Valentine Card-Tag

All hand made.  How cool is to get the answer to a question by pulling a tassel and seeing yourself in the mirror?  And of course, a lipstick print will show on your cheek (shown here is true lipstick... a few days later I found the perfect transparent sheet sticker and wiped the lipstick off).  I used a tag I cut with the Cricut on heavy Kraft paper at 8"x3"measurements, then I had to design the envelope upon those measurements and line the back interior.  The tassel is made with twine and 'eyelash' ribbon; the heart edge on the envelope is a MS punch that I inverted and re-did from the opposite direction so that both edges of the strip turned out scalloped.  Punches are hard to handle when you have bad hands.  It took me 5 tries to get the strips to punch right... wasted a lot of paper.  

The Courtesan

Bleaching embossed stamped images is impressive to see it happen.  The paper started losing color and the image took on a very different look.  It was the bleach.  Plain old household bleach.  I put about 1tsp inside a prescription bottle (of course! secure lid, stands upright, I can write the content with a marker all over...) and used a very, very, fine brush to apply it.  The image I chose was not particularly simple.  Many lines, different thicknesses and this would require 'detail' embossing powder.  Unlike the regular embossing powder, 'detail' is super fine and sticks to everything, so it is wise to use the pillow of anti-static powder.  Impress the stamp, apply powder and heat emboss.  Let the image cool off completely and then apply bleach.  In this case I chose the neck, torso and just hints of the legs.  Slow application prevents puddles.  If the tint is uneven, you can go over a second time after it is dry.  Let it happen, it works on its own.

Knotted in silk brown pearls

Oh yeah, I remember having to make the knots soooooo carefully, lose at first and then using a T pin, drop the knot above the pearls.  Tighten slowly and do not slide the pin out at the wrong time.  After a while it became second nature, but there was always the hope that something would come along that would pre-empt the ugly conversation we have with ourselves when we have 17 perfect knots and we drop the next one too far apart.  And it is tight.  And you start fraying the thread when you pick it lose.  No more.  I found this amazing tool from Beadalon, retails for around 30$ and it is precise, easy to use and lightweight.  I am always looking for tools that are easy to handle.  When I cannot close my fingers, around a pin, how am I expected to make a perfect knot?  I made this set in less than 2 hours, using gimp and all.  

College Years

There were a lot of giggles in the class when I hung this sample on the board.  Sometimes a title works best when it is placed somewhere other than the top of the page.  In this layout, the words 'College Years' did not have as much appeal as the title I chose.  The fact that it was black and white really added to the feel of vintage 50's. 

Time to Meet Locket

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised
as impossible situations.  John Gardner

Our hands are the most complex tools... and when our hands fail, the results may not always satisfy our expectations.  So here is the deal: should we lower our expectations and leave a creation as it stand?  I do not think so.  We work through the pain, we take a break and pick up where we left the next day.  But NEVER GIVE UP.  This piece took 3 days to complete.