non-layout scrappy projects (and some scrapbooking)

First, a detail shot of the cactus garden nursery layout so far. I'm not quite done with it yet; right now I'm at the 'fiddling around' and adding 'just one more thing' to it before I write the journaling stage of things, which can take a while, the way I work. I guess I'm just not a '30-minutes start to finish' type of scrapper, because I keep thinking of small details that would add something to the page. Instead, my layouts sort of evolve over a week or two as I work on them here and there when I have some time. 

detail of the horizontal strip background

I started out with only the multi-colored striped paper decorating the background borders, but quickly decided the other sections looked a bit plain by comparison. So I added bluewashi tape (it's such handy stuff to have around!) and two border stickers to the other background sections. I think the layout design is finally 'done' now, so all I have left is the title (which will be letter stickers (and journaling (to be typed on my typewriter and added in as strips).

So, I'm almost there! Except for the fact that now, something about the photos I chose for this layout sort of 'bothers' me... I chose photos that represented the main highlights of the place, but now I think I'm going to make at least one more page so I can include some additional photos.

And now on to some other scrap-related stuff:

I bought an 18x24 piece of quilter's template plastic, for about $3,
and spent some time last night making a 12x12 'sunburst' stencil.
(And I still have enough material to make a couple more stencils!)

Here's the first test of my new stencil- I like it!
There are some stencils available to buy with this design,
but I don't think they cover the entire space of the 12x12 page,
which is what I really wanted to be able to do.

Here's a totally separate layout that I made last night after I finished cutting the stencil. (I could have finished up the cactus nursery layout, but I just 'wasn't feeling it' for some reason, and I don't like to force my creativity. Things start to go wrong when I make myself work on a project without being really inspired.) Shimelle posted a new page sketch on her blog a couple days ago (go here to see it), and I used her sketch to scrap one of my 'orphan' photos:

a random (non-digital) photo of a peony bouquet, from the year 2002, by the info on the back. I have a stack of random single photos like this- not enough
to warrant a multi-photo or multi-page layout, but still nice enough photos that I want to include them in my album. This layout uses some challenge elements from the SB site challenge I'm working on, too: inking (the pink dot stencil in the background and the gold splatters), washi tape (it's a vellum border sticker, but I'm counting it, lol!), and die-cutters or punches (the large scalloped border).

The background paper I used for this page is also quite random: I went to an estate sale last week, and picked up an entire 12x12 Iris box of scrapbooking supplies and odd sheets of paper for a steal. At first glance, I was not going to use this paper for ANYthing except maybe as a background to protect my work surface, but then I decided it would fit in very nicely for this page-- I love it when things work out like that!

my splattering got a bit out of hand, but it turned out okay
in the end, and it echoes the gold dots on the vellum.

my newest (old) scrappy storage: two wire wine storage racks, made in France. I got these at a community-wide garage sale I went to over the weekend. The minute I saw them I thought I could use them for something storage-related! Of course, it required a pretty extensive 'clean off' and re-organize of my work desk, but I think it was worth it.

the left-hand one is empty, showing what they looked like when
I found them. Not very easy to store anything on them with
all that open space, so I had to get a bit creative with it.

I cut heavy-weight patterned paper to fit the 'shelves' on the wine racks, and folded a bit of paper for the back, to keep things from sliding off. I also added a couple punched circles as 'handles' in case I need to slide the shelf out of its space.

This shelf holds my brown and black ink pads, and the ink applicator
tool. These were on my desk before, so this wine rack was a
great way to gain additional actual 'work' space. I made a small 'tray'
for the ink applicator tool, so it doesn't get ink all over the paper shelf.

This shelf holds a cork-board (it's half of a cork trivet from Ikea, actually)
that stores a few other tools I use quite often. A chisel, my super-fine tweezers,
corsage pins, a paper piercing tool, and the like. 
(The corsage pins are handy for carefully positioning- and removing- stickers 
from a page if you need to move them; ask me how I know, lol!)

So, now that I've done some random scrapping, random re-organizing, and random creating of art materials, I think my next goal is to actually finish that 2-page layout. (hopefully, anyway! ...we'll see what happens.)