Valentine's cards were completed last weekend and mailed. As I was working on them I realized I gravitate to simple, clean designs. New (to me) techniques utilized include: 

• Washi tape. It's been around for years and lots of people love it. I bought a variety pack and found it just ok. I'll use it in the future but doubt I'll buy any more. 
• Weaving. I had leftover strips of patterned paper from another project and decided to see how they looked woven together. SUCCESS! 
• Brayer rolling. The solid red card stock was just too plain but I didn't want to stamp anything on it because it would complete with the paper paper underneath. I looked up, noticed the brayer rollers on the pegboard and used one to roll ink onto the card stock. The roller I chose had some imperfections which created a textured/ sketchy effect to the inking. Yes, others have been doing this for years but this was my first time. Love the effect! 
• Blending brush. Having seen this tip on one of the Facebook groups I'm in, I bought a make-up brush from Dollar Tree, tapped it on an ink pad and used it to highlight the embossing so it stands out. Definite thumbs up! 

All in all, I had fun, learned some things and made a few friends and family members smile when they received their cards and realized someone was thinking of them. Life is good! 

Next up: I'm dusting off the polymer clay supplies to play around with that medium for awhile. It's been 10 years and the clay might be dried out. If it is, I'll buy just enough to play a bit so I can decide if I want to get active with this medium or let go of the supplies to free up space. At this point I have no clue how things will play out - LOL. 

Believe,
Di
 

new bedding

I'm mesmerized by the cosmos and hubby is a fan too, so when I came across this colorful sheet set I instantly ordered it. When we switched from a queen bed to a king I looked for a bed cover I liked, but didn't find anything. That's when I decided to convert the queen sheet set to a king bed cover with pillow shams. I found a navy king quilt, cut the flat sheet so the quilt border was the same size all around and attached it to the quilt. Next up were the pillow shams. The project took most of January, fitting in a few hours each weekend, but it's done and we're both pleased with the results. Oh! And here's a 'before' photo of the sheets piled on the new folding sewing table hubby built for me. Love it and him! ♥ 

Believe,
Di

"believe" in theme words

Late in 2010 I started ending each blog post with "Believe." For some reason I didn't continue this practice when I returned to blogging mid-2019 after a 4 year break. As I was thinking about this today, I wondered if "believe" had been my theme word for that year, but skimming through my journal, I see I didn't start establishing theme words until 2012. Interesting.

To help me keep track going forward, I'm listing my annual theme words here. They've all helped me grow in some way.

2012 – physical
2013 – do
2014 – you always regret what you didn’t do
2015 – action
2016 – give
2017 – energy
2018 – perspective
2019 – practice
2020 – balance
2021 – accept

Believe,

Di

2020 holiday cards

One of the reasons I blog about what I create is to remind me how much fun it all is so I don’t get side-tracked or lost again.  

This year felt like a good year to start sending holiday cards again, not having done so since 2013 when I started my organizing business. I pretty much stopped doing anything creative and put all my energy into my business. Fast forward nearly 5 years and I closed the business - one of the reasons was because I really missed this part of my life.

Last year and early this year, I focused on learning watercolor. The past few months I've gone back to my roots - card making. I'm woefully out of practice but damn am I having fun getting back in the saddle again. I've always made our holiday cards, whether paper crafting or printing one of my photos onto card stock. Sending cards this year meant getting back into production mode. I got out a couple tools I haven't used in eons - my original Wizard and my original Silhouette. I'd purchased both back in 2007 and was concerned they, especially the Silhouette, might not function anymore. Thankfully the Wizard worked like a charm. The Silhouette on the other hand, needed new software to function in Windows 10. Luckily, after going down a few wrong paths, I found what I needed. A big shout out to Silhouette America, Inc. for making a product that holds up over time, an online system that retained all my old purchases and making thousands of new designs available that function even on their first machine. I’m a happy customer! Oh, and shout out to Spellbinders too - the makers of the Wizard. These tools were financial investments for me back then, but buying quality paid off (as usual - lol).

So, without further ado, here are this year’s creations…