Playing Catch Up!

Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I last made a blog post!   I certainly have a lot to catch you up on.  I've been one busy girl, and I don't know about you, but I have had one hectic holiday season.  I'm relieved that the holidays are over, and we're settling nicely into the New Year of 2010.  On the other hand, I can't wait to do it all over again in eleven more months!  2009 brought me into a whole new realm of scrapbooking when I earned my first design team spots, started this blog, and even got my first publishing on Scrapbooking.com with not one, but two layouts!  I have to say it was a successful year for me scrappy wise, and I'm so thankful for all the great opportunities that came my way.  This is just the beginning of a new decade, and I have a feeling great things are going to happen!  On that note, let me catch you up on all thats been happening in my little world...

NEW YEAR, NEW SPACE

For starters, with the New Year came the always popular bug to get yourself organized, and that's exactly what I did!  I have to start by explaining that we got rid of our desktop computer because we found ourselves never using it, we only needed our laptops.  The desktop computer had become one giant chunk of clutter atop a large desk covered in an accerssorizing mess.  So out the desktop went, and we moved our giant computer desk to the upstairs room where my craft space is.  That caused such a tornado of displacement, and the fact that we did it over the holidays amid decorations and gift wrap didn't help either.

It began to feel as though we were living the life of hoarders with little goat paths through the house.  It was such a mess and it drove me crazy!  Finally, with the holidays over we were able to get everything put away and the house back to normal.  Long story short, now we have a beautifully organized craft space with a desk that is new to the room and brings much needed storage and surface area.  Now I can have the printer and my laptop in the same room as my scrappy things!  To show you just how bad my space had become, I took some before and after pics.  Now that it's all nice and neat, my scrap space is constantly calling to me, whispering sweet nothings in my mind... "pssst, hey Carole... don't you wanna come scrap with me?!"

BEFORE

AFTER

SCRAPTIVITY'S JANUARY KIT

I design with Scraptivity kits on an every other month basis.  This month I had the pleasure of working with the January Kit.  It has some great papers from Teresa Collins and October Afternoon, including a great stamp set from 7 Gypsies!  Have a looksie at what I created with Scraptivity's January Kit

TREASURED SCRAPBOOKING GUEST DESIGNER

I came across Treasured Scrapbooking's kit club and message board during their recent design team call.  I imediately fell in love with them!  There is always so much to talk about as well as so many fun challenges and crops!  Their board is a happening place, and I dearly wished to be a part of their team.  Unfortunately I didn't make their permanent design team, but I did earn myself the Guest Designer spot for January.  Working with their January kit has been a blast, and it's full cutie patootie goodness!  Check it out and have a peek at what I created with it.  On the 15th I'll have a couple more projects to share.  Don't be shy and come over to Treasured Scrapbooking to join in the fun and play with a challenge or two, or three...

My GDT January Challenge: "10 in 2010"  Your mission: to use up some of your stash and create a layout using 10 of something.  Here in my next example I used 10 different red and white ribbons covering the candy cane hearts.

My Challenge for the TS Resolutions crop Jan 7th-10th was to alter a photo frame for use as a message board to schedule myself some "me" time!

KIKI-ART

Okie dokie scrappy folks, this is the last update I have for you.  If you didn't know already, I am a design team member for the new manufactuer, Kiki-Art.  Their mission is multiculturism and diversity through scrapabooking.  We have design team members from all over the globe, and a blog in three different languages!  I'm of course on the English blog, and for the month of January the theme is China.  They have a great paper line called, what else, but... China!  I used this paper line to make some cute Chinese paper lanterns.  You can find out more on my first Kiki-Art blog post here.

Happy New Year!