It Needed Ribbon (Really!)

In a Good Demo moment a while ago, I purchased three of the Handmade Holiday Card Elements packs, sans stamps. I had high hopes to use the cards for one of my workshops, using existing stamp sets in my collection, but it never happened. And now, for a December workshop, it would a little too late to show my customers something they will not be able to order and get in time for the holidays, so what to do ... what to do ...

The other day I went through the exercise of opening one of the kits and making all of the cards. Then I yawned and promptly set them aside. I think I need more of a challenge. These kits are really meant for people with no time but still want to make their cards (it took me about 30 minutes to make 18 cards...), or for new stampers who want instant gratification. Now usually *I* want instant gratification, but, well, I guess I am just not a kit kind of gal.

Let's give them a gander, okay?

Here is card #1:

I used the Peace stamp from the retired Perfect Endings set instead of the suggested 'To You & Yours' set that I did not buy. Eh, it's okay. But it was nekkid! Nekkid, I say! The kits had NO RIBBON! The nerve! So - I added some. This one uses the retired Taupe grosgrain (yes, I hoarded it.)

Here is card #2. Nekkid, until I fixed it by adding some ribbon.

And here is card #3. Yes, more ribbon. It needed it, okay?

I need to tell you, though, the story of the fate of these 18 cards (not to worry - it's a happy ending!) It all started yesterday at lunch, when a co-worker of mine mentioned he'd probably not have time to get his Holiday cards this year, so he would just not send any. A little alarm went off in my brain, and I asked him if ...oh, say ... 18 cards would be enough? He thought Yes, so I brought them in today to show him. He liked them and agreed to buy them. I told him I wanted to add ribbon to make them look more finished, but he said I did not need to do it for him. Well, I wasn't; I was doing it for me.

I even went so far outside of my usual routine as to stamp on the envelopes, too:



Things get really wild around here sometimes.

That's about all the excitement I have to share this evening. I am still working on another project for my December workshops, but none of my attempts have panned out to anything workshop-worthy yet. Well, one of them has, but it needs a heat gun for embossing, and I already have two embossing projects. I'll either need to cut one of those (definitely possible) or come up with another idea. I'll do a little more lurking and see what I can dream up in the next few days. ;-) Thanks for stopping by!

How's Your French?

I've been blog-hopping the past two nights; guess I burned out with that long weekend of stampin'! :-) Tonight I was lurking on JulieHRR's blog and read a post where she'd won an award from this blog, and she encouraged us to check it out, so I did (this is how I get distracted, by the way), and it is in French! I studied French a looooong time ago. I took the first two 'years' in one year of High School, so I actually got 4 years of French in 3 years. Long story, but let's just say I could speak and read it pretty well. NO MORE! But I had a cheap thrill just now (it really does not take much) because I think I almost understood her post! Oh, and I plan to be inspired by this card, maybe even later this week! ;-)

I have an idea for another project for my December workshops, so hopefully I'll have something card-related to post very soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Marathon #15 (and Last!)

Next weekend is my last show of the year, and this card is a new version of one of my best-sellers at last year's show. Last year it was done in blues, but boat ... sea ... blue...b-o-r-i-n-g! So I rifled through my vast collection of under-used DS papers and selected this sheet from the SU Parisian Summer pack. The coordinating colors for this set of papers include So Saffron, Sahara Sand, Pirouette Pink and Bravo Burgundy. For this piece, the "purple-ish" flowers look like washed-out Burgundy, but I opted instead to use the Pink for the layers. Looking back on it now, it looks a little blah - not enough contrast... oh, well.

My experience with 'pretty' irreverent cards has been that people are drawn to the 'pretty', then they read it. Most of the time they laugh and put it back (not gonna work for Grandma, ya know?), but it might still sell. My fingers are crossed. ;-)

The fluffy stuff to the left of the sentiment is made from grosgrain ribbon - pink and burgundy. You carefully cut off one selvage edge, then you fray the fibers and lay them all down together. I kinda roll them together, then I wrap a piece of double-sided tape around it to bind it together. (Could I say 'together' one more time?) I trimmed just below the tape, then I 'gave it a haircut' to make it the length I wanted. It's a fun way to make a fuzzy embellishment, and it's a blending of colors, kind of like taking one strand of each of two different colors of DMC floss when you do cross-stitch. This is a maddeningly detailed way to transition or shade between two colors, and it works with ribbon, too. The burgundy ribbon, by itself, was too dark, so it just had to be done! I thought about adding a layer of burgundy under the pink on the layers, but .. eh, I think I'll leave it alone.

