it's beginning to look a lot like ♥MONSTAS♥!

which, for me, means that it's really starting to feel like the build up to the official holiday card-making season has begun. ok, yeah, granted, i've been making my christmas cards all year long over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ but this is the first official monsta card of 2012-- made in honor of our "creature feature" prompt that will run for the next fortnight-- so it's quite a special day! for the record, YOU do not have to make a card with a monsta on it! in fact, ANY living creature will qualify, from reindeer to elves to penguins to angels to moose to... well, heck, i s'pose you could even put PEOPLE on there, in a pinch!

but i like monstas. i might have mentioned that before. maybe even a few times. like, for instance, here and here and even waaaaaaaay back here! :)

(monsta cut from a roll of (sadly discontinued) "mini mutant" giftwrap by paperchase; vintage: ledger paper; patterned paper: echo park, love elsie, basic grey, dcwv, bo bunny; glossy black cardstock: ranger; pearls: kaiser; labels: dymo; santa hat: recollections; ink: colorbox; pen: copic multiliner; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine; other: typewriter)

ok, yeah, there's A LOT of color and pattern goin' on here; and, i mean, it's a lot even for ME, which is already a lot, isn't it?! but what can i say? monstas enjoy a lively environment! actually, if you place a monsta in a dull environment, they will immediately want to liven it up, in quite spectacular ways, so really you're better off not fighting it. they also enjoy a tasty christmas tree from time to time, although apparently, the trouble with evergreens being so... ummmmm... GREEN, is that it makes it harder to tell which ones are ripe. occupational hazard.

i'm quite proudly linkin' this little dude up at 52-card-pickup; (hi, patrice!) and i've used this week's rather fab  merry monday sketch, which is #37 and looks a bit like this. actually, it looks EXACTLY like this. go figure:

i hope you'll hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see stephanie's card and link up your own "creature feature" between now and halloween, because i cannot wait to see what you will make! ♥

meet PUG-sley!

he's the latest of my amigurumi friends, i made him as a birthday gift for gina (a serious pug-fancier) although it was also a bit of a selfish act on my part, really, because when i saw this adorable pattern in the gurumiorama etsy shop, i just COULD NOT resist!

something which made this little guy even more than usually fun to crochet is the fact that whereas i make most of my little dolls from ordinary lion brand acrylic, i just happened to have some "leftover" yarn in the perfect shades of tan and brown, which just happened to be the remnants of some rather luscious blue sky alpaca. so this is what you call a luxury pug!

by virtue of his coloring, i've decided he's eligible (in a totally tangential and laureny way) to be linked up at the anything but a card challenge blog, where the current brief is for autumnal-themed projects OR things with autumnal coloring: golds, rust, reds, browns, deep green, etc; i'm not sure miss carla envisaged anyone submitting a tiny crocheted dog... (which, me being me, is reason enough to do it, lol!) ...on the other hand, her blogging name is "scrappypug" so i'm quietly confident i can get away with a bit of cheekiness on this occasion!!! :)

i haven't showed off my little playing-card-sized ami photo album in a while, and it's got quite a bit fuller than when i first put it together, a couple of years ago:

this might be my all time favorite minibook project, only because i do tend to give away my amigurumis, and it's nice to have a little keepsake album in which to remember all the ones i've made. it serves a practical purpose, also; the back of each photo not only has "adoption" information as to where each one ended up, but also practical details such as what yarn and pattern i used, in case i (or a crocheting friend) would ever like to make a similar creature in future. it's also one of the few times i really put much thought into the "staging" of my photos, and thus they are faves just in themselves for that reason. for example, i'm not sure i'll ever be able to cut into the 12x12 sheet of dear lizzy paper with the trees and hills i've used behind pugsley... i mean... what if i want to crochet more puppies? where would THEY play??! ♥♥♥

birthday "SPACE-out"!

i'm embarrassed to say that i have need on a semi-regular basis for the "belated" sub-division of birthday cards. it's usually not that i've forgotten the date, just that i've been too busy or too oblivious to get my act together. which seems *worse* somehow, doesn't it? ah well. if i can't be on time, at least i will try to be stylish, lol!

