Bull Dogs, and A Plea

I had occasion two weekends ago to visit a place where the owner was into bull dogs. Like seriously into them. Not only has he owned them for years, his entire house is decorated with bull dog art and trinkets and pillows and stained glass and... and ... well, look at the dude on the front porch:

Seriously. So I thought I'd take my virgin bull dog stamp that I just needed to have (you stampers know how that goes, am I right?) and introduce it to some ink! And I made a card - no really, I did! Lookie!

Oh, my, the two dogs are off center, aka: crooked. Imagine that. And yes, when I bought the bull dog stamp, I picked up one or six coordinating sentiments. Well, I had to, didn't I?

The background paper is part of a piece of 12x12 paper from my still-mostly-full pack of pet papers that I will never in my lifetime use up. But in an attempt to make myself feel a tiny bit better, I hacked the one piece into enough pieces for 9 cards, even though I only made one. Sad, isn't it?

In other news, one of the peeps I follow on Twitter is @GrammarGirl. Surprise (not). Today she hit us with something that still has our heads spinning. You've heard of double-negatives, right? Where using two negatives together in a sentence actually negate each other to where you have a positive statement? Like this: "I don't have nothing." This actually means you do have something. Red Pen persons, such as myself, strike through double-negatives with abandon. We hate intensely dislike them.

Today, @GrammarGirl hit us with a triple-negative. No, really, and when asked for an example, she shared not one, but two. Our heads are still spinning, and I feel a little sick to my stomach. Hold on ... are you ready?

Triple-negative #1:
"The judge refused not to oppose bail." <-- I think this means he did oppose the bail.

Triple-negative #2: "I cannot but fail to agree with you less." <-- I am not sure WHAT this means...

So, is your head spinning yet? Please, I beg of you, under no circumstances are you to ever, ever use a triple-negative in a sentence. If you do, I will hunt you down and edit your document. Oh, and if you can figure out what those phrases/sentences mean, please feel free to comment. Actually, please feel free to comment anyway; you know how we bloggers live for comments. :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

A Mother's Day Card

Sunday I started to CASE this card and ended up with this:

This is a great way to use up paper scraps. Did *I* do that? Nope. I need to have everyone's card come out the same, so I broke into two virgin pieces of Sweet Pea DSP and punched two 1 1/4" squares from each one. Since it's two-sided paper, I got four pieces of pretty-much coordinating patterns and colors.

I rounded two opposing corners of each square. This gave it an interesting look, plus the non-rounded corners were easy to position on the white layer, although mine are, um, er, crooked.

I also learned I need to re-ink my ink pads more often. As is my nature, I'll slave away and futz with a card for a long, long, time until I get it where I'm happy with the result, then I'll totally wreck it when I stamp the sentiment. Like this:

See how faint the one on the card is? See how much better the one stamped on the scrap looks? Yep, that second one was after I'd re-inked the stamp pad. Grrrrrr. But I saved it! I just cut out the second one, rounded the corners, and stuck it over the boo-boo:

Now, if I hadn't told you that piece was covering up a boo-boo, would you have known? Hmmm? :-)

The finished card:


Then, as things go in my world. I realized I don't have enough of the green buttons to go around, so I tried a different version of the card using a blue button:

I also took this opportunity to not round the corners of the green layer, and to stamp the sentiment in green instead of teal. I like to give The Ladies options, even though I know it makes some of them crazy to have to think when they are here.

So now I have all four cards planned for my April Stamp Camps. Woo-hoo! Now I can start working on building up my inventory for my markets that start in ... YIKES - 4 weeks! ACK! *panic sets in*

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Patterns Sketch #57

When my Google Reader goes over 1000, which it does most weeks, it means I am seriously behind in my blog reading. "1000" you say? Not 1000 blogs, oh nononono, that's 1000+ un-read blog posts on the less than 200 blogs to which I subscribe. What part of "behind" was not clear?

The first thing I usually do to make a dent in the numbers is to mark all the challenge blog posts as "read". C'mon, these days it's all I can do to get dressed in the morning; doing card challenges is not high on my list.

But when I saw the latest Card Patterns Sketch, I knew it had to be done. Lookie what I made:


based on this sketch:



See what I mean? Is this not a classic Crooked Stamper go-to layout?!?!? YES, it IS!

