Creative Chaos

Looking for sometthing to do with your tax refund.......

Or, in my case, looking for a way to forget you owe taxes?   Either way, my friend Laura is putting on an amzing retreat in Italy.  She has a wonderful line up of instructors including Lisa Pace and Tammy Tutterow.   Here is some more information.......

 

The week of September 15th ~ September 22nd, 2012 is going to be an
UNFORGETTABLE week of fun on the shores of beautiful Lake Como!  We will be
CREATING gorgeous treasures with our wonderful teachers, enjoying the beautiful
sites in and around the Italian Lakes Region, sampling the wonderful flavors of
Italian cuisine and relaxing by the lakeside pool of the Grand Hotel Villa
Serbelloni.  And...the GREAT news is that YOU still have time to join us!  We
will be taking a few more sign ups until the end of May.  So check out our site
at: A Kiss on the Chic Italy Retreat for all the details and take a look at
the beautiful pictures of this amazing area!  The flights to Milan, Italy are
REALLY great right now and I have a discount code for those attending to save
you even more!  So feel free to email me with any questions you have at:
Laura@akissonthechic.com.  We hope to see you there in September!

There will be a total of 7 classes spread out during the week. Each Teacher will teach beautiful classes as well as be a part of this “Ultimate Girlfriend Retreat!” These classes will be very informative, with GORGEOUS products from the companies we all love, the LATEST techniques that will grow your creativity and it will be a week that will surely INSPIRE you!

These classes will be EXCLUSIVE to this Retreat, and will be ALL brand new classes that no-one else has seen or will see until long after the classes are over. This ensures you are getting one-of-a-kind projects from these wonderful Teachers!   Because it is so early in the process for this Retreat, we have not asked the Teachers to make their class samples yet. We want this Event to be as FRESH and AMAZING as possible, and since this Event is over a year away, we are asking the teachers to wait so we use the “latest and greatest” products from the companies we all {LOVE}.

You can follow each teacher’s Blog and read their bio’s under “Teacher’s” on the side bar of this blog. You can also get a feel for their style and see some of their beautiful work. They are all VERY TALENTED artists who have taught all over the World and have been published in many of the top magazines in the craft industry!

In addition to the 7 classes included in the Event, we will have some “Make-n-Takes”, a book signing by Author and Teacher Lisa Pace, goody bags, surprises each day, drawings, giveaways and loads of FUN! Be sure to bring an extra duffle bag to bring all your goodies home in!

There will also be time to “crop” in the Event room in the evenings and on free days, so your days will be filled with a balance of CREATIVE and RELAXING time!

 

 

This post brought to you by.....

Jenny from Everyday's a Holiday!

She has a tag tutorial on her blog that I fell in love with.  She gave me her blessing to take it and post it on my blog.  I'm up in LA with the boys visiting my best friend Gail. Because we are so busy sitting on the couch, talking, eating and watching reality tv, I didn't have the time to come up with any of my own ideas.... so I'm repurposing Jenny's.  It's all about being green these days. 

So hop on over to Jenny's blog and whip up some cute gift tags....ok...I've got to get back to Gail and the next dvr'd episode of the Amazing Race.....So crazy busy.....

Talk to you soon!  Karin

Easter Fun.......

I did absolutely no Easter crafting this year....... 

So I present to you Easter crafts of years gone by......

Wish you and your family a wonderful Easter weekend!  Karin

Finishing some tags.....

As you can see my burlap love has not diminished.......

Plus, I'm a sucker for these Melissa Frances mini frames.....

And my favorite little bird stamp from Lisa Pace's Antiquated collection

I'm off to Paper Tales tomorrow....I'll take some pictures of all the stuff that has come in.  Talk to you soon!  Karin

I've got this great idea!

is what I told Michelle as we were getting ready for the big Amy Tan/Kelly Purkey Scrap-a-Palooza that was happening last Saturday.  As the founding and only member of the Paper Tales Design Team, I feel I have a duty and obligation to bring trendsetting designs to visiting customers.  Plus, I wanted to make more glitter clothespins.

"Ok. So here's what I'm going to do." I breathlessly tell Michelle on the day before the event, "I'm going to make these cute glitter clothespins with little flowers glued on with tags that have their name on it It's going to be amazing, wonderful and relevant all at the same time. Not to mention sceam Paper Tales is the bomb."

I just knew that she would think it was genius and promote me to "Vice President of Great Ideas" at Paper Tales.

Michelle turns and looks at me like she's never seen me before in her life...."What?"

Whatever.  I was determined to give each and every one of them a glitter clothes pin to take home with them to have and hold forever more.....

So that's where all the problems began.  I had the bright idea of painting them first with Krylon's Catalina Mist.  It's a paint color that I have been dying to use ever since I saw it on Melissa Phillip's blog.  However, forgetting that she works with magic in her fingers and I do not, I immediately run into trouble with the paint absorbing right into the wood.  Uggg.....so then I scoured the garage for some spray primer and got back to work.  Well long story short, I end up with a big half primered,half painted, half smeared because of falling down pins mess.   Ugg.....there was no way I was letting these messed up clothespins represent Paper Tales.  I knew no amount of glitter could fix this nightmare of a project.......... 

