Freshly Made Sketches # 566

Thanks for stopping by! 

I've been absent for a couple weeks with a minor surgery, four weeks of bronchitis and a major craft room overhaul.  I'm excited to be back in my updated space and seeing if how I THINK it should be organized and arranged actually works in practice. 

Here's my submission for the final Freshly Made Sketches challenge for 2022. I'm needing a stash of birthday cards badly so here it is: 

 

 

Inks and cardstock: Gina K

Image: Gina K Friendly Silouette

Butterflies colored in with Stardust by Sakura pen

Cuttlebug Embossing Folder

Die is ? 

 

Here's the sketch for reference. 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! 

Chris

 

 

 

 

Create.

It has been a little over a month since my last post. I've been in a bit of active limbo in the last month. I had some minor foot surgery in early November. Nothing that kept me completely down, just a bit of a nuisance as a means to a better end than what I've been dealing with lately. Thanksgiving brought a wonderful trip to Carolina Beach for family ThanksMas and bronchitis that still won't quite leave me. 

In the meantime,  I took on the project of a complete craft room overhaul. My craft room is in our 4th bedroom on the second floor with a challenging and limited floor plan due to having our attic access stairs for our 2nd floor HVAC.

For the last 20 years of paper crafting I've had several spaces I've used over the years: Basement with a card table. A windowless den. A spare room that doubled as a guest room and a clearance 8ft table. A 4-season room. Another basement adding some random tables. An office space off our family room. And now a dedicated room. 

In our last house we had a 4 season room with a large wall that the dressers, desks, hutches (pictured) from the hub's childhood bedroom set fit perfectly. I loved loved loved that room. It had 3 walls of windows that overlooked our backyard oasis and full of natural light. 

For a short time that furniture was used in an actual room in the current home until I moved the craft space from first, the basement, second, our den, and third, the 4th bedroom. 

 It worked well and I felt good about kind of up-cycling what we had that would work. Our first dining table from 1996 outlived it's use in the main part of our current house so it got put in the craft room several years back. 

I always longed for a different kind of space...you know, the kind of thing you see on Pinterest. 

Recently getting myself back into doing crafty things after a couple years of just trying to deal with life, I found I needed a few things to be different. I'm not one to just spend money willy-nilly. I kept looking at IKEA, and as much as I love it, I  just couldn't justify the expense for my craft space. I searched for DIY craft room furniture and came across the 9-cube shelf units with some kind of table top over them as a very cost effective way to get a lot of storage space on a limited budget. I set about planning.

I had a few goals. 

1. Counter height workspace. This was absolutely a must as I do a lot of my crafting standing up and my back was killing me working on surfaces that were sitting height. Getting older isn't for the timid.

2. Modular design so when we move again it's more flexible (and a LOT LIGHTER WEIGHT) than the current set up. 

3. Inexpensive

4. Matchy, matchy, with cute bins and other things to keep things tidy

5. My fun stuff visible instead of partially hiding in drawers.

6. A large work surface to facilitate multiple projects and stations for paper cutting, die cutting, working, etc. 

7. Easily organized and switchable to different projects than paper crafting. I also dabble in sewing, quilting, crocheting, and knitting. 

Well, me and my trusty graph paper, measuring tape, Walmart online, and Lowes online went to work. 

The basis of the design revolved around this bookshelf and the decision to get a 4'x8' piece of MDF for the work surface. This size surface was an aggressive goal for a room that measures roughly 11'x11' with an odd layout.

I decided that bookshelf was really functional so my furniture was going to be black instead of the white you see so much in craft spaces. I didn't want to buy another identical shelf just to have white instead of black. 

I acquired from Walmart's Mainstays brand the following: 

3 9-cube shelves, 2 3-shelf standard size bookcases, 1 6-cube shelf

From Lowe's:

4'x8' MDF board, primer, a palm sander, polyurethane, wall paint and appropriate brushes, etc to go with  black paint from the basement. 