Let's talk about the parts-is parts, shall we? Here's that card again:


Except for the card base, almost ALL of these parts came from my UFO pile. And yes, I am very proud. The blue layer I ran through the Big Shot with an SU texture pad; the striped die-cut piece was already that way in the UFO pile; the strip of DSP was cut from a larger piece in the UFO pile; the ribbon was cut fresh from my hoarded In Color ribbons from that year; the sentiment from PTI was stamped in Blue Bayou ink on a piece of Vanilla card stock from the UFO pile that had been stamped with a Hero Arts background stamp; and the bling under the ribbon is from a container I found languishing on the Captain's Table.

This took me about 7 minutes to make, given all the parts were largely already done and just needed some direction for assembly. I love it when things come together like this!

Let's hope I have more success in the UFO department this week. I am terribly behind in getting ready for my summer markets.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Lotta Tulips

More Spring! This card serves two purposes. First, it meets the latest I Want Candy - Enjoy The Little Things Colour Challenge over at Prairie Paperie. Second, it will be one of the four projects for my April Stamp Camps.

Lookie:

Yeah, it's a little busy, but that's only because I messed up on a few things, and it got busier as I fixed them. FYI - The card was totally stolen from inspired by this one, though my fleurs are a much-simpler version of hers. Since I was using so many different colors because Dreena's list of colors is so stinkin' long, I opted to not apply shadows or use a darker color for the back petal. Let's look at those tulips, shall we?

It all starts with this punch:

I used the wing shape for the petals and the leaf shape for the stems. Punch 3 wings from your color of choice:

Here I have the blue ones I mistakenly punched thinking Dreena's loooooong list of required colors included blue, but I was mistaken, so these became my demo wings.

Notice how I have the bottom two with the shaped part facing each other? That makes a nice little frame on the front of the flower. I stuck them together with a mini glue dot:

Then I just stuck the third petal behind them with another glue dot:

I stuck that to the green stem, covering up the top two leaves:

This gave it some stability, and also lets the bottom leaves look like they frame the flower.

I also switched the stems so some faced the other direction:

I used the Ornament punch to make the vase - I just lopped off the point on the bottom. I positioned the stems while looking at the vase from the front and taped them down, then I put a bazillion Dimensionals on the back:


Ta-Da!

It looked nekkid, so I thought I'd add two green wings/petals as leaves:

But THEN, OMG, I realized the grievous error of my ways. I went to my stash of Every Color SU Card Stock and retrieved a piece of Almost Amethyst to use as the base (Have you ever seen me use Amethyst? Nuh-uh.) which is when I realized I'd used Pale Plum for the purple flower instead of Amethyst. ACK! Well, I was, after all, working out of a dimly-lit box of every color scraps, so I could be forgiven for this boo-boo, but nooooooo, I wanted to do it right, so to fill in those spaces, I punched more petals and stems and ended up with this:


Yep, that's how I roll. I'm not sure The Ladies will need to make all of these flowers, even though *I* did in order to meet the stinkin' loooooooong list of colors in the challenge. (Oh, Hi, Dreena. *waves*)

That's it for today. I need to go finish up my (cover your eyes, Dreena) taxes and maybe do some other delinquent paperwork around here.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Floral Birthday

Yes, sir, it only took me THREE days to make this card. And it started out as a total CASE of this one. I can't even 100% steal something within three days... I haven't lost just my mojo, I've lost my touch!

So finally, after staring at this thing all day today while I worked on my (cover your ears, Dreena) taxes, I finally got a clue and changed up the base layers to create this:

I gave up on the layering in an effort to avert a mutiny during my Stamp Camps, and I replaced her white & olive layers with just the Pretty In Pink layer. I am, of course, out of any appropriate color pack of DSP to use instead, and though I thought about an expedited order to save myself, I decided plain pink would work.

I ended up using markers to color the flowers, and though this was my last choice, I think it was the easiest option to execute. Prior to this, my failed attempts included ink + blender pen and also Watercolor Wonder Crayons + water, both on watercolor paper, which I love, but (surprise) don't have enough of to go around even if it did work. (Another reason for an expedited order was averted!)

