I'm still here!

And feeling kind of awkward about it. I inadvertently abandoned my little blog, and I have big feels about it after browsing its pages. Do I start posting again or just let it be? With the unstableness of other sites I post on, I think I want to give this another chance.

My art and general way of making things has changed since I stopped posting here. I dove into the world of bookbinding a few years ago and have never come up for air. I joined Ali Manning of Vintage Page Designs' Handmade Book Club and haven't done much of anything else since. I rarely make cards anymore and I can't remember the last ATC I made. But I have embraced watercolor and acrylics, which has only enhanced my bookbinding.

I will write more later, but for now, I just want to say, hang in there. I'm doing the best I can by immersing myself in my family, art, British programming, and creative schmoozing with my (mostly) online creative peeps. 

It's a been awhile

I discovered Instagram and have been posting over there instead of here. It's so much easier, and the response I've gotten, the friends I've made over there, well, it's kept me away. I feel badly that I probably won't have a blog book published this year. But I'm so lazy! Posting photos here requires some footwork, but with Instagram all I have to do is upload directly from my phone, boom, it's done. *whine*

I just now tried to figure out to post photos from my Flickr, but I've forgotten how, argh! So I posted directly from my computer, which isn't the best way because it eats up storage.

Here's a card I made for a friend. I'm in love with this stamp! I water colored the card and then used colored pencils for the envelope. I like this so much I'll definitely be doing this again.

After The Windstorm

The windstorm I previously posted about really did a job on two of our fences in the backyard.

We dealt with insurance adjusters (a disappointing outcome) and neighbors, and received a partial reimbursement from both. There's still one neighbor we probably won't get any help from, but what's done is done. 

The contractor we hired did a fantastic job, we're so happy with his work. It's a relief after having shelled out thousands to realize we got what we paid for, beautifully well-built fencing that will be around for at least 30 or 40 years. The guy even threw in a little gate we've been wanting ever since we've lived here! Made from scraps, it blocks off the larger portion of our backyard from the area between the back porch and the little house. It's perfect for when we don't want the dogs back there.

That's Oliver's little behind.

It looks like spring has sprung here in the last few days, yay! I'm so grateful for all the rain we had this winter, but I'm also thankful we can now enjoy the sunshine.

Almost In Oz

There was a storm a brewin', Aunti Em!

 

We had the worst storm I've ever experienced here on the Monterey Peninsula yesterday.

The video above shows what it was like from about 4:00 a.m. until later in the evening. It was relentless. If you turn up the volume you can hear the wind knocking at our door. I had to put a cane under the door handle to try and push against the wind to help stop the banging. It kind of worked. We lost power for most of the day, but we were grateful to still have running water and gas for heating and cooking. It could have been so much worse.

I've never been that scared of our weather. Things were hitting our house, the neighbors' shingles, debris, things in our backyard, rain, it was all so noisy. We lost part of our fencing in the backyard, so we had to block it off and now the dogs can't go back there to do their business until we get it repaired. Good thing we have a smaller area just behind our house they can go to.

Our city lost over 150 trees! I haven't heard of anyone getting injured or killed, so thank God for that. We lost power again this morning for a very short time, and I'm sure it'll happen again. There were so many downed power lines I'm surprised we got our power back when we did. I'm glad it's over and hope to never experience something like this again.

C'mon spring!

Happy Heart's Day!

Cards I made for my husband and daughters.

Happy Valentine's day! It's also the anniversary of mine and my husband's first date. We've been married over 38 years and dated for two. He liked his card and said my coloring and fussy-cutting has gotten really good.  It's nice he noticed.

This is becoming a Molly blog

I had to share this miracle,
which Dawn and I saw with our own eyes
and still can't believe what we saw:

Video of Molly and Oliver playing!

Molly and Oliver have been playing in the backyard and have now brought it inside. Molly, who's the biggest grouch this side of California, is playing like a puppy. I love that she has rediscovered her youth. She had such a hard life before we found her, so it's wonderful to see her continuing to bloom.

Thank you, Oliver, even though you're a handful and a pain in the patootie to Winnie, you have brought so much joy to our family.

Dogs and Cards

Molly enjoyed her day at the spa.

She looks like two different dogs, doesn't she? Although I love her when her fur is long and swirly, it gets knotted, stinky and makes her uncomfortable. So I like to reset her every now and again, which brings out the puppy in her. She's adorable.

I made four of my lifelong friends a card and wrote a short note in each of them reminding them how much they mean to me and that I love them. I even made one for myself because I love how they turned out and now I can keep it as a reminder of all the kind and wonderful things everyone said about them when they received them.  This is the first card I've sent the group since our group went from six to five, so I kept thinking about her and how our get-togethers will never be the same. This makes me cherish all of my girlfriends that much more.

