Copics and a Cause...

Not that I needed an excuse to play with my new Copics (yes, I had a moment of temporary insanity and bought into Copic-mania yesterday), but I wound up having a really good reason to.  The other day I got an email about a child of an acquaintance of mine who was recently diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer, and all he wants is cards from all over the country to wallpaper his room with.  So they're reaching out to people they know to see if they wouldn't mind sending something.  I figure that's the least I can do, so I threw together a few cards tonight (and I might still do some more), and I'm going to bring them to work and have a bunch of people sign them.  The cards turned out cute, and I'm glad to help bring a little happiness where I'm sure it's needed.  If anyone is interested in sending cards to this little guy, let me know in the comments section and I'll get back to you soon...I'm going to try to find out if this is an open invitation to send cards (since it's a personal address and not a P.O. Box, I didn't just want to post it).

Anyway, I did a few cards, and they're not all particularly kid-centric.  I decided the point of this whole thing is variety...all sorts of different things from all over the country.  Also, I'm in the midst of a re-org in my crafting center, and about 2/3 of my stamps are buried at the moment.  So yeah...working with what's available.  The farm animals are a Stampendous stamp set, the girl leaning on the counter is from Rubber Romance (that Heather let me steal from her stash last time I was there!), the gnome (remember him from the last post?) is from Stampabilities, and the girl with the suitcase is from Stamping Bella.  Here they are:

Have a good night all...and remember to leave some love if you want to participate and I'll get you the info if I get the okay to do so :) 

Birthday Round-up...

Well, my other project from my scrap weekend (besides Easter cards, which I'm not posting right now, but caused quite a Cameo ordeal) was making some birthday cards.  I got a quite a few finished, and have ideas for some more, when I get a free moment to continue.  I love how I get so much done on these weekends, cuz I'm not constantly walking dogs, getting phonecalls, thinking about what else I should be doing at my house, etc. etc...I can just focus on craftiness.  <3  A big thank you to Heather for another lovely trip!!!  Anyway, here's my birthday card round-up:

Tim Holtz Birthday Set Cards
Colored with Tombow markers, and embellished with paper, pearls, and stickles.

A Couple Cute Birdies
Both AI Zoo Crew stamps, colored with Tombow markers, washi tape rosette on the owl card, and don't forget to check out the inside of the vulture card :)

House Mouse Birthday Cards
Colored with Tombow markers, embellished with paper, washi tape, etc.

Miscellaneous Birthday Cards
The cat is Penny Black, and the Mouse is Whimsy Doodles (I think?  I can't remember), both colored with Tombow markers.  Did some doodling on the border of the mouse card, and added ribbon and doodling to the cat :)

And that's all for tonight!  Have a good weekend all :)

House Mouse Monday Challenge (HMFMC 140)

Woot...made it back in time from my scrapping weekend to enter my card for the House Mouse Monday Challenge (#HMFMC 140).  This time the inspiration was ribbons and pearls.  Also, I'm newly obsessed with my silver Sharpies for doodling :)  Other featured items were Stickles and my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher to do the ribbon detail.  Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Painless Poetry and Checklist Journaling...

Man, am I feeling accomplished tonight!  Okay, so I was SUPPOSED to be working on St. Patrick's Day cards, BUT I finally had a brainstorm about what to do for my last week's journaling assignments!  So I got that done AND my Project Life update...woot!

