Crafting and Home Repair

First, let me say, "I love what I do!" I got into stamping because a friend of mine did, and after she sent me a card she'd made...I was hooked. I really liked the craft, and my goal was to sell my cards at local markets and craft shows, which I do. That whole Stampin' Up! Demo thing just happened along the way. :-)

So anyway, today was the first day of the weekly May-October Farmers Market in our community, and one of my customers (a repeat customer, at that!) was admiring one of my Father's Day cards. This one:

This is actually a case of another card I'd made last year with Mom quotes. This Father version of the sentiment is a variation of the Bern Williams quote: "Sooner or later we all quote our Mothers." A lightbulb had gone off when I was making the Mom cards for Mother's Day and I decided to switch it up a bit and make some for Father's Day, too.

I printed the sentiment on vellum with my ink jet color printer, and since it stays wet for a while on vellum, it is perfect for embossing.

When you lift up the vellum, this is what is stamped on the card underneath. The stamp is from River City Rubber Works, and of course I have both the Dad Sayings and the Mom Sayings. I laugh every time I read them, too!

(The image is really stamped straight on the card ... I took the photo on an angle ... no, really.)



Back to my story. The woman's Father had passed away a while ago, and she was buying several copies of this card to send to her Mom and Brothers. She thought it would be a good idea for everyone to get this Father's Day card and take a few moments to remember their Husband and Father. I thought that was a really, really neat idea. I love it when I can inspire people to think outside the box!

In additon to making a great sale, since she bought all I had (plus ordered some more), I spent this evening making more, which gave me an opportunity to use some of my ribbon stash! Unfortunately none of my Ribbon Outlet stash, but I did make a very small dent in my Box Of Blue ribbons. Yay! Here are two of the alternate ribbons I used:










I also went through quite a few of the ribbon slides from my accessories stash. What a bonus! :-)

Now about that Home Repair thing. I read on SCS that Crystal Effects can be used as glue on all sorts of repair projects. The one I used it for was to re-attach the rubber strip to the bottom of my front door. Worked like a champ!

The most recent episode of crafting and Home Repair involved one of those Pesky key-fob things. You know, the little tag thingies you get from stores to have your secret code ready and waiting when you shop in their stores. I think I have 5 of them cluttering my key ring now. The oldest one is from the grocery store, and it exploded one day. The top of the tag just came right off and the rest of the tag fell to the ground. I stuck it in my coat pocket, reminding myself to not forget to figure out how I could get it back on my key ring.

Paper Reinforcers? No. Hmmm ..... Then I changed jackets and promptly forgot about it. I rediscovered it a few weeks ago and re-thunk the reinforcer circle things. I only have white ones, and I did not see how they'd survive the trip through the twisting key ring loop, so I had to think of something else.

Jumbo Eyelets! Yes, that was the ticket! And it was a cinch with the Crop-a-Dile, too! Check this out:

It went onto the keyring way better than the original tag did. Now what would I have done if I had not been a crafter with all these tools at my disposal? Hmmm?

The rest of this evening will be spent stamping my personal stamp on the backs of all these Mother's Day and Father's Day cards, packing them with envelopes into plastic sleeves, sticking on the ole inventory sticker, and calling it a night. Sounds thrilling, doesn't it?

Tomorrow I'll be spending the day making up all five projects for my workshops next weekend. I have ideas, and a few clues, but not too many. It's a good thing I work well under pressure! :-)

And don't forget my "Spot The Mistake - Round 3" challenge. There's less than 24 hours left to post!