I Think I May Be Ready For Saturday (Maybe)

I AM ALIVE, people, if absent from Blogdom. I am deeply mired in Craft Show Season, and have been a creating fool. Last night I made an executive decision to make a pizza at 10 pm and stay up until midnight crafting. I knew I'd be sorry this morning, and man, was I right. I am sorry right now, too. As soon as I hit Publish on this baby, I'm going to bed!

So what have I been up to? Last night, I did the mass-production thing with the Feliz Navidog cards and the candles I showed you in my last post. I made a total of 10 of the dog cards and 10 candles. It is not a magic number, it just happened.

Then I had this idea. You know, one of those niggling ideas in your head that keeps you spinning until you get it out onto paper? Yeah, one of those. I had purchased the SU Medallion digital image, and I wanted to make note cards using it. This is my first pass:


I shrunk the Medallion to fit on a 3.5 x 5 note card, then proceeded to print it on different card stock in a desperate attempt to use up some of my stash. These are about an A2 size. The medallion color is one I made up by just moving the color bars in my editing software. The sentiment is from Savvy Stamps.

So what do you think? Too boring? I know that boring, or should we say "understated", is appealing to some people. It took every fiber of my being to not add ribbon to these. I boxed them in groups of 5. I'll let you know if any of them sell this weekend. For my next attempt, I'll print them on the smaller note cards and also reduce the opacity so it is a fainter image.

Then one of my Tweeple, Dreena, showed us a gift card holder she had just made, so I CASEd it. I DID! As soon as she posts hers to her blog I will link to the actual post, but for now you will just have to look at mine.

This is the outside:


It is 4.25 square. I used some of my embarrassingly-large stash of Basic Grey Figgy Pudding papers, because I wanted to use Artichoke, and these go nicely with Artichoke. The snowflakes (SU) are stamped with Versamark Champagne, which is glittery. The ribbon is from my stash.

Here's the inside:

The pocket on the left is decorated with the same Basic Grey paper, and I punched a notch in it - this will hold the gift card or cold, hard cash. There's a 4x4 Vanilla panel on the right side stamped with the same snowflake and ink in the bottom right corner. It's kinda hard to see, largely because my photography skills are lacking, but you should get the idea. I made 6 of these tonight.

I pretty much have done everything that's gonna get done before Saturday. Tomorrow I plan to make some gift tags, maybe, and a few signs for my booth, and then I'll get up reeeeeeal early on Saturday to get to the hall to set up. It's too far to go Friday night, come back home, then turn around and go back. Yes, I whine.

Well, it is raining like crazy, and I am operating on about 5 hours' sleep, so I think I'll call it a night.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: I've been reading Julie & Julia before lights-out, and when she started her blog, she shortened "blog readers" to "bleaders". I thought that was pretty cute!

Finally, Some Malamute Stuff!

This evening, I found focus, if only for a little while. Before I found focus, though, I stopped at Mike's for a few things, and pretty much stuck to my list. I had a few Martha punches in my hands, including some of the new Borders + Corners jobbies, but I put them back. I did! Yes, I am very proud.

Once home, though, I found focus, and made not just one, but TWO Malamute projects. First up, a candle:

This is the front ...

... and I put a trail of foot prints around the back.

This is my first pass at packaging. I still need to work on a tag for it. I thought about putting a ribbon or some other embellishment around the candle itself, but decided against it.

THEN I realized I forgot to color his tongue! Ack! All the coloring needs to be done first, so it was too late! Here is pass #2:

Pink tongue - all better. I am not sure how many of these I'll make. Anything I do not sell becomes inventory for me, and I have no room for inventory. Gotta ponder this one.

Then I made a card I've wanted to make all along:

This is a very cool piece of patterned paper I found in my stash. I love the colors in it - so soft and non-traditional! I used the retired SU Soft Sky for the layers and ribbon. The sentiment is from The Cat's Pajamas. I cut the blue layer for the sentiment using the Movers & Shapers dies from SU. Too easy to layer with that Modern Label punch!

And for any of you losing sleep over the difference between SU's Creamy Caramel and Kraft card stock, look no further than the bottom of that card, cuz it is Creamy Caramel and it is sitting on (and in front of) some Kraft, which doubles as my photo studio base and background. (Told you I had a classy set-up, didn't I?)

