"Questions & Answers" Sunday

Wow! Is it Sunday already??

I spent today at home with the kids so the hubby could go snowboarding with my uncle (well, my uncle skis and Davy snowboards). I got a whole lot of creative stuff done today so post for the next few days (one of those is coming right after I post this) so be on the lookout for them.

And speaking of snowboards, my daughter is very proud of her purchase yesterday. She's been working hard and saving her money for something very special. Yesterday, she bought her first snowboard.

Last winter, she starting sledding down the hill in our backyard (aka: the septic mound.....makes for a great "bunny slope" for both sleds and snowboards) while standing up. She wanted to emulate Dad, as he's a snowboard freak and she is always looking for the next thrill and extreme....just like her daddy.

We told her that she'd have to save her money if she wanted it as we'd rather have the kids work for the things they want (as opposed to the things they need). We're trying to get them to understand the value of hard work and earning money through that hard work.

We actually told her this policy a while ago, so she's been used to it for about a year. When we first told her, though, Girly decided that she was going to start her own business and one day, we found a sign on the bathroom door and below that was a pouch made out of paper and staples.

The sign says, "Just Girly's can go in the bath room. Boy peses pay and put the money in holder so you can go in the bath room."

It's amazing how much neater her handwriting is in just a year. Her grammar, punctuation use and spelling has also improved dramatically. This sign was done LAST winter.

I gotta give it to the kid for taking initiative. That's my kid, alright! *wink* I also love that I got into the bathroom for free and BOYS had to pay! That is SO my kid!

Anyway...about a month ago, she got after us and said that we're always telling her she needs to earn her money, but we don't often give her ways to earn money. She has drawn pictures when we had family members over and sold the pictures for 25 cents each. She's tried to do things here and there for a quarter. But when she realized that it would take a lot to earn what she needed for the snowboard, she told us that we need to give her a job so that she can earn it quicker.

One of the things that I'm always working on is finding ways to maximize my time. I now have a way to get my dishes done and get it done cheaply. We pay her $5 a week and she does the bulk of the dishes. And she does them well, too! What a great way to make some extra time for myself!We don't have a dishwasher so this frees up a LOT of my time.

Anyway.........there's your picture for the day! Girly on her new snowboard! (she'll be 8 in April, by the way)

On to your questions.....

 

So I was wondering which sets beyond SU you'd recommend for beginning stampers. I have Simply Sent Delights and another set now retired. Hmm, I guess I was also interested in which colors you use the most. I'm still learning my style and interests but I have tons of greens and pinks.

Posted by: Ying

I don't really have a lot of sets beyond SU, except for the companies that I design for: GinaK and Kitchen Sink Stamp. I do also have some Tuscan Rose stamps and love those for their artsy and collage style feel. I find that Gina has a great variety of stamps for all occasions and while KSS is a fairly new company, they also have a great variety of different styles and I love their alphabet and font sets.

I love earth colors but I go through stages with colors. I would say the colors I use most are brown, blue and green....all different shades of these colors. Right now, though, I'm using a lot of pink and reds seeing that Valentine's day is right around the corner. I think it depends on the time of year and what kinds of cards and projects I'm working on.

Do you have a favorite tape runner?

Posted by: Linda Peterson

I know there are people that don't care for the MonoAdhesive (aka: SNAIL) but I'm in the camp of people that LOVE it. For regular cards and projects, it's all I use. I've heard of people saying that their projects come apart after a while, but I've never really had that problem. I find that if you give your layers some really good pressure, there's no way it's coming apart. I must be really good at the pressure thing lately because I've actually torn both cardstock AND paper when I lay something down with MonoAdhesive and then try to move it or pull it up to reposition it.

I swear by my MonoAdhesive. I use it in my scrapbooks, as well.

Hhhmm...a question I have is when you scrapbook, are you doing albums for each of your children to pass along to them when the time comes and if so, how do you pick which activities/pictures to scrapbook. KWIM? I have 4 children and by the time I think about scrapbooking our Christmas pictures, another event comes along that I want to scrapbook. It just seems like I have a hard time keeping up!!

