Ali's Got Me Journaling Again! This Time for 40 Days!

This last December I made my 1st December Daily. This is a project Ali Edwards does every year and in 2010 did with the online community at Scrapbooks Etc. I did not journal as faithfully as I should have and my journal was not as beautiful as so many of the posted journals. But I loved the following about the December daily:
1) It reminded me of the reason for the season.
2) It gave me a tool to remind my children of the reason for the season.
3) It became a family builder as I had a theme for each day and got my children involved. For example, Make it Monday and Why Wednesday.
4) It held me accountable to sharing my faith with my children.
So, yesterday I got a bee in my bonnet about how I would celebrate the upcoming Easter holiday with my children. I want them to understand how important I believe Good Friday and Easter our to our faith, and Ali's December Daily was my starting point. So, I am planning on celebrating Lent by journaling all 40 days. We will do the themed days again too. They are Make it Monday, Try it Tuesday, Why Wednesday, Think about it Thursday, Family Friday, Simple Saturday, and Sacred Sunday. I use Try it Tuesday to encourage new foods, and on Why Wednesday we talk about why we celebrate and why we have traditions like coloring eggs. For Think about it Thursday, I will ask the children to give up something they love for the day or the week as a way of sharing the message of cross.
Not only am I sharing this idea with you today, but I am sharing my cover SVG! I was really happy with how this turned out. To find the Cross SVG, use this LINK. I hope you like this file as much as I do!

Tips for Decorating Your Craft Room

I am just finishing up two covers for a customer in black and white and loving the combination! Can't go wrong with the classics! When I first started making covers, I knew that craft rooms were really becoming part of our homes and saw my covers as part of the decorating scheme for every Cricut lovers craft room. But while some of us may be comfortable scrap booking and card making, we don't have the same confidence in decorating. So, today I am sharing some of my decorating tips for your craft room or craft space.

One of my favorite go to rules is the rule of three. Try repeating a pattern three times in your space that works with your color scheme. So, you might add an Expression cover like the one at the top of the post, a Your Story cover like the one above and a scrap bag like the one below.
My second favorite rule is the Gallon, Quart, Pint rule. So, now you choose your main color for the walls, that's your Gallon color in this case white walls. Now your Quart is black and you might use this on a large magnetic chalk board in the craft room. And for a pint color you might use burgundy, and scatter this in a few accessories in your room. Try your organizational items.
And lastly, I love a piece of whimsy in every craft room! I don't have one to match the color scheme above in stock, but consider a decorative bird cage, like this one in my Etsy store for storing your ribbon. I added a few embellishments and instant whimsical storage! I actually love this method of storing ribbons! It makes getting what you need easy too!

A Thank You Card to Share

Oh, I can't believe how long it's been since I posted! Seems that even though I can now get to my craft room, my crafty mojo is still recovering. But I have had a good week winning prizes. I won a prize pack from the Crop Out Diabetes blog hop at PS. I Love You Scrapbooking and one from Samanatha Walker Fabrics. I am so excited to get the fabric, that I made up my thank you before it arrived.
I used my Clear Art Stamps "You're Sew Special" Set to stamp the dress form and the sentiment. I gathered a bit of organza in the stash and hot glued it to the dress form, with some ribbon on top. I made the flower (isn't it sweet?) using some seam tape and a brad. I am not sure where to get the seam tape as it was a gift from Carrie at Greenbeancrafterole. I wanted to make one with some Terrifically Tacky Tape, but there was none in the house. So, it occurred to me to use a brad and just loop my petals around the base of the brad. The damask is Inkadinkado Bold Damask stamp set. Hope Samanatha likes her card! And I am off to work up another thank you card for my Crop Out Diabetes prize. Be warned it may include another dress form or sewing item as I tend to explore an obsession of mine over and over (ie. dress form images).

February's Featured Etsy Blogger

This month the Etsy Blogger team's featured blogger is: Bunnykissd. It looks as if she does a bit of digi scrapping and likes to read. I am so with her about negative books! My book club keeps stumbling in these negative books.
I stopped by her Etsy store: BunnyKissd and found this adorable Mummy necklace! I know it is not near Halloween, but I loved the whimsy of this piece! You might just want to stop by and see what other whimsical pieces she has for the rest of the year!

Spring Flowers Cricut Expression Cover

Have you ever had a trim or embellishment that you are holding onto for the right project? Well, I bought this American Crafts Ribbon Rose a while ago and knew I wanted to use in on a Cricut Cover.
But, I needed the right fabric, and design.
With all the snow and bitter cold getting to me, I headed down to my craft room yesterday with a mission to pull out some new Lake House Dry Goods fabric and see how it looked with my ribbon. And here is my cover, made to fit a Cricut Expression or Cricut Cake. I love the spring flowers and bright colors! What do you think?

Crop Out Diabetes Winner is...

I had four people enter my challenge for the Crop Out Diabete Blog Hop. I used Random.org to choose a winner and the winner is #4. That's you, Natalie! She said, "Hi Clare,
This is my first time doing a challenge, so I'm not sure if it is linked correctly. Thanks for sharing with us. Praying you have a speedy recovery.

Natalie
http://atimetoscrap.blogspot.com"

Well I hope you enjoyed your first challenge and your prize! Watch for my email on how to claim your prize.
Thanks to everyone who DONATED and participated! Let's do this again and invite more friends!

Celebrating Our Milestones Flower Winner is...

And the winner of one dozen flowers for the Celebrating Our Milestones Blog hop is:
# 60. That's you Becky Dunham! You said, "Sweet layout! I am praying for speedy healing for you :) Hope all goes well."
Please watch for an email from me about claiming your flower prize. Thanks for the prayers! And am doing well!