Share the Love

I've been working on a Project Life scrapbook because it seemed sooooo easy to do, which it would have been had I not decided I needed to design all the pieces myself (including the pockets). Sometime the designer in me gets a little over ambitious, but it will be completely unique when I get through it all. And that suits our family to a tee!


Anyway, during this process of designing monthly journal cards and titles, calendars etc... I created a few extras for all of you! These are digital journal cards that you can print. One title, three vertical and two horizontal. I'm not sure if the horizontals will fit the Project life pockets exactly, but I'm pretty sure you can work with them in some capacity. They are all slightly under 3"x4" which is the approximate size according to the Jessica Sprague free grid journal card giveaway on her site today. Be sure to pop over to jessicasprague.com to grab that all purpose journal card too!


Here are the cards I've designed. If you would like the download printable file drop a comment here, or email me your contact info. Please remember these are for your personal use only. No re-selling or copying of these designs please. The artwork is copyrighted.

Copyright 2012, Krys Caywood, Krys Caywood Design

$crap Cleanout

Seems that at least twice a year my Studio screams to be cleaned and re-organized. Today the call to clear out the shelves and bins was ringing loud in my ears and resulted in a scrap avalanche!

As a product designer, I LOVE to see my work in it's final form but I rarely have time to use it because I'm always working on designing the next new line. Much of the product that was taking up residence in my studio was looking for a forever home much like a pooch at the pound. Thus the monster of all scrapbooking giveaways! Page Kits, Tablets, Embellishments, Papers and Chipboard mini albums etc...

Here are a couple of snaps of the scraps!

In the spirit of welcoming the new year I'm happily shouting "Out with the old & in with the new!"  Drop a comment if you want stuff here or on fb.

Decking the halls

Christmas decorations continue to invade the house. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have the tree up and decorated but until then the little touches that keep popping up make me smile. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the Caywood home!

Countdown to Christmas

Here's the Christmas Calendar I'm working on. I used an old type drawer as a base for the calendar to create a unique shape and space for each of the days. The papers and elements in the calendar are from a scrapbooking program I designed, along with adorable mini ornaments from Michaels.

 {Cinnamon scented pinecones topped with glittery red birds really bring the feel of Christmas to the entryway of our home}

{This cute tin bucket holds the key holder/numbers and all the elements for the calendar while adding a little festivity of it's own}

HAPPY HOLiDAYS!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 

I love Halloween for all it's spooky good fun, and, of course, candy! Here you can grab a sugar-free treat, jpg paper files and pngs of the apothecary labels I designed just for you to print and use(for personal use only - no commercial use at all will be permitted). All I ask is you send me a pic of your cool projects to post if you use the files :)

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Lazy - check!

Hazy - check!

{{{CrAzY}}} Not so much!

And that's just the way I like it. That's not to say that crazy things aren't happening here, actually quite the opposite. It's just that I'm not letting the crazies make me crazy too!

For starters, I am currently pregnant with twins - which is crazy good, makes me  crazy  happy, and crazy excited. It also means that in a few short months life, as I know it, may become a bit challenging, maybe even baby crazy, but I'm so looking forward to it. 

Secondly, we just got over a 6 day heat wave with 100+ temps and are starting another one this week which is crazy hot for CT, but I'm keeping cool and calm in the central air and enjoying a splendidly sunny summer so far.

Thirdly, I am working on designing more scrapbooking lines to keep my creative child from going stir crazy in the absence of full time work. This, I am fully embracing as well. I {LOVE!} having the freedom to design when I'm inspired and motivated and CRAZY creative. It's been an eye opening experience to have complete creative freedom designing for a company that doesn't micro-manage or put too many chefs in the kitchen so to speak. Finally, I've been blessed to work with a team that understands the word team, and doesn't make decisions by committee on every little detail. What an absolute joy to be appreciated and recognized and given complete control over my own designs. And sometimes it means there are crazy deadlines, but that's a kind of crazy I can work with!

The last crazy thing that's going on is that I haven't blogged in so long. With all that's been going on in my life it's kind of crazy to think that I thought I had nothing to say. Perhaps there was just no time to say it ~ either way I'm back from the shadows and ready to start blogging {like crazy} again! 

HDB - 2010 KCD color awards

This year March came in like a lion and quickly gave way to lovely lambiness with warm weather and sunny skies and that has made a lot of people very happy, myself included.

Sunny warm days make smiles bloom like crocuses, peeking their bright green shoots from the cold hard earth. And with all this giddiness, my mind turns to springtime color palettes. I must admit, I've never been a fan of pastels. They always seemed too watered down and wishy washy for me. I lean towards bold strong color palettes with striking confident color, but this year I'm starting to bend and sway with the gentle spring breeze and am finally enjoying the power of pastels. 

