The New and Improved "Right Side Up"

(First, an explanation of the new and improved "Right Side Up." Then, below the dotted line, the first official Monday post of 2012.)

I will freely admit that I have been a bad blogger. I started my blog when Sadie was three and Eli was in kindergarten. At that time, I was also working twenty-plus hours a week as an educational consultant, and had just started to find my way in the scrapbook industry. To say I was busy was an understatement. I named my blog "Right Side Up" because that was my goal at a time when everything felt upside down.

Six months later, however, a new kind of busy blew the old kind of busy out of the water when I went back to work full time in the summer of 2008 working year-round as a curriculum coordinator for my local school district. Sadie was three and Eli was in first grade. I was trying to be a good mom, meet all of my work obligations, and still keep a hand in the scrapbook industry. So...the blog became an afterthought.

Fast-forward to 2012. I'm back to working part-time as an educational consultant. Now, however, on days that I'm not working, both my kids are in school, so there's time for me to breathe a bit. Okay, so I apparently don't know how to breathe a bit, since now that I'm working less I've taken on additional scrapbook commitments as well as volunteer commitments at my kids' school. I keep trying to find a better balance, but true work-life balance is pretty elusive! I must be getting closer, though, since I seem to be finding time to do nearly everything I need to do and most of what I want to do as well. (Except for that pesky exercise thing...)

Now that you know the history of my poor, neglected blog, let's move on to the future. I've created a set weekday blog routine, which will help me to post and share life/layouts/cards/projects regularly. Please know that this blog is a work in progress, and I'm giving myself permission to start my weekly routine without yet having a flashy banner at the top or a cooler blog design. I fully intend to add an actual banner sometime this week and will update the design when I find the time and inspiration to do so.

So, without further ado, here's what you can expect to see from me each week:

Monday: Makings
On Mondays I'll share something I've made recently. Some weeks this will be a layout, other weeks it will be a card or a home decor project.
    
Tuesday: Tips & Techniques
Every Tuesday I'll share something cool I've learned, a new way to use something, or a helpful hint. Be prepared: this might be Silhouette-Cameo-heavy at first, as I'm still very much in the honeymoon phase with my week-and-a-half-old toy. :) I do not claim to be an expert at anything, but will share things that I've found helpful or cool.

Wednesday: We
On Wednesdays you'll get a glimpse into my family's life, whether it's something funny one of my kids said or a recipe I want to share or a summary of a trip we've taken, or...(you get the idea). This might or might not be accompanied by a layout. 

Thursday: Thrifty Thursday
I have an embarrassingly large stash of older products that I still love and can't bear to part with, but never use. On Thursdays you'll see me digging into that stash to make a card or a layout or some other project.

Friday: Fabulous Find(s)

On Fridays I'll share something fabulous I've found. It might be a scrapbooker whose work I love or an inspiration piece or a website or a product.

**********************************************************************************************

Okay, now on to the first "Monday Makings" post:

Today is the launch of the January gallery at Write.Click.Scrapbook. The theme this month is "Today." You'll see that everyone interpreted that a little differently. I took this as an opportunity to document bringing my 6-year-old daughter into the family tradition of making Kiva loans. (It was also an opportunity for me to use my Silhouette Cameo...heavily):

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazzill Basics) + Patterned Paper (map and cream grid: October Afternoon, ledger: Scenic Route, pink: Crate Paper, green woodgrain: American Crafts Amy Tangerine, blue grid: Studio Calico) + Chipboard (Cosmo Cricket) + Badge (Ormolu) + Fabric Tab (Ormolu) + Font (Lobster 1.4) + Silhouette Shapes (file folder, silhouette, globe, banner)

Two of the elements on this page were ways for me to test out different ways of using the Cameo. 

Let's start with the globe. I started by sizing the globe to 4" in diameter and cut it out of the green woodgrain paper. Next, I used the offset feature in the Silhouette software to create a circle to place behind the globe. Once I'd created the circle, I resized it to be the same size as the globe itself, making the perfect ocean background I was looking for. After I'd cut the offset shape from blue grid paper, I used foam adhesive to attach the two layers together. This created a cool shadow effect with the land part of the globe raised above the ocean part.

The second element I played around with was the banner. First, I cut the banner out of black cardstock. Next, I did my first welded cut. I wrote out the three words and welded the letters in each word together. After each word was welded, I grouped the three words together as one shape, resized them to fit inside the banner shape, and cut them out of the same ledger paper I'd used for the title file folder. Here's where I learned two things: 1) I had sized the words the same length as the banner, but forgot that the "V" was cut out of it, so I had to turn the "the" sideways to make it fit (which made it look cooler, at least in my opinion, so it wasn't such a bad error); and 2) I realized that I could have avoided the error by making the words a cut-out within the banner shape, cutting that out of black cardstock, and then cutting out a solid same-sized banner shape from the ledger paper and gluing it to the back of the black banner shape with the cut-out words. I'm glad I didn't figure out lesson #2 earlier, though, as I do like that sideways word, which would never have happened if I had already learned lesson #2.

So...there you have it, my first post of 2012. If anyone is actually reading this, please feel free to leave a comment if there's anything specific you'd like to see me post about this year and I'll do my best to incorporate requests in my 2012 blogging. 


Hope your 2012 is off to a good start!