A Change Of Seasons and Some Random Thoughts

About this time of year I start to get burned out with the whole Farmers-Market-every-weekend thing and the stamping to support it all. Don't get me wrong - I love my Saturday markets, and I LOVE stamping, but being 'on' all the time, with the desire to create something new every week just wears me out after six months. So every year I look forward to the end of the Market season, and start to plan for the few Holiday shows I'll do. This year I'm only doing two, one in November and one in December, so my 'season' ends the first weekend of December. Then all I have planned is a workshop weekend once a month, and I'll have two-day weekends until April, when I start all over again. But by then I'll be well-rested! :-)

And then there's all that other stuff I plan to do every Winter. Like organize The Other Room; and paint the Kitchen; and hang up the stuff in my bedroom that I took down when I swapped bedrooms; and work on book 2 of 3 of my Road Trip scrapbook; you know - things.

Oh, I left out one thing: Holiday cards. Yeah, even though I do not celebrate Christmas, and Chanukkah is "significant" due only to its proximity to Christmas (it is a minor holiday, in case you were wondering), this is the only time of year I stay in touch with people, so I kinda need to have cards. Last year I made my cards on December 24th (I had the day off, okay?) and mailed a few before the end of the year, but I still have a box of them left. What? Did I hear someone suggest I just send them this year and call it done? Oh, nononono. If I do not make new cards, how else can I use up some of this stuff I have?

So last December/January, I saw this really cute stamp with peas on it and the sentiment was "Peas on Earth". How cute is that?!?! I asked Angela to get it for me, and then it was mine! So tonight, since my Figgy Pudding papers were still out, I decided to get out my new (from 10 months ago) stamp and play. It is still October! I know! Crazy, I say, crazy! There MUST be something else I should be doing instead ... oh, well; I'll remember later. But in the meantime, here is what I made:

I took 4 pages of my 6x6 Figgy Pudding paper and cut them to 4 x 5 1/4, then cut those on the diagonal and paired them up with other pieces. I love how this paper goes with SU's Always Artichoke, so I cut some to 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 and stuck the Figgy Pudding pieces to it. The ribbon is SU Artichoke. I wrapped that round, then stuck the layer to a white base. The sentiment is stamped on white and colored with Copics. I used a rectangle Nestie to cut them out, and layered it on an Artichoke layer cut with a rectangle scallop Nestie. Did you notice I am actually using my Nestabilities? The guilt is thick in this house over the Nestabilities.

Here are the four cards I made in about 10 minutes. Okay, maybe 20 - it took a while with that whole Nestie thing with the Cuttlebug.

These were so quick to make, they are definitely in the running for my Seasons Greetings card for this year. OR, I could box them and sell them! Yeah, but I almost never sell my boxes of Christmas cards. People come into my booth at craft shows, heavily laden with holiday decorations and wearing sweaters with snowmen on them, and they look around then ask, "Oh, do you have any Birthday cards?" I kid you not! So maybe I'll sell them online. Maybe. Let's see if I ever make any more of them.

Okay, enough about stamping. Let's move on to some random thoughts. This first one qualifies as an "I need to get out more" item. On my way home from work, I stopped to get my hair cut. Well, I actually got all of them cut. While attempting to enter the parking lot, I could not for the life of me figure out what all the traffic was! Then I saw the mob. Then I noticed it was an endless line of people outside the Chipotle which is two doors down from my stylist. And they were all sporting aluminum foil. I asked my stylist what was going on, and she said that Chipotle does this every year on Halloween. If you come in wearing aluminum foil, you get a free burrito. WHO KNEW?!?!?!? She said this particular Chipotle (and maybe it is only this Chipotle that does the give-away...) has stopped doing it at lunch time and does not start until 6:00 pm now. She said they'd been lining up for hours, and when I left after 7:00 pm, the line was still there. Amazing. Note to self: avoid Chipotle's on Halloween. Have I told you how much I detest crowds?

Moving on ... Didja notice that I had 9 votes in my "Do you love to read" poll? Nine!!!!! That is more readers than I thought I had. Well, I still think I have three (maybe four) readers, and some people who love to vote in polls just dropped by to vote. Yeah, that's it! ;-) Hey, I heart each and every one of youse guys!

