Thoughts on Traveling and Crafting

I've been fortunate to have the opportunities to travel quite a bit. When I was a kid, most of my friends would go to their summer cottages, while my family travelled instead. Since I got older, I continued the tradition. My husband shares this passion with me, so we travel together every chance we get.

Combine this with my love for all things paper and you end up with a lot of paper snippets all over the place (and from all over as well).

I have a tendency to collect all sorts of brochures, tickets, maps and assorted paper pieces from those trips and I have a hard time getting rid of them. (now, this doesn't happen just when we travel. It happens all the time and everywhere) I want to put them together with some photos (I'm not sure if I'd call it scrapbooking, since my books tend to be more like photo albums with some random stuff in them) but always end up with a ton of paper scraps, without a clue where they came from.

I've been pondering this for a while now... What I need is an easy way to collect those small pieces of paper, mark down the 'why, what and where' and keep it all in one place in a way that makes sense later on. Just writing this out is giving me new ideas, but I'm still missing that 'Eureka' moment.

I need to experiment some more. Do you collect paper items from your trips? If so, how do you keep them organized?

Photos on this post are from our latest trip to Chicago.

Brinner Supplies

After comments from three trusted advisors, I decided to open my second Etsy store, Brinner Supplies. I started the shop set up yesterday and will continue today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I feel now is the right time. Brinner Supplies will be a place where I sell those treasures I've found when looking for materials for my crafts. Like I mentioned already, I can't leave beautiful paper goods behind when I find something great. There is only so many hours a day I can actually spend making things, so I can't possibly use everything I have.

       

So, now I have a place to find better homes for those vintage and newer items! I've listed a few things already, but will keep adding new listings as I go along. I have a ton of vintage looking stickers, like airmail and address labels as well as some really cute heart stickers just in time for valentines day. I'm also going to put together some scrap packs with book pages, vintage ads and other paper goodness I've accumulated over the years. I have some beautiful books starting from early 1900s to 1960s that just aren't being used to their full potential.

It will be more work to maintain two shops, but I'm excited!

The shop dilemma

So, to start off, let me explain the situation. When I go around looking for materials for my crafts, I often find some really awesome vintage items. I've found beautiful books that are too small for my crafts, vintage board games or other old materials. I can't just leave them there, so I often buy them in hopes of coming up with a way to use them. Which ultimately just leads to a chaos in my work space.

I know that there just isn't enough hours in a day for me to use all the beautiful items that I've found. However, in the spirit of upcycling, I won't throw them out. I know there's so many creative people out there who could make use out of these items.

I've finally listed a few of these things on Brinner. But every time I look at the shop, I feel it looks a tad confusing having finished products available next to supplies. Which brings me to the dilemma. Should I open another shop for the crafting materials and supplies? I did try this once, but I didn't have the time to run a second shop. I now have more time, but still aren't sure...

If you buy or sell on Etsy or any similar site, would you prefer to browse through a shop that only sells one type of a product, for example upcycled stationery like Brinner and would it make a difference to you if there were other products as well, like crafting supplies? I feel that the person who buys the finished product wouldn't necessarily be as interested in the crafting supplies and vice versa. However, that's just my gut feeling which could be totally off.

Any thoughts? Comments? Experiences?

On the crafting table

Today's been a busy day. I've been making envelopes out of book pages that didn't work for cards. I always go for the books with vibrant pictures or interesting pages, those are the ones that I make cards out of. However, some pages don't work for cards.

This usually happens when the main focus of the page is not positioned ideally to fit the card. I've accumulated a ton of pages that I now finally started making into envelopes. Sometimes the main character or focal point of the page is in the middle of the page or towards the top. They won't work as cards, but make perfect envelopes.

I always try to use as much as I possibly can from a book page, so this way only little scraps of the paper is left over. This, of course, means that there is plenty of tiny pieces of paper around. They look fun though.

Wedding expo - Marions Nous

Yesterday I attended a wedding expo. And, might I add, it was my first time. I didn't go before my own wedding (a small destination wedding), but I did get a chance to attend now. I'm going to be a bridesmaid at my friend's wedding, so this was as good of a time as any.

Chocolate sculptures

There were a ton of vendors from the obvious like dresses and flowers to the more (what I thought was) unexpected, like furniture... Ok, I guess it makes sense if you think about a gift registry. Anyhow, there were plenty of pretty things. I have to say though that I also considered myself lucky, I didn't even think about half of the stuff that was available for my own wedding.

Cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake

I did take some photos from the expo, mainly of things my friend was looking for, but I did take some additional ones just because I found them really pretty or clever.

Plenty of cupcakes

Clever wedding favors (made me want to figure out how to make these)

Pretty decor

All in all, it was a good experience. We did attend a wedding fashion show, some of the outfits were beautiful, some... well... interesting. (I would think it to be a rather opulent wedding when the groom would wear a gold suit. Yes. Gold. Shimmer. Suit. Think about that). There were a lot of great ideas, so if you're planning a wedding, I definitely recommend going to take a look. 

I had a fun day with the bride to be, her maid of honour and future mother in law. Thank you ladies for a great afternoon!