From the files: Masculine cards

As I mentioned in my last post, I don't have any more new creations to share on my blog. Sigh. The craft room at our new place is slowly coming together and we're moving the rest of our stuff this week, so maybe next week I'll get to stamp again (fingers crossed!).

In the meantime, I will be sharing pictures of some of the cards I made before I started my blog. I'll group them into themes (masculine, floral, birthday, etc.) and post one theme every day or two. I don't have supply lists for these cards, but if you want to know what stamp set I used or how I made something, please leave me a comment. I can't promise a very speedy response, but I will answer your question(s) as soon as I can.

And now on with the show. Here are some of my favorite masculine cards. I hope you enjoy them and find some inspiration. (These pictures go back to 2005, so please forgive the lack of photography skills. I'm not by any means a great photographer now, but I have improved a bit.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

Did you ever have to tackle an unpleasant task, and it seemed as if no matter how much work you did there was always more to do? That pretty much sums up how I feel about packing. I'm convinced that things must be multiplying in our drawers and closets because although I keep filling box after box, there's always more stuff. Jinkies.

To save a bit of my sanity I decided to take a break and share a card with you.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!^® unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Sending Happy Thoughts
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Sahara Sand, Gumball Green, Raspberry Ripple
Ink: Gumball Green, Raspberry Ripple, Summer Starfruit, Primrose Petals
Accessories: 1-3/8" square punch, Word Window punch, Modern Label punch, gray brad (unknown), Dimensionals

This sentiment seems appropriate, doesn't it? I may have to start a mantra: Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

To make the background I stamped a full sheet of Very Vanilla card stock with the flowers and leaves. I cut the sheet into four 4" by 5-1/4" pieces and made four of the same cards. For each card I separately stamped and cut out a Primrose Petals flower and a Summer Starfruit flower used Dimensionals to adhere them to a stamped square matted with Gumball Green card stock. The greeting is punched out with the Word Window punch and matted with Raspberry Ripple card stock punched with the Modern Label punch.

This is actually the last of the cards I made before packing up my stamping supplies. So I may have to look through the pictures of my pre-blog creations to find some things to share with you in my upcoming posts. Thanks for stopping by!

Moving Day 1

Today was our first moving day. Our parents, brother and aunt came over to help, and we made three trips with two very full cars. By complete chance we also had access to a U-Haul truck, so we made one extra trip with a few furniture pieces. We didn't have much furniture ready to go since we weren't expecting to have a truck, but it was nice to get even a few of those big things moved. Overall it went well, but everyone is exhausted. Moving all those boxes down a flight of stairs and then up another flight of stairs and around a corner at the duplex was anything but fun. But we did meet a few of our new neighbors today, too, and they all seem very nice. (I would have preferred to meet them when I wasn't grimy and sweaty, but it is what it is.)

So now our dining room is empty, and the rest of the rooms in the apartment are in various stages of half-packed chaos. And we have just about two weeks to get the rest of our stuff packed before Moving Days 2 and 3. (I really hope that's all we'll need because I don't want to drag this out any more than we have to.)

This morning I took a few pictures of our new place before it was filled with stuff. Here is the living room. The fireplace isn't functional, but I think we might put some candles in it. And I love the built-in shelves and windows on either side.

This is the dining room. A dining room that will contain a table actually used for dining and not as a semi-permanent crafting space. Plus it has a cute built-in hutch.

Here is the smallest of the three bedrooms. It was going to be my craft room, but once I started looking at all the things I need to put in here (new craft furniture plus my current stamp shelf) and the things I want to put in here (desk and file cabinet), it really didn't seem big enough. So instead I think this will be my bedroom with minimal furnishings. It will be tight -- I mean cozy -- but I think it will be doable. (I might try to fit my craft stuff in here first, though. Just to make sure).

This room, which was originally going to be my bedroom, now will be my craft room. My desk and bookshelves will also be in here, so I suppose it will be a craft room/library/office. The door on the left side leads to a little sun room, which the cats will adore and which also lets a lot of light into the room. I would have loved to have this as a bedroom, but I'm just not sure it will work.

Now that we actually have some things at our new place, the whole move is finally starting to seem real. I just have to hope that I can keep enough momentum going to finish the job.





Thanks for stopping by!