So all nine of the respondents LOVE to read! Not like, but love. I am so excited with this new discovery! So what do you think is the reason we stampers love to read? Maybe an escape from reality? Personally, I have always loved reading, but now I only read at night, in bed, and I use it to help me escape into a story that helps take my mind off everything else that might keep me from falling asleep.

Speaking of which, time to hit the hay. The cat has mosied into the Kitchen and is patiently waiting for her bed-time treats. Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Stamping

I fell in love with the Hero Arts frog, and I had to make him mine! So as soon as I saw he was part of a set, I emailed Angela and asked her to please set one of these aside for me, and she obliged. She has never talked me out of a thing! :-) I picked him up on my last field trip over the river (the trip when I met up with June), and he's stayed quietly in his bag until last night, when I retrieved him and his friends because I had an idea.

I had seen this sketch, and thought the Hero Art stamp set critters would work well. I decided to grab a pack of Basic Grey Figgy Pudding paper from last year (I have three packs of the 6x6...) and maybe use some of it. This is what came out:

It's a little busy for me, but I still kinda like it. I'll say I used the sketch as inspiration, because I think my circles are a bit too large (I had to pop up two of them so they overlapped and fit on the card!), plus my patterned papers were so busy I needed to stamp the sentiment in between the strips. But hey - I used both my new stamp set and some of last year's papers. Yay, me!

That's it for tonight...I'm making up for that tome I posted last night! Methinks I'll hit the hay early. Thanks for stopping by!

Organizing, Crafting, and a G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y!

It all started innocently enough on Sunday. I thought I'd go through the three+ boxes of stuff from SU I have piling up in here and take stock of what I forgot I had. The good news is I got it mostly down to one box. (yay) The bad news is I have an embarrassingly LARGE amount of stuff that I actually did forget I had. I decided to put away as much as I could, since The Other Room really does not have the space, which is why it was piling up in the Living Room in the first place. Wanna see the "after"?

Here we have a stack o' card stock:

Mostly Whisper White and Very Vanilla. One can never have too much White or Vanilla card stock. Well, maybe one can. You see, when I place a Demo order, I try to hit $150 to get some free stuff. Yes, I do the math, albeit Demo Math, but I will not take an order from $120 to $150 to get a free set I do not want. The numbers just don't work for me. So you see, I do have some level of restraint. ;-) So ANYway, for the times when I do hit $150 and get $15 in free merchandise, guess what? A pack of WW or VV card stock is $7.50, and twice that is an even $15.00. No muss, no fuss, no MATH. So I am not too surprised to have this much on hand, but I was a little surprised that I had ordered that much of it recently. I did put it away, mostly.

Next we have a pile o' adhesives, which I also try to use as order fillers:

We do go through a lot of Dimensionals and Glue Dots at my workshops, so I need a bunch on hand. And that Red Tape is (was) for a workshop project I never got to, but if I ever DO, I am READY!

Next we have the really embarrassing part - DS paper:

This is some from the retiring stuff from July & August that I stockpiled because I loved it, but mostly from the new catalog (read: since August). Ugh. I had forgotten I had some of it, which is not hard to do considering how much of it I have. I do have two or three packs of some of the patterns (I think for two of the papers) as I'd planned to use it for ... a workshop project that just never happened. You see, when I DO think up projects, it is usually the week before the workshops, and there would never be time to order the extra papers and get them in time. Soooo, when I think about it, I order three of something I like, with plans to use it. It's just the "using it" part that fails me.

And when it was all done, I was left with this partial box o' stuff:

There is a stack of Rub-ons there in the back, some of them from as far back as SAB. I have no repository in The Other Room for rub-ons, so here they languish. I also have some ribbon (surprise!), and several containers of Jumbo eyelets, um, from another planned-and-never-executed workshop project.

Oh, and that 3-pack of tins on the right side of the box? That was for an idea I had to use up some of the retired 3x3 Love Notes I have left over. I was going to make some number of Love Notes, all decorated nicely, and put them in the tins with a fancy, schmancy belly band and sell them at my holiday craft shows (all 2 of them this year.) But the tins cost $3.33 each, so I am not sure I'll be able to make any money on them, so I never pursued the project.

