Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  A belated Happy New Year to you all.  I hope that 2017 brings you all the wonderful things that you wish for yourself.

Yesterday was my first official day back at the office.  I was "on vacation" but had to check email and do those types of things during my days off.    

That gave me time to do some things around the house, spend some quality time with Lou - and also to make some cards for "Cards for Hospitalized Kids".  In total I managed to make 150 cards.  I didn't get to make as many for Card Care Connection - so will be finishing up some more for them over the next couple of weeks.

I find making cards for children pretty hard - and especially hard for those children that are above tweens!  I reached out to a friend of mine who has a 15 year old and have asked for some ideas from her and her friends and will be using those ideas for the next round of cards that I made.

Not only did I get to make some cards, but I also managed to create 3 art journal pages.   Cards for teenagers is hard... but art journal pages are harder for me.  Because I don't consider myself to be "artistic", I have avoided doing any more pages for the last 15 months.  However, I really wanted to use some of the materials and supplies that I had purchased and watched a video that talked about "art" and "artistic" and what they really mean and how we are all artistic in our own way and we shouldn't compare ourselves and our abilities to others.   I thought about that for a while and decided that I would NEVER be able to draw like my besties Pam and John - or my brother.  I will NEVER create realistic images of animals and birds... or people's faces - as I would love to be able to do....  but I will NEVER get better at anything unless I let go and practiced :-)

So... I have some cards to share with you over the next couple of weeks - and will also be sharing my art journal pages.  I made a commitment to myself that I would do at least one journal page a month and started sketching out some ideas.  Once I let go of the "I can't do this because I can't draw" - I actually enjoyed myself and had fun creating the pages.    I just wish I could let go of the constant need to clean my hands, brushes and palette :-)  I will be sharing the pages with you in the hope that you are inspired to follow your inner voice and create some pages - if you are so inclined. :-)

For the cards for Cards for Hospitalized Kids - I did make several cards that were similar.  None of them were exactly the same... I changed up the colors, etc so didn't take photos of all of them :-)

The first ones I will share with you were made using some putty tats that I found from a company in Europe called Katzelkraft.  I didn't want to pay shipping from Europe and found that there is a company here in the US that carries them, so was happy to pay local shipping.  The cats are the sweetest things and I preferred them to the Crazy Cats from Tim Holtz.  

Of course, I colored them to represent some of our own .... Bailey and Charlie in this instance :-)  I used the Tim Holtz grunge stamps to create a "floor" for the cats to sit on and the Simon Says Stamp "word bubble" dies for the sentiments.   I thought they made super cute cards.

Another set I made used a fairy stamp I bought in the middle of last year.   These stamps allowed me to create cards with different skin colors and used different shades of pink and purple and turquoise for the fairy outfits.  The colors look a little washed out as it was a VERY bright afternoon and the sun was streaming into the dining room, so they do look much prettier in hand :-)

We had another 6 inches of snow and I went out onto the front porch when it was snowing.  It was so wonderfully quiet and looked so pretty that I couldn't help but get out my camera :-)

I absolutely love the new lanterns that we bought this year.  They are from Pier 1 and looked so perfect with the snow... they didn't have candles in yet and look even better now :-)

Aren't they pretty?  I love the vintage feel and the bright pop of red against the snow :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with some more cards - and some more photographs :-)  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee