Spring is here. . .

. . . So it's time to start getting ready for Christmas lol. I've been reorganizing the craft room and oh my the things I've found.

I made this ornament last Christmas using Joys of the Season, but by the time all the stickles dried, the season had passed. I used marker to outline all the interior cuts and then used stickles. But seriously, *this* year, I'm going to get sooooooo much done before Christmas. The ribbon is a thin, wired "crystal" from the bargain bin at Michael's. I just glued it on both sides of the shadow cut and then glued polar bears (one on each side) over the ribbon.

New Blog!

I started a garden blog, hop over if you are interested : ). Crafty stuff will still be here.

Mirror, Mirror

We have a couple of very dark rooms in our house. So, I'm experimenting with some mirrors from the dollar store as a way to add some light with a bit of decoration without having a plain mirror which catches every movement.

 

I washed the mirror with a baby wipe and put a vinyl cut of the dream cloud from Home Decor. After I washed off the etching cream, but before I took off the vinyl, I used some blue alcohol ink to add a little color.

 I used an alcohol pad to clean this mirror before I put on the vinyl. The birds are from Indie Art. I'm really liking how this one turned out!.

This is what 211 cards looks like. I made 214, but I gave 3 away already lol. I made these during the 8 week Pro Scrapbookers League (TM) at Club Scrap. There was one woman on my team who made 400 cards in the last week alone. Color me impressed!! It was a nice competition in that we were all in awe of the woman who made 400, but the contest was about doing what we could do and no one was made to feel badly for their contributions.

The two main criteria were that at least 50% Club Scrap elements had to be used and the cards had to be good enough for the maker to sign their name to and give to family and friends. There was a different challenge each week ranging from using stencils to art mediums. But for me, a dyed-in-the-wool process person, to make that much product left me feeling like I had met my personal goal. It gave me a chance to make my own cards but without the time to overthink every element. During the last week I didn't even go to my usual online haunts lol.

Some of the cards will be boxed as gifts, some of them will be boxed as donations to a few organizations that need cards, and some I'll be keeping for future use.

Ohhh I'm not dead yet, I can dance and I can sing, I am not dead yet I can do the Highland fling..

Monty Pythons fans and Spamalot fans will recognize the song. Last week I was focused on making cards for the competition (our team won btw). Then I pinched a nerve that runs from shoulder to fingertip (I'm owing a lot as I type). Then I got a cold, which seems to be hovering on the brink of bronchitis. I had hoped to post the pile of cards I made during the last 8 weeks, but it seems it will have to wait. I can do a very very tiny highland fling, but it's better than nothing lol.

Introducing Neptune

Neptune is settling in nicely. He followed a trail of food up the ramp to his food dish. He is very industrious and works for many hours a night on his wheel. I wish I could think of something to harness the wheel to. He's still relatively small, only 4 inches.

Positive and Negative

The backgrounds are from a very old cut I made on DS before the laptop died. It's made from one cut and two pages of the same paper. The positive cut is glued on one paper. I used painters tape to remove the negative and turn it over to apply glue to the back of it. You can also use the positive image to make a pattern by lightly tracing a pencil as a guide for gluing the negative. To get the full effect, the border of the image has to go over the "cutting" line.

The image I used is from page 37 in Storybook using the accent/frame feature. The seventh image in the third row. The "Positive" title is the base cut from the Opposites Attract cartridge. The shadow was made by making a second cut in a darker paper and gluing the lighter slightly above and to the left of the darker. Rhinestones bling up the i's. The "negative" title is the trapezoid feature in Opposites Attract cartridge. I glued the letters on top of the lighter paper used for positive and cut the shadow to fit.

The journalling is on vellum (not seen here) about how the same thing can be positive and negative. I haven't figured out how I'm going to attach the vellum yet. On the one hand it's done, on the other hand it's not lol.