Rose Thank You Cards

Hello Friends.  I recently started working on organizing my garage and I came across 3 additional containers of wood mounted rubber stamps.  I had already unmounted 170 Stampin Up sets and I thought I only had 2 containers remaining of random wood mounted stamps to unmount.  I was a bit shocked that I had 3 additional full containers of rubber stamps.  I was looking through them and it brought back memories of when I first started blogging and really getting into card making.  It felt a bit nostalgic.

I then started looking at all the craft stuff I have and a realization came to me that I will never in this lifetime be able to utilize all the things I have.  It sort of gave me a bit of anxiety and a renewed motivation to really start using them.  It would be such a waste to not have enjoyed using all the beautiful craft items I have.

I've been to a lot of garage sales where crafters were trying to get rid of their craft stuff because they are no longer interested in the hobby or a loved one has passed away.  I am always shocked at the shear volume of things that are put up for sale for a fraction of what they originally purchased them for.  There was one seller who acquired her neighbor's paper craft stuff because her neighbor was moving into a nursing home.  She was selling at least 20 containers full of scrapbook paper.   Not to mention all the dies, stamps, and even Copic Markers that were being sold.  This same lady also had jewelry making things, containers full of beads, etc.  It made me think of all the things I have and it started to make me feel a bit anxious about it. It made me feel that I really need to get cracking on creating more projects.  I don't want my daughter to have to go through the burden of having to try to sell all my stuff when I leave this Earth.

Anyway. . .just a little info about the cards I made a few days ago.  The images are by Stampin Up.  Again, a retired set.  I rubbed a card stock with dye ink then stamped the image on top of it.  It's faster than trying to color the images with Copic markers.  It took a minute or two to complete the coloring of the image.  To design the base I embossed a white card stock.  It was pretty quick to make these cards.

I also created a Thanksgiving card and tag which I'll share on my next post.  Have a wonderful Thursday.  Until next time 💓

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Halloween Card and Tag

Hello Friends!  Happy Tuesday.  I resumed unmounting my Stampin Up rubber stamps.  I ended up unmounting at least 175 stamp sets.  I'm almost done unmounting all of my wood mounted Stampin Up sets.  The stamps bring back some good memories of when I first started rubber stamping and card making.  I was so obsessed with making cards when I first started.  I needed to buy everything.  I remember when cards were made with all sorts of embellishments and ribbons.  Now cards are no longer designed with bulky embellishments.  Unfortunately, I still have all of my embellishments.  Luckily, I can still use the ribbons, stickers and embellishments on my scrapbook projects.

After I'm done with the remaining Stampin Up stamp sets, I'll start unmounting loose stamps which I have many of.  I still love the stamps so I'm not going to get rid of them.  I eventually will sell them but I'd like to still use them.  I really need to work on more cards and projects.  

I worked on a few cards with matching tags and boxes.  This set is a Halloween and tag set.  Most of the images on this set are Stampin Up.  The word stamp background was stamped then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  

My goal this week is to put up some of the Halloween decorations in my foyer and work on pruning the plants in my yard.  Sadly, with the intense summer heat, some of the leaves on several of my plants burned to a crisp.  It bothers me because the plants were so lush and pretty during Spring and the heat wave ended up damaging some of them.  

Well that's it for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful day. 💓

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Fall Card and Box Project

Hello Friends!  Happy Friday!  I worked on a few Halloween and Fall/Thanksgiving projects last night.  I even tried a few stamping techniques.  It was fun.  The temperatures are finally cooling down a bit.  I'm thinking of maybe driving out somewhere today.  For the past week I rarely stepped out of the house because it was over 100 degrees.  It was intolerable.  Luckily, it's dry heat but it feels like I'm stepping into an oven.  It seems it's been one of the hottest summers for as long as I can remember.  

I actually made this box and card set last week.  I used a retired Stampin Up Paper Pumpkin Kit for the box and mini card.  The regular size card is not part of the kit but I did use the accessories from the kit.  I have a bunch of retired Stampin Up Paper Pumpkin Kit.  I won't buy any more of them until I use up all the ones I already have.  I am in a craft buying freeze.  I have so many stuff that my craft room is beginning to look cluttered and I'm having difficulties dealing with it.  

