Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Dragonfly Dreams Off the Edge


Hello!

Thank you for all the kind comments on my last post!  As crazy as it sounds its kind of comforting to know that a lot of you are in the same place with your memory keeping goals.  I've made a lot of progress this week on my baby albums and can't wait to get them done and share!  I've also drawn for the winner of the 4 Occasions Cards...Congrats to Gladys M.!  I hope to do another giveaway soon - any suggestions as to what you'd like me to put in a giveaway?  Comment below!

Have you have had an opportunity to play with any of the new goodies in the the Occasions catalog yet?  There are so many things on my Wish List and I'm fearing I won't be able to contain myself! My first purchase HAD to be the Dragonfly Dreams bundle.  There are so many options with just the stamp set let alone adding in the matching dies!  This is my first attempt using the bundle and one I showcased at my card club meeting this month; creating a Z-fold card with partial die cutting so the dragonflies float off the edge of the card. If you aren't familiar with the technique, here's a quick written tutorial:

  1. Begin with a piece of card stock measuring 5-1/2" x 8-1/2".  Score in half.
  2. Lay the card base flat and measure 2-1/8" in from the LEFT side of the card stock.  Draw a vertical pencil line at this measurement.
  3. Build your Big Shot "sandwich" as follows
    1.   Magnetic Platform
    2.   Cut Plate
    3.   Card Base with the dragonfly die centered on the pencil line.  All cuts will happen to the RIGHT of the pencil line.
    4.   Place the second cut plate on top of the card base so that the edge of the cut plate lines up with the pencil line; 2-1/8" and half of the dragonfly should NOT be covered up with a cutting plate.
    5.   Run through the Big Shot.  Score the pencil lines above and below the dragonflies and fold the card in a Mountain, Valley fashion.
    6. Stamp the matching image by lining up over the die cut area.
If you are a visual person and need to see the technique in action instead of writing, Jennifer McGuire has an excellent video on You Tube you can check out as well.



After die cutting I stamped the matching stamp over the die cut image then colored the dragonflies in using the new Watercolor Pencil crayons and a Blender Pen.  As a finishing touch I stamped the watercolor wing stamp in Versamark ink over the colored image and heat set with Iridescent Ice embossing powder.  The wings sparkle just like the real thing! And don't worry if you no longer have Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder - Dazzling Diamond glitter with Heat and Stick powder or Clear Wink of Stella would work just as well!  Unfortunately, the light wasn't co-operating when I took my photos so you can't see it very well so you'll just have to use your imagination!


Supplies:
I hope you'll give this technique a try!  It can work for so many occasions, stamps, and dies!  If you give it a try be sure to post a link to your photo/blog so I can take a look :)

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Thursday, January 12, 2017

2017 Crafting Goals and a Birthday Giveaway!

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope you have had a wonderful start to the year so far!  Life in my parts has been chaotic as usual and I'm still trying to gain momentum and normalcy since the holiday's.  Hopefully now that the kids are back into school, the decorations are down, and the house is back in order I can get back to my crafting!

I love how turning the calendar over to January always gives me a new opportunity to set a few goals for the upcoming year.  This year I'm focusing on a few key things (crafty related) that I thought I would share with you here on the blog.

Creativity

This past year I felt an overwhelming sense of creative burnout.  I found it hard to balance my home life with my creative process...which affected my creative output...which affected my creative sharing.  I love to sit and create but sometimes it felt like a chore to photograph, edit, write, and post about my creativity.  For 2017 I want to pace myself and keep in the forefront of my mind that its not a race and to only post content that I really love and am proud of.  I've often felt an intense pressure to "keep up" with other bloggers who post 5+ times a week but I've come to the realization that that just can't be my life right now and I'm okay with that!

Memory Keeping from the Past 10+ years

I set a goal for myself in the beginning of 2016 to sort, organize, and document our family photos.  I even went through the motions of sorting the photos on my computer by year, printing them, and sorting them into year dated folders...then nothing.  Over 10 years of photos and memorabilia have eaten up valuable desk space in my office for a year now.  My hope was if I kept it out in visible view it would be motivation to get it done.  When I think back now, I have good reason to believe that my creativity burnout was a direct result of looking at THIS for the past 12 months (and this isn't even all of it!).


I honestly think I haven't tackled this project sooner simply because I don't know where to start.  I have bought all the albums I am going to need, a few mini Project Life kits along with a few larger core kits, even embellishments, but I can't seem to get going.  I've never had an interest in traditional scrap booking and I just couldn't get past how I was going to get all these photos albums PLUS be creative about it!  In no uncertain terms I've become a "Scrapbook Faker" (you can see a Becky Higgins video on this subject HERE - trust me its worth a watch!).

Back in November of 2016 I stumbled across Ali Edwards ( I know I've been living under a rock, right?) and fell in love with the concept of December Daily.  I jumped in whole heart-idly and documented each day in December 2016 with journaling, embellishments, and photographs...and you know what? I LOVED it!  There was nothing hard about it and I realized that this was exactly what was sitting in all those boxes on the edge of my desk.  Simply stories that needed to be told.  This is the year they will finally be told.  I hope to share my progress as I begin working on the albums. I'll be sharing a flip through of my December Daily album next week when I get my photos taken.


Baby Memory Keeping Books

Just like the rest of my memory keeping, my boys baby books took a back seat to everything else. These are probably the #1 spot projects I want to finish this year.  My oldest is 7, my youngest 5, and I'm worried that if I don't get them done soon all those wonderful memories that I swore I'd always remember will fade away.  In the early fall I purchased the Project Life Baby Boy Digital Edition Core kit and started slowly assembling the albums.  Over Christmas I worked quite a bit on them and made a good amount of progress.  I haven't decided if I'll create process share posts or just the finished products yet - let me know in the comments which you'd be more interested in seeing.

If you're curious about how I made the album labels I followed a tutorial I found on Becky Higgins.com


One Little Word

I am so thankful that I stumbled on this class by Ali Edwards and I really feel it is going to be life changing for me this year. Sometimes things find you when your not even looking for them and this project is most definitely it for me in the here and now.  The basis of the class is to choose a word to guide you throughout the upcoming year and see where it takes you and how you can learn from it. For my first year with this project I chose the word CHOOSE.  I'll share more about my January prompts and how I've set up my album (6" x 8") in an upcoming post.  The photo below is a couple of the inserts I used to start my album.  I can't wait to see where my word takes me this year!  If you're new to One Little Word or would just like to see what it's all about you can watch Ali's video HERE.


Whew, are you still reading?  That was a lot of info and insight but I really felt the need to type it out, if only to keep myself accountable to my goal setting.  In addition to everything I've talked about above I still plan to post as many tutorials, tips, and tricks as I can, along with keeping up on a monthly newsletter for my subscribers.  I'm also planning to get my Etsy shop up and running again this year too so be on the lookout for that!

And after all that, did I happen to mention that TODAY is my birthday??  I thought it might be a great way to celebrate and start off the New Year with a little giveaway!  I went through my stack of cards and chose 4 of my favorite All Occasion cards to give away to one lucky reader!  Simply follow the entry rules below - the giveaway is open Internationally from today until Monday January 16th at midnight.  Good Luck!




a Rafflecopter giveaway

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