text me!

the new prompt has just gone up at *JINGLE BELLES* so of course this is a very exciting day for me. can you guess from the title what we're looking for? it's called "text me", which is a huge hint; so whaddaya think? well, if you guessed we want to see bold sentiments, funky fonts, text paper, lots of letter stickers, dictionary pages, or otherwise to make a statement with TEXT... then yes, you've definitely got the idea! here's what i did:

(patterned paper: echo park, my mind's eye, love elsie, october afternoon; large letters cut from an echo park journaling card; ho ho ho sticker: october afternoon, poinsettia stickers: recollections; ink: colorbox; white paper and cardstock: staples; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

one of my goals this year is to make at least some of my christmas cards a little less lumpy, bumpy, and expensive to mail. which is not to say that i won't occasionally go nuts* with the large 3D flowers, pearls and other bulky embellishments i love, but in doing my december daily journal last year, i kind of "rediscovered" the fun of combining paper, stickers, vintage illustrations, photos and other such items creatively, so i'm trying to keep that in mind while making my cards. at 6.25" by 7.5" this one is into an oversized envelope, but it's flat, and does't need to be protected with corrugated cardboard, so i'm callin' it a win!

miss stephanie has made an absolutely delightful text-based card this week, which i'm sure you'll enjoy seeing. why not hop over to *JINGLE BELLES* and check it out? i'll meet you there, darlings!

*because, let's face it, i'm still *ME*, aren't i?! :)

my collage-making obsession continues...

...and the aptly named collage obsession blog is fully supporting my habit!  this week's prompt is "bridge" which we can use in any way we'd like. i wound up being pretty literal, using a vintage gummed label of the golden gate bridge from an american geographical society book:

once i had the cool sticker as a centerpiece, i thought i might use some of the "bits" from my 2012 trip to san francisco, but it didn't turn out that way. somehow, i wound up using the colors of the photo more than anything, and working rather randomly; which seems to be my collaging style at the moment.

however as i look at the completed piece, i realize that i've got chopsticks and some chinese text and the fortune from a cookie... which kind of (obliquely) illustrate how much we loved san francisco's chinatown. and there's a tally sheet... quite appropriate, since on every trip my friend barb and i take together there is a SERIOUS ongoing canasta tournament at the hotel each evening! then, i suppose, the rest of the vintagey bits and bobs can represent the fact that we've never been known to walk past a thrift shop, rummage sale or bookstore without going in. so really, this collage is all about our trip, afterall! :)

be sure to check out collage obsession, there is already a totally *FAB* gallery of work posted for the "bridge" theme!

SOS136: cabin fever

i fully realize that compared to northern canada-- or, for that matter, even new england and parts of upstate new york-- a new jersey winter is not especially harsh. even this year's higher-than-usual ratio of snow days has been quite mild, compared to more northerly climes. additionally, we are lucky enough to live in a fairly populous suburban area, where the roads are plowed quite quickly, and weather-based inconvenience is definitely at the lower end of the scale. having said all of that, and with complete cognizance of what a spoiled brat i am, i still have to tell you, in confidence,

holy moly 

i am SOOOOOOO 

flippin' OVER winter, 

already!!!!!

thank you for listening. 

i feel better now. :) 

if you are similarly beaten down by the cares and heartaches of not having been outside to play in far too long, why not join us this week at shopping our stash for a little challenge we like to call, "cabin fever" for which we'd like to see you make anything with an outdoorsy vibe. you can do snowy trees and frozen lakes*, of course, if you're into it. or indulge your warm weather fantasies, with beaches, gardens, meadows... whatever you like! i decided to branch out (ok, sorry, worst pun ever!) by re-creating one of my favorite sights of spring: lovely birds in a tree full of leaves and flowers!

(vintage: book paper and oriole illustration; very very old pale green patterned paper: crate; copper metallic cardstock: the paper cobrads: oriental trading; dogwood flowers: off a silk-flower branch from michaels; spray inks: tattered angels, mister huey's mist, smooch spritz; leaf mask: heidi swapp; adhesives: scotch gluestick, staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i only realized as i sat down to type this how few commercial products i've used here, but i've definitely tapped plenty of vintage-based stash! i spent a pleasant half hour over the weekend playing with masks and inks on vintage dictionary pages; i fussy cut a pair of baltimore orioles; i did a little machine stitching; and then i called it a night.

each and every week, olympic gold-medal-winning levels of usin'-up stuff is being performed by my lovely SOS dt-mates. why not cruise over to shopping our stash and observe this phenomenon? ciao for now, darlings! ♥

*afterall, BY FAR the best place for that sort of thing is ON CARDS, am i right?!!

city crafter and (possibly?) collage obsession

it's another oddball post, i'm afraid. but at the moment i seem to be seriously addicted to making fast, random collages, so bear with me, ok? this one is in honor of two challenges i've been longing to participate in. first up: my old favorite city crafter*, whose current call, "the key to my heart" is for projects which include both a heart and a key**. i've obviously got one of each, so i'm pretty sure we're good to go on that score, woohoo!

the second challenge is a new-to-me site called collage obsession, which i've be quietly and awe-fully stalking for the last few weeks. they want us to feature the newly announced pantone color of the year, radiant orchid in this week's color challenge. now, in real life, my flower is an almost perfect match, which is why i chose it as my centerpiece... but it's only one element of my otherwise neutrally-toned piece. add to that the fact that unfortunately, i left my photo-taking until rather late in this grey new jersey day, and it's messed with my color a bit, making my flower look pinker than it actually is. so i won't be crushed if the lovely folks at collage obsession disqualify me on that account, but i thank them for the inspiration, and hopefully i'll be back next week to play again! :)

meanwhile, i do hope everyone reading this has had a very pleasant sunday, which featured LOTS of artsy pursuits and as few chores as possible! ciao, darlings! ♥

