neonfoxtongue

Creative space - ideas and inspiration

So yeah, this week's Creative Goals Monday post just didn't happen.  I don't really have an excuse either, I just couldn't get my act together blog-wise.  I apologise, but I have also decided not to feel guilty about it.  As Karyn aptly tweeted,"sometimes, you just have to not blog".

But I've still got some creative goals for this week, namely making a card and working on setting up my creative space.  I admit that I haven't made much any progress in the latter.  I've been more focused on getting the kitchen and bedroom unpacked and organised. And while there is still a bit of work to do in those rooms, they are much more functional now, so I'm ready to move onto getting my art and craft supplies unpacked and organised.

To that end, I've been looking back at some of the posts I've saved from other blogs, which had tips and photos of creative spaces that I liked.  I got some really great ideas from cheeky magpie in her post about organising supplies, particularly stamps.

Trading card holders - genius!

I also love the hanging cans that Rachel Simonsen uses in her studio.  I hoping to make something similar with upcycled cans or jars.

And lastly, I'm a big fan of the wire crate shelving in this Design*Sponge sneak peak:

 

I'm not sure I'll be able to readily find old wire shelving, but I'm going to file this idea away in case I do.

So now it's time to get started on creating my own space. I'll let you know how it goes and I promise to take a 'before' shot so we can compare it to the end product. That way, they'll be proof that whatever I do will be a marked improvement! :)

Creative Goals Monday: Creating a Crafty Space

After another weekend of moving stuff to our new place and then trying to unpack and put away said stuff, I'm pretty convinced I don't want to move again for a while.  Luckily, I'm thinking we'll be happy in here, especially once we get things set up and organised the way we'd like.  It's probably going to be an ongoing process in that respect, but I hope we're able to get a lot of it done in the next few weeks.  One of my major goals is to have a workable and enjoyable space for me to create.  A space where all my tools and supplies have their own place and the most used ones are easily accessible.  A space to make cards, other paper crafts and paint, and a place for the great hand-me-down sewing machine from my Mom.  A space that inspires me to create.  It's going to take a lot of creative thinking to find ways to best use the space.  I've been saving images of craft and/or studio spaces for a while now, so my goal this week is to look through them for inspiration.  If any of them really appeal to me, I'll post them here. 

I'm looking forward to accomplishing this goal in the medium-term, but for the short-term, I'm going to have to make do with whatever I can - a flat surface and whatever supplies I can reach within the piles of boxes and plastic tubs.  There are still cards to be made - at least two in the next week - so I have to get cracking. 

Today, I thought I'd show you a set of cards I made last month for my friend J, who kindly let me ship some much needed (and well-priced) craft supplies to her just-outside-London address from one of my favourite suppliers in the UK, and then brought them to me when she came for a visit to Toronto.  I wanted to give her something to thank her for being my 'craft mule'.  I initially thought I'd make her a thank you card, but then I thought - why not make her a few and let her give them to whomever she wants?  So that's what I did. Three simple thank you cards. J loved the idea.  I'm thinking I might be onto something here.

 

 

Creative Goals Monday: Sneak Peek and Commissioned Cards

Some weeks I just barely meet my weekly creative goals and last week was one of those weeks.  Yes, I did all the things on my list, if you count 5 minutes of knitting and a few minutes of picking out potential papers and colour schemes for a card I'm going to make this week.  I did finish the paper project though and will post pics later this week.  Here's a sneak peek though:

I don't usually work with this much pink, but it was a fun project.

This week I'm going to be getting back into card making; my Mom has commissioned two cards from me and I definitely have to get one of them done this week.  It's for a wedding, which is cool because I really like making wedding cards.  I also have a birthday card to make for the week following, so that should keep me busy.  And I am determined to do more knitting - hopefully for more than 5 minutes!

And to add a bit more visual stimulation to this post, here's a card I made to celebrate the arrival of a friend's baby boy. I haven't met him as he lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but from the pics I can tell that he's pretty darn cute.  His name is Sebastian.

The gingham and plaid papers are wallpaper samples.

Wishing you a lovely and creative week!

Creative Goals Monday: Mending, Baking and Relaxing

Ahhhh - what a wonderful weekend!  Apart from the great gig The Leopard had on Friday night, I had absolutely no obligations and it was awesome.  I did laundry and groceries.  I surfed the interwebs.  I watched a really good (but slightly unnerving) movie.  I caught up on my sleep.  I went for a run.  It was great!

