Janet's Smiles

Blogging through the month of April with the 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge has been such fun.  Even though I only had a brief idea of what I was going to blog about and having just moved all my craft supplies from inside our house to a new studio that we had built in the backyard, I managed to finish on time and I am pretty happy with the way the posts came out.  I had some fun creating things along the way and even made my first YouTube Vlog! 

I wrote about my cards and mini-albums and paper crafting in general, a subject that is a passion for me.  In case you missed any of the posts, here are links to them.

A is for A+
B is for Backpack
C is for Castle
D is for Duckie
E is for Easel 
F is for Feathers
G is for Gift Card Holders
H is for Honey Do
I is for Ideas
J is for Jar
K is for Kits
L is for Love
M is for Mini Albums
N is for Name Game
O is for Overlays and Owls
P is for Promotion
Q is for Quotes
R is for Repurpose, Recycle
S is for Special Orders
T is for Tools
U is for Unique
V is for Village
W is for Winging It
X is for Expo
Y is for YouTube
Z is for Zutter Bind It All

J. Lenni Dorner gave us a list of 10 questions since this is the 10th Anniversary…

1. What did you love about the challenge this year? —All of it.  
2. What would you change about it? — Nothing that I can think of. 
3. What was the best moment for you during this year’s challenge?  — Coming up with the topic of eXpo for “X” and Zutter instead of Zebra for “Z”.    
4. What is the best comment your blog got during the challenge, and who left the comment? — I was surprised by the great reception my craft work got from everyone.  I can’t pick one specific comment.  
5. Will you do the challenge again? — Absolutely!  Can’t wait.  Thinking of new ideas now.
6. Was it well organized and were the hosts helpful? (Did you fill out the after survey?) — Very well organized as always and yes, I did fill out the survey.  I have the survivor badge to prove it!
7. How did you and your blog grow, change, or improve as a result of this challenge? Did you find new blogs out there to enjoy? — I did find several new blogs (see below) and I stretched myself to make a YouTube video which turned out better and easier than I expected so I’ll bet I make more 🙂
8. Were you on the Master List? (If you did the challenge last year, was it better this time without the daily lists?) — I was on the Master List.  I don’t think it made much difference to me.  I posted on the main page and on the Facebook page almost every day.  
9. Any suggestions for our future? — I can’t think of any right now but I’ll let you know if I do. 
10. Any notes to the co-host team? A word of thanks to Jeremy for all his hard work on the graphics? A picture with your A to Z shirt, if you ordered one? — See below for my co-host team thanks.  I’ve seen the T-shirts and I may get one, just trying to decide which one.  I have a mug from my first year and use it all the time.  

One of the great things about the A to Z is finding new people who are out there blogging away too.  Over the past three years I have continued to follow a number of people that I met through the A to Z.  Among the most interesting bloggers I came across this year were (in no particular order):

Gigglingfattie at https://noloveforfatties.com  The name of her site intrigued me from the start because, hello, fat girl here.  She chose to write 500 word stories based on the pictures in a children’s A to Z carpet.  Her stories were so cute.

David Kravetz at http://lessbeatenpaths.com  David wrote about the alphabet using signs he came across while traveling America.  There are some very funny signs there and places I’ve never heard of.

Tamara at https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/ had a most informative series about the Justice System and used some true life stories to illustrate her words.

Mary at https://www.jinglejanglejungle.net gave us songs with a word that represented the letter of the day and asked us to think of more.

Donna at https://dbmcnicol.blogspot.com told her stories using random words and pictures. 

Eschudel at https://zombieflamingoes.com used a picture story-day in the life theme and I thought it worked really well.

Crackerberries at https://crackerberries.wordpress.com used whatever came to mind for the letters.  Did a great job too.

Shelley at https://www.quaintrevival.com is a blogger I’ve started following this year and she tried the A to Z for the first time.  She caught on really quickly and had a great first year!

Dena at https://denapawling.blogspot.com gave us a quiz a day using pictures and questions with the letter of the day.  Very fun.

I’ve seen Cherdo at http://www.cherdoontheflipside.com before with her music posts but have not been a follower.  She showed us different aspects of our lives that may/or may not mean that we are geezers.  I’m pretty sure I passed just about every test for inclusion in that category.

