Whirlpool of Imagination

Come Fly with Me

I am so lucky I had a spurt of creativeness earlier in the week. I've been full of plans to spend loads of time in my studio and for the last couple of days, my creative time has been nonexistent. But tonight I have a quickie 5 minute card. The good thing is that it's not flowers and too girly. I'm forever going with the girly look so my brothers are out of luck when their birthday comes!

The plane was stamped with chalk ink and then I used a prismacolor marker to outline/shadow the bottom. I did a quick cuttlebug embossed layer and slapped it all together. Again, I thought about ribbon but I wanted a simple, clean look so I let the card design stand as is. The stamp is from River City Rubber Works.

There's thunder rumbling in the distance so its a quick post tonight. Later!

It's a Carnival

Well, its actually the Kids Crafts Carnival over at the Craft Critique blog. If you are unfamiliar with this blog it's a wonderful resource and critiques of all sorts of crafting products. The latest focus has been on kids crafts with some interesting articles ending with the carnival in todays post. I mention this because one of the included projects is my "dear mom, dear meg" journal. Once you wander over to the site, you will spend hours checking out all the great critiques!

Some flowers for you

I love flower stamps. Since I've started buying unmounted stamps, I can count things on the number of CD cases a category has. I am up to 12 flower CD cases and let me tell you, I fill these as much as I possibly can! And the sad part is, when I check out new stamps, I always seem to check the flower pages first! I buy all kinds of stamps but I do have to say that Stampin' Up does a good job with their flower designs. I have quite a few of them and I seem to reach for them more often than other flowers that I own.

When I started this card, I had no idea of the direction I wanted to take. I had the basic sketch design in my head (last weeks sketch design at Splitcoast) but that was all.

Sometimes I have a hard time coloring open flowers. I'm not the best colorer in the world so I shy away from them. I pulled out my twinkling H2O's and some cardstock and went about deciding on a color scheme. Why I went with these colors, I don't know. Sometimes I really think its what I pull out of the cardstock bin and build from there! The background is a Cornish Heritage background and the stamps are, like I said, from Stampin' Up. I used a few shades of twinkling H2O's to get the color I wanted and then it was just a matter of adding the layers. I thought about adding some ribbon but really, 1)you wouldn't be able to see it and 2) it just felt like I was adding it just for the sake of adding more things to the card. When I make cards, I always think about the feasibility of mailing. Is it too bulky? Would it cost my client too much just to mail the card? And so on.....hence, simplicity is the key for me and after draping a few pieces of ribbon, I decided to stop just where I was rather than adding any more.

Tomorrow, look for another graduation card.....the graduating bella is in the house!

Dear Mom, Dear Meg

My kids love to craft with me. In fact, every time Meg has been asked at school what she wants to be when she grows up (she's in kindergarten), she always answers "a crafter like mommy". I will admit that sometimes, I just want to be by myself to let the creative juices flow (or not, depending on my mood). But other times I try to remember that not only is the act of crafting a wonderful activity by itself, the time Meg and I are together, even just across the table sharing pencils is something that I will look back upon many years from now fondly.

I wanted to take the crafting one step further and come up with something the two of us can share so I came up with the "Dear Mom, Dear Meg" journal.

The idea behind this was to create something that is not finite. Its an art and writing journal that will be passed between us and hopefully can be something we can share for many years to come.

We started with a plain composition notebook. Meg's favorite color is pink so she chose the paper to cover the book with. Since my favorite color is purple, Meg wanted the letters to be pink and purple. We talked about design of our names and each glued our names down. There are elements of me (primas!) and elements of Meg (shiny stickers - although before she got carried away, we did talk about "sticker sneeze" and placement!). The design was a group effort all the way.

Is it the most professional item in the world? No, but that's not what its meant to be. It's meant to be a part of Meg and a part of me. She was so excited that she had to write the first entry as soon as the glue dried. I love to see her writing at this age. Spelling isn't a factor but rather, she sounds out words to the best of her ability and yes, sometimes she needs to decipher them for me. But I wouldn't want perfect spelling because that wouldn't capture her knowledge as a five year old. She loves to draw and of course added some pictures to her words. Once finished, she was so excited to show me! Tonight, I answered her back. Her excitement was palpable to see what my words to her said. I love this journal not only for the memories it will bring years from now. I love it because it is a way for Meg and I to express ourselves through art, to grow through words and to become a little closer through our love of craft.

For the graduate

It's that time of year when card makers everywhere have graduation cards to make. I'm no different in that respect. I also have to think about my craft fair - the first week in June is a time week - the "holidays" that I need to create for are graduation, teachers gifts/end of school year gifts or Father's day. Since Father's day is the one that will sell the least, I need to really think about the other two.

