Happy New Year

The season is almost over, and I pray each one of you reading this little intermittent blog will carry the beauty of the season over into the bleaker months of the new year. 

Back in early November, I was invited to go on a cruise with a friend. Her husband, very much like mine, is an introvert and hates cruising, but my friend, an extrovert, will check the box of her twentieth cruise this time. I was so grateful to be asked, so next week, I’ll be cruising with Carnival for five days in the Bahamas. 

Yay, me! And muchas gracias to Kim and Joe for such a wonderful start to the new year. We will be leaving shortly before a massive winter storm is supposed to hit Ohio. Talk about making spirits bright!

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and sunshine!

Susan

Christmas Abundance

Well, FOMO may cause us crafters to have supplies in abundance, but Christmas is all about abundance…an abundance of hope, an abundance of peace, an abundance of joy, and an abundance of love. 

Christmas cards, especially handmade cards, are expressions of that abundance. I haven’t been posting, but I have been stamping, and here are some of the cards I’ve made…some inspired by Pinterest.

I pray that your holiday season is filled with the hope, peace, joy, and love that are the whole reason for the season. 

And that you have a little time to be creative for your soul, as well!

Merry Christmas,

Susan

FOMO and a Card

 Reader Liz asked a question that resonated with me. 

“Your cards are so pretty. I've been resisting by the BetterPress system and this isn't helping. :D Would you recommend this system to someone who suffers from FOMO?”

What a great question! FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a real thing and a real struggle. In a hobby where we mostly collect supplies, where many of us have so much we can’t even keep track or have to develop elaborate organizational systems to manage and store our inventory, SHOULD we keep buying new products so we won’t miss out?

My feelings on this are rather mixed, to say the least. 

On the one hand, I adore my BetterPress and don’t regret buying it. I’ve made some lovely cards with press plates, and the product works GREAT…it’s easy to use and companies are coming out with a plethora of plates for it. 

On the other hand, many of the plates are expensive and HIGHLY determined, meaning there are limited ways of working with them. For instance, the background plates are gorgeous, but what can you do with them? Consider Exhibit A:

This stunning plate from Hero Arts will always turn out the same design. You can change the sentiment, the embellishments, the color of ink, and how much you crop it, but the design doesn’t change. The design invites you to walk through the snowy trees with either stars above or snowflakes falling. Yes, you could crop out just branches or do the whole thing super-subtle as a background, but the design is still highly determined. 

If you’re a lover of all things layered and embellished to an inch thick, this limitation probably doesn’t bother you, but if you love simplicity, you’re sorta limited in what you can do.

And depending on the vendor, costs for plates are, like everything else, pushing upward at an alarming rate, especially if they come with dies.

There are plenty of products I’ve eschewed in favor of buying new inks, stamps, and paper. It’s all a trade-off. Some days, I sit in my craft space and feel overwhelmed by the many choices I have. Other days, I make a bunch of cards in a state of flow which is almost ridiculously calming and joyful. 

When in a state of flow, I’m so grateful for all my varied supplies because I pretty much have everything I need, and I can pick and choose easily. When I’m overwhelmed, I wreck a few sheets of paper, walk away, and wonder if I should sell it all and focus on reading all the books on my to-be-read shelves. Yes, shelves, plural. It’s embarrassing.

So Liz, I just don’t know if FOMO is enough to spend gobs of money on a product…and all the things necessary for using that product. I DO know that weighing the budget, style, and versatility of products is critical. Bottom line…can you realistically afford a product and its accessories AND will you likely use it enough to justify the costs? Let go of fear and make a decision based on logic and reason. 

Or just go buy the stuff because you want it. That’s what I did, and no regrets. 

Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love this Christmas,

Susan

A Bunch of Thank-You Cards with BetterPress

A few weeks ago, my Aunt Sylvia asked me to make her some thank-you cards. I felt this was the perfect opportunity to get my neglected BetterPress out and play. Woohoo!

Here are a few of the results.

So much fun! The BetterPress paper is thick and soft and oh so touchable, and it takes the impressions of the plates beautifully. I’ve tried using my beloved Papertrey white card stock, but the results are not so good. The butterfly card uses Hero Arts ombre ink in Sylvia’s favorite colors, and it performed well. The background plate cards use Archival inks, and the leaf card uses BetterPress inks.

Overall, I’m glad I bit on the BetterPress and appreciate its ease of use. 

What new product have you used recently that is making you happy?

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

A Random Assortment of Cards

Life is good, and I have a few cards to share.

My artist mom’s birthday card. Her favorite color is blue.

A Christmas card that looks better IRL than in the photo.

Using an ancient poinsettia stamp from Papertrey.

A fun fall grid card…makes me want a PSL!

Funky and subtle at the same time.

Went to a beautiful wedding today. The bride and groom are older, and it was simply delightful to see them forming a new family. Their golden retriever attended the reception, so of course I was smitten.🥰 

Wishing cooler weather and some rain for our Midwest US area, and whatever weather you want for yourselves!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Big Flowers and a Crazy Week

Today’s card spotlights some lovely flower dies from Poppy Stamps and branch dies from Simon Says. The sentiment is from Simon Says. Love the scale of the whole card! And the rhinestones are iridescent and oh so gorgeous. 

The flowers are sponged with distress inks and arranged in a triangle. 

And now for this week….

It was a week of overlapping things. Because of COVID, I had to reschedule many routine follow-up appointments, and they all ended up being this week since school starts for me on Monday. Among the appointments was a routine mammogram on Wednesday. Thursday, while I was driving to the base hospital for two more appointments, the call came in that we needed to repeat imaging on the left breast. Well, crap. That triggered me hugely, but today’s repeat proved that what the radiologist saw was just an artifact and nothing to be concerned about. Whew. 

Needless to say, I’m having an extra glass of wine tonight. And praying for one week of my life without a crisis of some sort. Pretty please with sugar on top!

I sure hope that your week was better!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan

Three for One Feathers and a Challenge

Quick COVID update: I finally tested negative Sunday night. Yippeeee! I’d forgotten how irritating masks are.

Today’s post spotlights a Tim Holtz feather die. I decided to explore my specialty paper file box and play around. After much trial and error, I present you with three cards, six feathers, and one very satisfied card maker. 

First up, some gorgeous, iridescent marbled paper I’ve had for over 20 years. Add some dark green velvet paper for the top feather, and then a gold wax seal and gold cord for embellishment. Couldn’t decide where to put a sentiment, so I didn’t.

Next, we see some textured blue paper and some rather thick mulberry paper that came with a gift from a friend about ten years ago. A “hope” charm combined with pearls, DMC floss, some pearls, and a birch-bark background finish the piece. 

And finally, we have some gorgeous patterned vellum and a marigold inclusion paper. The creamy pearls came from a reader probably 15 years ago, and the grass stamp is from Papertrey. 

What a great layered die, and what fun to dig out pretty papers I’ve not used in quite a while!

What do you want to play with from your stash that’s gone largely unused for a while? Pick a supply or technique and run with it!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,

Susan