Happy Chanukkah

Yes, there are many different ways to spell Chanukkah. That's because it's the transliteration (spelled like it sounds) of a Hebrew word, and it's possible to spell it many different ways in English. It's all the same thing, though.

So this year I'm way ahead of the game with my holiday cards. I even added several people to my Christmas list, and I still had more cards made than I needed. See how nice it is to make cards one at a time, all year long? I went through my list, and chose a card from my pile that I thought suited the recipient. For example: some might not appreciate the snark, and I did have a few of those in my stack.

I think sending cards to fellow card-makers is the toughest part. It makes me very self-conscious, especially if the recipient is really, really good, and my card is meh, and crooked. But you know what I've learned? People don't want you to make cards that you know they would like. Nope. People want a card that screams YOU! That way you are giving them a piece of you, and that's what this is all about, right?

So, Christmas cards ... check.

Time to make my Chanukkah cards. I've spent a few days on this, and may I just say that I'm so very glad I buy Neenah Solar White card stock by the ream?  Yeah, I made 16 card fronts, and was about 3/4 of the way done when I ditched my idea and started over. I did!

You see, the card I made was very much like last year's card, and the more I worked on them, and the more boo-boos and ink smudges I made, the less I liked them. So yeah, I started over.

I shockingly went very CAS, too. Here's my card:

See? So. Much. White. But I'm good with it. I CAN DO THIS!  And yes, I DID color all of them. My blending skills still need work, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I decided not to add any silver to the colored image, and instead ran some thin silver foil washi tape down the sides of the card base before I stuck on my white panel.

I've also addressed all of my envelopes, and stuck each person's card into their envelope. Now I just need to write them. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

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Random Friday

I AM NOT DEAD! Nope, just totally lacking in any mojo whatsoever. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Goose eggs. Nuthin. HOWEVER, I have taken a few pics this week, so I thought I'd share them with you, if only to get you ready for tomorrow's market pics. :)

1. I got some happy mail! Now I must remind you of my lack of photographic skillz, so you just KNOW all this stuff looks WAY better in real life than I can capture here.

My happy mail was from Stefani of Pine Tree Designs. Make sure to check out her blog for her new in-the-works stuff, too. She was going to send me a name tag I could stitch and wear for my holiday shows, but she included a BUNCH more stuff in the box. She is a sweetie. Here's a few of the items:

A post-it note holder:

Look at that detail! Whoooeee! (Please ignore the bent corners that I just pointed out to you. Shipping is hard, people.)

And these three items:

Here's an up-close of the ornament:

My head is swimming over THIS detail! AND, it's stitched on BOTH SIDES!

This is one of the pins:

... and another pin:

I'll take a few name tags to the market tomorrow and see if I can stitch them even HALF as nice as her sample. I'll show you when I finish one.

THANK YOU, Stefani! I may not be able to wait until next September to come up to Rochester to do a show. Maybe the Spring!

2. I told you I have no mojo. None. Today I set up the Projects Table because my Stamp Camps are NEXT WEEKEND. Check out how much I have done so far:

Can you hear the crickets? I have done N O T H I N G !!!! Sigh.

Oh, see those wall parts just beyond the table? Yeah, they'll live there until the 12th when I'll put them BACK in the car for my shows on the 13th and 20th.

3. Wednesday night I met up with BR #2, aka: RuffHaven, so we could eat some beast. And I needed to be served, so this worked out well. Here's where we went:

... and we each had one of these:

NOT a Martini, but a top-of-the-line Margarita. Mmmm. I only needed one. There is no (or very, very little) mix in this version. Sooo good.

Then dinner arrived:

Mmmmm, STEAK!

We had a great time catching up and blabbing and just relaxing. We need to do that more often.

4. See these baskets? -->

You can either carry them or, when they get too heavy, switch handles and pull them on their convenient wheels. I saw a man walking in the street today pulling one of these behind him, and there was a small child in the basket. That HAS to be illegal. Seriously.