Now, I have to admit that this is not one of my favorite designs. I don't know if its the colors or what but I just think this one is so-so. But I've also learned long ago that not everyone's taste is the same as mine. I'll have cards that I adore and no one buys them. Then there's cards that I'm not so crazy about and I'll sell a bunch of those. Since I want variety, this one will go into stock for the fair.

The stamps are from Cornish Heritage (texture harlequin bkgd), SU (hat) and River City Rubber Works (sentiment).

I've been enjoying myself for the last two hours in the studio and hopefully I'll get a chance tonight to work some more (along with listening to the Nascar race - Go Tony!). Later!

Check please!

The countdown has begun - my craft fair is in exactly nine days so you know I'll be going crazy until then. Normally I don't make a lot of checkbook covers because a person can only have so many (!!!) but they do pretty well at the fairs and I haven't made any new designs lately.

For this one I used one of the new Martha Stewart punches. The background of the apricot cardstock is stamped with one of the large SU wheels in apricot chalk ink. I actually unmount all the wheels I buy and then remount them on EZ mount so I can use them like I would any other stamp.

I used prismacolor markers to dot up the center of the flowers - I may still add a bit more color to that - I'm thinking a little brown or something.

Record high temps today although it will be nicer for the rest of the weekend - enjoy the holiday weekend!

Preschool Gifts

Today was Conor's "moving up" day in preschool meaning he's finished for this year and moves up to next year's program. Every year I try to do a little something for the kids' friends. I know in the past I had seen a really cute sidewalk chalk gift but I scoured Splitcoast and even asked in the message boards but never got a response so I had to make my own.

I am atrocious at poetry but I struggled enough to get something down (Mo helped too). Although, grammar fanatic that he his, I have to give a disclaimer. Apparently, the proper way to write the second sentence is to take out the word "some".

I used stamps from CTMH for the little girl and boy, The girl is second generation stamped and the boy is actually a third generation stamp since the blue was so dark.

Very rarely do I ever create anything that someone wants to case but you are certainly welcome to use my sad little poem if this idea strikes your fancy. I searched the Internet for several days and never found anything that worked so take it if you need it.

I hit a little wall in regards to inspiration today - I'm hoping for better results tomorrow!

Here's to Dad

Okay, the stress is kicking in. In less than two weeks I'm throwing a big 60th birthday party for my mom (at my totally cluttered house!), I have a week long craft fair for Paper Creations, Conor finishes school so he will be underfoot every second of the day, and I have appointments that I need to keep and thereby need to set up babysitting for all next week- yikes! Where is my glass of wine?????

Anyway, I made this dad card earlier in the week - I figure it could be used for Father's Day or a birthday.

All the stamps used are from the vintage dad set from CTMH and the patterned paper is Basic Grey. It's a bit tougher to see the stamps on the brown lower half of the card - the clock is stamped on both the paper and the cardstock and below the yellow block is the word "dad". I think I used SU ink but I honestly can't remember now!

I did finish the preschool friends gifts for Conor for tomorrow and I took a picture but haven't uploaded those yet. Look for them tomorrow.

A Trio of Sports Cards

This design is easy, easy, easy but I wanted to get some more cards for troops done AND I have my craft fair in just under two weeks so now I'm scrambling a bit. So the long story short is that simple designs RULE for the next few weeks!

These three cards have exactly the same layout, I've just switched up the paper and ribbon that I'm using.

All three also use the same sentiment stamp from Jody Poesy. I had forgotten about this stamp but its cute! I was really bummed when JP took a break from selling her stamps - let's hope she starts up again.

The patterned paper is from American Traditionals - baseball check.

This is American Traditionals - football check.

And this one is American Traditionals - soccer check (betchya didn't know that was coming, huh??)

I mixed and matched cardstock and ribbon to the best that I could with the paper. I have to say in real life, these look like perfect matches.

Now I think I need to find some golf paper - that would make a cute Father's Day card.

I have a vintage Father's Day card on tap for tomorrow and, if I get them finished in time, a cute preschool end of the school year gift for Thursday. Stay tuned!

Deja vu, but in pink

I'm taking a little first aid break, so I thought I'd post. I was working in the studio, snipping away at some ribbon when I proceeded to cut through my finger instead. I am currently loaded down with band-aids as I try to get the darn thing to stop bleeding. So on to my pink bug!

The card is the same layout as yesterdays card. I changed the background I used but other than that, deja vu!

The bug is from TAC, the background is from Cornish Heritage and the sentiment I still don't know (forgot to check). I decided on the pink and red after I pulled out this ribbon - that's the first time I can honestly say I decided on colors based on the ribbon I wanted to use!

Alright, I'm still bleeding so I'm going to sign off now. Later!