my new fave!!!!

I loved making these cards!  it has been months and I have no idea what I did with them but I loved them!

The paper is My Minds Eye, which I have found I love almost anything they do! 

The coolest thing is that there is some masculinity in a lot of their papers so really most of them can go either way. 

These two cards are decidedly feminine what with the ribbon and the glitter LOL, but really with a little tweaking I could have done masculine.

journal cards.....YESS!!

Recently I discovered journal cards.  Yes, I know....they have been out for a while, but sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out.  My daughter loves smashbooks and even though I have really liked some of the elements that go in them I couldn't really think of what to do with them.  Making a journal seemed like to big a project which is why I make cards.  Bam you're done.  Until that is I happened to see some ridiculously low priced on clearance at Joanns.  Now?  there is not putting the toothpaste back in the tube for me.

The card base is your standard black whatever paper.  I like to use only stampin up card stock for my card base but I didn't have any.  The patterned paper is actually a journal card and the sentiment is a smaller journal card that I trimmed a little.  I love the way it came out.

I made this one for a friend of mine who was moving into her dream house after having had to move 3 times in 6 years!  The little flowers are a stampin up punch.  I love it.

Yeah...um this one?  I tried something cute that looked horrendous and had to figure out a way to fix it without ruining the card!  My solution?  Cover up the mistake with something bright and it will not be noticed.  It worked!

 Super simple and the nice thing is all the sentiments are written out so no stamping.  I love stamping but I obsess over the placement of the sentiment so with it done already it makes a nice "brain vacation "  kind of card.

And this is my last one.  It is the last card in this post because it is AWESOME !  lol.  I added the black and white brads and the little congrats thing I cut out on my cricut.  I kept it all pretty simple because...well....I like simple.

I hope that you guys see that you don't have to stick with any "rules" when you are doing the things that make your heart sing.  A journal card makes a great journal page but it also makes a fun card.  Anything that catches your eye can somehow be translated into whatever craft you are working on somehow.  Happy creating .
 

OOH I have been having fun!  bought a new paper stack called The Green Stack by dcwv while I was in Cheyenne with my husband.  We had a wonderful time and I found paper! I love, love, love finding new paper stacks.  I could probably go into thousands of dollars of debt buying paper.  I think we get the idea LOL.

The tree is a Close To My Heart set called Life is good, I don't use it nearly enough!  Maybe I have too many sets???  NO! lol.  

Loving the beaver from this stack, it is so adorable.  The flowers are from stampin up on of the itty bitty sets, It is amazing to me that so many things go together that don't go together. 

The bird up above is from Close To My Heart and so are the butterflies and the sentiments.  I LOVE the "flower power" paper!!  one of my faves in the stack.  I am definitely going to have to buy more.

Happy Carding!

 

sometimes I forget

Sometimes I forget that I love to write about my cards and the fun I have making them.  Making cards is one of my most favorite things to do EVER, and I like sharing them in the hopes that someone else will find my passion inspiring LOL......for what I am not sure.

I had a great time finding this beautiful paper, i touched some of it up to bring out more color but it really didn't need much.  My girls think I am silly because there are times I get as lovesick over a piece of beautiful paper as I do over my husband. 






But I honestly can't help myself.  i don't have the talent to make beautiful things out of nowhere, but I can make something beautiful when i am given the right components and this paper???  Definitely the right components!

crazy creative.....

I have been getting my crazy creative on lately....just can't help myself.  I had started looking at some really cute bee stuff from CTMH and my brain went tilt with joy!  The only problem was that at the time there was just no money in the budget to order anything.  So I had to figure out how to make due and still be happy.  Because we all know that making due in the paper crafting area does not always lead to happiness.

I figured I could at least get the color scheme going with most of what I had and then I supplemented with some yellow and black paper from joann's.

 
The patterned paper is from stamping up, also the coordinating flower stamp and punch are also from Stampin Up.  The cute little bee and the sentiment are from CTMH and the rest of the paper is joann special.

 The background paper on this card is from a DCWV stack called Lemon Flower.  OMGGGG i fell in love and decided I didn't need a lot of gas in my car to get around and bought this instead.  Yes, a little insane LOL.  The butterlies are Stampin Up as are the little flowers and strip of ribbon.  

I also tried a new size format and I love it!  I almost always stay within the 4.25x5.5 card size and it is out of my comfort zone to wrap my brain around other sizes.  I am only a little ocd :).  But I think I will be doing more of these, I like them.  Then of course I went back to my original size just because I love it.

I did get to play with the brown and yellow bee stuff that first ispired this wave of creativity, but you know when you get so excited about something that you don't stop to enjoy one idea before you are on to the next one?  Oh, they call that A.d.d.? HA! 

Anyway, I am having some fun and loving getting creative again!!  enjoy your day :) 

Enjoying my Journey

This is a Tim Holtz stamp set that I absolutely love.  I love it partially because it is vingtage but also because many of Tim Holtzs' stamp sets have a little bit of a message.  This particular set has a message that I have been needing pretty badly lately.

Enjoy the journey.  I often forget that the reason I started this blog was to share what I love to do most, that is after loving God and my family.  I love making cards, I love experimenting with textures, I love colors and papers....oh on and on!  For crying out I get so excited when I get a new catalog from Stampin Up or Close To My Heart!

But I have a bad habit of looking back pretty critically on cards or projects I have made in the past that did not turn out quite the way I had planned it. I see one of my "failures" and I think to myself "did I really think that is such a great card?"  "Really?!"  Most of the time I am my worst critic almost embarrassed by the ones that didn't turn out so great.

If I am totally honest, on my more self critical days, I let my perceived failings discourage me to the point of not even looking at my card space.  What a shame.  Because there is more to me than one stupid, little, failed card attempt.  There is more to me than 100 failed card attempts, and maybe card # 101 will be the one that makes my stomach flip over because I am in love with a card I just made.  Wow, how fun is that???

I want to enjoy my journey in card making much more than I have been.  I want to look back and be able to smile, or even laugh, not with criticism, but with joy because I had fun making the bad card and in the process learned to relax, have fun with it and make the lemon cards into lemonade cards.  

So here's to lemonade cards......hmm, that could be a great idea for a card :)  

even if no one sees

So here it is, another post with a long stretch between this one and the last one.  I have not stopped creating, just sometimes it seems to much trouble to put up things that don't get read.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound bitter, but we all have that need to feel as if we are seen and heard.  As if somehow that validates our creative impulses.

But really it doesn't.  What validates the creative spirit in us is the joy that we feel when we are finished.   It is the AHHHHHHHHH when I create something I love.  Sure I want others to love what I create also, but not everyone does.

I have pom poms, and painted vases and yarn covered tins that I think are pretty darling , yet others are less impressed.  Does this mean I should stop?  Should I stop making cards because no one will buy them?

How many artists did not become famous until their death?  Not that I believe that if i died tomorrow my creations would become something to be fought for....but you know.

So I continue making my cards and putting out this little blog not so that the world will be convinced of my talent, but because I am created in God's image, and He is the greatest creator of all time.  So I in some small way must also create, it is in my nature.  even if no one sees.