Distressed Thanks

So this week has been a bit hectic in work from home land. I’m not the most tech savvy person and I had to learn a new program rather quickly. Thankfully, I was connected with someone who was somewhat of an expert and was very patient with my slightly frenzied e-mails. What’s funny is that I’ve never even met this person! He works in a totally different department and if we were still in the office, I would just walk on down and say thank you. However, with circumstances as they are, I decided to craft him a thank you card instead. (I’m hoping he finds this sweet and not weird and invasive haha) 

I wanted to work on my distress inks with this card. I recently purchased some Distress Oxides after I saw some amazing projects on my friend Rachel’s IG but I got really bright colors and I didn’t want to send this guy a cotton candy looking thing. Instead, I pulled Wild Honey for the edges and then Scattered Straw towards the center. Before that though, I embossed the background using this Hero Arts cling stamp called Starry Night Brushstrokes. I then went over it with the distress inks. I used to use these a lot and I have no idea why I stopped! I definitely see myself purchasing more. 

I had this Thanks sentiment from a stamp pack and I put it directly on there using Memento black ink and honestly, I shouldn’t have done that because you could still see the white embossed swirls from the stamp. I should have stamped the sentiment on a separate piece of card stock and then raised it for dimension but I was afraid to ruin the card so I just used a Copic black marker to fill it in. I’ve been seeing so many cards with these huge die cut letters lately so I think I may invest in those for the future. 

Anyway, hope you are all having a good week. Do something nice for a stranger! We can all use some help right now. 

Penguins!

Before Christmas, I ordered some Penguin stamps from the Whimsy Stamps site. Crissy Armstrong designs the cutest penguins so I bought two general types that I could use with many different cards. I've looked up a lot of color combos for penguins and they're all difficult to blend if you ask me. And I've tried. 

A lot. 

I have more too. On the sides, I've written the copic colors I used trying to decide which combos I prefer. I know there are probably a million places on the internet I could go to to help me decide which colors go best together, but I'm still in the stubborn trial and error phase. 

And I know most of these look exactly alike, but I know they are different and some are sloppier than others. Like I said, practice makes perfect. Evidently, I need a lot of practice. 

A Resolution

So I head the party planning committee at my job and with everything being remote these days, it’s been a bit of a challenge. I was scrolling through the good ole interwebs for a charity that would logistically work and came across Cards for Kindness. 

It’s hosted by Scrapbook.com which I will admit I have perused but I’ve never purchased anything from the site. They created a global initiative where you create handmade cards with themes such as Happy Hellos or Thinking of You and they distribute them to hospitals, shelters, retirement homes and other organizations in need. 

I really liked that sentiment because sometimes I want to color an image or just play around with my die-cuts but I don’t necessarily have an occasion or someone in mind to craft for.

 I also thought that this would make a great new year’s resolution since I don’t really do those anyway. They require a minimum of 10 cards for submission so I’m going to try and create 20 different cards. I’m writing about this here as a way to hold myself accountable similar to how I announce my Goodreads challenge every year and then OBSESS over it if it seems I may not make my quota. (Spoiler alert: 2020’s challenge was PITIFUL) Plus, 20 cards in 12 months doesn’t seem that hard right? 

But those could be famous last words, who knows?  

So This is The New Year

For Christmas this year, my husband gave me the Misti stamping tool along with lots of accessories. I stole some time to think about Valentine's Day since I have a lot to catch up on. I found these old Penny Black hedgehogs that I used to love and went about creating a test card with my Copics. As you can see, the coloring is very inconsistent. I don't remember my technique at all! It's also crooked. Sigh. But I don't want to open the new year with complaints. Rather, this is a great opportunity to throw myself back into a challenge. 

I've tried looking up some of my old Copic blogs and while I can't seem to remember those either, I did find The Marker Geek from England and her Youtube videos have been really relaxing and informative. I just need to practice. I ordered some stamps from Whimsy Stamps and Hello Bluebird so I'm waiting on those to continue my V-Day practice. 

Body: E50, E31, E25, RV10

Hearts: R29, R89

Highlight: RV000

Distress Ink on card: Worn Lipstick

Let's all hope for brighter days this year. 

