Seed Storage & Garden Notebook Project

 

Happy Spring, Gang!!

My name is Debbie Weller, but many of you may know me as “DebDuzScrappin.”  I am beyond thrilled to be today’s guest blogger! I work full time outside the home (at a fairly dull and analytical type job, hence my need for a creative outlet), and work at raising my two active boys, alongside my wonderful husband of almost 20 years. 

In 2002, I had some pregnancy complications that put me on bed rest for 3 months. I had to find something to do while laying around, so I took up scrapbooking. I got pretty bored with plain paper, markers, and a few stickers real quick and jumped online to see what else existed for scrapbooking and what did I find?  Club Scrap!!!! I have been a member of Club Scrap since September 2002. Art Deco was the first kit to arrive on my doorstep, and with every kit that followed, I fell more and more in love with the extraordinary paper goods every month!!  Not only did I fall in love with the exquisite product, I fell in love with the Club Scrap family. When I say Club Scrap family, I am not only referring to those that work at and own this company, but also all of those people who love it as much as I do.  We truly are a family, I enjoy visiting with everyone online and at retreat. My biggest highlight every year, is ClubScrap’s Retreat – when I heard about the first retreat and how much fun the folks had – I knew I had to go and haven’t missed one since.  I feel honored to have so many Club Scrap friends and only wish I could scrapbook with them in person more often!  If you ever have the opportunity to attend Club Scrap's Retreat – DO!  It is unlike any other retreat, they treat you like a Queen and spoil you rotten, you will not regret it!

In 2006, I started a Scrapbooking & Rubberstamping Tutorial website, known as DebDuzScrappin, which eventually I moved over to a blog. On this blog I try to provide tutorials of all kinds, share all my adventures in paper, digital scrapbooking, beadwork, and crafting, all in the hopes of providing inspiration to those whom visit.  

Fast forward to more recently, about two weeks ago, I got a bacterial infection in my left eye, which temporarily stole half my eyesight. Well, trust me on this--if you can only see out of one eye, you can’t do most things like normal, including scrapbooking. But I still needed to have a creative outlet, so I turned to another love of mine . . . gardening. For the last few years, my vegetable garden has been miserable, just barely spitting out sorry looking crops, no matter how much added goodness I tilled into that darn soil. So my request for Mother’s day this year was to put in raised garden beds, similar to what I had at my old house, that use to work fabulously.  Even with my eyesight out of whack, my family and I were able to design and build my new garden beds.

 

Just after my new beds were in, I was invited to attend a gardening class on ‘Square Foot Gardening’ and this concept was a perfect fit. In the process of deciding on what to plan, where, when, etc., I came across my latest scrapbooking inspiration! My goal was to create something that could hold all of my seed packets nicely along with the notes, design plans, and research I had gathered for designing my garden. I spent about a week tossing around ideas until the final project began to fully be envisioned. I needed a compartmentalized box. 

With each passing day and some fabulous eye drops, my eyesight returned enough to allow me to put my vision into action.  I wanted to share my results with all of you!

I ended up settling on a box with 3 main compartments: (1) majority for seed storage, (2) a slender compartment for a notebook to hold all my notes, and (3) a compartment to store my pens and garden label stakes.  

The box:

1. Start with an empty shoebox with a hinged lid. Cut off the lid.

2.  Trim one side from the lid to match the height of the box. Adhere the bottom and tape the sides of the lid to one edge of box.

  

 3.  Measure paper panels to cover the box. (I used May 2012 “Wild Flowers”). Stamp images from the unmounted sheets using Orchid hybrid ink onto side panels. Use printed papers for the front and back of the box.

4.  Here is the final covered box.  I also created a divider in the center of the large section to hold the folders, and a small compartment in the upper right hand corner to hold pens and plant label stakes.

 

Tabbed Folders:

1.  Create folders in various colors to hold ziplock baggies of seeds. Cut cardstock to 6¾x11". Trim a ½" tab at one end. Add three score lines in the center, as shown. Use a corner rounder on all edges.  Ink edges, if desired.

 2. Print the names of the seeds on cardstock to create labels. Adhere a label to each tab. (For easy reference, I created summary cards with basic information for each type of seed, including a “Frost Resistant” label.)

 

3. Embellish with paperclips, fibers.

 Notebook:

 

1.      1.  Cut two matte boards to 5¾x8½". Cover both matte boards with "Wild Flowers" cardstock.  

2.      2. Trim cardstock to 12x8¼".  Score at 6". Add three additional score lines 1/2" apart on each side of the 6" score. Fold accordion style.  Adhere the two large flaps to the inside matte board covers.  Add pockets to both inside covers.

 

3.  3. Create the inner pages by cutting a piece of 11x12" cardstock.  Score as shown in diagram. To create pockets, fold up the bottom flap and adhere to the lower left and right edges. Cut 5¼x3½" pieces of cardstock and adhere to the back side of the pages, creating two additional pockets.  Repeat to make a 2^nd set of pages.

4. Pierce 4 holes into the fold line of each set of pages.  Line up pages with one of the valleys in the accordion fold and poke matching holes. Sew pages onto the cover by sewing down into hole A, come back up through hole B, down through C, up through D. Pull the thread tight and tie the loose ends together.  Repeat sewing 2^nd page into the cover.  

5.  Embellish with paperclips and fibers. Insert notes, charts, guides, etc. 

In the process of designing the project, I also needed a packet to hold my extra ‘frost resistant’ circles, as well as some seeds that the packets got destroyed. So I figured, why not use a current seed packet as a template and make a few extra from cardstock?

Faux Seed Packets:

I used a purchased seed packet to make a template for Faux Seed Packets.   

I hope you enjoy this project as much as I enjoyed making it and sharing it with you!

Products used in this project:
Patterned Cardstock – “Wild Flowers” (Club Scrap)

Adhesive – Modge Podge , Tombow, ATG, Scotch packing tape
Stamps – “Wild Flowers” Stamp kit UM sheet (Club Scrap)
Inks- Orchid Hybrid Ink (Club Scrap), Leaf Hybrid Ink (Club Scrap)

Fibers – “Wild Flowers” kit, “Birds of aFeather” kit (Club Scrap)
Gems – “Wild Flowers” kit (Club Scrap)