When I went to address the 12 Christmas cards I made earlier I realized I'd forgotten a few people. Rather than skip them this year I decided to dust off my watercolor supplies and try a few I'd seen on Facebook reels that looked fairly simple. I played around with other card making supplies too in order to create nine more cards to send. It was fun to spend a couple afternoons just playing.
It's been a few months since I've posted anything. Got in the craft/sewing room a couple months ago to alter some pajamas and modify the fabric collage I made six years ago, but until this past week, that's been it. This past week I made some simple Christmas cards to send to a few friends and family members this year. Went to address the envelopes today and realized I'm out of envelopes so ordered more, which I'll deal with this week. Hopefully getting them sent earlier this year will mean people will actually receive them before the holiday. The verbiage on the cards are wooden ornaments from Hobby Lobby, so I'll need to add extra postage for the added thickness. Guess that's as good a reason as any to only make and send 12 this year, lol.
This month I played in the craft room for the first time since April. We lost Dad this year and nearly every weekend has included a day taking care of estate business and preparing his house for sale. It's been a sad journey but we had an endless supply of good memories to pull us through. Changing my work hours from 40 to 20 last month certainly helped lighten my load. I LOVE part time status and am so very grateful for the gift. Anyways... this month I made 24 of these cards to send to friends and family. It was therapeutic to play again. The paper is gift wrap that caught my eye.
Wishing you happy holidays, whatever your faith, and a healthy, prosperous 2025!
After my last post I started a large disappearing 9-patch quilt, then spring arrived and all my time shifted to being outside. It's now turned cold here so today I FINALLY got back in the craft room. A dear friend has a birthday this coming week and since we both love nature, I decided on a fall theme. First I embossed photo paper and then applied alcohol ink. I like the that it's simple and unique. Inside is a simple "happy birthday" stamped in dark orange.
Today's creation was a simple shaving cream card. I embossed the words and then went over them with marker. The diamonds along the sides were made using a Sparkle Pop pen. It's a simple design that took far longer to make than it looks, but it was fun none-the-less.
This year's holiday cards are done and in the mail. I made 28 using 6 different designs. Yes, they could have been decorated much more elaborately, but that's time consuming and I'm rather pleased with the clean, simple look they have without all the extras. Next up, finish making the mini calendars I started before shifting gears to these cards.
Believe,
Di
Yesterday I pulled together a few things I've made this year to share as gifts for friends. This makes me happy.
I've been in the craft room a handful of times since my last post but it continues to be tough getting back into the swing of things. The scanner in me wants to play in so many mediums, making it difficult to pick one at any time and stick with it long enough to grow. I get frustrated, reorganize the work space and start the cycle over. Ugh. Yesterday I decided doing this on my own hasn't been working out so well for me so I grabbed my laptop, checked out a few Skillshare classes on the general topic of creativity and asked my Facebook friends if anyone would be interested in joining a private group to support and hold each other accountable if I started one. I'm nervous about how much time the group would require, but I won't know until I try, we shall see what transpires.
Believe,
Di
It's been seven months since my last post. Work has kept my plate full and when I haven't been working, I've been gardening, doing yardwork and helping take care of family members. Now that fall is here, I've been able to start getting back in the craft room a wee bit. It's tough to get into things again, so I started with making a few cards. The plan was to make more today, but my hard drive crashed recently and I've had a dickens of a time dealing with that. If only I could function on less sleep I could craft more - hahaha. Oh well, it's all good.
Believe,
Di
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
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…
