BIG Project

A quick update: 

I'm finally launching into a BIG project that I've had planned for a couple of months now.  It will lead to many, MANY progress posts and a ton of pictures along the way.  I'd really like to document the whole thing, for fun, to share, and to (hopefully) look back on once the big honkin' thing is done.  Stay tuned, I plan to "announce" it, complete with a first round of pictures, in the next few days!

First Batch of ATCs!

I have now created my first batch of Artist Trading Cards!  (ATCs)  I made four of them to send along with Christmas cards in a craft swap.  The 5th was made for an ATC Swap where the theme was trees. 


First up is a card made for a transplanted northerner, living in Florida.  I once fell into that category; having moved to central Florida from Colorado.  I left the Sunshine State, in part, because I actually missed snow!  I remember once while living there that it got cold enough that they predicted the possibility of snow.  I had thought it was be so cool to see snow falling on palm trees.  It never happened, but I tried to create such a thing with this - my very first ATC:

Next up was one a person who said she loved chickens.  I was so excited, because the first thing that came to mind was the quirky chicken marching band stamp that my Granny gave me a while back.  (I still hadn't used it yet!)  Here is ATC #2:

Number three was made for someone who likes gardening and frogs.  Two  more of the stamps from my Granny saw their first use here - the bunny and the frog:

Number four was for a gal who liked Asian-influenced things.  I used my brand new dragon coin stamp, as well as a trimmed postage stamp of a Bonsai tree:

Last up is number five, for the Tree ATC swap.  Two more vintage stamps were used on this one, both from my Granny - the tree and the pine tips:

My first round of ATCs were very fun to make and I'm happy with how they turned out!  I hope they people who receive them enjoy them!  I will be making more ATCs very soon. 

New Goodies!

Yesterday I went to town on a shopping trip.  I stopped into Michael's, one of the big craft store chains, because I had seen in the paper that they were having a buy one get one free deal on rubber stamps.  (I do love stamping!)  I also had a 50% off coupon for any one item.   

May I present, my new goodies!:

I first saw this carousel horse stamp quite a while ago and thought it was beautiful.  When I spotted it yesterday, I decided to use my 50% off coupon on it!  This one will be fun to play with and fun to color - so many possibilities!:

The dragon coin stamp I found in a clearance bin.  It was marked down from $12.99 to $4.99  I thought it was a neat design:

A couple of flower stamps.  They were in a bin of stamps for $1.50 each:

At times I've wished I had more stamps with messages on them - for holidays and certain occasions.  I have a couple sets of alphabet stamps, but they are more..  "cutesy".  I've been thinking lately that a good set of more formal alphabet stamps would be nice - to be able to stamp my own messages.  So I used the buy one get one free deal on these two:

Last up, found in a clearance bin of stickers were these fishy playing card stickers.  They were marked down from $2.49 to 99 cents.  I thought they were too cute:

All together I found some good deals on some fun new supplies.  Best of all, I finally used a gift card I'd gotten last Christmas, so in the end I didn't pay anything out of pocket for these new finds!  Merry Christmas to me...  a year late, or a month early...  ha!

I hear the Studio calling my name.  I wonder what I can make with these new goodies.  :-D

Story behind the craft: Cross stitching

I thought it might be fun to do some posts on the stories behind some of the crafting that I do.  To start off, I'll talk about my history with cross stitching.  It is something I've done off and on for several years, but I've been really into it the past few months.

I first started cross stitching in 2005.  A friend and I started doing it as a way to pass some time while our husbands were deployed to Iraq.  I still have my very first little cross stitch project:

I stopping stitching for a few years, until 2008 when I found myself stuck on the couch for about a month after a severely sprained ankle.  I finished up a couple of old projects and then started a new one.  I still remember my husband and I at Hobby Lobby - me on crutches - when we found a really cool pattern of a beautiful horse head.  I was taken by how much it looked like Leah, my grey Arabian mare. 

After my ankle was healed enough for me to be mobile again, I had another stitching hiatus until just this past April when one of my horses was badly injured.  It was Leah.  I wanted something to occupy my time and my husband suggested cross stitching.  I still had the large, started pattern that looked like her.  So I dusted off my cross stitching supplies and got back to work.

Along the way, I stumbled across people making cross stitch saddle pads for model horses.  I was highly intrigued by this and after some research, I decided to give it a try. 

My first two saddle pads:

For the next several, I decided to do a "cutback" design, as they fit the models much better.  Here are the next 4 that I made (not finished yet, just cut out):

I've since made 5 others, that I don't have pictures of yet.  I'm now working on finishing all of them.  When they are finished, they have a white felt backing and look very similar to a full size, real horse saddle pad. 

What I enjoy most about the saddle pads is my ability to make the patterns up myself.  Most have been based off of real saddle pad designs I've come across, but a few are completely original, made up as I went along, or drawn out before I started. 

