Creativity In A Can

This is a gift that I created for my mom, who brings me the most inspiration and artistic gifts out of anyone I know. The artistic blood runs long in our family. This work of art was purposed to contain all of her wonderful ideas, tips, techniques and inspirtations. This can will be an heirloom to our family someday, as we will add to it generationally over the years.



Here is a close up of the tag. The image here was taken from a ceramic catalog circa 1900. Very nostalgic.

Here are page dividers and index cards. If you look closely you can see the tabs for each category of creativity. A special note is the quote I found....just love it!!

{I wish I could credit where I learned how to make these flowers. I can't seem to find it anymore. I'll keep looking and post the link ASAP. It was really easy and fun.}

Book Time!

I love this layout! I was trying out the paper folding technique I recently learned. I love how Sam curled his toes to hold the book up...so when using this as a focal point, I was careful not to crop this out! This is one of many layouts to come...all samples of my work for a client.
Please contact me if you are interested in having your precious memories preserved. I love working for my customers on their custom albums!

Funky Peace Gift Can

This darling gift can I designed is brimming with fun creativity. My daughter gave this to her "tween" friend for a birthday gift. The colors and peace signs were all the rage.

The can was also full of bright goodies. I altered a pair of flip-flops with bright tied on fabric strips and huge peace sign, included rainbow beads and earrings, and rounded out the gift with a package of rainbow twizzlers.

Like this idea?....contact me and I will design the perfect gift can for the recipient on your gift list!

New Purpose, New vision

ScrapPerfections! blog is about a year old now and 3 posts. Ooops. Totally reflective of my chaotic life. Looking back, I'm proud to say, the scrapbook studio has been cleaned and rearranged somewhat. The flower border on the walls is finally getting finished. And most important, I have still been creating and scrapbooking.

This year I have begun Scrapbooking for Others. You will see more and more about this in the future. The Lord has put it in my heart to use the talents he has blessed me with to connect with others and help families who have their treasured pictures (essentially their family legacy) stored in boxes & otherwise, get those stories on the Page and displayed for all to enjoy. If you or someone you know could benefit from my services please send me an email. I would be happy to share my business brochure outlining more details with you.

One last thing...can't leave a post without a picture...

This layout is of my fam...a few years back. Love the pic of my hunny? He was laying against a blanket with an image of a buck and it totally looked like he was the big buck. My kids got a kick out of it...so mom snapped the picture. Oh, and aren't my kids too cute??

JUST CHECKIN' IN...

Just to keep the blog interesting, here is one of my favorite layouts I've made. I took close-ups of the raspberries and used them as elements & embellishments on the page. I just love how it turned out. This layout was actually my first "collage" page. The colors are just magnificent...how the red & green complement each other.

SPRING CLEANING!!!!

Good Morning. Hey, I like this traffic feed thing....people are stopping by. Please, leave a comment. I know this blog is kinda "empty" but I gotta start somewhere. I'm still learning how to label and assemble the blog, so please be patient with me.

Well, I wish I could say I spent the weekend designing in my studio, but instead I spent the weekend rearranging it. Hubby built me a 30x12 room annexed to our shop a couple of years ago. I just have too much stuff. I decided to eliminate a table and do some complete rearranging. Now keep in mind, I dont' have all that "fancy" stuff you see in magazines. I have collected and pieced together all sorts of stuff from garage sales and hand-me-downs. I had a fun vision to use a retro '70's theme in my room, hence the wall border that was inspired by a piece of DCWV patterned paper.

These are photos of "in progress." It was kind of an afterthought to take photos of before & after. I hope you come back to see the project evolve. I'm in a big hurry to get it down, but life makes it's demands. My goal is 30-60 min a day.....

OK, so here's the big mess! Under normal circumstances I'd be mortified to even dream of posting this to the world. But I KNOW that this is a step. This is NOT how this is going to stay.

These are cardboard shelves that I picked up at a local gift shop that was discontinuing her stamping supplies. They weren't free, but they were real cheap. I painted them to match the room. Wish I had painted the inside back or covered it with paper. I'll have to get back to that down the road, when the room is done!!

These shelves my dh picked up several years ago. We had a friend who was a construction worker and on a job remodeling a pharmacy. They were just tossing out these shallow metal shelves. I painted them up and they are perfect for magazine and such. I obviously need to do some reorganizing here as well. I wanted you to see though, that it pays to be frugal....

Oops, I almost forgot. This is a snippet of the border painted across the top of the room. Another unfinished project however. I still need to add the vines around the flowers. Oh, and finish the rest of the walls. I started this when pregnant with #5. Imagine being 40 wks, standing on a ladder, and painting with an artist brush all these flowers. Let's just say, it got tedious. Hence, baby was born and I've not yet been inspired to finish....I think it was more of a nesting project.....hmm, something I haven't even contemplated yet.

Hi! My name is Carli Kirkwood, and I'm Mommy to 5 beautiful children and Wife to a wonderful man. We are busy with homeschooling, sports, and I work a part-time outside of the home job. I've been scrapping/stamping/ and papercrafting for about 13 years now. I've always dreamed of being published or winning a contest, or even being recognized. I've decided that dreaming is fun, but it's time to take action. I have decided to MAKE spare time for myself to work on these things. Waiting for spare time to "happen" is not a reality. You're probably already aware of that, but it's taken me a long time to learn...

So, Yeah!! This is my first blog post...I love to papercraft!! Like I said, I'm sick and tired of saying someday....so here I am, diving in with both feet. I happened upon a blog, which I love, it is My Time, My Creations, My Stampendous. http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/index.php Lauren Meader is so talented. So anyway, she has posted a sketch challenge (which I love doing) and a call for more sketch designers. So now I take the plunge:

It's a darling notepad holder complete with sticky notes, pencil and fun quotes. All this closes up and is held under a very cute 5"x7 " clipboard. I just love it!

Here is the original sketch:

I hope you like...I had a lot of fun making it...it's now in hiding for one of my dd's; they are both avid fastpitch players!!