*miss kirsty may recognize a few of the elements i have used here, seeing as the little resin bird, the music paper, the gem flourish, and the heart were all part of the wrappings of a lovely little parcel which came my way last week! ta v much, missus! ♥♥♥

**i've only just noticed that one of the first words at the top of the dictionary page i built my collage upon is "armpit". pretty sure mine will be the only entry this week at CCCB... or indeed ANY of the major papercrafting challenges, for that matter... to prominently feature a heart, a key, and an armpit. awesome. sorry guys. :)

inch by inchie

sometimes serendipity is REALLY awesome, but i'll get to that in a minute. first lemme just remind you that we're having ourselves a "merry LITTLE christmas" at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this fortnight. by which we mean we'd love to see holiday cards that feature inchies and twinchies*! here's what i made this week:

(cardinals from an old christmas card, cut into inchies and mounted on a scrap of core'dinations cardstock; patterned paper: studio calico; florals: michaels; brad: my mind's eye; vintage seam binding from my stash; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

so here's the serendipitous part: i wound up making my card reaaaaalllllly late this week, and thus i was looking around for a sketch on wednesday night, whence i found, newly posted, this week's offering (#107) from christmas challenges with sketches, which... i mean... has there EVER, in the entire history of papercrafting, been a better sketch with which to use inchies?! i think not!!!

then i saw this uber-xmas-friendly pallette, at colour q (#225):

so yeah. basically all i had to do was flip through my stash of saved christmas cards for something that'd make a nice 3x3" grid, mount my inchies on an offcut of "artichoke(ish)" cardstock, and assemble the card. i originally had the squares right on the white cardbase, but there was this bit of woodgrain paper sitting out and suddenly i thought, "we're looking out a window at the cardinals in the snow!" so i decided to add one more layer. i actually already know EXACTLY who will get this card, next christmas, too; which is unusual for me, but i know someone who will just adore this image! come to think of it, it may have been he who sent ME the cardinals card, in the first place, a few years ago! ok, i think i have check my recycling bag and see if the inside of the card is still there, just to find out! :)

meanwhile, i'm sure you're longing to see what stephanie made this week, and check out the divine readers' gallery at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥!!! ciao, christmassy darlings! ♥♥♥

*we're not rabid about exact measurements, though; so if you've got the perfect 1.5" label punch you'd like to bust out, or have found some 3/4" round embellies that rock... WAHEY! consider those honorary inchies, and c'mon over to PLAY!!! :) :) :)

knitting mojo!

here in the northeast we got slammed with more snow this week, and boy was grateful that i could stay indoors through the worst of it! luckily, lovely husband jeff, who HAD TO be at work, was clever enough to have booked a "just in case" hotel room near his plant the night before, and he rode out the storm safely, as well. so in the end, what 8" of white stuff meant to me was an extra day, all on my own, playin' with paper. there are definitely worse fates! :)

(almost everything here is vintage ephemera, including those gorgeous graphed letters i cut from a needlepoint how-to; the crocheted flower illustrations from an old yarncraft book; and that fabulous doll in her glorious 1979's KNITTED trouser suit! the exceptions being a crate paper fabric brad, some dymo label, core'dinations cardstock, and colorbox inks.) 

i made this yarn-themed card for a knitting friend, using loads of off-cuts and leftovers from a new crop of small knitting journals i've been working on, very similar to the mini sewing journals i made last fall. i'm hoping to list the new yarn ones in my etsy shop this weekend!

i used this week's mojo monday sketch (#329) for my layout, rotating it ninety degrees to the left so my stunning-knitwear-clad beauty would be facing into the card!

another fab thing that happened during the snowstorm is that i found a really great local guy to plow our driveway! ordinarily, jeff gets home early enough to do it, but it certainly is nice to know that in a pinch, there's a trustworthy and affordable option that does not involve my already creaky back and a big heavy shovel. thank heavens for friendly entrepreneurs, am i right, darlings?! ♥♥♥

SOS135: the blues... times two

for this week's challenge at shopping our stash we've got the winter blues! lemme essplain: we want to see cards (or layouts, minibooks, atc's, etc) that prominently and predominantly feature the color BLUE, in all it's glorious hues and shades! so celebrate cerulean, relish royal, or go mad for midnight... then c'mon over and link up with us. i made two cards. they're the same, but different!

(vintage map and map index; fish cut out of an old angler's handbook; patterned paper: my mind's eye, basic grey, crafter's secret; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i made the bottom card first. and i really like it, but we're shooting for projects which are predominently blue, and i wasn't sure it was really blue enough? particularly since my star, the handsome mister fish, who irl is silvery blue... in the photo just looks plain old grey; plus i've covered up most of the blue clouds in that awesome amy tangerine paper. as it happens, i have two important "guy birthdays" at the end of january, so i decided i'd try a second time with a bluer fish and bluer clouds paper. mission accomplished. or accompfished? ok, no. sorry. nevermind. movin' on...

(vintage map; fish cut out of an old angler's handbook; patterned paper: amy tangerine, october afternoon, my mind's eye; round frame sticker: memories complete; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

i used last week's i (heart) card sketch for my layout, admittedly somewhat loosely. the bottom card is a more faithful version, but i accidentally drew my circles a little too small on the upper card, and would've had to trim an awful lot of lovely fish away... so i adjusted!

and now i know you are longing to see what the rest of the SOS dt has made for your delight, so off you go, darlings! ♥