Anyway, back to my project.  I embossed the card and smudged ink on the embossed parts.  Other than that, I used the die cuts, stamps, and embellishments from the kit.  

That's it for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful Friday. 💓

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Halloween Tags

Hello Friends.  Wow, a week has already gone by since my last post.  I've been really busy this past week.  I decided to start working on organizing my garage.  The first thing I decided to tackle was to reorganize some of my craft stuff.  I managed to unmount 3 containers of wood mounted rubber stamps, including about 70 wood mounted Stampin Up sets.  I still have about 5 storage containers left to go.  It's been a tedious job to unmount the stamps and put them on clear sheets and plastic storage envelopes.  I ran out of the plastic storage envelopes and had to buy more of them.  They'll be delivered in about a week.   I decided to take a break from unmounting stamps until the envelopes arrive.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to really sit down and craft this week.  I did make a few Halloween tags the previous weekend.  I really had fun making these tags.  I used a bit of embossing powder and used my embossing folders for the design elements on my tags.  My future goal is to learn to make pop up and fun fold cards.  I always loved pop up cards and have made a few way back in the past but I have to relearn how to make them again.  I've seen quite a few that I would like to try to make.

With these tags, I used a few random stamps from different brands.  I'm not really a "brand" sort of person.  I just use images that I like.  It doesn't matter who makes them.  I've never been the type to buy stamps from specific brands.  That's part of the reason I sometimes don't list the brand on my post because I sometimes use different stamps from different brands all on one card and I can't remember who made them.  A lot of the images on my cards, I had stamped and colored quite some time ago but never made cards for them.  I did this a lot, especially when I sit down and listen to music or watch TV. I would just stamp away and color images.  It was very therapeutic.

 

I also made a Thanksgiving box and card set that I'll share next time.  I'm hoping I can find time this week to make a few projects.  It's crazy because now that I'm retired, I've been so busy that it feels like the days have been flying by so quickly.  I'm glad I've been able to work on home projects that I've put on the back burner for so long.  It's going to get busier because the holidays are right around the corner.  

While we're on the subject about the holidays, I'm going to have to start decorating for Halloween soon.  I'm going to start early.  I've never decorated the inside of my house for Halloween, just the outside.  I decided I'll do some decorating on the inside this year.  I want to try something new.  I bought a few indoor Halloween decor recently so it'll be fun to decorate the inside this year.  Nothing crazy, just a few decorations here and there.

Anyway, that's all for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful week.  Until next time.  💖

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Halloween Treat Box and Cards

Hello Friends.  I haven't posted anything in a week.  I was meaning to post a few of the projects I created but I got side tracked a bit.  I've been working on a few organization projects and I sort of got caught up doing that last week.  

I did work on a few Halloween projects the past few days.  I'll work on a few more Halloween projects then I'll start moving on to Autumn/Thanksgiving projects.  I had to dig trough my stamps to look for Halloween images.  I need to organize my stamps.  I've organized them several times through the years.  I've tried organizing them by stamp brands/style then by themes then back to brands.  I think organizing by theme is better.  They are easier to sort through when I need to create a card or project.

I decided to work on treat boxes and cards.  I also created Halloween tags but I'll share them in my next post.  The Halloween treat box is a crayon box style treat box.  I actually traced a Stampin Up box template from a Stampin Up Paper Pumpkin kit.  I trace a lot of my treat boxes from already cut boxes then use them as templates.  I create a master template that I use for various projects.  I calculate the measurements then cut them to create the boxes.

For this set I used an old retired Stampin Up stamp set.  They have always been my favorite.  I also used a few retired Stampin Up designer papers.  I have so many older retired designer papers that I tend to ration knowing that I can no longer purchase them because they are retired.  It makes me sad when I finally run out of my favorites.  

