A Look Inside My Stash - Part 2

This post is a continuation of a look inside my crafting collection, you can view the first post here. 


I forgot to include a few pictures in my first post (oops). I mentioned that I have yet to buy storage (especially for my paper) so I store my scraps in regular, everyday pocket folders that were leftover from last school year. I color coordinated each folder so that it would be easier to look for scraps based on the colors I needed. I originally had everything in one folder, but when that got too crowded I created three separate folders.

The black folder contains all my neutral-colored scraps. I use the entire left side for white scrap paper since I feel like I use it more than anything else, and this way it's easily accessible.

The pink folder is for all my warm-colored scraps and any patterned papers that has mainly of warm colors.

The blue folder is for all of my cool-colored scraps and any patterned papers that has mainly cool colors.

I have a paper drawer, an extras drawer, an embellishment drawer and a tool drawer. The extras drawer isn't worth showing since it's just odd craft items and I've already showed the contents of the paper drawer, so here are the embellishment and tool drawers.

This is my embellishment drawer where I keep all of my chipboard pieces, acrylic paints, iRocks, die cuts, flowers, etc. 

These are my chipboards. The pile on the right is a huge stack of thirty sheets of chipboard pieces that I got for $5 on clearance at Michael's. I have no idea what I'll use them for but for the price, they were worth it! The pile on the left is a stack of alphabet chipboards, there's an uppercase sheet and a lowercase sheet for each color.

And this is my very, very tiny stamp collection. I have a few mini dies and mini alphabet sets, and then a set of a bigger alphabet and also a Color Petals set, which comes in handy for using my clear acrylic stamps (not shown in the picture) and also the mini alphabet stamps.

Thanks for bearing with me, make sure to stop by tomorrow if you're interested in entering my blog candy giveaway! :)

Ashley

A Look Inside My Stash - Part 1

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend, mine was spent attacking my pile of never-ending homework! :/ I did have time to squeeze in a card though, but I'll post that later in the week. Today I thought I'd share with you some of my crafting collection since my bedroom is also my crafting room. I'm going to divide this post into two parts so the post aren't completely flooded with pictures, I'll post part 2 either tomorrow or Wednesday.


I'm really frugal when it comes to crafting (I never pay full price for anything) and while I suppose it's a good thing, it has it's negatives. Like the fact I still have to purchase something to hold all my paper because right now it lives in a dresser drawer...

This was one of my first "big" purchases as a cardmaker, it's about half the size of what it was when I bought it, but it's basically just all different colored cardstock made by Recollections.

I have some assorted matstack papers and then also the Birthday Extravaganza matstack made by the Paper Studio and also The High School matstack made by DCWV.

White cardstock is essential!! It's sooo much cheaper to buy a huge pack like this at Walmart than it is anywhere else! I also have this fun summer-themed paper that I bought on clearance at Michael's a while back.

I bought this a while back - it comes in handy whenever I need bright colors with fun patterns!

I got my Cuttlebug about a month and a half ago and absolutely love it, although I wish I used it on more of my cards. For some reason the Hobby Lobby in my town only sells embossing folders, and Michaels only had a few sets of die cuts which I already purchased. I haven't tried using any other brands yet because I still have to buy C plates. I'll get there eventually! :)

Here's my Cuttlebug with the A plate and two B plates.

These are all of my die cuts. I have birthday cuts, animal cuts, autumn leaves, asterisks and vintage cuts.

Here are my embossing folders, I apologize for the clear-on-white, I know it's hard to see. :/ I have polka dots, flowers, spots and dots, floral fantasy, argyle, d'vine swirl and paisley.

I also have the organic flourish border set and a few small floral embossing folders that I still have to use!

That's the first half, in my next post I'll show you my embellishments and tools. I'm in sort of a crafting "lull" right now because of all my schoolwork and I apologize for that, it's no fun! I'll have some cards up later this week. Thanks so much for reading and stopping by!

Ashley

Life's A Beach Card & Exciting News!

Hi everyone! I have some exciting news to share... I just became a member of the design team at Queen of my Craftroom! This is my first time being on a design team and I'm so excited and can't wait to work with a team of awesome designers! I've been participating in their challenges the past couple of weeks (they're so fun) and actually created this card for this week's challenge earlier today before finding out I was chosen to be part of the team. I guess now is the perfect time to post it! :)


The challenge: California themed project! - We all love California! let's make a project to show just how much we love it!! Sea World, San Diego Zoo, The Beach, Disneyland, San Francisco, Hollywood, anything California goes.... You do not have to have been there to make a project. Card, layout, altered project, framed picture, anything!