When I say power of pastels, I mean the ability of pastels to get into one's head with thoughts of Easter and babies, of laughter and lightness. I never gave pastels the credit they deserved for their quiet unassuming way of influencing one's thoughts. I am finally understanding and appreciating the soft touch that these colors bring to our lives. Pastels are not weak and wishy washy, they are the sage and seasoned grandparents that gently nudge, encourage and applaud discovery rather than the egocentric bright {look at me} colors that I've been so fond of all these years. Pastels play well with others, share the spotlight and give inspired performances. 

And like the kind nurturing grandparents, I also think pastels do best when they have that wild child of brightness to look after. It brings contrast and energy to the design. So with no further delay, the envelopes please...

The 2010 Krys Caywood Design Best Supporting Color award goes to... Pastel Yellow!!!

The 2010 Krys Caywood Design Best Color award goes to... wait, it's a tie... Turquoise and Tomato Red!

Expect to see a lot of  these accomplished colors in the next line...previews coming soon!

Total Blog Fog!

I'm in a bit of a blog fog today. Truthfully I'm in a total fog today! I stayed up watching the Olympics last night and obviously did not get enough sleep to sustain sufficient brain power to write anything remotely interesting. Therefore, I am sharing a digital scrap page that simply and sweetly captures the sleepiness I feel right now! 

My kitty Chase, affectionately called M-WOWZer (because when he meows he says "M-WOWZ"), had a super sleepy face in this photo and it's perfectly summing up how I feel on this snowy day, fireplace blazing and hot chocolate buzz wearing off...oh to be a cat, if only for one day.

 

WILD CARD WEDNESDAY!

Tell me why you should win a free SkiDaddle hat by 7:00 pm est today and one person will be selected to win a hat of our choosing. Only 1 person will win! You have 45 minutes to get in your comments!!! Happy Wild Card Wednesday!!! GOOD LUCK!

NOTE: You must be located in the Continental US to win and must provide mailing address upon notification that you've won to receive your prize.

Prize will be shipped in 2-4 weeks time. If you wish to receive it earlier you will need to provide a fed ex number and cover the cost of shipping.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead I - The Puzzle Queen

When I came up with the title for this post it didn't occur to me just how much I've really done over the past 10 years and how ridiculous it would be to try to recap all of it in just one blog post...So I think I will break it into a few posts spread out over the next week or so. :) I'll start with inspiration for a major undertaking...Mosaic Table Tops...


When I was young, elementary school aged, I was constantly put to shame by my sister who excelled at puzzles. She'd blast through a 1000 piece puzzle in two days flat and strut around the house like the puzzle queen. She even went so far as to buy the puzzle preserver one time to savor the victory of finishing one of her fabulous puzzles. She was relentless in her pursuit of the perfect puzzle. She quickly advanced from 1000 piecers to 2500 and 5000! Her puzzles would take up the entire play table and I couldn't do a darn thing about it. So one day I devised a plan to curtail her love of the predominant puzzling that was taking over my craft area...


We went to the store and I watched Karen pick out her next victim...a 10,000 piece puzzle. I was bound and determined to take the puzzle queen crown so I waited patiently until she got home and opened the box, carefully pulling out all the edge pieces, which, everybody knows, is the ONLY way to start a puzzle...and while "helping her" pick out the edge pieces I silently and stealthily pocketed one little piece from the center section of course. Then it was all patience...who knew how long it would take her to finish this beastly puzzle, 10,000 pieces could take days...but I waited and lurked and waited some more until finally she was almost done. There she was holding what she thought was the last piece in her hands. She placed it in the puzzle and slowly started to realize the puzzle wasn't done...there was a gaping hole in it! But it was a new puzzle! How on earth could there be a piece missing already?!?! 


When she started to huff and puff, my parents and grandmother rushed in to help look for the missing piece. My moment of glory had arrived. To a full house,  I excitedly made my entrance, and with the boldest, most grandiose gesture possible, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the piece and snapped it into place! At last!!! Victory was mine. I was through the roof as I announced loudly enough for the neighbors to hear "I FINISHED THE 10,000 PIECE PUZZLE!!! I'M THE PUZZLE QUEEN! I FINISHED IT ALL BY MYSELF!" (which, really wasn't a lie, because I did finish it all by myself, I just didn't do the rest of it). I was promptly sent to my room until dinner.


