We interrupt today's crafting....

Sorry, no crafting being done here today. I am celebrating the release of Diana Gabaldon's 7th book in her Outlander series. Picked up my copy this morning....


No worries, crafting will resume soon. I just need to get my Jamie and Claire fix. :-)

punching around the page

I have a quick post with a couple of cards that I made using two of Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page corner and edge punches. They were called continuous edge punches before. Different name now, but the same idea, and this time there were even instructions included! LOL! Progress!


This first card was made using the Scallop 3-Dot punches. Same deal as before. You still need to cut your card stock to specific sizes for the corner design to match up with the edge. The two white squares that I started with were 5 x 5 inches and 3.25 x 3.25 inches. The edges need to be cut in increments of 1.75" to work, so 6.75 inches and 8.5 inches, and so on, would work as well. That background stamp was by Hero Arts and the sunflower is by Inkadinkado and colored using Copic Spica glitter markers.


For this card I used the Fall Leaves punches on a 3.25 x 5 inch piece of orange card stock. The stamped images and sentiment are by Inkadinkado and stamped using Memento inks. The embossed flourish was made using a Cuttlebug border embossing folder from the Organic Flourishes set.

That's it for now. We've been playing the guess if this is a cold vs the flu for the past week and a half. Been a bit of a challenge, but I think everyone is on the right track again and back in school so I had a bit of time to craft while also trying to catch up on errands. Fun stuff! :-)

organizing my Nestabilities dies, a chart

Yes, I really should be taking advantage of my "free" time to do some card-making, but not having stuff organized so that I know what I have and can put my hands on it can drive me nuts sometimes! So, the items that were frustrating me this weekend were my Spellbinders dies. They've made so many, um, and I've bought so many, that I can't keep track of what I've got any more. I decided to compile a list of what I have. Then I decided that it might be better to just make a checklist instead. And if that wasn't enough, I decided to put it in spreadsheet form so that I could print out the list again, if needed. Yes, my simple plan had turned complicated. You know what though? It wasn't so bad and it didn't take too long to do it. Would have loved to have found a list already compiled on the internet, but sadly my searches had come up empty.

Here's a peek at what it ended up looking like....


Originally I was only going to catalog my Nestabilities, but again, the need to be organized compelled me to add Borderabilities, and if I was going to do that, then might as well include the Pierceabilities, too, so why not Pendants and Frameabilities as well? I did draw the line at the Shapeabilities though! And since I have no great love of the Impressabilities, I left them off as well.

If this is something that you might find useful, I've put it on my website in pdf form. That means that you'll need an application that can read pdf files, like Adobe Acrobat Reader. The list of Nesties is fairly long, so when I printed this out in landscape format, it took up 2 pages plus a bit of a third page. I added some columns so you can check off what you have, or if you've organized your dies in folders or CD/DVD cases, you could jot the location in there (just write very small! LOL!).

Here's the link to the file: http://www.indigojay.com/crafting/nestabilities.pdf

Happy organizing! :-)

one pass, two cards embellished

These are a couple of cards that were fairly quick and easy to make. I used the Cuttlebug Damask Frame A2 die to cut some patterned Die Cuts With a View card stock. I think this was from the Taj Mahal collection.


I adhered some of the die cuts to the front of this card, backing the opening of the damask design with white card stock that I'd embossed using the A2 embossing folder that made up the other half of the Damask Frame combo. The sentiment is by Hero Arts.


Here you can see that I embossed the entire card front using the A2 embossing folder, or at least as much of the card front that I could fit into the folder. I scored some lines near the top fold using my Scor-It. I didn't like the blank space that had been left up there. This time I used the 'negative' of that die cut over some white card stock. The images are by Technique Tuesday and stamped using Memento dye inks.

I wasn't sure if I'd use the die part of this combo very often, but now that I've given it a try, I'm starting to see more possibilities, not to mention that I was able to get a fair amount of mileage from a single pass through the die cut machine.

a sunflower bouquet - DCM challenge

It's been ages since I've made a card for a challenge. This week's daring cardmakers theme of sunflowers got me out of my chair and down the stairs to create a card though. Here are the details:

So, this week it's Rein's turn to set the dare and the theme is simple and straightforward;

SUNFLOWERS

We love their happy, sunny appearance, somehow seeing them never fails to cheer, does it? So we'd like to see lots and lots of glorious, cheerful sunflowers on your cards. Poor Rein has had a nasty fall and is very sore and bruised, so hopefully a great big bouquet of sunflowers will cheer her up and bring a smile back to her face.

Here's my card....


The sunflower die cut was made using sunflower dies by Spellbinders. The background layer was edged using the Fiskars lace and lattice corner edger punch and was stamped with sunflower and sun images by Hero Arts. The sentiment is also by Hero Arts. Originally I was going to trim the sunflower and keep the card A2 size. Once I tacked it on the card front though, I decided that I liked the way it looked sticking out beyond the edges and decided to leave it in all its popping-out-of-the-card glory.

