Oh Snap! I forgot their hats!

How embarrassing. I forgot the little dog's Santa hats.

Here are a couple of them correctly dressed:

The top picture uses a little dog from Lawn Fawn, from Critters at the Dog Park, and a hat from Hats Off to You.  The second picture is the same as last week's with the addition of the Santa hat from the same Santa Paws set.

Much better with seasonal hats, don't you think?

It's in the stars, Fleas Navidad to you!

Fleas Navidad!

I have been wanting to use the star chart background stamp from Hero Arts, and here is the perfect opportunity!

The little dog and sentiment are from Paper Smooches. The sky background in the blue card is created with Distress Inks over an embossed star chart background. I love the little dog and the puny sentiment.

Flying by to say Merry Christmas -- with glitter!

I don't normally use glitter, since cards for Operation Write Home can't have it, so this was a little bit of fun for me.

The airplane is from Lawn Fawn's Bon Voyage stamp set, and the houses are from Sizzix Townscape die. More of that difficult silver elastic twine forms the tow line for the sentiment, which I believe is from The Alley Way Stamps' All Wrapped Up. I had fun heat embossing the greeting in metalic embossing powder. There is Wink of Stella glitter on the airplane, as well as glossy accents in the windows.  Glitter! Glitz! Wow!

Christmas critters on text, variations on a theme.

So, no two the same, right?  I ran out of the striped glitter paper for the mat, so I used some wispy branched paper for the mat on the top picture. I decided that the houses from the last post needed more contrast, so I cut them from kraft paper. On the third card, I went with a bundled up bird. Yes, that is a barely visible vellum snowflake near the top of the card.  Even in real life it is hardly visible. Learn from my mistakes, OK?

I did all three of these on kraft colored card bases, just because I like it.

The reindeer are from The Alley Way Stamps set "Fa La La", the bird is from "All Wrapped Up", also from The Alley Way Stamps. The sentiment on the bird card is from Lawn Fawn's "Winter Fox", and the houses are from an old Sizzix die, "Townscape".  

That invisible snowflake? It's from a die set from Paper Smooches. Not that you can tell, LOL.

Flying reindeer, for the win!

Last year my flying reindeer had on sweaters, this year he's naked!

This cutie is from The Alley Way Stamps set "Fa La La", and I stamped him on a page I tore out of a book. I gently colored him with my Spectrum Noir markers. Gently because the paper wanted to grab the ink and run with it. His nose and antlers are shiny with Wink of Stella glitter.

The row of houses at the bottom need more contrast, so the next versions will be colored differently. I am pleased with this as a first effort on old book art, and will be playing some more with it later.

I am down to about 8 square inches of actual work space on my table. I have really got to clean up to make myself a little room.

Good news (at least for me)! Home made glue dots actually work when you use sticker paper for the backing. I had been using the slick stuff that came in a bucket of perler beads, and that was a complete disaster. Heatproof it may be, but not nonstick, KWIM?

Season's Tweetings, round 2

Never one to leave things alone after the first try, here is version 2 of last week's card. I used a falling snow embossing folder on the blue background piece and also on the center blue panel. Then I used my new white pen to make a faux stitched line around the outside edge and to highlight the "snow" on the central panel. I really didn't like the music notes on the background of the original.

It is a lot easier to tie a bow with actual ribbon than it is with stretchy silver twine.

Once again, the birds are from Lawn Fawn's Winter Sparrows, and the tree line is their forest border die. The panels are cut with dies from Mama Elephant.

What a difference a juicy pen makes.

And so it begins -- Christmas card season!

Yay, I made my first Christmas card of the season. This is a prototype of some more that I will be making, minus the musical note background piece.

I love the little Winter Sparrows from Lawn Fawn, and they go so nicely with the little forest border. My white gel pen decided not to work after 3 snow dots, so I ended up stamping snowflakes near the top left to cover the "error".  Then I used my paper tool to pick up some of the white ink and make snow dots on the birds' heads. I also think I'll use a different twine for the rest of them. Maybe I'll use silver cording, what do you think?

Chief Craftypants Says I'm thankful for you

This weekend wasn't a total loss, I did finish 3 cards so far.

I used the stamp set called Jive Turkey from Paper Smooches.

Now, here's what's happening behind the scenes, so to speak. I am trying to organize my stamps and dies so I can remember what I have.  I am mounting magnetic sheets to cardstock and slipping them into 5x8 pockets that I got at Office Depot.

I have finally found a use for the magnetic advertisements that come glued to the front of the free yellow pages we get several times a year. I stick those things on cardstock, black side up, and away we go!  I love putting tape runner glue on the lawyer's faces.

Forcing things to work

Sometimes your mojo gets up and goes away.

