My first tute!

Tutorial, that is! Go check it out, if you like making paper rosette's or watching my hands make paper rosette's or really love the sound of my voice. And if you want to be able to critique my tute-making skills. : ) Don't worry about not understanding the technical lingo I use...papercutter thing is short for sliding cutting blade, but that's not really important in the grand scheme of things, now is it? Here are also some pictures of two cards I made for my one special requester.(Thank you dear Sis!) They are different than the antiqued ones I have been doing lately, but I really like them...they look very simply beautiful. And I just discovered and removed a nonpareil under my letter "v" on my keyboard, which came off the white chocolate covered pretzels our local Braum's is selling...a-maze-ing! So yummy, highly addictive, in the very best possible way. Anyways, here's the pic's:

So what do y'all think? I've been wondering if I should ink up the edges of the cards, but they look so crisp and clean right now and as they are fairly simple cards the clean edges just look...right? These are the least fussy cards I have made in a long time but I used some new, for me, techniques that make them uniquely beautiful, in my eyes. Hopefully the receivers will think they are beautiful, too. Later this week I plan to put some close-up pic's, of our items, from our Craft Mall booth on here so stay tuned! ; )
And have a great week!

Lacking inspiration...

Actually I don't know if I'm truly lacking inspiration or just experiencing this overjustification effect that I was reading about last night. Since putting several items in a local craft mall my motivation to make new cards and things has taken a pretty sharp nosedive...I go to create and nothing happens. I just sit there looking at my newly organized card-making station and fuss with my scissors and whatnot and nothing comes to me. I can't even think of anyone to make a card for! Much less what it should look like. Look how clean my desk area is! Crafters know a craft room surface should never be that clean unless you haven't had a creativity induced mess making session in forever or you are dead or you are planning to take pics that don't showcase your messiness. Hey, if anyone wants to help me out and request a specific card, for yourself or someone you know that needs a card, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. Did I mention the price? Well, it's the best part: FREE!!! I'll even pay for the shipping to get the card to you and I won't sell your address to any but the best online marketers. You know the ones that send the really great catalogs... : ) Heehee...but seriously, it might really stir up my creativity and inspire me, so get your thinking caps on and help a girl out you lovely people!

Finals finally final!

Yeah! This semester is officially over! Now, my house will not get cleaned for the next few weeks, but that's alright cuz it means I can craft with wild giddy glee and complete abandon! Look for new creations coming soon to a blog near you, very near to you, at least at the moment. And on Tuesday I'm going back to our booth to drop some more things off and take some close-up shots to post here later this week. My glue gun is calling my name so I'll see you all later! Leave a comment and let me know what you do with your free-time...also known as naptime to many of us! ; )

Pics of our new place!

Before and after pictures of the booth we just set up and the store front we just re-did:
So the booth pic has our partially assembled big display piece already in it, oops...

 Here is the back wall, I hung a vintage linen and white twinkly lights to cover the pegboard and give it some character:

 Finished!

 It's not completely full at the moment but we'll get it there. I should have taken some close-ups of our stuff, especially the doors I hung my sassy embellishments on. It's flat-out gorgeous close-up, no kidding.
Next picture is the store front where our booth is. The display is um, lackluster? Disjointed?

 My booth partner did the painting, she is sooooo talented! She did it on the inside of the window so weather wouldn't damage it, which means she did the whole thing backwards! But it looks awesome, right?

Sweet snowman, huh? We were trying to keep it just blue and white but we needed some pop of color so we threw the red in. The new display on the shelves was my major contribution to the store front.

My Favorite Video and I love this song, too!

I love this song and video...go check it out.

Aaron Lewis is such a cutey, huh? Yes, I am a little weird...

You would think...

We've been pretty busy around here the last few weeks/months, so I haven't been posting as much as I should've...but I finally finished a few projects today and got some pictures of them so I can share! I'm making some new things and I still have a few others in the works that I don't have pictures of yet, since they aren't completed, of course, but as soon as they are I hope to have pictures up for ya'll. And BIG NEWS...a friend and I are opening a booth in a small crafter's mall here in my hometown! Yeah for us! Her husband says she has to make some money or quit crafting and my husband says, oh wait, that's right, I don't have a husband! For once I can say nannynannybooboo or some other form of heeheehee...but I would like to be a "profitable" kind of servant so I'm hopeful that a physical location to show off my creations will work out better than etsy did. I just don't have the dedication that working a shop through etsy requires, ya know? Plus, they nickel and dime you to death! Anyways, we're really excited and planning to set up shop on Tuesday next week! So, on to the pictures...first up is the beginning of our shop name wall thingy...the letters are Q and L which some will recognize as my online "persona".

 Partially finished...I used flexible greenery for my base so my letters could have plenty of flourish to them and still feel organic since the occasional bit of greenery peeks through.