I decided to make a beach-themed card. I've always wanted to go to California but have never been. Hopefully one day!

To make the card I layered blue cardstock on top of sea foam green cardstock and then added the cream colored paper to look like sand. I sprinkled clear (white) glitter on top of the sand to give it some texture and then used a hot glue gun to apply the shells. I painted wood circles white and then stamped the words using individual letter stamps in violet ink. The sun embellishment came from a scrapbook kit I recently one in a blog candy giveaway.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by! Have a great weekend. :)

Ashley 

Sweet 16 Birthday Card

College classes are in full swing! Luckily I only have classes Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (I'm also taking two online courses to minimize gas costs) but the workload is still pretty overwhelming! My goal is to get majority of my homework done during the week so that I have the weekend to craft, relax, etc. So far, it's looking pretty good, but then again, it's only the first week of the semester. :P


I created this card a few days ago just for fun, I wanted to make a card using gray and pink and thought a sweet 16 birthday would be the perfect occasion.

The pictures sort of make the card look crooked, but I promise it isn't! :)

Here's what I used to make the card:

- Pink, black & white cardstock paper

- Gray polka dot paper

- 1" circle punch

- Black chipboard numbers

- Black ink with alphabet stamps for the 'sweet'

- iRock with black & white gems

- Cuttlebug with D'vine Swirl embossing folder

- White string

On a side note, I got asked to run a six-week storytime at my work (I work in the children's department at a local library). While I'm excited, I'm also really nervous! My storytimes will consist of reading a picture book to 3-5 year olds and then doing a simple craft with them. I'll make sure to post the craft preparations soon. :)

Thanks so much for reading, have a great rest of your week!  Blog candy coming soon. :)

Ashley

Altered Sketch Binder

I've been meaning to do this for quite a while now, and when I saw that Queen of my Craftroom posted an altered project challenge, I knew this was the perfect opportunity. I have a binder that contains card sketches from all different types of sources (personal creations, blogs, books, etc) that I keep for when I suffer from "crafter's block" and need some sort of inspiration.

Last night (while watching the fifth season of Dexter, I finally got my hands on a copy!) I got around to altering my sketch binder. I forgot to take a before picture (oops) but basically it was a clear, plastic binder with the black border on the left-hand side.

I applied the patterned paper and then glued the purple paper on top. I bordered the purple paper with alternating blue, green and purple gems and then used chipboard letters for the title. I handmade the flowers by tracing some die cut flowers I have onto the color paper I wanted, and then applied the pearl adhesives once the flowers were finished.

I definitely had some fun with my iRock while making this!

I'm off to watch some more Dexter, I've worked 8 hour shifts the past two days and am completely exhausted. Have a great weekend and thanks for reading! :)

Ashley

Experimenting With Handmade Envelopes!

Making my own envelopes has been something I've wanted to try for forever. Normally I take the easy route and just buy a package of envelopes, but now that I realize how easy it is to make my own, I'll hardly ever resort to that anymore! I recently checked out a book from a local library (see the picture below) that has some really fun sketches and in the back, envelope templates for different sized cards. The templates needed to be enlarged using a copy machine (which I luckily have access to at work) so I enlarged some copies and gave it a try.

This is the book that had the envelope templates in the back. The sketches are really simple but that allows for so many different and creative elements! There's also a Birthday Celebrations and Christmas Celebrations in this series, but unfortunately I couldn't find those at any local library. They are on Amazon, though, so maybe someday I'll get around to purchasing them!

The included envelope templates in the book were for card sizes 4 x 9, 4.5 x 6, 5 x 5, and 5.5 x 8. Basically, what I did was enlarge each template to the correct size (I had to use 11 x 17 paper, they wouldn't fit on 8.5 x 11). Once the enlarging was done I cut them out and then glued them onto cardstock paper so that I can reuse the template by tracing it onto whichever paper I want the envelope to be made out of. 

A. 5 x 5 template

B. 4.5 x 6 template

C. 4 x 9 template

D. 5.5 x 8 template

I apologize if it's hard to see in the pictures, but each template has the scoring lines, folding lines and also what percent the template needs to be enlarged to.