I was playing with acrylic paints a couple of weeks ago, and made this interesting green background. I liked it very much, by itself, and it seemed to work with the dragonfly which was colored weeks ago.

I still haven't figured out how to use a sketch properly, and no matter which way I put the parts, they didn't look right, or took off too much of the green background, which was the point of this card in the first place.

So I messed and messed with it. I took out lots of paper and made a big mess on my desk, and in the end stamped a flower and put the bug on one of the blossoms. Then of course that wasn't the end after all, as the black stamped flower looked odd, so I found these old little flowers by Jolie to put over the plain black ovals.

Now I'm calling it done even if it isn't my finest work.

The dragonfly is from The Alley Way Stamps Fly By set. The card is going in the box to Operation Write Home.

Several other things went wrong last weekend, like my garage door, and my pressure washer. I tried to force them to work too, and they just broke for my trouble. I was under a deadline to get my driveway clean and Murphy was doing his thing with me. Maybe that affected my creativity? That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Experimenting is fun, not necessarily productive.

So, I experimented with a bunch of stuff yesterday, and I only have this one card to show for it. And it wasn't even the product of most of my experiments!

One thing I did play with was rubbing Distress ink over an embossed background, and that worked out nicely. Then I decided the butterfly (The Alley Way Stamps, Fly By) needed a flight trail. Well you can't stamp the trail after you've embossed, so I tried to "wing it" (lol, I can't help myself). So I hand drew the flight trail. Hmmm.

Most of the rest of the experiments involved texture paint. Since I want to stain them later, they are all over the surfaces where I put them to dry yesterday. It may be a while before I get back to them.

Today I experimented with different backdrops for  the card photo.

How's this? Not so good? I thought so too.

It's another card for Operation Write Home, which is winding down a little. I still have this box I have been working on all year. Yes, I'm slow!

Buggy thanks!

I made 2 more thank-you cards over the weekend. I wanted to use up the critters from The Alley Way Stamps set called Fly By that I had colored up and cut a couple of weeks ago.

This was one of those times I tried to follow a sketch and it fought me the whole way. The dragonfly and butterfly are so interesting and colorful that the rest of the card needed to be simple. It wasn't until they were done that I noticed a grungy area at the top right of the dragonfly card. It is part of the patterned paper design, honestly I wasn't handling them with filthy paws.

Also, I dropped the "thanks" as I was trying to glue it down and glue seeped out around some of the edges. I tried to get it off with an eraser but I was only partially successful. I'm going to blame my summer cold. Yup, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The "thanks" is cut from a die from Lawn Fawn.

My grand pillow experiment.

I got some red and white "pillow ticking" at JoAnn's yesterday, as well as a small pillow form stuffed with down alternative. I also got a bag of shredded foam. What you see in this picture is the old pillow (yuck!!) on the bottom left, with the shredded foam pillow above it, and the down alternative pillow to the right of it.

The fourth pillow, upper right, is shorter and stuffed with buckwheat hulls. I ordered it in July of 2011, and I just today opened the bag.

First of all, I think either the down alternative or the shredded foam pillow will do nicely as a replacement for old yucko there. I'll put both on the bed and see which one I reach for every night. That's fair, isn't it?

The buckwheat pillow will make a nice gift. I made some for the family 11 years ago and recently discovered some of them are still in use. Yikes!  I don't use buckwheat pillows, they are just too noisy.

They were all a little messy to stuff, but the buckwheat hulls escaped the furthest and the shredded foam is the clingiest.  The down alternative was like working with regular fiberfill, only slipperier.

One of my oldest possessions is going in the trash today.

I've had a down feather pillow since the 1960's. Yes it's at least 50 years old and I use it every night.  I keep making new covers for it, and I have washed it a few times, too. It was my favorite squishy body pillow and I took it with me when I traveled because there was nothing like it anywhere I went.

Yesterday I washed it for the first time in my front loading machine, and it unbalanced the load and I ended up wrapping it in towels and stepping on it to get the extra water out. First of all, the water was yellow/brown. Yuck.

To my surprise, some of the stuffing came out and it WASN'T DOWN, it was shredded foam! Imagine it, shredded foam from the '60s. It was dark mustard brown and super crumbly.

I've been living a lie all this time! My down pillow was cheap-o shredded foam. It has been getting smaller and flatter and now I know why. The foam was just collapsing.

Today I went to Bed Bath & Beyond to try to replace it, but you know nothing will be exactly like my old faker. So I went to Jo-Ann's and got some pillow ticking and 2 different kinds of stuffing. Maybe something will at least be OK? 50 years is a long time to have a pillow.

My missing "i" has been found like the 99th (or100th?) sheep!

Yes, my missing "i" was found, on the floor under my craft desk. It was all dusty, so that's why the flashlight was no help finding it on the floor. It was that odd sensation of stepping on something soft and stretchy that made me go "hmmmm".

