fabric egg tutorial

One of the first cards I made was for Easter of 2009.  This was well before I was taking pictures of my cards, so you will have to imagine it.  I cut a silhouette of a little chick out of patterned paper and adhered it to a card.  It was simple, and understated.  Much like these fabric egg cards from Martha Stewart.  This would be a great project to try if you have ever wondered about using fabric with paper.  I love the idea of coordinating an envelope liner to match too.  You can find the tutorial here.   It is pretty simple if you are an experienced crafter and if not, this would be a great starter project to try.

Let me know how it turns out!

design fail

Maybe you have, or maybe you haven’t noticed, but I have fallen behind on my design challenge.  One of my strengths is being able to recognize my faults pretty quickly and without much drama.  And this my friends, is one of them.  Probably should NOT have given myself more to do during this season of life.

After last weekend was spent moving the little lady into her big girl bed, as well as enjoying some Mother’s Day time, I realized that I was not going to have an invite ready for Monday’s post.  And here, an entire week has vanished away from me again.  I had the best intentions of getting both designs up today, but alas…it is not in the stars.  My apologies if you have been hoping to see these designs.  The good news is, that while the blog is silent, the life is happening!  We have been sharing some wonderful moments as a family, enjoying the weather and getting ready for baby.  Pulled all the baby girls clothes out this weekend and sorted and sorted.  And with my recent anemia diagnosis (boo hoo)… I am realizing that my o.so.tired.bones are not just due to laziness (yea, I have to work on not seeing it that way), or busyness, or a lack of ability to do it all, but to an iron deficiency, throwing me off my game.

So the moral of this story?  I do hope to get these invites finished and posted, but I am not promising anything.  I am feeling sort of ready to finish up with my current clients and be done with the biz side of life for awhile.  I do rather enjoy spending my limited amount of energy doing the nesting things.  And soaking in all the moments I have with my Sweet Saida before I have the joy/obligation/challenge/duty/honor of sharing my attention with her new little sister.  Today we made these granola bars and played the morning away filling and dumping buckets of water and putting our toes in the freezing sprinkler water.  Of course, while we were out there, I thought that I should also do some weeding and sweeping of all the pesky windmills all over the patio… and my hips and low back are telling me all about the stupidity of that decision.

Here are some shots of the past few weeks of spring, a growing little girl and a growing belly.

kite day at the beach

loving sand in her hands

 

an evening at the park

another belly shot, i can still see my toes

painting a room for lil’ sis

working in the yard

 

going

 

gone

spring greetings

I am not sure why it has taken me 2 weeks to get these pictures taken and edited… but I am happy to share these 4 new spring/summer greeting card designs that I created for the spring subscription shipment.  Watch for them in the Esty store!

 

 

the process

It should never surprise me how the design process is so full of twists and turns.

Yet it ALWAYS does.

Sometimes I step back from my final creation and think, “wait, how did I get here?”

Once back at home with all my new papers, I have some ideas rolling in my head.

Something like this

and something kinda like this

I had a desire, a picture in my head of something with layered patchwork with the floral papers, something vintagy, and springy, and textured… but clearly, I did not hit it with this one

I mean, it is fine, but it is nothing like the picture in my mind, and doesn’t shout “YES!!”

So I walk away.  Go about my day.  Pick up Saida from my sisters.  Show them to Ben.  Unsettle.

And then I walk past my desk, “what about burlap, and that other paper that I loved! I bet it matches the linen tape…”

And Bam!

There it is…

but you can’t blame me for being surprised when

where did the warm go?

Apparently, someone thought it would be a good idea to take all the warmth of spring and put it into one week. So instead of getting a gradual warm up with 50 and 60 degree days, we had one week of 80 degree temps and now we are back to 40’s.

I for one, am not a fan.

I am ready to be back outside. I appreciated that little warm up very much, and now I would like it to come back please.

I captured some photos of a walk we took a couple weeks ago after church.  On this rainy, it-might-snow-today day, I need a little reminder of those glorious days and some hope that the sun will return to Rochester.

I mean, it has to at some point, right??

These are the first flowers Saida picked for me with out being prompted by her daddy!

One of my favorite spots in Rochester

Though, I do wish the water wasn't so green, it is still a lovely place to walk.

I forgot the bread, but Saida loved feeding her goldfish to the swan.

and there she is, one of the Turning Point beauties!