Feeling Flakey

It's been rather cold these last couple of days and with no desire to go out (except for a dr. appt. yesterday), I just want to stay inside and keep warm!  Haven't done much in the area of crafting although I must say my sewing room has been calling my name of late.  It certainly is warmer in there since it is upstairs but instead I continue to hang out in the basement trying to learn AI.  At least I have a fireplace down here so it helps!

I've been playing with Indigo Blu Mega Flakes and created a card using this wonderful foil product.  I chose the mix called Eton Mess (I know....what a name..lol), a birch tree die from Taylored Expressions and an embossing folder by Sizzix with birch trees.

I wanted the birch die to be the focal point and chose to apply the Mega Flakes to the die.  I first adhered a sheet of double sided adhesive paper to a piece of scrap cardstock.  The great thing about doing this technique is that it allows you to use your scraps since you'll never see the paper underneath once you apply the flakes!  Next, I cut the paper using the birch die.  I then pulled off the protective layer from the top of die cut.  Using the flakes and a Rub It, Scrub It foam (by Ranger), I dropped some flakes on the adhesive side of the die cut and distributed the flakes with the foam piece.  It covered beautifully!  Once done, I placed my residual flakes back in the jar.  I positioned my birch tree die on the card using pop dots to give it some dimension as well.  A couple of cardinals (my fav) and I was done.

Here is the result:

I'm thinking I may add a phrase on the bottom right in white and pop it off the card with pop dots.  I love the simplicity of the card.

Now I think I'll try to organize my work area since I've got everything under the sun on my table!  Not sure how I can work in the clutter but it works for me....lol

Later!

Winding Down

It's been a busy few weeks with trying to get my digital files up and loaded in my Etsy shop but for the most part I think I'm done.  I was a little disappointed that I couldn't load the rest of the girl elves but I just didn't want to take the chance that customers  would struggle to use them.  The detail in the files puts a limit on how small they will cut successfully and rather than have unhappy customers I chose to skip it this year.  I will continue to work on them and perhaps get them up next year.

My garden flags that I ordered arrived and I want to do an "Elf Surveillance" flag for our front yard.  I have a small piece of inkjet printable left that I can use for one of the layers but it would leave me without any should the  one customer want her ornament order after all.  I am waiting to hear from her and once I do, I will better know whether it's a go or whether I need to order more.  I should order more anyway....

In the cardmaking department, I have actually put that all aside this month.  I do want to create a few cards to send to family and friends but it is so nice not to have to create anything this month for demonstrating.

I'm actually anxious to begin another project.....snowman key pins!  They are so cute and I knew when I saw the pattern that I wanted to create some as little gifties.  The base is a Tim Holtz key and the face is created with Kwik Wood.  I've never used this product so this should be interesting...lol

I've got to get my grandkids' ornies in the mail this weekend if they are to hang them on the tree this year!  I hope they don't think they are creepy....I thought it was funny to see elves trapped inside the ornie...I guess I have a warped sense of humor...

We did manage to get our Christmas tree up too!  I had a little tree the last couple of years and so we didn't have many ornaments for this year.  We went out and bought some but after hanging them all, the tree still looks rather bare.  I'm hoping we can go out this weekend and pick up a few more boxes.  It'll be an excuse to get over to Valley View Farms!

Finally, I am determined to learn Illustrator this year!  It has been a pain in the patootie converting files from Sil Studio to SVG and then to DXF, PNG and JPG.  Ugh!  So, I believe learning AI will allow me to create all the different formats in AI and have a native AI file of my design files.  It will be of better quality because the files will be vector files which maintain their sharp images.  I have a subscription to AI and would also love to get Photoshop but I figure I should probably learn one software at a time.  This old gray matter just isn't what it use to be.  I signed up with Train Simple and they have wonderful tutorials for every Adobe product for a very reasonable price.  Hoping that in a couple of months I will have had enough training to be able to create my designs.  My designs are no where near as complicated or elaborate as someone who is a Graphic Designer so I don't need all the extra fancy shadows, etc....just need to be able to do line drawings, some layers, and compound paths.  The big bonus is the ability to generate the different formats.  Woohoo!

It's late and I best be closing this post for now.  I've got a hair appt. tomorrow so I need to actually get to bed at a "decent" hour ... lol.  Good nite!