Thursday, July 31, 2014

Five tips for shopping Christmas in July, Target-style.

This is my third time going to the Target Christmas in July toy sale. I skipped it last year because we still had so much stuff. With two kids in preschool now the number of birthday parties I need to buy toys for has doubled so I decided to stock up again this year. I have tried having 'please no gift' parties in the past but sadly it is a trend that does not seem to be catching on.
I've been going to Target a few times a week waiting for the clearance to start. I've also gotten in the habit of checking the #targetclearance hashtag on Instagram. I found some great baby deals that way. I got an adjustment for some shoes I bought Nandini that way as well. 

I finally heard last night from my friend Kayla Aimee that the markdowns were rumored for today. We didn't get to target until about ten (and swim lessons started at 10:20, oy.  We were only fifteen minutes late.  Oops). 

We got a ton of stuff. There were a lot of cute baby toys. I bought a few kinexts building sets for Avi and birthday gifts. I also got Nandini a new dolly. In the car the whole way to Target she kept asking, "I get that black dolly at Target". When we got there she found it in the end cap herself. It was marked down to $6.88 from 23 so I let her put it in the cart.


Here is a picture of my awesome haul.  I counted at least 15 things and I paid less than $90 for all of it.  That works out to about $6 per item.  These are mostly bigger items too as I don't like tiny knickknacks that just clutter up our house.  They are kind of like gremlins and seem to multiply on their own anyway.


I'm still waiting for the patio and garden stuff to go in sale. The furniture was on sale a few weeks ago but I really want to get some of the solar powered patio lights. The outlets are no where near our pergola where I want to strong the lights and I love that they don't add up our electricity bill. (NB. If anyone sees these on clearance please let me know!).

You can see my tips for using the Shopkick app to get free target gift cards here.

A few of my Target sale shopping tips:
  1. Keep an eye on social media.  This is how I discovered this sale in the first place.  It also helped me see things that were on sale but maybe hadn't been marked yet in my local Target.
  2. Don't stress about not getting their early.  They were still putting on the markdown stickers when I got there at ten.
  3. Check the end caps first then swing through the aisles.  Most of the 70% off toys were not in a special section so we went through each row.
  4. Don't be afraid to return stuff! Yes you got it on clearance, but if you don't need it or have space for it just take it back. With the red card you can return stuff for upto 90 days. Or better yet, find someplace awesome to donate your extra stuff. We are big fans of goodwill. 
  5. Shop with your kids!  It may seem crazy, but it was fun shopping for toys with them.  They helped me look for red stickers and we talked about how most of the toys are for giving away.  The 'specialness' of today helped to reinforce that they don't get toys every time we visit Target and that not all toys we buy are for them. 


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Penny Arcade Layouts and How to get a Free Studio Calico kit!

http://www.studiocalico.com/welcome?ref=68b3ebfb
Studio Calico has a great offer right now if you are thinking about trying them out.  With twopeas closing I think it is a great way to get fresh product on the regular.  Plus, the cost of a new kit ($20-30) is more than what it costs to cancel a subscription ($15), so if you ever feel like cancelling you will have more than gotten your money's worth.  I sub to all three kits and find them a great value.  Plus, they just make scrapbooking fun.

http://www.studiocalico.com/welcome?ref=68b3ebfb
This is what this month's main kit looks like. Many of the papers are by artist Ashley G and have this great fresh and exquisite feel to them. 

I tend to mix and match my kits, but here what I have created using (mostly) Penny Arcade so far:


Science Club| I just love making science-y layouts and this is as science-y as they come.  I have a package of Crate Paper die cuts I am trying hard to use up so I added those to this page as well.  I don't love the look of my handwriting and they help to break up the lengthy journaling on this page.  I die cut the word awesome directly on the photo.  It shows up much better in person.  The strip of black and white paper from the kit on the side really helps give this page a more graphic feeling.


Gudiya & Mish Matalie| Another stamped and watercolored title here, though much softer with the yellow ombre color instead. I don't know why, but I just love the colored paper doilies in this kit.  Actually, everything in this layout is from the kit.  I love the pink paper and was scared to use all of it so I combined it with different patterned strips.  I scattered the stamps and wood chips for embellishments. A very easy page to pull off.


hello Fireflies| I made these stenciled star circles a few months ago and was waiting to use them.  I combined them with this month's alphas and chipboard embellishments for a quick page about the magic of summertime.  I love the ethereal feel of this layout. 