 Pretty much completed my Q here...

 And here is my L, also pretty much completed...

 That's the tips of my toes in my pink and brown Croc flip-flops up there! And the QL completed and together, which is sorta how they will be displayed.

 Close up of the Q and L...

 And I will have before and after pictures next week of our booth! Next are the apothecary jars I have been making...

 That's a large, medium and small, from left to right and I am planning to sell them in our booth! Accessories not included, of course, unless you really need some cotton balls, q-tips and a few fake white roses... :)

This set is a little different from the first set, or at least the large apothecary jar in the middle is different. It's larger and I'm not married to it's lid yet...so that part is probably still a work in progress, although I found some pieces at HL tonight that I think will look awesome so we'll see. I guess that's all for now. I still have to figure out how to make two long postcard ribbon thingies for the doors to go on our main display piece of furniture...we'll hang my hairbows/clothing embellishments from them and stack our glass wares(my apothecary jars and my friends Redneck Wineglasses) and my cards on the shelves. I found some really cute little take-out boxes to display my necklaces in, and they make a bonus ready to go gift wrapping!

Monday! Again?

So far today I have accomplished little...but I did order a new shower fixture for my walk-in shower, since my old one leaks terribly. I feel great for getting that done since I've been meaning to for weeks...plus I'm totally saving the earth! One drip-less faucet at a time...

No regrets?

Just finished watching Meet Joe Black, which I haven't seen in forever...and unlike The Reaper its not funny at all. But I know what the dad was talking about wanting his daughter to feel deliriously happy, to stay open...you never know...lightening could strike, sing with rapture...to feel. Well, just to feel. To live with no regrets and I'm watching the dad at his 65th party telling the people he has really enjoyed living and 65 years goes by in a blink. And he isn't afraid to die. It makes me wonder if I will be afraid then, because I think I am now. But you see how all the people love him and you know they are going to miss him so much, right? Yes, I know its just a movie but play along here. You see them and know they will miss him and be so sad at his death and I think, what about the people that no one is really sad to see die? Are they doing us the bigger favor? They won't be missed, they lived with regrets or not, I don't know, but they won't be missed. Or will they? And I wonder should I try to be the person who no one regrets losing or the one everyone will miss...or will I just be me, regrets or no, one some might miss and others will not...we do get to choose, right? Life or death, blessings or cursings...but if you aren't the miss-able kind won't people feel bad about not missing you? And that would not be good. So its probably just the all-around good choice to choose to be miss-able... What if you choose to be miss-able and still aren't missed? I guess that's where the old saying you can't please them all comes in, huh? Well, so be it.

Latest cards/projects...

First up is a short video of my first "exploded" box. Here are the steps to make it via pictures...

 First these are papers stuck together with double-sided sticky tape and then I cut the lines and angles and used my circle shape punch to cut out the little half circle at the bottom.

 Then I put them together to form a base for the rocket body which is just a piece of paper wrapped to form a tube and double-sided sticky taped together. See?

 And I place it on the base like so...

 I made a cone and glued it together and then used sparkly glitter glue to make it sparkly and when that wasn't sparkly enough I covered it some more with glitter nail polish from the $Tree. Love it!

 The green side is the outside of the box and the blue polka dotted side is the inside of the box. I constructed the box out of two12x12 sized papers, color coordinated of course, and thin cardboard for rigidity. I cut out paper diamonds and inked the edges then strung them on ribbon hot-glued to the corners and taped them together to make bunting. I used individual letters on a round background sticker to spell out my words.

 The words are, "We had a blast"

 Here's the lid, so complicated I can't even explain it but if you're dying to know how to make it you can google it, I'm sure... :)

 I did manage to get my print centered on the outside of the lid...but then there were these ugly edges. What to do? Ah, I'll figure it out later...

 So here she be, completed!

 My rocket rocks, right? :) It was a blast to make! Seriously, check out the next next next next pic...

 And lookee how I fixed up the lid so you can't see the ugly corners, plus it looks even cuter now, huh?

 Look what a mess I made! Whoohoo, it was fun...

 Here it is completed and ready to be gifted to the wonderful family that it was made for.

At one ment.

 At one. Pretty self-explanatory, right? But, -ment?

-ment

noun suffix

Definition of -MENT

1

a : concrete result, object, or agent of a (specified) action ment> b : concrete means or instrument of a (specified) action ment>

2

a : action : process ment> b : place of a (specified) action ment>

3

: state or condition resulting from a (specified) action ment>

Origin of -MENT

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin -mentum; akin to Latin -men, suffix denoting concrete result, Greek -mat-, -ma   

So "at one" is the state of condition, the concrete result, intended by God as the purpose for this day, seeing as how God names things what they are. And I know that's not new info to most who might pop in to read this post, but that 'ment' actually means "concrete result", well, that's just really cool to me. Its always been cool that you could break down the name of this day and get what it means but the 'ment' part...I think I took it for granted that it meant something important, like I thought it was just included to round out the 'at one' part. So...that's what I was thinking about so far today/this evening. 

