Crafty Saturday Night

I might have a problem...

How else would I spend a Saturday night?  The cards may be done a bit early, but I love them, and now they're done!  I was never a huge Halloween fan.  I dressed up and did the candy thing, but I hate scary and that was always the theme of Halloween.  Sometime in the last few years, the world discovered Mexico's holiday of Dia de los Muertos, and Halloween got a lot more fun and whole lot less scary!  That's when I became an October 31st fan.

Celebrating those you loved by bringing them sweets and dressing up in bright beautiful colors seems like a whole lot more fun than being scared to death by a horror film.  That's exactly why I feel the need to share my love of cute skeleton heads with everyone I know each Halloween.  I'm not sure they appreciate it, but I have fun so there's that : )

Last Minute Crafty

As a crafty person, I get excited when there are new things to make or when I get requests for things that I haven't thought of making before.  However, I also get stressed when things are thrown at me last minute - things that need to get done in a short timeframe, which means these new projects will usurp the ideas I had to craft.  

Such as when your boss decides to quit (not a surprise - she did that last week) and decides that she'll be taking everyone out tomorrow for a good bye lunch.  This means you'll need a cake - something you were planning to make for Friday - a card (also planned for Friday) and flowers for tomorrow.

Then someone you haven't talked to in about a year, decides she really needs you to make her a card for her kid's soccer coach.  While all of these things are lovely, and not even that much work, I wasn't super interested in doing them all in one evening after working the full day.  However, somehow, the craft and baking gods decided to conspire in my favor for a change.  The cake turned out beautifully - so delish looking! - and I'm very happy with both cards.  Aside from skipping my own personal Christmas crafting, the evening went pretty smoothly.  

Now I can head off to bed while visions of paper crafting dance in my head ; )

Anatomy of a Sunday

Ravens Game: The Ravens managed to win after a ridiculously losing last week.  But unfortunately even when they win they manage to lose.  This week it was in the season ending injuries to Justin Forsett (Running Back) and Joe Flacco (QB.)  If we didn't have enough injuries already, now we've lost Joe for the first time in his career.  Ugh!

Christmas Decorations Are Up!: While it may seem odd to have a turkey sitting amongst the snowmen and reindeer, I'm ok with it.  I've been wanting to put up everything all week and have been holding myself back since it's sort of against my not before Thanksgiving rule. But today I finally said, the heck with it.  Now all that's left to put up is the Christmas Tree - that is most definitely waiting for after Thanksgiving - but not too far after.  It's on the agenda for next Saturday. 

A relative sample of what my friends deem "creepy snowheads..."

Kids Christmas Cards are made!: Yet another thing off the Christmas creation list.  I'm so proud of myself this year, even if I do say so myself.  If I could just stop adding things to that list, I'd be a very happy camper...

Target & AC Moore Runs were completed successfully!:  Made a list and actually managed to buy everything on the list.  That deserves some sort of award, right?

Sunday Six

Since I didn't talk about all lovely things of the week on Friday, I'll do it today.

1. These little notebooks were my super easy and super fun project of the week.  Once I read this DIY post from A Beautiful Mess, I just knew I had to give them a shot.  What happened after the first was made, was me making a stack of them just because I had all the supplies and I was bored on the sofa.  Now I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can make them into gifts.  No one uses cute notebooks anymore - everything's in their phone : (

2. I scrap-lifted this card from Pinterest months and months ago.  I've been meaning to make it ever since but I haven't known anyone that's gotten pregnant so there hasn't been a need.  In a fit of craftiness this week, I just decided to make it.  I can't decide if it actually looks like a pregnant belly (like it's supposed to) or if it just sort of looks like a beer gut. Either way it makes me smile.

3. Even though Torrey Smith doesn't play for the Ravens anymore (so wish that wasn't the case!), we Baltimoreans still love the dude.  He's such a good guy and great inspiration for kids.  I still follow him on Twitter because of this.  His tweets are usually a mix of football, cute dad stuff and great quotes.  He found a winner this week with this one he posted.  I'm a pretty fickle individual and sometimes I think it's wrong to be that way.  So this one really hit home with me.