I pared down a lot of my supplies, sold some things on eBay, tossed others, donated other things and began moving every thing out of the room. My daughter is away at college and her room was available for all the craft stuff. Our guest room was a holding spot for all the excess furniture.

Did I tell you I was recovering from foot surgery? And coughing up a lung several times a day?

I spent a day building all the Walmart furniture. I spent several days sanding, priming, painting, sealing the MDF table top. I picked a very pale grey-purple paint color called "Origami" and hubs knocked out getting the room painted for me in short order. Everything came together exactly how I'd envisioned it. 

To review what it was in the before:

I had to make a couple quick cards yesterday so it was the first time actually working in the space and WOW...I did good. ;-)

I have a friend making me some vinyl letters for the wall that simply says: CREATE. 

Thanks for coming along on the journey. 

Freshly Made Sketches #561

Eleventh Hour. Of the Eleventh Day. Of the Eleventh Month. Happy Veteran's Day. 

I'm recovering from some minor foot surgery and have had plenty of time to surf and see others making beautiful poppy cards. I wanted to do one too! Also, as I was having some trouble sleeping last night I kept mulling over this week's sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and coming up a bit empty of ideas. 

Working in short sessions, I decided to just do the poppy, then managed to get it to fit the sketch. 

I glued crumpled tissue paper to white card stock and let it dry. Then I die cut the poppy from a set from Concord & 9th, colored with Copic markers, and finished with some light brushing of pearl ex powders. 

The inks, two background elements and greeting are from Gina K. It was hard to get a good picture of the texture the tissue, markers and pearl ex gave to the poppies with the gray #3 skies today, so it's a little bright.

Have a lovely day! 

Instagram inspiration to the rescue

 I have this beautiful eucalyptus paper and so do hundreds (or more) card makers. I don't know what it is, but it is just so pretty. That said, it's a very bold and busy pattern and I was having a hard time coming up with a good balance. 

I saw a card on Instagram by Mary Fish, @ stampinpretty and saved it to my favorites. I needed a card for a friend who had some procedures done, so I used her inspiration to get going. Then I made 3 more with the bits left with different greetings to put in my stash.

Paper from Hobby Lobby

Stamps Technique Tuesday

Die Momenta

Cardstock Gina K

Freshly Made Sketches 560

Here's this week's installment from Freshly Made Sketches. 

I'm trying to build back my stash of need-right-away cards. So I started with the theme in my mind of having a square wedding card. I really like the idea of splitting a large image apart that I've seen all over. I really like a bit bigger canvas for these larger images. More white space. Since I'm trying to get back to finding my style/groove again, I reflected on what hooked me to this craft more than 20 years ago. Heat embossing. Here you go! 

Stamps are from Concord & 9th, Technique Tuesday (sentiment).

Gold and white card stock. 

And here's the original sketch. 

On a more reflective note...

I've boxed up the majority of my stamp sets, a full set of ink pads, inks, gobs of random card stock and a mountain of other supplies. Wow. I can't tell you how good that feels. I don't know what to do with it all but it is freeing to simplify a bit. After 20 years some things just aren't feeling modern enough and I want to get some new things. I've completed my mini ink collection and matching card stock from Gina K Designs and that has really helped me get more focused. I like the matchy-matchy. My taste has surely changed and I'm continuing to find my place in all this again. If you got this far, thanks for looking. Have a great weekend! 

Faux Marbling

Two posts in the same day! 

I came across the faux marble technique somewhere in my web travels. I can't remember where to give credit! It's easy enough..just some tissue paper, crumpled up bounced on an ink pad in two complementary colors. Then to get the darker striations use a marker along torn paper to make random designs. 

I recently got a bunch of new embossing folders and pulled out some old ones. I really love texture in white space. I cut apart the 1/4 sheet of faux marble and just kept playing around. 

I have a plan for the birthday one, but opted out of a greeting on the first. Sometimes you just need a greeting-less option. 

Sentiments are from Technique Tuesday, folders are Park Lane, Tim Holtz, and Cuttlebug, card stock from Gina K, and dies are Spellbinders. 