I only made one candle (okay, two) and one card, but I'm all set to mass-produce tomorrow after work. I am almost ready for the weekend! YAY!

That's all I can crank out this evening, folks. Gotta go rest up for the Day Job.

Thanks for stopping by!

Busy, Busy, Busy (aka: Creative Avoidance)

I woke up Sunday morning all refreshed and with a ton of ideas rolling around in my head. I had a whole day to just STAMP!

On the agenda was to make some Malamute note cards for this Saturday's show, so the first thing I did was to make a bazillion more book marks. No dogs, just bookmarks. I figured they sold pretty well, so why not. It would use up some of that ribbon stash, too.

First up, I made more of these:

Then I started to run out of stuff... first it was the faux gems I was using in the centers of the stamped images. After a bit of nail-biting, I realized I had a whole still-unopened container of clear Dew Drops. Lookie:

Okay, this one slipped a bit off-center, but you get the idea.

Next I ran out of the Filigree brads. I only had 6 large ones left, and the holes in the small ones were too tiny for this ribbon. Pooh. So I rummaged in my stash and found these washers:

Not as pretty as the Filigree brads, but the right size, and the words add a bit of je ne sais quoi. They also made me add to the labeling to identify which package contained which word. I am an expert at generating work for myself. Here is the bookmark with the Dew Drop and washer:


After I was done, I had this little rat's nest:


I bagged and tagged them, added some labels - done! Then I made some more bookmarks with that cloth-feel cork-patterned ribbon, too, but I'll spare you the photo, largely because I forgot to take one.

I still needed to make some dog cards, so next I made some Chanukkah cards. I know, I have a problem focusing.

This image from PTI, stamped on SU Shimmer White card stock, just screamed for me to get out my Sakura Gelly Roll glitter pens. Look how pretty:

As is my method, I sat and stared at these once they were colored, not knowing what to do with them, so I set them aside and made some of these:

No dogs here, either. But there is a dreidel from the same PTI set. I colored it to (hopefully) look like wood. And yes, it is crooked, but I did that on purpose! Really! The paper is from my stash and I have had it forever. All gone now.

Then I got a clue and made this with the glittery menorah:

More paper from the stash. I cut the next-larger size of Nestie out of PTI's very yummy Shimmer Blue paper. It is very sparkly, and I hope you can see that here:

I also made this version of the card using the same basic supplies:

Why the different shapes? Poor stamping choices. I managed to stamp a few of them too close to the edge of the card stock so the longer die did not fit. Those top two were the result of "what will fit here?!".

This past weekend I also sold out of these cards:

... so I had to make more. Birds, not dogs. Birds.

Then I was tired, so I rested. And Sunday came to a close with not one stinkin' Malamute card anywhere to be seen.

But tonight! Oh, tonight I came through! I made - not 10, not 20, but 40 (FORTY) of these:

I stamped the doggie onto two full packs of SU note cards. I outlined all their bodies, colored all their tongues, then bagged and tagged them into 8 packs of 5 cards:

Ta-da! Man, I sure hope these sell this Saturday ...

That is all the stamping I actually accomplished. I have an idea to use the dog image with my 'feliz navidog' stamp for some Holiday cards. I also still want to make some more gift sets, i.e., boxes of thank you cards. Hey, it's only Monday ... lots of time!

Thanks for stopping by!

Nature Is Art

I have been a crafting fool all day long, but am not prepared enough to post about it yet. I took a break to try and catch up on some of my Google Reader backlog, and found the following clip on Stefani's blog. She found it somewhere else, but O.M.G. When you have 5 1/2 minutes to sit and watch, without distraction, you will not be sorry.

I Have Gone Minimalist (but the post is long)

This evening I have decided to share with all of you the glamor and glitz that is the life of the stamping artist craft-show participant. That was a lie. There is no glamor or glitz anywhere NEAR the life of a stamping artist craft show participant. Lots of sweat and sore muscles, but I do not plan to show you that.

So this will be a simple expose (pronounced ex-po-zay) on what it takes for me to set up a booth at one of these craft shows. How is this different from one of my weekly markets, you may ask? And so you may (ask)! I have WALLS when I do craft shows. For a quick review, here is what my booth looks like at a craft show.

