Whirlpool of Imagination

A Little Love

As the Christmas season comes to a close, I'm looking on towards Valentine's Day. This card is designed loosely from a recent sketch challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers. The heart and love sentiments come from TAC. Its very hard to see on the scan but I did stamp a floral background from Cornish Heritage onto the red cardstock layer. I've been stuck in the harlequin and script rut so I pulled out a different background to use for this. The inks are all chalk inks.

New Baby Blue

Along with pregnant friends, we also have had the wonderful news of newborn babies as well. I have had the infamous scallop oval punch for a while and have not broken it out yet. This image from Amuse Art Stamps was just beggin me to use that punch. The background was made with a SU wheel (although I undo the wheels and mount them on EZ Mount) and the sentiment is from TAC. The stork and the sentiment are raised for some dimension.

With all the recent problems of harvested images, I have succombed and started to add a copyright to my photos. It may take me a while but I am changing over all my images on my picture trail site so they will contain this information. For those of you who upload your designs and do not as of yet do this, it was really easy for me to do (and if I can do it, honestly, anyone can!)

Expecting Friends

We've got some friends who have the wonerful news that they are expecting babies. I got this set from TAC this past year and have been dying to try it. The sentiment is also from TAC. I wanted to use ribbon to the side of the image but I had no blues that remotely looked good with my matted lady so I took some cardstock and distressed it a bit with my bone folder just to soften it up a little. I took the easy route with coloring and used prismacolors.

I made major headway in cleaning up the studio. It was an absolute disaster after this holiday season. I need to organize my stamps a bit more but I can see my table again which is a plus!

Merry Christmas to All!

Well, we just put out cookies and milk for Santa, sprinkled oats and glitter in the driveway for the reindeer, put up the stockings and read Twas the Night Before Christmas. On a last Santa check before bed (the Norad site), he was last seen flying over Peru and is working his way to the United States. Two very excited children (and two tired parents) are heading off to bed for sweet dreams. Have a safe and happy holiday!!

Teacher Appreciation

Last night I was working on gifts for Meghan's teachers. I decided to make up some gift baskets of various stationery items. I found some cute holiday boxes at Michael's which fit all these items perfectly (I kept the cover off and wrapped the whole thing in cellophane). Any SU fans will recognize this flower stamp. Everything in the gift basket was of the same theme and bore those blue flowers (which I absolutely love). The flowers were colored with Dee Gruenig markers and this gift set contained a photo album, set of 10 notecards, memo cube, pen, post it note cover and little m&m treats.

Meghan's main teacher just became a grandmother for the second time so I wanted to personalize her photo album.   The quote I found on the internet, the flowers are SU, and then I used a blo-pen to spray some color onto the edges to jazz them up a little bit. I really like how this turned out - I think I will make more for my craft fair inventory!

Tonight was wrap Christmas presents night. We did pretty good and got things done in record time. Tomorrow I have three 6x6 albums to create and I'm hoping, because of their size, they will zip along nicely so I'm not up to all hours of the night!

Learning a New Trick

I have to say that I'm not the one who learns the little tricks of the trade all that quickly. I think its because I don't always pay attention to what I'm doing and therefore do things the hard way more often than not. With the numerous snowman soups I've been making for the holiday season, I wanted to come up with a better way to secure the tag with the ribbon. In all the times that I've tried to attach tags to items, I usually just put the ribbon through the hole and then tie it up. Unfortunately, when I do this the tag always seems to look askew. It would look okay until I started to tighten up the ribbon but then would end up sideways somehow. Suffice it to say that using ribbon is definitely not my strong suit.

So, this week I got tired of my tilted sad looking tags and took a moment to pay attention and think about how I could fix my problem. I'm not sure what I was doing, I think trying to sleep but I'm a hopeless sleeper so I started to think things crafting related. I decided to try putting the ribbon through the tags like I would a bookmark. I took my long piece of ribbon (I always pull off more than I need and end up cutting some of it off!), folded it in half and from the back threaded the folded ribbon through the tag hole. Once I had enough pulled through, I pulled the ends through the hole I created. Then I just keep pulling until there is no hole anymore and it looks like a little tag bookmark.   The thing I have learned pulling the curling ribbon through is that you have to do it carefully. The curling ribbon seems to catch just a tad and has to be pulled a lot slower than say, satin ribbon. Then its just a quick matter of tying up the curling ribbon around the cellophane and I now have a tag that lays straight for me. I'm sure that I'm probably the last person who knows this but I'm still pretty proud of myself. It is, of course, a lesson to me to pay attention more to what I am doing. I might have figured this out a long time ago if I did!

M&M Treats

As the holiday approaches, that means treats for school friends. Conor is taking in little kisses boxes that I already have made up. But I needed to make up something for Meg's class. I wanted it to be small and easy to make since I am wiped out from all my holiday cards! This snowman is from Purple Onion (that "Merry"set again - I tell ya, I love it). These treat bags were a little taller but since I didn't want to have to add ten thousand m&m's to each one, I cut them down a little to make this cute little size.

Brayered Holidays

I wanted to make a holiday card without the usual images. Anyone who is a fan of Stampin' Up knows these trees. They are from the Lovely as a Tree set. This is probably one of my favorite sets from SU. Its extremely versatile. It can be used for masc. or fem. cards and for pretty much any occasion. The deer are from Close to my Heart and I'm not sure on the sentiment, have to check that. I really wanted to use a snow writer for under the trees but when I went to Michael's they had NO clue what I was asking for. So I found some online and will hopefully have them over the next few days. I ended up using a white souffle gel pen. I haven't tried these before but it worked well and the pen ran smoothly.

The Christmas cards for 2006 has an end in sight. I'm pretty much at the end of my regular list, have made extra for those not on my list but sent us a card and I don't think there are many more who will send us cards not on our list. I love making holiday cards but its about this time every year that I'm pretty much fed up with them. All I need is a little break from them (say 6 months) and I'll be raring to go again!

Christmas Card Swap Thanks

It seems like forever since I've posted to the poor blog. I'm still working my way through Christmas cards. Every time I think there's an end in sight, I get cards from people not on my original list! I always feel that if someone went to the trouble to send me a card, I should do the same. So my list is growing and I'm still iris folding those darn trees!

But I did get a lovely Christmas card from my swap at Circle of Crafters. Thanks ever so much to Ursula for this lovely card. The paper used for the angel has this fantastic texture to it and looks fantastic in person. I also love the music background to complement the angel. I will definitely have to use this idea next year!

I'm hoping to have something to add on a more regular basis again. With the holiday just over a week away, the end is in sight and studio time should include more play!

Just Plugging Away

This week I've been working on three sets of orders plus my own Christmas cards. I haven't had a chance to create much in the way of new designs but the time in my studio has been a good break from the hustle and bustle of all the responsibilities of the season. The next few weeks may be lean on new designs but I will try to get into the studio to play as much as I can. Once the new year starts, look out, I'll be raring to create some new stuff!