4. I have been an NCIS fan since the very beginning.  It's the one show I've never fallen out of love with.  It will always be good.  You've been with the characters for so long now, they're like old friends.  Well maybe not you, but they feel like that to me.  It's sort of like Friends - I can usually quote lines at the drop of a hat and have seen every episode, but if USA is running a marathon, I'll probably rewatch.  In the past few seasons, it hasn't been as fantastic (I blame it on it being Ziva-less) or heavy on the new characters.  However, this season, they introduced Jon Cryer as Cyril Taft and I'm head over heels for this guy.  Taft is just such a great character played awesomely by Jon Cryer.  I hear he's supposed to be on a few more episodes, but I find my self hoping he'll just stay permanently - they do get hurt a lot on the show, they could totally use an in house doctor to take some of the workload away from Ducky.  Or even better, spin him off into NCIS: Med. I'd watch the heck out of that.

5. This article on photography is awesome.  Different photographers were told different things about one person (he's an ex-con, a fisherman, a dad, etc.) and then they were told to photograph him.  The pictures are so different it's unbelievable.  It's such a cool study in judging books by their cover. 

6. I'm slightly offended that these so called actors don't know every word to every Grease song there is.  How is this possible?  Have they not seen it about a million times like I have? As offensive as it is, it's still pretty cute to seem them try : )

          

On the (Christmas) Ball

While this all may not look like a lot, it's actually me being on the ball for a change.  Last year, I totally dropped the crafty ball.  I somehow managed to let the entire Christmas season get away from me and never sent out a single card to friends.  Not only did I not manage to make any cards, but I also didn't purchase any either.  Total crafty fail. 

This year I am determined to not let that happen. Christmas is just too much fun to waste it by being stressed out.  So the goal is to get everything done early for a change.  Oh, I have no doubt I'll still be stressing up until the clock strikes twelve on Christmas eve, but I want to at least have the brunt of it finished before December even hits.  That all started today, with a 4 hour epic crafting session to knock out my Christmas cards.  

Every last piece has been finished.  All that's left is to compile each card, sign and address them.  That's what I like to hear!  I still have a simpler design to complete for peeps at work, but I have a whole set that could work for them already completed.  I haven't decided if I like the cards enough to not waste time making more.  We'll see.  I have another idea swimming around in my craft-addled brain right now.  If I can manage to knock off a few more things from the list, I just might tackle those as well.

Here's to being in the Holiday Spirit!

Crafty Overload

I'm not even a full week into September yet, and my mind is already spinning with all the crafty ideas for the last quarter of 2015.  I have no idea why, but for some reason, my brain is on overload this week.  I've already started creating Christmas cards - partly out of guilt that I never got around to making them last year.  Then I realized today that Halloween comes before Christmas, so I should probably knock those out - which I accomplished this evening, on top of a birthday card for a woman at work, 7 more Christmas cards, planning for someone's birthday present, and more ideas for the possibility of participating in December Daily.  All of that was on top of the Pinterest listing this morning of what gifts I'll be making for whom this holiday season.  

Of course, my poor England, Supernatural Con, and NYC albums are laying unattended and unloved.  What have I always said about albums?  Too stressful!  Eventually they will get done.  Eventually I suppose, everything will get done.  Or I could just completely run out of my crafty powers, and decide to buy things like normal, less-stressed, more well-adjusted people...But what's the fun in that!?

Two for the Price of One

Feeling super-accomplished today.  Not that anything huge happened.  I didn't mark anything giant off any lists or tough it out through any big projects.  No, I just managed to be doubly-creative - in the kitchen and the craft room.  Seeing as I've been basically a slug this summer for some reason, it feels pretty good to say that.  Usually it's one or the other, not both.  And when I've attempted both, things have not gone as smoothly as they did today.

First up was dinner which consisted of two Pinterest recipes-ish.  The main course was Bruschetta Chicken.  Basically grilled chicken with tomato mozzarella salad on top.  I didn't really require a recipe since I make both a lot, but for some reason I never thought to put the salad on the chicken.  It sort of goes against the no hot tomato rule, however, since the tomatoes weren't on top for long, it wasn't too bad.  It was actually pretty delicious!