I also skipped her black contraband bling and opted for the SU black marker to color the centers of the flowers:


I call it a Good Demo moment. Also notice the shading I did around the flowers with the much-ignored Going Grey marker. I think it helped to ground the flowers a little.

During the wet experimental stages, I made up this handy-dandy water container:

It's an empty Flower Soft container, which comes with a screw-top lid. I put a little water in it, and when I'm finished with it, I can cover it and set it aside (read: bury it somewhere) on the Captain's Table without fear of it (1) just drying up, or (2) more likely spilling over everything. And don't be fooled by this seemingly normal-looking crafty space. Nuh-uh. See that inky grid paper? That's pretty much the available space. Yep. It's bad. Real bad.

Once again you have been saved from a barrage of photos of blooming flora and fauna. But this week I hope to get to DC one day at lunch time to take pics of the blooming cherry trees. OMG, they are reason enough to live here! Let us pray for no wind, no rain and no frost between now and next weekend, which is the projected peak date for the blossoms. *fingers crossed*

Thanks for stopping by!

A 50th B'day Card

Spring has sprung! Hey, that reminds me of a little ditty from my childhood:

Spring has sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the bridies iz?!

I know, I know. The weird stuff in my brain is never-ending.

For those of you still here, I was going to post a bunch of photos I've taken the past few days. DC is GOR-JUS this time of year, and it gets better and better every day. But you got lucky and I actually finished a card, so I'll share that instead.

My friend Phyllis is turning 50 on Sunday. Since I am older than she is, I am taking a certain license with how much fun I make of this milestone in her life. For starters, I thought I'd make her a card. (Imagine that.)

Did you know that card MAKERS are the absolute worst card SENDERS? It's true! I think we've even discussed this before. We have a bazillion cards everywhere, so you'd think we would just grab one and send it, right? WRONG! When making a special card, like for someone we KNOW, just any old card will not do. Nope, it needs to be special for that special person. Most of the time we run OUT of time and end up sending nothing at all.

So why, you ask, do I bring this up now? Have you checked your calendar? Today is Thursday, and it is Thursday NIGHT here on the right coast of the USofA. That means there are only two days remaining that mail MIGHT be handled and maybe delivered. Oh, did I mention she is IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, like ACROSS SEVERAL OCEANS? Yeah, this will be late.

So ANYway, this is what I've made over the past few days:


Her favorite color is green, so naturally I selected a vintage-y paper with no green in it what-so-ever. I did get lucky, though, because the 6x6 scrap of striped paper was laying right next to a piece of the yellow & pink-ish paper, and I just happened to notice they coordinated! Yep! That third in from the left stripe on the background paper is the same as the piece I used to cover the numbers. (yay!)

This was hard. Real hard. I cannot remember when I've futzed quite so much with two pieces of chipboard. But I persevered and I think it came out fine. I ended up coloring the edge of the chipboard with a black marker in an attempt to get some contrast.

I was quite proud of myself for using some of my Pretties kit - this may be the first time I've used one of the stick pins.

The last thing I did was add some swirls to the numbers with a glitter pen. See:

This marvelous, glittery suggestion came from one of my Tweeps, @paperbatty, who I am actually going to get to meet in late April. YAY!

Then, because the outside of the card was so pretty, I decided to be just myself, and I stamped this on the inside:

It's actually straight on the card (no, really, it is!); I just turned the camera so the image was not in a shadow. (Seriously, it is straight ...)

As an added bonus, let's examine the elephant in the room:

See anything out of order here? Let's take a closer look:


Yep! I schmeared ink on the inside. I am an idiot. Ah, well, since there are no mistakes in stamping, only opportunities for embellishment, I see an opportunity here. Big time.

Now I need to go make another card for my April Stamp Camps. I'll be back when I've made one, or I may slip in those blooming bushes and trees photos. You'll be able to gauge my success based on what I post next. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by!

CASEd Peacock

I stamped something! Really, I did! Lookie:


This is a total CASE of this card. She used Nestabilities for her beautiful layers, but as we all know, Nesties are considered "contraband" in an SU workshop, so I had to come up with something else.