 

So with time running out,  I quickly regrouped and moved on from the fact that glitter and clothespins would no longer be part of my plan. I went with plan B.....I decided to just put together some gift tags with each student's name on it......

It involved a craft paper gift tag base and some burlap......

I my haste, I neglected to take any picture of the tags but I did make a fancier version here for a friend.........

I was really happy with how they turned out in the end.  Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with 50 spray painted clothes pins.  Talk to you soon!  Karin 

 

 

 

 

Flowers from the garden.....

Fooled you....they are the flowers I got from Shinoda's the other day.  I love these small ones and plan on oing something amazing with them soon......or in the next year.  One of the two anyway.....

Ok....so we got thessee new Smash books at Paper Tales the other day.  They are the bigger ones......

So for the past week since we've gotten them in I've picked it up....... looked at it.....put it back......picked it up again deciding to buy it......put it back because I have absolutely no business buying it....... picked it up again convincing myself that I have every bit of business buying it...... put it back again knowing that I haven't even touched the last paper that I just bought because I loved and felt that I had business buying it......

I am leaving to go work at Paper Tales in the next few minutes.    Let's see what happens......Talk to you soon!  Karin

In progress.......

 

 

Busy week.....But I did manage to get started on a few gift tags.  I spent last week in the classroom subbing for 3rd graders.  I started a bunch of projects but never quite finished them.   Hopefully this week will be a bit more productive.  Off to Paper Tales....talk to you soon!  Karin

 

What's on my desk......

Some new flowers from Shinodas.  Some new paper to match the new flowers......

Addressing my love of burlap in the way of different sizes......

Some new fabric........

Die cut flowers......

My favorite stamps.....

Vintage postcards......

I think I love reading the back of the cards more than the front.  Note a couple things about the address....no address number and no zip code.....

Click on this one to read it a little bit closer.......

That's it for now!  Talk to you soon!  karin

 

 

Another page in the journal.......

 

Are you a crafty paper hoarder?

You can find out by taking my simple quiz.   Ask yourself these questions…..

1.  Do you regularly find yourself coming home with a bag full of new scrapbook paper with every intention of using it in some vague yet fabulous project that is swimming in your head?  No...give yourself 0 points.  Yes....give yourself 1,000

2.  Does that same paper end up in a pile on top of the last papers you purchased with the same vague yet fabulous idea that never came to fruition?   No...give yourself 0 points. Yes....give yourself 3,000

3. Are you scared to use your good paper because you might just need it for some vague yet fabulous project down the road?   No...give yourself 0 points. Yes....give yourself 4,000

4. Do you like to stare at your paper lovingly thinking of all the vague yet fabulous things you could do with it….yet the idea of cutting into it boggles your mind?   No...give yourself 0 points. Yes....give yourself 10,000

5. Do you find yourself going into your craftroom with a vague yet fabulous idea, take one look at the piles of paper and unfinshed projects then turn around and walk right back out?   No...give yourself 0 points. Yes....give yourself 20,000

6. Do you own any My Mind's Eye paper from the Tres Jolie Collection that you refuse to use you because you personally think it was their best work yet and you haven't come up with a good enough project in which to use it and in the back of your mind think that it could quite possibly worth a lot of money in the near future on the "Antique Scrapbook Paper Roadshow"?   No...give yourself 0 points. Yes....give yourself 90,000

Add up all your points: 

If you scored 0 points you have nothing to worry about and frankly I have no idea why you are reading my blog.

If you scored between 1,000 and 38,000 you are a classic scrapbook paper/crafty hoarder and help is on its way. 

If you scored over 90,000 you're hopeless.

I scored 128,000 points........

But the good news is I figured out a way to use my paper and hopefully help out the ladies who frequent Paper Tales too.  I came up with my first official "Hoarders Anonymous" class at Paper Tales.  The motto is "Taking it off of the pile and putting into a project!"   I've had this swimming around in my head ever since I had several conversation with like minded crafty people.   We have paper that we are afraid to use.  Because of that vague, fabulous and illusive project that is some where down the road, we hang on to it.   We don't want to "waste" it.  We're afraid we're going to ruin it......

It's ridiculous.   I decided this was going to be the year I use my paper.  I had this awful thought during the garage sale of the century last week that this was where all my paper, which is currently queued up and waiting for that vauge yet fabulous project, is going to end up forty years from now....... 

 

Or, possibly next week, if my husband and children have anything to do with it.

So I decided to do a class for Paper Tales that used my template for a mini book but everyone brings their own paper.  I'm going to supply the flower, ruffled muslin and chenille fabric.....Everthing to put the front cover together except for the paper.  It's like a class/crop hybrid of sorts. 

I'm excited about this self binding machine.  Debby Schuh used it for one of her classes and it's so much fun.  You put your own paper in and then it binds it onto a photo book.

 I thought this was the perfect first project for the class.  I'll post my project on my blog, so those of you who can't join us at Paper Tales can work with your papers too.  What do you think? 

Ok....talk to you soon! Karin