5. One of my stops today was Trader Joe's. I almost never go there because I inevitably buy more of what I don't need than what I went in for. Today was no different, but I think I actually came out ahead. I went in for these:

They have an awesome selection of dried fruits that I use to make my Alton Brown Fruit Cakes, which I might make this year. These are amazing, and none of that icky candied fruit stuff. Make them! You will not be sorry!

While I was there, I picked up a jar of this:

Their simmering sauces are the BEST! Just saute some chicken in a skillet, and when done, add the simmering sauce. Serve over rice if you'd like. YUM!

6. Moss. I planted moss. One of my tweeps didn't believe me, but it's true, and if you've been here for a while, you'll remember I've done this before. BR #2 has a plethora of moss at her place, and during this season's transplant effort, she was kind enough to drop off a bag of the goodness for me to plant. See -->

You can kinda see at the bottom there's some well-established moss from the first round. I'm going around, filling in the larger spaces, and I hope it will migrate all by itself to fill the smaller spaces. Here's some more:

It's a beautiful thing.

Okay, that's it. At least I've established I am ALIVE and well, even if I have no mojo for stamping. I sure hope to get a clue on Sunday, though.

Thanks for stopping by!

Random Wednesday

I am full of excuses tonight, and I have nothing new to show you, but since I do guilt really well, I thought I'd do a Random post so you can get an idea of WHY I have nothing new to share tonight.

1. I had an appointment for the phone company to come out yesterday to fix my outside phone jack. It had pretty much deteriorated, 2 of my 4 phone jacks were dead, and the 2 I had left were horribly noisy. I told people to just not call me. The DSL worked, though, so that part was okay.

Appointment window was 4-8, so I left work at 3 to get here before 4. By 5 pm I was taking bets. By 7:30 I was pissed. By 8 pm I was looking up the number to call. When I did call, they're only open until 6. The guy called me at 8:30 to say he was on his way and got here at 8:45. P.M. (Yes, I am YELLING!) I generally go to bed starting at 9.

Long story short: he fixed it, but wasn't done until 10 pm. And I was covered in bug bites and itchy. I had to take an Aveeno bath before I could go to bed. Then I had about 10 pages of a book to read to finish it. Then it was almost midnight.

2. I could not craft while I was waiting, because when I am in the back of the condo I can't hear if someone knocks on the door.

3. Since I couldn't craft, I took the opportunity to catch up on my Google Reader backlog and also to email the coffee shop that carries my cards to see if we could coordinate my signage change for my price increase. We agreed on 7 am this morning, when they opened. This decision was made early in the evening.

4. Do the math: up till midnight, then get up early to arrive at the coffee shop by 7 am. Yawn.

5. I had my every-two-week massaaaaaage after work today. I am pretty much worthless right now.

6. I got a package in the mail and forgot to open it. When I did, I saw it contained my recently-ordered Copic refills:

Perfect. SABLE Copic ink to go with my SABLE everything else. But I do use these colors to outline all my stuff, and especially with the City Cards, I go through a lot of ink.

7. One of my customers/coworkers/former friends sent me a WE ARE HAVING A SALE email for a site to which I've never been. I saw they have Nesties, and it was good. I sent her a "YOU ARE NO LONGER MY FRIEND I HATE YOU THANK YOU VERY MUCH" reply and went shopping. I have 4 sets of Nesties on their way to me. Free shipping if you spend enough, so I did.

If any of you EVER does this to me, I will de-friend you, too. Just sayin'.

8. When I first started to play with the lady-in-a-towel images the other night, I had a hair-brained idea to cover the towel in Flower Soft. WHITE Flower Soft. Please remember: I lack the Flower Soft gene. Just look at this:

I don't know what I was thinking. Apparently I wasn't.

9. Every Wednesday night I participate in a Twitter Chat session where we discuss topics relating to doing arts & crafts shows. We pick a subject and share our experiences, sources, ideas, and just general banter about the world of craft shows. I have learned a lot, and it's great to know there are other people out there doing what I do.

We are all at different points in our crafty selves. Some are part-time crafters and have Day Jobs, like me. Some are full-time crafters and do higher-end shows. And everything in between.

