Cardmaking Monday: Brads & Flowers

I have been completely enthralled with Basic Grey's new Fresh Cut collection, so I have been straying from my commitment to focus on new materials.  (Doesn't a new paper collection count?!)  Anyway, but I did manage to make a couple of cards over the last two weeks for two of my particularly under-utilized supplies. 

Brads

I have BOXES of brads.  I love, love, love them, especially the pretty enamel ones with a metal rim.  I have collected them from MME, from Fancy Pants, from Basic Grey and anyone else who has pretty brads. 

Problem is that I don't regularly think through the placement of my brads before I glue down a piece of paper.  I was thinking this week, as I tried to incorporate them (meaning I had to think first, stick later--ack!), that I could probably get something strong and clip the brad part, leaving only the pretty top that I love... Let me know if you have done this and what cutting implement you have used.  I recently destroyed what I thought was some pretty sturdy kitchen shears trying to clip apart a thin die (whoops!).  Any advice is VERY welcome!!


For this one, I actually used the brad to adhere the die cut flower.  I cut these flowers back when I first got this die and LOVED them, but trying to get them to adhere is insanely difficult.  This was a great solution and let me also use this pretty paper ribbon from Maya Road that I have been wanting to really test out fully.  I really liked this card, and I found USE out of the brad, not just prettiness.




Flowers

I likewise have boxes and jars and all sorts of craziness filled with fabric and paper flowers.  Most of them were purchased a long time ago, back when I first started crafting.  They aren't really my style, so I tend to not reach for them.  I am more likely to punch or die cut a paper flower (see above!).  But in the spirit of trying things again, I tried them on two cards, neither of which were my favorites.



Part of the reason I don't love this card is that it feels a little old lady to me.  I wanted to do a sappy Valentine card, so I definitely achieved it, but generally I like a cleaner style.  It's partly the style and partly the color, but this card reinforced the reason I don't use paper flowers often. 

**Ooh, notice the pretty brad!!  This is the kind I am thinking might be better if I clip the legs.**

This one was a compilation of that Fresh Cut collection I was telling you about.  I don't normally use so many patterns in one space, but I just had this desire to make some wavy, lines and see what would happen.  The flower in this case is far more in my style, and it gives a nice place to rest your eyes after the chaos of the pattern.  But I am still not loving it. 

So..... after my experiments, I have learned two things-- I need to figure out how to clip my brads and use them more regularly.  And I need to seriously purge the flowers.  I have far too large of a collection for how much I like using them, even with some favorite papers.

Success!!! 

Are you purging yet this year?????

January Art Project: Stencils

I am at the beginning of my monthly commitment to work on a new medium or tool to create some ART.  Not that making cards (my regular past time in my studio) isn't art, but I have a pretty set way of doing cards, I know what I like and don't like, and messiness isn't part of my style.  So I want to use some mediums that allow mess and lots and lots of bright colors and exploration of creativity at its core.

Stencils have become the rage in paper crafting and multi-media art.  I find myself collecting stencils-- have been doing it since before it was the rage, when Martha Stewart went onto HSN with her paints and showed how you don't have to be able to draw to decorate all sorts of home decor items with just stencils and paint.  Ah, the appeal of easy home decor!!

My goal this month is to start playing with stencils and different mediums with those stencils.  I started with (surprise, surprise) paint, and I have moved onto Martha's stucco paint medium (which is kind of like a modeling paste in texture and thickness), and finally I ventured into Distress Inks and a sponge. 

This project is a work in progress.  I tried to use a jelly plate to print the background only to find that, shockingly, with no pressure from the center of the canvas, it won't print fully!  So I ended up pulling the mixed paint from the jelli plate and rolling it onto the background, which still had enough variation to make me happy.

I stenciled the stars first (Heidi Swapp 6x6 stencil), using a yellow/brown mixture of basic craft acrylic paint.  Then I added the Martha Stewart stucco medium with a Martha stencil.  I want to get back to it and color the raised stencil parts and add some more, but I haven't gotten there yet.  My boys like it the way it is, so it's living displayed in its half-done format, waiting for a few minutes and some pretty orange and pink paint!!

These are from a project we did in Big Picture Class's Play! workshop last week.  I didn't have exactly the supplies at home that they used in the in person class in Anaheim, but I made due with what I had.  I used a Heidi Swapp 6x6 stencil for the stars with Tim Holtz's Broken China distress ink and a gold Colorbox pigment ink.  I used a Balzer Designs stencil with Squeezed Lemonade distress ink.  I started trying to use a stamp for the rays, but that didn't work.  So the yellow stamp isn't quite as distinct as it might have been had I started there, but I didn't want to lose the cool stars, so I pretty much just stenciled on top and hoped for the best.   The pictures don't show it terribly well, but there is a hint of glitter on the canvas-- a happy accident of not having an entirely clean workspace!!

Happy Crafting!

Kim

Healthy Life, Happy Mom: One Stupid Thing Part 2

I know how to lose weight.  I have done it before.  It's a pretty basic endeavor-- eat less unhealthy food (and we all know what those are) and move more.  But as we all know, it is not easy, even if simple.  It takes time, it takes commitment, it takes education, it takes doing things that hurt and make us really uncomfortable.  Our efforts are frustrated by our other commitments, by our family's needs, by our friends' sabotage.

But mostly, it is hard because most of us truly don't believe we are worthy of it.  We have heard the story so many times in our head that this ONE STUPID THING trumps all else.  This thing makes us unworthy.

When our washing machine floods our houses for the 3rd time in six months (yes this happened to me), we feel stupid for not having gotten rid of the dumb machine after the first time it overflowed.  We pay the price of having to tear up flooring and throw out furniture that is too damaged and hassle for weeks and months with contractors and insurance companies.  We feel dumb, we pay the price, but we do NOT feel unworthy of fixing the problem.  We don't leave the warped wood floor and the mildewy chair and the smelly carpet because we feel that we were so very stupid to not have avoided the problem in the first place that we deserve living in a mess.  No, we clean up the mess and buy a new washing machine and learn from our mistakes.  Or, at least if we don't have the money to pay for all of the repairs, we do our best to fix it slowly over time, as we are able.  But we forgive ourselves.  We don't wallow in our stupidity and think that our mistake means that we are terrible people.  We are just people who make mistakes.

We, as women, have been sitting in the mildewy chair feeling ashamed of our mistakes for far too long.  We have continued to punish ourselves rather than fix the problem or at least release the guilt for far too long.  I have been sitting in the mildewy chair in a combination of guilt and shame, punishing myself for not having replaced the washer. 

One mistake (or three or a hundred!) doesn't require another.  I am beginning my 2014 with a resolution to get out of the chair (literally and figuratively!) and stop punishing myself for my mistakes. 

I am not on a quest to lose 40 pounds.  In fact, I have no particular weight loss goal in 2014.  What I want is to live a healthier life, a happier life.  I want, on a day to day basis, to be happy and feel beautiful, no matter what the scale says. 

So I am going to try a few things to see how they work towards the healthy happy life goal.  I welcome you to join me on my journey.....

Kim

P.S.  The pictures here were taken on my first morning walk.  I dropped the kids at school and went to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens and walked just for a half hour or so.  I wish I had had my camera, but my phone captured at least some of the wonder that came from just exploring.  Happy and Healthy... :-)