Muse 4: Procrastination & Rodents

Those who have known me a long time know this:

I am awesome under pressure.

I am awesome in a crisis. 

If you sprain your ankle or your spouse leaves or you have emergency surgery, I'm your gal. I can immediately see what needs doing with the sharp eye of woman who grew up  with periods of nuclear family normality punctuated by sudden chaos and no clear leader. (At least that's how I internalized it.) It creates an ability to assess a situation in the moment and care for the others in the pack. I can stay calm and keep others calm, too. I am totally the one you want on your team in a zombie apocalypse.

However, being skilled at awesomeness-under-stress leaves you with two other fringe "benefits":

• You think you can leave everything to the last minute and it will all turn out swell. 
• You become addicted to the adrenalin rush of stress rewarded with accomplishment. 

That's not the good kind of stress, let me tell you. That's the kind that wreaks havoc on your heart and brain and produces that "cortisol" crap that all the weight loss commercials talk about adding weight to your mid-section. (Hey! Stop looking at my muffin top!)

So, you know how they say "adventure adrenalin junkies" go out and look for opportunities to get a rush by bungee jumping, free climbing, or pretending to be paparazzi while following Alec Baldwin? 

Stress adrenalin junkies procrastinate and then, in the last minute, attempt to come through with flying colors and get the "A". This is my opinion but I think we can all agree it could and should be proven as medical fact. And it usually ends not in accomplishment but in tears. Because this is not something we are planning for or prepared to handle should it come up. We're literally pushing it off and creating the scramble at the end. Which is completely different than an emergency. Importantly, I have learned to NOT do this in life. But in small ways it still sneaks through. (Hence, this blog.)

And now to the card. My friend G has a birthday in February. When I first knew her and asked G what day her birthday fell on she said, "I don't want to tell you, you'll make jokes." (She already knew me pretty well, I guess.) Finally, she admitted her birthday was Feb. 2. Which meant nothing to me. She said, "It's Groundhog Day." 

Now I would like to say in my defense that HAD SHE NOT SAID ALL THAT I wouldn't have made jokes. At least, not every year. I didn't even know that was Groundhog Day. But now I am committed. This year, I tried to be kind. I made a nice Groundhog card. Not the kind who forecasts more snow.

Here is where I procrastinated: I had the idea all planned out but did nothing to get it into physical form. I have been known to tell someone that something is completely designed and when they ask to see the sketch I point to my head. And it's true. The drawing board up there somehow holds onto detailed project plans for months even when I can't remember why I came in the kitchen, dammit.

This card I literally put off until the morning of a birthday breakfast. It was already belated. I was already running late. But I couldn't NOT bring the card. (This is my own personal thought police. She would not have judged. Teased, but not judged.)

So I pulled up the project that I had planned a month before on my brain's drawing board. (Wait, I think Sherlock calls it his "mind castle" which sounds much better.) So I accessed my "mind castle" and pulled out some kraft and white card stock, my Stampin' Up markers and my fussy-cut scissors. And look, it's the Martha Stewart Bird On A Wire border punch again! I told you it would be coming back! *

The front I made with two pieces of torn white card stock to represent the drifts. I dotted white ink pen for falling snow - also added to the tops of all the black sharpie hand lettering, as if snow had fallen on them. Inside, it is Spring!

I colored the birds into bluebirds and added a handwritten message, "The Groundhog says winter will end, and you still look like a Spring Chicken!" The pop up is a quickly drawn rodent, cut to shape and added to the pop up mechanism. (The card is meant to be viewed open and flat from the side.) If I had taken more time, the groundhog would have been larger. Furrier. Arms that didn't look like he was half-T-Rex. G poo-pooed all these comments at breakfast, because she is a good friend.

Further proof of procrastination? The photos herein were taken AT THE RESTAURANT on the table. I actually had to ask G for the card back so I could take pictures. I was called something politically incorrect like "Native American Take-r Back-er", meaning I was the cheating pioneer trader I assume. But I did give it back. 

I hope I inspired you to not put off for tomorrow what can be crafted today! A sense of accomplishment on time is much better than a sense of getting it done eventually!

Liza

*(I don't get anything for these links, BTW, they are there if you want to know more about the tools and supplies. Or my obscure references.)

Muse 3: Love & Trash

So my plan to get one blog up a week as I did projects was a fantastic one - until I realized I was catching up from, or getting ready for, events that included cards and gifts. And that the recipient would see them on the blog before they saw them in person....so....yeah.

