This and That and a Card for You

Sue asked about the Hero Arts shadow set I used on my OLW96 card. It's from a set called Horizontal Graphics. I found an image of it HERE. Hero does occasionally re-release older images, and I'd love to see them re-release this set in CLEAR. I'd buy them again because when I use these as ground, as I am wont to do, I HAVE to use a stamp positioner. Clear would be more convenient.

Because I want my ground straight, not askew.

Isn't askew a fun word. Say it out loud. See? It's fun!

Do you always do what strangers on the internet tell you to do? If so, then wire me $1,000 so I can redecorate my craft space.

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On another shadowy topic, A Muse has an oval shadow set in their catalog that makes lovely ground for little scenes. Can't find a link quickly, but it's there in the current catalog, so call or email a consultant if you are interested.  I bought two of their ovals in wood-mounted form shortly before they switched to a consultant-based business and offered a whole set of different-size unmounted ovals for less than I paid for just two in wood.

My timing is sometimes atrocious.

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I am GIDDY with creative inspiration because of THIS BOOK I checked out at my public library. This is a treasure trove of graphic design beauty. I started putting scraps of paper between pages I liked and gave up when I realized that I was marking every page. Gonna buy this and keep it on my shelf for days when I need a creative boost. Check it out for yourself. Libraries are wonderful.

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To the person who unsubscribed from Simplicity this morning, I say, "Blessings to you. Go in peace and happiness."

To those of you who choose to keep reading, I say, "I am ever so grateful to you. Thank you. Come again and often and may you always find peace and happiness and fun!"

Here's a card for you that shows how to turn a negative into a positive.

How's that for a design pun?


Supplies
stamps: not a one
ink: well, not any
paper: PTI white
accessories: ah, here I can type something...burlap, ScorTape, half-pearls in chocolate brown, SU butterfly punch, dimensionals

Do-Over

I made a card that, well, disappointed me.

Here's what's wrong with it. It's crooked...and not crooked enough to be deliberate. See how the vellum slopes down to the right...just enough to look like a mistake. The crookedness, in and of itself, is unforgiveable. But the whole design feels unbalanced to me, too heavy on the right. That leaf. It's just doesn't work. Too...skeletal. Too...dead.

I'm really sorry if you like it. You're welcome to like it. It's a free internet, and you don't have to agree with me. Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.

But you're wrong.

I'm joking.

As far as you know.

Here's my do-over.

Here's what's right. This version is straight and tidy, with a cleaner frame of white space around the collage. It's much more balanced, too, with visual weight in the "sweet spot" and more pleasing asymmetry. You can see the message (the key to my heart...cliche, but hey, that key charm is adorable!) so much more clearly without that skeleton leaf. The three photo corners work much better than the two in the first version (visual triangle), and the piece of vellum has a more natural feel than the other, more botanical, less flourished and texty.

Texty.

That's a word.

In my universe.

Welcome to my universe. A universe where collage is attempted, but often results in a do-over.

OLW96: Birthday Blings

Sorry for the late time of this posting! Circumstances beyond my control and such. I'm sure you understand. Thanks for your patience!

This week's OLW is to make a birthday card with LOTS of bling. Your bling may be rhinestones or glitter or other shiny things!

Here's my card, which uses a discontinued Hero Arts shadow stamp. Hero seriously needs to bring this set back in clear. Seriously! Are you listening, Hero? PEOPLE WILL BUY IT!!!!

OLW96 Rules

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single layer of card stock folded in half. No other layers of card stock allowed.

2. Make a blinged-out birthday card. Bling may be glitter, rhinestones, or other shiny things.

3. Post your card online somewhere and link back to it using the InLinkz tool on the sidebar of Simplicity. If posting to your blog, please link to your OLW blog post, not just the main page of your blog.

4. HAVE FUN BLINGING!!!!!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (shadow), Papertrey (sentiment Birthday Basics)
paper: PTI white
ink: Memento
accessories: rhinestones

News on the OLW...and a Mess of My Own Making

First the news. Sadly, Jennifer Styles has to step down as a host of the OLW challenges. I am going to miss her enormously as her support and encouragement kept the OLW going when I was ready to give up on it. But she has a job that is taking her time away from stamping, and so I will post her last challenge here on Simplicity tomorrow (Thursday).

Second, I made a mess in my stamp area. Perhaps you can relate.

We'll be dealing with the rather appalling collage card in the center of the picture tomorrow, when I make it over into something that looks like I actually made it. (You can see even in this picture how crooked the vellum piece is on the card. Egads.)

But first of all notice the stained washcloth in the front center of the photo. That's freshly laundered and waiting to be put in a drawer where I keep my stamp-cleaning cloths.

I clean my inky stamps (as I work) with a dampened washcloth kept in a travel case for baby wipes (on the right of the photo). Behind that is my official Stamp Cleaning pad that I spritz with Ultra Clean (or whatever the stamp cleaner that PTI sells is called). That doesn't get used often because mostly the cheapo Target washcloths and water do a fine job.