It was a hollow victory that stayed with me all these years until one day a wind storm blew into town and knocked over our deck table, shattering the glass table tops. Here was my golden opportunity, the opportunity that I'd been waiting for.  A chance to redeem myself and rightfully claim the puzzle queen crown as my own. I immediately went online and found a mosaic supply store. Such beautiful glass tiles in a glorious array of colors! No puzzle could ever compare to what I would create. AND...no piece would ever NOT fit...I bought nippers and the proper glue and grout and sealant (my version of the puzzle preserver) and then I slaved over the table top for months through out the summer and one day,  I stood back and smiled...it was done. It was beautiful, and it was indeed, worthy of the crown. 

Cupid draw back your bow....

Well, as promised here is the the fabulously fun Valentines craft I mentioned yesterday. It's a spin on the traditional Cupid Love Arrow only gentler. Getting shot by an arrow to fall in love didn't seem so romantic, but getting tapped by a magic wand on the other hand.....enchanting!!! I hope you enjoy this project as much as I do! It's really sweet!

To begin I purchased foam hearts with adhesive backs (you could use chipboard too). I gathered my selected papers and stuck a heart to the back side of the page and cut out. (again if you have a cricut, silhouette or other fancy die-cutting machine, you could save yourself LOADS of time here by adhering your paper to chipboard and cutting the hearts out with the machine instead of by hand!

Once the heart is cut out, simply adhere it to the dowel rod by using a second foam heart which you would peel and adhere to the back of the first heart sandwiching the dowel in between. (chipboard users would apply adhesive then follow the same step)

After the heart is firmly attached begin wiring your festive hearts and beaded floral embellishments and ribbons around the dowel too then cover by tying a feather boa around the wires and ribbons to conceal the mess - OR you can tie on your feather boa first then tie ribbons and push them up to the bottom of the boa. I've done tried both methods and found it to be just matter of preference. The boa is the key though, because it hides the messy part and protects your fingers from those wired ends that stick out.

Once the boas are on, arrange your wired bangles and ribbons and VOILA! Your wand is complete! I found an adorable little tin pail for a $1.00 at Michael's that I filled with colored paper clips and added a boa around the top to stand the wands in. You can use any vase or pot with floral foam or sand or sugar....any medium which will give you support for the wands. (NOTE: These are not suggested for use as toys for small children as the wires could cut little fingers and the bangles could cause a choking hazard - use for decoration only)

Cupid craft project coming tomorrow!!!

Hey All you crafty cats, get ready for some BIG Valentines fun tomorrow! Here's a sneak peek of the materials I've gathered for a very festive project. Can you guess what we're making? 

Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Defining moments defining me...

A funny thing happened yesterday when I went to create the cover for the first of my two new creative journals. Let me backtrack slightly... I decided that one journal would be mostly dedicated to me and my life and the other would be dedicated more to creative ideas and thoughts, inspirations, sketches, design concepts, etc. That being said, I set forth to create a cover for the first journal and thought it would be interesting to tear apart my old dictionary and use it as the base for the cover. You know, find words that defined me, tear them out and collage them on the cover. So here's the funny part, I walked to the bookcase and grabbed the dictionary which I have not used since my college days and my thumb slipped into a page when I grabbed it....here is the page it opened to...

I kid you not, my jaw dropped when I saw the title word was craft! I took it as a sign that I was on the right track, despite being a bit conflicted about tearing apart a perfectly good dictionary. It was a defining moment. Needless to say I was now off and running. I started thinking of words I identified with and tore the pages out of that dictionary until I had enough for the cover of my "defining me" journal.

After tearing out the pages the real fun began.  Mod Podge is something I never really used as a kid. It was however, my sisters favorite craft supply as she loved to decoupage. This was because she couldn't really draw so well but she could cut and Mod Podge Holly Hobbyesque pictures onto precut and stained little wooden plaques which were then proudly displayed throughout our home, while my multitude of drawings stayed firmly rooted in my sketchpads due to the fact that nothing, and I mean NOTHING was ever magnetically attached to our refrigerator for fear of scratching that beautiful brown Kitchen Aid appliance, and you could forget about ever using tape  or tacks on doors too! This is not to say my parents didn't applaud my creative endeavors. The most certainly did, and look where it's gotten me today! - oh yeah, where I am today...sorry, I digressed. Anyway I thought, in the case of collaging the cover of my new journal, Mod Podge would work beautifully (or so I hoped) So I found an old paintbrush with bristles pointing every which way and started coating the cover with the podge, positioned pieces and applied more mp as needed. And when all the pieces were placed, I mod-podged over everything one more time until I was left with this...

