A quick little thank-you

I wanted to design something to mail to my customers as a thank-you, and I am head over heels in love with this little guy.

I just love the Oh, Wave! wheel too. I am thinking about doing a wheel stamp class as I have a few but I feel they often get overlooked.

This is just a little 3.5" x 5" postcard I can throw in an envelope. I am not the most confident person on the phone (I think it's the accent, it's usually a mutual confusion-fest) so I vastly prefer mail! :D

Eeek! It's nearly the end of September!

And I must catch up on my Christmas cards. Well, I'm 4 out of 6 of the way there, with two of these tonight:

How cute is that stamp! It's a Unity stamp of the week one. I didn't really like the box around the accompanying sentiment so I raided my stash for this instead. Masking wasn't quite right here but oh well. Another card that if you receive, I must really like you!

Also made this for Zhenya (for her to send):

It's a rehash of one I made in May? June? but Zhenya needed a sympathy card, not a get well card. So I remade it for her in blues, as per request. We've arranged a trade, one pack of SU! 12x12 divided page protectors (I am ONE short on my Disney album - which is well underway - I hope to share with you guys soon!) for this card, and the grungy baby card. I love trading stuff. It's just friendlier somehow than paying people. Plus, it saves me placing a teeny-tiny order.

Right! That's that for this evening. Leo had shots today and has been VERY grumpy (well, for Leo, anyway, it's probably every other baby's normal); so I'm slightly tired. Completely recovered from tummy rot, thankfully.

Catching up

Well, I am catching up on blogging. Last night I made myself do some "making" as Stew calls it. It wasn't a success as I was too tired and kept making daft mistakes. But I want to blog them because it's all about learning from your mistakes. How can you learn if you pretend it didn't happen, right?

Not sure what my plan was there. Next!

This was for the monochromatic challenge on Shop Our Stash. Something's missing.

Finally, today, whilst Leo was in his swing (!!! Not quite there with the cot but making progress!) I made this for a friend who has just had a baby called Noah. I never thought I'd like this stamp, so I borrowed it from Lovely Heather, and I have fallen in love!

For me, that's a damned good job of colouring. I try, but it isn't my forte. Not quite sure what is my forte, mind you.

Anyway! The stamp is called "Two by Two"  ($8.95) by the awesome Stampin' Up!, coloured in with a blender pen & SU! inkpads. When I get my own, I think I'll cut the sentiment off and mount that on the side of the wood block. That way it's really easy to use the image and sentiment separately. I also love the wavy sentiment - it means I have a bit more leeway than usual on trying to keep it looking straight. Again, not a forte!

Right. Must go and wake Leo up. Jacob has requested McDonald's for dinner, and since he's been a bit poorly, I am obliging him this evening. I'd like to pat myself on the back there for my "great mummy" skills, however, I am not sure taking your child to the Golden Arches really qualifies.

From the chaos!

By the end of last night's creating, I had to work leaning on an ArtBin, on my lap. That was how bad my desk was! I only made two cards too, but struggled with them both so that's why I made such a mess!

These are both for Kristina Werner's photo inspiration challenge on the Simon Says Stamps blog. She has an adorable cat called Mannie who pops up occasionally in her videos. The photo she chose really showcased Mannie's eyes, the shape of which inspired this...

See how the leaves are kind of cat's eye shapes? I wasn't actually that pleased with this as I messed up the masking on the right hand side by throwing my usual background stamp technique out of the window and just stamping. Error! I also wasn't thrilled with the colours somehow. So... I made this:

That stapler is getting some love! Another reason I made another card was because the challenge suggested using Basic Grey things. Well, neither of my two BG things quite fit the colour brief, so I decided to stretch it a bit and think about my gorgeous cat who lives with my parents in Lancaster, UK. Gobo is 19 years old (human years!) and we didn't think he'd survive the flight over here. I miss him - a cat makes a house into a home in my opinion. Jacob asks me about twice a week for a cat too... but our lease doesn't permit pets as the previous tenant adopted loads of cats and let them loose in the HVAC system. It didn't end well. Anyway! Gobo is a white cat with splodges like Mannie, except that Gobo's patches are tabby. The brown bits of the tabby splodges are made up of individual furs which are stripy! So that was why I included the plaid part of the paper - the yellowy-gold part reminded me on Gobo's stripy fur. The green was Mannie's eyes, and the sunburst was an attempt to give the illusion of how the fur of a cat all seems to flow from the nose! There was a disaster with this card too, see if you can spot it.... This is BG Oxford by the way.

Feeling a lot better this week. Haven't made it to the gym but I have left the house etc. So there is progress! I also managed to make cookies today, and I got my hair cut. If you know me personally, you'll know I absolutely HATE going to the hairdresser so that was a major achievement!

I just booked Disney tickets for our Floridian odyssey! Yay! Apart from I think my bank card might have melted. They are seriously pricey!

Finally - and this is FANTASTIC news - I toughened up today and put Leo in his cot for nap AND at Jacob's bed time. Usually he locks me to the sofa by lying along side me and snuggling my leg, which is lovely, but a little frustrating and unproductive. So he cried it out at lunchtime and then this evening it only took two cycles of "popping in". Brill! I think having things a bit more routiney will help me get jobs done and make plans with people. Getting out of the house is key!