Simple Thank You card

It's been a rough week - and this morning a friend showed up on my doorstep with flowers and medicine.

She was such a blessing, and I really wanted to make a card just to let her know how much her thoughtfulness meant to me.

This was a quickie: washi tape (and yes, I cut the heart out from tape, too) and a sentiment from Wordsworth.  Added a bit of washi tape to the envelope for good measure, and it's on its way!

Canvas Banner

How cow, I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted here!  It's now 2013, and one of my goals for the year (you'll notice I did not call it a "resolution") is to do more crafty stuff.  Our lives have been a bit chaotic in the past couple years, and my creative endeavors have sort of fallen to the wayside...

Our daughter just turned 8, and we had a dance themed party for her.  Most of the decorations were straight from the Dollar Store, but I did manage to make this 1 simple banner to welcome the guests (and then hang in her room).  I purchased the banner "blank" from Hobby Lobby (Donna Downey product).  I hit each pennant with different colors of glimmer mist in conjunction with masks from Heidi Swapp, Tim Holtz & Tattered Angels.  I had so much fun playing with the colors and images!  The letters are chipboard (also from HobLob) that I painted with black acrylic and then glued on.

So that's all for now - but I *WILL* be back to share more in the months ahead!

Birthday Girl

Yes, I'm actually posting a card I made - felt so good to be working with this familiar canvas again :) This little cutie was created with the sketch over at CPS in mind, although I admit I took a few liberties with it. I stamped the little girl and added a touch of color with prismacolor pencils, rounded the corners and inked the edges, then added the sentiment and mounted it over the three background strips. I love the happy colors, and it's even nice & flat for mailing. Beauteous!

Girl image: Cornish Heritage Farms, sentiment PaperTrey, and paper BasicGrey Junebug

Feeling Fallish...

I know it's been months since I've posted anything... I've been busy with so many other things, and quite frankly just hadn't been feeling particularly crafty. In the past week or two, though, I'd been missing the East Coast autumn, and decided I really wanted to make something "leafy." Anyway, last Sunday when I was watching the Eagles game I grabbed a pair of scissors and a mostly untouched Boxer pad and started cutting leaves - double thicknesses so I had 2 (mostly) matching shapes. I used some old brown variegated fiber (which I know has been around for at least 5 years) and then glued the leaves together with PVA bookbinding glue (chosen since it dries clear and remains flexible). I gave it about 10 minutes to dry - yes, I'm impatient - and then hung it around the kitchen entry. Thankfully I'd planned ahead and left the nails up from the Christmas garland ;) I love how it turned out, and I even used the scraps to make something else... will post about that later this week!

Clay Fun

Polymer clay - something I was very familiar with due to my religious watching of the Carol Duvall show (I still have the VHS tape that was always loaded and ready in case I sensed that a good paper project was coming up :) - but I had never actually used it.

Well, our daughter saw these cute little animals in an issue of her American Girl magazine, and even big brother wanted to make one. They suggested using air dry clay, but I was afraid that they wouldn't hold up too well, so yesterday while running errands we procured a package of assorted color sculpey. And then, of course, the kids wanted to start making their animals before I'd even left the parking lot of the store - I convinced them to wait the ridiculously long time until after lunch...

I must say, they turned out amazingly well. The kids made all the shapes themselves (the bodies have a ball of aluminum foil inside) and I helped with fine tuning, attaching, etc. The pig is our daughter's, our son made the cat, and the dog and panda were made for some friends. They were hanging out with their long-lost Little Pet Shop cousins yesterday afternoon, and happily survived the rigorous hands-on attention. I predict more sculpey fun in our future!

Love Makes. Love Gives.

I try to keep this more as my "crafty creations" blog, but obviously I share a lot of myself through these little endeavors. As I was going through my Google Reader line-up this morning, this post caught my attention.

Genesis 1:1 is one of my favorite verses: "In the beginning God created..." simply because it reminds me that the enjoyment I get from making stuff is a tiny (and very imperfect) reflection of God's character. He created our whole world just by speaking - except for man, when God reached down and actually took dirt and formed Himself. Talk about a play dough masterpiece!!

Anyway, it also reminded me that many times I have a hard time letting go of my little creations... After a project is completed, I want to keep it to myself rather than passing it along. But the creation is an expression of my very heart, and it needs to be shared.

Even when I'm not sure if it will be "properly" appreciated. But that's what love is. Giving without strings attached. Letting go without expectations. What a gift to give.

Striped Polka Dot Baby Card

I really wanted to play along with this week's One-Layer challenge, which was to create a baby card inspired by one of these cakes. I was drawn to the striped diaper bag cake (10th photo down the page) and I have this new Hero Arts set, which happens to have a striped polka dot. How serendipitous! I originally was going for multi-colored dots, but the result was pretty abysmal. Actually, there was nothing pretty about it. I ended up just using the different colors in different dots, although there are a couple striped ones in the mix. I'm still not thrilled with the finished product, but I'd already spent waaaaay too long working on this "simple" card -- and I really need to get it mailed off to our friends who've announced they're expecting another little bundle o' joy! The sentiment is from Verve - love the versatility of this set.

Would anyone care to offer any design insights? Are the dots too close together? Are the pastel colors just too washed out? Any and all thoughts are appreciated!