Now, let's look at all the crap stuff that goes into setting up a booth, and how it all fits into my poor, abused vehicle. Here's the back of the car:

In all fairness, starting from the bottom and working up, we have one table, a folding chair and a small table (white-ish), topped by two more tables. All of these are used in my farmers markets. These live in my car full-time, as in "12 months a year". I have no where else to put them. Seriously.

Today we have additional STUFF on top of those tables. Normally I have the parts for my card rack back here, but as you can see, there is no room. We'll get to them in a sec.

So on top of the tables we have the wooden 3-panel peg-board screen I got last summer. This is super-perfect to act as a barrier or privacy screen in a tent set-up, but also between two booth spots at an indoor show. Also, I have hanging tabs for a lot of my note packs and last year I hung them on the peg-board to free up table space. It weighs about 729 pounds. I KID! It only weighs about 65 pounds.

On top of the peg-board thing are my wall parts. These are 6' panels that come apart. The company that makes them also sells them in full 6' sections, but they would not fit in my car, so I got the sectionals.

To the right of all that is a pile of card racks. These eventually get hung on the walls with S-hooks and secured with cable ties.

On top of the wall parts are a few boxes that, well, I had no where else to put in the car. You will see why momentarily.

Here is one side of the back seats:

What a mess. Under that blanket are plastic boxes of cards that live in the car from May-Oct because (repeat after me) I have no where else to store them. You can see the wire card racks on top of those, and the sorry little fake tree stuffed in the only available space left in this vehicle, which was the floor. On top of all THAT is the ever-present base for my spinner rack.

That blanket is not to hide anything. I am not that nuts. It is to keep the sun off the cards, as they fade with time if exposed to the sun. Ask me how I know.

Here is the other side of the back seat:

You can see the boxes of cards here cuz the pesky wooden screen has shoved the blanket off of it. Those boxes are actually supporting the wooden screen and everything else on top of it. These boxes should be sainted.

You can also see the feet of the wall sections. If I am not careful, they touch the window on the back door and screech screeeeeech like fingers on a chalkboard when I drive. I have actually pulled over, stopped the car, and rearranged these things to save what's left of my sanity.

And since I needed to also take the bases for the walls, here they are, stuffed behind my driver's seat.

Every time I put my seat back to get out of the card yesterday and today, I got a resounding CLANG. Lovely.

Remember I said my spinner rack parts usually live on top of the tables in the back of the car? Well look where they had to live because of all that extra stuff:

Yep - front seat. I had to squeeze my black bag onto the floor. Yes, I'd say this baby was packed pretty tight. Although, in years past, I had 8 sets of wall sections instead of only three, but I did not have the wooden screen. Those babies piled right up to the ceiling! I have sold all but three of the walls.

NOTE: This is the full car I had taken to IKEA when I realized I could not fit the new chair in the car. And you thought I was kidding. Now that I think about it, that chair would have fit in the Miata ....

OKAY. So picture this: Friday morning, overslept because I had fitful sleep Thursday night. Tired. Full day at the Day Job, and a frustrating one at that. Drive to the venue after work, in the dark, to set up most of the stuff so Saturday morning is just last-minute stuff. With unloading the car and all the bumper cars that goes on Saturday morning, this is usually a good plan. PLUS, it takes me about 2 hours to set up all the stuff for the walls, so Friday night is a most-excellent option for me.

It is dark. It is raining. I took the wrong road to get there, again. By the time I got there, I was late and tired and crankier than usual. I made an executive decision to NOT USE THE WALLS! That's right. After all I went through to retrieve them from storage and reconfigure the car stacks-o-stuff, I opted to leave all of it IN THE CAR. I DID!

This is all I unloaded last night:

The 6' table was provided, as was the chair. I have my spinner rack parts on the floor, my table cloths and sorry tree on the 6' table, all my boxes stacked up on the bleachers, and two tables propped up there in the back. That's it!

See those little red tape marks on the floor? That defines my space. I went rogue and ignored them. I hope I am invited back.

