It's just under three weeks until we leave on our big summer trip in the motor home. The current plan for this trip has us away for 96 days. So I have to be organized in order to do any crafting over those three months.

Last year I took everything. Every tool, every piece of paper and every kind of supplies I have in my stash. Most of it hid under the bed (there's a good deal of space under there). The problem with that is that whenever I wanted to craft, it seemed that Julian had already gone to take a nap. His being ON the bed made it impossible for me to get UNDER it to get my stuff. So this year I'm getting more organized so I only take what I'll really use and be able to keep it somewhere NOT under the bed.

My best friend suggested that I spend my time before the trip planning out pages, not making them. That way I'd have the proper tools, papers and supplies set aside and not take anything that I wouldn't be using. This plan is working well. I have 14 or 15 pages planned out (so far) and I think I'll be able to fit it all into my one rolling craft case. Of course, the possibility exists that I will change the plan of a page and then not have the supplies I need, but I can live with that. I will return in October and those changes can be completed once home.

The reality of all this planning of pages, however, is that I'm not getting to do pages. So I have nothing new to post. I haven't created anything all month. I'm in withdrawal! So a couple days ago I sat down and made a card. But the ribbon I glued to it is already falling off. Aaaarrrrggghhhh!! So I went back to planning. I've since come up with a couple ideas of how to fix the card and will try to do that in the next few days. But the planning will continue until the last possible moment. If I don't finish them all on the trip, they will still be easy to do once home.

I seem to struggle with kids' cards. But with two grandchildren, I have to find ways to "git 'er done". I had printed the picture of the card below from Scrapbooks, Etc. online. I like the card, but didn't know who would get a similar card, nor when I might get around to making one ... if ever. I do that a lot; I've got tons of ideas clipped and filed in a binder.


Anyway, I was looking at the original when it occurred to me to make the flowers into balloons and then it would work for my grandson. He turns six in July, so I'm hoping he'll like the card. I guess if we put money inside, that would help, huh?


By the way, I used my Cricut machine to cut out the balloons. The words were printed directly onto the colored squares. I used embroidery floss to "tie" down the balloons.