(spaceman card, ticket strip, label and word border: october afternoon "rocket age" miscellany; patterned paper: amy tangerine, crate paper; rub-on and sticker sentiments: EAD designs... who will be SORELY MISSED in these parts!; washi tape: love my tapes, recollections, bazzill, crafty basics; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

i was super-excited to have won (by random draw) a 2peas gift certificate for this card in last week's saturday cardmaking challenge; but i'd've had to come back and play in any case because kimber mcgray has drawn one of my all-time favorite sketches this week! i am quite sure you'll be seeing this again in future, so i hope you're enjoying it so far!

most of the time i am quite shockingly lazy about decorating the INSIDE of cards. in fact i'm embarrassed to say that sometimes i leave it soooooooo close to the last minute that there isn't even a stamped or rub-onned sentiment, just my own handwritten greeting; but the great thing about using a black card base is that it sort of forces you to do something to the inside, and for once i actually bothered to make it coordinate. go, me! :)

hope this week is treating you well so far, but if not, take heart... it's halfway over! happy wednesday, darlings! ♥

best witches for a happy halloween!

i was too lazy to take a photo of the inside of my card, but i wanted to make sure i told you the *FAB* sentiment i used on what is, for me, a very rare halloween card. i don't know WHY i seldom make them, i quite like halloween, and i love all the goth imagery and colors and things, but somehow between my family's over-abundance of autumn birthdays and the fact that halloween tends to fall in the space where christmas card and project production steps into high gear, it just never seems to happen. but this week's challenge at shopping our stash is trick or treat AND i stumbled across this adorable richard scarry illustration in one of my falling-apart booksale books, so i was doubly inspired! just in case you are not keen on the holiday aspect, the alternate route for this challenge is to make a card which features candy, cupcakes, or any other "treat" item on it... so it really is trick OR treat! cool, no?!

(vintage richard scarry illustration from a damaged library-used-book-sale-aquired children's book; patterned paper: authentique; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, scotch gluestick, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

another thing that tipped the scales for me in favor of a halloween card this week is that i have a fabulous (but neglected) authentique paper pad that miss stephanie gave me a while back, which is in the black, creamy/yellowy and orange tones that so artful challenges (where my lovely and vivacious blogging friend electra is on the dt!) would like to see for their harvest moon challenge; you don't actually need to have a MOON in your project for that; in fact it doesn't have to even be halloween-themed, butas soon as i have a witch on a broom, i immediately want to position her in front of a big full moon, so i was more than halfway there already! :)

i used last week's mojo monday sketch, even though it IS last week's mojo monday sketch, because for one thing, i just LOVED the sketch itself; but also, that lovely large circle element is just PERFECT for the aforementioned witch-enhancing moon, don't you think?

i'm also linking up with the autumn/halloween challenge at challenge up your life and the time to get spooky challenge at card makin' mamas so i send a hearty "HELLO" to the lovely ladies on those sites!

speaking of lovely ladies, there's a whole gorgeous bunch of 'em at SOS and they've ALL made utterly fabulous things they'd like to show you this week, so why not hop over and visit them now? it's well worth the trip, i promise you!

i'm not sure if this is an art journal page... or a card...

at the moment it's the former, but if my main idea for my friend paul's annual birthday collage doesn't pan out, then i think it might turn into a card, sharpish!

 (vintage bits: time card, ticket stub, book paper, sheet music; other bits: my photoshopped hibiscus photo, part of a calendar page, scraps of hindi newspaper; patterned paper: sei, basic grey; tape: heidi swapp; brackets: cosmo cricket; rub-ons: autumn leaves, basic grey, 7 gypsies; quote formatted in broderbund printshop using sidewalk and bohemian typewriter fonts and printed on a 3m inkjet transparency; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, scotch gluestick)

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. 
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. 
Do, every day, something no one else 
would be silly enough to do. 
It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
-Christopher Morley

i used an old sketch from scrap friends which i had printed out when it was current-- at the beginning of september-- but which got snowed under a pile of other stuff on my desk. as many things do. though frankly, you should really dismiss those pesky rumors about the lindbergh baby out of hand, they are completely untrue!