Ya know, if I could ever remember all these great ideas I have over the course of the year, I might have my next workshops' projects all planned out. HA HA HA HA HA! Oh, that's too funny. I crack myself up sometimes.

To celebrate the consolidation of all that stuff, I took out the pack of SU Chipboard Ornaments Kit I'd bought in a Good Demo moment and decided to assemble them. Many, many, many (many) hours later, I had made these:

Let's go through all of them, shall we? Here we have some words (all of the chipboard pieces, by the way, have patterned die-cut papers stuck to both sides of the chipboard):


And some more words, and some round things with star punch-outs in the middle:

And some plain ornament shapes:


And some funky-shaped ornaments:

And some long thingies:


And some Fleur de Lis (outers):


And some Fleur de Lis (inners):

And one heck of a lot of stars:


Phew! Man, oh man, but that's a lotta chipboard ornament parts! Unfinished chipboard ornament parts, in my case, because I stopped right there and put it all away. You see, I do not "do" Christmas, so I will never, ever use these things. But I can tell you, if you do Christmas, and you like to decorate your house and your tree and maybe even your packages with pretty things, and if you were to take these babies to the next level and make them pretty with glitter and some of those stars and some, oh, I dunno, ribbon, then punch holes in the tops so you can hang them easily, this would be one good deal. But not for me. I think I'll give them to my customers and maybe they can make something of them.

And if you are still reading (amazing ...), there is one more thing. You see, we (yes we) hit a new milestone in Blogland last week. Lookie:


Woo-hoo! You did it again! And to thank you (and I DO thank you!), I am having a real G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y! By "real", I mean not some s-crap from The Other Room. No, siree! This is something from my Kitchen floor! Yes, I have overflow everywhere. Several months ago I bought these:


I had this idea that since I do not cook a lot, but when I do, I make a normal recipe, meaning I have a lot of left-overs, I thought I might prolong the life of these left-overs with a vacuum seal system. Needless to say that all never happened; I had to take these out of the bag to photograph them.

Here is the main attraction:

And this starter kit includes:

Plus a box of Quart and Gallon bags. Hey, when I shop, I shop, okay?

So, do you want to win these goodies? Yeah? Do I hear a YEAH, BABY!? Well, to win these, all you have to do is tell me why YOU deserve to win them over everyone else. That would be why YOU, one of my three (maybe four) beloved readers, is so much more deserving than the others. Got a sad story? Do tell! Do you cook a lot and hunker down for a long, cold, Winter, living off only the food you are able to preserve in your root cellar? Then tell us all about it!

So spill your sob story as a comment on this post before Sunday noon, and I'll pick a winner based on some as-yet-undecided non-scientific method.

See, good things can happen to you here in cyberspace! Comment on!!!!!! I cannot wait to read your answers! ;-)

That's It!!!

I got this in an email today, and I still laugh out loud every time I read it, so I thought I'd share (spelling and punctuation corrected, of course.) Sorry if it's been around before and now it is back again, but it is new to me, so I am sharing anyway. Just move along if it is old news to you. Oh, and pttttht!

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Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D.: Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is an ordinary day's example of how it manifests itself:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway ...

I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I'd brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But, then I think: since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Coke is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye -- they need water.

I put the Coke on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I'd better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the newspaper. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when I get time to read, I'll be looking for the paper, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the newspaper back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed.

The bills aren't paid.

There is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter.

The flowers don't have enough water.

There is still only 1 check in my check book!

I can't find the newspaper!

I can't find my glasses!

I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

And there is a huge flood in the yard from the hose being on all day!

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favor. Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who I've sent it to.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Okay, my dear readers...how many of you are LAUGHING OUT LOUD and NODDING AT THE SCREEN right now? Hmmmmmm? Seriously, I do believe they have described me, to a 'T'! (What does "to a T" mean, anyway? I'll have to go look that up. See, another distraction.)