Okay - THAT IS IT. I am done, done, done for this looooong weekend of fun and games. I have one more show on Saturday, and I'll probably over-do it this week in anticipation of actually selling something. But that's okay, cuz on Sunday, after I unload the car at my storage unit (the third-bedroom extension of my teeny tiny condo), and I can reclaim my vehicle to haul, I dunno - groceries, then I'll post what I have left on my store site and that will be the end of the season.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I'll be back later this week. Have a good one!

Marathon # 14

Okay, okay, okay. I'll give you a small peek at part of The Other Room. But trust me, I have no plans to pan out or anything, because I do not think you could handle it, k?

When last I shared anything about this room, it was during a pathetic attempt to get organized in there. I'd collected all my loose stamps and put them into two boxes on the corner of my table.

This one is all stamps. Sad, but true. Some were piled up on the table; some were new and untouched, residing in various shopping bags, mostly from Angela's; but if I ever wanted to use them, I knew where they were, ya know? Sometimes when I organize it looks nice, but I loose things in the process. So they ended up in this box.

This is the second of the two boxes. It holds the rest of the stamps plus all the 6x6 paper packs and miscellaneous items from my various shopping episodes. This afternoon, I tackled these boxes.

(sorry this is out of focus)

All the 6x6 packs of paper ended up on this shelf in my pretty-much-organized closet. You may recall this closet from The Great Scrap G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y and the beginning of the Organization Process that followed it.

See those boxes of scraps on the shelf below the 6x6 paper packs? That is all that is left of my scraps. Anyone like blue or yellow? They are yours; all you need to do is say the word!

Truth be told, that was a lie. Not the "if you like yellow or blue, you can have these" part - that was the truth. My lie was that this is all the scraps I have left. Oh, nonononono. Let us not forget the Scrap Heap in the Living Room, plus, um, there is the whole right side of the table upon which sit these boxes, but we won't talk about those scraps right now. Let us simply focus on the yellow and blue scraps in that little box on my shelf.

Moving on to the box of stamps, I took some of my cache of empty SU stamp storage boxes and started to fill them up with the loose stamps, then I stacked the boxes in the one empty Elfa drawer I have in my stamp storage area. Oh, look, there's room for more! ;-)

Once I closed the drawer, it looked even nicer.

All I had left to show for my effort was a small corner of the table that could finally see the light of day. Well, it is still raining out, so it saw the gloom of day and the light from the ceiling fan.

I still have things in that remaining box for which I need to find a storage spot, but I'll get there. And that box on the back of the table? That holds the chipboard coasters I bought last year, plus some bulk-buy Tombo refills. And that cabinet behind the table, kinda peeking out there on the left? It holds all my cross-stitch fabric and books from back in the days when I could still see the little pictures in the tiny squares. I told you I have stuff!

Okay, that's it! That is all you get to see, so just move along now. I'll reveal some other few inches of cleared-off something-or-other when it happens.

Marathon # 13

The flurry of activity continues here at The Crooked Stamper homestead. I have managed to mix cleaning and stampin, if you can believe it! This card, for example:

was made as the result of me being a little crazy from seeing that stamp set on my Living Room floor (in the overflow area) and not having used it yet, which is why it was still out. I grabbed it, along with two sheets of patterned, textured card stock from the book on the Scrap Heap, and a sheet of Class A-Peel stickers (partially used) and set to work.

I'd seen the stamped-off horse eons ago, which is why I got the set in the first place. I think I 'earned' it from my SAB sales, because it does not meet my 50% rule - I only like (and have only mounted) two of the stamps in the set. So I did the stamped-off horses thing, then layered it on a piece of DS paper from the Bella Rose pack. I thought the torn edge worked with the horses.

I had originally stuck the sentiment directly onto the card stock, but it got lost so I put it on Naturals White instead and punched it out with the SU Word Window punch.

Then I cleaned the horse stamp and put the set away. It's about time, too!

Next up - what to do with those 3 1/2 x 12" pieces of card stock left over from that last effort? Well, while putting some stamps away in The Other Room, I ran across a few that I remember were hot sellers at this show last year, so I decided to make some more cards with them. This next one is way fancier than the version I made last year because I actually used my Nestabilities to cut them out and my Copics to color them this time.

And that color combo with the red and purple? Straight off the SU Color Wheel. At first I thought red & purple - blech! But it works!

