chase bank cooperating with panera bread

Chase Bank used a leafy picture in one of their documents, which I was unable to throw away... (This happens way too often!) Panera Bread, in turn, has those awesome bags made of thick brown paper, really nice to the touch, with subtle pattern imprinted on the front and back.

And here is how they melanged with a few pieces from the scrap box and a quote found in the trusty Quote Garden:

Also on my desk - work in progress on a bunch of post-it-notes, which will be wrapped into purses made from recycled Christmas cards:

And as for the larger sticky notes mentioned in the previous post - they've gained a bunch of siblings, represented here by four members:

Morning crafts presented in the evening

Early morning crafts are quite enjoyable, but also detrimental to my punctuality arriving at work... The good news is that I have time on the other end, so to say, to stay and make up for lateness, if it happens.

Today I made a briefcase for a little boy, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, so I added a miniature b-day card with a miniature cupcake. It was really hard to stay away from all the girliness for the post-its... cupcakes can be colorful, though, even for a boy!

Also prepared some components for snowy cards. I see another batch of barbasnow coming up in the near future!

And here is another photo to commemorate a date that will not happen again for a looooong, long time.

sticky note experiments

People seem to like the little post-it-note purses, so I thought I'd try playing with the larger format. The purse idea doesn't really work that well here because they are too heavy and just fall over. Other ways of decorating are possible, though, and here is my prototype, where I figured out the sizes and assembly:

I tested fabric as well, but encountered a problem...

...namely ugly corners, as seen on the left! I think I got it right, though, after practicing on some scraps :)

A new page in the art journal

After a while I have returned to my art journal - sometimes images or words go through my hands, and it's just nearly impossible to throw them away. So they end up in the journal, which is bursting in seams; looks like it's time to start Volume II!

The theme is my new fascination with cooking and baking, doing it "from the bottom of my heart" and not to just avoid starvation :)

And here is a work-in-progress photo if some post-it-not purses for Saturday:

busy weekend

I got to play with sooooo much paper last weekend - I don't recall the previous instance of so much time spent in my craftroom (which looks like a tornado has passed through). It's all in preparation for a craft show this Saturday, so the marathon is no over yet.

Product one - post-it note purses, one of my fave crafts to make. And a way to use up some of the scraps from the Tiny Scrap Box.

Notepads big and small - a friend who works at a printing press has brought me neatly trimmed stacks of leftover paper a while ago, and they have been converted to notepads:

Some Christmas cards, using components left over from last year...

...and autumn-colored cards from lovely papers produced by my favorite supplier - K& Company.

The close-up shows the special coating on this paper, and the three-dimensionality of the embellishment (store-bought this time, gotta use up the box).

More to come... Christmas stars and cards; also need to make some business cards and bags to package the goodies. Oh, and the table setup - which has been already invented and piled up on the bed, but needs finalizing.Yay for Teapot Creations!

post-show post

Niki and I participated in the craft and bake sale at the Immanuel Church in Elmhurst. It was such a great experience! It was the first time for me and I feel sooooo much smater about the setup and the whole organization side of the event.

It turned out that the little post-it note purses were all sold out rather quickly, which makes me happy, because creating them is a ton of fun. Here are some examples that found new owners today:

Purses going onto etsy

Yay, the little boxes have arrived, so I posted the first little post-it note purse on etsy! I’t soooo exciting, friends around me seem to like them a lot, so I’m hoping to spread some joy around.

A lady at the office asked me if I could make some more masculine post-its, and she suggested a snake, so I spent some time last night experimenting. A prototype was born, with shiny skin (H20 paints) and a zig-zag pattern on its back. I’m not sure if I fully like the background paper, I think I had something more jungle-like in mind. The colors on the snake would look more vibrant on a darker green background.