Currently, I'm organizing my garage.  I finished organizing my pantry and kitchen cupboards.  I would like to redesign my pantry but the current organization is pretty well organized so it's nothing pressing that I have to work on right now.  Maybe in the future when I have nothing else to organize.  Organizing is a constant thing in my life.  My daughter said that I organize things just because I like to organize even when it's not needed.  I believe she's right.  🤣

Last week I decided to change things up a bit and headed to Laguna Beach.  It was sort of spontaneous.  I wanted to find a place that I could read a book and decided that the beach would be a good place to go but when I got there, I didn't realize it was going to be so hot and humid.  I didn't last very long sitting in the hot sun so I decided to sit at a French Cafe for a bit to cool down and eat lunch.  I'll probably go back to the beach once the weather cools down a bit.  

Anyway, hope you all are having a wonderful week so far.  Until next time 😀

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Hello Friends!  Happy Tuesday 💓  I don't know too many people that are retired that live in my area or people who are not working.  Most people I know are still working so as a retired person, I have to do a lot of things by my self.  I do need to network and find other people who are not working or at least retired also.  Honestly, I don't mind doing things by myself but I have difficulties doing things that have a social component to them such as eating at a restaurant or watching a movie at the theater by myself.  

I decided along with my daughter and her boyfriend to purchase an AMC membership that allows 4 movies a week at the theater for $30 a month. We typically watch a movie once a week so we do get our money's worth but I decided that I'll go and see a movie at least twice a week.  In order to do that, I would have to go alone sometimes.  For the first time ever in my life, I went to the theater to watch a movie by myself.  I went to the first showing of the day for the movie "Insidious", terrible movie by the way.  My daughter didn't want to see that movie so I decided to see it  by myself.  It actually was quite fun.  There were only 4 other people in the theater watching the movie so I took over two chairs.  I pushed one of the arm rest up and lounged on both chairs.  There were two other people watching the movie by themselves so I was in good company.  Now looking at the experience, I don't know why I've never gone to the theater by myself.  It's actually not bad at all.

On the weekend I worked on a bunch of cards.  I also organized my embossing folders and dies, many of which I have never used, not even once. I decided that I would create a check list of crafting "To Do'".  With these set of cards, I used a bunch of scrap designer papers and embossed the card stock with various embossing folders so I was able to check off it off my "To do" list.  The images were stamped using Penny Black stamps and colored with Copic Markers and Prismacolor pencils.

Yesterday I took a little time to organize a few of my kitchen cupboards.  I'm planning to finish the remaining cupboards today and tomorrow I'm going to work on re-organizeing my pantry.  It has been on my 'to do" list for over a year. I just never could find the time to do it when I was working.  It's pretty organized already but there are a few things that I need to straighten out so it won't be that much of a job to re-organize it.  

That's it for today.  Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!  Until next time 💖

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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. 💖

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Bouquet of Flowers Thank You Card

Hello Friends!  I can't believe it's almost the weekend.  Since retiring, the days seem to go by faster than when I was working.  I thought it would go by slower. I am now 60 years old.  My birthday was 2 weeks ago and I decided to retire earlier than the typical retirement age because I wanted to be able to be free to do things while I'm physically able to, such as traveling, go on mini adventures, do some home improvement projects, etc.  Before retiring I researched information about retirement, not only the financial aspects of retirement but quality of life information.  I read that many retired people experience isolation, boredom, and loneliness because for most of their lives, their workplace was not only a source of income but many built their social network at work.  Their coworkers were their main source of social interaction and friendships.  

I worked remotely for the past 7 years since COVID so I am accustomed to the "isolation" and lack of workplace social interaction other than through Teams messaging and meetings.  I never considered my coworkers as "friends".  Maybe when I was younger I did consider some of my coworkers as friends.  It was a time when socializing with coworkers outside of the workplace was a more common experience for me.  In fact, I am still friends with a few of them.  We mainly communicate through Facebook because I no longer live in Hawaii and a few moved to different parts of the US.   As I grew older, I learned to separate "workplace friends" from friends outside of my job.  Other than the occasional Friday happy hour get togethers or team building activities, I did not socialize with my coworkers outside of the workplace.  I don't think I'll experience the isolation, boredom, and loneliness that some retirees experience.  Quite honestly, I  have way too many hobbies to worry about becoming bored.