Next up: another irreverant card, plus maybe - MAYBE - a little peek inside The Other Room. I will NOT show you the whole thing, but I might share the clean corner I just created on the table. :-)

Marathon Post # 12

I took a moment while brewing coffee this morning, and looked around this shambles of what used to be a nice condo. It always looks like a toronado went through here, and I cannot seem to organize enough to make a difference. Then I did a mental clean sweep. Let's say, just for grins, that I was NOT a stamper. So I (in my mind) erased all the craft-related stuff lying around in every single room, and you know what? It would look like a normal person lived here! Really! But then I would miss all my stampin' stuff, so I went back to making coffee.

Marathon Post #11

One of the side projects I had going on here this weekend was making these clothespins. Well, okay, I did not make the clothespins, but I did decorate (alter) them. You are looking at something old and something new...the 'something new' is (are?) the clothespins, and the 'something old' is (are?) the paper and rub-ons. The paper is from last year's Prints Pack, and the rub-ons are part of my still-huge stash from SAB earlier this year. I may never use these up!

All I did to stick on the paper was slather some Tombo Multi on the side of the clothespin and set it on the diagonal of the 6x6 paper. I gave it a second or two to set, then I cut around it with my craft blade. Done!



You can see I did not do the sides, as that looked like work. Lucky for me these came pre-painted, so I just stuck on a few more rub-ons, and in some cases, wrapped them around from the front.

As most of you know by now, I do not 'alter' anything, and I pretty much do not own anything that does not earn its keep as a functional item. This place is just too small to have nic-nacs all around. So what am I doing with four of these?

THIS is what I am doing with four of these! These puppies will earn their keep as workshop project-holders. Yeppers! They'll hold the projects up and away from the table (several have tumbled into ink in the past), and elevate the project so people at the other end of the table who work so fast they get ahead of the rest of the gang can easily see what they should pull out of their bag next. See: functional.

And no, I did not make this up all by myself, but I did see it on someone else's blog and decided to try it.

I stayed up way too late last night...I was a woman driven. Driven to create, and I think I was actually speeding, or it sure felt like it. For some reason I decided to make boxes of my Peas On Earth cards for sale next weekend, so I made 18 of them - 3 boxes of 6. It took hours, but I did it. The good thing is, if they do not sell, then I have my holiday cards all made. ;-)

So far today I've put away some stamps (!), including some SU sets from my table and some of the loose stamps in The Other Room. I am trying, really, I am! I actually have an empty drawer I can use for the rest of the loose stamps, once I figure out how to organize them. Baby steps, here, baby steps!

I need to get back to real life today and do some laundry, clear out and re-fill the dishwasher ... you know, things. It is raining, though, and feels like a good day to continue my long-weekend cocooning.

Oh, and that alleged profit I saw the other day? Nope. I added in all my SU earnings, and the plus side got even bigger, but I successfully wiped that out (and then some) when I put in my Demo orders, so now I am pretty much even with money in and money out, and I feel much better. I was having palpitations about having to pay taxes on that money as the next dollar of my Day Job income, plus I think I'd need to pay Social Security, so it is just as well that I break even. BUT, I see where the money went out and how it came in, so if I ever need to make a profit, I think I could do it if I worked at it. Maybe. For now, it is still just for fun. I was going to say 'I spent all my earnings', but I think a more positive approach would be 'my hobby pays for itself'. Yep, I like that a lot better!

I have several more projects planned for today and into this week. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll report back later today on any stampin' progress.

Marathon Post # 10

I could say I am channeling June, but no, I am stealing from her. Yep - outright stealing. When people use the word CASE, it generally stands for Copy And Share Everything, but in my case (oh, how punny) it stands for Copy And Steal Everything.

When I saw this card on her blog, I immediately thought of my cache of unused and unloved Washi papers, and my neglected Cuttlebug embossing folders. So, I immediately set aside the pile of City Cards I am working on for next weekend, and started to attempt The Steal.

Now that I look back at June's post, I think this would have looked better with a layer of white between the paper and the blue layer, but there's plenty more Washi paper where this came from (from which this came.) I like hers better, anyway. That's what I get for stealing.

I am going back to my CASEing and City Cards now. I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

Marathon Post #9

I decided it was time to really hunker down and make up some projects for my December workshops. Here's what I came up with as possibilities this morning:

This is a gift card inside a card. I've played with these before, but I think I might have finally hit on one that uses current product. ;-) I made the outside simple since the real work is on the inside.