Posted by: Kristin in OH

I've done a scrapbook album for each of my 2 kids from birth to one year. The rest of the scrapbooking I've done has pretty much been all over the place. I had started out thinking I HAD to do my books chronilogically. I couldn't get my mind past that. And then I got into a rut. This was a while ago. I got so tired of working on older pictures just for the sake of having to do them chronilogically. I had newer pictures that I wanted to work on and put them aside because I had it pounded into my brain by a scrapbooking company consultant that I had to do my books in order. That totally took the passion out of my scrapbooking. I actually put all my stuff away for about 6 months and didn't touch it because I couldn't bring myself to go back and work on those older pictures. I was tired of looking at them.

Then "Simple Scrapbooks" magazine came out. I've been a subscriber since their first issue. That magazine was a scrapbook life-saver for me. One of the articles in that first issue talked about letting go of the rules. To make our OWN rules. To allow ourselves to work on whatever pictures we wanted to, regardless of where they fell in the time line of our pictures. That was HUGE for me.

My daughter has started her own scrapbook and works on it every now and then. As she gets older, I hope that she'll continue to love it just as much as she does now and will continue to scrapbook her own memories. That will alleviate me from doing all the work. I figure that when they eventually move out on their own, I can always make color copies of the pages and put them into an album if there's any in my albums that they want in the worst way.

How do you find time to do your personal scrapping with all the time you spend on your business? I love seeing your scrapbook pages, and am trying to figure out how to make more time for my own.

Posted by: Jana Weaver

This is something that I struggle with. I'd love to spend more time on my own books, but I realize there's only so much time in a day. A scrapbook page is something I put a lot more time into than a card. I can walk away from a card, but I have a hard time walking away from a scrapbook page. Once I'm into the groove, I don't want to walk away. I need to make sure that I have time to work on it from start to finish. My solution is to create more hours in a day and more days in a week, but no one with the power to do that has listened to me or done anything about it.

I just finished a 22 page scrapbook for a private client and that really got me CRAVING the extra time to work on my pages. Also, I'm planning on entering the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame contest this year and time is running out, so I really need to get my butt in gear.

My goal is to be more proactive with my own books this year. My plan is to put aside a time on my calendar each week to work on my own books. Now I just have to put aside a time to put it on my calendar. :)

Have you ever traveled (Out of state) to do a SU deminstration/show? I live in North Carolina and I would love to attend one of your classes. I did not know if you would travel. Just a crazy question!

Posted by: Megan Mears

I actually HAVE traveled out of state to do things with my business. I live close to the upstate New York border, so it's not far for me to go across the bridge. I've done a few workshops over there. I also have friends in southern New Hampshire and have gone down to spend the night with them and have done her workshops down there.

North Carolina is a bit far to do a quick commute, but if you'd like to pay for a flight down, I'll start packing! haha! Anytime in the next 8 weeks would be great, as I'm ready for some warmer weather.

Enjoy the week ahead!
-Erika

Comments

[Ying]

Thanks, Erika!

My hand is so tired cutting my upper and lower case alphabets. haha... gotta have letters.

I really appreciate the die-cut Simply Sent kits. I'll take that traveling.

Studio G by Hampton Art is cute, but I'm looking for bigger and just as cute images.

Guess it's back to stamping to develope my style so I know which stamps to save for next.

Thanks for selecting my inquiry! =) Yeah!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Ying

[Michele]

Erika, I was reading about finding time to scrapbook and can totally relate to that. I find the only time I scrapbook is when someone has and event and I go to it. I don't get anything done when I am the hostess. Do you still do your Monday night crops at your house? I remember you used to do that. Maybe you should do that again if you can? Go For it! Michele

[Lourin]

Dont temp me to send you a ticket :o) We could soooooo totaly have a blast stampin and scrapin.. Only it's not much warmer here.. maybe just as cold.
Hugs, Lourin
PS.. Keep up these Q&A posts.. I love em!