Happy New Year's Eve!

Hi Guys-

It's New Year's Eve.  Hope you all have wonderful and safe plans for tonight.  I will be picking up the Chinese food in a little while and later on, heading to be with friends.  But I'll probably come home early so I don't have to drive after midnight.  I know, I'm a whimp!

This season has been busy and I've made a lot of holiday cards.  But the one I'm going to show you today is a little unusual.  I had to make an apology as I forgot one gift and the person's feelings were hurt.  I felt terrible so I made a holiday themed card and wrote my apology and included the gift.

The card is red card stock cut to fit a 4 1/4x 5 1/2 envelope.  I eyeball my cuts instead of measuring.  The border is a new Martha Stewart punch I got for Christmas.  The striped paper is from this year's gcd Studios "sacdia jul" card stack.  The silver paper (the picture doesn't do it justice) is from last year's DCWV Christmas & Winter Combo card stack.  The ribbon is generic red grosgrain, and the button is a specialty that I had left over.  The sentiment is on Cricut's "Stamping" cartridge.  I cut the words at 3/4 inch in white and cut the shadow in green.  The cute deer was cut from Cricut's "Create a Critter" on page 69 cut at 2 1/2 inches.

Have fun creating!
Linda :)

Pin-weave Snowman

Hi Everyone!

I'm afraid I'm not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog.  However, I keep thinking that I'm going to do better, and maybe I will.  In the meantime, I was really busy with card making for the holidays and below is an example.

First, I ran a piece of glitter paper (from DCWV's Christmas Winter papers) through my Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots folder.  Then I traced a snowman in the center of the back of the paper and used my craft knife to cut it out.  From scraps, I put the cut-out aside to use in a second card.  Then I chose 3 different ribbons from my scraps.  I laid a piece of scrap card stock down and using common pins, pinned one end of several strips of ribbon directly beside each other.  Then I took one ribbon and wove it thru the pinned ribbons, going under one ribbon and over the next.  Once it was woven across all pinned ribbons, I pinned it in place.  I continued in this manner until there was enough weaving to fill-in the cut snowman when laid on top of the weaving.  When the weaving was completed, I secured it to the bottom card stock with scotch tape, one ribbon at a time. I also made sure the ribbon ends midway to the margin of the top layer. I put lots of AVG gun tape on the glitter paper and laid it over the pin-weaving with all four edges able to be glued directly to the bottom layer..  There are now three layers:  scrap card stock, weaving, top glitter card stock.  On the computer I typed the sentiment and finally, I added the pointsetta button, cutting the shank off before I attached with a glue-dot.

Hope you enjoy this one!

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!

Hi Everyone!

I owe you all a HUGE apology for not keeping up with this blog.  I haven't written since August!  Ugh!!  First it was vacation, then the camera broke, etc.,etc.  Hopefully I'm back on track and it's time to catch up.

I've continued making cards and I have a several to share with you.  I'll do two per post.  Because I made them over several months, I'm not sure I can tell you where the papers came from but I do know the Cricut cuts.  Many of the cards I've made use my scraps, a good thing.

This card was fun because I've had the sunflower paper for YEARS.  It was a single sheet.  There's a black mat, a brown mat, and a printed bottom mat all on a white card.  The bee was cut at 2 inches and is in the Birthday Bash cartridge on page 46.  The pail and wings are from scraps of silver glitter paper.  The first cut was the yellow and the black was the shift.  Except for the mats, all paper was scrap paper.

The next card was also fun.  I was on vacation at the shore and I went into a "catch-all" store.  They had a few jars of star fish, each jar with a different size.  I just had to have these little star fish and came home to figure out how to use them.

The card stock is ivory colored card stock cut 11x4.5 and scored to fold with the back side at 6 inches and the front at 5 inches. On the front I cut a mat from K&C Company's Designer Mat Pat. I used Create a Critter for the 2.5 inch sea horse using Green scraps for the first cut, yellow scraps for layer 2, almond color scrap of layer 3, and a chocolate brown scrap for the shadow cut. I used lime green for a cut with the accessories for the second layer of grass. On page 44 I used the Accessory and shift to cut the tall grass in a darker green scrap. I used a fancy sissor to cut the right edge of the front of the card and used a dark green marker to color the edge.I had a piece of cork paper that I cut for a mat as well a to represent the bobbers on the fishing net. The fishing net is really the soccer net on page 52 of Every Day Paper Dolls. I cut the sides off the net and repositioned them to create folds. And finally the inside sentiment is below.

That's it for today. Hope you all have a great time creating.  Hope you get inspired!

Love,

Linda :)

Get Well!

Hi Everyone-

It is Wednesday evening.  Has been a busy day with lots of running around. Mom's doctor appt produced 4 more appts.  I don't mean to complain but I can't figure out people who do the part of mom care that I do as well as the daily chores, etc.  I'm lucky in that my sister does the day to day stuff and my other sister does much of the big stuff.  So it's shared and still I'm worn out! I'm blessed that I teach private piano and voice lessons and that I have wonderful students.  I can get lost in their growth and the music.  So after the lessons, I felt some relief from the mom stuff.

