Irony

It's quite ironic that my last blog post was about the importance of stamping and of taking the time to do things for ourselves and then I haven't really done that. I know it's important, but somehow everything else seems more important. I am trying through. And even though I have actually done a few things, I haven't shared anything since blogging seems to be the lowest of priorities. I guess that's just the reality of life with three young children and a business.

In April, I did a demo with my friend, Sonja, at our local stamp club. It was with the Vintaj line which love!! It was something totally different for me and I had a lot of fun playing. Vintaj makes these metal pieces called blanks and you can emboss and etch them with their special metal dies and then you sand off the raised areas to reveal a different finish. At any rate, I love it!!! Here is a card I made for my demo. It's a simple distress background with some stamping and then a Vintaj embellishment.

It's Important to Make Time

My husband is away for work right now. He left yesterday and is back tomorrow night which means I'm flying solo with the three kids. I really miss him. Work is busy and I have a bunch of deadlines right now and I really miss the support and help.

I've been really busy lately and so haven't been stamping. I couldn't justify the time when there were so many other things that needed doing. But, I have a couple stamping deadlines coming up, so I ventured in there last night and came out so much less stressed. I played with some new product and made a bunch of sample cards and it made me so happy.

It's so easy to get into a rut where we are too busy to do our creating, and yet, I'm much happier and more balanced when I make a conscious effort to stamp and scrapbook, so I need to do that more. I was doing so well before and then it died, so I'm going to work to get back in the groove and make it part of my routine!

In the meantime, here is a quick card I made for my class today.

I'm Alive

But barely it seems. It's been forever since I posted, but it's been forever since I stamped too.

Work has been really busy and then you add in three kids and a husband and everything else and somehow my craft room seems to be lonely. There is a ton of new product in it, but I never seem to have time to play. Then I get overwhelmed and feel uncreative and so I don't go in there. It's such a vicious cycle.

But I'm hoping to get in there later today. I have lots of things I need to create, so necessity will get me in there and hopefully it will go well and I'll want to keep going back.

In the meantime, here is a quick card to get me back in the swing of things.

Vote

My friend Jackie Smith is an incredible artist. She does the most intricate cards and they're gorgeous. I truly admire them. Especially since there is not a chance I'd ever have the ability or patience to do them. She is a finalist for the Heartfelt Creations Design Team and I urge you to go check out her blog at Stamping4you and vote for her. She's awesome.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a very simple card I made with one of my new Unity Stamps.

I Did It!

I did it! I finished Nathalie's first year. Well, I did that a couple of weeks ago, but yesterday I picked up all the pages from the Scrapbook Store (I always get them scanned; I'm paranoid about something happening to my scrapbooks and losing all the photos and memories). Then last night, I sorted them and got them into scrapbooks. That part always takes me forever, so I am so thrilled!!! Yeah. And today, I sorted the scans into folders so I know which pages went into which book and I'm ready to create again.



This scrapbook page is another simple one I did for my February Paper Pack Kit. I love that you can do the same design with different paper and cardstock and embellishments and it looks different. No one is going through your album saying, wait a second; she did that layout before. No one notices! And you go with what works, right?

Honey Pop

At the beginning of February, Tim Holtz showed off his February tag for his 12 Tags of 2012. On it, he showed Honeypop paper and I was totally sold. He used his die cut for it, but when I went searching for the paper, I discovered Inky Antics actually has stamps that they've designed to work with this cool paper.

I ordered a few sets and made a card for my last card class. I love how it turned out and it would be perfect for a kid's birthday!

Front:



Inside

Distress Markers

They arrived!!!!!! Well, half of my order did anyway. I don't know exactly what is going on other than my distributor ordered hundreds of sets and Ranger sent them 20. Yup. 20. How crazy is that.


But I got 5 "sets" today and I know I have some excited customers!! I wanted to do a quick video to show you how cool the White Picket Fence Marker is. It colours and you can't see it on the dark paper, but as it dries, it gets darker and it's so cool!! It's kind of like magic.

Click here to see a video demonstration