This year's card, Part 3

Scoured the internet looking at label image ideas.   I found this great looking one which will be perfect.  I used Photoshop to edit and clean it up so I could use it as my mailing label!  I love, love, love how it looks.   Handmade envelopes are ready, too.

Working on embellishing my card images.  And of course, my printer needs ink so no printing as of today.  Ordered ink and it's on it's way!

This year's card, Part 2

Working on the envelopes.  I couldn't find what I want on any  online shops.  So what do you do?  Make your own envelopes!   I made a template and I'm using a green tinted paint mask off paper I got at home improvement store.  I love the feel of the paper and it's study but thin.  It'll work perfect for my handmade cards!

This year's card

Sneak peek....

Vintage (public domain) images I found on the internet.  Resized them,  desaturated, and painted using my iPad and Procreate app.  I have more embellishing to do!  So far I love love love!

Holiday project with friends!

My friends, Becki and her mom, Alice asked to get together for a holiday craft day.  Becki is very crafty but he mom is not really all that interested but we insisted she joint in.  

Becki found a number of ideas on Pinterest.  I decided on this one.  I pretty much had all the supplies in my craft stash and that's the reason I picked this one.

This is mine.  Free hand painted the wreath and red berries.  Not bad.

Alice's sign, not bad for someone who brags about not having any creative talent.

Becki's sign looks good!

My finished sign!  Love, love, love it!  Had so much fun with Alice and Becki.  Oh, Becki's 4 yr old daughter joined in the fun...she's adorable and full of creative energy!

Wood project

I saw these little white wooden block decorations on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try!  There are so many examples of these types of holiday decorations using simple wood shapes.

Dug through my wood pile and found a couple of 2x4 pieces.

Used the compound miter saw to cut the shapes.

First coat of white paint.  It cover well for a first coat.

I'll post an update when I finish them.

I'm also working on holiday sign with some friends this week and I'll post them, too.

Angel wings

 

Anytime I find a set of wings I must stop!

Grand Island, Nebraska

Letterpress time

The sun is shinning into my brokenwing studio!  Dusted off my Letterpress and Epic Six press.  I haven't used them in years!!  I've been brainstorming ideas for this year's Christmas card.  I've been scoring the internet for inspiration, ideas, ideas and more ideas on how to use the letterpress.   One thing I'm leaning into for this year's card is a Mexican style card.  Loteria cards?  Papel picado? Colorful?  Florals?  Serapes?  I have so many supplies and ideas and narrowing it down is always the tough part.

I have four ink colors, yellow, black, red and light blue.  Good enough for holiday cards!

I love the way the letterpress worked on the tea dyed cardstock!

Love affair with paper

 I watched a YouTube video on making faux vellum paper.  I don't recall the name of the artist, sorry.  She used a can of clear spray paint on a variety of papers.  One paper she used was painter's masking paper.  I've been using the masking paper in the green tone and the brown tone colors for several years.  I first came across this paper at a shop in Albuquerque.  I love the lightness of it and love love love the colors.  It comes in 18" rolls so I cut it to 8 1/2" x 11" sheets and printed some vintage images and text on to them.   I gathered up a few pieces of pattern tissue, book pages, and tea dyed graphed paper.  I used clear matte spray paint I bought at my local Walmart.  Nothing fancy.  Used a box to lay the paper in and sprayed one side at a time.  You need to do this outside or in a very well ventilated area, believe me.  Hung them to dry and I love the way they turned out.  My favorite is the dress pattern tissue!  I may have to try a glossy clear next time.  The matte is nice but I'm curious how the glossy will make the paper feel and look.

Here is a sample of the masking paper.  It's not transparent but it does have a nice translucent look.

My Fat Boy, my constant companion, my Winston dog....may you rest in peace my love.

Wednesday was such a tough day.  This dog, WINSTON gave us 13 years.  Last week he was showing signs of aging more so than normal for him.  We knew the hard decision was upon us.  We thought another week and we'll see.  Two days ago that all changed.  He deteriorated fast.  Could walk on his own and yesterday he was not interested in eating or moving around much.  Now, Winston is always interested in  eating anything anytime.  The signs were all there.  I looked into his eyes and he was telling me he was ready.  Today he was so sick and could not move at all.  Today was the day he chose.   He was so ready and at peace.  We love this dog and he gave us all his love all the time!  I will miss him terribly.  Bella girl, not sure how the  change will impact her.

Winston

Winston as a puppy, he was so cute!

Winston, a year old!

Winston's first road trip, Flagstaff

Winston, he loved swimming in rivers, swimming pools not so much.

Winston's first road trip to Idaho.
Last trip there was to watch the lunar eclipse.

Monday thoughts...

Blogging with breakfast! 

I've been journaling for a long time, but like everything  else in my life I do it for a minute and then I stop for a bit and then jump into it again.

A page from my current journal.

I think blogging is the same for me.  I love when I take the time to post but I over think what I should post about.  I read other blogs and find them fun to read and think to myself I should write about that...I started this blog years ago and it really hasn't taken off.  I'm not tech savvy on writing the code  or setting up this blog site properly to where it will have buttons to feed my instagram and Facebook page.  The other thing is I never had the foresight to name everything similar.  So my blog, Facebook page, and Instagram all have different names.  One day I should figure out how to consolidate all of it.  I think the main thing I wanted when I began was to get exposure for my artistic and creative side of my life.  Back  then I was working a pretty serious full time job in the criminal justice field and the creative time was a great balance.  I'm retired and have plenty of time for all the artistic fun but I forget to share it!

Sticker crazy!

I used my Cricut machine this week.  I made stickers!  It's been a journey of so many unfortunate events to complete satisfaction!

