Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Today has been interesting, and very enlightening. I had the day off from work with the plan to stamp all day and make a dent in my To Do list.

Before we get to that, I wanted to show you something. Remember the growing Heaplet:

Quite the mess, eh? Well look at it now:

Yep! I worked on that the other day and got it respectable. You can even see the small paper trimmer on the right. I filed all card stock remnants (those worth saving) in the Scrap Heap, and I just left all the patterned and specialty paper remnants here. Everything else got recycled. MUCH better!

Right on top of the now-smaller Heaplet you can see what I identified as my next project:

I get some of my best ideas from my scrap heaps.

Look what else I found lurking in the Heaplet:

I'll bet all you SU veterans know what that is. That green striped and blue striped (and still-hidden pink striped) paper is looooooong-retired, though I have no idea how it came to be part of this relatively-new Heaplet. In fact, I think it may be some of the first DSP I got from SU. I may even have the matching vellum! Remember when SU had the DSP and matching vellum?!?! My challenge now is to USE this stuff. OMG.

Speaking of the Scrap Heap, I have decided to rename it. I think calling these poor pieces of card stock "scraps" is very unfair. When I make a card out of scraps, it's not like I'm digging in the rubbish for pieces of paper. These are not "bad" papers; they are just partial sheets. SO I have renamed my Scrap Heap, and it is now to be known as "The Remnant Heap". Oh yeah, much better. They are now officially "remnants". Done.

But before I could play with the Heaplet remnants, I needed to make headway with my custom orders and my backlog of OMG, I NEED TO MAKE MORE OF THESE projects.

First, I have an order for several copies of cards of which I had only one on hand, and I spent a good part of the day making those. Since I was making two or three of each, I went ahead and made a few more for my farmers market stock. As I worked on them, I remembered why I gave up on mass production. While I like the creative process, I find I don't like going back and re-making more of anything I've already done. So after this batch, my new mantra will be, "Sorry, that's all I have of that design." I think it will help me keep things fresh and moving forward.

That last statement totally negated my OMG, I NEED TO MAKE MORE OF THESE whine. Well, in my mind these are different issues. For example, I am selling a lot of City Cards and 5-packs of plain note cards, so I will make more of them. The note cards are all different, and I like that. The City Cards will remain my only exception to mass production. I am also almost out of graduation cards, which I keep on hand year-round, so I will make more graduation cards, but probably not the same as any I've made in the past.

So after a few hours of working on those cards, I finally took a break and I printed off some more City Cards, then lined them up for the coloring phase:

Here they are staged for coloring, and I've since started in on that effort. I am totally sold out of my Kentlands cards, running low on the Lakelands sets, and I have a special order for that third set. It will take a few evenings this week to finish them.

After I spent a while coloring those, I moved on and treated myself to using the papers in the Heaplet and I made two cards. The futzing and creativity I did with them just reinforced my decision to not go back and re-do older projects. I actually made two cards using the same piece of DSP. Here's the first one:

... and the second one:

I took two pieces of coordinating papers from the Autumn Meadows DSP and used them to cut some of the stripey-ness. A little of the yummy Vanilla Satin Ribbon around the middle, and done. On that first one, I cheated and used a Martha punch on the bottom edge of the vanilla panel; otherwise these would be all SU.

And I am so happy with the much-reduced Heaplet, that I plan to work on the right-hand corner of my Captain's Table and do the same thing. Most of that stuff is UFOs, though, but I can thin the herd by taking all the remnants out of the pile.

So that's it: the new me. No more mass-production or re-producing older designs; keeping up with the Heaplet; "scraps" are now "remnants"; working on the UFO pile; and doing stuff that makes me HAPPY!

Now if you'll excuse me, I am all stamped out and need rest, and lots of it.

Thanks for stopping by!