I washed that thing up and stuck it back on it's backing.

There is something to be said for not cleaning up the floor on a regular basis. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sticking, get it??  Hee hee.

I am toadally your prince!

This cute card (one of 2 of the same design) is made with the frog from Enchanted, from The Alley Way Stamps. The sentiments were cobbled together from the Enchanted set, with letters from Gabfest and Lawn Fawn's Riley's ABCs.

And dang it if I didn't loose the "i" from Prince, right on my desktop somewhere. It fell off the acrylic block prematurely.  I have been all over the desk, under scraps (embarrassing how many) around markers (they needed to be put back in the rack anyway) on the floor around my chair, and even my ironing board. (Don't ask.). I've even used my flashlight on a low angle to make that shiny doo-dad show itself.

It may turn up, but dang it, I'm gonna miss that "i", it was the only lower case "i" in the set. Lucky I can probably substitute the exclamation point, but really.

Well, it sure got my attention

Last week I was on vacation in north/central Florida, staying with my sister in DeLand. We made a day trip up to Gainesville, where I got a library card and we visited a museum. The museum was all about dogs and wolves, with a bunch of Florida natural history thrown in. There was also a butterfly house, which was awesome.

The Devil's Millhopper is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, by the way. Phooey!!

On Friday I went by myself to see a roadside attraction I've had my eye on for years. Barberville Produce at the corner of Highways 17 and 40, has the biggest, most attention getting yard art I've ever seen.

Yes, I wanted to climb on the chickens, but they must have seen me coming. Ideally I would have had someone with me to take my picture with the big critters, but this was a solo trip for me. My sister and her man had gone to Jacksonville for a football game. Oh, and they live nearby and had already seen this place.

They had some local raw honey, limited produce, and boiled or roasted peanuts. As I wandered all over the place and took a lot of pictures, the smell of boiled peanuts was omnipresent.  I couldn't help but think of chicken soup when I saw the size of the feet on those big chickens.

Did I mention I've had my eye on this place for years? I was always on the way to somewhere else and there was no time to dawdle over this stuff. 

These 2 butts are the back side of stools. Funny!

There was a lot of decorated Mexican pottery and enamel, and those bowls in back of this chichen are actual sinks. Thank goodness, I didn't see a single yard toilet in the place. Yay!

My HOA is pretty strict about yard art, so I didn't entertain the idea of bringing home a cow or dinosaur. This stuff is designed to get attention, and it certainly does.

The "produce" was tomatoes, kiwi fruit, mangoes, and watermelon. There were no green veggies. There was also some candy which I didn't look at. Yay me.

I did get a picture of my hand on the big horse's nose. This picture is my computer wallpaper, at least for a while.

Getting my pink on.

Sure, I just felt like doing some more pink cards. No excuses, I just wanted to.

The pony is from The Alley Way Stamps, as are the Happy Birthday and Hey You greetings. The dino, quote bubbles and You're dino-mite greetings are from Lawn fawn.

More dragons, and dinosaurs too.

I really love this dragon, he looks wistful without even trying. I think I colored him last week before the stupid ants came back to my craft table. Really, ANTS? I haven't even spilled any food in there yet.

Not an especially productive weekend, but I was determined to make that paper pieced dino work. I spent WAY to long messing with different papers for him. Seriously, that pattern is too busy for a critter, unless you want to consider him camouflaged.  That's the exact opposite of what you want when you are making a card, LOL. I think I will sneak on a birthday present for the dino, what do you think?

The dragon is from The Alley Way Stamps, and the dinosaur is from Lawn Fawn, as are both sentiments.

Ok, the more I looked at the dino, the more he needed more birthday party accessories. I don't have a stamp of a cake with candles, but I was sure I had some presents. I could only find this one. DOH! After stamping, lining some with black pen, fussy cutting and gluing down, I remembered most of my present stamps are in the Christmas sets.  How silly of me!  I piled the presents up so he can almost reach them with those absurdly short arms.

Dog dreams

Here are a few more cards I made a few months ago, uploaded for a furry critters challenge at Operation Write Home for their virtual card making party. All I did this weekend were feathered, so I found some old ones to feature!

All the stamps are from Lawn Fawn, Critters at the Dog Park and Critters on the Farm.

My birdies miss you!

These are quick, and they kind of look it. Sorry, not all my work is so sloppy.

I believe I don't like the pointy "grass" that was cut with the Cameo. That would be in the last 2 pictures. The grass in the top 2 pictures was punched using an edge punch.

The birds are from the Bird Brain set from The Alley Way Stamps, the speech bubble is an edge die from Lawn Fawn, and the sentiments were printed from my computer. The fonts include Girls Are Weird, Boys R Gross, and one other that I can't remember.