New TH Distress Center out of Foam Core

    Ok, so it has been a while since I have posted, but in all honesty, most of you know that I LOVE to be outside as long as the weather permits.  Card making is my first love when I am inside the house ;)  That being said, I have been quite busy trying to get some of my stuff organized.  I love to create but when all my stuff is all over I get lost in the confusion and then I stop creating.  So I set out to take care of my problem.  This is going to be a rather long post, so if you don't want to hang out for this, not a problem, more short posts will be on the way when I get everything moved back into my neat crafting area.

    I love to use my Distress stuff the most, so I needed to put together a "Distress Center" to organize it all.  I had a bunch of 3/8" foam core left over from a wedding anniversary project I did a couple of years ago, so thought it was time to put it all to use.  I measured out the area I had to put my stuff in, then measured the stuff I needed to organize.  Then drew a grid that would contain all 48 colors of the pads, reinkers, blending pads, stains, etc. and it looked like this.

Then it was time to start cutting out the lattice that was going to support the pads and reinkers.  I needed 8 vertical supports and with 48 pads that meant I needed 12 horizontal supports, so I started cutting.  The pads measure 3" X 3" and I wanted to be able to get them out easily so I made the horizontal supports 2 1/2 inches, the reinker bottles are 3 inches tall and 1 inch in diameter so I needed the Vertical supports to be 3" in depth to hold the bottles in.  To interlock the grid pieces I punched a hole in 1" deep into each horizontal and vertical piece with my hole punch, then used the craft knife and a steel ruler to cut straight lines out from the holes that were punched. After cutting all of these this is what I had.

Next I put the grid together.

Everything fit nice and tight so now it was time to assemble the out boards and adhear them together permanently.  For this I researched the web for the best way to put it all together, there are obviously many different ideas, glue, hot glue, tape, and the list goes on and on.  I decided to use structure strips.  Structure strips are 1 1/4" wide strips 12" long that have a fold line in half and 1/2" sookwang tape on either side.  The tape can be either folded on the inside or the outside.  Here are some of the strips I made for this project and put onto some of the side boards to hold them in place.

I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted this to look like so once I got the inside structure finished I used some TH Tissue paper to give some texture and background to the project.

The tissue paper was adheared with Mod Podge.  Next I put the grid in the existing Outer shell.

Test run with the pads and reinkers, looking good :)
From here on out I had to decide what I wanted to do with everything I had in the disress line.  So I began cutting shelves and drawers.  I enclosed the top area to make a shelf for the stains and other misc. things that would be to tall for drawers or shelves.  Then I made three panels that I adheared match book boxes to and fit blending pads in them.  Then labels the blending pads alphabetically so that if I couldn't see the actual name of the color I would know where it was in the line up.  Here are the blending pad tabbed boards.

To give the center a little more stability I made the outmost side boards the full depth of the center and made a box for the bottom on the sides.  The boxes are full the stickles and crackle paints that I have.

I also wanted my Distress Markers by everything else, so I made a space on top of the drawer and put a "tape pull" on the marker container.  Above that I made two more shelves to finish up the space.

Finally there are the pictures of the top stain area.  Behind the stains I made a small place for the TH charts that you can download at Ranger's website.  I love my new Distress Center and plan on making separate centers for all my EP's, Mica's, Glimmer type mists and glitters.  I'll be so organized that cards will be coming out my ears again!  lol.  Here are the last pics.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of my new center. 

Keeping quite busy!

For those of you who don't know me personally, I have been keeping quite busy in the background.  Our female blue Great Dane had puppies last week.  She had 12 babies, 11 lived.  That is a huge litter so for a while I am living, sleeping, breathing and eating with the puppies and their mom in the whelping room.  This year I get to use the bed in there, last time I had to sleep in the whelping box with mom because she had complications with her delivery and ended up getting toxic mild syndrome.  This year she has most of the feeding under control, but 11 is a lot to feed, so I help supplement every four hours.  Then Great Danes are so big that I stay close to make sure mom doesn't turn over or stretch out in the middle of the night and smush a baby (they only weight 1 pound 4 -8 ounces.)  I took a video after they were born and posted it on youTube for the future owners to see, if you would like to watch, click on the video below.  I'll be back soon, I am working on some projects for Grandbabies, so I'll get them up as soon as possible.  Have a wonderful week!