The first assignment was Painless Poetry journaling...and I'll admit, I was scared.  It was all stream-of-consciousness writing and highlighting parts you like, etc. etc.  As someone who is lucky if she adds journaling at all (or at least historically, that's been true), I didn't know what I could possibly write that much about.  To top it off, I added the pressure on myself that if I'm going to write that much, it should be MEANINGFUL.  Well, as soon as I took the pressure off and nixed that idea entirely, the words came pouring out!  I just picked a pretty picture from our New England trip this past summer, and went to town.  This one is about how I've become a bit of a "foodie" in the last few years.  I did all the journaling on Microsoft Word, and then changed the size/font color to highlight the parts that I liked.  The rest all fades into the background, but you still get the impression of there being more there (You can see it a little better if you click to enlarge it).  Then I traced over the design in the bottom right corner (yeah, don't give me that much credit...I didn't draw it myself...lol), and added some doodling and a title with a white marker, and voila!  I like it...it looks diner chalkboard-y :)

The second assignment was journaling in a Checklist (specifically, a comparative checklist).  I decided to go with the New England theme (cuz I'm crazy, and I needed the two pages to match...lol).  It actually did work out pretty well though, because I'm always so surprised at how highly regional things are, and how much you don't notice it until someone three states away is looking at you like you just grew a second head.  lol. 

And here's a close-up of the journaling, cuz I wasn't sure how easy it would be to see otherwise (you'll probably STILL have to click on it to actually be able to read it...sorry!)

And that's all for tonight, peeps :)  Hopefully I'll be getting a recipe update for the past month's cooking and a new menu plan up soon too...we'll see how ambitious I'm feeling and whether or not we get that snowstorm they're talking about...again...argh!  Have a good one!

Journaling With Numbers...

Well, part of this week's journaling homework was journaling with numbers.  I've gotta say, this workshop is giving me tons of ideas to scrap old pictures I've had laying around for years...pictures that I've always liked, but never found a place for, because they didn't really go with anything else.  Anyway, so I've had this pic of my friend Ryan for ages (probably almost as long as I've known him), and when I was flipping through my box of pictures, I just knew it was the picture for this assignment.  Weirdly, while I'm a numbers-oriented person as far as math/statistics go, I had a really hard time reconciling that with my crafty side for this project.  I think maybe I need to put more stock in that whole left-brain/right-brain dominance thing.  I must've went through a dozen scenarios with different numbers, and they just didn't seem to relate to each other enough, or seem important enough to go on the page...I finally settled on a less-is-more approach, and I think it turned out pretty good.  I added another handlettered title and a doodled band/border for my doodling workshop.  I'm sort of obsessed with the doodled band...I'm going to be doing that one on everything for a while, I think ;)   Here's the end result:

Also in this journaling workshop, our teacher keeps talking about a favorite pics album that she keeps.  I'm thinking that's a brilliant idea.  Pictures that aren't necessarily in chronological order...or that don't go with any particular theme, location, date, etc...just pictures that you like, and you want to keep in one place to enjoy.  I think that's sort of what my "homework scrapbook" is going to turn out to be, because I've just been gathering up pictures that I like that have been homeless thusfar.  Anyway, I best be getting to bed...more homework tomorrow unless I'm totally slacking!  :)

Journaling Homework...

Well, thanks to a snowstorm that got my store closed early, I had extra time to scrap tonight and work on my homework for my journaling class.  Woot!  Hooray for snow days!  (Note: I probably won't be feeling that way when I'm digging my car out in the morning, but alas...I'll enjoy it for the moment.)  Anyway, this first one was for journaling in the style of a quiz.  I had the hardest time thinking of what to do.  I finally wound up writing the quiz first after stumbling across a "Would You Rather..." reference on TV the other day.  I took a few applicable questions (that weren't too ridiculous or inappropriate...as that game is prone to being), and then dug through my bin of random pictures and found a picture of myself from a couple of years ago at a work meeting (yes...I'm wearing a tiara and wand at a work meeting...I work at a scrapbook store people...it happens...lol).  I'm still doing my doodling/lettering for my handlettering class too, so that's featured again.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute...I don't even hate the picture of myself (which is weird, cuz I NEVER scrapbook myself). 

