Sharpie-Colored Banners and Crafty Chit-Chat

It's been a while since I colored anything, and I decided the Hero Arts banner set needed some bright color to pop off a white background. So I made this little set. So much fun!!!!

I'm a little late on the banner bandwagon, but these certainly are fun, not to mention easy to cut out! Obviously, I didn't bother with shading much (the orange happy birthday flag was a feeble attempt at using a colorless blender, with less than satisfying results).

To attach the string, I used 1/8" scor-tape. Then, I placed the dimensional close to the tape so the top edge wouldn't stick down to the card.

A Note on New Year's Resolutions and Purging and Grab Bags

My crafting resolution this year (and probably for next year, too) is to use all my image stamps again. This idea just wouldn't leave my brain, so there it is. Here are some of the advantages to using every image stamp in your hoard collection.

1. You get your money's worth out of stamps, and it alleviates the guilt of all that money you spent.
2. You stretch your creativity working with older images trying to make them fresh.
3. You find out what stamps work for you and your style...and what stamps don't. This makes future purchases wiser and allows you to purge the useless from your collection, freeing up space for those future purchases.

I've done this once (it took 2.5 years) and am so thrilled with the results that I want to do it again. Feel free to join me if you want!

Speaking of purging.... I was lamenting the possibility of ever getting my craft room satisfactorily organized out loud on Facebook when my online friend V-Grrrl told me what an artist friend of hers did when her art studio became oppressively overcrowded. She boxed  up stuff and sold it on her website as grab-bags!

I am all over this and spent two hours yesterday sorting through stuff...and I'm not finished! These grab bags (or more properly boxes) will go on sale on Simplicity soon (probably next week). Among the items I'm including are ink pads and reinkers (SU, Memories, Ancient Page, Colorbox, VersaMagic), SU markers, cardstock (SU, Mark's Finest, DCWV, even a little Papertrey), punches, a 12-pack set of watercolor crayons, and embellishments like hardware (SU Hodgepodge Hardware, random brads, paper clips, photo turns, etc.), DMC and craft floss, ribbon, buttons, Perfect Pearls, flock, doilies, googlie eyes and such.

A lot of these are items I use but come packaged in absurd quantities.

Will I use 100 googlie eyes in my lifetime? No. Will I use 20? Certainly.

Others are perfectly lovely products that I have a huge selection or duplicates of...such as the watercolor crayons and ink pads. I have over 500 ink pads. This is a ridiculous quantity for a Clean-and-Simple Stamper, not to mention hard to store. Shedding some will give others a chance to try inks they haven't tried. Don't like it? Toss it. Love it? Go buy more!

Finally, each box will contain as many stamps as I can stuff in them. Almost all of these are high-quality brands such as Hero Arts, Northwoods, StampinUp, Memory Box, Papertrey, and such. Yes, I'm getting rid of a few Papertrey sets.

I'm thinking of pricing boxes at $30 (for medium priority flat-rate shipping box through USPS, domestic only) and $40 (includes large priority flat-rate shipping $14.95, domestic only), but each box will contain as much stuff as I can stick in it. You'll definitely get your money's worth!

Now, I know lots of you are like me...you have more stuff than you know what to do with and don't need someone else's excess stuff. BUT there are plenty of people who

a. are just starting out and would love a chance to get a lot of stuff at a huge bargain, or
b. are in a rut and want to jump-start their creativity with random stuff bought so cheap that if it doesn't work for them, they won't feel bad at all, or
c. are Ebay experts who want to repackage the stuff for profit.

I hope y'all have fun with these!