neonfoxtongue

Love & Rummage 5: neonfoxtongue's first craft show

It would seem that only City of Craft events can get me to blog and even that's not a guarantee! But here I am, coming out of blogging retirement to tell you about a little event going on tomorrow (Sunday, February 10). I've attended a few Love & Rummage events in past years and they are always lovely. However, this is the first one at which I'll be a vendor and the first time I'll be selling (or attempting to sell) things I've made under the neonfoxtongue moniker. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity because it's really helped me get out of my crafting rut. I've been making and thinking about making more in the past month than I have in years!

So if you are in Toronto tomorrow, I'd love to see you at the workroom. It's a free event and there will be tasty snacks to enjoy, as well as lovely handmade and vintage items from amazing Toronto makers (and more!) to browse and purchase.

I will have cards, prints and pins for sale, as well as some scrap paper packs for crafty inpiration and making. I've been posting a few photos on Twitter of the items I've been making. Below is one example - I've been listening to Neil Young's Live at Massey Hall 1971 on vinyl a lot lately and Heart of Gold has inspired me.

Hope to see you there!

nft made: Anniversary card

Oh wow - Wednesday already! Well, no sense in looking back; only forward.  I haven't posted stuff that I've made in a while, so it's time to get back into doing that.  My Mom asked me to make a card for my parents' best friends' 30th wedding anniversary.  I wanted to capture both the sentiment of celebrating 30 years of marriage along with even more years of friendship.

I used Chiyogami paper I got at The Paper Place's last big sale and did the lettering with two styles of rub-ons.  I kept the lay-out simple to showcase the paper.

 

I really like using Chiyogami and other fine papers.  I think I'm going to make an effort to work with them more often.

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.

 

 

nft made: Card for a Californian wedding

As promised, and thanks to my Mom, here are photos of the card I made for the wedding my parents are attending this weekend.  The wedding is taking place outside Malibu, California.

The wedding invitation was black and white with a teal ribbon accent, so I used similar colours for the card.  The card blank I used had an oval cut out, which made it easy to add a ribbon detail without having to worry about hiding the ends. 

I used Letraset letter transfers for the 'Love'.

I hope the happy couple likes it!

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: 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!

nft made: wedding invites and anniversary card

I feel like I haven't shared much of what I've been making lately, mostly because I'm in the middle (or beginning) of a few projects.  But I have been finishing things as well, so today I'm taking the time to post one of my newer creations, as well as an older one.  As I mentioned in this week's CG Monday post, The Leopard and I celebrated our one-year anniversary on the weekend.  We decided not to exchange gifts and instead just go out an enjoy ourselves (which we did - Thai food...yum), but we agreed that we'd still give each other cards.  (Actually, I decreed that anniversary cards were non-negotiable for the entirety of our marriage - a gift isn't necessary, but some heartfelt words on paper at least once a year are, in my opinion.  Happily, The Leopard agrees with me.)

I, of course, was going to make The Leopard's card.  I knew that I wanted to use our marriage vows in the card design somehow and I thought it might also be nice to use some of the remaining paper from our handmade wedding invitations.  As a point of reference and because I haven't posted them before, here is a photo of the invitations:

Quite simple, with a Charles Rennie Mackintosh design (our wedding had a bit of an art deco theme and we got engaged in Scotland) and lovely violet and butter paper/card stock from The Paper Source.  We used an art deco font for the text, which turned out lovely (no photos of that on hand, unfortunately).  I was really pleased with them.

Here is what I did for The Leopard's anniversary card:

 

I used a different stamp and embossing powder, but kept the colours from our invitation.  And I used a vellum overlay, which partially obscures:

 
...our marriage vows!  (apologies for the less than stellar photo - I took it one-handed.)

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out too, but I'm really happy I didn't have to make 74 more this time! :)

And The Leopard's card for me?   A perfect depiction of what we like to call the best (and silliest) team in the world - us! :)

 

Creative Goals Monday: When to Diversify, When to Focus

Hello! It's another beautiful day in Toronto and I'm feeling really good about my weekend - I did a decent amount of crafting and I went sailing for the first time!  My father-in-law's retirement activity of choice is a 32ft sailboat, which we took onto Lake Ontario yesterday.  Despite some initial nervousness about getting seasick and/or falling into the water, I really enjoyed it!  I'm not ready to sail around the world as per The Leopard's suggestion, but I'll definitely go again.  It was great to be out on the water, enjoying the sunshine.

Last week's creative goals were similar to most of my CG Monday weekly goals in that they are pretty diverse.  I try to set goals for a mix of creative mediums because it keeps me interested and gives me a choice when I sit down to do 'something crafty'.  And I've been finding that I'm generally pretty successful with this method.  For instance, last week I worked on three knitting projects (including the lacy scarf I had been avoiding). I organized all my craft supplies so that things are much neater and easier to find. I also made a card, which while it isn't the ATC I had planned, it is in the realm of paper crafts so I figure it still counts.  And outside of my weekly goals, I did a couple of hours of cross stitching.  Not too shabby.

What I didn't do however is work on my blog banner, which should have been a priority because I really do want my blog design to reflect me and my style.  I will admit to being a bit nervous about making the banner myself so that's probably why I'm avoiding working on it.  So I think for this week, it's time to focus a bit more.  This coming week will be all about designing my blog.  That means that this week I will:

• Design, draw and decorate my blog banner and capture it digitally
• Create an avatar based on my banner design
• Change or improve my feature banners
• Play around with Typepad so that I can incorporate the design I want

Of course, if I really feel like knitting or work on another craft, I'm definitely going to do it.  But my main focus will be creating a blog design I love.  Fingers crossed that it will work out!

To close off this post, here's a project that I recently completed and gifted - a baby card with matching mix CD!

 

As I mentioned last week, I spent time with a really good friend who was visiting from Vancouver, as well as meet her new son.  So I decided to make a CD of fun music for baby Leo (and Mommy and Daddy too).  It's an eclectic mix that starts off happy and up-beat with R.E.M.'s Stand and gradually slows down to end with Seu Jorge's chill Rebel Rebel (perfect for nap time).  And of course, with a name like Leo, I had to go with a lion theme!  I'm pretty pleased with how they both turned out.