For the side dish, I'd been wracking my brain all week.  I wanted something summery and not too heavy.  Originally I thought noodles, but I wasn't sure what to serve on them.  Then I started leaning towards Zucchini but I couldn't figure out how to serve it without having to go through the trouble of breading it and frying it.  That's where Pinterest comes to the rescue again.  Just type in zucchini and you have hundreds of recipes at your fingertips. That's where I found the Zucchini Crisps with Parmesan cheese.  They couldn't have been easier. However, they could have been crisper.  Next time, I'll try parchment rather than cooking spray. But all in all they were pretty tasty.  Not necessarily the prettiest, but great in a pinch.

Then it was off to make cards for a guy that's leaving work for another state tomorrow.  I'm terrible at making guy cards, so they may be a wee-bit girlier than they should be.  Thought I honestly don't think they're too bad, when you think about all the pink and flowers I had to sift through to find boy-ish paper and embellishments : )

Scrappy Sunday

I'm not sure what synapses in my little brain fire to turn on the creativity, but which ever ones did this morning, I'm pretty happy with them.  I spent a good 3 hours today crafting away.  It turns out that when you stop stressing out about things being perfect, that's when you can really let the creative juices flow.  Now if I could just remember this everyday, my life would be a whole lot less stressful.  For now, it looks like I got my mojo back : )

Friday Five

1. Friday Happy Hours: Because I'm such a lightweight, happy hours really aren't my thing, but I promised to go this week since I missed the last one.  After partaking in my token margarita, and then glasses upon glasses of Iced Tea, I had a particularly wonderful time.  Of course, the room was spinning after the first few sips but I made sure to eat lots to soak up the booze - meanwhile the rest of the table was still going strong after 2 beers and shots.  If that had been me - I'd still be unconscious.  
Best line of the night for sure: "Never trust a nerd in a suit!" coming from one of the many computer nerds at the table. : )

2. "The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simsion: 3 chapters in and I already dig it.  It's got a "Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time" vibe only less serious & more funny.  Can't wait to read some more, which is good considering the copious amounts of caffeine I had this evening.  I have a feeling I won't be sleeping until some time next Tuesday.

3. The Recycled Card Program at St. Jude's Ranch: I plan on doing a crafting #E4K event in October and have been looking for a charity to donate handmade cards to.  I was super excited when I found St. Jude's Ranch.  One of their major fundraisers, is selling recycled and new cards.  How perfect that we're making cards all day at my #E4K event?!  Super excited now! 

4. Are you Ready for some Football!?: It's football season - woohoo!  That means yummy football food starting on Sunday and hopefully a much better looking team than the one we were forced to watch last year.  Go Ravens!!!  (PS - on a different topic - Go Orioles!  Way to kick butt boys!)

5. Finally finishing a project that seemed to take forever (see: pink cupcakes...) and hearing that everyone is loving them.  The special order invites went into the mail last week and RSVPs are coming in fast and furious.  From what I've been told, everyone's commenting on how cute they are.  My work here is done.

Why I Create

I know many people that don't craft, cook or create anything at all.  They'd much rather sit back and pay others to do it for them. I've always thought that the better gift in life is something homemade.  I think that's why I have such a soft spot for Etsy - what's better than getting something completely unique and made especially for you?  

However, like I said, not everyone feels the way I do.  And because of that, it can get a little lonely.  Crafty people put so much into whatever they're creating but they may never get to see the outcome of their creation.  Of course, that's not why we do it at all.  We do it because it's fun and it makes us happy.  Making other people happy too is a huge bonus that we may never get to see. 

Enter, possibly the best text I've ever received.  I made the card you see above for my Etsy shop.  My coworker loved it and bought it (and coincidentally became my first real customer so she's already top of my list of fave people) then sent it to a friend to make her feel better.  That friend loved it so much she put it in her journal.  Just knowing that my work was so special to her, makes me all sorts of giddy.  

Learning she's kept it permanently and I helped to cheer her up is much better than any award!  

Making people smile and sharing the love - that's why I create.  

