Presents!

I've been making presents.

 

These are for friends of mine who are attending my church's women's conference with me.  They all say, "Extraordinary Woman" and their names.

I've made cards, too.  Some of them are originals, and some were nearly direct copies of designs I've seen elsewhere.  The butterfly card above, for instance, was an almost direct copy from a magazine, but I changed the colors, some of the decorations, and added the extra white dots.  The one to the right is mine.

Above, the one to the left is mine.  (I LOVE it.)  The one to the right is another almost direct copy, this time from a Stampin' Up idea book, but I changed the colors and a few other things.

The two cards above started off with ideas from a Stampin' Up book, but they ended up being more loose inspirations.  I changed them quite a bit.

The blue butterfly one up higher and these next three cards are all still in my stash at home.  The Happy Birthday card above is another loosely inspired card from a Stampin' Up book, but I ended up changing quite a lot.

The one above is another lift from a Stampin' Up book, but with a lot of changes.  I believe I changed the orientation and added a bow and whatnot.  Anyway, I like this one a lot, too.

Below are all of the gift bags I made for my friends' presents.  They are gorgeous!  I'm very happy with how they turned out!  They mostly used the Jubilee collection from K&Company.  I had a lot of fun throwing these together.  The base bags were all cut from the Jubilee cardstock on my Cricut.

I've been so busy, but it's been a happy busy!  I'm really excited about my conference, and about seeing the faces of my friends when they get their presents!  ^_^

A love story...

I've fallen in love.

Our association began, I'm sorry to say, by my dissing this amazing thing to one of my friends.  I looked at a video online and couldn't think that there would be any real advantage to owning this thing.  But, somehow... I couldn't let it go.

When we met face to face, I just knew.  It was love at first sight.  From the general cool look to the thick, sturdy inner pages, each with their own delightful decoration and story to tell, to the amazing hybrid writing utensil that is pen and glue stick all in one...

To all of the delightful possibilities... The inspiration right at my fingertips... Being able to recycle gobs and gobs of old catalogs and keep only those things that most inspired me, freeing up space for yet more of these beautiful things...

To the handy little elastic loop that holds my pen in place... To its glorious acid free and archival nature, forever recording those things I found most inspirational at this point in my life... Immortalizing my tastes and artistic bent right now...

To the sturdy wire binding that allows it to sit flat on my desk as I work from one of my inspirational photos... To the hard cover that protects my most precious inspirational nuggets...

To all of the potential fun, to the entertainment... This photo, for instance, of this necklace made as a special order, which was taken on the very page where the photo will live for the rest of its existence... I'm still giggling about the cleverness of it all.

To the sharing... I love it so much, I had to pass another of this thing on to one of the people I love most in this world, my son, who has already taken it and some sticker prompts and run with it.  He is so creative, and I love that he has a nice, sturdy outlet for that creativity.  Oh, to the possibilities... the recording, the immortalizing of my eleven year old boy.  In these pages, he is timeless.  In these pages, I keep him young for forever.  The years will slip by, but these memories will always be his and mine.

Oh, to my SMASH book, how I love thee... How I love thee...  Let me count the ways...

One for me... One for my son... (So far)  Very soon to be more...  It's you and me, SMASHy.  Forever and ever.  You'll be my craft supply Edward, and I'll be your artist Bella.

Only not creepy.

(Too late?)

Article #4...

Looks something like this...

Polymer Clay Pandora Beads, for PolymerCafe, publishing date TBA.