Hello Friends!

Wow, well it's been a few weeks. I've been a very bad blogger this year and especially this summer. There has been quite a bit going on. In June we went to Florida (Hubby had a business trip that I tagged along for) and then Michigan for my brother-in-law's wedding, then Georgia in July to say goodbye to my mom's best friend who died suddenly from cancer and who was like an Aunt to me and then to Erie last weekend for my brother's wedding. Oh, and I got a job that I started two weeks ago!It's been rough getting used to working on reduced medications, I've had some really bad days this summer with all of the things going on and I would greatly appreciate prayers. 

I haven't been doing much crafting, but I have done a little. I did several scrapbook layouts for our own albums. I shared several pictures of these on Facebook, but, since the layouts have pictures of friends and their children, I really don't want to share them in an open forum. I did however create a few notepad holders with a place for a pen/pencil.

I am really pleased with how much of my stash I have been able to use this year, between my mom's scrapbooks, my scrapbooks, and the various other projects I've done. I've used over 1/2 (probably closer to 2/3) of my stash of patterned papers. I found a couple of ladies on youtube who were always talking about how they just made themselves cut in to their papers and play with layouts and projects to combat their desire to just hold on to all the pretty paper and not do anything with it. Their videos gave me quite a bit encouragement to take that approach. Now, I just grab some coordinating papers and start cutting things down to size and layering until I find a design that works and it's really been working for me. Now I can look at the pretty papers in albums with memorabilia and pictures that are dear to me. :)

To make these holders, I simply measured the size of the the notepad and then marked off the paper where I wanted to score lines to be able to fold up the papers properly. I used my Martha Stewart score board to score the edges. I used an 8 1/2 x 11 paper for the base, and so I placed the paper on the score board so that the long edge was up against the top of the board. I then scored the paper at 3 1/2 inches, 4 inches, 4 1/2 inches, and then 8 inches. I then got out my paper trimmer and cut off the excess 3 inches of paper that I would not need. I then flipped the paper and measured the length of the paper pad and then cut off the excess width of the paper at 6 inches I believe (The measuresments will be different, depending on what size the notepads are. I always just get out my ruler and take the measurements of the notepads I am using and then add about 1/4 of an inch to each measurement because I've found that it looks nicer.) I then cut lines across the center between the 4 and 4 1/2 inch score lines and then after folding up the other score lines and adhering the card stock base together, popped out the two sections where I cut the lines to have something to slide a pen in with the notepad. 

(Those are really horrid directions, if anyone is interested, I could do a step-by-step with pictures of each step. You don't actually need a score board for this. It could be done by marking off with a ruler and then simply folding the paper at the lines and then use scissors to cut off the excess paper.)

For the first notepad holder, I used basic blue cardstock from Michaels, and layered it with a My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad. I believe that the flowers are old ones from Prima, and the gold pearl is from Queen & Co. The sentiment is made of Thickers and the pen is from a giant pack of Fiskars gel pens that my MIL bought me a couple of Christmases ago. The punched designs are from a EKSuccess border punch that I got at TJMaxx for like 4 dollars last summer. I really like how EKSuccess makes their punches. They are very durable, and the flatten out so that you can store multiple punches on top of one another.

For the second paper pad, I used primarily things from my stash. The pink woodgrain washi tape is from Darice and I also used thickets, as well as some old ribbon and patterned paper. The card stock is from a basic color card stock pack from Michaels. I used the same process to create all of these notepad holders. The washi tape is actually to make a mistake I made in cutting out the section to hold the pen. It doesn't look exactly what I intended, but I think that it still looks nice.

The last one is my very favorite. I absolutely love the stamp set (Studio G stamp set that was only $.75 at Michaels, score!). I stamped out the images and sentiment on basic card stock from Michaels with Bahama Breeze blue memento ink and some Studio G blue rhinestones and fussy cut the images. I used a 1 1/2 inch circle punch from Fiskars to punch out the sentiment. The patterned paper is from Crate Paper's "The Pier" 6x6 paper pad. I absolutely love that paper and can't wait to create something else with it. Right now though I like some of the papers so much that I don't actually want to cut in to it! :) In my experimenting with different ways to make these holders, I discovered that two cut outs on the side works much better than just the one, but I got the pen to stay with a little velcro. From now on though, I will be using the method I used from the above holders.

 

PS - Sorry for the novel. LOL. I need to get back into a schedule of posting instead of one ginormous post every few weeks!