I'm ba-a-a-ck! :-)

I took an unplanned hiatus from blogging for the past several weeks. Life got busy and unfortunately crafting and blogging tend to be the first to head to the bottom of the to-do list. Thanks to those who have written to ask how things are going or to mention that they've haven't seen any new posts lately. It's nice to be missed. :-) I did a lot of catching up this past week and made time to do some card-making today. Felt good to get all crafty! :-)

Here are some of the cards that I made....


This first card was made using a couple of the large QuicKutz border embossing folders. The sentiment was added using the Joy border punch by Martha Stewart. The cardinal was also made using a punch by Martha Stewart then set off with dimensional adhesive. I also added a score line at the top so that the ornaments wouldn't just be floating on the card front.


I got on a roll using the border punches by Martha. Here's another card using the Frosty Village punch. I scored and folded a small "card" to attach to that A2 size blue cardstock that I'd embossed using the QuicKutz snowflakes folder. I punched out the border (both layers at once, actually) then added the stamped snowflakes and sentiment by Inkadinkado before attaching it to the blue layer.


Here's a card that I made in similar fashion to the one I just described. For this one I used some Cuttlebug embossing folder designs instead of stamping. The background is Winter Trees and the other Season's Greetings. (These were RAK'd to me, btw.)

For this last card I decided to add a bit of a twist. Okay. To be honest, I was going to follow the same design as with the other cards but use the evergreen trees edge punch in the background instead. Well, the frosty village ended up looking backward to me because of the way I'd punched it. Looked good when I folded it the other way. Hm. So, I decided that I'd try to go with that. I think it worked out. I added the stamped sentiment by Studio G to the bottom corner and attached it to the front of a card that I'd embossed using a Sizzix textured impressions folder. It was a nice change from the typical A2 card and a fun departure from the other two cards that I'd designed earlier. I love it when "mistakes" like that work out. :-)

That's it for now. Again, thanks to those of you who've written, and thanks to those of you who are still visiting and reading here despite my absence. I'm hoping that the holidays won't become so busy that I won't have at least some time for crafting and for blogging. :-)

Feels like fall

And since it feels like fall, I made a couple of cards that have to do with fall.

Here they are....

This first card was very simple. I used an Inkadinkado image that I stamped on decorative card stock. I added the sentiment from TPC Studio. I layered it onto green card stock, but thought that it still needed a little something more to add interest, so I added some decorative scoring with my Scor-It before mounting it on the kraft card front.

This is another card that was fairly quick to make. I found another Martha Stewart punch around the page set of punches that I hadn't seen before. Since I'd gone into Michael's specifically looking for something that I could use my 40% off coupon on, I had to buy it. :-) So the punching above was made using the Deco Fan set. The sentiment is by Inkadinkado and stamped using Memento dye inks.

We interrupt today's crafting....

Sorry, no crafting being done here today. I am celebrating the release of Diana Gabaldon's 7th book in her Outlander series. Picked up my copy this morning....


No worries, crafting will resume soon. I just need to get my Jamie and Claire fix. :-)

punching around the page

I have a quick post with a couple of cards that I made using two of Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page corner and edge punches. They were called continuous edge punches before. Different name now, but the same idea, and this time there were even instructions included! LOL! Progress!


This first card was made using the Scallop 3-Dot punches. Same deal as before. You still need to cut your card stock to specific sizes for the corner design to match up with the edge. The two white squares that I started with were 5 x 5 inches and 3.25 x 3.25 inches. The edges need to be cut in increments of 1.75" to work, so 6.75 inches and 8.5 inches, and so on, would work as well. That background stamp was by Hero Arts and the sunflower is by Inkadinkado and colored using Copic Spica glitter markers.


For this card I used the Fall Leaves punches on a 3.25 x 5 inch piece of orange card stock. The stamped images and sentiment are by Inkadinkado and stamped using Memento inks. The embossed flourish was made using a Cuttlebug border embossing folder from the Organic Flourishes set.

That's it for now. We've been playing the guess if this is a cold vs the flu for the past week and a half. Been a bit of a challenge, but I think everyone is on the right track again and back in school so I had a bit of time to craft while also trying to catch up on errands. Fun stuff! :-)

organizing my Nestabilities dies, a chart

Yes, I really should be taking advantage of my "free" time to do some card-making, but not having stuff organized so that I know what I have and can put my hands on it can drive me nuts sometimes! So, the items that were frustrating me this weekend were my Spellbinders dies. They've made so many, um, and I've bought so many, that I can't keep track of what I've got any more. I decided to compile a list of what I have. Then I decided that it might be better to just make a checklist instead. And if that wasn't enough, I decided to put it in spreadsheet form so that I could print out the list again, if needed. Yes, my simple plan had turned complicated. You know what though? It wasn't so bad and it didn't take too long to do it. Would have loved to have found a list already compiled on the internet, but sadly my searches had come up empty.

Here's a peek at what it ended up looking like....


Originally I was only going to catalog my Nestabilities, but again, the need to be organized compelled me to add Borderabilities, and if I was going to do that, then might as well include the Pierceabilities, too, so why not Pendants and Frameabilities as well? I did draw the line at the Shapeabilities though! And since I have no great love of the Impressabilities, I left them off as well.

If this is something that you might find useful, I've put it on my website in pdf form. That means that you'll need an application that can read pdf files, like Adobe Acrobat Reader. The list of Nesties is fairly long, so when I printed this out in landscape format, it took up 2 pages plus a bit of a third page. I added some columns so you can check off what you have, or if you've organized your dies in folders or CD/DVD cases, you could jot the location in there (just write very small! LOL!).

Here's the link to the file: http://www.indigojay.com/crafting/nestabilities.pdf

Happy organizing! :-)