Chinese New Year 2022 - TYOT Tiger

Hi everybody!  Here is the last of the next group of cards to go out with the mail next week.  I call it a mail blast.  There are a lot of holidays this time of year, so I just blast out a bunch of cards for the various celebrations.  It's luck of the draw for the recipients.  If you want to be on the mailing list, message me your address. You can find me on Facebook, or use the email posted on this blog.  I can't say you'll get a card for EVERY holiday, but you'll certainly get at least a couple throughout the year. 

Chinese New Year starts February 1st this year and it's the Year of the Tiger.  I pulled a Getty image down from the interweb for this (I love the flower on his nose) and added some goo-gahs just for fun. I debated about whacking off the yellow space at the top, but in the end, left it there.  Some of the prints from the interweb were a little wonky, so I included those as bookmarks.  I've got my own tiny tigers running around the place so I'm all set.  

Ground hog day is getting ignored this year.  I still have zero fun groundhog stamps.  He is elusive, that's for sure.  Plus, Ground Hog Day is complicated.  Does he see a shadow or not?  Is it 6 more weeks of winter or 6 weeks till Spring?  That's a lot of detail to try to get on card.  Don't get me wrong, I love Ground Hog Day.  I spend the whole day humming Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" in remembrance of the radio alarm clock from the movie.  I have made cards for this holiday in the past, but they were odd to say the least.  I think Andrea Sitzman probably got them.  OK! This is me ending the overthink about Ground Hog Day.

We have Valentine's Day in mid-February of course, and the Covid Anniversary card takes us to the beginning of March.  I've already got my St. Paddy's Day cards all done from last year, so that means I get to devote my attention to the cookie book until it's time to brake and make July 4th cards.  

I'm looking forward to putting the book together. I have not said that in over two years.  Hmmm.  I have a pretty good idea of the structure I want, but I'm going to have to custom cut all the page pockets.  I've got 4mm felt for the book cover, which is thick enough to perhaps be troublesome to cut, so I'll have to figure that out too.  All in good time...

Happy mid-Winter!

Valentines - 2022

I mentioned in my post about Glue a few days ago, finding some finished valentines that were kind of mucked up because I used the wrong glue.  I was able to add a few details to them and salvage them.  Here are the two finished and then finished again, Valentines.  I added the red frame over top of the window heart.   The one below has its glue mess on the inside of the card.  I glued all those sequins on one by one and the paper couldn't take it.  It was a simple thing to cover that over on the inside.  These two have quite a bit of dimension to them.  They are going to take extra postage.  

New for 2022 are Valentine, You're Out of this World, and Valentine, You're just my Type.  That little dog baying at the moon makes me happy.  And the juxtaposition of the modern text slang of UR included with the clearly old school concept of a typewriter, well, that makes me happy too!  Ha!

The (hopefully not annual) Pandemic Card

Welp, here we are, close to ending the second year of the pandemic.  Not close to ending the pandemic, mind you, but the end of the second year.  I mark the years by the anniversary of the original lock down here in the US.  You may mark your pandemic anniversary as you see fit.  For me, it's March.

The first card I made to acknowledge the pandemic was a late addition to the Halloween cards in October 2020.  It depicts the year 2020 rising up as a foul steam/stench from a little witch's cauldron where she clearly didn't know what she was concocting when she brewed that spell. 

We can now mark 2020 and 2021 as forever changed, different, awkward.  I am resisting what is apparent to many, that the old ways of life are gone, and we are now living in a Post Covid world.  Maybe we are never going back to the old ways of life, where hugging and handshakes were normal, where a kiss on the cheek and a walk arm in arm after dinner was normal.  It makes me sad if it's true.  Someday, I will process and accept the post Covid reality, whatever that winds up being.  But for now, I will continue to quietly resist, and keep just a little bit of hope alive through the good humor of my Pandemic Cards.  

To that end, here is the 2022 Pandemic Card:  Oh Whale!  

There are 6 of these, so I took some shots of the whole school of fish. :)

The years of the pandemic are bubbling up the card front from somewhere deep in the sea.  If you look closely, there are some clear bubbles mixed in with the numbers to add a little visual help to see those numbers as bubbles. The fish scale background (Edge to Edge), and numbers (Chalkboard Fonts) were cut with my Cricut. The white whale is a Sizzix quilting dye and the blue whale is a stamp from Big Red Rubber Stamps.  