Ta-da! My minimalist set-up:

I still think it looks nekkid without the walls, but it only took me 1 hour to set up instead of 2. See how my card rack over-steps its bounds? Do you also see that tiny spot between my tables next to the bleachers? I actually stole even more space from that booth on the left later so I could widen the space between my tables and fit my sorry a$$ in there to have somewhere to SIT. You see, most normal people have a simple 6' table across the front of their spot and sit behind it. But moi? Nonononono. With cards, people need to be able to rifle through them, so they need to be reachable. Stacking is not really an option so I need a LOT of table space if I do not use my walls. So I used all my floor space for tables and had no where to put a chair. Yes, I am whining.

The lay of the land follows:

Here is my Christmas Corner. A box, so cleverly set upon another box, ingeniously disguised by a folded tablecloth. So classy, I know. In the back of the box is a sign that says Christmas/Holiday. I put the boxed cards and some of the single ones in front. People still asked me if I had any Christmas cards. (I TOLD YOU!!!) One lady bought all 5 of the frog cards there on the left (yay)! That basket holds some chipboard "decorators" that could be used as either ornaments or as package decorations. I have a squillion of them. I sold 2.

Middle of the table:


My cache of Tea Bag Holders. Remember I made 55 of these to add to my 10 or so already made? They were a HIT! Yes, people LOVED them. But no one actually bought any. Well, okay, my last sale of the day was to a woman who bought three. I sold three.

Here is the other end of the table:

Here's my basket of magnets (for which I forgot to make a sign, so I said "those are $2" about 700 times), and my bookmarks. I sold all but 4 of the bookmarks (yay!).

Behind the bookmarks is my sad, sorry tree with my few remaining ornaments hanging from it. I wrapped some gold stuff around it this morning so it looked a little less sad. I sold two ornaments.

This is the other side of my space - pretty much the same as my farmers market set-up. I took these photos Friday night, and I only made a few changes this morning when I arrived, coffee and breakfast sandwich from Panera in hand. I could live with this set-up versus the walls. So much easier to do! So on the way home this evening I stopped by the storage facility and put back all the wall stuff! I DID! It feels so good, too!

Overall, today's show was okay, even though I took in less $ than in past years. But I did get some more people who want to come to my monthly classes. ;-) PLUS, the woman who runs the Mansion in the Kentlands (the neighborhood where I have my markets) was passing through and asked me if I'd do a new show they are planning for March. YAY!!! That means I actually need to focus next year before May, but it sounds like fun. I have not done a show in the Mansion before now, as someone else was selling SU-type cards there before, so I always opted out. This is "new management" and I am looking forward to it!

And the winning just-passing-by photo of the day:

This purse in a stroller. So cool!

If you are still with me, I thank you! Tomorrow, if I wake up, I need to start making stuff for next week's show in VA. If I plan to do one project each night, I might be ready by Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!

What About the Rest of Us? A Writers' Challenge

I am a reader of Historical Fiction. I cannot get enough of the stuff. I love to read the personal details about all the Kings and Queens and second sons and illegitimate daughters of Kings and other famous people of those times. I like how an author weaves the fiction in with fact and makes it all seem like it really could have happened like they described.

The thing about Kings and Queens and second sons, however, is that marriage, at least first marriages, were totally political. Countries were bound together in peace when two children of the reigning royal families were betrothed at a very young age. It stopped a lot of wars and death. These marriages were arranged before the kids really knew what was going on, but they accepted their roles in life and made the best of things. The best any of them could hope for was their betrothed grew up to be reasonably kind and would be a good caretaker. Looks had almost nothing to do with it. In fact, I believe it was the younger sister of King Henry VIII who was married off to the King of France - she was something like 15 and he was 'ancient' and 'near death'. And she had no choice!

But that was then and this is now. Have you read any love story novels lately? I'd bet at least 100%, or maybe even more, are based on the local, amazingly-still-single hunk who meets a traveling reporter, who just happens to be 20-something, slender, perfect skin, flowing hair, and a good kisser; they fall madly in love, fall out of love, have conflict, almost get killed, meet the parents, fall back in love, have wild sex, solve the mystery, save the town, and live happily ever after.

Sometimes the stories come in threes, like Nora Roberts' trilogies. I love them, but I am getting sick of them. I am no longer 20-something, or even 30-something. Heck, I am not even 40-something. Do you realize that the bulk of the Baby Boomer generation is in their 50's and 60's now? Most of us have been married, some have been divorced, some have kids, some are grandparents already. I guess what I am trying to say is: I will never be able to see myself in any of these books. They are a nice diversion, but seriously folks, WHAT ABOUT ME?