I made a copy for myself of the sign-up spreadsheet and I will be working my way around to find some more blogs that I missed during the next few months.  There’s never enough time to keep up with all 600+

It definitely helped me to do a draft page with each letter of the alphabet and the graphic (designed by the talented Jeremy Hawkins) that corresponds with it.  Then when I was doing research I had a place to put pictures I came across that I wanted to use and could add some links (like the link to the main A to Z page) and that saved time on the posts that were due that day.  Then even if I wasn’t quite sure how the post was going to end up, I at least had a starting off point.  I didn’t make a million dollars selling things in my Etsy shop but I know my views and visits to the site increased (wait, maybe that was because I was going there to link my items? – LOL).  At any rate, once again it was a very fun experience to be part of the A to Z family. 

A huge thank you to our founder Arlee Bird, John Holton, J.Lennie Dorner and the rest of the A to Z team.  I know there must be a lot of behind the scenes work that we are not even aware of and they certainly deserve a standing ovation.  Now it’s time to start thinking about next year’s topic! 

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It’s here!!!  The last letter in the 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge is finally here.  I don’t know about you but I’ve had a really good time with this year’s challenge.  I haven’t had a chance to visit all 600+ participants but I have gotten to a few dozen.  I expect next month I’ll start making some more visits since it won’t be that busy.  I’m trying to think of a theme for the month.  Sometimes it seems like a letdown when April’s rush is over.

Anyway, for my letter “Z” I’m going to talk about the Zutter Bind It All machine.  When I talked about tools for the letter “T” I forgot about this one because it is something that I have had for a while but don’t use very much.  It is a machine that you can use to make your own books with wire binding.  I got it from Blitsy (an online creative supply store) during a sale for a steal. 

Wire cutters

as well as several different sizes and colors of wire binding.  There was also a project idea book with so many cute ideas for making different kinds of books and albums.  Look at that boot! 

It even came with some wood chip board covers and pre-cut pages so you could start making something right away.

Whew!  Done!  I hope you have enjoyed reading about my crafting experiences and that you’ve had a chance to visit my Etsy shop.  Please keep me in mind if you ever want something made especially for you or have an idea for a unique gift for someone else.  If you saw my Studio tour yesterday, you know I have A LOT of supplies for almost any theme.  Stay tuned for May 6 when we do a reflection post of our experiences this year.  One more big thank you and Happy Anniversary to Arlee Bird, the founder of the A to Z and all of his cohosts and helper bees.   

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Happy Monday!  We have the last two letters in the 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge this week.   I am so happy that I have made it this far with no complications.  I was so involved with getting the Studio together in March that I had almost no time to prep for the A to Z and yet I managed to meet all the deadlines and have relatively (I hope) interesting offerings for each letter.

For the letter “Y” I am presenting a YouTube video walk through the new studio!  I have been wanting to try my hand at making some how-to videos.  I thought that starting with a tour of the studio would be fun.  I hope you think so too!

I left out some things I wanted to say and I’m sure I fumbled a bit but for a first attempt I think it is okay.  In case you want to see some of the companies I mention, I am linking them here:

The shed was made by The Shed Shop in Hayward, California.

The ScrapBox was made by The Original ScrapBox Company.

The binders are from Totally Tiffany.   

I hope you liked my video tour.  Do you think I could do more of them?  Have something you’d like me to demonstrate?  My niece said she wants to see more about the Junk Journal I mentioned so maybe that will be the next video.  Love any feedback.  Hope I didn’t scare you away and that you’ll come back tomorrow for the big finale!

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My oh my we are down to just 3 letters in this year’s A to Z 10th Anniversary Challenge!  For X I am using EXPO as my word which comes in very handy since the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt is using a word with XP!   Thanks, Linda, for helping us keep on track with two challenges!

I’ve mentioned that I get ideas from magazines and kits, but another big source of inspiration and the place I get a lot of my supplies from is the Stamp and Scrapbook Expo.  There are three Expos a year within traveling distance although I usually only go to two of them.   It is a great time for me to spend a day with my niece, Donna, who is my scrapbook buddy.

We buy our tickets online and then pick them up at Will Call.  If we get there early enough – of course we do! – they give you a Golden Ticket that you can use to try to win a door prize.

The prize table

The workshop schedule

My niece, Donna, ready to shop

They are just about to let us in.

There are also floor demonstrators.  They show you how to use the new products and let you do “make and takes” so you can try them for yourself and then keep what you make.

All through the day they call out door prizes.  There are a couple of ways to win.  One way is just by your name because you bought a ticket.  One is the “number game.”  There are numbers on the floor and when they tell you they are going to pick a number, you try to find one and stand on it.  I was lucky #11 once.  I won a paper pack with some extra goodies in it.  Donna won one too at a different show.