As I stated in yesterday's post, this week I had planned to focus only on crafting.  I have other things I plan to do next week so I wanted to put most of my efforts this week to creating cards.  I worked on a few cards yesterday.  I am trying different design styles.  Many times we have our signature style of cardmaking because it's easier to stick to a certain style.  I would like to experiment a little more and try new techniques of card making.  I am behind on the new card making techniques; a decade worth of new techniques. 

On the most part card making, especially with rubber stamping, hasn't changed much since I started rubber stamping 20 years ago.  I do notice that there has been a major decline with using embellishments on cards such as ribbons and other embellishments that cause bulkiness on cards.  I think the trend to scale down on embellishments is due to the cost of mailing cards.  The cost of stamps has increased considerably.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of embellishments such as brads, ribbons, Prima flowers, etc., but it's okay because I'll be using them to design my mini scrap albums.  They come in handy with scrapbooking.  

With this card, I piled on a bunch of stamped floral images.  I had mentioned in my previous post that I had a stock pile of stamped images that I had stamped in the past few years but never created cards for them.  I originally intended to use them on my mini scrapbook albums but I have so many of them, way too many in fact.  Now that I'm making cards again, they have come in very handy.  

Drop me a comment below.  I would love to hear from you.  If you are retired, tell me your experience as a retired person. What experiences surprised you, do you have any regrets, did your retirement meet your expectations, what does your typical day look like?  I am still trying to navigate this new chapter of my life so it would be nice to hear your perspectives on retirement.  Anyway, until next time hope you all have a wonderful day 💖

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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 💓

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Floral Thank You Card

Hello Friends!  Happy Wednesday.  Since retiring I've been trying to work out some sort of life schedule.  I've asked a few retired people for advise and some say for the first few months to just relax and go with the flow; to just enjoy my free time and not focus on any sort of schedule.  Before I retired, I had the mindset that when I retire I would immediately tackle all the projects I have put on the backburner such as organizing my garage; redesigning my office and craft room;  start on home improvement projects like painting my exercise room; and start exercising.  I actually started a list of goals and all the things I want to get done.  

The first week of retirement I reorganized my office.  Because I worked remotely from home, I wanted to turn my work office into a journaling/planner room. I did manage to reorganize my desk, drawers and cabinets.  I also started an exercise schedule. I started going for a walk daily.  I also worked on my yard by pruning my plants and other yard work.  I traveled to Vegas for a family reunion my first weekend.  After returning from Vegas, I felt so burnt out.  On my second week of retirement, my body started aching a little. I think I over did it the first week of retirement.  I continued on the same schedule but I felt so tired from all the activities the previous week.  I decided on this 3rd week of retirement that I'm just going to relax and slow it down a little.  I have to remind myself that I don't need to do everything all at once. On the other hand, I feel like I'm wasting my free time and I start to have a strange feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out). I feel like I should be going on adventures and start on all the projects I had wanted to do.  I don't know, I'll figure it out.  Right now, today anyway, I decided to focus on just relaxing, take a nap if I need to and do some crafting.  

This morning I woke up early and did my morning walk then later sat in my backyard to drink a cup of tea before it got too hot to sit outside.  It was nice to be able to sit in my yard in the morning; something I couldn't do when I was working.  It's the simple things that I really am grateful for.  I do feel blessed that I was able to do an early retirement.  Honestly, it was something I had wanted but didn't think it was actually possible.  Everything aligned in a way that allowed it to happen.  

I created this card this morning.  I used a few floral images that I had stamped and colored about a year ago.  I have a stockpile of already colored stamped images.  I had stamped the images with the intention of using them to design a bunch of mini scrapbook albums that I created but never had the chance to finish.  

I colored the images by using a dauber. I rubbed ink on to white card stock and stamped the images over it.  It's the fastest way to color floral images.  It allowed me to color a lot of images.  I then cut the images out with scissors.   

I'll work on a few more cards today.  I can't wait to share them with all of you.  Have a great day!

Visit me on Instagram: Stampin Inspirations