Monday Blah, Blah, Blah and a Card

I've been experiencing a crisis of sorts in my stamping. You see, my 2009 resolution to use all my image stamps is pretty much accomplished. The very few images I haven't used were bought for scrapbooking anyway, so I don't feel it is cheating to leave those out.

What do I do next?

Sigh.

That resolution gave structure and purpose to my stamping for over two years, and now it's gone. Oh, I'm still stamping, but I feel sort of aimless and adrift, if that makes any sense at all. When I'm not in my craft room, I develop all sorts of intentions of purging and simplifying and trying something new. When I actually go to do these things, I find myself whimping out.

I gaze longingly at the A Muse catalog and then tell myself that no matter how yummy that paper looks, it would be silly to buy more cardstock. I'm resolved to use up my colored cardstock, but much of what I make with it won't get posted here, mainly because I don't like a lot of the colors...they just aren't me. Should I just sell the stuff that isn't me and start over? 

That's a rhetorical question.

The truth is, I'm sharing my floating in the doldrums with you not so you will feel sorry for me or offer up advice, but so you will know that YOU are not alone whenever you hit the doldrums yourself. These slow periods happen to most everyone who passionately engages in any hobby. They are not permanent, nor are they unhealthy. They just are. I'm trying out a few new resolutions, reorganizing some stuff, studying magazines, and generally taking it easy, making cards using my Second Theory and plugging away at using up that cardstock!

This card is 7.25" x 3.5" in size.

What do you do when you're in the doldrums?

Supplies
stamps: SU butterfly, Shady Tree Studios sentiment
ink: Memento
paper: SU pretty in pink; Mark's Finest white
accessories: SU butterfly punch, Fiskar's bracket border punch, rhinestone

What's with the Top Fold?

Someone asked why I make portrait-oriented cards with folds on the top rather than the side. Honestly, I hadn't really thought about it. No good reason, I guess, except that I find it easier to photograph them that way and they seem to stand up better for display.

Here's a portrait-oriented card with a top fold. See how nicely it stands for its picture?

Now, here's a landscape-oriented picture with a top fold. It also stands nicely.

As far as I know, there are no rules about folds. I certainly don't judge folds. In fact, you can fold any way you want and as long as you're not hurting anyone, it's okay in my book.

Orientation, on the other hand, does have certain design rules, but those pertain to balance and harmonious composition for each individual card. Neither orientation is right or wrong in and of itself; orientation is a case-by-case issue, as these two cards show.

And by the way, I don't judge orientation, either.

Supplies
stamps: Shady Tree Studio Eastertide (a gift from STS's owner Nancy)
ink: Palette noir
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: colored pencils, dimensionals, scallop scissors

Shady Tree Holly Jolly Christmas Cards

Blogger is back at it. I scheduled this post and yesterday's correctly (triple-checked!) and they didn't post. Sorry about this, folks!

I have a bunch of premade cards (6.25" x 4.5") that have languished in my stash for a while. I decided to try using some of them for one-layer, completely FLAT cards using Shady Tree Studio's Holly Jolly set, which is so very pretty...and quite easy to color with colored pencils.

The first card was sort of for the CAS challenge at SCS last week, to use pink, blue, kraft, and green on a card. The berries are pink rather than red, something I would only have done for a challenge but it sure was fun to get wacky and violate nature's colors, LOL! I did add pink Stickles to the berries, just because. I guess I should upload this card to the CAS challenge gallery. I've fallen woefully behind on those challenges.

The next two cards use the same classic layout with images that are roughly the same size. Here's what I don't like about pre-made cards...you can't make the fold on the short edge. I'd much prefer that these two be folded at the top.

Why? I have no idea. I'm just weird.

This last card is a little more "original" in placement of the border. I actually trimmed about 0.5" off the left side of this card to make it more balanced because I couldn't extend the border just a little with stamping. It needed to cover 2/3 of the width of the card, and it fell just a bit short. If something doesn't quite balance, don't be afraid to trim your card to make it balance. This is actually my favorite of the four cards. Something about that border just hanging there in all that white space speaks to me of trust and faith.

I told you I was weird.

BTW, I know many of you don't follow my Questioning my Intelligence blog, but if you're interested, I wrote an essay a few weeks ago titled Craving White Space in a Carnival World. Since you like the cards here, you might like that essay, too.

Supplies
stamps: Shady Tree Studio
ink: Palette dark chocolate (first card), noir (the rest of them)
paper: pre-made cards from Marco's Paper
accessories: Prisma Colored Pencils, Stickles (only on the first card, though)

Are You Sick of Christmas Yet?

I sure hope not, because ohmygosh, I'm nowhere NEAR done with my Christmas cards. This is farthest behind I've been on holiday cards in five years. I'm feeling particularly drawn to designing one-layer cards to solve this scheduling snafu, and I'm finding a lot of the Shady Tree Studio stamps I've gotten recently are useful for this.

Consider this small bough stamp from Naturally Imagined. I repeatedly stamped it three times (starting with the center one) and then stamped a random Merry Christmas stamp from my collection in real red (Stampabilities, perhaps?). The boughs are colored with SU markers...I shaded them with two different greens and rather like how it turned out.

I'd tell you which greens if I could remember, but I only think I used green galore and garden green. Don't take my word for it, though. I'm very unreliable right now, having spent many hours Friday working at an elementary school book fair dealing with children who can't count money or make up their minds whether to buy the Star Wars Jedi School paperback, The World's 101 Grossest Things, or a $5 plastic pointer. Oh, and let's not forget about the kids who bring in ziploc baggies with $24.56 in pennies, nickles, and dimes. Or the kids who have no money at all.

