WOYWW 169 at Katemade Designs

 

 

It's been forever since I did a WOYWW post. I feel a bit nervous, it's like being a first date I have to look good, sound intelligent and show off my the bubbly part of my personality and hope that you like me enough to visit again.

The picture shows the latest addition to the work desk - WASHI! I've see the blog posts. I've pinned the cards and scrapbook pages. And I've dreamed of having a bit of this magic tape. I wanted it when it was only from Japan. Now that American craft companies have seen the profit potential the product is more accessible and the price is more reasonable. I picked up 3 rolls at Archiver's this weekend. I purchased 2 that were black and white, figuring I could color them as needed, and the pink striped one you see here. The colors and pattern match my blog, Twitter and Facebook page background and I thought it would be good for packaging of certain items.

The experiments card front was made with the Silhouette. I did a print and cut on the tricycle image from The Graphics Fairy. I flipped over a second cut (not printed) and used it as a mask for misting to give the feeling of coming and going. The flag was also done as a cut and print with the Silhouette because I hate to waste paper and time. The texture was made by running the Mr. Huey's Circle Graph Mask from Studio Calico through the Cuttlebug. I worked so well I may have to do that again and again and…

I also got the misting mask on this weekend's Archiver's trip. I was thrilled to see Studio Calico in a brick and mortar store. I thought they were only available online. I hadn't purchased it before because I like to see things before I buy them the first time. Now that I know the weight, quality, etc. I may have to go spend some money in the Studio Calico online store. Of course I need to find some money first.

The binder clips in the foreground are holding paper as the Mod Podge dries. I was tired of looking at the domino box that holds my adhesives. I'll show the finished project when everything is dry and has been decorated completely.

On the horizon

Friday Freebies - digi stamps, papers or Silhouette cuts

I'll be explaining pixel vs vector graphics in next Tuesday's Tutorial. 

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Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.

Inheritence and Hoarding What I learned from reading Stuff

Four years ago my father's brother died. Fifteen days later their sister died. My father grieved hard for them both, we all did. It was up to my father to clean out her house. The house he grew up in. The place where three generations of mementos, housewares and furniture were stored.

Going through the house was an emotional roller coaster for my father and me. I would find something interesting and we would stop and he would tell me about who it belonged to and then he might need time to cry a bit more at the loss of his entire family. Maybe when you lose all your siblings your children don't really count as family because you are feeling like a lost child.

After the furniture and china, silver and jewellery my aunt had were divided up among the nieces and nephews there was a lot left. My aunt collected McCoy and other pottery. Their grandmother collected dishes. All these things went to my father's house to be stored. He wanted to sell the pottery on Ebay but he never got the chance. He didn't want rush into the process. The emotions going through that stuff might be too much for him. 

A couple of years he told me he wanted to get rid of a lot of stuff because he didn't want me and my sister to have to go through what he did. Dad got sick before he really got started on this massive project. 

In the spring of this year, I happened upon the book "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things" at the local library. I decided to check it out to help me curb my desire to keep too many things after my dad died. I wanted to avoid becoming a candidate for A&E’s “Hoarders” or TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” This book by Dr. Randy O. Frost & Gail Steketee, psychologists who specialize in hoarding behaviors, not only discusses case studies but also goes into the reasons people hoard. How it begins and how it can be overcome. The bad news, it often starts after a traumatic event like the death of a loved one. 

I have brought two car loads of stuff into my house and I am not done moving my inheritance. In my defense I got rid of a lot of things. We gave away kitchen stuff to a friend whose son needed to outfit his first apartment. My childhood doll crib and doll clothes were given to a friend's daughter for her American Girl dolls. (The original 70's polyester double knit that my aunt made for my dolls was called "retro" which made me feel old.)

However there are other things that I just couldn't let go to Goodwill. Not yet anyway. I have always dreamed of a guest room. A place for visitors to sleep without having to open the 20 year old sleeper sofa and ruin their backs. I place for guests to put their luggage so it is out of sight, out of mind and out of the way. The bedroom set my aunt purchased with the first money she ever earned will wait in storage for that room. This is most likely a red flag for Drs. Frost and Steketee but I don't really care.

 

Old scrapbooks, yearbooks and a handful of sentimental items came home with me. Power tools made their way to my house. Boxes of photos and other craft able items like shells, crayons, books and my father's drafting supplies have joined the craft room clutter. When I was deciding what to keep, donate or toss I had to keep in mind the difference between possibility and probability. The inner voice says, "I could make ____ with these." I had to keep asking, "But will you?" I let a lot of things go based on the knowledge that I probably wouldn't.

