Create With M.E.

Look Now!~or forever hold your peace!!

Ok you are asking what's up with that title M.E.?  All I'm saying is...you will NEVER see my desk looking like this so enjoy it now! And for those of you who come to my studio know that as fact and I don't make excuses for my creative messes! <giggle><giggle>

The reason I am showing you this today is because I am excited, I finally got my wonderful husband to put up two more "punch" racks (towel bars in their real life) yesterday.  But do you see the problem here....

Yep that's right...where do I go from here I am full again!  I have had the three racks on the right up for awhile and all those punches on the left have been sitting on my desk taking up valuable creative space.  I thought I would still have TONS of room left for new upcoming punches but when I organized these last night I was so disappointed!  Guess I will have to do like I do with my clothes put away the seasonal items such as no snowflake punches in the summer...until someone comes up with an outside the box use for it then what?!

While I was snapping photo's this morning I turned around and snapped a boring picture (sorry) of my Big Shot table which really doesn't look like much but what is new about it is I raised it up 8" with PVC pipe so it's now at standing level.  I LOVE that!!  NO more bending over to use my big shot!  Then I found some cool metal step flashing pieces at the big box home store. I covered them with Designer paper and used them for my movers and shaper pieces, which are magnetic of course.  Makes them much more available to me, right at my fingertips.

I have seen some beautiful studio's and mine definitely does not qualify in the beauty department with my block walls and old brown tables but what I LOVE about my studio is I have made it so that I have everything at my fingertips.  I'm so lazy <surprise!> that my chair has wheels so If I print somethng I just push myself over with my feet and grab it off the printer.  My stamps are in a cabinet to my right which you can't see in any of the photo's.  Some time when I have it all clean I will snap the whole layout.  But right now it's not ALL clean and when the other part is clean I can guarantee my desk won't be.

Now I gotta go mess up my desk...it's driving me crazy being this clean and stamp free!  My goal today is to have something to show you every day this week!  So make sure you check back in with me or subscribe in the left column or put Create With M.E. on your blog reader so you don't miss out!

Recycling retired supplies~Dress them up with DSP!

I found these corduroy buttons in my "stash", you know you have one too, a stash that is! <grin>

I had received them from my upline at an event last year and never got them used before they retired. One of my favorite things that originally drew me to Stampin' Up! 10 years ago (I was a customer long before I was a demonstrator) was that everything was color coordinated.  So since I no longer have the matching ribbon and paper and I tend not to use retired supplies in my business ;-) I didn't have a use for these buttons anymore. 

Long before I stamped I used to sew.  One thing I did was I made my own button for the kids clothes so they matched their little outfits.  You would buy a blank and cover it with a circle of fabric.  So why not cover these buttons I thought!   I started by punching out a 1 3/8" circle of DSP (Designer Series Paper) for the large size button.  Next I wanted the paper to be as thin as possible so since I have been playing around with the faux suede technique I thought I would try it with DSP.  It worked!

Then I wanted to get it still as soft as possible so the paper would wrap smoothly around my button.  So I covered it with the Tombo Mono Multi liquid Glue.  It worked like a charm.

Here is what the button looks like after you wrap it...

And from the top it will look like this...

Now it's time to put it on a project.  Well, I didn't get that far but I have used one in the center of a "sueded" flower.  I punched the New Extra Large Fancy Flower Punch out of Melon Mambo and faux sueded it but only pulled the petals up leaving the center still intact.  Very Cute!

I hope you enjoyed todays little tip and you will try it on your own projects soon.

Order online 24/7 here. 

Forget Me Not Class~Room still available March 3rd

Room Still available to stamp and eat pizza in Champaign Urbana area. More details here! http://march2010forgetmenot.eventbrite.com/

Last nights Forget-Me-Not card keeper class was a big hit. Our theme for the evening was KISS- Keep it Super Simple! Although the ladies said the cards were much simpler they LOVED them ALL! I packed them full of fresh ideas that they could take home and duplicate themselves.

Want to join us? There is still room available in tomorrow nights class. If you live in East Central Illinois or even Indiana had 2 gals from Indiana last night! We meet at the Villa Grove Monicals Pizza at 5:30 for Pizza then start stamping at 6pm. We were finished by 8pm! $10 will get you 6-8 cards! I do all the work and you come have all the fun. Sign up today via Eventbrite. More details on the Eventbrite site so click on over today to find out all the details!

http://march2010forgetmenot.eventbrite.com/