The World's Most Neglected Blog

     Wow, does the time fly! I can't believe it's nearly August! I feel like I've had very little summer this year as I've been busy working, teaching, and making progress on my national certification. There hasn't been much time for doing fun things, but I have made time about once a month to sit and make something.

     The first project I made this summer was the result of a challenge from my crafting group. We all brought a little-used older stamp set to our last meeting, along with a sketch, and tried to use our old sets in new ways. I rediscovered my love of all things vintage on this project and remembered how much I love the look of stamped vellum!

 

     For the second project, I used my new butterfly dies from Stampin' Up to cut some paper I watercolored with random inks. I layered the die cuts over a simple white card base and some dry embossed white banner pieces. This was a fast and fun project!

    For the third card, I got a jump on creating my fall invitations. My family always hosts a Halloween party in the fall, and I know I will be consumed this fall with all the conferences I'm involved in.

     For this card, I used the partial die cutting technique to create a pumpkin border. I stared with a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch piece of white card stock, placed my pumpkin dies along the edge, and just cut out the right hand side by staggering my cutting plates and trimming the space in between with my craft knife. I stamped the images on the front of the card, and then layered the front over a standard kraft card base with the front edge trimmed off by about an inch. Using dies for borders is such a fun technique, and doing this project really got my creative juices flowing about all the other dies I have in my stash that could be fun borders!

     Thanks for stopping by today, and sorry my blog has been so boring lately! I'm looking forward to all the challenges to come, but I know that time is sure to get away from me. Enjoy the sunshine!