• Blog

    January Journal embellishments

    January 16, 2024 - By 

    Since the cold weather finally found Minnesota, I’ve been doing a bit of lap crafting. It’s too cold in my basement craft space to spend any length of time. I had yesterday off for Martin Luther King Jr day so I spent a bit of afternoon time by the fireplace re-watching a series. Re-watching something lets me craft while still getting a bit of entertainment value simultaneously.

    I’ve definitely been more inspired by junk journaling lately. I watched a YouTube video the other day that talked about using those 6×6 paper pads for an easy and practical embellishment. A full page pocket.

    They were super simple yet slightly boring on their own. I decided to add clusters to them to jazz things up a bit.

    As you can see they are kind of like chips…can’t have just one.

    Here I grabbed an ATC to show the pocket part. When the pocket get glued to the journal page it will be adhered only on three sides creating another pocket behind.

    After embellishing the pockets with clusters I decided that my stash of clusters needed a bit more interest. I grabbed a container of paper flowers and set to work.

    I had so much fun working with this limited palette of flowers.

    As you can see I went a bit crazy, but I used up the whole container of flowers from my stash. I’ve been think a lot about all the stuff I have for crafting and how meaningless it is to have around if I’m not using it. I made a pledge to myself to use things. Even if I don’t have a specific plan at the moment. Moving forward with creating. Not everything has to a a plan. I’m being BRAVE and using the stuff. Creating without an end goal in mind per say.

    While I crafted, my buddy Marvin kept me company. He’s sweet like that.

    This is a poor picture taken as the sun was setting but look at the blossoms! This plant has never bloomed for me. I’m so pleased that it finally did!

    Over the long weekend I had plans to have Bloody Mary’s with the neighbors but they came down with a cold. I wasn’t too sad since it was so frigid outside. I didn’t relish the idea of walking across the street. Instead we all had our own and shared a photo in our group chat. 🙂 I suppose we could have done a zoom call but that really would have been overkill.

    It was back to reality for me today. The end of semester is Friday so suddenly all the kiddos want to get some work done! Imagine that! Keeps me busy and makes the day go by really fast.

    Linking up with Elizabeth and friends for T Tuesday where we share a beverage and whatever else comes to mind.

    T stands for Tuesday
  • Blog - Crafts - Creativity

    Building a card stash

    May 25, 2020 - By 

    As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been sending more cards. This, in turn, depletes my stash. Over the past week, I’ve been having fun creating some new designs using some scraps as well as previously created card bases.

    I have an index card box full of precut layering pieces for cards. This comes in handy for quick card making. I also have a wooden cigar box filled with mini collages for cards or journal pages. Doing some of the mindless prep work ahead of time leaves more time for the creative process and doesn’t interrupt the flow of ideas.

    I am also starting to pre-make some sentiment pieces. I grabbed my tag and mason jar punches to start. The mason jar is so darn cute. The punch itself is a bit finicky. It jams almost every single time. UGH!!!!

    I am willing to put up with it though because…look how cute this is!!!! After I stamped the pale seafoam green I realized that it was beginning to look like an old-fashioned blue mason. I used a cosmetic sponge to shade in two colors of blue dye-based ink. Then rubbed the top of the jar on a gray pigment ink pad to act as the zinc lid.

    I used foam tape to lift it off the page so I could add some sticker flowers to the jar. So fun!

    I can 100% guarantee that you’ll be seeing more cards and postcards. They are really quite addictive to create.

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    T Tuesday: changes edition

    January 13, 2020 - By 

    This week is one of change. J heads back to college for the Spring semester. Our school is having its final week of the semester. Next week brings new classes for me and Mini-me, just to name a few.  With J heading back to college I’ll once again be expanding my crafty space to include the desk in his room. Perhaps then I’ll catch up with a couple of projects that have hit the back burner over the last month.

    New projects

    I’m creating an embellishment storage booklet. I was inspired by Gayle Agostinelli. So far I only have one page of the booklet completed. It’s not pretty but that wasn’t my purpose. I’m using up papers and extras that I’ll never use. It’s strictly utilitarian. Waste not, want not.embellishment booklet

    I slipped a few random paper pieces in the pockets so they’d actually show up…

    embellishment booklet

    It will make better sense when it’s all put together but basically I want to have a book or booklet with all my small or fussy cut embellishments at the ready instead of searching through half a dozen places for just the right piece I know I own.

    Another new project is actually an old one that I never started. The sketchbook project that I purchased over the summer. Of course, at the time the due date seemed so far away…now its only weeks away.sketchbook project page

    sketchbook project page

    I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of these pages in the weeks to come. My only disappointment is that the pages are so thin…any wet media really soaks through very quickly. I definitely have to keep this in mind instead of just intuitively creating as I prefer.

    Last weekend we finally put away all the Christmas decor. I snapped this late even photo the night before for my obligatory T Tuesday beverage reference. T Tuesday obligatory photo

    Something fun that just came in the mail that I had to share was our “free” Marvin puzzle.

    Marvin puzzle

    I say “free” because for the puzzle itself we had a coupon code making it $0 but then the shipping seemed a bit overpriced so they definitely were making their money somehow.

    I snapped this pretty sky photo when I got to work this morning. The sun was behind a veil of thin clouds…it was a perfect orange disk. The view almost made up for the slick driving conditions from the overnight snow. Almost.snowy morning sky

    Such a bummer…we’re getting snow again right now…in fact, we are getting snow basically every day this week during one or both commutes. Not fun.

    T stands for Tuesday

    What are you doing today?