Once the templates were finished, I created my first envelope using the 5.5 x 8 template for the birthday card I made for a coworker last week, (you can see that card here). Here's the end result:

I paper clipped the template to a 12 x 12 piece of blue cardstock so that it would stay in place while I cut around it. (It can also be traced and then cut, but I found it easier to just cut along the template). 

Once I folded the envelope according to the lines on the template (obviously those weren't traced onto the blue paper, but, it's fairly easy to "guesstimate" where the folds are supposed to be made based off the design of the template), I attached a little glue dot to help keep the sides together. 

Once the folds had been made and the glue dot had been applied, this is what the envelope looked like from the back. 

And this is the envelope with the card inside. It fit perfectly! 

I didn't have anything that would seal the envelope, so I used some fun stickers that match the card. They worked well at first but later kept popping up, so next time I'll have to find some strong envelope seals.

And that's all there is to it! I hope I didn't complicate the process too much, it's really fairly simple. Just enlarge the template, cut it out, glue it to cardstock (this is optional, I chose to do it so that I could reuse the template and not have to continuously make copies of the original template), and then trace, cut and fold! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Ashley

3 Kid Crop Shop's 75 Follower Giveaway

While blog hopping today I found that Carol over at 3 Kid Crop Shop is having a 75 follower giveaway! She's giving away some great blog candy, stop by and enter if you have the chance - don't forget to look at her awesome creations, too! :)

It's Raining Cats & Dogs

Hello everyone! I hope you are all having a great start to your week. Recently, I won my first blog candy giveaway and thought I'd share with you some cards I made using the prizes I won. Sherry at Up Or Down They're Beautiful was sweet enough to include a few extra goodies along with the matstack I won. Included in those extra goodies was paper from The Pets mat stack by DCWV - the designs are so adorable! 


This is also my first set of "twin" cards I've created. One is cat-themed and the other dog-themed, but the designs are the same. 

This picture shows the close-up of the border around the sentiment. Some of it is hard to read, but the paper is patterned with popular cat and dog names. The cat paper reads "Patches Boots Felix Mittens" and the dog paper reads "Sparky Duke Rover Spot Lady." I thought that was so cute!

The cards were fairly simple to make. I used the paper from the mat stack along with colored cardstock.  My iRock was used to add the white gems and I used the Spots & Dots embossing folder to emboss the paper. I also added white glitter to the white border at the bottom, but it's sort of hard to tell based off the pictures.

Thanks so much for reading, I apologize for the shortness of this post. Classes start next week and I feel like I still have 320520358 things to do, so much for a break! 

Ashley

Quick Birthday Card & Announcements

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! Today is my dad's birthday, so I thought I'd share with you the card that I made for him. His favorite color is green and throughout my entire childhood the cards I always made him were completely green. This year I thought I'd chance it up a bit and have green be the focused color of the card, but have some other colors as well. Here's what I came up with:

I was on a crunch for time while making this card so unfortunately I couldn't do anything too elaborate, but the simplicity of it works well.


Here's what I used to make the card:
- Dark green, light green, yellow and white cardstock
- Striped pattern paper
- Light green and dark green brads
- Lace corner punch by Fiskars
- Balloon die cut for Cuttlebug by Provo Craft
- Decorative scissors


And now for some announcements! A couple of weeks ago I mentioned some changes were in the works for Made Especially For You. After the results of my poll, majority of you said you liked the design the way it was and thought it should remain the same. So, I decided to compromise. :) For now, the ribbon background will remain the same, and instead I made a few detailed changes. The fonts on my page have now changed, and I also decreased the size of my sidebar so that my posts are bigger. Here are a couple of other quick announcements:


- It's official; I'm going to be having a 200 Follower Giveaway! As of right now I'm at 152 followers, so hopefully it won't be too much longer until Made Especially For You reaches 200! I should have the giveaway prizes posted within the next week or so, and then you can start entering. :)


- I am looking for someone to help me design and create a blog header and also a blog button that followers can "grab" and post on their blogs. I'll have an official post in a few days, but if you're interested, please let me know! My e-mail is especiallymadeblog@gmail.com.


Thanks for bearing with me, enjoy the rest of your day!