The white whale, hmmm.  I suppose if you're name is Ishmail, he's probably a bad omen.  But recently I read or watched an article about a rare white dolphin swimming in the South China Sea, that when spotted by fishermen, they take it as lucky.  A hundred years and more ago the white dolphins were plentiful, competing with the fishermen for food.  Back then they were hunted just to be rid of them.  But now, there are so few left, it's lucky to see one.  Like the white dolphin, my white whale is a hopeful sign, that soon mother nature will give up trying to kill us off and see that we have learned our lesson.  Of course, we have to actually learn that lesson.  Clean air, clean water, clean food.  Take only what you need, there is no reason for greed. 

Glue to You

I got a little busy today, finishing up some Valentine's.  I went rummaging around in my box of valentine scraps and found two finished cards that did not make the cut a few years ago.  I used the wrong kind of glue which ruffled up the paper a bit.  That's the thing about glue though, you can really make a pig's ear out of a thing if you don't use the right stuff. 

If you're wondering, I've pretty much settled on three kinds of adhesives in the craft cave.  Which is not to say I don't use others, like foam squares and sticky dots, but these three are my go-to sticky things.

    1) Hot glue is a favorite.  Yes, yes, it can be stringy, but you just have to get the hang of it.  Maybe your first project with hot glue will look like a pig's ear, but your next one will be just fine.  I promise.  It can add dimension in a snap, it sticks things down FOREVER, which is important when your card sits in a shoebox for sometimes YEARS before you send it, and its beyond cheap if you buy those sticks in bulk.  

    2) After hot glue, comes the Tombow tape runner.  I dare to say, the best tape runner ever.  And, I've used them all, people.  Some of you out there get mad because these are small.  You use them up too fast for what they cost at the local Michaels.  Buy your Tombow refills in bulk at any online office supply store that sells them.  If you buy enough (go in with your gal pals to increase the amount you can buy) you can get them below $2 a piece.   

Out of curiosity, how many of you bought one of those HUMONGOUS tape runners that held like IDK 10 miles of 1/4 inch tape?  They were popular!  I would teach a card class, and there would always be someone with one of those at the table.  Banging it around and getting it stuck on all the wrong pieces.  Man, talk about making a pig's ear out of something.  

So, what am I talking about?  Well, a bunch of years ago, someone in the industry got the idea to redesign what is essentially a packing tape dispenser to work with 1/4 inch 2-sided tape.  That thing was huge and heavy as a bag of rocks.  So much so as to make the user have to stand up and lean over it to get the tape where they wanted it to go.  I gave them an A for effort.  They were trying to bring down the cost of tape refills for the average scrapbooker.  It was a good problem to try to solve, but for this little ol' gal, it was nope at first sight.

    3) When I need actual glue, PVA is the best for paper projects as it won't curl your paper, It works like a gem with fabric, and when it dries it's still flexible, so it won't crack.  It dries fast and cleans up with water and is also inexpensive.  I've had my bottle for going on 6 years or so and it's still not near empty.  And that's me, people.  I use the crap out of my stuff.  

A new little wiggle-thingy

 Hi Folks, 

Just playing around a little on a January day.  I've got a pile of projects taking up space on my table, so I thought I'd take a whack at one or two of them today.  This is the pile....

And here is the card I pulled out to play at:  

First- A look at the stuff I used just to keep things honest and above board.  That little bag over on the right from Simon Says Stamps, that's the thing that made me start to play today.  They call them Mini Springs.  They let you add a little wiggle to an element on your project.  As you can see, I'm putting a Halloween card together.  I've said this many times, there are no seasons in the craft cave.  Today, its Halloween! 

 

Here is the finished project.  I tried to get a shot to show the spring raising up the skelly head on the card front.  I took a little movie so you can hopefully see the BOING!! effect after you stick it all together.  Kind of fun and importantly, it squishes flat when you load it into the envelope so the post mangler may actually let your card arrive and pop out like it should.  I have not yet mailed one of these to myself as a test yet, but that's next.  Stay tuned...