And then the other assignment was journaling in a single sentence.  I've had these pics hanging out on my computer for a couple of years of my sister and I from a trip to St. Louis.  I never had much in particular to do with them (besides post them on Facebook, obviously), because they didn't tell much of a story...except that we're dorks and spend too much time taking pictures of ourselves making ridiculous faces at the camera when we're bored in a hotel room.  lol :)  Anyway, I'm liking it, I think...even if that does mean I'm featured on TWO whole scrapbook pages in recent history...weird!  I'm particularly obsessed with the little Maya Road houses on the bottom...I colored them with some Slick Writers and I'm in love with them!

So that's it for the craftiness tonight.  In other news, I'm a sucker, and when I got an email this morning, reminding me it's the last day to sign up for the Technicolor Doodling workshop on Creative Passions Classes, I clicked right on through and signed up.  Argh.  I promised myself I wouldn't sign up for another one till I was done with the first two!  Whoops :) 

Journaling Workshop - List Style...

Another combined homework assignment!  In this one, I combined the list-style journaling assignment from my Grammar Free Journaling workshop (on Big Picture Classes) and the embellished title assignment from my Hand Lettering workshop (on Creative Passion Classes).  I wanted to make yesterday's page into a full layout with all the pups, so I did a page with Daisy May, the newest addition to the family.  Her name was a helpful inspiration for the embellished title.  Aside from that, I did it in a similar style with doodling so layout all feels like it goes together.  The paper is Studio Calico Snippets.  I gotta say, these doodling pages are a lot cheaper to do than my other pages...lol :)  Anyway, that's all for tonight.  Catching up on Project Life tomorrow, and maybe submitting a card for a challenge on the House Mouse blog!  Woot!  Yay crafty-time!

Inspiration Strikes...

I'm bringing craftiness back to the blog!  Obviously, I've been doing random crafty stuff since I last posted anything on here about it.  However, it's been a bit of a struggle for a while.  I hadnt had motivation to scrapbook in ages and I'd even lost momentum on my stamping projects (on the actual stamping...not on the buying of stamps...lol).  The good news is, since I moved to Iowa, I've been getting more involved in scrapbooking and crafting again.  My friend Heather inspired me to actually start my Project Life scrapbook (for real this time), and I've actually been doing a good job of keeping up.  I went and took a workshop about doodling at Memory Bound (another local scrapbooking store), and had so much fun.  And now, thanks to Teresa (one of the gals at work), I'm getting involved in some online classes too.  Right now, I've got a handlettering workshop and a journaling workshop that I'm participating in.  Because I've got all that, plus St. Patrick's Day cards that I'm working on, I decided to combine a couple of my assignments this week.  This page has a handlettered title for my handlettering workshop, and it has comparative lists for my journaling workshop (plus doodling, because I'm a little obsessed since I took that class a couple weeks ago).  I'm pretty happy about how it turned out :)

Anyway, that's all for tonight.  I'm excited that I'm getting motivated and inspired again, so you can expect to see more soon! 

Zentangles...

So a customer asked Heidi if we had supplies for doing Zentangles the other night.  We didn't, but she was curious and did some online research, and has since created Zentangles monsters of a few of us at work.  In case you're wondering, Zentangles are basically glorified doodling (they were actually included in my vocab post a few months ago before I even knew much about them).  Also known as Zendoodles, they're basically doodling with a purpose that tends to have a relaxing/hypnotic effect (hence, the Zen part).  I scraplifted (yes, that's legit in the world of scrapping) Heidi's book of patterns and have been doing some research online for more, along with templates and whatnot.  I think I'm going to make myself a letterblock tray of them to hang in my livingroom, and I'm SUPER excited about it.  :)  Here's some shots of my pattern book...more to come when I'm further into some works in progress:

That's all for tonight!  More soon :)

Adventures on canvas begin...

