The Avid Scrapper: November 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

{Thank You Card}

My daughter has an amazing drawing teacher at school. She recently gave me a really cool scrapbook organizer that she didn't have use for. I love it! It is really handy for teaching my classes and projects on the go. I was grateful that of all the people she must know, she gave it to me. What a sweetheart, huh?

I made her this Thank You card for her kindness. I love this stack! My Mind's Eye. What an amazing paper company. I love them and the paper was perfect for what I had in mind.

The card is a 5x7 and I had so much fun using all of mine and my daughter's punches to design the cascading effect on the front of the card. I really love card making! I wish I did more of it, but the fact of the matter is, that if I scrapped AND made cards as much as I truly wanted to, I would never do anything else! :D Showering and a clean house are important, right? LOL °Ü°

{Baby Boy 12x12 Layout}

Those of you who peeked in on the blog earlier this week, say the Baby Girl page I did, similar to this one. After finishing the sweet girly page, I decided to make a Baby Boy one, too. Using the same layout, I came up with this:

I cut the photo mat differently using a different marquee cut from Storybook. I thought it should be a little more masculine that the Baby Girl's mat.

I did cut the same flourishes, from the Stretch Your Imagination cart. I used Prima Flowers, but no BLING. Instead, I used buttons. Cute, huh?

This little outfit is made from baby blue material. How stinkin' adorable is it? I knew I had been saving it for something! °Ü°

There are 10 Prima Sprite flowers in all, layered to create 5 flowers total. The centers are buttons, 3 of which have ribbon tied into a bow.

There is a little terry cloth, sewn whale, too. He is so cute!

19 glitter embossed stars decorate the brown border.

I used 3D Pop Dots on the outfit, the whale, the blue photo mat and brown starred border. Lots of dimension!

Like the girl layout, there is white strip of Bazzill card stock for journaling all about your adorable baby boy! Also, the mat on this one is a tad bigger, so it will easily hold a 4x6 photo, or if you like, you can trim about 1/2 inch off of each side of a 5x7 to fit on the mat.

How perfect is this for displaying a new born photo, blessing or baptism photo. It can be framed in a 12x12 shadow box frame or makes a beautiful first page to your little guy's memory album!

Making cute pages like this makes me wish I had a son... I guess I can look forward to grandsons one day...right? °Ü°

This item SOLD on Etsy...

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

{Featured °Ü°}

I am feeling very honored! Did I tell you that I was featured on the Fantabulous Cricut blog this past weekend? I was! °Ü° Those of you coming from the site know this, but those of you who have been with me for a while may not.

Lori, from over there, wrote and asked if she could feature me. This is only the second time this has happened and I was excited and nervous all at the same time.

It really is a great blog! They have all kinds of challenges and tips and tons and tons of Cricut creation ideas! Check them out when you get a minute, it's a fun site to visit! Oh, and the talented girls who run the blog are so nice and helpful!

Thank, Lori! It was a lot of fun. You did a great job of making me look good! :D

Oh, and did I mention? I will be donating a spread for a free giveaway over there soon, so I will keep you posted...

{Baby Girl 12x12 Layout}

I know that with this economy, it is tough to spend $45 on scrapbook pages. At the same time, I realize not everyone has the time to create their own with all the working going on! So, I will be creating some 12x12 layouts AND I am dropping the price from $26 to $22 for each. ($20 is for the layout, $2 goes to covering my sales fees) I am hoping that this will help with building your albums and help me with sales. Win-Win... yes? °Ü°

Here is the first of many of have in the works. It's been a while since I worked on a baby page. I sometimes get really tired of working with the same colors, so the soft pink, brown and white was a nice change from my recent creations. °Ü°

This layout is so perfect for newborn pictures, blessing or baptism days, I could go on and on...

The background is brown Bazzill paper, layered on top of that is white card stock that has been punched with a decorative edge. On top of that is the cute white with pink polka-dotted paper.

It will host a 4x6 photo perfectly and as always, your photo will slide easily behind the flowers around the frame.

There are 11 Prima Sprites flowers layered to created 5 beautiful flowers to frame in your photo. In the centers of the flowers are clear gemstones; round and square. They are stunning!

Also on the page, is an adorable rattle that houses little soft pink, seed beads. It has a cute little pink bow tied to the rattle handle.

The largest of the flowers is layered with 4 Prima Sprites. It's gemstone is the largest on the page.

There are 2 brown flourishes that accent the flowers. I love they way they came out!

The flowery brown border has 18 flowers, all with small gemstones as the center. There is a lot of BLING on this pages! The "baby girl" is embossed with glitter glue.

Here you can see the dimension on the page. There is quite a bit of it. The flowers are all popped up with 3D Pop Dots, as are the brown border and photo mat.

All-in-all there are 24 gemstones on this page. Also, the white strip to the right of the photo mat is for journaling. I left it simple so that it can be personalized, either with writing, stickers, letters or so on.

So, what do you think? 12x12 layouts... a good idea?

This item listed on Etsy...

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°