Happy Shoppers

Have you ever been to a Stamp and Scrapbook Expo?  Does it look like fun?  Tomorrow is a day of rest.  Come back Monday for the letter Y.  I’m going to try something really different.  Care to guess what?

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Down to just four letters left in the 10th Annual A to Z Challenge and I struggled with a topic for today.  You would think that W would be an easy letter to find something for and at first I was going to use Wedding and show some cards I’d made that you could use for a wedding like this one:  

But that didn’t seem so very exciting.  Then I thought about Washi tape.  I certainly have a lot of that:

But that didn’t seem very exciting either.  Finally I thought of Weeding as in weeding out supplies that I’ve had around for years and years and actually decided I’m not going to use so I should just let them go.  Like spools and spools of thread.  If I am getting rid of the sewing machine, I certainly don’t need all the thread.  Fortunately I have some friends who took them.

Or piles of yarn.  Not going to make anything out of this any time soon.  I really wanted to make something with the rainbow yarn but no matter how many times I tried nothing came out right.

Even the pieces of yarn for latch hook rugs.  I’ve made some but what the heck was I keeping all this for?

I even have some old Monopoly game pieces.    Some of these are collectors items since they are no longer made for the game but I’m gonna let someone else collect them!

So now I have a lot of empty containers and I’m going to weed through those as well and keep the ones I like and give the rest to the second hand stores.  I guess you could say for the letter “W” I’m just gonna “Wing” it.  Thank goodness I have X, Y and Z (maybe) under control!  See you tomorrow.

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Final countdown in the 10th Anniversary A to Z.  We are at the letter “V” and I was going to write about vellum but then I started working around in the studio and the word “Village” came to me.  Last year during my A to Z of the things that are found in a Michaels Arts and Crafts store, I wrote about the miniature gnomes and fairies that I wanted to get for the garden in front of my studio.  At that time I had no studio so I didn’t buy any of them.

This year, I DO have a studio so I am making my Fairy Village!  They didn’t have all of the same figures but I found some that I think are really cute.  I put this together on my workbench but eventually it will go outside. 

Doesn’t that castle look like a neat place to live?  The front door opens but the inside is nothing special so I’ll probably keep it closed.  The color of the turrets matches the studio so well.

 Since I drink tea every night this was a natural figure for me to get as well.

This is a smaller version of the strawberry house I saw last year.  I thought the little clothesline was a nice touch.  The fairy has a tiny gem in her hands.   

From this angle the bridge and the table and chairs kind of blend in with the rocks but you get the idea.  The “Wizard” is actually a statue of Santa that my late sister made for me a long time ago.  It broke and my husband glued it together but there are spots that are missing.  I was just going to take a picture of it and throw it away but when I started putting the village together, he seemed to fit right in.

The last part is the wise old owl.  There is a pot that my daughter made for me that I’m going to get a plant to put in.  The little boy and girl were figurines my sister used to put on the table when we had family Thanksgiving dinners and the frog is a cute frog. 

I don’t think I’m finished with these.  I may want to get some more rocks and a couple more figures for the village and definitely some flowers.  I’m thinking that I’d like to get some tree stumps at different heights and put one of these on each in front of the Studio.  I bought all of these things at different times and I wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to put them in or what they were going to show but once I thought of the word Village, they just came together like this. 

What do you think of my Village?  Are you going to make it to the end of the alphabet with me? 

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I’m going with Unique for my letter “U” in this 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge.   There are a lot of crafters out there so I try to make a few things that are a little unique.  Tell me what you think about these.

For Valentine’s Day one year instead of making my husband a regular card I decided to use candy to spell out my message.  I taped different of his favorite candy bars on a sheet of poster board and wrote a message around them.  The message says:  (Candy in parentheses)

Baby Love (Baby Ruth candy):

There are more reasons why I love you than there are stars in the (Milky Way) but let me (Take Five) to start:

1)  You take me to fun rock concerts instead of the stuffy (Symphony).
2)  It may not be (100 Grand) but you give me all your money on (PayDay).
3)  You are a great dad to our (3 Musketeers).
4) You show me you still love me even though I have a few more wrinkles and (Rollo)’s than when we first met.
5) B'(Twix) driving through the (Sno Caps) mountains to Reno or watching that Cash Cab guy from New (York Peppermint Patty) we still have good times!

