Dance, Sing, Live!

Hello, Friends!


It feels so wonderful when I have an hour or two to rub together like nickels in my pocket, so I can spend time creating in my Craft Loft. Tonight, I stole those hours -- somewhere after dinner, after watching some TV with Mr. Smiley, and before bed. Dishes? Ha! Something has to give!



Tonight I created this card with one of my favorite sayings. How often do we follow these instructions, to dance ... sing... live?


To make this card, I typeset the phrase using Adobe Illustrator and free fonts found online. I printed it out using simple black ink on white cardstock. Once trimmed, I inked the edges with my new Anna Griffin ink pads -- what a deal I got on those, 12 for $30 or so including shipping. They are in the most luscious colors! (See photo)


Next, I matted a brown liner on a premade white card, then added an additional two-tone liner for underneath the saying. I tied a bow from this handsome voile ribbon, wrapping it around the 2nd liner. Decorated with Jolee's stickers and voila!

Take time to enjoy these warm, Indian summer days. Dance, sing, live!

Hey, BabE ... A Shout-Out to My Crafting Partner!

Did you ever have one of those mornings when nothing seemed to be going right ...

... and even your cup of coffee seems to have a monkey in it?

Yeah, me neither!

LOL, thought you'd enjoy this little wake-up call.

Here is a true confession -- I haven't had a lot of time to be in the Craft Loft this week ... with work demands and my "second life" as a Township Supervisor, and now caretaking for my husband, Mr. Smiley, post-knee replacement. I'm weary!

So to keep up with this blogsite, I am going to send a shout-out to my Craft Loft partner-in-crime, my daughter Emily. Today, I will feature one of the cute cards she has made upstairs ...

Here it is -- a "welcome baby" boy card she made for one of her friends. It's in an adorable notecard size ...

With a patterned "onesie", complimenting bib pattern on a white cut-out hanger, placed on layers of a welcome-baby paper layer atop a pale blue paper that has been run through the indispensable Cuttlebug Swiss Dot folder. Inside (below), she cut out a royal blue CONGRATS for His Majesty and hand-dotted the words with a white pen.

Isn't it too cute! Can you believe I got my craft-talent-genes from my daughter, Emily?!

Good News in the Craft Loft

Hi, Friends!

I don't have a new card to show you today, but I wanted to share with you some GOOD NEWS in my little craft world in the Craft Loft:

Good News #1:
I met Marie, "The Furry Godmother", when I brought my two dogs Sadie and Morgan, to her home to be babysat one night this summer. Before going off to follow her passion to love dogs as a terrific care provider to them (days and overnight), Marie worked for a paper company as a sales rep. She said she had lots of paper in her garage that she'd love to give to me ... and this picture shows the second lot of paper she gave to me!!! (The first lot a month or so ago was just as packed with goodies -- honestly, at least 50 pounds of coated stock, certificates, glossy cards with envelopes, you name it!)

Can you imagine!? All this paper, given to a paper addict?! The large sheets in the front are cardstock, and the rest will be perfect for card and envelope liners, and for a variety of other purposes. The colors!! How lush!

So I take this day to give a shout to Marie -- Thank you, dear friend! Our paths crossed ... you say I am helping you by taking this off your hands ... and I feel as though I've hit a jackpot, in paper and in friendship. THANK YOU again!

Good News #2... I am happy to say that I participated in the Fall Blog Hop this weekend, and WON blog candy from The Scrapbooking Queen. Thank you Theresa (aka Her Royal Highness!). I look forward to getting my prize, the coveted pink ATG gun. Woo-woo!!

Thank you for a glorious day!

Good morning, Friends!

Today, feeling grateful for a glorious morning, I decided to post this rather simple thank-you card for you to see, copy, whatever!

I found a very simple, free font that has this loose script that I like so much. There are many free font websites (and I forget which one I used to get this), just Google search "free downloadable fonts". I laid out the sentiment three times, cut one long strip of pink that I trimmed in three bars, embellished with this beautiful flower from Creative Charms, and tacked on three baby rhinestones on the right side of each strip as well. I rounded the corners of the white cardstock and mounted it on a small black card. The inside has a complimenting white card that has been embellished to match, for a writing surface.

Enjoy the day!

Your friendship is golden!

Friendship .... such a beautiful thing.
We cherish those with whom we need say so little, and they understand how much we mean. Dear friend!

Today I had a chance to spend a few hours in the Craft Loft, doing everything and nothing. It is the most relaxing way to spend a day for me -- in peace after a hectic week.

I was reflecting a bit today while playing, thinking about friendship. Isn't it true that women have more friends than men? I have some "golden friends" -- you know who you are! -- who I cherish more than I can say. Our time together may not be frequent, but I know that if I needed her or if she needed me, nothing could keep us apart. These are the friends whose sentences we can finish, where conversations continue even though they are years apart, and our years meld together to be one. And like this card says, a friend is someone who knows all your faults and still loves you.

So dear Golden Friend, I thought of you while making this card. And here's how I did it ... One 12x12" sheet of light olive cardstock, cut in half and then folded again in half to make a 6x6" square card. Layered, complimenting prints with a chocolate (has to be chocolate when we're talking about friends!) paper. I inked all of the paper edges with a cocoa-bean colored pigment ink from Inkadoodle.

The flower is from a pack of K&C Company embellishments I found at Michael's in the clearance aisle. TOO CUTE! Then I needed a suitable brad and had none, but remembered I recently got an I-Top from Imaginesce. This neat tool takes a paper or fabric of your choosing and smooshes it onto a metal top and brad bottom with a quick squeeze. Inked the brad too! And voila!

Bernie's Birthday Month!

Today, I'll continue to celebrate the birthday of one of my very best friends, Bernie. Bernie's birthday was earlier this month, so he's already gotten this card ... and it will be no stranger to my favorite blog follower, Star (Bernie's wife). Hi, Star!

To create this card, I used an image from a DVD from Dover Publications, dropped into the Sure Cuts A Lot program for use on the Cricut. By replacing the Cricut's cutting blade with a gel pen from Cri-Kit, "I" drew -- actually, the machine drew -- the image of the bird onto card stock. I hand-colored the bird using Prisma pencils and Gamsol to blend. To create the welded sentiment, I used Sure Cuts A Lot to lay out and merge letters together.

It's hard to believe September is more than half over, and soon the days will be getting cool and crisp. Enjoy this beautiful day. Dance!

Christmas is coming -- See companion website!

Hop on over to CardMonkey's companion blogsite, to see the 100 cards being made as we Countdown Til Christmas.

The blogsite is:

www.northpolecards.blogspot.com

Instructions for the card at left:

After mounting sub-frames of red, green and white cardstock atop a 5 x 6.5" premade card, I cut a candy cane from gleaming red cardstock. In this case, I used a candy cane found in the User's Gallery of "Make the Cut."

I then wrapped the candy cane in red/white striped baker's twine that I purchased recently. I found the twine in red/white, green/white, brown/white and blue/white, and bought cones of each at a reasonable price. (It works out to $0.005/yard -- a half-a penny per yard! To compare, when Martha Stewart was selling baker's twine, she was selling 60 yards for $3.98 MSRP. That's six-and-a-half cents per yard! That product has been discontinued, though.) The sentiment was cut from Cricut's "Joys of the Season" cartridge.

Be sure to visit the North Pole Cards blogspot to see how you can get in on the GREATEST CHRISTMAS BLOG CANDY giveaway!