More Card Crafting?

What? Is this girl nuts, or what?

Honestly, all I’ve been doing lately is making cards and playing computer games. Yes, I have rediscovered the world of computer gaming. I finally installed and started playing a game called Dungeon Siege 2 that a friend of mine bought for my last birthday, or was it the one before that? Anyway, I have been very remiss in not at least trying it out. I’m starting to get a bit bored with it, so back to card crafting for me this week. I even stopped at Michael’s on Tuesday and bought some pretty printed papers, with which I have been having fun playing.

I haven’t touched a needle since I finished up Barnabee’s Quest, but have no fear – I did actually finish it into a bellpull, have half-attached the velcro and am waiting for the pearl cotton to arrive so that I can make and attach the cording. It came out quite nicely, even if I set the sewing speed to as low as the machine would actually go, to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. Too much time and effort was put into this piece to screw it up now! It blocked out pretty well, too, so the finishing really wasn’t so bad. I’ll take pictures when it is really completed and hanging on a wall. Oh yeah, where am I going to hang it? … 😆

So, here are the pictures of the cards I’ve made the past two nights. Two of them I really liked, so I made duplicates of them, the rest I could take or leave. I’m just playing around, really. Trying to get the hang of things.






































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One Last Card…

At least for now, as I have polished off one of the packs of notecard blanks that I had.





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More Card Crafting

I may be feeling short on words lately, but fortunately I have more photos to make up for it. 🙂 Here are three cards that I made yesterday. I was even able to incorporate some of my teabag folding that’s been laying around forever into the one. You can see that they got a bit plainer as I went along. I think the creative juices were drying up. I have one more to make that I actually want to use, so I’m hoping that I at least have one more design in me somewhere. That or I can find a photo online somewhere that sparks some creativity.









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Late Night Card Crafting

I’ve been talking to Von offline a little bit about card crafting, so I decided to stop in at Michaels on the way home from Dr. Steve this past Wednesday and see what they had. I walked away with $50 of clear stamps that were on clearance – 5 packages! I was quite excited to get such a deal and anxious to put them to work.

After getting home from sailing last night with a headache that I laid for a while to get rid of, I woke up with a little bit of energy to burn (from the Execedrin that I had taken) and decided to sit down and make a notecard to send to my grandmother, who just lost her dog. I ended up staying up until after 1:30 AM, making not just that notecard, but two Father’s Day cards, as well.









They’re not terribly sophisticated. Just what came out of my untrained head and would fit on these dinky 4.5″ x 5″ card sets that I have to work with. Unfortunately, I have packs and packs of these, so I would be more than willing make up some notecard sets to trade, sell or give away (or just the bases) to anyone who wants them. Let me know if you’re interested.

As for me, the bug is still biting me, so I think I’ll try to make up some additional ones today. 🙂

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SBQ:

This SBQ was suggested by Jan and is:

Do you ever get to a point working on a project that you’ve had for so long, you start to wonder what possessed you to start it in the first place?

Looking at my WIP/UFO list, I think I can honestly answer “no” to this question. When I look through everything I have stitches in, even the ones I’ve abandoned for now, I still like the designs and, for most of them, the desire to finish them someday still exists. For some, though, the original deadline or event has passed and I no longer have the original reason for stitching the piece, so while I can find something to do with it or someone to give it to, the piece falls to the bottom of the list of things to work on. 😉

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SBQ: Stitching Terminology

This SBQ is:

For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new stitchers.
For newbies: What stitching term or acronym would you like defined?

I know that this one was already covered by now, but a term I didn’t know for a while was SABLE – Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy. That is SO me! 😆

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Happy Dance!

Barnabee’s Quest has finally ended and he has found the sweetest flowers in the land…



I can hardly believe that it’s finished! It’s blocking as I type this, in fact. I liked the specialty stitches in this one, as I do in any band sampler. My least favorite parts to stitch were the over 1 bits, but they turned out to be my favorite parts of the piece. That and the backstitched beasties – the snails, hummingbirds and caterpillars.