From reading "Stuff" I know that people can be hoarders in one area and not in another. I don't like buying clothes and hate buying shoes (a size 12 will do that for a girl) so I wouldn't be considered a hoarder if you looked in my closet but craft supplies that's another story. Why can I recognize the difference between possibility and probability in clothes but have difficulty when it comes to craft?

Since all this new old stuff has come into my home I have started to feel agitated and overwhelmed to the point of dreaming about putting a match to the house and walking away - possibly to a convent. I have started a lot of those possibly projects and have sketches and notes ready to make the others once the dust settles. The boxes are being cleared out and the clutter is beginning to find it's way off the floors and into more permanent homes. 

Now that school has started I'm hoping that I can get into a routine that will include crafting the crap out of the treasures I've brought home and getting them into my Etsy shop.

Currently the only things in my Etsy shop are stamps sets.  I will donate these sets as soon as I can get down to Memories & Beyond (Downers Grove, IL). They take scrap and stamp supplies to Mooseheart School for their art therapy program. 

Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.

Katemade Designs Facebook page and a winner

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School has finally started for my son so our lives will get back to some kind of routine.  I have a few fun projects in the works and will be sharing my successes or failures with you.

 

Tutorials will also start coming more regularly. I have a lot of tutorials in the planning stages and am having trouble deciding which to create/post first. I created a survey on the newly created Katemade Designs Facebook page. Go put your two cents in and if you have specific questions you'd like addressed make a comment.

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The winner of the Creating Keepsakes Mixed Media Scrapbooking magazine is Carla Miller. I'll be getting your magazine out to you within the week.

Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.

Paper Crafting Assistance from the Dead

I was in a making mood the other day. A nice change for me.

Tag with recycled items

I pulled out a stamp set from TPC Studio called Sewing. I stamped some images on a bit of watercolor paper laying on my table. You need to use water colors or watered down ink on watercolor paper. Right? So that's what I used. I didn't think I could get the color, control, look I wanted on the sewing machine so I used Copic markers. I know it's a sin but I like the results.

I decided they would look good on a tag. But I wanted the tag to look like it was fabric. I looked in my patterned paper scrap drawer and found a card I had inherited from a volunteer job I had last year at a senior living facility. They would get bags of greeting cards for the residents to use. One day I was asked to sort them by holiday. There were several that had been used. The ones with images large enough to use in craft projects were set aside. What didn't fit in the storage they were willing to offer paper crafting were given to me or tossed. The flowered pattern was the back side of one of those cards.

The sentiment was intentionally stamped off center so I could add a button or three. It was late and I was extremely lazy tired and didn't want to get out the thread and needle to make the buttons look like they had been sewn on. I could hear Sarah Moore ranting that buttons on paper crafts must always have thread, this seemed especially important for a tag about sewing. I inherited this jar of buttons and brought it home last month from my dad's house. These buttons were cut off of old clothes when my dad was growing up. In our family when times are tough you make your own clothes if you can and you never let buttons go when the rest of the clothes are ready for the rag bin.  Luckily for me several of the buttons still had thread through them. I wonder if my aunt or grandmother know they helped with this little project.

I didn't set out to make this card for the
Focal Point Challenge in the Moxie Fab World
but it works so well I decided to enter it. Go see others here.

Card using scraps

This card was created in the "let's throw it up there and see what sticks" method. I didn't set out to make this particular card. I don't use sketches. I didn't think about color families, brand names, or trends. I pulled bits of paper out of my patterned paper scrap drawer and laid them on the card until something sang. I think, given it's origins, that this is a pretty darned good card.

The large yellow rectangle is a tag I had laying on my table that I had run through the Cuttlebug using a new embossing folder from Hobby Lobby that features a lower case alpha in typewriter font. I ran Versamark over the top and embossed with clear embossing powder, then spritzed with Mister Huey Lemonade. I never thought I'd use it because it just didn't work the way I wanted it to. I guess I should never say never.
The scalloped bit under the pin cushion is from a book I keep handy for crafting with. The page was just too white so I colored it with Distress Ink. The polka dot paper is from K & Company, the striped paper is from the first stack I ever bought from DCWV, neither is available any longer as far as I know.

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Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.

Mixed Media Scrapbooking Magazine Giveaway

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I can't believe I won the Mixed Media Scrapbooking magazine from Creating Keepsakes, not once but twice. Thanks to Laina Lamb, and Ashley Harris of The Scrap Review. Using the magazine as inspiration I made the Thanks above using mixed media.