Those break my heart. We had a few boxes of free books for them to pick from. No one went away unhappy. 

But I digress. Back to today's card.

Using two different sizes of red bling made me giddy. Bling has that effect on me. Does it have that effect on you, too?

Late Thursday night, I whipped out a bunch of one-layer Christmas cards with the new Shady Tree set called Holly Jolly. I'll show those next week. I'm also going to try to pull together some CASification make-overs, and show some bookmarks I made with PTI's All Booked Up. There's a lesson in those bookmarks about not being stupid that I'll share as well, because, you know, confession is good for the soul.

Now I've built up your expectations and will dash them horribly with how mundane my stupidity is. I'm sorry. In advance. Please forgive me and have a lovely weekend.

Proportional Matting

Question from Yesterday: DonnaK asked where I buy Twinkling H2Os. I bought mine at Marco's Paper, a brick and mortar store in the Dayton area. But you can find them at the big craft stores (Michael's, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's) and buy with a coupon!

Now on to today's post, which hopefully Blogger will post in a timely fashion....

Today's Tip is one of those that, on the one hand, seems like a no-brainer, but, on the other hand, makes life so much easier!

After getting sick of doing the same math over and over, I made a simple, handwritten index card, which I posted on my bulletin board right over my workspace, with a list of dimensions for cutting stamped panels to matte evenly on a standard 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" card. It lists the sizes for cutting panels in quarter-inch increments. (Those of you who live in countries where "standard" is different can easily adapt this idea for yourselves.)

I typed it up for those of you using American measures. Hopefully, you can save it and print it for your own use.

If I cut a 4 1/4" x 3" stamped, panel, for instance, all I have to do is move up a quarter inch to get the measurements for a 1/8" matte all the way around the stamped panel. For a thinner 1/16" matte (as on yesterday's card), it's easy enough to just add 1/8" to the dimensions of the stamped panel.

I hope this makes sense.

And here is a happy CAS card that utilized this little chart.

Design Discussion: Please note how I rooted the flowers in the open space provided by the sentiment. I just love the way that looks!!!!
Supplies
stamps: Shady Tree Studio
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white, SU brilliant blue
accessories: dimensionals.

Personal News: My son Jack, who has high-functioning autism, was released from private occupational therapy Wednesday! After four years, he's finally functionally appropriate for fine motor and hand-eye coordination! YIPPYYYYY! He continues to receive OT through our school district, but this is a wonderful milestone for him to meet...and one less regular therapy session to cart him to! His developmental pediatrician saw Jack yesterday and is blown away by his progress. Jack truly has blossomed in the past six months. He's even one of the best readers in his regular 2nd grade class! Needless to say, we're on Cloud 9 around here right now, and I just had to share!!!

Taking the Easy Way Out and Proud of It!

Okay, I've started to feel much more confident with my coloring lately, and I admit that I don't feel like a bumbling idiot doing it anymore. Also, the results can be hugely wonderful on CAS cards (consider this cardinal!).

But I still LOVE taking the easy way out and using outline images like this:

Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Doin' the happy dance!

How-To Tips: This card is 4.25" square and uses Shady Tree Studios stamps. Not all outline stamps are this easy to put multiple ink colors on...markers give a blotchy effect on clear stamps that is sometimes what you want, and sometimes not. Definitely not on this card because these stamps are so crisp and clean. So I used the dew-drop Memento pads to put grape jelly on the flowers and bamboo on the stems and leaves and ground. One impression, and PRESTO! You're done. Well, you still have to stamp the sentiment, but you get the picture.

Take a look at your outline stamps and give this a try!

Question: Would you like me to put product reviews on Simplicity?

Shady Tree Studios and Paper Talk

Shady Tree Studios has some awesome stamps available in its first release, and I bought one set, and Nancy, the owner, sent me one for free.

Free stuff is so much fun! Especially when it's high-quality photopolymer. Y'all know how I am about clear stamps...no cheapy silicone ones allowed in my craft room. I have standards.

Here's my first card with these stamps. I wanted to use my scalloped circle punch to matte because the stamp's curvy lines invited that. Plus, I've not used those punches in forever and feel a bit guilty about that.

The thing that has impressed me about these outline stamps is just how easy it is to color them. I've played around with colored pencils, SU markers, and (on this card) Sharpie/Bics. Every one yielded great results, even in the hands of a very inexperienced colorer like me. Most importantly, I had FUN. Mainly because the areas to color are all small. I really don't like big open spaces to color and shade. It's just easier to work on a small scale. And that's what these stamps give you.

How To Tips: I used sharpies and bics to color these...two shades of green and two of aqua/teal. The centers of the flowers are blinged with Stickles Turquoise. The rick rack makes a fun grass. The sentiment is from Papertrey's Mixed Messages. The whole card is 5" square. I have envelopes from Marco's to fit that size.

Questions about Paper:
People have been asking about my white cardstock. I almost always use Papertrey Select white and vintage cream for card bases. These papers are very sturdy, and because they have a bit of tooth (are not smooth like SU's whisper white), they feel so rich and luxurious. I use a Scor-Pal to fold them because they are so thick. I'm starting to experiment with some other papers, but most of them are just not as thick as I would like, so I keep reaching for Papertrey.  Fabriano Medievalis (I know I'm spelling that wrong...sorry) is also wonderful, with a watercolor look and nice and thick. I've been hoarding my cards of that and need to get them out and use them!