[ETA: Okay, I looked it up: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/to-a-t.html and http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-toa2.htm. That last one includes the following tidbit: ... The origin that most experts point to, rather cautiously, involves T being the first letter of a word. If this is the case, then tittle is easily the most likely source, since to a tittle was in use in exactly the same sense for nearly a century before to a T appeared (it’s first recorded in a play by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher of 1607 with the title Woman Hater: “I’ll quote him to a tittle”).

We know tittle now mostly in the set expression jot or tittle, meaning some very small amount and in which both words refer to a tiny quantity. Jot comes via Latin from Greek iota, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, which we also still use to refer to some minuscule amount; tittle is from the same Latin word that has given us title, but has usually been taken to mean a small stroke or mark in writing, notably the dot over the letter i.

And you wondered why I never get anything done.]

So ANYway, I have not stamped anything blog-worthy, and I'm tired. I got some new goodies in the mail today, so I'm going to play a little bit before bed. Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Of This, A Little Of That, and SYFY Tip #5

Happy Sunday, everyone! Here in MD it is a beautiful, sunny day. Too bad the market was yesterday, when it was not glorious and sunny. Nope. Yesterday looked like this:

But I was there, as were the farmers and one other crafter. Good thing, too, as that other crafter was the reason we were having a baby shower! We also had our Pot Luck, and let me tell you, these people can COOK! We stuffed our faces and around plate #2 or 3, I whispered to our pregnant crafter that we had a little surprise for her. It truly was a surprise, and it went over very well!

Business was surprisingly busy considering the weather. People came out between downpours and ran through the rain to get their veggies. Now that's some hardy shoppers! I did okay - better than some non-rainy days, even.

One of my SU customers stopped by to pick up her order and also borrow my Top Note die, and she and hubby brought their adopted Bull Dog, Wrigley:

I really tried to get a shot of Wrigley not wriggling, but she knew her Dad had treats in his pocket, so it was a little tough.

And that T-shirt? I thought it was a small people shirt that said Barak Obama, but no, it was a dog T-shirt that said Bark Obama. I hear the other version is John McCanine, or something like that. I tell you, these dog people ...

So when I got home from the rainy market I set in to work on my October belated birthday cards. After a few failed attempts, here is what I ended up with:

Recipe (All SU): Stamps - Upsy Daisy, A Little Birthday Cheer; Card Stock - Sahara Sand, Pacific Point, Bella Rose DS Paper; Ink - Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point; Other - Not Quite Navy marker, Top Note Bigz Die, Silver brads, Silver Hodge Podge, Olive gg ribbon.

My customers with October birthdays already past will get this version:

And a few of them will get this as their ribbon instead of the tied version:

This version is my SYFY Tip #5. I had already employed SYFY Tip #1, but I had still cut the ribbon too short to tie. Rats! Enter the Ribbon Slide. I slipped that baby onto one of the ends of the too-short ribbon, stuck it down with some glue-dots, and it looks like I meant to do that!

So the cards are made and ready to address. That's one thing to check off my list of things to do while not doing other things that need to be done today. One side note: I do not own the Big Shot. I only bought the Top Note Bigz Die and I use my Cuttlebug to cut the shapes. The die fits quite nicely between two B Plates. Sandwich: B-plate, die, card stock, B-plate (I like to have my die face-up so I can place the paper exactly where I want it over the shape.) Too easy! So for those of you who covet the die but don't want to invest in the Big Shot - take heart! :-)

I guess I'll mosey on back to the laundry room and put some stuff into the dryer. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that I hope to get to later today, after I fold the towels, of course, so hopefully I'll have something to share later today or tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

Second Attempt At The Baby Card

I was bummed about last night's attempt at a baby card for tomorrow, so I tried again this evening. But first I stopped at the store on the way home to get them a little something, just from me. Last week I'd asked the Dad-to-be what they did not have yet, but they have everything. They even have Announcement cards and Thank You cards already. What?! Seems they have been trying for this baby for so long, everyone else in the family who's had kids already have given them everything. But he told me they do not have a Baby On Board sign. Gee, thanks. So I picked up this tonight:

and okay, I got these burp pads because they were so soft and cute:

Heaven help me when my kids have their kids. I might be sending them 'little somethings' a lot. I need to stay out of baby stores.

