Whirlpool of Imagination

Soft Swirls

I wanted to play with my cuttlebug today. Lately in the galleries, there are lots of pretty cards with partial embossing and score lines. That's what inspired me to do today's card.

I used the swirl folder for the top portion of the card. Using my new Scor-Pal from TAC, I made the sets of score lines. The stamp is from Papertrey as well as the ink. I believe this one is called Sweet Blush. I happened to have some ribbon that matched the color nicely. This would look pretty with satin ribbon, but of all the ribbons I own, I don't have a lot of satin. I may just have to work on that!

Dare I say it, I think the germs have finally given up on our household. Meg is, as we speak, running outside with her brother. It's been a long couple of days being housebound and I'm looking forward to getting out tomorrow, even if it is just to run errands!

Eye Candy From Others

Today I get to show you some of the fun mail I got last month. I just stuck my hand in the pile and pulled out a few cards.

This fun card came from Paige. I really like the way she created the flowers and the colors are so cheerful looking to me.

I got this cute Easter card from Bonnie. I like the cute image, the doodling around the edges of the blocks as well as the overall design. This one made me smile.

And last, but certainly not least, here is a card I received from Lisa. This color combo is one of my favorites. There is something so right about these colors together. I also really like the glitter window. I've never tried that before but I want to after getting this card.

And that's a little peek into my mailbox. So today was a bit better at our house. We sent Conor to his grandparents for the day since Meg woke up with her fever. She took it really easy today (books and TV and no little brother) and I think, fingers crossed, the fever may have broken! I'm thinking healthy thoughts and hopefully we can all enjoy the rest of our spring break.

Abstract Iris

One of the members at Circle of Crafters has developed some really cool abstract iris folding designs. She's getting ready to release them in a CD and she asked for volunteers to test drive patterns to make sure they were clear. I asked for a couple of easy ones and here's the first of the two I was sent.

I really like this pattern. It actually was a bit bigger but I wanted to make a long card so I adapted the design. The pattern is made up with poly-satin ribbon and I used solver peel offs for the swirly design.

I like how this design can be used for so many occasions - I plan to make up a bunch in various colors. If anyone is interested in abstract iris folding, drop me a line and I'll let you know when Jolis releases her CD. This is an easy pattern - there are some that a quite difficult for those up to the challenge.

Day 2 of a sick household. Meg is still battling a fever and threw up this afternoon. Ah well, I guess I'm staying home for the next couple of days. And then there's Conor who has the energy of 10 kids! Quite a challenge keeping her quiet and him occupied!

This one's for Grandma

With Mother's Day approaching, I've been going through my stash to see what I have. I came across a Mother's Day design from a few years ago that just wasn't working for me. So I retooled it just a little bit and made it for grandmother instead.

The flowers are from TAC and colored with a prismascolor marker. The sentiment is from Papertrey. Beyond that, this one is pretty straightforward.

I went back and forth on whether to add more to this card, tying the three blocks together. I tried ribbon along the left side, I tried brads and I think I even tried some primas. In the end, I decided I was happy with the simplicity and kept it the way it was.

Today was a really quiet day - Meg has a cold so we kept her close to home. She wasn't all too happy with me and laid the guilt trip on me all day. Boy, she's good at it and I had to count to ten a few times today, but we got through it. Here's hoping for a healthier tomorrow.

Pulled out my River Rock

When last year's in-colors came out for Stampin' Up, I got the variety pack to see what colors I would like. I kind of forgot I had the pack and it wasn't until a recent Splitcoast color challenge that reminded me of this color. The cards I had seen with it were so elegant and looked great, that I had to give it a go.

This is a pretty straightforward card. The image is from Cornish Heritage Farms and the sentiment is from Papertrey.

