What a marathon crafting session this week turned into! Long story short … (no, not my "style" but no time to ramble on! On Saturday I agreed to make 100 wedding invitations for my neighbours Nanny. Seemed simple enough … until we established we needed them done in 4 DAYS! Ack! I started cutting paper Sunday … it was all systems go staring Monday … and I have send 12 hours a day for the last 3 days making them … finishing last night at 1:30 am!!! I can't REMEMBER the last time I stayed up until 1:30 am!!! Somewhere around 12:20 am … when I had searing pain in my back (seriously 0 felt like a hot poker was being stuck into me!) I thought "perhaps" I bit off a bit more than I could chew! *lol*
Whatevs. I'm not known for my common sense! I got 'er done … well … mostly … today I still need to custom make 20 envelopes … THEN I can start getting excited for our holiday on Saturday. Yes - off to Hawaii … no - I haven't started ANYTHING towards packing or prepping. I still need to get US $$, do laundry etc etc etc .. (and place two orders!). Meh - I'll sleep on the plane! *lol*. So thought I'd do a quick share of the invites … and some figures I crunched whist crafting … alone … for 36 hours …
Here are some figures of what was involved …
Packs of white paper used - 8
Pieces of blue paper used - 33
Number of "layer pieces" needed - 1,030
Number of times I "punched" the scallop punch - 1,030
Number of times I cut paper - 4,120
Rhinestones used - 927
Rolls of double sided tape used - 5
Rolls of "Fast Fuse" tape used - 2
Rolls of "Tear Tape" used - 1
Number of back pills needed - 8
Number of ice packs needed - lost count! lol
That's a LOT of paper … and a LOT of work. Next time I may want to think things through a little more before saying "yes"!
Right! Those envelopes won't make themselves! Have yourself a stampy day!!
Hope you had a relaxing day off today! We did. We originally PLANNED to go somewhere and do something but … well … we were all just happily putzing around and nothing "worth writing home about" needed up happening.
I managed to purge and organize the final room in the house - Rebecca's room. Yes, I finally got around to sorting the tops of the kids' closets. Oh sure … I've been very diligent in storing their school work in 12" x 12" craft keepers - labelled with their name and year, of course … but I decided they didn't need to stay in their closets any more. Their rooms are small and closet space is valuable real estate … so they got shifted to the basement … to the cupboard I purged LAST weekend. (don't I live a glamorous,m exciting life? *lol*). It felt REALLY good to get through the last little bit of purging done. We are having a garage sale Thursday, Friday and Saturday and the goal was to go through EVERYTHING in the house to decide if it goes or stays. Well … mission accomplished. EVERY toy in the bonus room, every drawer, closet and bucket.
The girls spent the afternoon making the Garage Sale Signs and I spent some time on my Project Life album. We're about to fire up a family movie shortly so I best get on with my actual PROJECT post!
I FINALLY made it down to the Craft Cave Saturday. MAN did that feel great!! Well … to be honest it took a while to get to that point. As almost always happens after I've been away from stamping for a while I sat down … and didn't now where to start. I sat … looked around … sat … perused all my new stamp sets … looked around some more and though "nope - I got nuthin' ". Sigh. Well … as I ALSO often do when this happens … I headed to my stash of yet-to-be-put-together Paper Pumpkin kits. Yes - I hoard these kits for just such creative emergencies! I grabbed the top one … and my favourite … the July 2015 kit. I squealed when i opened this kit when I saw the stamp set. Yes, they are exclusive to the Paper Pumpkin kits. No, you can't buy them. I CAN order "refill" kits - alas, the refill kits don't include the stamp set or ink. The good new is that if there was enough interest I will schedule a class, order the kits for you and then y'all can cmd over here to use my stamp set … and drink some coffee!
Anyway … before I share my projects let's check out the video of what I got in the kit, shall we?
Oh! I guess this would be a great time to mention that if you subscribe to Paper Pumpkin before September 10th you get the first 2 months for 50% OFF. That's $12.50 per month for the first two. Smokin' good deal! Send me a message if you're interest and I'll hook you up!
OK!!!!! Lets move along! First up are the cards I made per the kit …
Key-UTE! So quick and easy … and therapeutic … to put together. All it took was that 45 minutes of ink, paper and rubber to get my creative juices flowing again. I needed some little thanks you cards and couldn't STAND how cute the little cup and "thanks a latte" sentiment were … 20 minutes later I had my card …
Abso-stinkin-lutely LOVE them!!! Really! Love. THEM. EXACTLY the look I was going for!
I started with the Note Cards and Envelopes. Yes, best deal in town for these bad boys. 20 cards and envelopes for … what, $8.00? Something around there, anyway. They are slightly smaller than a standard card (5" x 3 1/2" rather than the standard 5 1/2" x 4 1/4") - just right for a quick little Thank You. I HIGHLY recommend having at LEAST 3 packs of these in your stash at any one time!!
I used a 4 1/4" x 1 1/2" strip of Crumb Cake card stock and ran it through my (retired) crimper to get the corrugated layer (to mimic the cardboard cup wrappers you get at coffee shops). Nothing goes better with Early Espresso Ink than Cherry Cobbler … so I grabbed a 1" x 5" strip and my new Triple Flag Punch to make a perfect dove-tail end. FYI - when you use the inch you lose a lot of card stock. I STARTED with a 5" strip but after punching it you end up with a 4 1/2" strip. In my experimenting with this punch you lose less and less length as you increase the strip size. What?? What do I mean? So with the 1" strip width you lose 1/2" in length … with the 1 1/2" width I believe you only lose 1/4" in length and with the 2" width you only lose a bit … or something like that … I'd have to experiment again for exact measurements but just know that you need to start off with more length than you want to end up with. Clear is mud? Ya. Thought so. Moving on …
I punched out a 2 1/2" circle, stamped it twist the cup and steam (Early Espresso) and the sentiment (Cherry Cobbler). I also stamped some steam directly on the card base.
I adhered the Crumb Cake strip using the new TEAR TAPE. Verdict? I love it! It was PERFECT for this project. I didn't want to use snail as it would flatten the bumps. Didn't want dimensionals … Tear Tape to the rescue! It was nice not to have to use the old Red Sticky Stip. Aside from being very expensive it was much stronger than I needed and was always a pain to have to cut the tape … and peel off that red top which ALWAYS stuck to my fingers with static *lol*. Oh sure - the Sticky Strip still has a space on my shelf (cause ya KNOW I stocked up when I heard it was being discontinued!!) but in this case the tape was great to have!
I used some Linen Thread to wrap around the Cherry piece twice and tie a knot. I LOVE how it mirrors the waves of the steam. I popped that piece up on dimensionals … did the same with the punched circle piece .. added a rhinestone and Wa-Low! Done and lovin' it!
Thank you Paper Pumpkin for coming to my creative-block-rescue!
Right - gotta start that movie … Craig has to work in the morning! Have a fun evening and a stampy week!