So I decided to use the SU Top Note Bigz Die to make the card and matching bag decoration. (Oh, are you surprised I just happened to have a white bag on hand? I told you I have stuff.) I scavenged parts from the miserable card I made last night and created these:

I like this card a lot better than that other one. There's lots of different blues going on, but I think it all works together. I used a few pieces of yellow ribbon on the bag handle, too, just to mix it up a bit.

You can see I used lots of stuff from the ole Stash, but I did not make a significant dent. I mean, c'mon - ONE BLUE HEART BRAD does not a dent maketh. Not. But I did use several pieces of miscellaneous blue ribbon, so it counts a little.

I have also prepped for my next project by cutting out this pile of stuff:

These are more of the SU Top Note Bigz Die cut-outs, this time out of Bella Rose paper, of which I have much. I am loaning my die to a customer who ordered one for herself, but it is backordered, and I am giving it to her tomorrow, so I actually planned ahead for this effort. And the intended project? Belated birthday cards for all my customer's with October birthdays. I think I'll go ahead and make some belated November birthday cards while I'm at it.

Ach, would you look at the time?! I need to figure out if I am close to being ready for tomorrow's Pot Luck at the market. And toss the laundry into the dryer. Thanks for stopping by!

Domesticity, Other Stuff, and SYFY Tip #4

I am not feeling the Blogger love this evening. Not one bit. First, I noticed last night that when I uploaded several photos at one time, they posted in reverse order. Hmmm. It just happened again, so I think this is one of the many surprise changes that have been encountered in Bloggerland the past few days. The other one was when I tried to post a comment to June's blog this morning and I encountered some crankiness, and not just my own! The darn comment feature had been updated, and it was not happy. I did some research, as is my nature, and I read that this morning Blogger implemented their Beta in-line commenting feature. Boy, what a mess. So as tech-savvy as I sometimes profess to be, I unhooked that baby from my own blog and set it back to the old pop-up window. Ptthhhht!

Domesticity. This used to be one of my stong suits, but not so much any more. I just seems like so much work. But sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do. This weekend we are having our annual end-of-the-season Pot Luck at the market, so of course this involves cooking. I agreed to bring BBQ meatballs because (1) they were a hit last year, and (2) I do not have to cook them until I plug in the crock pot at the market Saturday morning. I did have to stop at the store on my way home from my massaaaaage tonight and purchase the frozen meatballs, but that's all the work I had to do. I've already bought the other ingredients, so all I'll need to do is remember to grab everything Saturday morning. Wish me luck with that one...

But wait, there's more! I cooked a pumpkin last weekend and I wanted to make this sinfull cake for Saturday, too. So I cleared off enough of the counter top to make room for my large mixing bowl and the hand mixer, and I made it. The cake is cooling on the stove as I type, and it smells quite yummy in here.

After I put the cake in the oven I took out several dozen eggs I have collected from my CSA shares (how many eggs can one human consume, after all!?!?!) and boiled them up. They are destined to be Deviled Eggs if I get to them tomorrow evening.

Ack - I am in domestic overload!!!! So I decided to do one more thing for Saturday...I made a baby card. You see, we are also having a surprise baby shower for one of the vendors who is very pregnant and due in December. And me, being a card-maker, would be so embarrassed if I did not make a card. I tried tonight, and I failed. This is one reason my Baby section is a little thin. How can you make an irreverant baby card?!?!? Well, I did see one somewhere that was downright insulting, but we won't go there right now. Let's take a look at my lame attempt at the card.

First, since she does know it is a boy, that part was decided for me, so I went in search of baby blue. I have textured white card stock. I found textured light blue card stock. I have baby ribbon that I finally get to use. And somehow I wanted to include the slot punch for tying the ribbon. Do not ask me why, it was just in my brain at the time. So I set in with my supplies and my remaining 6" square workspace to make this card.