Thursday night, while I was working on this (see? I told you it takes me 3 days to make a card!) I decided to leave the layer a square and just round the corners. Idiot that I am, I used the Ticket Corner punch instead of the Corner Rounder. That's the point where I tossed the piece onto what's left of my work area on the Captain's Table and called it a night. My CASE had failed, so I did a meme instead.

But LAST night, I got a clue! I embraced my happy Ticket Corner mistake and added a Basic Gray layer behind it. What you don't know is that I was an idiot yet again, and I put the dimensionals behind the grey layer before I punched the grey corners, and the punch didn't fit! I had to cut the corners by hand. Oh, the sacrifices I make for my craft...

I also opted for just a knot instead of a bow. As a workshop card, The Ladies will appreciate the no-bow on a project.

In keeping with my "no contraband" theme, I could not use the silver pearls she used, and while SU now has bling, it's only in the one kit, and I certainly don't have enough to go around, so I opted instead to use silver brads on the left, and the - OH, CARP, we don't carry the Ziggy gold/silver pen any more. FOOEY! Ah, well, I used it here on the peacock's tail. Well, it used to be an SU product.

On that note, I think I'll see if I can spend some time out doors today. It's supposed to be 72 here on the Right Coast, and I love it!!!! Happy Spring!

Have a good day, and thanks for stopping by!

color memeage

Major FAIL in the card-making arena tonight. I couldn't even do a 100% CASE. Sigh. So to let you know I am still alive (and I just know you were worried about me), I decided to post a meme. One of my Tweeps, @MariAdkins, posted a meme on her blog and I commented, so I get to do one now.

Comment on this entry if you want to play along and I will give you a color, or just pick a color and go with it - I won't tell anyone. I'm supposed to list ten things that I like/love that are my assigned color, and Mari gave me orange. ORANGE! I begged her for green, so she gave me orange. Okay, ten things I like/love that are orange:

1. Naval oranges
2. My "This IS my costume" button I wear every October 31st.
3. Fall/Autumn leaves
4. Pumpkins
5. Um ...
6. Er ....
7. Cheddar cheese (not from Wisconsin)
8. My XL baggy sweatshirt
9. Ugh ...
10. (I give up)

OMG, I can't even do a stinkin' meme! Sigh. I am a mess. I need help.

Must be time for bed. I am stepping away from the laptop, and going to bed now. Really, I am.

I hope you come back some time when I have actually been crafty. *watches the numbers drop in readership ...*

Sorry about that.

The Remains Of The Day

Today was my standard Tuesday off after my weekend of Stamp Camps. But before I get to today's adventures, let's take a peek at what we did Sunday & Monday, shall we?

Here is my standard Mis En Place - everything was cut and neatly stacked in front of their respective serving suggestion and necessary supplies.

After assembly of the kits, I found it necessary this month to set up an auxiliary station in the Kitchen:

I needed the Big Shot for a texture plate, and the circle cutter to, well, cut a circle. I decided I was not going to pre-prep this time, so this station was needed.

As always, several people found the urge to deviate from my suggested cards, which is not only fine, it is encouraged! Here is my original sample of this card:


For theirs, though, they were supposed to use the 1 1/4" circle punch instead of the 1 3/8" punch I used here, then layer that on a 1 3/8" black circle. Here is what one crafty lady did, that was then copied by a bunch of others:

(Please excuse the lighting ...) She asked for the Scallop punch and punched out the remaining scallop edge and layered the circles on top of it with Dimensionals. Lookie:

Niiiiice. Most of the Ladies did the same thing, or at least took the scalloped piece home. Then in walked BR#2. Now you must understand she has been stamping since they used hammer & chisel, and she sees my serving suggestions not as suggestions, but as challenges. That's right... as in, " how different can I make this before she kicks me out?" Check out her version of this card:

I love when people are comfortable enough to step this far out of the box. She's a little scary sometimes, but the result is always fun.

Then we had this card:

I was going for simple, yet classy. Some people mixed up the felt flowers a little bit by using some different ones from the pack, and one person just flipped it on its side like this:

... and used a ribbon scrap as an additional accent. Very clever! And less waste for me!

After Monday night's session, I actually cleaned up the three tables and this is what I had left at the end of the clean-up effort:

That's it! Just the inks, ribbons, blocks, and a few stamps that were waiting for me to find their boxes. Oh, that stuff in the back (on the right, really)? That lives there. I have no where else to put them, so they live here permanently.