Just don't close the travel case completely when a wet washcloth is in it. The sour smell makes me sick. If the case is left as it is in photo (the washcloth holds the lid up ever so slightly), the cloth will just slowly dry out over a couple of days with no unpleasant smell.

Before I embarked on the ill-fated collage card, I pulled out a gorgeous piece of printed vellum that I have owned--and I'm not kidding--for ten years. It's my last piece of this particular paper. How SAD! Every now and then, I pull it out just to look at it and decide it's too pretty to cut. Last year, I actually punched some butterflies out of it, and it hurt me to do so.

On this occasion, I decided I was being perfectly silly and resolved to use the pretty thing. So I made these, which you can see shoved to the left side in the picture of the mess.

I love the luminous quality of the yellowish, antiqued vellum on crisp white. Buried in the detritus of the picture are two L-shaped pieces of card stock that I used to find attractive sections of the vellum. Put the Ls at opposite corners to form a rectangle, and slide them around until you get something that looks interesting. It's a trick I picked up cropping photos back in my scrapping days.

Once the Ls were positioned, I used my quilting ruler to measure and then cut a slightly larger piece of the vellum so I could tape the extra to the underside of the window.

I cut the windows using my quilting ruler (in the forward left section of the photo) and a craft knife.

The paper is so appealing and contains words so that any stamping on the frames would just distract. I've now used up almost all the vellum and feel VERY happy that it's been put to good use.

What can you find in your stash that you've been unhealthily hoarding? Pull it out and use it!!!!!

It feels good!

Ducky, and Multiple Requests for Advice

Warning: this is a needy post.


First of all, can someone please tell me what the heck is going on with Blogger? Every time my blogs load, they're missing the tool bar at the top of the page...it's just blank. For those of you bloggers out there, I'm talking about the tool bar that has the "New Post" link. Then, I refresh the page, and the tool bar magically appears. Huh?

And while nice people are explaining stuff to me, what about the fact that there is no rhyme or reason to staying logged in at various websites after you've shut your computer down at night? Sometimes, when I turn my laptop on in the morning, I am still logged in at Facebook (even when I've forgotten to click the "stay logged in" button), but the next tme, when I have clicked the "stay logged in" button, I'm not logged in. Same goes for Splitcoast and Pinterest. Google Reader, on the other hand, always needs both the username and password every single blessed day. Google, please give us a "stay logged in" button!

Could it have anything to do with Norton Anti-Virus clearing tracking cookies? Or is that a stupid question?

I'm sorry. But I just want to know if anyone knows the answers to these mysteries.

On to stamping-related annoyance. Has anyone had a punch break? I mean, the actual metal part of the punch, not the plastic parts. I've had three or four plastic parts break...no biggie because you sorta expect plastic to eventually wear out. But my holly punch broke on the metal part. ARRRGGGHHH. It's my favorite holiday punch, and I've had it for at least ten years.

I found it at an online vendor I've never ordered from: Stuff 4 Scrapbooking. Anyone have experience with these folks? Please do tell.
Anyway,  you're here for a card, and other than these weird internet issues and a broken favorite punch, I'm feeling just ducky and hope you are, too.

Note there is no mat today. I think the white border on the stamped panel substitutes for a mat. You get three layers for the cost of two!

Just two layers. It feels almost normal for me. Except for the kraft. Tomorrow, we're back to white. I promise.

Supplies
stamps: PTI On the Farm
ink: Memento
paper: PTI kraft and white
accessories: dimensionals

Layers!?!?

I KNOW!!!! Shocking, but true. THREE layers.

PTI Vintage cream base, SU close to cocoa mat, and PTI white stamped layer. I tried to make it without the mat but it just looked weird. The twine is also from PTI. Because of the somewhat lumpy knot, I didn't pop any of the layers with dimensionals.

I rather like the soft, rustic stamped frame and the blotchy horse with the frayed twine...and everything else nice and crisp and clean. This is how obsessive compulsive stampers do cowboy.

Works for me!

And yes, I used a white eraser on the horse in hopes of getting better images in the future. It worked.

So tell the interwebs all about a time you didn't at first succeed and had to saddle up again. I have had several job hunts that felt like that, and of course there was the whole organic chemistry debacle my freshman year at Duke. I decided to saddle up a completely different horse and majored in English instead. And there was also my search-for-my-personal-stamping-style that forced me to saddle up repeatedly for about seven years.

An apropos sentiment for my life. How about yours? The best story gets the card!

Supplies
stamps: PTI On the Farm
ink: Memento
paper: PTI, SU
accessories: twine, glue dot

Text and Livestock

I wish I could trace the thought process that brought these cards to life, but it's gone. I'm just really, really glad I thought of it.

See? Curse me all you want, but this country rustic set can be modern fun!

Hope you had a great weekend. I sure did. Got all crafty and made a bunch of cards, including about a dozen Christmas cards. I decided to get brave and submit some of this weekend's work for publication. Will keep you posted.

What craftiness did you get up to this weekend?

Supplies
stamps: various alphabets, PTI On the Farm
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: gridded acrylic blocks