nonetheless, having unearthed said sketch yesterday, i remembered how much i loved both it, and this amazing layout my lovely and inspirational blogging friend sandi taloumis made from it. you'll notice that my interpretation is, alas, really nothing like either of those. but it's kind of fun, anyway, i think. and the main thing is, it uses that totally brilliant christopher morley quote which i just found recently and could not wait to use in the current city crafter challenge (#130) to impart inspiring words or advice. speaking of city crafter, you really ought to hop over there and see the DT projects because they are even more stellar than usual, which, believe me, is SAYING SOMETHING.

and now it just remains for me to send a very, VERY happy (and only sliiiiightly belated!) birthday wish to my lovely friend linda robinson, who just happens to be on the aforesaid CCCB team, and who is being celebrated HERE, if you'd like to join in!

♥HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINDA!!!♥

(and many more!)

did you know you can cut one element out of a piece of lace without the whole thing falling apart?

i was not AT ALL sure that would be true, actually, but i couldn't resist trying it with this piece of vintage lingerie lace. incidentally, if you're wondering how to *attach* something like that to a card, after a bit of trial and error, i found that gluestick is by far your best bet. of course, i also stitched around the edges... you know... just to be EXTRA safe! :)

 (all patterned paper, sentiment sticker flag and brad: crate paper; not-quite-matching foam alphabet stickers: from a "major manufacturer"; border punches: recollections, martha stewart, ek success, fiskars; ink: colorbox; other: vintage lace; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, scotch gluestick, sewing machine) 

i'm super excited that after several months of drooling over tara anderson's luscious color palettes and  "inspiration wires" on the crate paper blog, i'm finally getting to play along! for october the colors are dove grey, peacock blue, and gingerbread, and i don't think i quiiiiiiiiiiiiiite did them justice, but i do quite like my card; maybe i will have time for a second go before the challenge closes on 10-22? in the meantime, i highly recommend a jump over there for some SERIOUS eye candy!

something i am NOT super-excited about is that despite the fact that "Y" in happy came from the same packet of foam letters as the rest of the word, they apparently did NOT come from the same dye lot... it turns out that the front sheet of letters in the pack (a thru p) is a verrrrrry slightly different color than the back sheet (q thru z plus numbers); which i find a bit disappointing as these were not bargain or store brand letters, but full-on, full-price big-name-brand ones. ah well. worse things happen at sea, i suppose. actually, i'm guessing it's really quite difficult to make any but the most rudimentary cards whilst at sea, what with the damp salt air, the pitch of the waves, sea monsters, etc; so i think i will confine my crafting to dry land for now.

hope you are having an AWESOME (sea-monster-free!) weekend-- ciao, darlings! ♥

thinking pink... again!

same prompt, second week! yepper, we've raised about $100 for the komen fund at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ so far, but i'm feeling a bit greedy-- in a good cause, o'course-- so once again i will urge you, if you have even a few minutes of spare time between now and next wednesday night, to spend a few of them making a pink christmas card and linking up with us!

my card was made at record-setting speed (for me!) mostly because i just totally ran out of time for anything else, lol. when that happens, my strategy is to grab a sketch, use as many "ready-made" elements as i can find, and grab as many pre-coordinated items from the same manufacturer as possible. hence this lovely and very crate-centric entry right here:

(patterned papers, diecuts and border stickers: crate paper; word art made in broderbund's printshop using pharmacy and MA sexy fonts, and printed on a 3m inkjet transparency; inks: colorbox; pearls: kaiser (some colored with copics) adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine)

as always, i was inspired by the lovely laurel seabrook's current photo inspiration (#45); this is one of my more tangential entries, but i'm sort of pleased with the fact that i've got the muted salmony pink and teal blue (plus a few other colors, in my case!)... a bit of a vintage vibe... and some big honkin' typography!

i used merry monday sketch #36, though you can see that i needed to rotate it 90 degrees and moved the accent to the other side, in order to accommodate my home-made word art.

seeing as it's friday, i'm linking up with miss patrice for 52-card-pick-up ,

and seeing as it is breast cancer awareness month i'm popping this in at link up for pink, too!

i do hope you've had a wonderful week, but if not, it *IS* friday and the weekend is nigh, darlings! (can i get a "woohoo"?!) ♥♥♥