Waiting in the Sun

All this year our weather has been unseasonable warm, which feels great but of course can confuse the early bloomers like daffodils and crocuses. What a treat to be able to spend so much time outside with the girls though. With our vacation on the horizon, it's good to get a little exposure on them too, and I'm always encouraging them to go out and swing awhile while I get chores like the dishes done inside. I guess I'm fortunate that they beg to help, I know most kids don't consider doing so, but I do kind of push them out the door, telling them t go chase chickens or that TaTa (or little dog) needs someone to play with.
Or, if Ray is home, he'll generously offer me some alone time, and I'll take advantage of the opportunity for a little spurt of unencumbered craft time, and can whip out a trio of cards like this one, created in about an hour while they walked around the back of the back yard. When you live on acreage, you have to be specific lol. Some of these will go into Pickers Northwest Antique Store and the horizontal card will head to Gig Harbor's Copy & Mail.
I don't usually use our dining room table, but the sun was shining on it so invitingly that I pushed aside the placemats and set up a mini studio of supplies, including crochet thread, that gold chevron trendy tape from Queen & Co, and a 6x6 paper pad that complimented a handful of scraps from my bin. Then it was onto the MME pinterest board for inspiration! My favorite is the one that looks like little polaroids... I'll be using that idea again for sure.
Interested in soaking up the sun while crafting, or just sitting in the dark of winter reading this post? Come craft with me in this cardmaking video I published last Spring:

There's a New Shop in town

Birthday cards for the Birthday Girl!

I had the chance to go to Gig Harbor on more than one occasion this week, once to drop off this four pack of handmade-by-me birthday cards for my co-workers {birthday} present, and then my dad took the girls down to play on the water front for an hour or so, giving me a chance to grab a brisk walk myself! I have seen so many new places opening their doors, and it was a beautiful day to do some exploring.

 Standing at the corner of Judson street, across from Brix26 stands the white stucco building that is now host to Blackwater Trading Post's dazzling array of original, locally crafted Northwestern art. As you walk the towards the entrance, your eyes flicker along an intriguing window display of tribal carvings, glass reflecting lights practically vibrating from the gallery of home décor additions waiting your perusal inside.
Upon entering, the warmth of the setting immediately reminds one of visiting a cabin off the coast of Sequim, or maybe closer to Montana's "Big Sky." That's no coincidence; owners Carola and Luke purposefully approached their venture intending to choose art that would fit their own home's asthetics. The faint scent of freshly milled-by-Luke logs (from his own property I might add) support displays that tickle the fancy of a long neglected shopping sector- Men!
Real manly men at that... I'm talking about our guys that are out there fishing for cutthroat in turgid January waters. The fellows who want nothing more but to run along side the wolves of Alaska and walk amongst the same mountain wildflowers that bears frolic about. But, yeah, there are pretty things to be found in the Post as well.   Fancy a blanket you can wear as a purse fashioned from what looks like a bridle? Or perhaps your wine needs it's own sheepskin lined carrier... if it's locally made, durable products you're looking for, or even just want to look more rustic-ated yourself, this is a place to check out.
Can we say custom-made, one-of -a-kind, not- to-be-found-elsewhere-in-Gig-Harbor? You'll find a unique experience waiting for you in each niche of the store. With 26 local artists and counting, there is a media type to delight you at every turn, including texturally rich canvases, original photographs,

 jewelry, and carvings. Sprinkled throughout are Luke's stunning, life-like fiberglass fish replicas and driftwood supports. The thoughtfulness at having chosen artists who truly represent own rich Northwestern heritage and outdoor pursuits has lead to a harmonious collection that is truly inspiring to an artist like myself.

In fact, I found the whole experience so exciting that I stayed up for another late night and created 6 cards in assorted themes including a wedding card, sympathy, a couple of birthday cards, and a really cute card featuring the sentiment, "You're some bunny special!"

You can bring your special bunny into the Blackwater Trading Post's unique gallery a little later in the evenings on Art Walk Third Thursdays, and word is that the check out counter is perfectly bar stool height. Fingers crossed for wine tastings and fundraisers!