In other news, I did leave the house on Saturday to run a few errands, and along the way I saw this car:

I am intrigued by this car - A Nissan Cube. I've seen them before, but I never noticed the back has a really bad blind spot on the driver's side. Weird.

I saw this in a parking lot. Whoa:

Her 13th Mary Kay Cadillac. That's a lotta makeup! My, my, my!

Then today. I must tell you about today. Day off, right? So I had scheduled Sears to come out and figure out why my oven was flashing the F-10 error code. I looked it up before I called, and it has something to do with electronics. Given that I have a healthy respect for electricity, I made the call to have a professional come look at it. He came, he looked, he said nothing was wrong. He could replace the electronics and see if that made it stop, but suggested I save myself the money and just use the oven and call back if it happens again within 90 days. If it does, the almost $100 I paid for him to show up will be applied to my repair bill. Well, that was nice.

So I went to the store to buy food I could cook. I KNOW! I went to a different store than my usual one, since I had also stopped at Chloe's to see if any cards sold (9 - NINE - sold! Woo-hoo!). This store has the self-scan-while-you-shop gizmo:

Since it was a Tuesday afternoon, and there were actually more employees in the store than shoppers, I took a chance. I mean, I am a computer person, right? And I've seen the check-out people scan my items for a bazillion years, right? And I can wand stuff at IKEA and even at the self-check-out at the grocery, right? So how hard could this be, right? RIGHT?

Look at this thing:

It has a "shoot" button, right under where her thumb is. You line it up with the bar code, scan the item, then put it in a bag in your cart. At the end of your shopping trip, you scan the END bar code at the register, and pay. Your stuff is already bagged and you are done. Simple, non?

NO! I either got a bum scanner, or I am not smarter than the average bear. It literally worked every other time. I picked up two of the same item and it only scanned one of them. I asked for help. I asked for help with almost every freakin' item I picked up. I decided I was not meant to buy most of it and put it back if it would not scan. Interesting diet technique, don't you agree? You are only allowed to buy what scans, and the rest you have to put back.

Finally I gave up, and in utter frustration I only tried scanning a new item one time, and if it didn't scan, I put it in my basket instead of in a bag. People were laughing at me. Okay, not AT me, but WITH me. One lady watched me frantically scan one of two items, and repeatedly fail with the second one. I exclaimed that I was apparently not smarter than the scanner, to which she replied, Yes, I was, but that second item was obviously free. Interesting approach, I thought.

Oh, and the idea of dealing with loose items in Produce? Didn't happen. Not gonna go there.

So I got to a checkout with two bags half-full, a bunch of unscanned items in my basket, the scanner in my limp left hand, a pleading look on my face, and I exclaimed, "I've failed!!!!" He gently took the scanner from my paw and threw it unceremoniously onto the back of his area, instructed me to please empty ALL of my items onto the conveyor, and he checked me out the old-fashioned way.

I got home and had a glass of wine. Seriously. Can you imagine that adventure on a weekend, with a bunch of people pushing me out of the way and telling me to hurry up? Nu-uh.

So because I've had copious amounts of wine this evening, I thought it best to NOT start my 2009 taxes. I'll worry about them tomorrow.

Oh, are you still reading? Hey, thanks! I'm signing off now, and I hope to get inky again later this week so I have something of substance to show you.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Announcement!

I'm deeply mired in Stamp Camp preparations today, but I thought I'd let you know one of my cards will be part of the next Only The Best Of Esty Sampler! Yay! Click here for the list of contributors this time. The next Only The Best Of Etsy Sampler will go on sale the first week of April. I'll be sure to let you know the exact date when I find out myself!

(so excited)

Irreverence - I Haz It

I've been missing my irreverent thang, so tonight I broke out my new My Favorite Things sentiment set and got to work. I am very proud of this card, mostly because except for the card base itself, it's all from pieces of left-over patterned papers (way too pretty to call "scraps"). Lookie:

Both hearts were cut with my neglected Nestie heart dies. Note: The white heart is attempt #2; I destroyed the first one trying to punch the holes for the ribbon. I ended up punching the holes in just the smaller heart, sticking it to the white one, then using a craft knife to cut through the white layer. Yes, I made things difficult for myself.

