Some Greeting Cards

I love to make special cards for people I love. I often make birthday and Valentines Day and Christmas cards for close family members and I forget to take photos. Sometimes if I'm going to mail things out, I'll remember to snap a pic. I don't always get to process it right away and sometimes I end up with a not-so-good photo, but at least I know what I did. When I don't take a photo and I see my work in someone's home, I often am drawn to look at it. Usually I don't even recognize it right away. OK, here are some cards:

This is the card I made for my beloved brother's birthday last year. I also made him a motivational sign for his writing area. Those are typewriters in the background. So much fun to make.

This is a bad photo, but the card was quite beautiful. I used embossing folders, spray inks, brads, Sizzix dies and who knows what else for this card for my wonderful daughter-in-law, Becca.

This was a card for my friend, Cathy. Same layout, just different color combos. The label was a velvety paper. Those aren't brads, they're pearls. I really like this embossing folder, too.

I made a card a LONG time ago when a niece was graduating from college. This is back before I sold my Cricut and got a Silhouette Cameo that I haven't even used that much, alas:

Catching Up On Blogging

So sporadic...oh, well.

I am motivated to post some pics of things I've done over the last several years. I've gotten out of the habit. When I began substitute teaching quite a few years back, I thought I'd have loads more time to do artistic things. Stuff happens. I'll try to do multiple posts in the next day or two to chronicle SOME of what I've been up to--I don't always take pictures of everything I make.

I'll start with some ATC's I made for a YouTube swap hosted by Kelly Donovan. I think she still hosts a monthly swap. I get pretty carried away when I'm going to release my work into the world. I remember spending a lot of time on these. 

Sometimes I keep adding touches at the end and then have very little time to photograph the finished product. Then when I go to look at the photo, it is bad enough that even making adjustments in Photoshop can't save it. Love the ATC's; hate the photograph. These were fun to make, though!!!!

I loved making the ATC holders with my envelope punch board. Also loved decorating the envelopes with long-lost stamps that I love. I buy many of my stamps in thrift stores, in FB groups or from a place in Portland called SCRAP. About a year ago a very generous person donated a HUGE collection of arty stamps from the 80's. The metal clip stamp on the two envelopes came from that haul. It's a Ken Brown stamp.

 Here are some larger pictures of the individual ATC's:

Thanks for looking.....

Hugs,
Judy

Fauxdori Finish Explanation

I haven't used Blogger in a long time and forgot how fussy it is. I added the pics of the Fauxdori on the post that follows this one and it wouldn't let me add text before the pics. Rather than delete and start over, I decided that I'd just do another post to explain the pics:

Several months ago I became intrigued with the Fauxdori (a fake Midori, which is the name of the Japanese company that makes Midori journals in many sizes). I printed the wonderful calendar inserts sized perfectly by Brit, Ray Blake, to fit the Fauxdori Traveler's Journal size. Blake, it turns out, is something of a legend and very generously offers instructions, tips, ideas, the aforementioned templates in many sizes on his blog:
mylifeallinoneplace.com

He also has wonderful, easy-to-follow instructional videos on YouTube. I loved this project because you're upcycling in addition to creating from scratch. I started with the insert covers which are made from file folders and which I decorated with inks, stamps and stencils. I printed a set of calendar inserts and late one night spilled water all over them and thank goodness I hadn't trimmed them yet. I worked with metric measurements--really for the first time--on this project, and fell in love with the simplicity. I knew I had some leather stashed somewhere and found some beautiful deerskin, which I mistakenly deemed too floppy for a cover. I decided to find something stiffer in a thrift store and within a day had found (for a mere $2.99) the amazing cover that adapted perfectly to my needs. I am thrilled with the results and will be adding another elastic band in the spine so that I can fit in a couple more inserts: one blank for sketching and one with lined paper for taking notes. On one or both of those I will cut the back cover narrow enough that I can add a pen loop that will not protrude when the journal is closed.

Fauxdori Finish