Places for Creative Inspiration

Day 12 over at the 21 day challenge at Twopeasinabucket.com...I skipped yesterday, but the quotes are always so motivating. I don't know what it is, the snow on top of more snow, kid activities, the sick lil'guy or what, but whatever creative intent I had over the last two days has been zapped.
{I guess I'm doing something creative right now....I love updating the blog, I just try not to let it get too obsessive. It seems to fill a little creative need to write and share creative thoughts. Whether through words, photography, doodles, cards..etc. So today I made a little time for me}

While blog surfing....some real cool sites that I've been going back to

Music: Pandora Radio - just type in your fav song or artist and it automatically compiles a song list similar type songs. (found this on the 2peas site message board) cool. Its free and you have to register, but its pretty quick and painless I'm sure its been around awhile but I just discovered it! I've been playing it in the background.

A new stamping company to love: The Unity Stamp Company. Reeeeally pretty designs. Not available yet though. Great samples on their blog. I always hope that these new companies with fresh designs are available locally, but that is not always the case. I'll never figure out why our local scrapbooking, papercrafting, and/or rubberstamping shops don't carry these beautiful new lines that are appearing lately....they just seem to stick with the industry standbys. Of course you can probably find them online for sure.....but I always try to find it locally first.

Cool Design Inspiration: Rebecca Thuss. {also found this on the 2peas message board} just a glance through her beautiful portfolio gets the creative juices flowing. From one of the photos I had an idea for some favors for our kid's first communion coming up this spring. She has this under "weddings" but its such a versatile idea it could work for any event you need some simple favors for. They are presented beautifully in bowls or platters decorated with berry wreaths of some sort. Inside are little packets filled with teas for the guests to take home. You can't see every little detail, but it is enough to get the ideas flowing. Once I saw that I thought it would be an easy one to do and instead of teas I'm thinking flower seed packets inside {keeping with the spring time theme}

other big news {well for me it is :) : our daughter's 2nd grade artwork has been chosen to be included in the a district wide Art Show. That is this afternoon. They will exhibit grades 1-5 and 30 little artists per school are chosen. Can't wait to take some cute pics. Its always so cute to see the little artists standing near their awesome creations. This is very cool since her brother was in it last year. They both get to share the glory in each other's creative spirit!
A good mommy moment!

quickly she posted

Okay, the days are getting longer and I am so waiting for spring. Hence, the new banner with my favorite spring things....flowers, rain, and bare baby feet :)

I sidetracked a little in March -- here we are on day 6 but I haven't updated with my start of a "one week at a time" scrapbook -- it is one of my personal goals to get that started. Of course that is inspired by something Ali has done in the past. Like so many of her ideas/projects this one has inspired a whole bunch of neat ideas to capture the everyday moments in our lives. The days go by so quickly sometimes....I was reviewing old photos {from 2002} and I just had to stop at some of them and relive that moment just briefly. So good. There are some days when I just feel like I take so many pictures -- many more than I will ever use in an album -- but then I remember what it feels like to go through all the little odd ball ones and smile.

The rest of this week I have been following along with the 21 Day Challenge over at the 2peas site. Its a journal challenge for 21 days, make {or break} a habit. They are on day 6. I haven't posted anything on that site but my thoughts have gone into a new art journal. I am really enjoying the process and a side goal is to keep it from getting too complicated. Because I tend to over complicate -- that is one habit I'd love to break. But my challenge entails actually making the time in my day to do what I love to do --be creative.

Make : Your Own Sorta-Letterpress* Paper

Don't work on a project when you're tired +other experiments hacking my Sizzix

the rejected banner, not that the other one is perfect, neither turned
out the way I wanted it to look.

Tried something new out for the banner --you know it's true what research says -- working on something when you're sleepy doesn't produce good results. I finally had to close the file {I was nodding off so bad --} and call it a night at 1:30am -- Even after looking at it again I'm pretty sure I should just delete and start over. I'll try it when I'm not so sleepy.

Make : Your Own Sorta-Letterpress** Background Paper
What I wanted to show was the background paper -- -that is actually a "de-embossed" image. Or "de-bossed" ???-- I heard that phrase the other day. Either way its the the opposite side of the paper once you run it through the die cut machine while using an embossing folder. This is what I affectionately refer to as hacking my sizzix.

Tools used : original sizzix machine, cuttlebug embossing template {Damask}, ivory cardstock and pink inkpad.