Oh, and that white rectangle layer? That's because I had the pink piece originally stuck to a white card base, but I stamped the sentiment crooked, thus wrecking the whole thing. So I just cut it out, leaving the white border, and put it on a pink base instead. SAVE!

Here's a close-up of the sentiment:

(heh heh) Yeah, I like it.

There's no other news tonight, except it's raining big time, so I should at least sleep well. I loooove going to sleep when it's raining outside, when I'm inside, of course.

Thanks for stopping by!

I've Been Featured!!!

I recently joined the CREST group (Capital Region Etsy Street Team), which is a regional (MD/DC/VA) group of people with etsy shops. This is a really neat way to network with your fellow crafty types!

The other day I got an email asking me if I'd write a short description of what inspires me when I make my cards, and they'd publish my piece on the CREST blog on Friday. Well, I said YES, and today, I'm published!

Check it out here. (so excited!)

Crafty Announcement 2 of 2 for MD/VA/DC Peeps

Are you a MD/VA/DC crafty type? Want to participate in a new Fall craft show in October? One of my fellow etsy peeps has secured the Gaithersburg Community Center at Bohrer Park for the event, and we need 60 vendors to register to make it happen.

Here's her blog post with the links, but because this post of mine is so pathetically tiny, I've gone ahead and copied the info here:

Falling for Handmade CREST Craft Show

Event: Falling for Handmade: Capital Region Etsy Street Team Craft Show
Date: 10/16/2010
Time: 10AM - 4PM
Location: Bohrer Park, Gaithersburg, MD
Now Accepting Applications: Email me at jennifer.craftystitches at gmail dot com for vendor applications

Please contact her if you are interested in participating! Thanks!

Crafty Announcement 1 of 2 for MD/VA/DC Peeps

It's finally official! I have been trying to find a venue to hold a Crafty Yard Sale - where people would rent tables to sell their excess crafty supplies (or in my case, my unnaturally large collection of retired SU stamp sets), and the crafty community would come shop and BUY OUR STUFF. At last, it has been arranged! YES!

I spoke with the activities director at the Thomas Farm Community Center in Fallsgrove (Rockville), and the City of Rockville is actually sponsoring the event. Here's the details:



Here's the contents of their letter:

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

The City of Rockville’s Thomas Farm Community Center is working with a local stamping and scrapbook artist and is sponsoring a stamping and scrapbook yard sale. It is a great opportunity for you to sell your craft supplies you no longer need. The yard sale is Saturday, April 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The community center is located at 700 Fallsgrove Drive in Rockville at the intersection of West Montgomery Avenue, Fallsgrove Drive and West Gude Drive; only a few miles from Route 270.

The cost for a space with one table and two chairs is $20 for City residents and $25 for nonresidents. Finished products will not be sold, however, craft supplies, such as, stamps, ink, paper, tools and books are welcome.

You can register by visiting the City of Rockville’s web site at www.rockvillemd.gov calling the center at 240-314-8840 or visiting the center in person.

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

So if you have stuff you want to sell, please give them a call and snag a table. The bigger and better we make this event, the greater the chance we can make it annual! How fantastic would that be?!?!?

If you don't plan to sell, please plan to come shop!

Thanks!!

This Little Piggy ...

This little piggy ... did NOT go to market. Nope! This little piggy is a card I mocked up for the YouthZone organization to be used as Thank You cards for their annual Kiss-N-Squeal charity event.


My personal challenge here, aside from the fact that they talked with me about this last summer, and I am just now getting to it, is that I decided I wanted two pigs kissing, but that meant I needed to figure out the mirror technique. HA!

I just love this pig stamp from the retired SU "Walk This Way" set. He's cartoon-y, which is what they wanted, and he is unloved, stuffed into my "don't sell these yet, I don't think" stamp set drawer. Whew! Glad I held onto it!

