Whew - we did it.

We worked our tails off this weekend. It got a little snippy towards the end of it. However, we managed to make 42 boards. I have 3 specialty boards to make one night this week to deliver on Saturday.

As you can see we have a western, lots of flowers, beach and 4th of July. I'm working up an idea for sports team boards. More to come on that.

The first picture shows a board made with the current Close to My Heart Mayberry papers. Love the greens, browns and that great smoothie pink. The other is a western themed made with the semi-retired Sarsaparilla papers.

I say semi-retired because you can still use this paper for layouts using the fantastic Studio J online software. The program is free to use with access from my website at http://kbgerlach.myctmh.com. You can save your projects for up to 3 months AND for the month of June you will receive a free JPG for one layout which you can share online, via email, print at your favorite printer. Once you try it you'll love it and if you love it - then talk to me about the benefits of becoming a member. Members get more!

These next boards are made with Silhouette and Magic Moments. Both papers are also available only on my very fashionable clipboards ($10 profits go to sending Macie and Raina to DC) or at Studio J.

Then we went for the 4th of July Holiday with Blue ribbon and here's another version of the Magic Moments papers. You have to love the double sided Background and Texture papers of Close to My Heart. They are so flexible!

Yes I know we have not yet stamped or attached the title so they look a little crooked in the photo because I just set them there for the picture.

The last of the photo clipboards are a beach theme using Majestic Blue and a outdoor theme using Back Country.

This final board is a work in progress. It is 6x9 size and I've added some Silhouette papers and rosettes to decorate the handle. I envision this board decorating wall space next to the phone for messages or to jot down that grocery list. What do you think?

Craftroom sweatshop - DC fund raiser day 1

Here are the latest boards. We have 2 each of these colors but 1 of the lavender boards is already sold. The girls have sold 8 so far. That's a good start but they'll have to sell 450 each to pay for the trip. :) Lucky for them I have other items made and that we can make to sell to earn their trip to Washington DC. Also, need a babysitter? Both are 12 and willing to babysit. I even overhead them say they could help clean house to earn money for their trip. They are motivated! I'm really impressed with their enthusiasm. These are great lessons about working hard for something you really want, how to run a business, and how hard it is to earn a buck.

If you'd like to support the girls the clip board photo frames are $10 + S&H (if not local) each and we are taking orders. If you'd like one please call or email me. You can select colors and masculine or feminine versions. We also have planned some pet and horse/western versions. We will be working on wedding today.

Cards & Things

I figured I'd do some catch up with the blog by posting some cards from recent workshops. The above card is from a workshop I did for the ladies at work. We decided it was time for something for a guy. This one with browns and dark blues is perfect.

This card I found on the Close to My Heart bulletin boards and loved it so much I promptly scrap lifted it. It is a great use of the those small scraps we all have. Of course it's the exact opposite of the man card.

This card I did for the monthly unit meeting based of a sketch from the mojomonday blog. Finally a chance to use that cute horse from the Howdy stampset D1435.

The last one is also done for the monthly unit meeting from a sketch. I had lots of dimensional elements hanging around along with some retired majestic blue paper. I played with my new "bow-easy" that Kim got me. I won't go anywhere without that fun little tool now. I just love it.

If you want to learn how to make some cool cards you can come to one of my workshops. If you want to earn free product schedule a gathering. We can make a cool card, learn a new technique, and earn you some free product at the same time.