Freshly Made Sketches #559

 Very quick card for this sketch challenge getting it done shortly before the deadline at Freshly Made Sketches. 

     

I've had this paper from Hobby Lobby for some time and have never made anything with it. Sound familiar?  It is casually known in a group I'm in as 'that paper'. It's just so pretty! I wanted to be careful not to make it too busy and I had several things laying on my desk that just worked to whip this up in a short period I had to play today. 

Paper: Eucalyptus

Embossing folder: Park Lane from Joann's

Sentiment: Technique Tuesday

Die: Spellbinders

Freshly Made Sketches #558

Here we go.....for the first time in a long time, a blog post featuring a card! 

When you're in a creative slump, which I have been for some time, sketches are a tool that can help. A LOT! This took me a bit to get to what I felt was right and I almost gave up frustrated. Four or five versions later and much use of the round bin, and I channeled Farmer Zuckerman from Charlotte's Web: 'That'll do <Chris>. That'll do." 

Video tutorials are also fun to get the creativity going. Yesterday I watched a video from Gina K Designs on the Retiform technique. I applied it in my own way to stick with the sketch for this week from Freshly Made Sketches. In order to enter the challenge officially you have to link your blog post to the challenge blog. So, welcome to anyone who might be checking this out! Feel free to get to know me and where I am right now from my post earlier today. 

Stamps: Stampin' Up! c. 1997

Embossing folder (used the debossed side)

Inks and Cardstock: Gina K Designs

Eight years later. Eight.

 "Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind." -Nathaniel Hawthorne

In 2014, I wanted to revive this blog as a place to share whatever it was I felt like sharing. I have long wanted to get back in the groove of creating and using all the stuff I've accumulated over the years in the arts and crafts realm. I get going for a bit, then it all sits. Months sometimes pass before I step foot in this space. Often, the scraps of the last project from months ago greet me to be put back in their places. I've toyed with boxing everything up and finding somewhere to donate everything so I don't feel like it's being wasted. I've struggled to find purpose in creating just for the sake of occupying my hands and mind. I mean, shouldn't I DO something with the things I create? Where does my style fit in? What IS my style? Can I even create something that isn't guided by a sketch or video? Shouldn't I make money? Do people still want handmade things? What's going to happen to all this stuff when I leave this world? 

Paper and ink have always been the places I go back to, where I feel at my crafty best, the place that has fed me creatively for over 20 years. While I had periods where I would get back into the groove, I've dabbled in other things. After my grandmother passed in 2015 Time and Trees I made a quilt to focus my mind on something besides how much I missed her. She was who I would send random cards to the last several years of her life, just to connect and make her day. I've art journaled, painted, continued to do an annual digital family album, taught myself to crochet, sewn a few things, and now trying to knit. I even made an Instagram account dedicated to paper things. (User: papergirl1974) I've bought new things in an attempt at finding some inspiration, only to get minimal joy or use out of those new things. 

In our household, we are approaching 12 years almost to the day of moving here. I have a dedicated room for all my stuff vs the basement or den downstairs. We graduated our daughter from high school and will soon graduate her from college. I didn't go back to work after the nest emptied. Too much time had passed that kept me out of the real world and I simply didn't want or need the stress in my life that workplaces often bring. We bought an RV a couple years ago and it has become my happy place. 

We've endured a global pandemic and all the challenges and change in life that has brought, and I can honestly say that during 2020-2021 when spreading joy through cards and other things was likely needed and welcomed, I was in no head space to do so. 

I have all the time in the world, yet I've fizzled hours of the days scrolling meaningless stuff that neither fed me nor inspired me. (Quite the opposite, actually. ) Social media is a chasm of comparison and illusions of perfection that don't exist in the real world, yet we are sucked into believing it all. Comparison truly is the thief of joy. 

So here I am back in my own digital and physical space where I can hopefully find a shadow of the joy I used to derive from spending hours just playing, learning, and engaging with the creative community in whatever way happens. 

Thanks for coming along.