So the challenge (MY challenge): the mirror technique. All the write-ups make it sound sooooo simple. Just stamp it onto a large, smooth stamp image, or (as a few of my Tweeps suggested) an acrylic block or a piece of acetate or the image sheet from the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, all of which I tried. And all of which failed. I used pigment (craft) ink in an attempt to get a better image, but it was not to be. Then one of my Tweeps suggested I try the brayer. I did, and IT WORKED. Well, it was WAY better than anything else I'd tried, so I went with it. I inked up the stamp and laid it ink-side-up on my workspace (or what's left of it), rolled the brayer over the inky image, then rolled the brayer onto my card stock.

If you look closely (and I know you will), the image on the right is a little lighter than the one on the left. BUT, since I was cutting them out anyway - why I do this to myself I'll never understand, I think it minimizes the difference in the intensity of the inked images, so I am safe.

They want 10 of these, so I have some cutting to do, assuming this design will be accepted. But at least I finally have a plan!

In other news, we had a Soups & Stews cook-off at work today. I was coerced into entering my quickie crock pot beef stew, and I figured out if I cut up everything the night before, tossed it into the crock pot, and left it to cook all night, I could just take it to work in the morning and be done. This was actually a sound and reasonable plan, and it worked! In an attempt to help stabilize the crock pot so it didn't dump all over the car in transit - been there, done that, bbq meatballs, white slacks, new car carpet, smelled wonderful for about 2 years - and I really didn't want to go there again, I used a container of kitty litter I've been storing in my car - and that was also a sound plan. However, my condo, my clothing, my car - EVERYTHING - smells like eau de beef stew, and will for days, I am sure. Oh, and no, I did not win. Ptthththt.

I'm off to send this pic to the YouthZone peeps to see if it passes muster, then I'll come up for air after I'm done with all the cutting.

Thanks for stopping by!

More Vintage-y Cards

I'm still working on that same piece of 12x12 Graphic 45 paper, and I managed to make three more cards this past weekend.

First is a Wedding card:

This image reminds me of one of my Tweeps, @BrownEyedPea, who always has a vintage-y type avatar. In keeping with my MO for my previous cards from the same piece of paper, I went minimalist and only dry-embossed the card front and heat-embossed the sentiment (I remembered this time!)

And that ribbon? Did I plan to tie it like that? No, I did not. I messed up with the embossing plate and missed that edge of the card front, so to save myself from myself, I decided it needed a vertical ribbon.

Moving on. This little, harmless-looking image caused me no end of heartache and sacrificed card stock this weekend. I've worked with it for three days, and finally I changed the card base from So Saffron to Apricot, and the rest was easy.

Well, except that I almost sent out an APB for my Apricot ink pad. I looked through every color in my Color Caddy and I looked right past it every single time. Pththth.

The background stamp image is from Hero Arts, and the sentiment is from Eat Cake Graphics.

Lastly, I bring you another image with the same background and sentiment as above:


I have about 7 or 8 more images to go. Who knew it would take me weeks to make all these cards from one piece of 12x12 paper. I'm definitely getting my money's worth, but still, not a lot of paper is being consumed here, people. I need to rethink my approach. From now on I do believe I'll use the patterned backs of these papers to make them disappear faster!

In other news, I never left the house on Sunday, so after work tonight I had about 7 errands to run. Being a logical person, and hating not going straight home, I made a mental circle with all my planned stops, and I did pretty okay, considering. Post Office - check. Drop order off at a customer's house - check. Go to the mall {shudder} to pick up my shoes from the repair shop - check. While there, pick up some bulk candy for this weekend's Stamp Camp project - check.

Then I headed across the street to see if the haircut place I used to use was still there, because I couldn't find them online, and they were there, so I'll need to try them again tomorrow.

Headed towards home and the next errand ... and I FAILED! I FAILED! My car went into auto-pilot and I turned left at the light instead of right, which was AWAY from Staples, where I was supposed to get my tax software. Do you think it was my sub-conscious working against me? Okay, so since I was committed to that direction, I thought I'd stop at the shopping center across the street from me to check out that hair cut place, but AGAIN, my car went into auto-pilot, and by the time I realized I was in the wrong lane, I was pulling into my parking space in front of my building. MAJOR FAIL!

But that's okaaaaaaay, because now I have something to do after work tomorrow. Carp.

That's all I have for you this evening. I hope to get stampy again real soon and have some more crafty goodness for you. Thanks for stopping by!