I remember the days I use to stay up in my craft room + scrapbook for hours on end. Sometimes I would even call in sick from work just to play with my kits. Boy have times changed. You'd think that I would have many more hours to spend playing now that I work from home. Not the case. Add in a rambunctious two year old that has to do whatever mom is doing and this is what we have.

My new "craft room" is our dining room. I only keep essentials on hand. There has been A LOT OF PURGING and because I create in a high traffic area, I continue to purge each month. Containers are my friend. I love the ones Target puts out in the dollar bins. I keep several empty ones on hand while I work with a kit. They're handy for when we use the dining room table for it's oringial purpose. I just throw my stamps, embellishments and smaller bits in a container, pile the paper, throw it in a large bag and put it aside.

Tyler's at that age where he wants to be involved in EVERYTHING I do + I'm happy to accommodate because it's the only way I can create during the day. So I keep his box of crayons, paints + lot's of blank paper on hand. It stays right with my scrapbook supplies. Seems simple but it took a little bit for me to realize having these on hand and having him create with me was the key to making us both happy. Before I would beg him to play or watch a movie so I could do a little something during the day. Mostly I would just wait until he went to bed but that didn't leave any time just to chill and watch a movie with Jeff.

This is how I make it work. Would love to know how you fit scrapbooking in your busy day. Any tips on making the most of your time?

Here are my layouts from the Neverland gallery starting with my personal fave.

Still love working with watercolors and I love that SC created teeny tiny mists. So stinkin' cute.

XOT

Roller Rink was really fun to play with this month. I think I finished 3 layouts the first day I opened the kit. That's pretty good for me. My 2 favorite layouts contain cut designs that I thought were really cool this month. The Stencil Tags + For Like Ever. The Curious Chevron is cool too but I messed up the layout I had used that design on. Maybe I'll be able to rescue it in the future. You know when you go to mist and you think you're aiming it the right way and ends up spraying in a total different direction. Yeah, that's what happened with that layout. I kept misting thinking I could fix it but ended up looking like a hot mess.

I've had a couple requests to bring back the Make It Work feature here. It's something I do every month with my layouts anyway. I'll just have to remember to photograph the process to show how exactly I made it work. This installment is all about those leftover strips of paper you get when you cut your 12x12 down to 8.5 x 11. I get lot's of those since I only scrapbook in that size. I usually stash them and or cut them up. A lot of times I make quick little cards or tags to adhere to birthday gifts. That's what I've done below.

Simple. I created these after my layouts were completed. I'm seeing all these great pieces and embellishments from my add ons and thinking I need to use these. Otherwise they'll go in a box and I won't think about them again. Here are some other cards I created with the "leftovers".

My favorite card was created by inking a repeating pattern with the "Seriously, everything will be ok" stamp. It really looks like a letterpress card up close.

Here's a list of supplies I used this month: Roller Rink Main Kit Add on #1 Add on #2 Add on #3 Add on # For Like Ever cut design Stencil Tag cut design Printable #1 Printable #2 XOT