually like how it turned out....now I just need to give it to Lexi. 

Mostly Monochromatic Monday ~ Pumpkins

Where the heck did last week go?  I was just constantly running I guess.  I know at some point I spent a day in Idaho getting my car fixed, a day in Libby running errands and paying bills, there were 4 soccer practice days, 2 soccer games, a scrap class, a minute or two at work, and a wonderful walk in the woods (or two!) with a friend.  But other than that, I can't tell you where I was or where in the world last week went! 

So how about we try to get back on schedule again this week?  LOL!  I really am trying to post every day but sometimes life just gets in the way.

I saw these cute little pumpkins a while ago on someone's blog and knew that I had to make some.  I had made some spinning ornaments the same way last year with my girls but pumpkins seemed even cuter! 

So I grabbed some scraps of orange pattern paper and some Autumn Terracotta scraps and cut 10 strips that were 4 1/2" x 1/2".  I glued the autumn terracotta strips to the backs of the patterned strips so that it was a little more sturdy and because I didn't want to see white inside my pumpkins. 

I inked the edges (because I'm anal) and then punched a hole in each end of the strips.  At this point I just started layering the strips onto a long brad and finished by poking another brad through the holes on the other ends of the strips. 

I gave some thin brown strips a curl around a pen and adhere them to the tops of the pumpkins with some punched out leaves.  Hope you like!

A Snowman Canvas and a new technique!

I was reading the Back Porch Memories newsletter yesterday and decided I wanted to try this new technique.  I grabbed a canvas I've had for a while and went to work. 

I first painted the canvas with CTMH's Create A Shade Paint (pearl finish) and then painted over it again with a Glitter Glaze from Lil' Davis.  I let this layer dry and then glued some Heidi Swapp clear snowflakes on the edges of the canvas with temporary hold glue.  I then drizzled the entire canvas with rubber cement (I know....I should have hit the edges a little better but since I had no clue what I was doing, I think it is okay...next time I'll be better!) and let it dry.

After this had all dried I started smooshing paint over the canvas in about 5 different colors (all MM).  I blended here and I blended there and when it was all covered, I called it good and let everything dry.

Once everything was dry, I peeled up the snowflakes and rubbed away all of the rubber cement which revealed the pearly white that had been masked off.  This part is soooooo fun! 

I took a silver sharpie and traced around the snowflakes (would not do this the second time around) and then sprayed the entire canvas with an irridescent spray paint to give it even more wintery shimmer.

I also painted the partially painted snowflakes with the irridescent spray paint and decided to use them in the design as well.

I found this cute snowman sticker (I know...can you believe I used a sticker!?) and dressed it up with some fun flock and liquid glass to make him a little cuter.  I popped him onto the center of the canvas with some foam tape and then added the words with foam tape as well (only a few more layers!). 

I then glued the snowflakes around the edges of the canvas to add a little more dimension.  And who could possibly have a snowman/snowflake piece of art without some sparkles?  I know I couldn't so I added some clear and blue gems as well as some off-white pearls to give it a little more contrast.

WHEW!  That's a lot of explaining!  ha ha!  How about a picture?!

My New Planner

August always means a new calendar for me....some years it's a big planner, some years it's a pocket calendar with just enough room to write one thing each day.  I have a feeling that this year is going to be a planner year so I picked up this cute blue planner and then I had to embellish it a little bit.  I added a few rubons and some jewels and there ya have it!