If you'd like to join us, you do need to join Twitter, but our Wednesday event is just like a chat room. You never have to use Twitter for anything else.

If you'd like to see what we talk about, to go http://www.twitter.com and search for fairchat.

10. What is it with cats and boxes? -->


Oh, look, it's past my bed time. Thanks for stopping by!

Random Rambling Thursday

1. I spent the better part of this week making 40 (yes 40!) Milestone/Decade birthday cards. I start this effort by making up a design, then I go into Mass Production mode. I don't like Mass Production mode. There, I've decided. I embossed all the numbers for the "manly" cards, but for the "girlie" cards I just stamped them in SU's Basic Gray. I liked the more subtle look of that (not shiny), and they went better with the soft pink & coordinating colors. I now have 40 completed cards, and I am fatigued. And my arm hurts. And I wore out two punches. Have I mentioned I no longer like Mass Production?

2. A moment of silence, please, for my 1" circle punch that gave up the ghost tonight. She was complaining and sticking and finally she quit. She lived a good life, and she died doing what she did best. Well, that's a lie, because when she did her best, she would actually punch a 1" circle. Tonight, she got stuck and, well, she died.

3. The 1/2" punch isn't doing so well, either.

4. I must now add two punches to my "OMG, it's almost July 1st and I must be ready to place my Demo order to get ALL THE NEW STUFF from the new SU catalog and EXPEDITE IT so I have it in my paws before my July Stamp Camps so everyone can drool and then they will need it, too" list. Yes, I have one. Yes, it is written out so I won't need to look up anything. Yes, I took the day off to do this. Yes, I am sick.

5. My pre-ordered SU Catalogs were just this very evening dropped at my door-step. I have spammed my SU customers. I told them to NOT come tonight, as some of them would have tried. (*waves* hi, ladies!)

6. My Target now has food. It's like I've died and gone to heaven. Most of you know I don't eat at home much, and no, I don't eat out or carry in, either. I eat breakfast and lunch at work, and I skip dinner. No grocery shopping = no food left to grow personalities in my fridge, and more money for stamps and pretty paper. But if I need ONE THING, I can now get it at Target while I'm picking up some cat litter. My needs are few, and I am easily entertained. You see, tonight I had to get cat litter, as I was 100% OUT, and while I was there, I picked up some sandwich fixins. Easy, peasy. Now, since I detest having to go grocery shopping, I no longer have to! Oh, my, life is good.

7. My LSS called me this evening and told me my pre-ordered Basic Grey 6x6 pads have arrived. If you have a LSS that offers this "every time BG comes out with a new 6x6 pad, I'll pull one of each for you" service, beware. The good part is, as every collector hoarder paper crafter knows: I have them all. The bad part is: my shelf for "miscellaneous 6x6 paper pads" is overflowing. Does anyone see a problem with this? Because *I* don't. (heh heh I have them all! *insert diabolical laugh here*)

8. I had a random thought #8, but I just forgot what it was. OH! Yes! There is only ONE DAY left to play Spot The Mistake! Don't miss out on a chance to get something from my stash! Play Now. Play often!

Okay, now that I've done my brain dump, I can go to bed. Good night, and thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday Ramblings

[Disclaimer: Please brace yourself for a wild ride. I seem to jump from topic to topic without any warning.]

I made a card! Yeah, it's a LOT like the last bulldog card I made, but this one only has one bulldog on it, and in the process of making them I used up almost all the pieces of paper I'd hacked! Yay!

I decided to leave the dog un-colored, partly because I'm lazy, but also because when I looked up bulldogs on the Interwebz I saw there were all-white ones, too, so that's my story - it's an all-white bulldog variety. Okay, I did put a little pink on the muzzle, but the rest is just white (or off-white - whatever). These guys just need to be bagged and tagged, then they'll be ready for sale. The markets start May 1st, and my inventory is really sorry right now.

Next I have a glaringly-poor photo of my puzzle-a-day calendar page:

Why did I take this pic, you ask? Are those not the most hideous colors? One of my co-workers gags every time she sees it. Fortunately every 10 pages or so the paper color changes, but for about 10 days we've been subjected to this. Ugh.