I didn't do any crafting and I'm kind of glad.  I just needed a mini-break from it.  Instead, I did some mending and fixed two pairs of pants, a jacket and a pair of slippers.  So glad to be all caught up with that. 

I also did a bit of baking, which is something I don't do a lot of, but always enjoy.

(Pic is from the PC site - food styling is not my forte)

I found the Applesauce Bran Loaf recipe a couple of years ago and it's been a great baking staple since then.  Very easy, very yummy and healthy enough that you don't feel guilty about having a second third slice.  I've used all-purpose white flour in a pinch and it's still been great. 

After such a relaxing weekend, I'm ready to take on my second week of work.  I'm also ready to set some creative goals:

• knit!
• finish up a paper project that's been hanging around for a while
• start planning cards for some upcoming celebrations

Do you have any creative goals you'd like to accomplish this week?  I'd love to know about them, so feel free to comment below!

Creative Goals Monday: work first, craft second

So I'm a workin' woman once again!  Today was my first day of work and it went very well.  My new colleagues are really nice and the work is interesting.  I think it's going be a great place to work.

Starting a new job isn't so great for crafting though.  It's going to take me a week or so to get settled into the 9-5 schedule and make sure I get whatever else I need/want to get done on evenings and weekends.  So I've decided I'm not to to set any creative goals for myself this week.  If I do do any crafting, I'll consider it a bonus.

As for last week, I made a couple of thank you cards for my references:

Paper from The Paper Place

Short post today - I'm wiped!  I'll post more later this week - with pics of the items I did made with alcohol inks!  See you then!

Creative Goals Monday: all cards, all the time

Last week I wrote that my weekly creative goal was to finish the one card I had started and make another four, for a total of 4.5.  Well, I didn't do it.  I made 6.5 cards instead. Go me!  Here are some of the results - the cards I made for the swap with Angelune.  Apologies if some of the pics aren't especially clear - it was very sunny in the workroom's backyard last Wednesday!

 

(Botanical flower image from piddix; Eiffel Tower image from magymai711; lacy paper from The Paper Place)

(Pin-up girl images from piddix)

This one is my favourite - it's for an art deco themed wedding. I used the same Charles Rennie Mackintosh stamp from our wedding invitations, but used gold embossing powder this time. I made the marbled background (hard to see, I know) at the Alcohol Inks Workshop I took a couple of weeks ago.


As a bonus, I made up some little 'thanks' cards for Angelune to send out with the sales from her etsy shop.  As a bonus to me, Angelune gave me an awesome package of handmade and chiyogami paper! Sweet!
 
 

So as you can probably guess, I'm a bit 'carded' out right now.  I have one card to make this week, but I plan on focussing on other crafts and creative endeavours.  I definitely want to get some knitting in and I'd like to do some cross stitching.  But since it's my birthday on Wednesday (yep, on Canada Day), my main priority this week will be to spend time with my family and friends and to have some fun! :)

Creative Goals Monday: Cards! Cards! Cards!

Today, I've been listening to Liz Phair for the first time in a while and her song Girls! Girls! Girls! is now firmly ensconced in my brain, hence the Cards! Cards! Cards! title for this post.  It's true that it's pretty much all cards all the time these days though.  Last week I made 3.5 cards (the half is for one that still has to be assembled) and this week I'm aiming to make 4.5, so I have my work cut out for me.  I also have to take photos of the cards I've completed lately, as well as of some other projects - I'm a bit behind in that department.  Since I don't have any photos of recent cards, today you'll have to settle for one made in February for my Grandma's birthday:

I made the butterfly wings with a heart stamp I received as a bonus with a magazine subscription. I used three ink colours and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Pretty easy, but I like the effect.

More project photos later this week, as well as a Planet Craft feature.  Stay tuned!

Creative Goals Mondays: New Blog Design!

Hello! I feel like a deserve a big gold star for last week's goals because my blog re-design is DONE!  If you're reading this post on a feed, go check out the new look here!  Though it's a pretty simple design, I did learn a few things while doing it.  Like, a handmade paper banner should probably be perfectly rectangular if you want to use a patterned background on the rest of the blog.  Also, I really, really need to take a course on Photoshop.  But I feel that my blog is my own now, which makes me very happy.  I'd love to know what you think, so please leave comments, especially if you think it's loading a bit strangely on your browser (I use Firefox).  A big thanks goes out to The Leopard who helped me with Photoshop, took my pic and made me look pretty, and was super patient with my whiny self when things weren't working the way I wanted them to.  