Speaking of Fundraisers (an if you're reading all the way down here to the bottom- thank you!)
Have you purchased your $20 ticket to our Key Peninsula Cooperative Preschool Cardmaking fundraiser event Feb. 7th? 6:30-8:30 with me, your's truly, at Key Center's Blend Wine Shop. You can email me for more information about that.

An Unexpected Punch of Fun

I absolutely love this card I made yesterday! It has layers of My Mind's Eye papers, a Jenni Bowlin argyle transparency, and Lawn Fawn stickers, a combination that pops with color and all the fun of the holiday season.

At the Creating Keepsakes Convention earlier this month, I learned a fabulous technique for creating Shaker Cards. Mike from Queen & Co. taught us to use washi tape to close our cards... WASHI! One of my all time favorites!

I brought home a lot of sequins from the convention, a product I sought out after I realized I have almost depleted my meager supply of 10 or so sequins I've been hoarding as they fall off our daughter's clothes and from Christmas decoration clean up in years gone by. Yes, I am too cheap to spend a dollar to get a bazillion sequins and prefer the distressed-by-my-concrete-floor versions... NOT.

Beloved washi, meet newly acquired mega-stash of sequins. Sequins, meet Transparency overlay that I never know what to do with. Washi, meet transparency... now that we're all acquainted, put it all together and look what happens!

Well, if you're me, what happens is that all that fun creates a bit of a mess and the inside of your card suffers. But, if you're me you go looking for a way to cover up you fingerprinting mishaps, and participate in a challenge at the same time~

Jen Schow is a somewhat new YouTube process video-er who has done what I haven't figured out yet; gained over 500 subscribers in the short time she's been 'Tubing! What an accomplishment. Jen and I sort of know each other online as members of the Nicole Jones 911 Facebook group, which a lot of fun. And to celebrate her gratefulness at all the subbie support she's getting, she is offering up an American Crafts prize pack for punched project share submitters!

Here is how I used my favorite Close To My Heart Scalloped circle punch: as a peek a boo to the back side of the background to my shaker card front. I fussy cut a snowflake and layered that inside with a pop dot, and ran another strip of washi tape down the side. If I were a forward thinker, I'd have ran the tape down the side before punching, but I just cut a fringe along the edge and folded the tape over the scallops and no one (okay, non card makers anyway) would know the difference anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and let me see what you're making!

Global Prepping with Martha

World Card Making Day is Saturday October 4th, folks, and I'll be at the Gig Harbor Michael's celebrating with our Martha Stewart punches! It's never too early to start making Christmas cards, and for the Demo Discount price of just $12.50 you can take home three beautiful handmade cards- with matching envelopes, created with the Martha's Envelope Score Board! Stop by to pick up a kit or just visit,

 -Anna

Anatomy of a Late Night Scrap Sesh

Late at night when the kids are in bed, I like to have Ray select a few photos for some "Scrapbook Starts." That's my little nickname for these pages I start and don't usually complete right away. You'll notice these examples are pretty basic... they'll be spruced up sometime today, but here's a peek into my late night creative process!

I generally start with the photo itself. Thinking of a basic title, or the story I want the photo to tell helps me get into the mood to gather my supplies. The chosen photo or story may also influence the colors or theme of papers I'm shopping my stash for. It really helps to take the photo to the paper stored in our craft room; you can pretty easily tell what "goes" (and doesn't ) by holding the photo up to a few selections. There can be surprise pairings of patterns that emerge as my creative engines begin to turn over!

Next, I reach for add-ons like stickers or die cuts that I may have thought of while looking at the photo or searching for a background. The way I have my embellishments stored makes this a really easy thought to page process. Check out this tour of my craft room for a glimpse at one of the ways I've had my space organized. I look for either matching colors, a theme that fits, a phrase to use as a title, or maybe just something shiny that needs to be used.

I recently overhauled my die cut storage system, and along with my August Product of the Month Challenge and wanting to use more of my old stuff up this year, I'm hereby announcing that my product of the month will be... Die Cuts! On August 15th my fellow contributors to DieCutCrazy and I will be hosting another Blog Hop, so watch for that! Last night I got into my circa 2009 Storytellers collections and chose this "Delightful" set that went well with the photos and papers I'd chosen. The great thing about their die cuts is that they already look layered and embellished, so sprucing them up is not actually needed, but very easy to do. See how I layered photo corners over those already on the background patterned paper above? And in the layout below, I simply added paper flowers, and used my exact-o knife to cut out a small part of the design to layer on top for added dimension. There were more than enough pieces to spread across two pages that will go side by side in my album, so I put the extras into a new kit, made from papers I'd thought of using but didn't. I  mean, why put them away when I can use them for another late night crop session?! 

