♫♪ I'm Back in the Saddle Again... ♪♫

Hello!

It's been a crazy few weeks, and there has been much going on in my little part of paradise, but I'm excited that, as my header says, I'm back in the saddle again, and with renewed mojo as well!  I have been preparing to have my craft room professionally reorganized which involved lots of clearing and purging of things I bought when I first started paper crafting but which I've used little or not at all.  And then the two most wonderful ladies came in from a local company who offers organizational solutions for all kinds of disorganized needs, mine being my craft room.  I have little to NO inherent organizational skills, and my craft room had become more and more cramped and gloomy to the point where I didn't even want to walk into it.  My crafting suffered, my blog suffered, and I suffered.  But that is all in the past and last week my house was the scene of The Great Craft Room Makeover.  It took two entire days, and the sewing part of the room is still unfinished (to be completed on June 12, their first availability, and we scheduled this back at the beginning of May!), but the crafting part of the room is a dream and a joy.  I made my first card in it yesterday and couldn't get over how fun it was again.

Adding to the excitement was the fact that I received my first commission on Etsy (yippee!), and this card was the result.  The customer had seen another card of mine (you can see it here) and asked if I could make a similar one with a "Thinking of You" theme.  Of course I could!  This was using the paper napkin technique where I decoupaged the top layer of a very colorful paper napkin onto a piece of card stock and then added more products until I achieved the look I liked.  This one is a bit more vibrant than the original as her favorite colors are purple and hot pink and I wanted them to show more clearly.

The image consists of a digital paper background and a floral image, both from Gecko Galz, which I photoshopped together to make a single colorful layer.

The triple loop bow is made from hand dyed seam binding, and the rose has been fussied up with a bit of glitter.  Oh how I've missed playing in glitter.

Some Stickles around the edge in "Mercury Glass," and a small sentiment accented with two tiny rhinestones completes this card.  When I do special techniques such as this one I tend to want to keep the embellishments to a minimum.

I left the inside plain so that she could personalize it with her own message.  Of course I had to ink the edges of the white layer a bit.  Of course.

I'm inspired to make more Thinking of You cards this week as I haven't made but one or two cards in weeks and weeks and need to...get back in the saddle.  Tomorrow I'll have a new one for you!

Thank you for joining me and I wish you a lovely day doing whatever it is that makes you happy.  For me, it's playing in glitter and glue.

Happy crafting! 

P.S. I will be sharing before and after pictures of my craft room when we finish it on the 12th.  The befores are SCARY.