 

I pray for you all to have joy and look forward to the fulfillment of this day as much as God and Christ do! :)

 

P.S. Who else used to totally hate this day because of the fasting?! :) Goofy, right? But I think the prince of the power of the air also had a little sumptin' to do with it, too. In fact, earlier today I found myself in the fowlest of moods, for no apparent reason, and had to get serious with myself and recognize the cause, then pray for some help! Mood got much better after a little knee and elbow application... :) 

 

It is a war.

My son is all about the war and fighting talk and I, being a girl I guess, am always like, "Ugh. I can't stand all this talk of violence!" So don't you know when I get completely fed up and say something like that to him we always go to services and hear about, you guessed it, war! It never fails. In the future I hope I remember to remind myself to redirect his war talk in the righteous direction of fighting against the 3 S's. This is yet another area where the male balance is missing in our life...but thankfully God has provided for the fatherless with a Godly ministry! But this life is a war against selfishness, for one thing, and we must remember to persevere no matter how great the struggle is, no matter how comfy our beds are, and no matter how excellent raspberry cheesecake cookies taste. No, we must fight for the subjection of our minds and bodies to the will of a greater, much, much, much greater One. Just wanted to take a minute to encourage everyone to keep up the good fight in faith and hope and joy!
Much love,
You know who.

Love like crazy?

I'm not talking about loving like romantic people stuff, but more like just how we should all love, agape', each other, more like how God loves us. When I think about all the stuff God has loved me through His love just seems kinda, well, crazy. Not like God is foolish or insane or any of the other descriptions of crazy that are perceived to be negative. But that His love is exceedingly great, totally departing from the realm and ability or leanings of humans to love one another or in a way that we humans consider "normal", without moderation He loves us, enthusiastically, intensely, impractically; when it holds no advantage whatsoever to Him and He has nothing to gain and everything to lose, like the day He sent us our Savior and just like the day He accepted our Savior and a way was made for mankind to enter His Family and just the same as He loved us yesterday He loves us tomorrow. To an exceeding degree. Like crazy. I want to love like that, but people, well, we sure don't make it easy, do we? I don't think God is scared of losing the people He loves. I don't think He's scared they won't love Him back or for that matter even like Him or pay Him any attention at all. Maybe loving people is something worth doing not because of what you can get from it, what you think you have to give to others by loving them or what you could lose but rather because of what you become by doing it. A giver. Kinda like the greatest Giver of all. Well, in that case, call me crazy...it would be an honor. But one I will just have to strive to be worthy of. I hope every one of you dear readers has someone to love like crazy, whether its a parent or complete stranger or a relative, and lets not put God last, a spouse or child or brother or sister, I hope you all learn to love like crazy, if you don't already know how, cause you might... :)

Most recent creative endeavors...

I've been working on creating some new cards the last few weeks, since I got a new toy and all. It's called the Big Shot and it's by Sizzix. It embosses and using dies it also cuts. So much fun! If anyone reading this has an embossing machine that will take Sizzix embossing folders please let me know...I have a few free embossing folders that I can't really use and I would love to give them away! I used my Cricut to make the bunting and balloons and some of the other embellishments and some were simply handcut.

 When you open this one up the elephant is actually on the inside, you can just see him through a window I cut and put a ruffled ribbon around. The other thing you can't see is that all the dots actually sparkle a bit since they are glitter, as are the 4 larger dots in the corners. This one was way cuter than it photo'd.

(It says Hope Your Anniversary Was Sweet and it was for a dear dear clay artist I know and see those little round thingy's that look like mini candies? She sent me these sticks and I cut those off them and clued them on this card and well, I don't know all the technical terms but they are lotsa fun to use for embellishing!)

This next card seems kinda plain, but its for a boy anyways and I've noticed they don't seem to care much about glitter and all that, though I did outline the leaves on the leafy thingy in a blue glitter and used some foam popouts to make the congrats banner pop...

 I'm not sure this one is completely complete either. Mostly cause I don't know exactly what to use it for. I just got the paper and loved it so I made this card up...I think I'm thinking something along the lines of it you build it they will come...so if I make cards then I will have people to send them to...well, its a work in progress, at any rate. But you should see this paper...its so vintage and I dirtied up the edges and the button border I embossed down the centers.

Well, this next one could be sent to so many dear ladies I know...whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance, I hope you dance. I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, never settle for the path of least resistance...and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance...