It Smells Like Rain

This pre-fall overcast day is quite welcome with the smell of rain in the air.

The forecast is 50% chance of rain . . . and the temperature was at 78° F. It may get a bit warmer . . . and maybe not.fallwallpaper3

The pre-fall weather and the early fall weather has been a bit stubborn for several years. I always have hope that fall will come and stay. I do seem to be surprised . . . but there is nothing we can do about the weather except enjoy it.

It’s always good to get out and enjoy the morning. Everything is relatively quiet in my neighborhood. At one time I thought it a bit eerie . . . like a sci fi movie — remember the pod people? I wondered if pods were behind the closed gates and garage doors . . .

Yes, I have an overactive imagination at times.

It does seem like the perfect day to dig out a jigsaw puzzle. Since my brother moved to Alaska, I’ve been thinking of nature and the wildlife he sees. This 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle by SunsOut is a beautiful Forest Collage you and your family may enjoy putting together.

The artist, Jim Hansel is a premier wildlife, nature and landscape artist.

The completed dimensions of this 1000 piece masterpiece is 20 inches by 27 inches.

This seems like a sensible way of kicking off the pre-fall season.

This jigsaw puzzle is challenging enough for adults and not too discouraging for children. I think it’s a great family project.

You may also enjoy:

I could go on and on with the selection of jigsaw puzzles I’d love to put together with my family and friends . . . This is enough to get you started selecting the jigsaw puzzles you and your family would enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharon

Paper Crafts

Twenty, Twenty-five, Maybe Even 30 years ago . . . 

I was at my favorite craft store.dreams

This was when scrapbooks were the “in thing.”

For me, a scrap book was not a photo album, but a book where you saved newspaper articles, ticket stubs, pressed flowers, printed programs and flyers . . . Maybe those photo booth strips of silly pictures you’d take with your friends . . . maybe even those fortune telling cards you’d get from a machine . . .  or even tokens from the county fair . . . Just junk . . . but they were treasures to you at that time . . . It’s now emphemera. A fancy name for junk collected, that seemed valuable for a short time.

Back then you could buy designer papers by the sheet and there were special cut-outs and embellishments available to buy to dress up your scrapbook pages of family vacations or family holidays . . .

Papercrafting has come a long way . . . 

There are cutting machines, our computers and printers have come a long way since then, as has the internet.

We can buy designer paper, still . . . or we can download it and print it out on our card stock . . . We can buy all kinds of bling to go along with our scrapbook pages or even make our own scrapbooks, mini-albums, cards . . . centerpieces, gift boxes . . . etc.

Many papercraft hobbies have become a business. It’s amazing how times have changed . . .

I shouldn’t be surprised or amazed, actually . . . Some things grow rather than die out. We do love our hobbies and paper crafts have been around for centuries . . . We always think we’ve discovered something new and exciting only to find that it has all been done before. Maybe not as easily as today, but it has been done before.

I like papercrafts with a purpose . . . boxes . . . books with secret compartments . . . 3-D Haunted Houses with a secret compartment . . . even cards with a slot for a lollipop . . .

magicofbooksThen . . . I started thinking . . . the pop-up cards . . . I’ve always loved pop-up books . . . even those sugar Easter eggs with a scene inside . . . or the image I saw in a book of Alice Through The Looking Glass . . .  Do you remember the old View Masters .  . . and the 3-D Movies . . .

We still have 3-D Movies . . . we can make our own pop-up books and cards . . . we can make all kinds of 3-D houses and whatever with paper for displaying in our homes for holidays and for everyday.

We get motivated by seeing things others have done . . . and we must try to do it for ourselves . . . We can always find instructions on YouTube . . . or we can figure it out for ourselves and create our own YouTube video tutorial to share with others . . .

And, of course, there are machines and dies and clip-art . . . SVG kits . . . things to buy and things to make from free printables . . .

What I thought about scrapbooking 25 to 30 years ago has changed . . . for the better . . . 