These were made of watercolor paper, even the ladies. The background was done using Distress Ink, and the ladies were colored with a combination of Copics, Le Plume and Faber-Castel markers. The sparkly umbrella has a coating of red Sparkle brush pens by Faber-Castel. Have you tried them yet? They're pricey, but if you want your images to shimmer, these will do the trick. I was given several sets for Christmas by my daughters and then yesterday I discovered the clear ones are sold as a set of three, so I bought them (using a coupon, of course). I'm especially enamored with the tiny raindrops I created with Glossy Accents. They make me very happy.

Meet Oliver Flynn, Valerie's new pupper! He's about 2-1/2 years old, has personality galore, loves everybody and all of our dogs, and just wants to eat, poop and play all day. We're still working on the potty training, so he wears a belly band during the day. He's catching on, but he sure is taking his sweet time about it. Good thing he's so adorable.

Happy New Year 2017!

One of the most dreaded days is New Year's Eve, the other, the 4th of July. Poor baby. Winnie and our new little guy, Oliver Flynn, did pretty well, but Dixie and Molly were nervous wrecks. Our neighborhood is loud with explosions such as fireworks and gun shots. You know it's bad when Molly climbs into her cubby before bedtime.

The humans had a better New Year's Eve. Deni slept, and Dawn and I took turns reading the notes from our journal jar we collected throughout 2016. Valerie came home from work in the middle of it, so she was able to enjoy them as well. I look forward to this all year. They're like prompts, because as we read them, we talk about that day and remember it more clearly. 

Thank you SO MUCH for reading my blog,

I appreciate it.

May 2017 bring you much happiness, health,

peace, prosperity, and lots of craftiness!

Happy Christmas, Everybody!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Stamping and Coloring

A while back I was making swatches for some watercolors Valerie bought me, and I used a piece of watercolor paper to clean off my brush in between colors. When I was done, I looked over at the paper and thought, wow, that would make great backgrounds for a set of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).

I stamped windmills on two of them. The other one was done with Distress Inks.

For this one I did the puppin in the pocket separately and popped it up with pop dots. I made the puppy to look like an on-line friend's dog and sent it on its way. I like how differently it looks just by cutting the background with the brush strokes going vertically.

Valerie keeps spoiling me with new dies she doesn't want to wrap for Christmas! Aren't these flowers so pretty?! I cut them with handmade paper I've held on for far too long. It even has metallic highlights.

Dawn bought me this sweet stamp I've wanting for a long time. Isn't she fabulous?! I colored her with Faber-Castell markers and then went over each color with colored pencils to kind of fill in the strokes. I need to practice coloring with my markers more. Actually, I need to practice more of everything.

A Little Watercoloring

It's December already!

Shortly after watching a couple of watercoloring videos on YouTube by The Fugal Crafter, Valerie surprised me with this adorable puppy stamp by Stampendous. It was after Midnight and I couldn't sleep, so I sat took out my Watercolor Confections by Prima and went to work.

The next day I made it into a card for my sister-in-law, who's been in the hospital for over a week now. It's pretty serious, so I didn't want to the sentiment to be the run of the mill get well thing. I was happy to rediscover this stamp for her.

I loved watercoloring this little guy so much, I stamped a few more with the intention of making more cards.

I roughed up the edges of the watercolor paper and popped it up with pop dots, easy-peasy. As you can see, it's a good-sized rubber stamp and takes up most of the  of the 6" x 4-3/4" card front. I like that because it doesn't need anything in the background except a piece of pretty paper. It's a great stand-alone image I feel I can make more than one of without taking hours to do it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Video of me kneading my refrigerator roll dough

I can’t believe I forgot to make my refrigerator roll dough!

I try to keep the clover leaf roll tradition alive that my father began close to 70 years ago. I found that this Betty Crocker’s recipe from my favorite cookbook, a wedding gift from over 38 years ago, tastes as close to his as I’ll ever get.

The thing is, this recipe has to rise in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours, but the best part is that it will keep up to 5 days. I usually make it a couple of days ahead of time, but I totally spaced this year. Looks like it’ll be late tonight or tomorrow before we get to taste them. So worth the wait.

The cutting board I'm kneading the bread on is actually a sort of island on wheels. My sister-in-law gave it to us, and we've had it for probably 20 years. Someone in her family made it, possibly her father, I forget, but it's been one of the handiest pieces of furniture we've ever owned.

I cooked a fairly small meal this year because it was just Deni, Dawn and myself. Valerie had to work. We were invited to a couple of different family gatherings, but we weren't feeling that well, so we opted to stay at home. The turkey breast I cooked turned out to be chicken, and not very good. *sigh* But the other things I cooked were yummy. Then my niece dropped off a feast, so we'll have that with the clover leaf rolls tomorrow.

