Tags...

The first thing I worked on when I started crafting again was tags. They're quick, easy, and fun to try new techniques on. My "new" technique? Decoupage!!! I've been having a blast with an old book and a jar of mod podge. It's great! I know it's something pretty much every crafter has done, but I had never done it (at least not like this) before. But KBD is heading the way of the shabby chic, so I am heading, too, and practicing to get my skills up to speed as I go! So here are a couple of the tags I created before I was ready to move up to something bigger. (Don't worry, that 'something bigger' will be in the next post for your viewing pleasure. =D)

(Goodness! Now that Eliana is 2 it's so hard to believe that she was ever that little!)

Spring Cards!

I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I am tired of snow. I'm ready for it to be SPRING! And yet... we're supposed to get snow every day this entire week. *sigh* I know it means we will have a better August because there won't be as many forest fires, but still... can't we have a little bit of warmth and sunshine? Just a tad?

Well, I guess I was really in the mood for Spring when I made these cards, because they were SUPPOSED to be "shabby chic." They look more like spring chic to me! Oh well. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, though, especially since my creative mojo seems to be on vacation the last few weeks. These four cards comprise one of the classes I'll be teaching this quarter at Keepsakes. We seem to have very few card classes on the schedule this time around, so hopefully the card classes we do have will fill up quickly!

Shabby Chic Card Class

I'm sitting here kitting for tomorrow night's class, and I thought I'd share the cards with you. The class is full (my third class of the quarter and all three have been full!!) and we'll be making these four shabby chic cards:

Not too shabby....

I've been wanting to try my hand at the "shabby chic" look. So last night (in my newly cleaned craft room! that isn't as clean anymore...) I pulled out some OLD paper I don't really like. It's from one of the first stacks, where everything was in the same color scheme (in this case, blue and green) with varying patterns of stripes and flowers. So I pulled out that paper (a sheet of stripe and a sheet of flower) and my box of chipboard (since I'm really bad about using them!) and a box of lace I got from Freecycle, and some paper flowers I got from the Target $pot and I went to town. About an hour or so later I had a 4 card set! I like some better than others, but overall I'm pretty happy with the set. AND I learned new things! I learned that you can color chipboard by just applying chalk with a sponge. Much faster and less messy than using ink or paint! I like the effect, too... subtle, but perfect for this! I also learned that a little Versamark and some embossing powder goes a long way toward coloring chipboard, too (see scallop frame below), and that sanding the edges after you've embossed does neat things. I'll keep playing with techniques, but I had fun last night. Here they are, in no particular order....