Overdue Cards and a Life Update

So, I know the cards I’m sharing today are almost 3 months overdue, but at least I’m getting around to sharing them eventually!  And rest assured, I did send them out within a reasonable amount of time, I just haven’t posted about them here yet.

*insert shrugging emoji here*

These are the thank you cards I made to send to people after Christmas.

All three were made with the same layout, just with different papers and cardstock colors.  All the patterned papers were scraps I had leftover from previous projects and I just scrounged through my embellishment folder to find stickers that matched.  I’m not crazy about the one on the right with the tree, but that’s the only sticker I had that was a good color match.

So yeah, Christmas thank you cards… in March…

But lest you think that I’ve just been wasting the past few months away doing nothing, here’s a peek at what has actually been keeping me busy.

First off, my dad and I built this DVD shelf for my hobbit hole.

He did all the wood cutting and I helped with the construction and did almost all the sanding and almost all the varnishing (Mom helped with that some).  I love how it turned out, even though it doesn’t really match the rest of my furniture, which is much darker in color.  But it’s pretty and serves its purpose well.  But that was a multi-week project, only made more difficult by doing it in the winter!  We had to run the heater in the garage for a few days to get all the varnishing done.

I’ve also recently gotten into diamond painting, which is essentially a combination of cross stitch and paint by number but with little jewels instead of thread.  It’s fun and relaxing in a mind-numbing kind of way.  Something easy to do when you don’t really want to think that hard about what you’re doing.  I did an easy snowman one to start with, then started on this much more complicated and detailed one that my parents got for me.  I’m about halfway done with it and will share a picture when complete.  I have one more to do that my penpal sent me for my birthday last year, and I’m really excited to start on that one!  It’s a How To Train Your Dragon picture.  🙂

And finally, I’m working hard on making more ornaments for craft shows this fall.

I took this mess:

and cut it down to this:

I mean, obviously ALL that fabric on the floor isn’t in these neat little piles, but this is where I started with creating new ornaments.  And this is just for picture ornaments.  I haven’t even cut fabric for the quilted star designs yet!  Besides the fact that since these piles were cut, I got some fabric for a couple more picture designs.   *insert shrugging emoji here*

So my typical Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, and free evenings have looked a lot like this lately:

I have also started a Facebook page for my ornaments, Geek Girl Creations, which you can find here

There’s a couple different different pages by that name, so if you search for it on FB, make sure to look for my logo:

I have pictures of all my ornaments available for sale there, so be sure to go check it out!

I’ve also started an Instagram account by that same name with the same logo to share my ornaments, so go follow me there as well!

So yeah, that’s what’s keeping me busy these days.  I’m planning on going to a couple craft shows this fall, so I’m really trying to build up a good stock of variety to sell.  One of those trays of cut fabric is about 2/3 done though, so that’s pretty good progress, I think.  Still so much to do, though, so I better get back at it!

Happy Sunday!

Military Branch Ornaments

Today is D-Day.  The day that thousands of Allied forces lost their lives storming the beaches at Normandy on the first day of the invasion into France during World War II.

I had hoped to have this set of ornaments done by Memorial Day so I could have shared them then, but this works, too.

Never forget the sacrifices of the brave men and women in our Armed Forces that keep vigil day and night to preserve our freedom and help win freedom for others.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Card #119: Wintry Beary Thanks

Welcome to the first blog post of 2018!

And I’m not even late.  We’re off to a good start.  😉

For my first card of the year, I needed something for thank you cards for Christmas.  I needed three thank you cards and I wanted to use a stamp set that I hadn’t used before, so I started browsing on Pinterest for some inspiration.  Hey, it’s been a while since I made a card, so my creative brain is a little rusty!

I found something very similar to what I ended up making, which was these:

I found the sheet of blue snowflake paper in my collection, so I layered that on a white card first.  I stamped the bears on white; colored the scarves, skates, and mugs; and cut them out.  Since everything else is blue and white, I really like the tiny little dot of dark pink on the mugs.  I used a sponge and ink pad to make the faded blue splotch behind the bears, masking off the lower portion of the white with a sticky note to get that nice, crisp line.  Then I simply glued the bears down, stamped the sentiment, adhered the rectangles with the bears to the cards over the blue snowflakes, and added the little clear gems for some sparkle and interest.

I actually made four cards with this layout, since you can get four equal large rectangles from an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper.  But on the last card I stamped a different sentiment and sent it to the one person who actually sent me a real Christmas card.  And yes, this was too late for Christmas, but I still wanted to send her something.

I probably would have made more of an effort to make actual Christmas cards had my grandparents not come down for the holiday.  Since they and my parents are about the only people I send cards to anymore, and I knew I was going to see them to wish them Merry Christmas in person, I didn’t make time in my busy December to make any new cards.

So, there we have it!  First post of the year down!  I’ve got a plan for the blog for a while that will hopefully help keep me on track and help me use up some stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t know how to use (since using stuff up was kind of the whole point anyway!).  It’s an idea that’s been in my head for quite some time.  Hopefully you guys won’t get bored with it!

Come back next week to find out what it is!  🙂

 

Stamps used: grateful stamp from Stampin’ Up set “Small Script”, polar bear from Stampin’ Up set “Polar Bears”, friendship sentiment from Stampin’ Up set “Chill of Winter”

Card #99: Thank You Cards

This is one of those rare Saturdays where I didn’t have a ton of things on my to do list to get done, so it’s been kind of a lazy day.  I went out for breakfast with a friend and after I came home I worked on a small craft project which didn’t take very long at all.  And the only other thing I absolutely HAVE to get done today is writing this blog post.  Not sure what I’m going to do after I’m done with this.  There’s one more thing on my to do list in the “get done this week on an indeterminate day” section, but I think I’ll work on that tomorrow after I bake some cookies.  I’m really feeling the “lazy Saturday” thing today.  🙂

So, this is the second week of using up sentiment cards from the craft kit from my grandma.  Three of the four cards I made are kind of different in that they are a flat card that doesn’t open.  Part of the kit was a set of tags, some of which had little envelope holder things (I know, so helpfully descriptive!), and these tags have been floating around in my scrap patterned paper bin, so I decided to try to use them.

The two cards on the sides have the envelope pockets to hold the tags, the middle card is open on the top of the blue so the tag can slip behind it.  The tags are blank on the back so a little note can be written on them.

I thought it was kind of a fun way to design some simple thank you cards for an occasion where you don’t need to write a big long thank you note, but a simple message of gratitude would be appropriate.

I also made one more card that’s not really a thank you card, but I had already picked the papers for it before I got turned on to the thank you theme, so here’s a bonus card:

I really like how this one turned out with the simple design of coordinating strips of paper and the sentiment off-set to the side instead of in the center.

And now, since it’s late afternoon and I haven’t eaten since breakfast, I think I’ll go find something to eat and probably watch a movie.  I’ve been on a kick lately of trying to finally watch movies on my shelf that I haven’t seen yet and I think Les Mis is calling my name tonight.  🙂

Happy weekend!