A Little Faux Silk

Sometimes I amaze myself at the myriad of ways I can find to procrastinate. I have 2 classes tomorrow and I am still not ready, but I did a lot of other stuff today.

I continue to sell my retired stamps and accessories on SCS, and I make trips to the PO almost every day. Yes, I know sending things Priority would be easier, but if I can save someone a few bucks on postage maybe they will buy from me again, ya know? Plus I have learned sooo much about shipping it is worth it. So this morning I took my stack o'stuff to the PO and sent it off, and I also got the prices for shipping some more goods. My Kitchen is mostly cleared out from the mailing queue so there will be room for all my customers to sit and shop on Sunday. ;-)

While I was out I also stopped at Staples to buy some more bubble envelopes, two-sided tape, and ink cartridges for my printer. I had collected a ton of used cartridges and took them for the $3-off coupons since I planned to buy new cartridges. Did you know they limit you to three $3-off coupons for recycled ink cartridges per day? Who knew? Sigh. While there I also picked up my annual copy of Turbo Tax...I am really looking forward to tackling that.

My circle-of-errands done for the day, I started on cleaning for my classes tomorrow. First I moved the paper cutter off my class table along with the card stock scraps, some of which I decided to actually put away, but not that many. I took the pile of Figgy Pudding must-have card stock off a classroom chair and put it on a shelf in my Craft Room. (I actually have a path to that closet...)

Since I was very good and had cut up all my card stock for the class kits Friday night, I decided to go ahead and assemble the kits. I was almost done when I found I was short about 6 sets for one of the cards and one set for another. Sigh. I had to get the cutter back out and cut all of them, and I finally finished assembling all the kits. Done!

Then I vaccuumed. Why do I vaccuum before my classes? Because I do not vaccuum afterwards! I make way more of a mess than all 15 of the other women do, so it is pretty clean after my classes as far as I am concerned. :-)

Then I actually put away all the accessories from my play-time projects. I figure one thing at a time, and it will eventually get done. I celebrated in between these baby-steps by playing some more. I have cards in my head and they need to come out!!!!

I saw this technique on Nichole Heady's blog the other day and I knew I had to try it. I decided to break out a different color than she used (a CASE, but with my own twist) and I ended up using Teal. Teal is so not a 'me' color, but I thought it would look very cool with this technique. As is my way, I got most of it done, then got stuck with the finishing part. I finally ended up with this:

Recipe: Stamps - Warm Words, Garden Silhouettes; Paper - Taken With Teal, Tempting Turquiose, Naturals White; Ink - Tempting Turquoise; Other - Old Olive and Cameo Coral markers, small & large Oval punches, Antique Brass HPH.

I think the HPH might be a bit too heavy for the rest of the card, but for now it stays. I can see a variation of this as a project for my February classes!

Here is another one I managed to finish today. I started this card last week for the SCS Faux Silk Wednesday Tutorial, but as usual, I got stuck trying to finish the card. But I needed to clean up, so I thunk and I thunk and finally ended up with this:

Recipe: Stamps - True Friend, All Holidays, Floral bg; Paper - Sage Shadow, Pale Plum, Basic Gray, Whisper White, tissue paper; Ink - Sage Shadow, Basic Gray; Other - Photo Corner punch, Sage Shadow and Pale Plum markers, Vintage brads, Basic Gray taffeta ribbon, paper piercer.

I was soooo stuck making this card. I had the white and Pale Plum layers on the Sage Shadow with a white ribbon and I just stared at it. For days. I changed out a white ribbon for the Basic Gray one and I added a Basic Gray layer of card stock to help tie it together and stared at it some more. Then today I went nuts and added the photo corners with the brads and decided the card was going to cost a bazillion dollars to mail if I did not stop, so I stopped. I kinda like it, even. :-)

Now I really need to set up my stations for tomorrow's classes! One down and four to go! Yikes! As I got ready to clean off the rest of my tables, I discovered this pile of scraps that resulted from a mis-calculation while cutting card stock for one of the class projects. (I measured for the long side of the card when the pieces were supposed to go the short width, so all of them had to be trimmed ... story of my life.)

Aren't they just screaming to be used? Maybe I will reward myself with some play time, after I finish setting up for tomorrow. :-)