Local Crop for April & My Pinterest Boards

Okay, this is almost redundant, since I’ve put a link to it in my permanent column on the right, but I’m kind of excited about the boards I’m creating on Pinterest. In particular, my Dies I Have board will be great for giving people an idea of the shapes I can cut for kits and special orders. Plus, it will give my local crafting buddies a place to see what I can bring to crops or what they can pop on over to my house to cut.

It’s time for another local crop. Here is the info:
Saturday April 12, 2014
10am to 5pm
LDS Church on White Mountain Blvd in Rock Springs

Hi ladies! Let’s get together for a special crop in April. I’m calling it the Spring Cleaning Swap Challenge. It will be like the usual crop, just sitting, talking, and working on whatever projects you want to bring. But we’re going to add something fun to the mix with a swap challenge! Let’s all make a dent in our paper stashes by bringing patterned paper to swap. Everyone who wants to participate in this portion of the day needs to contribute 10 sheets of patterned paper. Then you get to take out 10 sheets from the big pile of paper, but we’ll take turns picking one at a time until it’s all gone. Anyone who has more paper to swap can have another round of swapping. We can have as many rounds as you want, just as long as everyone puts in and takes out the same number of sheets of paper each round. I’ll have 10 samples of things you can quickly do with a 12×12 sheet of paper featuring the dies I will bring that day. If you want, we can even vote on who makes the cutest project with their swapped paper. Should be fun, hope to see you there!

P.S. As usual, feel free to bring a treat or snack to share. Thanks!

Friend Card Band

I had some scraps left from yesterday’s card, so I used them to add bands to this A2 custom card shape I had AccuCut make for me last year. It’s based off their VC102 Shadow Box-Landscape die set. Also used was Bazzill Basics Bling cardstock (thus the shiny surface), a 2-1/4″ scalloped circle punch and a 1-3/4″ circle punch, both by EK Success. The friend stamp on the front is from the Stampin’ Up! set Lexicon of Love, and the interior friendship saying is from the Hero Arts CL434 Just Find Me set.

Flower Smile Criss-Cross Card

Here’s today’s little project. Just got a shipment of AccuCut dies, and did a little card today with the A2 Card-Criss Cross NC228 die. Lois, Sheila, and I were at Mary’s last Friday for our weekly get-together and I peeled the wrapper off the die for the first time. It was so fun to raid Mary’s stash and pop out some cards really quick. The design of the card shape and how it has the great mat for the front, plus the card band, make it easy to decorate. And I love the rounded top of the insert as well. It’s all about the details.

The pink cardstock is Bazzill Basics Bling and the patterned paper is an old Imaginisce line, Baby Powder, #000736 Tiny Tantrum (dots are one side, stripes are the other.) The stamped “smile” greeting is from the Stampin’ Up! set Wonderful Words II. The flowers are part of my custom AccuCut die set, layered daisies, coming soon! I will have sizes of this eight-petal daisy in 1.5″,2″,2.5″,3″,3.5″,4″,4.5″, and 5″, plus a great 5.5″ square daisy card that will double as an album page. Can’t wait till it arrives, probably about April 4th.

Where have I been for nearly six months? Well, as seems to happen every year around November-ish, I just get overwhelmed and burned out and it takes me a while to get back on my feet. Since I run my own small one-woman business and want my blog to feature all the fun things I like to do with my dies and all the wonderful paper that is out there, I don’t want my blog to turn into a place where I ramble on in detail about my personal issues. But I’d like to briefly mention that I struggle with depression/anxiety and want anyone out there who also struggles to maybe get some inspiration or ideas on coping with their “crazy”, as I like to call it.

So, one of the things I’m learning to make myself do is to take things in smaller pieces, and try to remember the things I do accomplish and not get so upset about all the things I can think to do, but can’t get done. Just like so many others, whenever I get on Pinterest (my boards) I can start pinning and reading about various projects, and then blink to see that several hours have gone by. Not very productive being an idea-collector sometimes, but I did find something useful – a simple blog that I kind of found inspiring. It’s called Krafting With Karen and it seems like she does a simple little post every day. I’d like to do the same, just enjoy simple crafting without trying to make myself accomplish Mt. Everest every day. So here goes, my first post this year, and hopefully there will be many more.

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