The thinking one day was this -- wouldn't it be cool if I could do my own letterpress here at home without having to invest in one of those cool vintage letter presses or whatever they use to get those super awesome crisp designs. Why, if they could put silkscreening in a cute do-it-yourself-at-home kit like the Gocco {So much to Love about Japanese design!!!} couldn't someone come up with something like a desktop letterpress kit? hint, hint someone. Um, Hello, Japan, we need your design savvy here.

Enter the Sizzix {the original one} - it's essentially a press so I thought I could try this experiment out. I used cardstock from a scrapbooking project. The biggest paper size you can go to looks to be about 4x6 or greeting card size, or the size of the cutting pad, embossing folders come in all sizes. {sorry, I don't measure anything, sorta like I cook}

1. First I inked the raised design on the cuttlebug template with a pink ink pad. The ink will collect in the pressed down areas of the design. That's the cool part.

2. Working on your cutting pad, slide the paper in the embossing folder. You want the raised, inked design to be above the paper. Which means you put the embossing folder on the cutting pad the opposite way the real instructions tell you to.

3. When the paper is lined up where you want it, carefully close the folder on the cutting pad and slide the whole cutting pad {which has your paper+template on it} under the "press." Careful not to shift anything.

4. Press the whole design in place, the larger embossing folders require you to make several presses to get the whole design. Make sure not to shift the paper and folder, otherwise the design might not line up.

5. Remove cardstock from embossing folder and Admire your sorta-like-letterpress* paper! {Above} See how the ink gets inside the nooks and crannies?

{this one {above} was accidentally "pressed" twice so the texture is not as prominent -- but I wanted to show the right side of the template {named : Damask} it is one of the most elegant from cuttlebug.}

**sort of like letterpress, but not, close though.

Enjoy, try it out if you have a sizzix!

valentines day - doodle

This little lovebug was doodled for the kid's homemade valentines day cards -- but before he would even consider giving them out I had to remove all the "girly things" according to my 8 year old son....BUT, BUT he chose my lovebug drawing over a robot rubberstamp so that made mommy feel all warm and fuzzy on this valentines day :)

February 14 is a big day around here -- lil' girl's birthday also. lots of fun!

xoxoxoxo

image note: bug doodle by me, swirly doodles are from a free digital set by designer angie briggs (from digitalfreebies.com)

more cards

I mentioned in an earlier post that I used stamps from the angel company for some christmas cards...these are some...{the set, "christmas joy" is not in the new catalog though there are new beautiful sets available}. I just loved the old fashioned look of the christmas stocking on this set - and the detail on the wreath is very delicate, I loved how each pine branch was so perfect. Glad I bought it when I did.

continued post.....

{continued from previous post}

the cards..this is the idea borrowed from martha stewart....I saw this type of z-fold card on the kodak gallery site. The martha designs were so simple and elegant I knew after I saw those that I could re-create something like it.



































This is were I used the cuttlebug embossing folder designs {in my original sizzix} The impression that these folders give you is remarkable -- I love the feel it gives the cards. The texture is beautiful all on its own - the raised image on a simple white or off-white card is just serene and elegant to me so I went with that look. But I also tried embossing with silver embossing powder and was pleased with that too.

Back to artin' + craftin'

Okay enough of the electronic gaming and sci-fi interruptions, back to our regularly scheduled artin' and craftin'.

Here to update the blog a bit. I can always sense when I've been away too long...too many "posts" are flying around in my head. Too much stuff is already causing a clog so I don't need any extras finding their way in there.

First off, I noticed that I never blogged about any of my other cards from the holidays -- I had so much fun working with some new stamps from theangelcompany, figuring out that those cute, new cuttlebug embossing templates fit into my original sizzix machine quite nicely, using classic black and white photos, and an idea or two inspired from marthastewart.

My attempt at decorating the Clear glass ornaments with monograms using rub ons and stickers from american crafts and making memories turned out beautiful. That idea was originally from Ali's site during the month of December. I really thought they would be too fragile and that getting the rub ons to stay was going to be a task -- it wasn't, I made so many as gifts for friends and teachers.




tidbits of our christmas...new ornaments mixed with the old ones from my childhood...the pretty blue one I remember making with my mom (probably late 70s) Now my kids and I made our own...homemade tags for our gifts....my favorite spot to sit and look at the tree all lit up...favorite christmas gifts....and a forgotten bag of ornaments {probably bought at last season's after christmas sale} found in the basement had a little birdie just begging to be on the tree.








2/10/08 note : I found this post in "draft" mode and I had forgotten all about it.....it has taken about two weeks for us to get over all our sicky bugs and influenza. I haven't been that sick in years. Luckily all five of us had it at the same time. Whatever flu is going around -- I kid you not -- protect yourself. Its ICKY! you don't want it! :(

anyway -- more pics later...