I started off the day thinking I "should" make Christmas cards. I'd like to send handmade cards this year and I'd also like to try and sell some of them here. In the course of digging through my (bajillion) stamps, the Christmas ones weren't really speaking to me - at all.
Recently I noticed that on Etsy, they have a category for Artist Trading Cards. That made me realize that it's been a looong time since I found out about those and made any. They were fun and I've always meant to make more. In fact, I have a few of the paper craft storage drawers holding blank ATCs and small scraps to use on them.
So here's what I worked on today, a pile of Artist Trading cards, with horses on them - of course.
I had everything I needed: coffee,
horses,
and some good music.
One valuable thing I had learned when I was in the stamping club was that stamping off the edges of the paper can achieve some beautiful results. I guess I've always been a color-inside-the-lines or stamp-inside-the-borders kind of person, for that to be a surprise and something new. Today I used the heck out of that idea. There were horses galloping on and off the paper everywhere.
Time to color some horses!
At some point, this happened.
I got tired of digging and digging through the tattered box that the colored pencils have always lived in, so I dumped them on the floor.
I started thinking, how could I make them easier to use? It always takes me way too long to find the colors I want with the way I've always done it (fishing through the box). My head was filled with great ideas: I could put them into cups or jars, or... Oh! I could make a holder for them, with compartments for each group of colors. That would be fun, I should do that ---
About the time I was thinking that's what I would do, I reined myself in, reminding myself that I already had a project going on at that very moment. I grabbed a couple of empty pencil boxes and tossed them in, loosely divided by colors. At least this way I can SEE them better.
Proud of myself for not charging off on an A.D.D. fueled pencil organizing crusade, I returned to coloring.
Here are the three ATCs that I finished today. I liked the combination of a simple, happy statement, paired with a colorful herd of horses. They were fun to make.
I stamped horses on several others and have some ideas for how to finish them, but that will be another day.
One organizational task that's been sorely needed is to deal with my ribbon and, now, washi tape. I hadn't really bought or used washi tape before, but it is everywhere over here and usually much cheaper than in the States, so I've started picking up a few rolls here and there. My usual ribbon storage has been to throw all of the spools in a drawer and then have to dig around to see what I have or find such-and-such color. Something has to change, especially since I plan to start using a lot more of it in tack making and doing costumes too.
I gathered all the ribbon that I have, to see what I needed to store.
I went to my Craft Storage board on Pinterest; I knew I'd seen and saved some neat ribbon and washi tape storage ideas on there for just such an occasion.
I ended up liking this one, about how to make a washi tape holder from a cardboard box, and I used it as a starting point. I decided to use the box that my newest bookshelf came in; it was deep enough and tall enough to hold all of my ribbon and tape, with room to grow.
Of course whenever there's a cardboard box, a cat tends to appear.
She "helped" during much of the construction, trying to get in the box at various stages and playing with the shreds of cardboard and paper that were produced.
Here's the holder that I made, with the first dowel on. I still have to place the rest. I think this is where I'll put it. It's a good fit in this spot, it won't block the shelves and is close to my desk.
A closer look at the first row. I'm thinking this box may be big enough to hold my ribbon, washi tape, and leather lace spools too. That would be really cool. I'm going to work on installing the rest of the dowels soon.
Next up was to try out a quick test of a photo show setup. I think this was the best picture of the batch. I still have lighting and footing issues to work out. Please ignore the fact that my "model" is a partially prepped body...
I pulled out a micro mini to test out the setup. I think it will work for them too, once I fine tune the lighting.
And last up, a couple of random fun pictures. A doughnut place in the mall is getting into the Halloween spirit, including selling cream puffs in these funny monster boxes. I saved the one that we had gotten over the weekend and I could't resist having a little bit of fun with it.
Run away!
Hmmm, that horse doesn't actually look too concerned... how about this one?
Haha, yeah, I'm strange. But it's fun.
Today rocked.
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