The Avid Scrapper: Christmas

Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Hello Kitty Reindeer Christmas Card

This last card swap group, I was having a creative block! I think it is because I am swamped with so many orders right now, I am fast approaching "Brain Fry"! After a few minutes of racking my brain, I remembered that the Hello Kitty Cartridge, for my Cricut, cut cards for all the images! Yes! Once again, my Cricut to the rescue! It doesn't get easier than having your Cricut cut all your images for your kits for you.

I wanted a Christmas card and found this adorable HK reindeer. I cut her 7 inches tall, so she fits perfectly in a 5x7 envelope. I mounted her on red cardstock, cut into the card shape for the same image. It is hard to see, but I used gems for her buttons and her bow is raised with 3D pop dots. I love Hello Kitty! There is just something about her that is so endearing!

Holiday Cards

I recently taught a card making class to a group of woman who wanted to get started with card making or learn the basics of creating card kits, so they could join a swap group. I designed 5 cards, all holiday themed. It was such a fun class and there were lots of us there! I love those kinds of classes- good crafts and even better conversation! Hope to do it again soon.

Here are the 5 cards:

5.5x5" Halloween

5x7 Thanksgiving

4.5x5.5 Gift Holder

This one is holding an Applebee's gift card

5.5x5.5 Christmas

4.5x5.5 Valentine

I have always been a scrapper at heart, but have truly come to love card making!

{All of my cards look like they are leaning to the right on the photos. Hmmm. Must be putting them in the scanner crooked! Sorry about that. °Ü°}

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

December's Scrapbook Pages

Well, this is it! December's pages are done and we have come to the end of our scrapbook classes for the year. Wow, time truly does fly by. It honestly seems like I was just stroking out creating January's pages and feeling completely overwhelmed by the year I had a head of me. This truly is the quite the accomplishment for me. I really didn't think I was going to be able to pull of the 156 kits I created this year. Amazing opportunity. I have learned SO much by doing this and I am very grateful to Marsh, Melissa, Candace, Holly, Vaunette, Lori, Cheryl, Tamra, Bethany, Kathy, Jody and Lisa for putting up with the madness this year! I love you all so much! ♥ You have made this so much fun for me. Even when I pushed you, you never complained and your pages always turned out amazing and always showing your individual personalities. Think about it, we are the only 13 people on earth to have the particular album. How great is that?

So, here they are, our Christmas pages:

I am pretty sure the term "Head Elf" came from this very Santa! Isn't he funny?

The presents pull out of the sleigh for journaling

Each of the pages have just the right number of stockings for each of the girl's family members. I still need to our family's names.

These reindeer crack me up!

Of course, I didn't forget Rudolph!

Ok, so don't forget the following:

Paper cutter
Glue dots
3D pop dots
Chalks
Pen
Scotch Glue
Anything else you usually bring

See ya all on Thursday! °Ü°

Friday, September 19, 2008

Snowglobe Christmas Card

Ever since I got my Christmas Cheer cart over 2 years ago, I have wanted to make some snowglobes. I was able to do that this past week when I signed up for a Christmas Card Swap at Majestic Memories. I had so much fun! They took me over 6 hours to do just the 8 of them but I think they were worth it.

My only regret is that I didn't put any glitter behind the transparency. Next time!

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°