We had a surprisingly warm and sunny day here today. It was pouring this morning and all the forecasts had it being a yucky day today. We have officially started spring cleaning our house. It is an utter disaster and I'm almost overwhelmed and not sure where to start. We chipped away at it a bit today and already I feel a little better. You know when you walk into a room and you just get cranky because its a disaster - picture this through my entire house. (It was a rough winter getting the kids to be good about picking up). But even after a short time, I feel my mood picking up and the house is a little cleaner. Imagine what kind of good mood I'll be in when the whole house gets a good cleaning!

Arte e Pico Award

I was nominated for the Arte e Pico award from Laurie - thanks so much Laurie! The idea of this is to award blogs for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

The award originated from the Arte e Pico blog. I wish I could read the words but I enjoyed looking over the pictures at this blog.

Now I'm supposed to pick 5 blogs that speak to me in a creative way ~ I would bet many of you have already received this award and there are some many that I visit every day that would deserve this award. Today I'm going to send you to visit the following five:

Lauren

KH

Jill

Vicki

Maria

There are so many blogs I could have chosen - this is just a small sampling.

When time is short...

Today is a five minute card day. As I take stock of my inventory for my upcoming craft fair, I realized that I'm really low on Mother's Day cards. Now when I set out to make a 5 minute card, very often is morphs into something much more involved and a lot longer than 5 minutes. Today I was able to stay within my limit (give or take a minute or so).

With the help of my handy dandy cuttlebug, this card was a breeze. I embossed about 2/3's of the card and kept the bottom smooth for my sentiment which is from Papertrey. I was going to score the part where the embossing ended but I just didn't like how that looked so I added the ribbon at the seam instead. Since Mom's need a little sparkle, I added some Swarovski crystals to finish it off.

Now that I'm under a time limit, I'm going to either be really productive or I'm going to implode and get nothing done. At this moment, it's anyone's guess but it should be an interesting 10 days coming up!

I finally figured it out!

I probably made this card a lot more difficult than it should have been but I honestly think its my brain. I was never good at geometry and anything that you have to "see" in your mind, probably the reason why my husband is so much better at packing and organizing than I am. But I persevered and, I have to tell you, finally finishing feels good!

Please meet my iris folded Elvis. This pattern was created by the wildly talented Sarah at Circle of Crafters. I cannot pass on the pattern since its not mine but her user name is snarfsplat if you are interested.

My biggest problem was working out the face. Usually with iris folding, you have the outline cut out but here the face is its own piece as well. I kept at it and finally made it work.

The actual IF was easy because I used all black for the silhouette look. I used poly-satin ribbon, not folded, for the folding. I didn't want to take away from the image so, at the end, I added a couple of strips of cardstock and some silver peel-offs and there you have it.

Isn't Sarah brilliant - she takes a picture and makes a pattern out of it. I am trying how to figure out how to do that with pictures of Meg and Conor - I thought that it would be neat to make framed IF pictures of them - I just need to figure out the cutting and where the shadows are for the IF. No problem, huh? If I figure it out, you'll be the first to know! Have a great day!

Stymied!

I'm completely stymied. Some totally brilliant, awesomely talented iris folding designers have been creating silhouette picture patterns. I am trying to figure out how to make my own and so far, not having success. My brain is just not seeing it yet but I'm not giving up. Although I will put this aside tomorrow and work on something else to give my brain a chance to figure out how in the world I'm going to do this. See you tomorrow.

ETA: I figured out how to do one of the patterns! I will show it tomorrow (but am really proud of myself that I finally did it!)

Blue Flower Thank You

A stamp pen pal of mine recently ordered some TAC from me and I wanted to make her a thank you card. This card is actually a reworked card that had a completely different image on it (plus a few other changes).

I recently got these cute flowers from the March set over at River City Rubber Works and wanted to give them a go. They are colored with prismacolor markers and a little bit of sparkle from a spica glitter pen. I didn't mark the back of the sentiment stamp so I don't know where it's from - is it Stampin' Up? Anybody know?

I need to get busy in the studio. I got myself another card spinner for my craft fairs so I need to get cracking on new card designs - if you need me, I'll be in the studio......