First, I needed to design the stickers.  I ventured into my stash of inspiration drawings and images.  I came up with a whole set of greenery/floral tiny designs.  First, I sketch.

Once I get the basic designs on paper it gives me a good idea of what I want to use for my stickers.  I kept the designs simple as for my first attempt of making stickers.

From this point I get out my iPad and use the Procreate app to draw up the stickers.  Here's the process in video.

  Once the sticker sheet is done it's time to import it to Cricut Design Space.  Here's where the problems began!   Once I sized up the sheet I made two side by side and attached them.  Set up print/cut option.  I watched a tutorial on what settings to use on the Cricut for stickers.  I was making stickers on white sticker paper and clear glossy sticker paper, both for inkjet printers.  I have a Canon Pro 100 printer.  Once I hit printer I could not get the print settings  box to open.

Last week we had a electrical outage and all my printers were lost since the modem and router were shut down.    I had to add them and the setting just weren't coming up the same.  I added drivers and software updates, geez what a process so I figured this was the reason the Cricut software was not showing the print settings.  After more research I finally got it figured out.  One reason I needed to figure it out was the Cricut could not read the cut markers, what a mess.  Once all this got figured out it was  magic!

I was able to print and cut the stickers out.  I printed some on clear glossy sticker paper and a few sheets of white sticker paper.  The few sheets the Cricut would not read I cut out with scissors and craft knife.  

I put samples of both the clear and white paper stickers on some brown kraft paper to show you how they look.  I'm so pleased with how they turned out!  My brain is on creative overload on new designs, holiday designs, kids sticker designs, bullet journal stickers, planner stickers!  I must admit I'm really liking the clear ones.

Inspired

I finished a two week road trip and being in a car all those miles sure stunted my creative soul.  Normally, I make stops on my trips that inspire me, but this trip was way different.  The destination was a family wedding, driving was the goal.  I was able to stop and visit a few friends who are creative souls and I realized how I haven't been in the mood to work in the studio.  Before I left I cleaned up my studio space and I'm glad I did.  Today I started making some necklaces.  I haven't made jewelry in a long time and it feels good to get back at it.  Next I'm going to finish my soldered pendants!

Balance

 A year ago, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.  Yeah, it's that beautiful.  

Calm the mind

New pens

I watched one of my art journaling online courses.  The artist used these pens!  I had to buy some.  I love love love them!!  Chromium green, light cobalt turquoise, dark naples ochre, sky blue, cobalt turquoise, medium flesh, and indanthrene blue.

Faber-Castell PITT artist pen big brush.  

Monday thoughts...

June 2019

Summer begins, and so does finding things to do to escape the heat.  I've been battling a cold, sore throat and cough for the past week and have been sticking close to home.  I had no motivation to start a project.  But, today I was feeling better and tackled a graduation cards/gifts.I came across a blog/website, "stellaire".  She has the cutest ideas for writing to a pen pal.  I don't have a pen pal, yet.  I used some of her cute ideas to inspire the  high school graduation gifts.  

A set of journal cards, free images on line.

Tiny glassine bag of gold stars!

Small envelopes with punch out stickers.

The matchbook notepads.
Filled with black paper and ruled  and dotted paper.

Handmade card.
I used scrabble letter pieces and my vintage typewriter!
Gold lettering card made with foil and laminator.

Monday thoughts

Hello 2019,

Let's see where do I start.  December was a busy month.  I had a open house the first weekend of December.  It went well and I had fun putting it all together.  Lots of work but well worth the time.  The night of the show I was putting things away and moving patio furniture.  I made the mistake of not using my legs to lift a couch and pulled my back out!  A trip to urgent care with the rest of the week resting.  I have never had a back problem other than some minor soreness that a good nights sleep heals me right up.  Not this time.   But, once it healed it was amazing how the pain just goes away.   Then it was time for  the holidays!  Christmas was quite around my house.  Traditional tamale making on Christmas Eve.  New Year's was fun, we had a visit from a college friend.  On January  3rd we headed out to sight see and have breakfast.  It had been cold overnight in the Phoenix area and we had some freezing.  As I walked from the parking lot to the restaurant I stepped on some ice and fell right on my back!   Wow!  I'll tell ya, that hurt a lot!  I could hardly move.  We had breakfast but to be honest I could hardly concentrate on eating because my back was killing me.  My friend noticed a used bookstore he wanted to go into, so I stayed in the car and turned on my seat warmer!  Yep, my car has seat warmers!   I decided to video call my sister to cry on her shoulder....she answers and before I can say a word she tells me she is in the ER with my mom and that it was very serious.  OMG!  She wasn't able to talk and I then sat in my car stunned.  As the day went on my back got worse and back to a muscle relaxers, heat and ice and to bed.  I later found out my mom suffered a heart attack and needed surgery.  Fast forward a week...I'm heading to Nebraska to help with my mom.  The weird thing was the 18 hour drive in a car saved my back pain.  I was completely pain free by the time I got to Nebraska.  I think I needed to sit and do nothing in order for my back to heal.  I stayed in Nebraska for over three weeks and have just returned to warmer Arizona.  Yep, the deep freeze weather hit my hometown.  I haven't been in that kind of freezing ice cold weather in a long long time.  Good thing I had seat warmers in my car, lol.  While in Nebraska there a lot of time spent on rearranging, reorganizing, educating ourselves on my mom's needs.  My mom's recovery was amazing. She is a fighter and boy did she show us what determination was.  It was nice seeing her do so well and leaving her was not as bad as I thought it would be.  She is in good hands with my family.  I was reminded ... rest is important, self care is important, saying NO is good, prayer is powerful, family is important, having fun and smiling heals, love, love and more love is good.  Here's to 2019!

Me and my Mom, Kay