There’s a woman on YouTube who tells a story about attending a scrapbooking workshop . . . it was something suggested by her boss years ago while she was working for a company . . . She couldn’t imagine why he suggested she take this workshop . . . Now she has her own papercrafting business in her own home . . . Probably making more money than she did out in the work force.

Even at that time, while attending the workshop, she couldn’t see the sense of it . . . but now . . . It was a turning point in her life.

I remember my cousin telling me about her new Cricut machine and the cartridges she bought . . . all the paper crafts she could make with those die-cuts. All I could think about was the expense and the collection of all those cartridges . . . But now . . . I’m thinking things through differently.

For some of us, it takes time to decide what it is that we want to do . . . to make . . . to create . . . halloweenpopupcard

I looked at the Silhouette Cameo for years before purchasing one. I’ve looked at the Big Shot for years before purchasing it, too. I didn’t know how important it was to be able to emboss paper . . . or to have templates and a machine that would cut them out . . . The Silhouette Cameo can do a lot of cutting and is great for clip-art cutouts, too. I thought this was all I really needed . . . it was a definite answer to avoid the cutter of dies, etc. But, there are times when embossing is necessary . . . yes, Silhouette has a machine for that . . . But, I wanted something else . . . something I’d been fighting . . . The Big Shot . . . especially when I discovered Karen Burniston’s YouTube Video Tutorials for making pop-ups and sliders . . .

It’s necessary to have a space in your home for your crafts . . . it could be sewing or needlework, or even paper crafts. I have a friend who is into film making. She did a lot of it with advertisements for her furniture store. She got her kids and their friends to participate in her ads . . . A forerunner of YouTube Videos now . . .

We’ve come a long way . . . or is it just an easier way?

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now . . .

Then, looking back to all the time I’ve . . . I was going to say “wasted” . . . but it is a process . . . not a waste of time . . .

It is about learning . . . personal growth . . . deciding what it is we do need to open and fulfill that creative outlet within . . . We do need to express ourselves . . . in some creative way . . .

This reminds me of an Amazon Pilot for a series called Interestings . . . It’s an Amazon Prime Video thing . . . It’s about a group of people who got together at a camp for “creative kids” with acting, dance, art, music . . . 

This group or certain members of the group are still together and meet up years later . . . which is kind of a regular thing for them — not a reunion thing. It’s how their friendships formed over the years . . . You may have a different “take” on it . . . It all depends upon one’s perspective at the time . . . 

This all seems applicable to life . . . In the beginning there is a quote . . . Life if understood backwards . . . But we have to live it forwards. I may have messed up the quote a bit, but the concept is there.

And quite applicable with hobbies and papercrafts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharon

Oh, if you haven’t jumped onboard yet with papercrafts . . . you may want to check out these links:

Thanks again for stopping by! Be sure to bookmark this website . . . we’d love for you to visit us again . . . and tell your friends.

Until next time,

Sharon

Pop-Up Halloween Spider Card

I absolutely love pop-up cards!!

I’m not a fan of spiders, but I’m making an exception in this case because he is quite adorable.

My head is still spinning a bit with the mechanics of making this card. The great news is that there’s a video tutorial that you can play over and over and over again. Any time there’s something new, it’s natural to get lost in the details. It does come together once you get started and work through the process along with the video.

Pop-ups are excellent for cards and mini-albums. It’s nice to use this concept for your other projects as well.

Since I bought my Silhouette Cameo I wanted to make everything simple. That has been the case, but it’s also necessary to take the time to add more details . . . and there is the need for die cuts, too.

The whole purpose of card making, scrapbooking, mini-albums, etc. is the detail. Without detail with your own personal touch, everything will be like the manufactured cards you can purchase everywhere. You are unique, your friends and family are unique . . . so make cards that are meant for them and have your personal flair of creativity they love about you. It’s all about giving something to others you’re proud to have displayed in their homes . . . knowing they are proud to display them and keep them for years to come.