I hope you had a wonderful day of lots of good things to eat and great company with which to gather. 

Arting

My daughter Dawn and I did our first Artist Trading Card (ATC) collaboration!

Dawn created the background with the amazing technique we learned from Tim Holt's Creative Chemistry Class-3. She brought them to me and said, "Now that I've done this I don't know what to put on them. You're good at that, here."

I was nervous at first because I didn't want to ruin her beautiful art. It took me a bit to come up with ideas, but after rifling through my die cuts and stamps, I came up with these. She kept the bird, I kept the other one. Maybe next time we do it, I'll do the background and she can put the other side of her creative brain to work.

I've done several Instagram ATC swaps and having so much fun! This is my latest, which will be going out to jolly old England. I borrowed Dawn's mermaid die-cut and used some scratch watercolor paper on which I was trying different art crayons. I feel like there's something missing, but at this point, I'm afraid I'll mess it up. Plus I have to decorate an envelope in which to mail it, so I'm calling it done. 

I belong to a Facebook paper doll crafting group that consists mostly of making Julie Nutting paper dolls. I joined their Christmas ATC swap and will find out who my partner is at the end of this week. This is the ATC I made using one of the smaller Christmas sets by Prima. I wrote JOY on the Christmas ornament confetti, but it was a challenge to photograph.

I'm working on a few other things, mainly my ornaments for our annual ornament swap, which is this Saturday! I've never cut it so close, but I didn't like any of the ideas I was considering. I finished the prototype last night around 1:00 a.m. I'm still not feeling it like I usually do, but maybe it'll grow on me. Happy holidays have begun!

Decorating Happy Mail

I've been on an envelope-decorating kick lately using our often ignored but very awesome stencils. Here are a few I've done for craft swaps on Instagram.

I'm in love with this process, the result of which are very satisfying. I'd love to hear how you decorate your mail!

Halloween 2016

We Had A Happy Halloween!

I haven't posted in too long. I seem to have putting more effort into Instagram than here, which disappoints me. The blog books my daughter publishes for me each year are such a highlight, but they won't be if I don't sit up and pay more attention.

Dawn and I made these candy boxes for hers and Valerie's co-workers. Molly approved of them and so did everyone else. We made them using We R Memory Keepers candy box punch board. They're super easy, but punching them does require some stamina of the hands. These are so versatile, I hope we make some at Christmastime.

I've been doing a lot of ATC (Artist Trading Card) trades on Instagram. We also include other crafty things like tissue paper, die-cuts and other little tidbits we can use to make more ATCs. Here a just a few I made.

I won something on Instagram! A bunch of Faber-Castell products, woo-hoo! This box was full of great products I'll definitely use.

And then my husband and I celebrated our 38th anniversary! I can't believe we're that old.

Butterflies Galore!

I recently revisited Swap-Bot and signed up for a butterfly swap. We were to make 20 butterflies for two partners, so a total of 40 butterflies were made. They could be punched, die-cut or hand-cut, and could all be the same shape, but they all had to be from different paper or prints. Of course, I went overboard, but it was so fun!

I wonder what my partners will do with all of their butterflies?

The other side of the butterfly on the left (above) is pink instead of blue, and is backed with vellum. They're cut from a Tim Holtz die and they are huge.

These are steampunk-ish palm-sized butterflies, my favorites.

See? So big! I spritzed them with Distress and Dylusions ink and glued gears cut from metallic cardstock onto the wings. In person, it really does look like metal.

I don't know why I haven't made myself one of these!

For the envelopes, I cut out two large butterflies from a coloring book I found at a thrift store, and placed them on the front of the envelopes as masks while I spritzed ink all around them. I placed smaller butterflies where the return address should be.

I like how the fronts turned out, the backs could have been better.

I received 40 butterflies from the Swap-Bot swap, mostly the size of the smallest ones I did, and I'm very happy with them. When I swap with someone, I mostly think about the giving, not the getting. So when it dawned on me I was going to get 40 butterflies, I was a little worried about where I was going to put them all. It's fine, they're in with my cut dies and I've already used a few of them on a project. This was a fun swap that I enjoyed immensely. 

I liked the steampunk-ish ones so much, I took the butterflies I used as masks on the envelopes and did the same technique on them. I had originally intended to throw them away, but after seeing them with all the ink spritzed on them, I just couldn't. I'm glad I didn't! I'm sending them to a couple of Instagram buddies, but they don't know it yet. They're huge, and I'm not sure what my two Instagram buddies will end up using them for, but they commented on how much they liked them, so I thought I'd surprise them by sending them each one.

Be careful when you tell me you like something I've made, you just might end up with it.