Fixed Page!

Here is the fixed page I talked about in previous post. Empty space is really nasty in my humble opinion. It needs to be filled in with something even something simple. I almost always use background stamps or watermark images for this reason. And in my quilting I will rarely use solid fabrics. They read empty and on close inspection are empty. I will use tone on tone fabrics which are similar to watermarks or using a background stamp in the same color as the card stock. At first glance you don't notice the design, but on closer inspection it's there and you can see it.

Evolution of a Scrapbook Page

I am in a 6x6 Christmas scrapbook page swap. I've not really done 6x6 pages before so this is a new endevor for me. I was worried about how to get a design on the page and still have enough room for a photo. I've done scrapbooking before with Creative Memories products, but never worked on a page smaller tham 8x11. I new I wanted to yous the Cool Play set and have a snowman on the page. My first attempt I was not happy with at all. The snowman was too small I though and there was too much open space. Also though I liked the effect of using Dazzeling Diamonds glitter on the snow flakes in the background it was way to labor intensive to do the 20 pages I need for the swap. What to do?

I still liked the basic design elements so I tried enlarging the snow man and instead of a single stamp snow flake with the glitter I used a snowflake jumbo wheel and whisper white craft inl for the back ground snow. Of course that meant I couldn't use the white for the "let it snow" stamp so I switched it to black. I liked the fact that I now had room for some extra color in the form of the cap and scarf. It's still pretty labor intensive as I have to cut out the snowman, scarf and hat, but I had to do that on the other page as well anyway. So here is my swap page!

Now I am not one to just throw away work I don't like so after staring at it for a few more minutes I decided to try adding a second "let it snow" in white above the little snow man on my reject page. And voila: IT WORKED! I like it now. Just filling in the empty space really helped I think. You can see this card in my next post. I still won't do it for the swap just because using the glitter is more involved and messy than I want to deal with right now.

The lessen here is work with ideas you try that you don't at first like. Chances are there is a fix that will make it work!

Still Crazy, But Taking Time

I think I have given up on life slowing down any and I'm just going to make sure that each day I take time for either sewing or stamping. Yesterday I made time for a card and several 6x6 scrapbook pages, which I will deal with in a later post. The card I made is one that I would have preferred not to have to do as it is the above sympathy card. It was for a very special quilting friend whose husband unexpectedly died of a heart attack on Sunday. As much as I don't really like having to make sympathy cards I do find that they provide their own special blessing in that I seem to always spend time praying for he grieving person the card is being made for. I think for this reason I may never make sympathy cards in advance, except to sell to others. I will make mine as needed so as not to miss the time of prayer.
The birthday card I made last week, I actually made two of these cards just in different color-ways so that I could keep as sample. The other one I made for a very special person who shall remain nameless at this point in case she happens to log on to this sight and read it. She won't get her card for a week yet. Now I've probably given it away. I love the stamp set I used for this. Favorite Teddy Bear by Stampin Up. It has so many accessory items to go with the teddy bear that I think it will be used a lot!

A Break from the Craziness!

I really needed to take a break from all the business of the week. So I stamped. This is my latest card. It is in celebration of fall. These are colors I love. I designed it for my SU Sisters September SYI Swap and made a few extras for myself. Other than this card I haven't been doing much "crafting" this week. Too busy getting ready for the big church picnic tomorrow. Though I guess the 4 display boards I put together might count as crafting???

I also did get to bake a cake today for the cake walk at the picnic. Don't get to bake much anymore with only two of us in the house. And I still have two pans of apple crisp to make. While they are baking maybe I can squeeze in another card for a special birthday girl this month. Not saying who in case she reads this.

CRAZY!!!

Life has been absolutely crazy around here for the past week. Don't anyone even ask me what I've been doing cause I don't think I could answer, but I know I've gotten alot accomplished. Just nothing in the world of Stampn or Kwiltin. But I did want to check in here and say that I hope tomorrow is a different story. For today, though it is 6:22 pm I am off and back to work. Ain't life grand!!!!