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!