I hadn't noticed it before, but the cards that I've made to display here have been a real reflection of my feelings.  I want to simply life...and I posted "a simple wish".  Then it was the fishing card at a time I was feeling overloaded and sinking.  This is the first time I've recognized the old saying that "art is a reflection of life" in MY life.  I've been doing some kind of art/crafts for years.  Probably everyone else could see me in the projects.  But now I see it too.  Kinda neat.

So here is my next card.  Today was about doctors so the card is about getting well.  Fitting.

Again, I used up scraps.  The butterfly on the cover is cut from Cricut's Create a Critter cartridge, page 64, shift plus shift layers 2 and 3 at 2 1/2 inches.  The inside butterfly is from Cricut's Cricut Sampler cartridge, page 44, Bonus/Shift at 1 1/2 inch.  The ribbon is a glitter ribbon left over from a flower arrangement.  The scolloped edge on the get well sentiment, is a punch.  Since the card stock was the deep purple, I put the inside sentiment on a full piece of copy paper so I could add a personal note when I'm ready to send the note.

Hope you enjoy the card and I look forward to hearing your comments.

Til Saturday, blessings to you.

Linda :)

It Rained!

Hi Everyone!

I know it's not Thursday yet, but, well, I'm so excited about this blog that I've spent the day poking around "blogspot' trying to learn more.  And I did learn!  Now my blog has a really pretty background.  I like how the whole thing looks.  If you've got feedback, I'd love to hear how people are responding to the look.

Today was what I would label a "normal" day.  I went to church.  It rained.  I grabbed lunch and spent time on the computer.  I put the soundscapes tv channel on for background.  Somehow it got to be 4pm.  I took a nap and then went back to the computer.  I made a real dinner (not the norm lately) then decided to make a card.  I watched some tv and now I'm starting to wind down for the night.

Most people would call this a run of the mill, boring type of day, but for me it was just what the doctor ordered.  You know the old saying "if you want something done, ask a busy person"?  Well I'm the busy person.  I direct 4 choruses of senior citizens, 2 tambourine bands, have assorted private students, and am active in a civic arts group as well as in a private travel/historical group.   I'm also in the place where my mother is requiring more care.  My job for mom is the finances, and WHEW, that is a real emotional ride.  I've been three months sorting paper and trying to understand.  It's really hard because my mom always crossed her "t's" and dotted her "i's" so the fact that she forgot to write checks for cash into her checkbook was quite startling.  In addition, I take mom to most of her medical appointments, which lately have been 2 or 3 per week.  Bottom line, to get to routine has required a lot of time so for me to have two days in a row of mostly just "playing" has become not only a joy but a relief.

The card today was inspired because I have new paper with great polka dots.  I got looking thru my supplies for things that would match color wise and ended up with some fish and scraps of polka dotted paper left over from other projects.  Wouldn't cha know?!  I don't have the product names because I threw them away when I opened the packages way back when, but I buy much of my embellishments at Micheal's or AC Moore's so they're pretty common items.  What I have fun hunting down is the sentiments.  I go on-line and google "quotes" in this case "quotes about fishes".  I usually find 3 or 4 that I add to my sentiment book.  I liked this one because of the humorous truth.  The full quote is "when fishing for love...bait with your heart!". 

So now I'm really going to put this away for the evening and will not have time to write again until Thurs for real!

Blessings to all.

Linda :)

Essence?

Hi Everyone-

Today I decided I wanted to learn how to blog.  That meant I had to figure out what I wanted to share about me.  I remembered that for most of my life people have been telling me to write a book about my life so it seems to me that blogging might be the vehicle for me to do just that.  You see, I am passionate about life.  I have many interests.  I am a musician.  I like to paint/draw.  I love to do card making and scrapbooking.  I am spiritual.  I have many stories to share.  So I think "Linda's Essence" will be about all those things depending what is happening in my life that day.   

Right now I'm not sure if I will get to writing more than a couple of times a week, altho I'm thinking I will grow into this creative outlet.  I am hoping to include a card how-to with each new post.  Am I being ambitious?  Well, if in this journey my essence inspires someone, then that will be great.

So let me start with today.  It was an ordinary day.  It's Saturday. 

The miracle is that I had energy and motivation on the same day.  I was out and about doing errands, ending up at the craft store where I bought more card-making supplies.   Does one ever have enough?    I had lots of fun picking out all the essential items as well as the just-for-fun items.  My mind was a whirlwind of ideas and by the time I got home I was exhausted from all the thinking!

Here is my first card on a blog!  The first pix is the outside and the second pix is the inside.  Well, my camera didn't take a very clear pix of the inside, but you can get the gist that it says Happy Birthday.  I wanted a masculine design and I really liked the papers.  The striped paper was from LA Creme matstack and the beige flowers are Martha Stewart's punch pad sheets.  The rest were scraps.  I cut "a simple wish" from Cricut's "A birthday bash" on page 23 at 2 1/2 inches.  The flourish was on Don Juan cartridge on page 44, shift.  


Wishing you lots of blessings this week.  Will post again on Thurs.


Linda :)