I am planning out which procrastinated project to do and when to do it, to avoid this in the future. Meanwhile, here's a catch up blog! I'll post three cards this week and then sprinkle in the other projects until I am back on track.

Today I bring you a handmade
and hand colored pop-up card I designed as a one of a kind for my husband. He was out of town and came in late Valentine's day, which is not a big holiday for us. I didn't get around to making this card until the next week.

We like to bike rail trails and beach neighborhoods together. Something I am very much looking to get back to when the roads aren't covered in snow! He also likes crows, so these incorporate sort-of crows. Crow-like. Crow-inspired. :) They are from a Martha Stewart border punch of birds on a wire that I just purchased "pre-owned" from a fellow crafter. I cut them off the border after coloring them. (I have used this punch A LOT, bird fan that I am. See future projects for more uses.)

That's obviously the love, here's the trash. Funny story: My younger daughter tells me she isn't that crafty. She is a singer and very talented in all the arts but doesn't think she can make cards. And didn't seem interested. Last week I came home to find a beautiful pinwheel card with a mix of patterned paper, punched lace border element, and a hand made origami pinwheel embellishment on top of a gift for her BFF. She watched a youtube video and copied it. Like, right there and then. So, there goes THAT "I'm not crafty" theory. Her big complaint about the card? "The pinwheel stick isn't exactly straight." (No one else would have noticed, except possibly my husband. Their eyes have a naturally perfect bubble level in them or something.) 

Here's the funny part. She had cut a a few tiny pieces from the edge of a 12"x12" patterned sheet of gorgeous paper for the pinwheel. After she left I opened the garbage can and THE PAPER WAS ON TOP. Other than the tiny edge pieces missing, untouched. Not dirty (I checked, it was a new garbage bag). Not wrinkled. Just discarded. The crafter in me died a little and I rescued the paper. Yes, I dumpster dived for a .40 piece of paper and I am admitting it! That paper was used in this card. When she saw this card she said, "Oh, I had paper like that". I used it as a learning moment for "How to use every scrap of paper in other projects". Hopefully, I didn't turn her off making any more cards! (And I still have more left.)

Back to the card. I started with a Hero Arts bicycle stamp. I stamped two images. (Well, more than two and chose the best ones!) I colored them in with Stampin' Up watercolor markers. They have a brush tip and straight tip and I like them for detail work. There are a lot of good markers out there but I lean towards the Stampin' Up brand for every day crafting. 

I chose our favorite colors for the bikes. Our actual bikes are mountain/street hybrids in light blue and dark green but these images are vintage road bikes so I used poetic license. I added a "boy's bike" bar and a vintage suitcase on the back rack to one card. I also colored the background of the bikes the same as the background "sky" that the card would be so they would blend. I "fussy cut" (hand cut with small scissors) the bicycles out, leaving the basket off the "boy's" bike. The basket on the girl's bike stayed.

I fussy cut two scalloped edges from the green paper I had rescued and added those borders to the front and inside of the card to symbolize grass or hedges. I added a crow couple and sky to the front, and sky to the inside. The sky is just marker using brush strokes wherever I felt drawn. (No pun intended.)

I cut and colored two strips of heavy white card stock, one slightly shorter than the other. They match the sky so they are camouflaged. I folded about a half inch on each end back, opposite ways. Sort of a long "S" shape. I adhered one end to the back of each bike and the other end to the inside of the card, lining them up so one bike was behind the other and in front and they were riding above the grass. I added a crow stowaway on the vintage suitcase.

When you open the card, the bikes bounce a little, independently, which gives them great movement and is reminiscent of real bikes. They do get caught on each other but when I attempted to adhere them together it lost that movement so I took the risk. 

I didn't have a stamp sentiment I liked so I looked up bike quotes and love quotes on my smart phone and then wrote this saying in pencil, and went over it in marker. I erased the pencil lines and voila!

I made a matching envelope with markers, stamp, crow and all using the We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board. (Best.Tool.Ever. It makes my cards so custom. This is not a sales pitch, this board is very easy to use and fast and that's what I need!) 

I made this card while in a crafting group and someone asked me what my husband would do with this card. (There is a fear among all card makers that the recipient will look at your two hours or love and labor, smile, and throw it away. Or not smile and throw it away.) Hubby displayed it proudly and today asked me to put it somewhere it won't get damaged.




So Love & Trash. A belated Valentine's card made with discarded paper. I hope I inspired you!

Liza