So sometimes, on simple pages like those two, I can add a few finishing touches that bring them nearly to "enter the album" stage. Touches like the brads in the centers of the flowers, or the hand drawn blackberry vines with custom blended ink splatter berries. Touches like the eyelets on those punched circles, or inking the edges to make the white core disappear.

On the page to the right, I chose a package of Glitz Design's cardstock stickers to embellish my layout. You can see the page is still lacking- nothing is holding the banner together, there is no title or journaling, and frankly, it's hard to tell what the story behind my holding a large gun with a gleeful smile is. And guess what, it's totally okay that the page is incomplete! I fully intend to go back in and put those finishing touches on sometime today or later this week.

In the meantime, I may think of a much better title (although, "Annie Get Your Gun" will be hard tobeat), I may change the angle of the story I want to tell, or add variegated yarn instead of black twine as I intended... the choices are all still there, but I can make them in the my actual craft room,during daylight hours easier than late in front of the tv, on a card table set up by the sofa at night. On the other hand, I sometimes find that I'm really okay with how it looks and I just add a quick dash of fiber and journaling to get it in the album pronto. These simple pages add a different visual element to albums that can almost become monotonous in all their embellishments and details. As long as those pictures are getting printed and/or our stories are being told, there's no "wrong" way to scrapbook!

So theres a peek into my late night creative process... now you know why I'm posting photos of my work to facebook at 12:23 am! Let me know, how do you maximize your creative energy? Do you have a little routine that makes it easier to craft in a jiffy? Leave a comment below, mark your calendar for August 15th's DieCutCrazy blog hop, and as always, thanks for reading!

Six by Six Series- Episode IV: Smile

Remember when the Stars Wars series renewed itself by starting its saga all over again with prequels, leaving you wondering how will this all lead up to what I already know?! Well this series won't be filled with laser guns and jet planes, but there will be a love story and maybe even some hairy animals!

I've got about four six by six paper pads that I've been experimenting with including on my scrapbook pages and card fronts. I'm seeing other designers incorporating these miniature patterned  papers in their projects too, and hope you'll share with me in the fun of training our brains to reach for them too.

6x6 patterned papers, and 8x8 for that matter, come in a down-sized version, making them ideal for including in cardmaking, but I find that really helps to makes them more neutral when adding them to a background in scrapbooking, too. Their size is perfect for creating a quick grid of four sheets to equal 12 inches all around. If, like me, you tear a page a bit in your haste to rip it from the binding, just think of that whoops as a reminder that these papers would like a scrap piece or background underneath them. Trim off -or maybe enhance - the torn edge and you'll end up with a crisp little border frame on your page.

When selecting my prints for this layout, I looked for four busy designs with background colors going from light to dark. The little miniature cut-apart sheet provided me with some coordinated title pieces, and I used a couple of circle punches on the starbursts print for some simple confetti-like sprinkles. My Minds Eye papers are generally cream based designs, and for the journaling space I needed a really neutral piece, preferably with lines to write on. I remember using the full size version of one of the papers in a layout I made last year, and turned it over to find the same grid which would be perfect. You can see the full-size version layout here:

Have you ever experienced the rhapsody of pre-breakfast scrappin'? I spent Wednesday night at my moms house and she had that lovely 8.5"x11" enlargement of Grandma and little sister waiting to show me. Isn't this a beautiful print? It was taken last Friday while visiting with our cousin Paulette from Arizona- Hi Cousin!!!  I love that simply looking at the photo leads to a grin on my face.
While the girls ate breakfast and did a little crafting of their own, I whipped this together in less than 20 minutes. Now that's a habit that could use reinforcing! 
Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Check back throughout the week as I share the prequel pages in my six by six series, and if you happen to be at the craft store, investigate those handy pads of miniature designer papers!