I don’t always look forward to summer, but when I do, it’s because there’s good food and fun to be had.
We’ve been working out in the yard a bit lately–planting flowers and clearing the way for some bigger projects to come (driveway! fence! deck!). And at the end of a day outside, there’s little that’s as refreshing as a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade.
When you can’t share a glass in person, send a cute card like this one, complete with a liquid-looking inside to your lemonade pitcher.
The liquidy center was inspired by those baby bottle toys we had as kids–the ones where the liquid looked like it disappeared as you tipped it up?–and it gave me the opportunity to dig out my woodburning tool to combine with the diecuts to make it work. You can do the same, most like, with a Fuse tool or similar.
The video play-by-play and the full supply list can be found over on the Imagine blog.
I’ve actually had a few of those, lately, thanks to making time for myself and various projects I want to accomplish. But the afternoon I’m talking about, today, is the one that happened about a week ago when I got into the Blissful card kit from Simon Says Stamp and made a good stack of cards from this gorgeous kit!
To see and hear how these cards came together, check out the video, below, or head over to my YouTube channel:
Like most of the Simon Says Stamp kits, this one has sold out, and the stamp set it’s built around is out of stock at the moment, too (though you can sign up for the waiting list to be notified when it’s available again). Still, a supply list is the thing to do for a post like this, so here you go! (the following list may contain some affiliate links)
SSS Blissful Card Kit (out of stock) which included:
While I generally enjoy crafting with the Simon Says Stamp kits, my favorite part of this kit (and all the kits so far) were the Daniel Smith watercolors. They were an absolute dream to work with and I have added some more of the dot sheets (like the one linked above) to my shopping list. While there were only 4 colors included on the dot sheet, I was able to paint an entire sheet of stamped images and get a good number of color variations by mixing tiny bits of those little dots.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve set out to make a single-layer card only to end up trimming it down to make it into a panel and matting it onto something else before being happy with it. It’s been a lot, of that I’m sure, and it’s pretty dog-gone frustrating!
I am happy to report, however, that I have broken this unlucky streak and, really, once I realized how I managed it, I’m kinda kicking myself for not trying this before.
What it all boiled down to were three basic rules of design and composition:
Repetition (the same stamped shapes repeated throughout the image)
Limited color palette (dark, medium, and light of the same color family–in this case tangerine/orange)
Balance of positive and negative space (leaving one area blank to offset the busyness of another)
The diagonal line I created with the flowers helped too, and by playing with the mix of color and texture within the repetitive shape I kept the card interesting.
You can see exactly how this card came about–including video!–over on the Imagine blog today!
Imagine teamed up with CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration to solve their June 1st Case File. I used to participate with CSI as a digiscrapper, but it’s been a few years since I was last on that site. And now, as part of the Imagine team, I needed to drag out my old school supplies to go back to basics for a traditional scrapbook layout!
Case #231 is super hero-themed, and it just so happens that the 2017 Rose Parade was also super hero-themed, and we had Duncan with us, so I had perfect pictures for this assignment.
The fun twist to the CSI challenges is that it’s more than merely a sketch and/or color scheme (though that’s part of it). To solve the case you have to use at least three pieces of “evidence” (that would be elements or supplies) and give appropriate “testimony” (aka journaling, and they give you prompts to choose from).
As per my usual these days, I ran video for this layout (considering how long it’s been since I’ve done a physical scrapbook page, this is right up there with historical documents!). Take a gander to see how I planned out the page and put the various pieces together.
The supplies in my CSI kit were:
Imagine Supplies:
My binge watch for March ended up being Star Trek, the Original Series. I’ve tried watching it in the past but just couldn’t get into it, finally chalking it up to the very heavy “space Western” vibe of the first season. Strangely enough, I really enjoyed Firefly, though, so it’s not like space-Westerns are all bad.. But something about TOS just wasn’t doing it for me.
But! With the passing of Leonard Nemoy, it seemed fitting to give the series another go. I’d made it through a big part of season 1, so this binge was mostly seasons 2 and 3. Season 2 was pretty awesome, so now I’m really glad to have watched it. Season 3? Todd kept asking ‘did you get to the space hippies?’ every time he’d pass my office door. So much that I wondered if it was one of those episodes I just listened too and never looked up during.
Nope. He assured me I wouldn’t be able to miss it, and he was right.
And the series finale? Seeing Kirk have an absolute hissy fit on the bridge was a bit of a treat. Though, in my head, I keep hearing him scream ‘respect my authority’ a la Cartman, which just makes it even more funny.
I’m still a Next Gen fan, but at least I can make that statement fully informed.
What was I doing while Kirk, Spock, and McCoy duked their way through the galaxies? Mostly Sewing.
Since this was the first month we had fabric in hand, I had two Love My Fabrics projects go live:
Full write-ups and links to their patterns are available on the Love My Fabrics blog: Eggs, Basket I also have a pair of doll outfits going up on Tuesday, using the same fabric set (Botanic Garden, available in a fat quarter pack on etsy)
Happy Easter!
For Helmar, this month’s assignment fell due just before Todd’s birthday, so I used it as a kick in the pants to actually make his birthday card instead of buy it. That we’re both in accounting makes the card make more sense.
Finally, over on Gauche Alchemy, the March challenge was to use a quote in our work, and I used the “keep moving forward” quote from the end of Meet the Robinsons for mine. I also learned how to make animated gifs so I could show a (somewhat rapid-fire) time-lapse progress of the canvas I made for the challenge. I think I’ll slow the frame rate down a bit next time.
I also have a secret knitting project in the works and, of course, have been busily “crafting” the business plan for The Crafty Branch. It’s not done yet (bother!) but it’s really coming along and I feel really good about what I do have put together so far. April’s gonna be a big month!