Just checking in and my G45 mini-album "ABC Primer"

Good day everyone!  I know, I have yet again been gone for quite a while, but it was all good :)  You see here in KY we have been having one of the nicest winters in a long time.  Day time temps have been between 50 and 60 degrees outside.  Perfect weather to weed a garden, so that has been what I have been doing with most of my time.  On the off chance of rain, I have been working on a project for one of my newer Grandchildren (we have two under 2 and one on the way!)  And frankly, I have been lax in getting things out to celebrate the births.  So now I am working on personalized mini albums so that all mom has to do is put in the pictures, jot down a little note about what's happening and Viola! A complete album.  This first mini-album is made with Graphic 45 papers, specifically from a line called ABC Primer.  There are a lot of pictures in this, so it might take you a minute.  I show each page with and without the photo pages and tags.  All paper is G45, the black cardstock is Hobby Lobby.  Trinkets, odd Alphas, etc all come from my stash over the years.  My glue is either 1 - wet: Clubscrap binder's glue or 2 - dry: ATG gun with double sided tape.  Inks were TH's Distress inks, Vintage photo and black soot.  When completed the covers were both covered with Matte Medium to protect the papers from moisture and other damage. Final embellishment was a black Grosgrain ribbon and buckle to help keep the book closed and the future pictures safe inside.   Enjoy looking and I'll keep my comments very short :)

The book is six regular pages and two pocket pages thick, you can see here the depth of the book.  The book is bound as opposed to rings.  I personally prefer the look of a finished book, gives is a little more classy look.  Front and back covers were made of chipboard, the regular pages were made with cereal box cardboard painted black with acrylic paint. 

Front cover inside has a pocket page that holds two journaling tags and one photo mat.

Pocket page with all it's elements out.

This page is a pocket page behind a flap, you can see I have already pulled out the photo mats for display.   I still need to put tabs on these photo mats.

This page shows the p.m. back in and then flap flipped up.  On the top flap you can see the magnet for closure.  Underneath the flap there is another side pocket with a tag and a small envelope.

This next page is also a flip up page, this one has an old antique button with Jute twine for a lifting agent.

When you flip this page up, you have two side pockets of which each contains a tag.  Also the flip page can be used as a photo mat and or journaling page.

This next page is a slider page.  Sliders never work quite right for me, so this one has been improvised upon as well :)  You are supposed to have a single tab at the top to pull up and push down with, but mine has a tab at the top and at the bottom, it works best of you pull both simultaneously.

Here the tabs are just started partially pulled out.

Here the slider is fully extended.  This page is just for pure entertainment, there are no tags or photo mats.

This next page is a time page, the second clock face has crystal effects on it.  The numerals on the left are left over from a clock making kit.  The stop watch charm at top is out of my stash.  Contained in this page are two tags and one photo mat.

Another tag that needs a tab yet, and now a side view so you can see the dimension.  I love texture and dimension :)

The next two pages are Envelope pocket pages.  Each contains a small photo mat and one has a tag, while the other has a small envie.

 

Love how the ruler holds the tags in and the little half sphere on the bottom is popped up with foam tape so that the articles being held don't slip out the bottom either.


Envy Pocket page 2:

The next page:

 

is a corner pocket page containing two photo mats.  Then I found this cute little glassine envy so I made a tag to fit it and put it on the corner pocket so it too could have something done with it.

 This next page is strictly a photo mat page.

 This next page has two pockets the back one of which contains a photo mat, and the front which contains a small book for a child's story, writing, first letters written, or whatever. 

The little booklet has also been distressed and is tied together with Jute cord.

This next page is another side pocket page with a photo mat.

 This page is another flip page.  Lift the red tab and . . .

 You've got three file folders with three tags and a couple of loose flashcards.  An alpha strip secures the tags in place.

The flip page has room for a photo on the front and journaling or another photo on the back.  The small nameplate on the bottom is usable as well.  The top is open to slide a name or whatever down into the display plate.

Another corner pocket page with a photo mat and then a small side pocket with a tag, the button holds the tag secure so that it doesn't fall out :)

Another photo only page  with a name place at the bottom.

 Finally the back page inside the back cover.  It is an Envie pocket with a photo mat and a tag.

Well, that's it for this book, as I mentioned I have a few more tabs to put on tonight, and then I have to make a couple of cards for some birthdays I have coming up.  Hope you enjoyed looking at my version of the ABC Primer mini-album.  My inspiration is Charlie Jones and if you look on YouTube you'll find her many tut's on how she does different things.  Thanks for looking!  Keep checking back, I'm here, just playing out in my gardens (My helebore is blooming so perhaps I'll take a pic and show you one of the many reasons for why I love being outside

Blessings!