Welcome to SYFY Tip #4. I am totally worthless sometimes. Check out my scored blue card stock:

I could not even get the edges to meet. Sigh. But all was not lost! I pulled out my trusty Scalloped Edge punch and I made it look like I meant to do that:

Ta da! Nice save, huh? I think I should have stopped there, because this is what came out, and I am not liking it very much:

I do not like the white strip. I do not like the slit punches and how I tied the ribbon. The only thing I like about this card are the fuzzy feet brads that I picked up at Angela's last weekend. And I guess the paper is pretty neat, especially since I have had it for five years and finally thought to use it; plus it is a pretty good match for the blue card stock. I really do not think my original idea of using that slot punch and baby ribbon were very well executed here. I may remake this - heck, I have all of tomorrow evening! LOTS of time.

On a sad note (as if that card wasn't sad enough), not only did the Dahlia Guy miss last weekend's market, but when I emailed our coordinator at the City and told her I was in withdrawl, and to please forward my whine to the Dahlia Guy, and then the Dahlia Guy called me, he was calling to say we had a frost and the blooms are toast and the season is over. Say it ain't so!!!! But it is, so no more pretty flowers until next summer.

Well, there's cake to cover and eggs to peel, and the cat is telling me it is past our bed time, so that's enough whining for one evening. I bid you good night.

Just Playing

[Blogger Comment Alert: Blogger changed to a formerly-Beta imbedded comment form, and it does not work for everyone, so I have defaulted my blog back to the old-style of pop-up window. Comment on!]

Sometimes when I get home from work I do not want to think too much, so I play. I take this opportunity to look at some of the many cards and projects I have marked as CASE-worthy and I try a few of them. The first thing I did tonight was make this little guy:

Next to those peppermint patty spiders, I think this bat is Da Bomb! Too cute, and very easy to make. I CASEd it from here. It is just the SU square scallop punch folded in half. Cut two slits on the crease side and bend them back to make the ears. Stick on some googlie eyes and you have a bat! Fun!

Next I went back and found this post in one of the blogs in my faves where I lurk for ideas for SU-Only projects for my workshops (man, were there enough prepositional phrases in there for you?! Ack! There was another one!), so I had to try making it myself. I had a few ideas for making the cattails from both her original post plus one of the comments. Here they are:

Recipe (all materials by SU): Stamps - Inspired by Nature, Best Yet (Hostess), Perennial Favorites; Ink - Always Artichoke, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie; Card Stock - Very Vanilla, Always Artichoke, Choc Chip; Other - 1 3/8" Circle punch, Key Tag punch, Designer Label punch, Horizontal Slot punch, Olive brads, Ribbon Originals Alpine, A. Artichoke gg ribbon.

The two versions are punched cattails and sponged cattails. For the punched one I used the SU Horizontal Slot punch and glued them onto the grass with a 2-way glue pen:

This gives some texture to the card, which I like. They are really easy to just punch out and glue on. But one of the comments on the original post was to use the negative of a single punched-out slot and just sponge the cattails, so I tried that, too. I used a dauber and this:

to make this version:

It is very easy, too, and you can save your punching hand. I think I'll use some version of this card for my November workshops, and I'll give The Ladies the option of sponging or punching the cattails. Or both! :-)

The Ladies will NOT have this option: flocking. Too bad it is retired, but talk about texture! I just "sponged" some 2-way glue through the slot punch negative to get the right shape, or close to it, and stuck on some flocking:

Texture, I've got! I think I might try sponging some brown onto the grass, then flocking over that so it is not so see-through.

Some disclaimers to help you feel better about yourself:

1. I messed up stamping the grass and left too much open space at the top, so I needed to fill it in, and the flutter-by was the ticket for that. I stamped it in Choc Chip, sponged Pumpkin Pie over it, coloring way outside the lines, then cut it out. I stuck it on with a glue dot and curled up the wings a little to make them stand up.

2. I have admired the brown felt ribbon on several projects on blogs and on SCS, but I had no idea what it was. I finally looked it up, and it is part of the Ribbon Originals Alpine ribbon in the Holiday Mini Catalog ... and . I . own . it. It was in one of my SU boxes, never opened, and forgotten. So sad. Sad that it was lonely in the bottom of that box, and sad that I forgot I even had it.