4 Months|  Does the title make sense?  My husband couldn't figure it out.  (*hint the heart is an O).  Ha.  Non-scrappers wouldn't get that I guess.  I used mostly the card kit for this page.  I was actually inpsired by the monthly moodboard and decided the little color coded circles at the bottom looked like the circles from the washi tape this month.  I stamped white paint on the kraft paper and just stuck the washi circles on top. 




Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Project Life| Super Gudiya

This Week| Easter weekend and all the fun that goes along with it.  Let me just say, egg hunt competition is fierce.  Kite making and flying at the museum. Doctors visits for Gudiya and the emergence of a new super hero.

First Page| Most of this spreads cards are from the SC Camelot kit.  I loved this month so much I bought both add-ons.  My see through element is a watercolor die cut that I added a JBS butterfly to.  Each side has one glued on the outside of the page protector.

Second Page| My favorite part of  this spread? The 'Super Gudiya" cards.  I put the speech bubble sticker in the middle and sprinkled the cork stars to tie the related pockets together.  I made a filler card of sorts with this kits stamp set.  The fly a kite text was added to the top photo using the letterglow app on my phone.



You can see all of my Project Life pages here.  This is my third year of doing Project Life and I love this method of memory keeping for our family.  The PL kits I am using generally are the Studio Calico kit, and Midnight kit, with mostly Design A pages this year. I am linked up with the Mom Creative and the Memory Nest this week.

Now it is your turn!  Add your link back to your Project Life pages here and try to visit and leave comments for each other as well.  Grab a button if you'd like, or just pin it to your favorite scrappy pinterest board, anything works!  Thanks to everyone who linked up last time!  I will be holding a regular weekly link up from now on.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

We Are Home| Adding a large stamped element to a page.


Studio Calico has this fabulous new stamp set called House Guests that I was dying to use.  It is a large 4x6 set with interchangeable parts.  It seems suited to card making, but I really wanted to put it on a layout. 

I started playing around with the "guests" that go inside the house.  I mostly used my favorite black ink from Ranger Archival because I knew it wouldn't bleed if I watercolored on top of it.  I of course had to stamp a set for Nandini too.  There was nothing about the little guests that she didn't love. Cats? A girl drinking tea? And a sleeping bear?  Heaven.

I carefully colored in the shape outlines with my waterbrush.  She painted in her own style, the perfect abstractness that only three-year olds can create.  Her set won.  I gave up my tortuously colored guests and made a crazy abstract set instead. 


Putting it all together after that took some more thought.  I thought about using a few different new pictures from the house, but ended up with just one.  The kitchen is definitely a favorite spot, combined with roses from our garden, this picture was just so fitting.    I layered a few different softly colored patterned papers together across the middle but I decided to keep a lot of white space on the page (big Marcy Penner inspiration there).

The title "We are home" was the first thought I had when planning this layout.  A statement, but also a prayer and a promise to our family.  The letters had to be woodgrain for that. 

We bought a house! Close to the city but feels like we are in the woods.  I love it so.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Ikea Finds: Scrappy Organization 12 things in one box for Project Life.


 I definitely have a problem when it comes to staying organized.  I love Studio Calico but with a monthly delivery stuff tends to pile up.  Especially because for a long time I had the "I need to stock up" mentality.  That is over now.  I am stocked.

Before we moved I had a lot of stuff in saved the project life boxes.  I transferred things that were loose in my printers tray to more boxes and just kept them all in there after we unpacked.  (Still finding a place for my printers tray.)  I liked that it kept things sorted but it wasn't very practical because I was opening each box every five minutes looking for things.


Enter the new Tjena paper boxes from Ikea.  They are $3-5 depending on size.  They go up to 12.5x13, which is perfect for storing patterned paper.  I love these medium boxes the most though because of the compartments.  I have one compartment for pens, letters, seqiuns, shipping tags, paper clips, tiny attacher, labels, chipboard, frames and envelopes.  3x4 journaling cards fit perfectly inside.  Stars got their own compartment too, because, well, why not?  We are all made of stars.

I used my second for washi tape.  This is not my full collection but if I filled the compartments to the top it would be less useful.   

I am going to keep these in my raskog for easy access.  The rest of the house is making pretty good progress too.  How about you?  Any great new organization tips to share for project life or otherwise?

See more of my Project Life posts here.  I am planning a post about my new album storage next!

linked up with the mom creative.
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