I was thinking about this on the way home this evening. Is there any hope that someone such as myself will ever find love again? (ETA: Not that I am actually looking or anything - it's a hypothetical question.) I have grown kids. I am divorced. I live alone and I have for over 15 years. I LIKE living by myself! I like making my own schedule and eating only if I want to. I like to craft 10 hours a day if I feel like it. So what are the chances I'll ever meet someone who I like to be around? Who makes me feel good. Who makes me laugh. With whom I can have an intelligent conversation on a myriad of subjects. Who has some common interests, but is different enough to make things interesting. Or who can go out with his friends and I'd stay home and that is okay?

So, my challenge to all writers is this: Write a love story about someone like ME. You know, independent, cranky, selfish, hates doesn't particularly like to talk on the phone. Is no longer a size 6 or 8 or anything close. Could not punch her way out of a wet paper bag (I seriously have no upper body strength). Who still has to work for a living. Yeah, write a story about THAT why don't you! HA! I dare you!

Oh, now maybe I'll need to figure out what to do if someone actually does write that book. I'll tell you right now: I'd buy it!

* painting byTracy Helgeson from http://worksbytracy.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html.

Another Crooked Day Off

I am here! I am here! I am aliiiiive, so no need to call out the National Guard, or anything. I have been busybusybusy, and no time to blog. I had my monthly Stamp Camps on Sunday, went to work Monday, had my third of three Stamp Camps Monday night, and had today OFF to catch up.

I actually put away all the Stamp Camp stuff (okay, most of it), and took down the big table. I did!!!! My Dining Room is one big empty! This place is pretty big when it is a normal condo and not one humongous Craft Room overflow area!

Lessee, I did a little organizing in what we'll call the Captain's Quarters, getting ready to STAMP in there. Oh yeah, baby! My dream come true! Then I hit the Post Office; stopped by Chloe's (the coffee shop that carries my cards) and swapped out a bunch of old cards for new ones (I sold 6! woo-hoo!); went to my storage unit to retrieve all my walls and display stuff for this weekend's show; drove across town to IKEA and ended up with light bulbs (what a wasted trip); got home and invoiced the coffee shop for the sales; placed my SU workshop order; forgot to print more biz cards (drat!); then I CRAFTED!

Since the room formerly known as The Other Room is currently being called "The Captain's Quarters", this must be the Captain's Table:

That little speck of blue to the left is my desk chair that very conveniently wheels around to face the Captain's Table. One of my IKEA failures today was my attempt to get a new desk chair. You see, this one was a cast-off from some friends about 7 years ago - it was me or the dump, and I needed a desk chair. I still have it. It is terribly uncomfortable. I had the new one half-way off the shelf at IKEA when I noticed its shape and realized it would never fit into the car with all those walls and stuff, so I had to put it back. Sigh.

Wanna see what I've been up to all day as far as crafting? Let's get started with the Show & Tell. Oh, oh, wait a minute. FIRST, look what came in the mail yesterday:

BUTTONS! Hand-made buttons, at that! These are from tessaann.etsy.com, and she has the CUTEST stuff. I might have to become a button hoarder now. Here's the rest of my order:

Love them!!!!

NOW for the crafty parts:

Bookmark #1. I made a version of this two years ago (it's here on Splitcoast if you'd like to see it), but I am older and lazier now, and I am pathetically behind in having anything to SELL this weekend, so I opted for an image that I could punch out instead of having to hand-cut each one. Okay, older and wiser. That ribbon end is two sided, so to make 5 bookmarks, I had to punch (not cut, punch) 10 images.

The other end got one of the larger Filigree brads. The ribbon is the retired Pomegranate from SU, and it is so thick and luscious ... m-m-m. I added some bling in the center of both sides of the stamped image. The whole thing is held together with red sticky tape.