3. I had to mount both the Inspired by Nature and Best Yet sets to make these cards. And I am not sure I've ever used the Perennial Favorites more than once. And I had to look it up to make sure it was not retired...I think it may be on the infamous Dormant List. ETA: Rats! It is retired. Grrrrrr.

4. I stuck the sentiments onto the ribbon with red sticky tape because I had already taped down the brown ribbon and stuck the Vanilla layer onto the Artichoke layer with Dimensionals, so it was going nowhere. I will suggest to The Ladies that they punch their brads through all the layers, or at least through the ribbon so the whole thing lays flatter. (This is why playing is good, because you learn what NOT to do next time. Also, I broke my own rule of: make the parts-is-parts first, then assemble the card. I need to listen to myself more.)

5. I really, really (really) dislike that when I do zoom-in shots, you can see all the boo-boos in details. Ugh. Hopefully you will learn from my mistakes so you can be a better person. That's what I'm here for.

Sunday Projects

Sunday was a stay-home day for me for a change. I did laundry, I stamped, I cleaned something, I cleaned stamps, I stamped, I had breakfast, I stamped. It was a nice, easy rhythm. I thought about going out to get a postage scale, but that meant I'd have to put on shoes, so I opted to not go.

I was talking with June on Saturday about selling cards in coffee shops, when it hit me: Duuuuh! I have like a gazillion coffee-themed stamps. Okay, maybe only 4 or 5, but that's a lot when you never use them. So I got them out, and I also got out some card stock from The Stash and cut it up. I stamped, I cut, I trimmed, I color-matched to the best of my ability, and I made this:

I think the sentiment speaks for itself, and needs to be the star, so I did not bother with a lot of other stuff on the card. Here's the same sentiment on the second background I used:

And here are the other three sentiments:

I also picked up two sheets of coffee-themed paper at Angela's, so I'll use those eventually, too, but probably as Birthday or Thank You cards since I would not want to over-do that whole coffee thing, ya know?

Moving on ...One day late last week I pulled out some more of that pretty patterned card stock I have, and I just could not get inspired as to how to best use it. So it sat there and I glanced at it every so often. Then I got a clue on Sunday and I made two of this card:

Yep! She's great! I used a new sentiment I got on Saturday because I just knew I could use it with this lady image. I think it turned out nice! Isn't that textured card stock pretty?

I also made a few more with the lady and the original sentiment (my one card sold on Saturday) using some of the extra pieces of these papers, because I wanted no pieces left over!

Do you see how her shirt looks striped? That means you can see the brush strokes of the Copic marker. I've read these alcohol markers are better than the dye ink ones because they do not leave a trail, but apparently they do for me. Bummer. I was afraid to go back and blend since I did not want it to come out too dark. I'm sure I'll figure it out one of these days. For now I say she is wearing a rib-knit shirt.

THEN (yes, there's more), I decided to use two new stamps I got Saturday to make Engagement cards. A lot of people look through my very thin Wedding, Anniversary and Engagement section and ask about Engagement cards, of which I really have none. I also picked up two pieces of really pretty paper at Mike's, so I set out to make Engagement cards.

I tried to use the sentiment (Happy Engagement), but no matter what I tried it looked bad. Plain ink, embossed, nothing worked to my satisfaction. I ended up switching to some Stamp A-Peel stickers I have had forEver, so between the stickers and the miscellaneous card stock I used for the bases, I made a pretty decent nick in the ole Stash. Here's the first card I made:

Can't see the sentiment? That's because I stuck it directly onto the busy patterned paper and it got lost. Look:

Also note the pretty gold accents in the paper. LOVE it! So I opted to put the sentiment on some Very Vanilla instead and punched it out with the SU Word Window punch (it was a perfect fit!) Here is another version of the card with the sentiment on Vanilla and this one has a grey card base:

Here's the sentiment up close and personal:

I made all the rest like that second one, and I went back and carefully removed the sticker from the first card and remounted it.

I thought about the guy's blazer and slacks - maybe it is too dark? What do you think about a nice medium grey pinstripe suit? I can easily stamp him on a scrap, color him and cut out the suit to paper piece. I don't get out much, so I'll take any feedback you care to give me on this one.

Ach, now it is bed time again. Catch ya later!