Loved the theme, Rein, and I hope that you feel better. :-)

break out the popcorn

Unless you've been engaged in a glorious frenzy of crafting that hasn't allowed you to read any crafting blogs or forums on the internet for the last few days, you've probably heard about Stampin' Up! and the new Independent Demonstrator Agreement (IDA) that their demos are being asked to sign by the end of this month. Wow, talk about opening a big can of worms! There have been discussions galore and the gamut of reactions from hard-core demos, hobby demos, customers, fans.... I'm torn between feeling like I'm watching a soap opera vs a train wreck happening in slow motion.

Rather than try to summarize what's been going on, I'll link to a post on Craft Critique where they discuss reaction to the IDA as well as relate some of Stampin' Up!'s response to the almost immediate harsh criticism they received. There's a link to the IDA as well, so all of the information is there and can be read and you can draw your own conclusions rather than taking my word for it.

Now I'm not a big fan of Stampin' Up! I do have a few of their stamp sets and I have some of the dies and textured impressions folders that they've released in conjunction with Sizzix. I've just never really gotten into their line of products the way some folks have. But I find myself feeling badly for the hobby demos--they're the ones who have probably been the most affected by the IDA. There are more restrictions now in that demos cannot be on design teams for companies producing competing products, nor can they link in their blogs to sites selling competing products. They're even discouraged from mentioning the companies by name if they happen to use cardstock or a die or an embellishment made by a competitor. This was all framed as an effort to protect, and even enhance (?!), the business of the demos. This is the revised version, btw, the version that came about as a result of people objecting to the initial attempt by Stampin' Up to exercise very stringent control over just what could be linked to in personal blogs and electronic communications, even extending into areas not involving SU! at all. They've loosened their grip a bit, but people are already angry and upset, and even this revision may not be enough to appease the crafters who would rather walk away from SU! rather than feel like they've compromised their rights and principles. So it remains to be seen if SU! will make any more concessions.

Personally, I wasn't buying much in the way of SU! product before all of this happened. I'm less interested in supporting them now. I feel for those who are now having to make some tough choices. I also find it rather shameless of SU! to "allow" and even encourage their demos to push SU! products on general crafting forums and to potential customers, but only mention other products that may have been used in the making of a card in the most general of terms. I understand not wanting to give business to "the competition", but as I say and do here on my blog, give credit where it's due. It's not enough to say that if someone is curious enough to write and ask, demos can give out more details. The crafting world has always been better about sharing information than that. The spirit of sharing that I've always encountered from stampers is seriously lacking with the enforcement of this agreement, and it's a big disappointment. As I come across blogs in Google Reader that go the way of becoming exclusively SU!, I'll be unsubscribing. I'd already avoided subscribing to most of the hard-core demo blogs--sounds like I'll be unsubbing to some now. I know that there are a lot of creative SU! demo/bloggers out there who do lovely work, but I'd rather invest my time in reading and being inspired by folks who are embracing more of what the crafting world has to offer and who are willing to share information without prodding.

Anyway, I'm lumping SU! in with Provo Craft. I'm unimpressed by the way they treat their people and by the way that they've elected to conduct their business. As a consumer, I'll be spending my crafting money elsewhere when I do my shopping. There are too many other choices out there these days. Just FYI though--since I know that many readers come by to check out alternative ways of using crafting tools and Cuttlebug folders in particular--I will still be trying to come up with innovative ways of using embossing folders. I'm not tossing out what I have already. I'm just refusing to support them in the future if they continue their current practices. So, you may not see the latest and greatest from Provo Craft when they start releasing new stuff, but you'll probably still find some creative ways of using it here. :-)

scored die cuts

Two or three weeks ago, I had this idea of using the Scor-It board and ruler in a different way. I wanted to decoratively score die cuts instead of card layers or card fronts--not that there's anything at all wrong with doing either of those things. I just wanted a change. I tried it. I liked it. I wanted to share it, but I also enjoy posting cards as examples. Well, that's what caused the delay. Took me a while to get back to my crafting because of the beginning of school and all of the activities that go along with that, and also because omigosh, I have a high schooler now! LOL! Time really does fly!

Things are settling down now, so here are a couple of cards that I made earlier using those die cuts....


I used Spellbinders scalloped circle Nestabilities dies for this card and scored it using my Scor-It and Scor-It ruler. The background stamping was done using an image by A Muse Art Stamps and Memento dye inks. The sentiment is by Hampton Arts and stamped with Versafine Black Onyx ink.


For this card I used another Spellbinders Nestabilities die, this time from the scalloped hearts set. The stamped image and sentiment are by Hero Arts. Again the scoring was done using my Scor-It board and Scor-It ruler.

I think that venturing into the realm of scored die cuts ended up being a not-so-bad idea, even if it did take me quite a while to get around to showcasing it, and it's an idea that I think I'll be using again. :-)

still here, just busy

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's already September. We're more or less settling back into the routine of school, but are still working out the kinks in making the drive to two different places now that the older one is in high school. We've also been kept hopping because of the various Back to School types of activities that tend to kick off the academic year. I've also been literally, well, almost literally, hopping because I tweaked an ankle a bit helping out at the younger daughter's volleyball practice last week. I've always loved volleyball. I just wish I'd remembered to snug up the laces on my shoes before helping with the scrimmage. Getting up and down the stairs to do my crafting has been a challenge. I did make a couple of cards earlier today, but I didn't get a chance to take pictures yet. I hope to post those tomorrow. I am still here though and have not abandoned blogging. :-)