New craft toy :)

I was happy dancing at Christmas -- I got a Silhouette Cameo!!!!! I know I haven't posted much here lately, but hope that 2014 finds me back in the creative happy place.  

These past couple years have been tough with a cross-country relo, challenges in my husband's job, and well, just maintaining our home life!  I implemented some major changes to my diet in September, and that's really helped increase my energy level, so hopefully will soon be back playing with paper.  We are also planning to do some home projects in the next 3 months which will mean a *fabulous* creative space for the kids & I to share.

Looking forward to the coming year...

Scrapbooking!

So here I am again, this time with a few scrapbook pages.

I have not done this in years.  Some background: I have scrapbooks from 2 different missions trips I took back in high school, and 1 from college.  This was before "scrapbooking" existed as its own industry, and I just glued down ticket stubs, photos, etc and scribbled down my thoughts/memories. I love those books.  After I got married (back in 1996) I became aware of what was happening in the markeplace with "real" scrapbooking, and purchased an acid-free white album and a bunch of cheesy stickers/papers to document our special day. When I look at that book now, I cringe.  Don't get me wrong - I'm thankful that it exists, but it's absolutely not my style, and it seems stiff and silly.  I have 2 other scrapbooks from our early married life, but they're a bit more playful.  I kind of gave up on scrapbooking after a couple years (even before we had kids) simply because I wasn't enjoying it.  It felt like yet another item on my To Do list, and rather than enjoying the pictures, I was thinking of the hours and supplies I needed to complete pages.  NOT good. Recently, I completed 2 digital scrapbooks with Shutterfly, and I was thrilled with the results.  Will definitely be making more of those.

BUT our family went to Disneyworld over Spring Break back in March.  And I decided I wanted to do an "old school" album with scissors and glue.  I wanted to do document this fabulous trip with my own 2 hands (and literally leave fingerprints on photos, LOL).

I've made a few paper-loving friends here in Texas, and attended a scrapbooking retreat a few years ago - but stamped and made cards the whole time.  I went again 2 weeks ago, but this time I scrapped.  I uploaded my hundreds of pictures and ordered prints (then was sweating it out, hoping they'd arrive before I left!), then gathered all my goodies and drove three hours with a friend.  We left on Friday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon.  Bliss.

I organized all the pictures (that process ate up a good portion of my Friday!) and managed to do the trip to Florida (we drove, and had a short visit with another family) and the first day and a half of our Disney experience.  My style is very different now - the other ladies who are were at the retreat all favor the more traditional big layout style, and it was funny to see their reactions to my album: a funky mix of page sizes (predivided pages mixed with the occasional layout), and a simple color scheme (and no, I'm not matting the photos to accent my husband's shirt color).  I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm so happy to say that I'm actually ENJOYING the process as well as loving the outcome.  Here are a couple shots (I know it's not the best quality, but I'm trying to break free from the yoke of perfectionism, LOL)

Simple Thank You card

It's been a rough week - and this morning a friend showed up on my doorstep with flowers and medicine.

She was such a blessing, and I really wanted to make a card just to let her know how much her thoughtfulness meant to me.

This was a quickie: washi tape (and yes, I cut the heart out from tape, too) and a sentiment from Wordsworth.  Added a bit of washi tape to the envelope for good measure, and it's on its way!

Canvas Banner

How cow, I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted here!  It's now 2013, and one of my goals for the year (you'll notice I did not call it a "resolution") is to do more crafty stuff.  Our lives have been a bit chaotic in the past couple years, and my creative endeavors have sort of fallen to the wayside...

Our daughter just turned 8, and we had a dance themed party for her.  Most of the decorations were straight from the Dollar Store, but I did manage to make this 1 simple banner to welcome the guests (and then hang in her room).  I purchased the banner "blank" from Hobby Lobby (Donna Downey product).  I hit each pennant with different colors of glimmer mist in conjunction with masks from Heidi Swapp, Tim Holtz & Tattered Angels.  I had so much fun playing with the colors and images!  The letters are chipboard (also from HobLob) that I painted with black acrylic and then glued on.

So that's all for now - but I *WILL* be back to share more in the months ahead!

Birthday Girl

Yes, I'm actually posting a card I made - felt so good to be working with this familiar canvas again :) This little cutie was created with the sketch over at CPS in mind, although I admit I took a few liberties with it. I stamped the little girl and added a touch of color with prismacolor pencils, rounded the corners and inked the edges, then added the sentiment and mounted it over the three background strips. I love the happy colors, and it's even nice & flat for mailing. Beauteous!

Girl image: Cornish Heritage Farms, sentiment PaperTrey, and paper BasicGrey Junebug

Feeling Fallish...

I know it's been months since I've posted anything... I've been busy with so many other things, and quite frankly just hadn't been feeling particularly crafty. In the past week or two, though, I'd been missing the East Coast autumn, and decided I really wanted to make something "leafy." Anyway, last Sunday when I was watching the Eagles game I grabbed a pair of scissors and a mostly untouched Boxer pad and started cutting leaves - double thicknesses so I had 2 (mostly) matching shapes. I used some old brown variegated fiber (which I know has been around for at least 5 years) and then glued the leaves together with PVA bookbinding glue (chosen since it dries clear and remains flexible). I gave it about 10 minutes to dry - yes, I'm impatient - and then hung it around the kitchen entry. Thankfully I'd planned ahead and left the nails up from the Christmas garland ;) I love how it turned out, and I even used the scraps to make something else... will post about that later this week!

Clay Fun

Polymer clay - something I was very familiar with due to my religious watching of the Carol Duvall show (I still have the VHS tape that was always loaded and ready in case I sensed that a good paper project was coming up :) - but I had never actually used it.

Well, our daughter saw these cute little animals in an issue of her American Girl magazine, and even big brother wanted to make one. They suggested using air dry clay, but I was afraid that they wouldn't hold up too well, so yesterday while running errands we procured a package of assorted color sculpey. And then, of course, the kids wanted to start making their animals before I'd even left the parking lot of the store - I convinced them to wait the ridiculously long time until after lunch...

I must say, they turned out amazingly well. The kids made all the shapes themselves (the bodies have a ball of aluminum foil inside) and I helped with fine tuning, attaching, etc. The pig is our daughter's, our son made the cat, and the dog and panda were made for some friends. They were hanging out with their long-lost Little Pet Shop cousins yesterday afternoon, and happily survived the rigorous hands-on attention. I predict more sculpey fun in our future!