So I guess canvas is hot this year in the crafting world.  We have workshops, samples, gift tags, and boxes and boxes of other canvas items at the store.  So...I figure it's about time to play!  I've always had sort of an interest in creating wall art with canvases.  I've actually tried a couple of times with limited success.  But that was back in high school before I had been introduced to the world of scrapbooking, and I was just using whatever paint, etc. I had lying around the house.  So I ran across this really snazzy idea in the idea book about doodling that I bought a few months ago...I was super excited when I saw it the first time, and then I got busy and kind of forgot about it...but I ran across it again a few days ago and was re-inspired, so my canvas project takes it's first baby steps tonight.  So here's the pic from the book that I'm working off of for inspiration:

First and foremost, of COURSE I'm doing my canvas with a picture of Lucy :)  I was thinking about doing one of both of them, but upon further consideration, I decided that I'll do one just for Millie later.  After having Lucy for almost a year now, I think I really have an understanding of her quirky little personality and can hopefully bring that to the piece.  I don't think I've had Millie long enough to say that.  So after she comes out of her shell a little more, she'll get her own picture :)

Now, that said, I think the most exciting little tidbit from this inspiration page is the little gems around the outside edges.  What in interesting idea...using a 5/8" circle punch for paper to put behind those gems you put in the bottom of vases.  I had never really seen anything like it.  It was, in fact, the whole reason I decided I really wanted to do this canvas afterall.  So while I haven't really figured out my whole concept yet, I got to play with the gems tonight to get a feel for how it might fit with the rest of my ideas.

So, the first column is just gems with paper behind them, the second column is with paper that has some Sharpie doodling on it behind the gems, and the third column is just the gems...which I'm thinking about mixing into the piece too.  I'm LOVING the Sharpie ones, though.  We'll see what happens.

Once I really get going on this, I'm going to have to figure out a better way to photograph it so you can see everything better (On that note, I'm seriously considering buying myself a new camera for Christmas.  The camera phone pictures aren't doing it for me, and I despise the camera I have...screw you Olympus with your damn XD card that isn't compatible with my computer and no auto-stabilization.  Gotta finish the rest of my Christmas shopping first and see if I have enough left for me!)

Anyway, that's all for tonight!  More tomorrow :)

Feeling like a kid again...

So at my first real college apartment (I say REAL, because I don't count the one that I was afraid to live in prior to that and moved out of four months in because my roommate was a psychopath...literally), my roommates and I decided that coloring would be a great stress reliever.  We went out and bought a few of those giant kid's coloring books and the biggest boxes of crayons we could find.  This stress relieving process morphed into a rite of passage, and everyone was strongly encouraged (although not officially required) to color something in the coloring book upon their first visit.  Everyone signed and dated their work.  It turned into a fun little keepsake, though I'm not sure who wound up with it or if it even survived all of our moving out after school.  Throughout my life, though, despite whatever the heck is going on, nothing is quite so soothing as sitting down with a goofy picture of a cartoon animal and a giant box of crayons. 

So, I was ecstatic to discover several months ago that there's a scrapbooking equivalent.  Doodling.  Like, draw in the margins, color in all the "O"s and "B"s and "P"s style doodling.  There are books on this technique!  Who knew?  So, obviously, I DID buy a book about it (cuz I'm crazy like that, and I need direction for my doodling...yeah...OCD a little, I know).  I found myself somewhat stressed about it because I had never before considered making doodling a PART of what I was doing.  I've always doodled while I was daydreaming about what I may be doing in the future, or to kill time waiting to do something, or to avoid doing something, or maybe just to stay awake while I'm doing something boring.  I've never considered it to be the end product.  This sentiment has been echoed by most of the customers I've suggested it to as well.  So imagine my surprise when I sat down, and it just started happening.  Just like coloring.  Just like pulling out the crayons and coloring in that goofy cartoon animal.  And when I convince customers to just sit down and try it...they agree.  Beautiful, creative, relaxing.  Just...doodling. 

So yeah, here's some fun with doodling I had tonight...basic, boring-ish patterened paper, made fun!

The original:

Starting the outlines:

Filling in pattern:

That's all for tonight :)