Returning to the Blogging Bandwagon

Some cards I've been working on lately.

I fell of the blogging bandwagon a while back, and I'm attempting to climb back on with this post. I've taken precious few photos of anything lately, so I thought I'd show you a few of the things I've been working on of late.

The top photo is of some cards I've made. 2p gave me some crafty material goodness for Christmas, so I've been all over it. I've made other cards, too, but forgot to take pictures of them, and they're now mailed out to their recipients! The cards were fun to make, and it will be especially nice to have a ready stash for all the letter-writing I've been trying to get into lately! :)

Here is a bit of a gift I sent away a while ago to the new baby in the family. Well, okay, it was nearly all to her Momma, and none to her! But I'll send her something shortly! :) In the picture is a diaper clutch I made (that blue thing on the left) - actually, the picture is of the first one I made...I made a second one and sent that to her.

It was a grand experiment for me - and a lot of firsts: fusing fabrics (and the lady at the fabric store said it couldn't be done on the material I was using - vinyl - it can!) making snaps (busted out some leatherworking tools for that), working with cloth in general (I generally stay away from cloth, although I love it, because I don't know how to sew) and working with vinyl.

Come to think of it, I had never done anything this little clutch required me to do, so it was pretty nerve-wracking and scary, especially when I was buying the fabric and the lady cutting it was discouraging me and telling me it wouldn't work. But of course, that made it totally exhilirating to have a finished product. Ask Jason, I was literally jumping around the house for two days.

And as soon as I made one, I had to make another to perfect it. The first one took hours of planning, agonizing, and actual work. The second one took less than an hour from start to finish. Schweet.

Here's a picture of the inside:

This is the one I actually sent. Of course, I had to have a pretty lining (many a purse in my closet was purchased solely for the lovely lining!) and Jason helped me pick out the polka dots of all the fabrics I had in my stash. The purpose of the clutch is to hold a few diapers and one of those little containers of wipes so that you don't have squashed diapers in the bottom of the diaper bag. It's all contained. Presto - change-o (literally!)

I kept the first one for me...I had followed the directions to a T on the first one, and the snap was originally misplaced, so it had a small hole near the inside snap. The fabric lining wasn't perfectly flush with the vinyl in all places, either. So, I have it in my craft armoire, filled with the little leather-working tools I now have and the little snaps to go with them. :)

OH - there are other things in that picture, too! Ummm...I monogrammed the bag with an initial that I had printed out on freezer paper, cut out with an x-acto knife, and then stenciled on. It was a little more smeary than I would have wanted, but oh well. I also painted a doily around it...it actually looks much better when it is partially filled and standing up, but I didn't take a picture of that. Ah, well....

Those little rings with numbers on them are closet organizers for Baby clothes. The numbers are the sizes. They hang on the dowel in the closet between the different size clothes. I hemmed and hawed about making these because Closet-Maid (or similar) systems don't have a place where you can thread the little rings on. It took me far too long to realize that a pretty ribbon could be used to tie them in place and it would work the same exact way. My hair isn't blonde for nuttin'!

I started out with a yellow theme for the clothes organizers, but then was bored with all subtle-graphic-yellow, so I threw in some bold graphics that still coordinated with the yellow. After all was said and done, I liked the bold graphic ones more than I did the yellow!

If I ever get pregnant again, I'm definitely making a set of these for myself! They would have been great to have for Leify's armoire back in the day!

And some more cards...

I did several like this with all random colors, some in a single colorway (orange), and also did some in the same style, except with little birds. I like the elephant (or "tat-tat" as Leify used to call 'phants) for baby gifts, and the bird for everything else! :)

And last but not least:

The oddity I ended up loving. A simple deep brown card with brown envelope. And a single silver elephant shining in the corner.

The little silver elephant was actually tin foil/aluminum foil/silver paper (as we call it in our house!) that I was using to sharpen the cutting edge of the craft punch. On a whim, I placed it on the dark brown card, and fell in love. It's one of those understated, classic type things that makes my heart swoon. And it's tin foil. Doesn't it look like something Gap would have in their baby section? It reminds me of their Baby lines a lot. Hmn...

Anyway, that is what I've been up to lately. Have been trying to resurrect my passion for Manual photography of late. I'm getting tired of keeping my camera on Automatic all the time (or near to it!) and I'm trying to remember all the little details and nuances of manual photography.

So far, I've had some fun practicing (on nothing interesting) working with natural light. I'm aiming to become a natural light purist once again (I used to never use a flash ever! Flash = abomination!) but perhaps with chilluns, who move very quickly, that isn't quite the feasible task it used to be :)

Anyway, got to get back to the kiddos! :)

Happy Days.