Different strokes

A month ago when I was one of the card-contest winners at a local stamp show, one of the items I purchased with my prize money was a stamp set called Strokes of Wisdom from Raisin Boat. Before I had to pack up all my stamping supplies (sigh), I made four cards with this set.

Supplies (all Stampin Up!^® unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Strokes of Wisdom (Raisin Boat)
Card stock: Confetti White
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, Pool Party, Basic Black
Accessories: 1/8" Basic Black taffeta ribbon, Simply Scored tool, rhinestones

Aren't they fun cards? Each colored stroke is a separately stamped image. I just inked the stamp with the first color, stamped the image, cleaned the stamp and repeated the process with the next color. The set also includes a few words in a large calligraphy font and several phrases in a small typed font, so you can combine them to make whatever sentiment works for your card. I decided these bright rainbows needed a birthday sentiment, so I went with "Celebrate your day." I embellished the cards with ribbon, simple scored lines and a few rhinestones.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Strokes of Wisdom (Raisin Boat)
Card stock: Confetti Cream, Baja Breeze, textured Soft Suede
Ink: Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, River Rock
Accessories: Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, pearls, small and large metallic brads (making Memories), Simply Scored tool, Tombo Mono glue

For these two cards I went with a more subtle, almost beachy, color combination, and I used the straight stroke stamp instead of the curved one. I made the card of the left a bit more feminine by adding a few punched flowers with pearl centers. To give the card on the right a masculine feel, I repeatedly stamped the set of three strokes in two different directions, scored several lines along the bottom of the card and added a few metallic brads.

I love how easy it was to make these single-layer, elegant cards, and I'm looking forward to making more once my stamps are allowed to see the light of day again. Thanks for stopping by!

Dreaming of my craft room

I am definitely in the throes of moving. My sister and I have cardboard boxes everywhere in our apartment. Empty ones, full ones, big ones, little ones. And bags. Umpteen bags filled with recycling, trash and things to donate. I can barely reach our dining room window, and you almost have to walk down the hallway sideways. Seriously. I want to curl up in a ball and hide under a blanket. Thank goodness it's just a few more days until we can move the first load to our new place.

One thing I am getting very excited about, though, is my new craft room. The room isn't huge (I think it's about 9'8" by 9'10"), and I know that my desk and filing cabinet will be in the room along with the shelving unit that currently holds all my bins filled with stamps. But other than that it's a blank slate. At least it was until this weekend.

On Friday afternoon my dad called to see if I wanted to go to The Home Depot to see some Martha Stewart craft furniture. Now I'm personally not a fan of Martha Stewart, but my dad seemed impressed by the furniture. And even better, it was on clearance for half off! It's hard to beat a good sale, so I decided to take a look.

The cabinet. The drawers have dividers that can be
adjusted or removed. I'm planning to use the shallow
drawers for punches. I'll be able to see them all!

When we got to The Home Depot, the table my dad had seen the day before was already gone. And the one three-drawer cabinet was marked "paid." (He was so disappointed that I didn't get to see the table. He said he should have just bought and given it to me.) All that was left was a hutch for the cabinet.

We tried another store, but still no tables. The second location did have a few cabinets, hutches and sets of cubbies left, but I just wasn't sure what I wanted, so we left.

The hutch. The four dowels at the top
are for wrapping paper, but I'm going to
replace them with smaller ones to hold
ribbon. I think my dad had a hard time
understanding that, yes, I do have
that much ribbon.

Back at home I looked at a few other furniture options online, but I didn't really see anything that looked better for a cheaper price ($100 for the table, $150 for the cabinet, $50 for the hutch). So about an hour later I called my dad and told him I decided to get the cabinet and hutch. He went back to the store and picked them up for me (and agreed to store them in their garage temporarily). Yay for dads!

The table. I'm planning to put my two
back-to-back. And I can keep scissors,
adhesive, etc., in the drawers.

Not one to give up easily, my dad called me yesterday morning to say that he was at another The Home Depot store, and they still had the table: one floor model and one in a box. I told him to go ahead and get the one in the box. Then I promptly called back and told him to buy the floor model, too. (I had always hoped to have either one really large table or two smaller ones in my craft room so there's room for two people to have plenty of work space.) Yippee!

It's been about three weeks since I packed up my stamping supplies, and I know it will be several more weeks before I have everything moved, unpacked and set up. But I can't wait to get back to stamping. Thanks for stopping by!