I've also updated the links, which are now found in the right column, and divided them into two lists. 'These are the blogs I know' has links to the blogs of people I actually know (like, for real) and want to promote because they are good at what they do (whatever it is).  'Craft/DIY/Design Blogs' has links to the many, many blogs I follow regularly, so if you have an inclination towards the handmade or crafty, I suggest to check them out.  I'm also working on a more general list of blogs I like and will post that soon. Finally, I updated my About page a bit and added a dedicated e-mail address for all things neonfoxtongue.

Not only did I complete my blog design last week, which was one of my Creative Goals for 2009, I also worked towards achieving one more of my goals - I took a creative workshop!  My goal is to take some sort of creative course, class or workshop for each season, so this one was for Spring (a bit late, I know, but Summer doesn't officially start until next Sunday, so I'm still good).  I participated in a workshop at Bizzy B Stamp & Scrap Shop on using alcohol inks, which I discovered are way cool for making beautiful backgrounds for cards, ATCs and scrapbooks.  The workshop was fun, informative and the instructor, Daniza, was super generous with supplies for us to play with.  I'd definitely take a class there again. It was great to learn about a new technique and to play around with colour and paper.  I made a bunch of stuff and I'll post pics later this week - I don't want to distract you from my blog design today! :)

This coming week is all about card making.  I have about eight cards to make, what with the swap I'm doing as well as Father's Day.  It's also a busy week in general as I have a job interview (fingers crossed) and a bunch of social stuff going on.  I haven't been this busy in a while, but I'm hoping I'll be all the more productive because of it. (Again, fingers crossed!)

Creative Goals Monday: Banner Done!

Hi there! I'm going to keep this post fairly short today as I've been battling a bad headache most of the day and I know that spending a lot of time in front of the computer screen isn't going to help in my fight.  So I'll just quickly re-cap how I did with last week's goals - not especially well.  In fact, I only met two of the six I set for myself.  However, the two I did do were the most important - I got the markers I wanted and I made my banner!  Yay!  The banner was really the toughest part because I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to actually make what I had in mind (or if I was, it would look really crappy).  Despite these fears, I'm happy with how it looks - it's not quite perfect, but it has the handmade look I wanted. 

Now I just have to scan it and put the new blog design together.  I also have to go the photoshoot with The Leopard for my avatar/profile pic; I decided to wait until I got my long overdue haircut, which happened on Saturday.  So this week's creative goals will be:

• Scan banner
• Put blog design together
• Have photo taken for avatar/profile pic
• Make avatar 
• Make cards for upcoming swap (one wedding and three birthdays)

I also have some ideas for new mini-projects (I've been coming up with a lot of these lately) so I'm going to try to work on at least one of those.  And on Thursday, I'm going to a friend's place to help her silk-screen some cool t-shirts for The Leopard as part of his new merchandise line.  Very excited about that one because the design is so,so cool!  Maybe I'll be able to post some sneak peek photos later this week.

Okay, that's enough computer for now.  Here's a pretty photo courtesy of The Leopard.  It's of a beautiful peony from mother-in-law's garden - a little gift because The Leopard and I celebrated our one-year anniversary yesterday!  We've been hitched for one fabulous year - I can hardly believe it, but I'm really, really happy about it! :)

Creative Goals Monday: Getting There!

As you may remember, last week's creative goals were all about focusing my blog design.  Well, I'm happy to report that focusing specifically on this topic yielded some success - I did a fair amount of work on it.  Unfortunately, I didn't do enough work to actually complete it.  While working on my banner, I realized that I needed a new marker to get the lettering in the style, size and colour I want.  And since I'm living in the 'burbs, getting to a decent art supply shop requires some planning.  However, I did a lot of playing around with the design and have nailed it down for the most part.  I also figured out what I need to do on Typepad for the new designe and, as you can see, made a new banner for Creative Goals Monday.  The idea for the design came to me suddenly and I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet.  I will have to see how it works with the rest of the design, but I'd be grateful for any feedback on it in the meantime.

Even though I'm not done the banner, I thought I'd share with you some of the preliminary sketches I did to come up with the design.  So here's a little sneak peek!

I'm excited to put the whole thing together!

Since I still have work to do on my blog design, I'm going to make it the focus of this week's creative goals once again.  I will:

• Get the marker I want
• Make the banner
• Do a photo shoot with The Leopard for my avatar
• Start putting the whole thing together

I'd also like to do some non-blogging creative stuff:

• Make cards, including some for a swap (more on that soon)
• Work on my lacy scarf 

I figure that will keep me pretty busy this week.  I've also been brainstorming some new blogging ideas, so watch this space for a new feature this week!