The hardest part was... WAITING FOR IT TO DRY! - I, of course, cheated and held it in front of a space heater to speed the process :) Once dry, I trimmed the edges and added a few crafty touches including some clear cut frames and words from a program called Love Letters designed by a friend and former co-worker Lori Marek for Little Yellow Bicycle. Although it was a Valentines program, the black elements worked fabulously with the basic black and white of the text and the back cover a black spiral binder. I finished it off by applying a few flocked chipboard pieces and rub ons,  ran a ribbon along the rough left edge along the binder to clean up the look then topped it all off with a few ribbon ties on the binder (noting that I will probably want to completely cover the binder with many more ribbons over the course of using this journal).

Here is a view of the finished cover.

After cleaning up the mess I had made I realized I had a few leftover pieces that I didn't want to lose or forget so I decided to make a pocket for the inner front cover of the journal. I used a gorgeous flocked brocade paper (again from Lori's Valentine program) trimmed it to size and cut a decorative edge on the top edge of it for the front of the pocket. Then I chose a great lined notebooky style paper to complement the flocked piece, cut it to size and sewed the two pieces together then adhered the pocket to the inner front cover and voila, adorable and stylish storage pocket! You can see the pocket below.

This was a super easy project that transformed a standard black sketchbook into a journal that truly defines me.  Now I can start writing again :)

A brand spankin' new creative journal

Oh the excitement that comes with the purchase of a brand new journal...I LOVE it! I love them so much that I actually bought two yesterday, mostly because I had a gift card from my nephew from Christmas 2008 that I had yet to use and thought, hmmm what do I want to treat myself to at Barnes and Noble...and after much searching around, it hit me. I don't need another book to read right now, I need a book to write!

So I found the cool journal and sketchbook wall and picked out two. I wanted ones with blank covers to make them my own. Also, I prefer to use sketchbooks for journals because typically journals are lined and I don't  like to write on the lines (again, not a linear thinker... it's too confining for me).  I like the freedom of writing random thoughts anywhere at all angels in fun and crazy font styles combined with magazine clippings, phrases, quotes, art elements, paints, colored markers and pencils etc...I am sooo anxious to mess them up. They're just too pristine and empty right now. See?

There's my shadow, but soon I will put my own personal stamp on them and post for comparison.  Creative Journalling is all about artistic expression along side of traditional handwritten thoughts and ideas. To start I tear apart magazines with phrases that I can relate to and think I will be able to use for journalling prompts in the books. Here are a few I tore out just now.

1.  Guilt is not one of its ingredients.

2.  Any similarities to real life flavors are purely intentional.

3.  Feed their curiosity.

4.  Some relationships are meant to be.

5.  WAKE-UP CALL no. 9

6.  move closer to your goals NOW

7.  Wine needs time to breathe. People do too: How Do You Breathe

8.  Kinda beats stirring fruit up from the bottom, doesn't it?

9.   NEVER HIDE

10.  ARE YOU IN MINT CONDITION?

These were all from ads.  Can you match the phrase up with the Company that placed the ad?

a.  Ray Ban

b.  Oscar Mayer

c.  Special K

d.  Altoids

e.  Danskin

f.  Sun Chips

g.  Jelly Belly

h.  Pepperidge Farm

i.  Turning Leaf

j.  Edy's

Now forget the ad and try to think how you would apply just the phrase to your life and what it would bring to your creative journal. Here's where it gets fun! Yeah, play time, get out the sissors, glue, pens, pencils, ribbons etc...it's time to make a big mess!!! Fun Fun Fun. Explore, enjoy, and exercise your mind.

Oh what, you want the answers? alright...scroll down:

(1f, 2g, 3b, 4h, 5c, 6e, 7i, 8j, 9a, 10d)

Valentine Treats

Well, I know I promised to post Valentine Cards and directions this week but unfortunately I've been slammed with the flu/sinus infection so I've been unable to get to that yet.

During my down time however, I've been designing a new Valentines program so all has not been lost. I have posted some sample pieces below to give you a sneak peek.  It makes me smile to see it, I hope you enjoy the program too.

For those of you heading to CHA, have a wonderful time at the show in sunny California! WIsh I could be there but it looks like I'll have to wait 'til July and see you all in Chicago.

Me Time

A while back I made a page that was intended to inspire me to spend more time playing and crafting just for fun. Since that time I have not created another page or project just for myself and the pure enjoyment of losing myself in the process of crafting.

Yesterday I took a photo of the page as a reminder that some of my time should be focused on me. Thus the Me Time page...And although I LOVE designing new and fun programs, sometimes I need to just have fun for me and not for any ulterior motive.  So today I'm taking some time to cut and paste and play. I encourage you to take some time out of your busy day to enjoy something just for yourself too! Drop me a note and let me know what you did for fun today. :)

This week I'll start posting Valentines cards projects with directions. But for today I'll leave you with this quote:

We do not stop playing because we grow old.
We grow old because we stop playing.