More stuff from the Asylum tour!
This is a wing (and the right arm of the costumed tour guide) from the Civil War era. Below you can see a closer view of the stones:

The stones were all hand-cut and placed. You can also see the level of dis-repair - the place is in really bad shape.

At the top of one of the buildings are some gargoyles:

There were actually several places on the buildings that had these. I'm sure there's some significance to them, but it escaped me.

Now, I bring you the coup of the whole tour! Check out this sweater:

It was COLD in the building (no heat), and we were told to bring jackets. I, of course, didn't need one since I run hot anyway, but this woman had the best sweater! The front also had cats on it, but it would have been tougher to get an on-the-sly shot of that, so I settled for the back. (hee hee)

Okay, I'm off to try and salvage my failed crafty attempt from last night. I hope to bring you a success story very soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Random Wednesday

Yeah, I know, I've been pretty random lately. Between my Stamp Camps and the Olympics, I haven't been very crafty the past few weeks, but just so you know I am still alive, I thought I'd bring you another installment of randomness from my life. Lots of little things, none of which is blog-worthy by itself, but all together, they have promise.

Let us begin.

1. Remember this card?

It was one of the four projects at this past weekend's Stamp Camps, and I did make some major Demo points by supplying the non-latex gloves so people didn't get inky fingers. As usual, a couple of The Ladies changed things up, and here's one of their versions of this card:

They had so much fun being inky, they added all that color to the card base, too! What a fun look!

2. This next card (of which you are all probably SICK by now) was a hit, too:

This time we had a SAVE situation. Someone finished her card and then managed to get brown ink on the upper left corner, where we had no opportunity to embellish it for the save. Enter: the corner punch. I punched the corner of a scrap of the blue, and she trimmed it to fit over the boo-boo:

Ta-da! Nice save! (I hope you can see it - my photography skills are pretty awful these days.)

3. When I posted this pic from our last big snow:


(yes, that's snow built up inside my front door), one of my tweeps sent me this:


I thought it was very clever. God help me if I ever get that much snow, as my door is the front door!

4. Remember these:

I killed them. One of The Ladies offered to take it home and try to save it, if only I would decapitate it. By that time, all the fleurs were droopy and sickly, which she said was actually draining the plant of any remaining strength. It was done, and the headless plant is now in her home, where it will be resuscitated and hopefully planted outside in a few months. Note to self: Don't buy these things any more ... just look at them in the store.

5. I played. I was enabled by one of my crafty tweeps to buy some wool felt, and I took out a much-neglected set of Cuttlebug dies and made this:

Is it not very cool? It took only a few minutes, and I think it will be a fabulous addition to my embellishment collection. Oh, yeah, like I need more stuff. But do I at least get points for cutting into it already?

6. I shopped. One of my tweeps (Do you see a pattern here? tweep = expenditure? I thought so.) makes jewelry, and when she announced she had a new batch of fresh-water pearls, I asked her to make this:

As most of you know, I am not into glam. I skip most jewelry counters and don't even stop to look in the windows ... it's just not my thing. Seriously, I wear polo shirts, or a sweater (or baggy sweatshirt) over a polo shirt, and that doesn't lend itself to being dressed up. However, THIS little piece was just perfect for me! It is understated and just right, and I wanted to show it off to you, my captive audience.

7. I stamped. Okay, you've seen this one before, too, but I had printed the images and I wanted to use them:

Oh, look, I attached the sentiment crooked. Surprise (not). The big news here is I made four of these AND that's a piece of card stock that is no longer in my UFO pile AND I used up the remainder of that piece of blue & brown patterned paper. YAY! Baby steps.


That's it. Lots of randomness and not a lot of substance, but that's how I've been rolling lately.

I hope to get cracking on some cards for my April show. Oh, did I tell you my March show was cancelled? Not enough people signed up. Oh, well. I'll focus on April. And my markets start the first Saturday in May, so, yeah, I need to focus. Seriously focus.

Thanks for stopping by!