Hello Friends.  Happy Friday.  I haven't been able to do my daily walking for the past few days.  I have not been able to wake up early enough before the temperature begins to get hot.  I need to start walking before 7 am.  It doesn't look like the temperature will be cooling down any time soon.  It's been in the low 100s this whole week and will continue on to next week. I attempted to do some yoga but my DVD player stopped working and my favorite yoga program is stuck inside my DVD player.  I do have another DVD player that I will need to set up.  It's unfortunate that my DVD is stuck in the player.  

I did not work on a card last night.  Instead I organized my dies.  I am shocked as to how many I have and how many I have not used, not even once.  That has got to change.  There was a time that I would buy stamping, card making and scrapbooking products in hopes it would motivate me to start creating again but it never worked.  Or, I would have a momentary moment of motivation and start buying new products then in a short time lose interest or life gets too busy.  That is how I ended up accumulating things and end up not using them.  Does that happen to you?

I made this cute birthday card the other day.  I can't remember the brand name of the stamp because I colored the image last year but I did use Echo Park designer paper for the card.  Echo Park has monthly warehouse and clearance sales.  They currently have their summer warehouse sale.  I'm tempted to buy a few things but I will refrain from doing so until I start using what I already have.  Anyway, check the Echo Park Warehouse Sale.  

There are a few projects I would like to work on this weekend.  I'll share them once I'm done.  Hope you all have a lovely Friday. 💖

Visit me on Instagram: Stampin Inspirations

I'm On The Roll - Birthday Card

Happy Wednesday!  The week has been flying really quick.  I've been on the roll with creating cards, I worked on a few cards last night.  I decided this week I'm going to concentrate on relaxing and focus on crafting.  I want to organize my pantry but I think I'm going to work on it next week.  There are a lot of organizing that I want to do, especially my garage, but I need to wait until the temperature cools down a little.  It's been in the 100s the past weeks.  There are a lot of projects I want to work on including crafting projects but I need to be patient.  I can't do everything all at once.

Last night I followed a sketch on Pinterest.  The card sketch was a simple design.  I didn't save the card sketch but the next time I follow one to make a card, I'll share it on my post so if you want you can follow it as well to provide you an idea on how to lay out your card design.

I believe the stamped image on this card is Penny Black.  I can't exactly remember because I stamped and colored the image a year ago.  I colored the image using Copic Markers and Prismacolor pencils for the shading.  Speaking about Copic Markers, I've had my Copic Markers since 2007 I believe and I have rarely refilled them, only a few of the skin tone colors had to be refilled.  It remained juicy for almost 20 years.  It's pretty unbelievable but it's true.  I've always stored them in my closet and in an air conditioned house so it never dried up.  I only would bring them out when I colored images then returned them back in to the closet.  

I have a lot of scrap designer papers from projects I created in the past.  I've created mini scrapbook albums and I have a lot of scraps because of it.  I'll share some of the mini scrapbook albums I created when I'm done designing them and adding the photos.  It's really something I really need to get done.  I used some of the scrap designer papers on this card.  I also have a lot of embossing folders so rather than adding a plain card stock to my card, I embossed it to give the card a little bit of dimension.  

The photo is blown up a bit so the coloring on the image doesn't look as good in the photo as it does in person.  Are we all critical of our work?  The truth is recipients of cards, especially handmade cards aren't critiqued in the way we critique our own work so we need to be kinder to ourselves and not be so critical about how good or bad we colored an image or designed the card.  Recipients don't care what brand of stamps and materials we used so we don't have to buy the latest and greatest.  They are just happy that they received a handmade card made out of love, right?

Anyway, until next time. . .have a great day 💓

Visit me on Instagram: Stampin Inspirations