A HOLE THROUGH OLIVIA????

I got the glitter somewhat under control and have moved on to the next challenge. This one was not a SCS challenge, but a Sweet & Sassy sketch challenge from this past Monday. I haven't actually posted it for the challenge, but am posting it here.

So why have I titled this entry "A Hole Through Olivia?" Look carefully at this first scan of my card. I decided to paper piece Olivia's belly feathers. What do you think???? I think she looks like someone got her with buck shot, poor baby, and blew a hole right through her! That must have hurt.

So what happened here. I made the mistake of using the same paper for her belly that I used for her background. This just doesn't work. It makes it seem hat you can see right through her to the background. Like I said poor poor Olivia! She needs some emergency medical care before she can be sent out to someone else to bring them Get Well wishes.

Of course the adhesive I used in the paper piecing was a very effective adhesive (my Xyron sticker maker). The stripped paper was not going to come off without some serious damage being done to Olivia.........(can there be anything more serious than an apparent hole straight through her???? I wonder???).....anyway...what I had to do was simply adhere the correcting paper over the top of the offending paper. Voila...Olivia now has a blue belly! No more hole!

Fully cured, she is now winging her way to a friend in need of a little cheering up. I hope her wishes for good health work. It's not fun to be sick...............

Today, I spent the better part of the day getting my creative juices flowing. I must tell you that once I got into the groove I was amazed. But that story is for another day as it is now well past my bed time and I must be heading upstairs. Tomorrow is a big day......the Christmas tree is coming down and being packed away for another year!

MORE SPRING CRAFT KIT CREATIONS

I've been continuing to work with the items that came in my Spring Craft Kit and here are a few more of my creations. You know it is very interesting that when I first received this kit I wasn't too excited about it. It was much brighter and more pastelly (is that a word?) than I like. I put off for over a month even looking at it again. BUT.....once I got started using it I fell in love! I am now going to be so sad when there is no more to play with and I must move on. And that moment is coming real fast there is not much left but a few scraps of patterned paper and even less of the card stock. I think I may have a dozen or so brads left and that is it for the embellishments.

So why did I fall in love with this kit once I began using it. Well for one thing I think that anything I determine to throw myself into creating with I eventually fall in love with. The more I use something that seem useless the more I seem to find uses for it. Also it has been so rainy and dreary here in Maryland this month (over 9 inches of rain so far) that the papers in this kit provided a much needed cheery bright spot in my day. I found myself smiling as I worked with them.

This first card didn't start out to be a baby girl card. In fact it started out a disaster. I began working with one of the self adhesive chipboard flowers that came in the kit. (They were my biggest challenge). I added the oversized brad for the middle of it then tried to put it against the patterned papers I had left. Nothing worked it kept getting lost. Next I thought maybe a scalloped circle under it would help and I had a piece of the pink patterned paper, but the scalloped circle was too big so I placed a smaller circle between it and the chipboard. That worked but it was still boring so bring out the piercing tool and white gel pen. Finally I had something I liked that worked against the striped background paper, but wow it's 4 layers! To balance the vertical stripes I added the ribbon on a diagonal line under this medallion. At this point I needed something in the lower right to balance everything and I wanted it to be a sentiment. For some reason that even I don't understand when I looked at the card I thought of a baby rattle and since the medallion was primarily pink it became a baby girl card by stamping the New Baby sentiment on pink! It works for me how about you?

From babies to birthday's. This second card also has a chipboard flower with a large brad on the inside. But this one looked just fine with no other additions. Maybe because it is a more normal shaped flower image. I echoed the flower by rolling the background on the card stock using So Saffron and one of my jumbo wheels from SU. More flowers on the panel of paper down the left side of the card. Then I was tired of flowers and so stamped the happy birthday message on a striped paper. Cutting around it with the same scalloped scissors I used on the sides of the panel. Something more was needed and I decided it was a splash of color so I found a strip of golden yellow card stock, but it was narrower than the sentiment piece! What to do? Well you can see what I did. I scalloped just the ends of the strip and cut it long enough to place a brad in each end than put the sentiment on top using dimentionals. I think it looks like it is floating on a stip if paper ribbon. Finally,I wanted to put three brads in the lower left. Now that I was almost done with the card I got to hurried and lazy to get out a punch template and ensure that the brads would be evenly spaced. (I blame it on my ADD kicking in.) So of course when I put the brads in they were all wrong and totally ruined the card. <> I was ready to kick myself around the room and scream in frustration. I took a break, came back refreshed and looked at the card again....more sighing....Ah ha! I'll cover up the holes that are miss punched. You can se what I came up with. Now the only problem was that when I opened the card there were those pesky holes still staring me in the face! HA, guess what's on the inside covering the holes........A second little punched strip of the patterned paper that you see on the left hand side of the card. Problem cratively solve and card salvaged!

FIXING A CARD

Yesterday I was working on some cards and I came up with this as a design for a Get Well card. I really like the watercolor effect of coloring the stamp with the Stampin'Up markers, lightly spritzing them with water and stamping onto water color paper. This was the technique I used here. I was proud of my self for using one of my hodge podge paper clips. (I've only had them since 2005!) I'm not really hoarding them. I just have a real hard time getting them to look right on a card. At times I think I am embellishment challenged. That sort of like bow tying challenged which I am also. Hence the flat ribbon on this card and no bow. Still the card wasn't quite right. I finally determined that in my opinion there was too much off white. What to do?



Well what I did was I carefully removed the water colored stamps image sheet and cut apart the flowers. Then I trimmed them down and distressed the newly cut edges. This is what I ended up with after re taping the images down. What do you think? I definitely like it better with the strips of blue showing between the images. I still think something is missing. Maybe there should be a bow or maybe some eyelets or brads in the upper left corner??? But I think I am done with this card and ready to move on.....

SLOW DOWN!

A quick post to encourage all to slow down and enjoy the process of card making and making them well. (Notice I said well not perfect!)

As Christmas approaches at lightning speed I am finding my self getting sloppy. When I get pressured by time, or I should say lack of time, I don't do some things I know I should do to help my cards be the best they can. This card is a good example of that.

Can you see what I mean? You don't have to look to close or too long to see it. I have learned from past experience that I need to use my stamp-a-ma-jig whenever I am stamping a sentiment directly onto my card. Do I always do it? Obviously not! And the times I don't are those times that I am in just to much of a hurry to get out the tool.

I probably should just leave it out on my stamping table. Then I would have no excuse.

So this post is an admonition to myself and anyone else who needs it to slow down and enjoy the process of making a nice card rather than taking the time to come up with a nice layout and design and then ruining it with a lopsided sentiment!

What was it we were told: "Do as I say, not as I do!" Or was it, " A picture is worth a thousand words"?