Getting There...Eventually

So tell me if this sounds familiar. 

You see a stamp set. It's by a company you love. It's got the four words of Advent that you've been looking for for forever (they always leave out hope, for some reason). It's got an owl, fox, and bunny. It's got some tiny mushrooms and a stump. It's got some snowflakes. But most importantly, it's got a TREE...and you just can't say no to trees of any sort. Bonus: the images are block stamps so no coloring. 

Everything about this set screamed "BUY ME!"

So I did. 

And then I proceeded to make a bunch of pretty trash with it. 

Ugh. 

In a fit of pique, I die cut a circle from a trash panel. Then another. 

And after ruining a whole bunch of paper and wasting a whole bunch of ink....

Be still, my heart. 

This card makes me so happy. And so grateful to have discovered the European stampers who taught me to play with circles. 

The set is Winter Tree and Animals from Hero Arts. The sentiment is an old Gina K stamp, I think. And this will be this year's birthday card for my hipster son who wears plaid flannel, suspenders, and a beanie. He's the young fox, and I'm the wise old owl he never listens to. 

He's going to love it!

Peace, love, joy, and HOPE, 

Susan

Big Love

 I rarely go big and bold, but today's valentine does just that...and I love it BIG!

Oh, dear. Was that last sentence salacious? Maybe I should say, "I like big hearts, and I cannot lie." Is that better?

This big heart was made by cutting a stencil with a big heart die from Hero Arts Infinity Heart Dies set and sponging Distress picked raspberry onto a panel. The alphabet stamps are from Art Warehouse. I like how they appear to quiver. 

Oh, dear, again. Quivering love. I might have watched too much Bridgerton. 

Mercy, grace, peace, and non-quivering love, 

Susan

My Purple Valentine

Today's card was so much fun to make, but once I finished it, I wondered why I stamped the colors and then die cut instead of just using colored cardstock. It's a mystery.

Oh, wait. I made this card at 1:00 a.m. after waking up and being unable to fall back asleep. My brain gets wonky at 1:00 a.m.

What crafty gifts did you receive (or buy for yourself) for Christmas? I have a little Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket and would appreciate some ideas!

And several people have asked for pictures of Cooper since I posted pictures of Daisy. I threw in a Daisy pic as well. Poor Daisy had surgery on Thursday. She's fine, but weird places are shaved, and she looks like she has a black eye (cyst removed from eyelid). These pics are from last weekend (pre-surgery, obviously) when we had a little snow. 

"What?"

"Play with me, Daisy!"

Alert Dog

Zen Cooper

Mercy, grace, peace, love, civil discourse, and kindness,

Susan

Clean and Simple

Yesterday's free-form card gives way today to a tidy design that warms my clean-and-simple lovin' heart. 

Or perhaps it satisfies my inner an*l-retentive, obsessive-compulsive neat freak. Whatever.

The row of circles comes from the same set I used yesterday. These heart bling fits perfectly, and I used 7 circles of the stamp on purpose because I only had three of the dark pink hearts. The odd number looks great and anchors the sentiment. 

And speaking of love, our Daisy girl is having surgery next week to remove a couple of growths (benign but bothersome) and to have her teeth cleaned (no known problems other than a fair bit of tartar). Tonight, we are getting snow, and she made a nest on our big chair. 

One night last week, we ate while watching A Big Year. You might think Daisy was enjoying the film, but in fact she's begging Nick to share his food. Daisy "The Mooch" Raihala. 

Goldens are awesome. And the movie is really good, too. 

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and kindness,

Susan

Valentines

My son, niece, nephew, cousin, and young friend who attend college will get care packages for Valentines again this year. And of course they will each get a card. I do enjoy making valentines and have some excellent stamp sets for them. My birthday order from Simon Says Stamp included their Mix and Match Circles set, which is proving to be loads of fun, not to mention useful for valentines! 

Each stamp got its own shade of red or pink (although I did use the Archival pink peony twice). Golly, I have a lot of pink and red inks...didn't even use half of them!

Can one ever have too many ink colors? 

No. One can never have too many ink colors. What a silly question.

On an unrelated subject, I recently watched Bridgerton on Netflix. A smile involuntarily stayed on my face through the whole thing, even parts where smiling was likely deeply inappropriate. I do love a good Regency-era love story. And the duke...he is easy on the eye, is he not? The series is frivolous and oh-so-fun escapist pablum, which is just what we need right now as the pandemic stretches on and on and on. 

What escapism are you pursuing now? Inquiring minds want to know.

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and kindness,

Susan

Week 1 in the Books...and Thoughts on Self-Talk

My first two days of class went very well. Yay! For the next week, I'll be doing more lesson planning for units 3-5, and I adore lesson planning! My Mon/Wed schedule means no class until next Wednesday because of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday. 

Wow, do we need that holiday to remind us who we are, how far we have come, and--dear Lord help us--how far we have to go. 

After my second class today, I went for a walk in the brisk Ohio air (fresh air is good for the soul!) and hit my craft desk to play with a new set from Hero Arts called Winter Tree and Animals. 

So much paper ended up in the trash!!!! The frustration was palpable, and I felt my grip on patience slipping. "Should you just go read? Sheesh. This is too hard. Dang it! Ugh. You will never stamp anything pretty again. Arrrggghhh!!!!!!"

Y'all, catastrophizing is not normally my thing, but this afternoon, I went there. Thankfully, mindfulness kicked in, and self-talk shifted: "Susan, you are catastrophizing. This is only paper. Remember that you do this for fun, honey, and you can let the frustration go."

And I did. Just like that, the frustration evaporated. 

This is one reason I meditate and practice mindfulness daily. Mind your self-talk because when it goes negative, it gets in the way of creativity, of fun, of mental health. Acknowledge it, and let it go before it sinks you.

Then, this happened.

Yeah, the circles are back. But this works for me. Scenes, alas, rarely work out for me. The circles were die cut from a failed scene. These stamps are fairly large, so the scene was large. There wasn't a strong sense of perspective for depth with only white space, and no way was I going to sponge or paint or watercolor some background to make it work. Circles, however, gave me an idea. I realized they make me happy (in part) because they remind me of bubbles, and bubbles are so much fun!

And let me point out this is a PERFECT guy birthday card which I made without even intending to. So I've got that going for me. 

If you're a fan of Dear Paperlicious and missed Joan's most recent post about her lawyer days in legal aid, go read it. There is compassion on about fifty levels in her essay, and that warmed my heart. 

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and kindness,

Susan

Happy Flowers

 After I spent multiple 10-hour days sitting at my computer putting my spring semester classes together, a professor friend of mine posted this perfect meme:

Look how happy the Good Dog is! That's been me as I take lessons learned teaching virtually last semester and apply them to this semester's English Composition II courses. The world might be burning down around us, but many teachers, instructors, and professors are doing their best to pull. something. together! Yay, us!

And that's all I'm going to say about the chaos. Let's escape it into a creative bubble, shall we?

After spending about six hours today putting final touches on my first two units, I sat down at my craft desk and made this card, inspired by this pin by Kim. Chartreuse and purple again, in one layer with bling. Oh, my!

I'm in birthday-card-making mode. Got to get 2021 organized. The rest of my day will be spent taking down Christmas decorations (very late for us, but I'm apathetic about it this year). The family also plans a thank-you-note writing session either tonight or tomorrow. Old-fashioned and important, especially in these uncivil times.

Be the civility you want to see in the world. 

Mercy, grace, peace, love, and kindness,

Susan