Freshly squeezed update

I had a busy weekend around the house, and am starting to feel slightly more organized in life. I squeezed in some time to update the Etsy shop (get it, squeezed?).

Wow. That was bad.

Moving on, thanks so much to all the pretty flowers for writing a post about my shop! Super nice. Jen was my very first friend. Our nursing mothers (they were nurses too!) set up a child care co-op where they swapped babysitting time. Really inspiring practice. And it meant I got to spend good quality time playing at my friends' houses. I have a lot of random memories from those days, everything from being mesmerized by Jen's fancy humidifier to riding the 'green machine' scooter outside to stacking up all their couch cushions into a tower and taking pictures of each other on top of it.

Which reminds me, I should add that to my 'should be scrapped' list. It's been fun to reconnect with her via this blogging thing. She lives a very inspiring life of crafting, child raising, and experimenting with the farming lifestyle.

I got into this PhotoJournaling small business because of my love for documenting and reminiscing!

To the shop, I added six new PhotoJournals in various sizes, and at different price points. I experimented with block printing on the cover, for two albums listed in the shop. I also added some white albums that you can customize yourself.

If you don't see a color combo or size here you want, please let me know because I probably have materials on hand to custom make one for you. It'd be a pleasure!

I also added a couple more patterned albums in orange and blue.

My mom told me that she likes one of the aqua mini-inspiration kits but wasn't sure how she could use it (she's more of a fabric crafter than a paper crafter). I wanted to try out the kits myself anyway, so I made up some samples of what you might do with some of the kits.

I used the pink and purple mini-inspiration kit to make a card for a newly engaged friend.

(everything but the kraft paper card and the pink American Craft letter stickers is included in the kit)

And then I used the brown kit (which I love love love) to make a scrapbook page. This is sort of a slice of life page. Nothing mind blowingly special about the topic, but I had this photo from awhile back that I wanted to do something with and I paired it with a little fact about my current life. Some day when I move away, it'll be fun to look back and remember this little part of my daily routine right now.

I cut out the hand-stamped stamped sticker, and added brown paint around the edges, along with a date stamp. I simply stapled the ribbon onto the page. The cork has adhesive on the back already so it was as simple as sticking it on the page. Gives it great texture. Everything above comes with the kit, minus the paint, 12x12 white cardstock, the date stamper, the cream paper I journaled on, and the staples!

Hopefully the kits just provide a few bits and pieces to get you started on creating something fun.

In related news, my inspiration clipboards finally filled up this weekend with new pages. Once I make another page, I'll rotate one of these into an album. I love having them out for awhile to look at before they get filed away. Fun stuff!