"Sleeping Angel" Page

This is the latest & only page I've been able to scrap in a long time.


I love the little paper flower. I used rub-on letters to make the title.

The little photo corner was cut out with thick textured cardstock using a Cuttlebug die, then painted with a coat of  gold acrylic paint.

The little brown flourish holding up the photo was just a clip art of ornaments I found online & printed out. I colored the originally black & white flourish with Tim Holtz "Vintage Photo" Distress Ink. As for the flower, Prima Flowers are one of my new obsessions! SO PRETTY! I stamped the cream cardstock in the background with a French Writing stamp in black ink.

The journaling is written with a silver jel pen on a tag. On the blue background cardstock I used my favorite fiskar border punch. Then I stamped the cardstock with some flourish in "Peeled Paint" Distress Ink.

A Card From Long Ago

This is a post I should have done months ago! Anyways here is one of the first successful cards I've made. It was for my friend Bao's birthday. Looking back, I sure didn't have much to work with then, and the end product was very... lacking.

SideNotes:

• absolutely LOVE the cork alphabet set I used to make the "HAPPY"
• the word "Birthday" is one of the rare instances where I've used my clear alphabet stamp set (Autumn Leaves brand by Katie Pertiet)
• the green strip of cardstock came from K&Co - Brookfield Scrap Pad
• the lonely leaf is stamp I bought in an autumn clear stamp set at Target for $1!!!

I do like the back of the card though. I made 'em much better back then:

To googly or not to googly...

I finished Andy's birthday card... this started out looking really girly, but luckily I man-ified it up a little with all the black and brown, and the owl helped (a big step up from the pink flower & button). I can't wait to see what he thinks of it!

Sidenote:

• Can't believe I got the CUTE owl stamp from AC Moore for only $0.70!!!! On Sale, Baby! They've got a ton more (just as cute) wood-mounted stamps on sale - I've gotta go back!
• I didn't know whether or not to put googly eyes over the owl's orginial stamped eyes. What do you think... I've actually gotta get the picture of the card w/o the googlies from my husband's cellphone... be back with that soon! In the mean time, are the googlies too silly?

I feel....

Blockage

I wish I could just put my artistic skills to use with my card making & other crafts.  I think the blockage comes from my lack of creativity.  Damn it that I have the craftsmanship but not the ability to express it in a productive, coherent way. 

This is how I feel about this:

In the Corner of My Life

Only one life to live, how shall I live it?  I wish the question was "how do I WANT to live it?"

I want to be humble and make the best of everything God gives me, but so often do I find myself yearning for more - Nice Things, fancy modern house, with all the trimmings & personal touches. I don't know if it is with envy that I look at other people's things.  I hope not.  I believe it is just a sense of wanting to make my own life better - not so much an "I wish I had their things, I hate them for having it when I don't" ... I don't know, I see that a lot in movies where the villain's motive is driven by jealousy & consuming envy.  (This is where Hubby will come in to say, "You watch too much TV." - which, might I concur, is indefinitely true).

I will always hope for a day when I have my own craft room, with wood-framed window sills, designer layout, & decorations.  A day when I'd have time for all the craft projects that have piled up in the craft corner, the stench of forgotten passion & vigor cloaking them like a veil of cobwebs. One day, this one life shall be lived.

Until then, here are a few examples of my dream room:

Something like this only less dark...

Something like these pictures only not so bright & antique looking:

The shade of blue on this wall & peg board is the exact color I'd like my craft room to be:

Overall, I'm really drawn to the style of this blogger's home:

I love the atmosphere created by the lighting in this first picture. I would love to live in a house with a similar design - wooden door/window frames, lots of space & sitting places (i.e. couch), hardwood floors.

The wall color in the second picture is not my cup of tea, but everything else is just as I'd like my corner to be (minus what looks like a wooden closet to the right of the chair). Quaint.

How Crafting Makes Me Feel

When I see scrapbook pages & other similar paper crafts that contain pretty & fancy pieces of stamps, keys & anything else you can think of, I feel all wonderful inside.  Like the world is an amazing place filled with so many wonderful things... there are so many ways to be creative.  I wish for one day in the future that I will have the opportunity to make similar & wonderful cards and scrapbook pages as I've seen on craft blogs so often.