Octopi?!?

I'm a sucker for a bargain. There is no arguing the fact that I'll buy stuff that's a "good deal" that I wouldn't normally purchase. So when my neighbor mentioned that Oriental Trading had some great deals on clearance scrapbooking supplies and they were offering free shipping on orders over $60, I figured I was good for half of that.
The order arrived last week and I was enjoying myself, unpacking the plastic bags everything comes in and finding tidy homes for each item. Then I came across these felt stickers.

It's obvious that the green stickers are holly leaves and the red stickers may be peppermint candies, but what in the heck are those brown things. They look like upside down octopi! After a few minutes of puzzling at them and trying to figure out what an octopus has to do with Christmas, the visual puzzle cleared itself and I could see it - they are REINDEER HEADS with curly swirly antlers. Okay.

So, I decided I needed to use these up right away before I forgot what they were. I laid them out in sections along the border of a 12x12 beige cardstock to form a frame. These little buggers were #@%& to get off the backing, tending to curl back on themselves. With a small tweezers and large patience, I did it. It took a good long while, let me tell you, and I didn't even use up the whole roll of border (and I still have another roll).

My younger son, coming it to visit, looked over my shoulder at the finished page and said, "Mom, why did you put octopus on that page?"

Ants at a Picnic

This card started out with just the dusty rose-colored card, a 9x9 piece. I cut it down to 8.5 x 5.5, as if it were half of a letter-sized piece. That way it will fit into my purchased envelopes. Then I dug through the pile of embellishments on my table (remember the "Oversized Stickers). I found these checked tablecloth border stickers and I immediately thought "picnic". Of course what's a picnic without ants? I just happen to have an ant paper punch (imagine that!), so I grabbed some black card and punched out an odd number of ants. For some reason, an odd number of items always looks better on a page than an even number.

Then I picked a funky alpha stamp from Close to my Heart and stamped and matted. I used their Barn Red ink, which came out a little browner than I expected, but it matches really well now that it's dried all the way. I've noticed with some Close to my Heart inks that, although they appear dry soon after stamping, the color seems to change slightly over time. Also, if you apply paper glaze or glitter glaze on the fresh ink, it lifts up a yellowish tinge into the glaze. So it's best to let the ink dry longer before glazing.

I was challenged when it came to picking a saying for the inside. I didn't want to be specific to the picnic theme, and I search for quotes involving ants, but didn't find anything appropriate. "It's not a picnic without ants" is cute, but no. And this quote from The Family Guy - "You're an ant in the picnic of life" - definitely not. So I settled with "Don't let anything spoil your day".

When I made the tag, I followed them theme and used a piece of barn red ribbon for the tassle, securing it with a snap attached with the Crop-A-Dile setter. It is an awesome tool. I could never have punched holes in ribbon without it, not even with a leather punch.

Here are the tags to go along with the cards - I'm please with how they came out. Turns out I only have one stamp set that says To: From: so they all got that same stamp. It saves time setting individual letter stamps.

I got an email today from Hancock's of Paducah, one of my favorite internet shopping sites, and oh they are tempting me. 20% off an entire purchase of $50 or more. Lord, please help me be strong! I just got a big package from them on Christmas Eve.

I've been on a hunt to help a customer identify a plant in her yard damaged by falling branches. It turns out to be the coolest thing - Indian Head Ginger. If we end up supplying her plants for her, I'd like to get a few myself for our shady side yard. Take a look:

Reuse, Renew

Over the past two weeks, I've been working on a scrapbooking project for my friend and neighbor and I gave it to her without taking pictures first! Oh well.

In between times, I try to go through my voluminous amounts of STUFF and pare down things that I acquired and haven't used. Many of the things I acquired came from when I was an "instructor" for "I Remember When" and was paying for an automatic monthly shipment of scrapbooking supplies. I had one small packet of die-cut and painted plastic pieces with a spring theme (eggs, tulips, clover). Scratching my head about what I was going to do with 10 four-leaf clovers, I remembered that I have an upcoming card exchange with the same group from my last post. I had signed up to do birthday tags, but I think I'm going to do card/tag combinations. Here is a card for a spring birthday (inside it says "It's your day to shine".)

It's odd how the color shifted when I scanned this. The green of the clover is almost the exact shade of green as the SMILE sticker, yet they scanned in the blue range. I know I could Photoshop the colors to correct them, but that would mean creating masks and layers and a bunch of other work.... Isn't this supposed to be fun?

I also found a huge amount of STUFF in a file sorter (and a fairly useless one at that) labeled OVERSIZE STICKERS. Now what kind of a category is that? Let's really call it STICKERS I WAS TOO BORED TO SORT AND SHOVED IN A FILE. The flowering bamboo sticker I used on the following card was one long 12-inch sticker that I cut into 3 parts, used two on front and 1 on the inside. The rubber stamp phrase is from Close To My Heart. Inside quote - "Wishing you a beautiful day".
This last card I made when I was so tired that I was having trouble focusing my eyes, so I'm kind of proud of how even everything is. I have a hard enough time getting things glued down straight and it usually takes me a few tries (thank goodness for repositionable adhesive.) The little animal stickers were about 12" long, so I cut them up into sections to frame the card. After getting the animals on, I was stumped on what to do next or what sentiment the card needed. I didn't have any larger appropriate animal stickers or rubber stamp animal images. I didn't want to do a zoo theme or Noah's ark theme. These colored scraps begged to be included, and the word sticker popped up from stickers I had sorted earlier in the day. Inside, I framed out with more animals and put the following phrase in a jaunty font - "Have a fun-filled day".
Tonight I will make matching tags.