In discovering ATCs and Inchies, I began to wonder if I could cross stitch them as well!  Just yesterday, I began stitching a series of 4 Inchies.  When they are done, I'm going to experiment with some finishing options, either a felt backing, like the saddle pads, or by attaching them to a card backing. 

My interest in cross stitching has really taken off in recent months, since I started playing around with designing my own patterns.  I think it's highly rewarding to not only stitch a pretty item, but to know that I came up with the design, from start to finish! 

Thankful (times two)

I remember in the past seeing blog posts for "Thankful Thursday".  Today is Thursday, the start of November, and in a few weeks it will be Thanksgiving.  So it just occurred to me, what better day than today for a post on being thankful!  I thought I'd do a list of anything that pops in.  This is by no means complete.  Though life can get me down and I have been through many dark times, if I stop and think about it, life is pretty good now. 

I am thankful for:

My husband - he is wonderful and takes such good care of me.
Our house - we have a nice home to live in.
My studio room - that I have my own dedicated space to work on projects.
Our vehicles - we have reliable transportation.
Our animals - we have a small menagerie of critters that keep us laughing with their antics.
My horse - Bo is a childhood dream come true: a horse, a black stallion, with the best disposition I could ever ask for in any horse, let alone a stallion!
We live in America and have a good life when so many others, here and around the world, are struggling.
We have freedom, including religious freedom to worship or not worship as we choose, others are killed for this.
We have electricity, computers, and the Internet for fun, research, and keeping in touch with family and friends.
We am healthy, mobile, and have our sight, hearing, and other senses.
We live in a nice neighborhood with great neighbors.
We live in a good area for us - close enough to conveniences, but not in a big city.
We have some great friends.
We have good, close families.

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure there is much more, but it's a start... 

What are you thankful for? 

Another Discovery!

Shortly after learning about ATCs (Artist Trading Cards), I started seeing references to "Inchies".  Curiosity finally got the better of me and I decided to find out what they were...

Quite simply, Inchies are even smaller works of art than ATC, being - you guessed it - one inch in size.  After reading about them I was super excited to try my hand at an EVEN smaller scale than the ATCs. 

So, without further ado, I present my first four Inchies!:



They were fun to make and I'm looking forward to cranking out many more of these little things. 

I also made about 15 ATC blanks, all set up to decorate.

The ongoing Studio overhaul is going well, today I spent several hours getting things set up and moved around - it's really coming together! 

So Exciting!

I've made some thrilling crafty related discoveries in the last few days and I'm just bursting with excitment!!

Now, both of these may be old news to some (or all?) who may read this, but to me they are fresh, new, exciting developments in my itty bitty corner of the craft world.

I have learned of craft swaps and ATCs.

Craft swaps are, just that...  Opportunities for people to swap crafts, supplies, etc.  I've spent the last two days pouring over what seem to be the two main websites that host swaps: Craftster and Swap-bot.  I've registered with both of them and have been digging around, researching the ins and outs of the world of craft swaps. 

(Both sites have forums and fun beyond swapping.  Craftser in particular has a LOT more than swaps going on, there are many challenges going on there, with real prizes to be won.  I'm looking forward to getting involved there; I've greatly enjoyed past challenges in other groups as they pushed me to do new work and try new techniques.)

I do remember how much fun I've had in the past participating in online Secret Santa matchups on some other forums.  With Christmas coming, I've already found a few basic swaps I want to start with: Christmas card exchanges! 

The other "discovery" for me came while looking through those swap sites.  I kept seeing references to ATCs.  I found out that it stands for Artist Trading Card.  Wow, how cool!!  An ATC is basically a miniature work of art, the size of a standard trading card or baseball card.  The tradition is that they are to be given away or traded, not sold.  They appear to be an element in many swaps and indeed I've already found several swaps that are set up just for the exchange of ATCs.  I am really chomping at the bit to get started on making some of my own ATCs - fun!!

In other news, Operation Studio Overhaul is still underway, but I've made a ton of progress.  The shelves have been arranged, all of the desired drawer units and so on were purchased, and now I've just been working on how I want my supplies and projects organized in the drawers.  I'm well on my way to a true workable space again, where I can readily access ALL of my supplies. (yay!)

Organization is a wonderful thing (the shelves with drawers partially loaded - not yet labeled):

 

 

I've also wrangled the plant nursery area down to a more manageable size.  Most of the plants I had before were young shoots I had propagated.  They have since found new homes and everything fits on the shelf now, giving me more work space or another spot to store things on a PC cart I have under the window.

 

 

I do have a dozen or so cherry tomato cuttings that have taken root in water in the only other useable sunny window (the kitchen).  They need to be potted for the winter and put somewhere...  So I may soon have another young plant invasion here to figure out how to store efficiently. 

 

For now, I'm off to the Studio to play around with some ideas for my very own Trading Cards!!