Then I wanted to make a few with the remaining Chocolate Chip satin ribbon, so I went in search of my Choc Chip Craft ink so I could emboss the image, just to be different. I found this:

A Craft Ink Meltdown. I cleaned it up, then realized the gooped ink is not Choc Chip, but Black. The black craft pad is stored right above it in the color caddy. So then I cleaned IT. What a mess. Finally, I made a few of these:

Bookmark #2. Choc Chip satin ribbon, same image as above, stamped with Choc Chip Craft ink and embossed with clear EP. Same Filigree brad at the end. Same bling in the centers of the images.

Then I got bored and went in search of something a little different, and came up with this:

Bookmark #3. I found a 100-yard spool of this stuff in my Misc Ribbon box. At first I thought it was books, but then I read the spool, and it is wine corks! Ack!

By this point I'd given up on the Craft Ink and tried plain old Choc Chip, but it would not stamp dark enough on the Naturals Ivory for my liking, so I ended up using the Choc Chip marker and it worked just fine! Since the ribbon has black in it, I nested a black scallop between the two white ones. It looks pretty nice.

I opted for no bling on this one. And I only made one.

Here is the spool. This is more of a cloth than 'ribbon'. Seriously, I have a hundred yards of the stuff. If anyone wants any, just email me with your mailing address and I'll send you some. Really!

I took a moment to play with it some more. I covered a scrap of black card stock with adhesive (love that ATG!) and stuck down several pieces of the ribbon. Then I broke in my new Nesties Labels 5 set and cut out two of these:

They are lying in wait and will make an appearance on a card in the near future, as soon as I think of one.

THEN, I started to make some Christmas cards! CRAZY, I KNOW! I am doing three Holiday Craft shows, so you'd think I might want to have a few Christmas cards, right? My first batch is 12 cards with this image:

I have an order for 5 of them, so the rest will go with me this weekend. I'll let you know if anyone buys any. This is not a new card for me, and even though I panic every year and make a ton of new Christmas, Chanukkah, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, etc. cards, not a lot of them sell at these shows. Go figure.

Well! I think that qualifies as a very full day! Tomorrow I plan to finish up these 12 cards, bag & tag them, then work on a card design with an Outlines image I have waiting for me. Big plans, yes, I know. Good thing I work well under pressure, huh?

Okay, past my bed time, and I am fatigued. Thanks for stopping by!

Are You a Registered Bone Marrow Donor?

You always think bad things will happen to other people. And there have been an awful lot of bad things happening all over the place lately. When bad things happen to people you know, it becomes very personal.

A friend's husband is very ill. He is going through intensive chemotherapy, and so far, he is holding up pretty well. They have been married for 40 years, and right now they hope he makes it through Christmas. I am just in shock over this whole thing.

The chemo is to hopefully get him into remission until a donor can be found for a bone marrow transplant.

So, are YOU registered with the National Marrow Donor Program? Their Website is www.NMDP.org. The initial test is very easy - they send you a kit and you just swipe the inside of your cheek with a swab and mail the sample back.

I registered many years ago through a program at the Jewish Community Center. They asked for a 'donation' to cover the cost of the test, which at the time was $65. I thought if I could save someone's life by registering, that was a small price to pay.

The larger the bank of prospective donors of varying backgrounds (what part of the world your ancestors called home), the better chance we will all have if the time comes when we, or a friend or loved one, might need to look for a perfect match.

So check it out. Who knows - you could save someone's life.

Thanks.

Lazy, Market-less Saturday

Today I wimped out and did not do the Farmers Market. Nope - I stayed home, hunkered down on the couch and was a lazy bum. What that let me do was get ready for tomorrow's Stamp Camps and not be up all night. I was done (pretty much) with all the station set-up, card-stock cutting AND kit assembly before 7 pm. CRAZY, I KNOW! But it feels so good to be a little ahead. I have one more spot to clear out, and that is MY spot. But after tonight, it will, in theory, no longer be my spot, as I am supposed to move into the other room, now known as the Craft Room (gotta come up with something better than that ...). Only problem is the table in there is covered with stuff that has nowhere to live yet. We shall see ... we shall see.

One of the things I did today was re-make one of my cards from yesterday's post. Here is the updated version:



I think this one is WAY more better! I, um, sorta faked the whole thing on my version, not wanting to re-stamp and re-punch all those circles, ya know? Plus, the paper was glued down really well to the card stock, and me being me, I was sure if I cut another piece to start over, I'd run one piece short for my kits. Uh-huh. So I scavenged what I could from the original card, which meant I had to do a bit of surgery on the back, but no one will ever see it. All the card stock for the kits is cut to the right size, pretty much, I think.

