Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Over The Edge

I have been playing with my Spiral Punch from Stampin' Up! for the past few days, and instead of focussing on new ways to use the punch itself, I have been distracted by the little punch-OUTS resulting from the use of the punch. I have a neat little pile of the thingies on my work spot, and, well, I lost focus for a moment, or two, or four.

Let me add that there USED to be a pile of them on my work spot. As I said, I got distracted and actually used them.

It all started while I was busy CASEing a card I saw. As I neatened up my tiny area, I noticed these punch-outs and thought they were WAY too cute to toss, so there they sat for a while. After my CASE, which used the frog from the SU Unfrogettable set (LOVE him!), I glanced over at the neat little pile of punch-outs and thought, "Hmmm, what could I use these for..." and started playing with them. All of a sudden it hit me - dumbbells! Use the frog and have him holding dumbbells! So 5 minutes later, this is what I had:

Isn't he just too cute?

Anyway, after work tonight I felt a burning need to continue with the creative process. I was sitting at my table staring at the punch-out pile, pondering my next move, when my pal Marianne called. I mentioned that I thought these things could be used like tinker-toys, or maybe like those chemical molecular structure things from back in Chemistry class. Marianne wondered aloud if there was a molecular diagram for the rubbah molecule. I thought she was joking, but I looked it up real-time (don't you love being able to multi-task?) and THERE IT WAS! OMG, I could not believe it. The Plan was coming together.

Marianne muttered something about her concern for my mental stability and left me to myself, but not before I promised to create a rubbah molecule card before night's end! As promised, here is what came out of that effort:

If there are any Chemistry Majors out there, please, no flaming. I see this as an "artistic interpretation" of a rubbah molecule.

So what, you may be asking yourself by now, does this have to do with crooked stamping? In fact, there IS no stamping on this card! However, after I completed sticking all those #$(^%#$ punch-outs on the paper, I noticed they run uphill. And the really sad part is the background printed on the paper is text from the Web site from which I "borrowed" the definition of vulcanized rubbah. What this means is, I had straight lines to use as a guide, and I STILL stuck those babies on crooked.

See, nothing has changed.

Anyway, that's my creative effort for this evening. Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Welcome to my world!

I told myself I would not start a blog - who has time? But I thought I'd give it a shot and see how it goes.

For those who do not know me, I have been stamping for about five years, and I have been a Stampin' Up! Demo for almost three years. I am addicted, as are most stampers, and I am weak. Fortunately I live in a very small place, so the lack of storage space directly influences what I can purchase and how far out I can branch (not far!)

I chose this name for my blog since one of the features of most of my workshops is the challenge of folding card stock I have pre-cut and hoping it is square. Or layering my pre-cut pieces of card stock and expecting them to be even. HA! We just think of it as an element of entertainment and move on. Hey, it's all about the "idea", right? I do provide a free trimming service, or the loan of a trimmer for those who need to fix it right.

Seriously, I do try! I think it is my cutter. I spent a ton of money on a Carl cutter. It was supposed to save me a lot of time prepping for my workshops, because I could cut multiple pieces of card stock at one time. Well, I can!! But if anyone expects the pieces to be straight (or square), I still need to do one at a time, or two at the most.

One of my fellow stampers tried my cutter and said it is not me, it's the cutter. I would dearly like to believe that it is not operator error. Yes, I change the mat and the blade. No, it does not help much past the first few sheets of card stock.

But my customers keep coming back, so I guess they are over it. I, however, have a dream that some day I, too, will create a really good card. For now, I must satisfy myself with "pretty good", and continue to plug on!

As time moves on, I will share some of my challenges and creations. Maybe my "coming out" will help me achieve my goal.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll chat with you again soon!