Cupcake Burnout

These are the makings of 20 cupcake invitations that have occupied my entire last 2 weeks. Here's the deal.  I love having a project.  It allows me to be creative and get paid at the same time.  It's usually fun. However, here's the thing.  People who need tons of one thing, have a certain level of perfection.  They like to get every little detail perfect so that requires LOTS of prototypes - I think the final design may just be the 8th version.  

And now that we have a final version, I've got a serious case of cupcake burnout. They were cute at first but now they're just multiplying at an alarming rate and I'm sort of done with them.  I cannot wait to get these darn things off my desk on Friday.  Of course, that's provided I can get what needs to be printed, printed tomorrow evening without spending my entire budget at Office Depot. The worst part is, that there's also a banner yet to be made - out of, you guessed it: more cupcakes! 

Of course, along the way there were some lessons learned.  The top of the list is corner rounding.  Don't round the corners of the original prototype.  While it looks cute on one, it's a MAJOR pain in the butt to actually do 8 corners (2 pieces of paper for each) of 20 invitations. Also, if you're too accommodating, your customer, will continue to add things to your list of things to do which requires many, many trips to craft stores.  Particular craft stores mind you because AC Moore, Michael's and Joann's all have different paper stock. 

But I have to say, in the end, as long as they're cute, I'll be happy - I'll never be making cupcakes again, but I'll be happy : )

Crafty Saturday

Aside from being called out for the #ALSIceBucketChallenge (Thanks Susan...), not much of note to report today.  I did spend most of the day, crafting which is always a good thing.  I'm still having issues remembering to use the big girl camera to take photos but at least I had my handy-dandy iPhone (which is my favorite picture taking device at the moment). 

Kinda love Special Orders!  I get to be creative and get paid at the same time : )  Luckily, I have some seriously non-crafty friends that would rather just pay someone than do it themselves.

 The beginnings of my Craft Bombing project from RandomActs.  I'd love to figure out a way to CraftBomb using my cards, but I'm not quite sure how to make that work...

Friday Five

1. #ALSIceBucketChallenge: Like I said yesterday, I don't really get it.  But that hasn't stopped me from watching a ridiculous number of videos on Twitter.  Apparently they're making tons of cash for the ALS Foundation which is fantastic - confounding, but fantastic nonetheless!  My personal fave so far is Matt Bomer's, though the video "isn't listed."  I don't understand what that means so I didn't want to post.  You can find it on Twitter though using the hashtag above.  So very, cute!  It may not be the most original way to make money for a cause, but anything used to raise awareness is wonderful!

2. Also, sort of obsessed with the new card I made this evening as a special order for a wedding.  After an inordinate number of times trying to get the stamps straight, I finally nailed it (though to the trained eye, it's still a teensy bit crooked - but not crooked enough that I couldn't handle it).

3. Random Acts has some pretty crafty and creative ideas to get people to be kind, but none so creative and awesome as the one they shared today.  I believe this week's theme is the Arts and if this idea isn't perfect to get art to the community, I don't know what is.  I'm so going to do this.  I'm thinking Naptown is the perfect place!

4. Travel Planning: I know it's a geeky thing to geek out about, but it's a means to an end.  Doing the research and seeing all the fancy pins (yes, Pinterest is how I research, deal with it) gets you all sorts of excited for the trip to come.  Of course when said trips are 5 months and 12 months out, it proves a bit hard to concentrate on anything else...

5. As a gift to myself, I promised myself, I wouldn't get overly stressed out about Christmas this year.  You heard me, Christmas. It's a little over 4 months out.  So I've already started planning and shopping.  Don't get too excited, I've only bought 2 gifts so far, but I like the idea, that some of the shopping is already off my plate.  I even have a few other ideas for people that I just haven't bought yet.  Hopefully, this will save me from the November freak-out of 2013, but that remains to be seen.

Let's Try This Again

So I have to say that the June Caring Cards didn't go as well as I had planned.  I thought Etsy was going to be easy, but not so much.  I'm still working on figuring things out and getting recognition and sales has been one of the things I've been struggling with.  But I'm still hopeful.  So that brings us to this month's Caring Cards.  In honor of Independence Day, this month's card sales will be going towards the Wounded Warrior Project.  I'll have a full rundown this weekend, but here's the sneak peek. Enjoy!