I used the star from a new (this year) SU Christmas set - Christmas Classics - and gold-embossed it on gold card stock. I think I'll go back and add a rhinestone brad to the center of the star, since it is already popped up on Dimensionals. Oh, and it punches nicely with the SU Star punch. How clever of them.

Here's the inside. I used some more images from the same stamp set for a greeting on the gift card holder. I used Always Artichoke and Bravo Burgundy markers, but I think I'll also leave out the Old Olive marker for my customers, just in case they'd like to have the ink color actually match the card stock.

Here is a close-up of how I tied the ribbon around the card. I wanted the bow to be on top of the card, so I needed to punch a slot for it to fit through the layer of DS paper. I actually punched it twice, because the first time I placed it too close to the edge and I could not tape the DS paper down. So I retrieved the punch-out, stuck it back on, and re-punched the slot. I will advise my customers to punch it correctly the first time. I am constantly telling them to not make the card like I did; that they do not want to be like me.

This card is actually my entry as a Punch Fest card. Maybe I should offer a contest for how many punches you can use on one card. Maybe not. But this one uses four punches: Word Window and 3/4" circle punches for the gift card slot opening, the Star punch for (!) the star, and the Horizontal Slot punch for the ribbon opening.

I have also been playing (a lot!) with these square chipboard frames I have. I was determined to use them for my workshops, and I finally came up with this. It is an ornament (or a package decorator), but it is also a major accomplishment in that it used so much of my stuff that I've bought for workshops but never used. AT LAST, success!

I covered the frame in Artichoke Craft Ink and embossed it with clear EP; the flower in the center is a rub-on (available in the Hidden Garden pack) that I bought in bulk; I rubbed it on white, then cut it out and stuck it on a piece of gold; and the hanger is a piece of elastic gold cord that I bought last year, but it is back this year, so I can use it.

And I used even more of the chipboard by finishing the back of the ornament with another embossed frame. Yeah, the little edges of the cord are poking out, but, well, it is the back....

I think I'll go work on printing out all that SU paperwork for a while...I'll be back later with some more stuff I have going on. Busy, busy times at the Crooked Stamper table...

Marathon Post #8

I got mail! I got this sweet card from June this week. It is soooo nice to get something personal like a card. Now if only I'd actually send any of the cards that *I* make ....

So far today I have been in a perpetual state of distraction. It all started when I went into The Other Room to print off some SU stuff. I've been diligently working on my 2008 numbers for the biz, and I am still in the black, people! I cannot stand this! It is just not right! Then I realized I have not entered all of my "sold" stamp sets - more income. Then I figured out I have not entered all of my Demo orders - expenses. And ... I forgot I have also not entered my SU Volume Rebates (that additional income Demos get based on total monthly sales levels) - more income. So that's why I was in The Other Room: to print off all that stuff so I could spend some more time playing with the spreadsheet (ohboy). BUT, SU's Demo site is down for maintenance this morning, so I cannot get into it yet. Then the distractions set in.

You see, there is no end to distraction when I am in The Other Room. I mean, c'mon, with every square inch of every surface covered with something, I am never at a loss for something to clean or organize. Usually I can resist that urge and turn around and walk out, but something happened in my pre-caffeinated brain this morning, and I sat down to tackle The Recycle Pile.

One of my co-workers has a sign on her cube wall: Neat people never make the exciting kinds of discoveries that I do. I think I may have to change my page banner to add this as a footnote, because it is so true. If I were a neatnick, I could not be this creative. Half of what I make is the result of stuff landing on top of other stuff in the scrap pile!

So what did I discover today? Some tax stuff from 2006; my white address labels for my printer; my 2006 Convention workbook; and last, but most importantly, the carpet under the recycle pile! I cannot handle all this floor space! As I was sitting on the floor, I looked to my right and discovered my "missing" 1" square punch and some yummy blue EP I picked up at Mike's a while back. I put the punch away and put the blue EP on my work table so I can maybe make some more Bat Mitzvah cards this weekend.

Not bad for an hour's work, huh? So now that I am showerd and caffeinated and such, I did some blog administrivia...I added Google Analytics to my blogs. You know, with all that traffic I have, it's fun to know how poeple find you, so I thought I'd give it a try. I have high hopes of adding more stuff to my store after next weekend's show, so hopefully I will actually get some traffic over there! We'll see.

I am working on projects for my December workshops, and I also think I'll make some stuff for this weekend's Holiday Show. I'll stop back later with some of my creations, if I actually finish any of them.