The Avid Scrapper: {Spring Bulletin Board}

Saturday, March 13, 2010

{Spring Bulletin Board}

For Relief Society, which is the woman's group at my church, I am in charge of decorating and keeping our bulletin board up to date. I usually decorate to match the season's or holidays. I just put up the "Spring Board" today and wanted to share some the images with you.

MyScrapChick.com has the most adorable images and, as I have posted before, send out a "Freebie" pattern once a week. The adorable baby chick and bunny are images that I purchased from them. All of their patterns come in all kinds of files so that you can cut them by hand or use your die cut machine. These guys, I cut by hand because my SCAL is not working right now! Grrr... Honestly though, it didn't take much time to cut them by hand and they turned out so cute.

You have to check their sight out. I can't wait to do some Spring and Easter pages with some of the images I used on the board.

Here is the board in it's entirety:

This adorable bird I cut using the "Stretch Your Imagination" cartridge. The branch is from "Sweethearts" and the dragon fly is from "Walk in My Garden".

Here's a close-up of the dragon fly. You know me, gotta have some "bling"!

The sun is cut using the "Doodle Charms" cart.

This baby chick is the one I hand cut using the MyScrapChick pattern. How cute is she? I added ribbon and a flower to her "hair" and then I cut the grass from the "Pooh and Friends" cart and the flower and lady bug using "Walk in My Garden".

The bumble bees are from "Pooh and Friends", so CUTE!

Another dragon fly

Here's the bottom of the board. All the flowers, snail and caterpillar were cut using "Walk in My Garden" and "Pooh & Friends"

How cute is the grass hopper? He is from "Stretch You Imagination"

Caterpillar! Love him!

Wish my flower beds were looking this great right now! °Ü°

Bunny! She is so cute! Her bow is cut using the "Easter" cart.

So, that's it. If you are wondering, the backing is just patterned material. Fun board. Excited to get started on the Summer images... also from MyScrapChick.com. REALLY, you got to check them out! °Ü° You will ♥ them.

2 comments:

Elegante Family said...: Wow that is so cute! You are never going to get released if you keep doing things that amazing. Is there another ward that has a board on the other side? I would hate to be the sister in charge of that one. LOL Great work!; March 14, 2010 at 2:39 PM
The Avid Scrapper said...: Brandy, I hope I never do get released from being Bulletin Board Coordinator. It is THE best calling ever! Infact, the first counselor in the Bishopric called me in this morning to call me to a new calling and I told him he couldn't release me from the bulletin board. He said the RS President wouldn't hear of it. YAY!

Yes, there is another board on the other side and the lady who does it is incredibly talented! I've know her for years and she is a crafter, too. She hasn't gotten their Spring board up yet, and she caught me in the hall today and asked if I got ours up. When I told her yes, she said, "Ok, well I will have to see what you did so I can do ours!" She is so funny.

I gotta say, I really love doing the boards! I was worried when they first called me, but they are like HUGE scrapbook pages. °Ü°; March 14, 2010 at 10:08 PM

A Little About Me

Hello! My name is Carla. I am a wife to a wonderful man and mother to two beautiful daughters and two adorable fur babies. I have always loved taking photos and creating a special place for them to be cherished and shared. In my childhood and teen years, it was my journals that played host to my early scrapbooks. I really started to work on my craft in 1999 and there has been no slowing down since then. Scrapbooking is very therapeutic for me and gives me a chance to express "Carla" in ways I couldn't do otherwise. This blog is where you can see a little of what I create. I hope that you are inspired by all that you see here. I welcome questions and comments, so please feel free to drop me a note on my posts, or you can contact me via email. I ♥ hearing from you! °Ü°

Understanding the Cost of Custom Work:

I get emails for custom work all the time. I would say, that on a weekly basis, I get at least 8-10 emails requesting specific themes. I love hearing from everyone and truthfully, I am honored that there are so many of you who love my designs, style of scrap booking and work so much that you would love to make it apart of their memory albums. The part I find frustrating and sometimes hurtful, is that when I reply to these emails and give pricing, one of three things happens: 1) I never hear back from the person 2) I get an email back arguing price and saying they won't pay it unless I drop the price 3) A sweet apology that they can't do it right now (this would be the rarest of the emails, however, it is the most appreciated!)

I understand that in today's economy, that scrap booking pages and albums are truly a luxury purchase. I also understand that everyone is trying to get the most for their money. Aren't we all?

Here is the side I would like you to try to understand.

I am a crafter by trade. I scrapbook for fun and I scrapbook for a living. I need to be home with my family taking care of them and our home, and this is the working relationship that works best for us and our family's needs. Although I get to be home with them, I still spend 30-40 hours a week designing, planning, cutting, hand-cutting at times, and piecing together pages, albums and projects. Pretty much a full time job. Sometimes, ALL of that time is spent on just one album. Sometimes all of that time is spent on just 4-6 pages.

When it comes to my work, I do not cut corners! I only buy the best papers, metal embellishments, adhesives and so on. I take my work seriously, I go over every detail and I know I am not the only crafter who does this. I am simply just one of many who are in this "crafter's boat", if you will. What is minimum wage these days? I honestly do not know. From what I see and know, is it about $7 per hour. Maybe I should look it up... okay, according to US Dept of Labor, the minimum wage is $6.55 hour. The average person making M.W. makes $262 for a 40 hour work week BEFORE taxes, etc. Wow. that doesn't leave a lot for the bring home amount, does it? The average spread, (2) 12X12 pages together, takes me 8-12 hours to design and put together. {There have been a handful that have taken me closer to 16. I keep track for how long it takes to make each.} So let's say I am in "The Zone" and get one done in just 8 hours and I charge $6.55 per hour. That is $52.40. That doesn't even include the materials cost for that spread, that is just my time. Keep that in mind. I actually charge a set fee of $45 for a custom spread. There is extra time and steps that go into each project, like custom names, dates and details. Now, divide $45 by 8. I am making about $5.63 an hour, and then, not even that much because that doesn't include the cost I have already paid for the materials! That is JUST my time. At the end of each custom spread, I am only making about $2-$3 per hour. (REMEMBER, that is only if it took me just the 8 hours, any longer than that and it brings my hourly wage down even more.) That is not a lot for my time, for my design and hard work when it is spelled out that way. What do you think?

Please keep these things in mind when shopping sites like Etsy.com, Ebay.com and personal websites. We crafters put our all into our craft. Each design, every piece is a part our personality and we take a lot of time to put it all together.

I think that everyone, no matter who you are and what you do, wants to have their work appreciated and they don't want others to make them feel that what they are paid for their time and talent isn't worth it. I think my time and talent is worth what little I ask for it. Remember that when you see hand crafted items, time, talent and effort was put into each project. Think about how much time it would take you to do something like that if you were to personally make it, think of professional crafting as some one's career and think about how truly little, the time making it is actually charged for.

Thank you. °Ü°

Saturday, March 13, 2010

{Spring Bulletin Board}

2 comments:

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