Our life together has been very (Good and Plenty) more to come!

He liked it so much he didn’t want to ruin it by eating the candy!  I guess he could have taken the candy out and left the wrappers.

For my mom’s 90th birthday I made this flower shaped card.  I found different things that happened in 1923 and put them on the petals of the flower.  This is another one that would be very easy to personalize.

These are some of the decorations I made using my Slice machine.  I was really happy with the way the guitars came out.  They will go great in my concert album.

We have a local baking supply store who has a party room for rent.  I thought if I made a mini-album in the shape of a cake I could go to them and see if they would be interested in working with me to offer these to the people who have parties there.

The anchor I made using the Slice design card!

It can be easily personalized with dad’s favorite team colors and if he’s not into baseball or football I have golf or fishing among other activities. 

Have I managed to come up with some unique ideas for gift giving?  I’ve said before I love experimenting.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

Five more letters in this year’s A to Z.  I think I’m gonna make it, how about you?

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For the letter “T” in the 10th Annual A to Z Challenge I am talking about tools.  Every good craftsperson has their tools.  My husband was a mechanic and he has a garage full of tool boxes with multiple varieties of tools.  The neighbors come by asking for this size wrench or that type screwdriver and he has them all.

I have my tools too.  Of course I have the standard pens, markers, scissors, ink, stamps, all that stuff.  I showed them a little bit in my post for the letter “S” last year when I talked about the Scrapbooking section of Michaels.  These are a few of my more specialized tools. 

The first is my Slice machine.  Many (most) people have the Cricut, Sizzix or a version of them to make their die cuts and alphabet letters.  The Slice machine came out about 10 years ago or so and I was so excited to get one.  It is a portable machine whereas some of the others are not.  I can use the Slice to cut out lots of different letters and shapes for almost any theme.  It comes with a design card that plugs into the machine.

Design cards

 Once the card is inserted you have lots of options to choose from.  I used this guitar to make the guitar embellishment I talked about yesterday in the “Special Order” CD Music mini.

It goes from 2 to 4 inches.

 Each card comes with a booklet that shows all the designs you can make.

 These are two journal tags I made using elements from the Slice design cards and then stamped some lines on them for the writing.

Unfortunately the company that made the Slice went out of business and the Slice is no longer supported by anyone.  I will be sad if something happens to mine.

We R Memory Keepers is a company that makes a lot of punch boards that you can use to make things as well.  This one makes envelopes, bows and boxes.  On the inside it tells you what size paper to use for whatever size envelope, bow or box you want to make and then just by punching the paper at certain points and then scoring and folding, you have your finished product.  I haven’t used the bow or box feature much yet but the envelopes I use a lot with my cards.

 This one makes party favor bags.  I made the orange one below.

 I have a lot of regular punches too.  Some are to punch things like flowers or leaves and some are border punches to use for making pretty borders on the page or edges on cards.

This one will take a 6 inch piece of paper and turn the edges into really detailed finishes.

Sticker makers

 Of course there is the Fairy Tales castle!  How cool to use that for pictures of a Disneyland vacation!

This one made the Christmas holders

This one made the ice cream and mug holders

Quick aside, using the “tools” on WP I see I have at this moment 146 “followers” on my Word Press version of this blog and 23 on Blogger.  Can I get to 150 and 25 before the end of the A to Z?  Hope you come back tomorrow for the letter “U.”

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Moving right along in the 10th Annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge we come to the letter “R” which stands for Repurpose, Reuse and Recycle.   I love experimenting with things and when I see some ordinary item I immediately start thinking about what else I could use it for.  Take these Laughing Cow cheese containers.  I really like this cheese so we had quite a few empty ones and I wondered what I could do with them.

And then there are the tea boxes.  I drink A LOT of tea and the boxes were just so cute.

Am I the only one who sees these things and wonders what to do with them?  All of them can easily be thrown into the recycle bin and the garbage company will take them away to melt them down or whatever they do but I think my way is more fun, don’t you?  You can find these and others on my Etsy site and if you can think of a theme you’d like to see one made into let me know!

“Rib” is the prompt for the #SoCS today so I’m glad I’ve been able to incorporate it into my little story here.

Tomorrow is Sunday so there is no A to Z.  I missed last week’s Song Lyric Sunday but maybe I’ll be able to play this week.  I’m going to try to make the rounds to some new A to Z-ers too and make sure I have the letters ready for the last week of the Challenge.  Have a Happy Easter!

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