Too Pooped to Craft

I had such high hopes when the day started.  There were about 18 cards/crafts I had planned to get done today.  Unfortunately, after a food-filled, fun-filled Saturday and some spatial issues (I can't seem to keep anything in my hands today) I only finished 3.5 cards. After such a great weekend, I could really use tomorrow off.  Do you think it's too much to ask for another snow day?

PS: Loving this whole special order thing, but it usually means I'm too lazy to get the good camera out to take good pics : )

Good Intentions

If it helps, I had planned an intelligent post for this evening on everything in the news this week.  There were deep thoughts and lots of questions.  However, that was all before the bestie talked me into submission (2 hours).  Don't get me wrong, I love chatting but 2 hours on the phone is exhausting : )  And that was on top of crafting for everyone else but me.  On the upside there are at least some products of my very long evening.  Promise to be back to my semi-intelligent much less tired, self tomorrow.

Things You Learn

Etsy seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving. On one hand, it's incredibly difficult to market shops well.  So far the only orders I've received are from people I know.  I have no idea how to get my shop noticed and I have no idea how to drum up business.  But on the other hand, it's incredibly easy for friends to order things ALL the time.  Before I opened my shop, crafting was just a thing I did that people sort of knew about.  Now that I have an Etsy shop, it's like an open call for everyone to special order whatever they want, whenever they want.  It's a bit stressful at times and a bit hard to manage the orders.  But, oh have I mentioned it's also pretty awesome : )

PS: Can you tell the orange card is supposed to be a sunrise?  I feel like it was more obvious in others I've seen but it's sort of abstract in my version...

Caring Cards June: Random Acts

Last week I provided a sneak peek at the new line of Caring Cards for the month of June.  When I started my Etsy shop, I knew that I wanted to find a way to give back to some amazing organizations that continue to do good work each and every day even in troubling financial times.  That's sort of where the idea of Caring Cards came from.  I decided that each month, I would create a special design and sell only 25 of that design.  At the end of the month, 50% of the proceeds for that design would go to the charity for that month.  It's an easy concept (why it sounds confusing when I try to explain it, I'll never know). 

So without further ado, June's charity and the very first recipient of Caring Cards Cash is:

Random Acts is a charity solely focused on conquering the world one random act of kindness at a time.  Quite honestly I just learned about this charity a few months ago, but since then I've fallen for their simple concept and their creative ways.  By focusing on the motto to Be Kind always, Random Acts has managed to do some pretty extraordinary things!  Among its many different accomplishments, the most impressive has been the Children's center below.  Thanks to donations, 2 years of hard work and a group of hard workers, Random Acts built Jacmel Children's Center in Haiti. That's pretty extraordinary when you think about the amount of shear paperwork that goes into getting projects accomplished in a country like Haiti.

long with the Children's center, they also run a school reward program called Class Act to get kids active performing random acts, and Endure for Kindness - a global 24 hour pledge event.  Honestly, what's not to love?! And what better charity than to randomly start this hop into charity work than one that celebrates randomness?  

June's Caring Card is below.  Because they're just such a happy organization, I figured focusing on smiling was always a good idea.  So head on over to the Scrap Happy Traveler now to buy some super cute cards (even if I do say so myself) and help a fantastic organization do some awesome work!

Special Orders Don't Upset Us

In the last week I was lucky enough to have 2 special orders from friends.  One knew exactly what she wanted and the other had no idea.  First up is a father's day gift for a police officer's first father's day.  This was actually a rip off from Etsy but it was a great design.  The other order was for some teacher thank you cards and a retirement card.  I wasn't sure where I was going with those, but they turned out pretty cute - aside from some nitpicks that I always have. All in all it was pretty fun being commissioned and I hope they love them as much as I do!

Busy Evening in Etsy Land

Seeing as I'm supposed to be up in less than 6 hours to walk my first 5K. I should not have been up until 11:30 making 25 cards, but here we are...Though, the first set of Cards for Charity is ready for next month so I suppose I should feel a bit accomplished : )