In other news, well, there IS no other news. I have been such a slug all day that I have absolutely nothing else to share. Well, there is one funny line from one of my tweeps. She told me to carpe diem this morning and just stay home and prep for tomorrow's Stamp Camps instead of sitting outside at the Market and risk getting sick. When I pondered how I could possibly be DONE with the setup already, she said, "its cuz u carpe'd the diem!" Okay, maybe you had to be there.

On that note, I will leave you to more sensible endeavors, and I hope to have something of substance to share with you tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!

Snow Globe Card, Attempt #1.5

You may have noticed I have been centering the photos in my posts lately. This is because of the skewing I was seeing in FireFox when I used IE to post. Being "in the biz", I am painfully aware that different browsers render HTML differently, so I took that bull by the horns, started using FireFox as my go-to browser, and am centering everything to prevent skewing. This is contrary to my motto of "only ever change one thing at a time" - you know: a controlled test, but I was impatient and wanted it to WORK! So if you see any wonkiness in my posts, please let me know. I do want to make it a better experience for the three (maybe four) of you who actually stop by now and then.

Okay - today. Ugh. I went to bed early last night with a shot of NyQuil-equivalent in my tummy. I woke up and felt no better, so I called in sick and rolled over. I slept for 1-hour spurts until I forced myself out of bed around 11:00 am, and proceeded to sit on the couch. Hey, at least I was vertical! Mostly. The cat actually left her perch to comfort me. This is her day-time perch (but only on sunny days):


She actually came over and curled up in my lap. So sweet. I have been mostly a lazy bum all day, not overdoing anything. I did, however, take a few breaks from slovenliness to (1) shower, (2) do a load of wash, (3) eat lunch, and (4) finish the Snow Globe card to see if it would make the cut for the weekend. Not a bad day, but it is only 8 pm as I type this, and I could go to bed right now. This is not good.

Here is the Snow Globe after application of glitter and some ribbon:


Not great, but passable. I think it does a great job of showing them the idea of the globe. They can take the instructions (which I need to print off before Sunday) and make another one themselves at home, having played with it here. I sure hope there is not a revolt or anything.

The thing with the snow on the globe is (Libby reminded me today) you need to cut the inside piece of 'snow' a little smaller than the outside piece so it does not show. Well, this assumes I have them cut the same shape, now, doesn't it! HA! Oh, sorry, but I did try.

Moving on, here is another card I finished to showcase some more of SU's Autumn Meadows DSP:


This card was based on one done by Mary Fish, who does amazing stuff. I liked her interpretation of the Mojo Monday 105 sketch, and I especially liked it because I have the stamps she used, so I could CASE it. But, as usual, I had to be different, and it ended up just being an inspiration and not a complete CASE.

I did not use a sentiment, because I am still not so sure this card is right, but it will have to do. I overlapped the circles on the top row because I was stoopid and ran a line of adhesive along the base card stock and stuck the circled down to it instead of taping the individual circles to the card. I always warn my customers to tape the smaller piece you are sticking so you do not have adhesive sticking out, but did I listen to my own advice? Nooooooo, I did not. So this will be a perfect example of how NOT to do this step. I love showing them how much I mess up so they don't make the same mistakes. I made another partial card front with it done correctly, for demonstration purposes.

Now that I look at this card from across the room, I think I want to add a row of Choc Chip circles along the bottom, or at least make that piece of Choc Chip extend a little further down the card front. Yep, that's what I'll do!

Tomorrow. I'll do that tomorrow. Tonight I am too tired.

I have not yet decided if I'll do tomorrow's market or not. It would be my last one for the year, and I'd hate to miss it, but if I feel puny, I'll stay home. Not worth getting sicker since I have my Stamp Camps on Sunday and craft shows each of the next two weekends. My Stamp Camp customers do not usually care if I sit on the couch while they play, but I must be strong and healthy to endure the rush of holiday shoppers at my craft shows. I can only hope.

Enough with the whining for this evening. I hope to be way more chipper on the morrow. Thanks for stopping by!