Ashley

Mojo Monday Entry

Although majority of the challenges are just for fun, I can't help but love the weekly challenge over at Mojo Monday. The sketches are always so intriguing and fun to work with! Not to "toot my own horn" or anything, but the card I created this week for the challenge I feel is one of my best so far. I'm so happy with how it turned out! Here's this week's sketch:

And here's my take on the sketch:

It's hard to see in the picture (the second picture shows it the best) but the 'hello' sentiment is propped up on the card using an adhesive strip. I thought about making the background of the sentiment white, but I wanted to use my white iRock gems, so I stayed with black. After seeing the design I made an emergency Michael's run and purchased the flower embellishment as well as the ribbon I used for the bow. The decorative strip above the white rectangle is actually adhesive ribbon that I had from a set I recently purchased. For the bottom "lace" part of the card, I used many cuts of a decorative square die cut and layered them over one another to look like it was one piece, but actually the squares themselves are hidden under the white cardstock. Welcome to the creative mind of someone who doesn't own a Cricut! :)

Thank you so much for reading. Have a great weekend! If you haven't already, please take a moment to answer the poll on the top left-hand side of the homepage. Made Especially For You needs all the input it can get!


Ashley

Birthday Card For A Friend

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is enjoying their week. :) Today I thought I'd share with you a birthday card I made. Most of the time my creations are made for fun and to share with you on here, but this week a coworker of mine has an upcoming birthday and I wanted to make a card for her. My dad's birthday is also on the same day, so I'll be making and posting a card for him within the next couple of days as well.

From a distance the ribbon looks kind of odd, almost like "Why would you choose to place that ribbon on this card, it doesn't match." If you look closer, though, you can see that the ribbon contains all of the colors used on the card, and also has sort of a floral pattern to it, which is why the pink and blue shapes are embossed with a floral pattern.

These two pictures focus on the embossing. I used the Floral Fantasy embossing folder with my Cuttlebug.

For the centerpiece, I used both the gift die cut and also the asterisk die cuts. 

These two pictures show the inside of the card. I made sure to use all of the same colors that were used on the front of the card.

I almost forgot to mention that I won my first blog candy giveaway! :) Thanks so much to Sherry at Up Or Down They're Beautiful for the goodies, I can't wait to receive them! Please stop by her blog if you have the chance, her creations are wonderful and she is so sweet. 

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to stop by. If you have an extra moment, please answer the poll on the top left-hand side of my homepage. I'm considering redesigning my blog and would love your help, without you followers this blog would be nothing. Have a great day. :0)

Ashley

Shoot For The Moon Card

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine has definitely been relaxing now that my summer classes are finished up and I have a nice 17 day break before the fall semester starts. I plan on getting a lot of card making done in those 17 days so that I don't fall behind once I become swamped with homework! 


This card is definitely one of my favorites! The idea sporadically came to me out of nowhere and I decided to just go with it. It's based off the well-known quote "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars." I believe it's also the first "inspirational" card I've created.

I also decorated the inside of the card, which I don't normally do on cards that I'm just making for fun. The blank white paper in the middle is where a message could be written, I promise I wasn't too lazy to finish the card :O)

Here's what I used to make the card:

Paper: White, light blue & dark blue cardstock, glittered yellow star paper from The Paper Studio

Embossing: Cuttlebug, D'vine Swirl embossing folder

Embellishments: Chipboard moon, light blue brads, wood stars, yellow acrylic paint, gold & white glitter

Stamping: Mini alphabet stamps made by Studio G, cyan ink

Basic Tools: Paper trimmer, decorative scissors, Elmer's glue pen, adhesive dots

The collage below shows how I personally created the stars that are used on the front of the card. I started off with small wood stars and then painted each of them with light yellow acrylic paint. Once the paint had dried, I used an Elmer's glue pen to drizzle glue on star and then sprinkled them with gold glitter.

And that's basically it! Once everything was attached on the front of the card, I used the glue pen to draw lines coming out of the stars and then sprinkled those with both gold and white glitter. 

Now that I have some time on my hands these next couple of weeks, I'm going to be working on taking my blog to the "next level,"  so to speak. When I first created this blog I couldn't find a template that I liked enough to use, so I went with Blogger's ribbon background and told myself it was temporary. I've grown to like it, but also feel that Made Especially For You could use a little makeover. 

I'm undecided about changing the design, so I'm leaving it up to my followers, to whom it affects the most! I've created a poll on the top left-hand side of my home page, if you could please take a moment to answer it, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks so much for reading and for all of your support! My two month blogaversary is coming up and I'm hoping to coordinate my first blog candy giveaway by then - stay tuned!

Ashley