Christmas 2020

It’s been a MINUTE since I’ve created a string of cards and even longer since I’ve made Christmas cards. But honestly, if you find yourself dipping your toe back into the crafting pool, holiday cards are a great entryway. Taking my supplies out, I realized I gave A TON away so I had limited items at my disposal. Plus, I was using old stuff and I really should have invested in some new memento and versamark pads, but c'est la vie. 

I gotta say though, it felt really good to create again. I even enjoyed the old frustrations of screaming at my botched glitter embossing attempts (and God, there were lots) But for me, crafting has always gone hand in hand with screaming at my creations. I think it’s part of the therapy? 

This Lawn Fawn Penguin stamp is the only new thing I purchased this year because, c'mon... 

I added some Fired Brick distress ink to many of these cards just to give it a bit extra since I was massively low on holiday paper.

The little girl's dress is embossed and the background was created with a stencil and distress inks in the colors Fired Brick and Mowed Lawn. Also, still learning how to color white fur. Multiple polar bears later, I'm still not quite satisfied.

These snowflakes were all embossed which took multiple tries to get right, but I really like how it came out.

Not sure if you can tell, but I added some distress ink in Salty Ocean around the embossed angel.

To say this holiday is going to be different is the understatement of the year, but whatever you end up doing, I hope you're happy. Have that extra helping of cake and sleep in. Watch a cheesy Christmas movie and hug a loved one. Give thanks for the healthy people in your life. We could all use a little magic in the new year. 

2020, Anyone?

2020 has been quite the year.  It figures that it took a pandemic to get me back into crafting. All these crazy changes have taken their toll so I knew I had to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Once upon a time that meant crafting. 

So I took the storage bins out and slowly began again, realizing that I have forgotten all of my Copic color combos, all my distress ink techniques and how the hell do you even glitter emboss again? A part of this has been fun though- the relearning. It's like everything is new again.

And a lot is new since I last posted. I left off at a wedding. I'm a mom now so those long Sunday afternoons of crafting are no longer possible. But I find my way around it. I changed the look of the blog to something even simpler and cleaner so I'm hoping to dip my feet back in the pool. And I know no one reads this, but I have so much history with this blog- I didn't want to abandon it. It was always more for me than anyone else anyway. 

Here's my first Copic coloring image I did after an almost 3 year hiatus. More soon, hopefully.

 

A Crafty Shower

When it came time to have a bridal shower, my first instinct was to pass. Everything about my wedding up until then had been rather small and unconventional so I felt having a shower would contradict that. Then the combination of my mom insisting I have one and me realizing that it was my wedding and I could do whatever I wanted, changed my mind. What was important was that I stuck to my guns: no restaurant brunches and no shower games.

Instead I wanted to do something fun and different. Obviously, crafting is such a large part of my life and it was something I thought the other ladies would enjoy too.

Off to Paper Source we go! The store on the Upper West Side has a large side room and since my shower would be in the summer, I wanted my theme to reflect that. We went with a Moana/Lilo and Stitch tropical shower. I chose a basic card making class that people at all levels would be able to do. The folks at the Paper Source let us bring lots of food as well as decorate the space and honestly, it was the best time. Not everyone knew each other, but the activity was something fun they could do while chatting.

 I'm so glad I decided to try something different because it was such a great afternoon with the most important ladies (and gentleman) in my life. Below are some pictures of the day.

Here are the supplies for making the invitations!

Embossing and washi tape made for simple and quick invites. Also, Disney font because, obviously.

Our treat table/favors table! I created decorations based on Moana and Lilo and Stitch quotes.

Tiki brownies and Tamatoa treasure cake!

This is from his song, Shiny which is one of my favs. 

Kevin is one of my closest friends from college and also my officiant!

Table set up!

We're all busy crafting!

All the smiling faces was exactly what I wanted.

My creations!

My wedding party!

This handsome guy showed up at the end to help with clean up.

Champagne favors with my personalized tags.

Everyone's creations for the day!

The Mommas!

My lovely group of women (and Kevin <3)