You’re probably wondering why I’m going on about the detail . . . this may be what separates real scrappers from the wannabe scrappers . . . I may be in the latter category . . . wanting to create something unique and spectacular . . . which requires detail and time and . . . a variety of supplies and die cuts.

I am a major fan of Sizzix’s Big Shot . . . and now Karen Burniston’s dies . . . and video tutorials, too.

I’ve wanted to be comfortable with making pop-up displays. Trial and error is great. It works. Having a die cut that streamlines the process is excellent. There are different die cuts for different pop-up displays. I do encourage you to check out Karen’s YouTube Channel and her website to learn all you can about her products and her techniques for making brilliant cards that you can adapt to your projects.

Here are some helpful links to take your crafting to the next level:

It’s always good to start out slowly with the basics or you can dive right in and wow yourself and your friends and family with your awesomeness!!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Sharon

Vintage Halloween Nut Cup Free Printable

I love vintage stuff!!

I call it a nut cup because we’d have parties with little cups of nuts. But you can put candy in them.halloweennutcup

You can even have a little mix of stuff to put into these cups.

I do like the vintage look of this Halloween Free Printable.

Click the image on the right to be taken to the PDF where you can download it and print it out. I added a couple more PDFs to go with this. I can’t seem to give you just one.

All you have to do is cut out the printable, fold the fence pieces so they show on the outside of the box, then glue the little tabs together and you’ll have an open box you can fill will nuts, candy or a special treat of some kind.

These are great for home parties and school parties.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharon

Are Small Towns Creepy?

Have you noticed all the strange things that happen in small towns?

It’s mostly in movies and fiction.smalltown

It seems a wonderful theme for a series of books or a series for cable. There have been particular sections of towns or streets that have been made famous on film and in literature. There’s always a secret . . . or some mysterious disappearance . . . and the return of someone after 15 years . . . and things start happening again . .

Everyone knows everyone’s business . . . and the family secrets . . . or individual secrets . . .

I do love books and series about small towns.

It makes it easy to keep track of the characters . . . and the interlocking nature of relationships and interactions.

I wouldn’t like everyone knowing my business . . . not that my personal business is all that interesting . . . We’ve all . . . most of us at any rate, have gone through “embarrassing moments” while growing up. They’re not a big deal anymore now, but I wouldn’t want others to remind me of them.

I’m sure you or someone you know did something stupid or embarrassing years ago . . . There are many fortunate people who have gone through life without any “embarrassing moments.” I’m truly happy for them.

But these small town secrets or mysteries stem from all sorts of things . . . ghosts, UFOs . . . family legacy . . . And authors capitalize on them and the public eats them up.

I like the ghost angle, not so much into UFOs, but anything is possible. The family legacy or a family curse is interesting . . . I’m not into real creepy stuff, but many times it involves woods and something out in those woods . . .

So, I made a mental note not to live in or near “the woods” or in a place or even a street name that is suggestive of a known legendary place.

I’ve been watching this series about a woman who returns home . . . not on purpose, but because she was drawn there . . . missed time . . . found herself in her hometown where an “incident” happened.

The town folk don’t want her around, but she’s staying . . . to find out what’s going on. And what happened 14 or 15 years ago . . .

I got sucked in . . .

This got me thinking about “small towns” and the many books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched.

It is kind of creepy when you stop to think about it.

With an Amazon Prime Membership you’ll be able to see if the Kettering Incident is something you’d enjoy watching . . . or there may be other series you may prefer . . . I also got hooked on American Gothic and can’t wait for the new season. You can sign-up for a free trial of Amazon Prime and, if after 30 days you find you like it, you’ll pay $99. annually. You get so very much more than video streaming . . . there’s music, free second day delivery of products you order and an early look at discounted items . . . Great for this coming holiday season. 

Click the image above to see if this is for you.

Thanks for stopping by . . .

Sharon