I did some experimenting on a bit of watercolor paper. First I used Glossy Accents to write the word thanks on the paper and let it dry overnight. The small tip is great for writing and I will be doing this again and again because it was fun.

I spritzed the paper with Mister Huey's Lemonade and Orchard. The paper was really wet and I got impatient and blotted a bit which changed mixed the color and eliminated a lot of the splatter. Then I spritzed with a combination of cheap hairspray and red Pearlex, which gives it a bit of shimmer.  I have been using this mixture for years.

So I have these 2 identical magazines and really only need one. SO I'm giving one away. Fill in the form below and good luck.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Watercolor Paper

Inkssentials Glossy Accents Precision Tip

Jacquard Pearl-Ex Pigments

InLinkz.com

Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.

Old tape residue gone!

Thirty years ago my bedroom walls were covered in posters of pop stars and art schools. I was no allowed to paint my walls because they were paneled. The cardinal rule of wood is that it should never be painted.

Fast forward to this week. Sticky bits of tape that held up pictures of Adam Ant and others are still on those slopped paneled walls. It was my job to get them off with out damaging the panelling.

Scratched head. Light bulb.

A rubber cement pik-up. It worked well. It worked quickly. It didn't damage the wood at all. That little bit of crafty knowledge really came in handy.

Happy crafting,
Katie

What do you do without TV

Or Internet (iPhone isn't really a proper computer) or phone service ( well an iPhone is a proper phone)?

Rediscover playing cards! Yes it's like camping this week. Cabin camping because we have a nice bed to sleep in but there are no cooking utensils or pots or pans. No proper plates or flatware.

I work on scrapping the garage with my sister each afternoon -- I an getting a decent work out. Lots of arm work and hours of squats. Then my son and I eat and find some way to entertain ourselves. Watch a movie on the portable DVD player, visit an old friend's family, lose ourselves in a bookstore.

After an evening of "what should we do tonight?" he goes to sleep and I wish I could sleep. Insomnia is a bitch.

Next week the crafty projects start again. Promise.

Flashback 1980-something

Look what I found today. Think I'll take these home with me.

Today we scrape

Dad's garage needs painting so today we scrape.

Here is the garage all scrapped and the tools we used.

Gratitude and Tutorials that changed my life

Today is a day for gratitude. 

I have been sent many cards of condolence and am grateful for all the thoughts and prayers of my friends and acquaintances. I was told you don't send a thank you card to thank someone for a sympathy card but I feel like I need to say thank you. My mojo is broken or at least a bit rusty but I made a card for everyone anyway and here it is.

Tutorials that Changed My Life

I work with Photoshop every day for my job so any new tricks I learn go into my work flow almost immediately. I knew how to make digital curled edges (like those on the photo above) using the warp tool and a new layer, but I never knew you could make a layer of an effect (like a drop shadow) until I saw Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's video Tutorial on Digital Curled Edges.  This was such a game changer for me.  Now I can layer things and have them look more natural.

When things are layered the upper most item will cast shadows differently across items below it and on the ground or table or whatever. I have always been bothered by uniform drop shadows. Well Julie's tutorial showed me how to fix this problem. I create cast shadows so much better now. 

I make a drop shadow layers for both the close items and those further away.
I eliminate the parts of the close shadow that are not needed.
I move the further distance shadow below the other items in the layers palette.
I link all the layers associated with the item (item and both layers) so they can be move around together.
It looks so much more natural. I can do this with irregular shapes, like products and people, but I made a simple example for this post.

 

The next life changer is Kelly Purkey's How to Make Hexagon Photos tutorial. I have been creating rules and putting photos in squares, rounded corner squares, circles, and bursts.  But Kelly introduced me to the custom shape tool which is found in the same spot on the tool bar. (In Photoshop Elements this is called the cookie cutter tool and can according to a friend who did a bit of testing can only be used on top of an image to cut it out.)

 

It's like a box of chocolates. Look at all the possibilities. The first thing I made using these shapes was a blue ribbon using the blue ribbon, burst and a circle. It was quick and easy but more importantly cheaper than buying clip art.

Many of these shapes will never find their way into my work but some will. And when you add the Silhouette to the mix I see a lot of interesting cards/scrapbook pages in my future.

I have a few tutorials and projects in the planning stages but it will be a while. I have a few family things I need to deal with first. Thanks for stopping by.

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Happy Crafting,

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Click here to help my son pay his own way through scouts. Order Trail's End popcorn using code 79936evan674 and great tasting treats will be delivered to your door.