Now for the hard part, the finishing. I want to make sure it’s as close to perfect as I can imagine, since I went to the trouble of buying the tassel topper and bell pull hardware that specifically go with this design. I also bought the finishing kit for it, so I now have everything I need except for the pearl cotton for the cording and the tassel. I’ll place an order for this in the near future, I think.

Now, here are some more photos. Sorry they aren’t the best, but I had to take them with the flash.





Edited to add: The charts are now up for grabs to anyone who wants them. Trades are welcomed.

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Just Nan Stash for Sale

As I mentioned before, I accidentally bought a Just Nan design in Arizona that I thought was on my wishlist but that I had apparently already bought for myself. While thinking about selling the extra, I decided to sell two more Just Nan designs that I don’t think that I will ever stitch. One is a limited edition that was created by Nan just for The Silver Needle.

So, here they are, with pictures and pricing. I take PayPal and charge actual shipping plus $1 for the bubble envelope.

1. Morning Flower ($14) – All embellishments included

The verse on this reads, “The morning flower holds in its petals the promise of things yet to be.” The embellishments include 2mm white pearls, pink beads and a beautiful pink glitter butterfly charm.

2. Christmas Biscornu ($21) – All embellishments included

The embellishments include all of the beads that you will need, plus two buttons for the center and special beads for the corners, plus a ring and hanger to allow you to use the biscornu as an ornament.

3. Christmas Workshop ($65) – All embellishments, fabric, pearl cotton, felt and finishing instructions included





This kit includes everything you need, except for the floss. This limited edition kit is well worth the price and was created by Nan just for The Silver Needle in Tulsa, OK.

You can email me (jenna at magees dot net) or leave a comment here if you are interested in any of these items or have any questions. Thanks for your interest!

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Close to a Happy Dance

Goodness, it’s been a while since I’ve uttered the words “happy dance.” But I am so close on Barnabee’s Quest that I can taste it. I finished all of the stitching last night and just have to add the beads and charms. Once that’s done, the piece needs to be blocked because I think I used Monaco fabric, which really tends to distort while stitching. Never again. Anyway, I hope to have some finished photos for you soon. Maybe not tonight, since we’re going out on the boat today, but soon.

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I’m Back, I’m at Work and I’m Tired

I’m ba-ack! Okay, I’ve been back since Sunday night, but I’m back to blogging now, too. I just haven’t felt up to blogging; even now, I blog out of a sense of guilt, not out of any sense of having anything to say.

Our flight home was uneventful, thankfully. I was wedged into the back of a plane (never again will I sit in the back, unless it is absolutely necessary, like it was this time) with a crying baby behind me and one in front of me. In addition, there was a small child with the same family behind me who was constantly being yelled at by his mom during the flight. I won’t get into parenting observations right now… The security line in Phoenix was long enough that we blew our two hour lead time and made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare before the plane boarded! But then, the security lines at Philly can get pretty ugly, too.

We were so glad to get home Sunday night, until Terry realized that he must have left his camera bag on the economy parking bus. $1500 worth of camera equipment and he never expected to see it again. I, however, had a really good feeling about it and bugged him to look up the phone numbers to try and track the bag down. Good thing I kept bugging, because he eventually got to the central Lost & Found where they informed him that he was in luck because they had his bag! Truly, very good luck on our part. So, we made the hour-long (each way) trip back up to the Philadelphia airport on Monday afternoon and Terry returned a happy and amazed camper, with his camera bag in tow. Next time, a luggage tag will be attached to the bag, as soon as I buy another one. Granted, it’s fully insured on our homeowner’s policy, but who wants to have to file the claim and go through the hoops of buying another camera, batteries, charger, memory cards, lenses (it’s a digital SLR camera), etc., plus lose all of the photos that you had taken? Not I!

We picked Phoebe up from the kennel first thing Tuesday morning and received a very good report card. She behaved quite well for them and everyone loved her. The only thing she didn’t do well with was the bath that we had her get before we brought her home. The bathing part was fine, but she was “naughty” for them for the nail clipping and brushing part. Next time, I’ll skip the bath and give it to her myself when we get home. Why else would I have gone through the trouble of clipping her nails before we left? I would have saved her the trauma and asked them to skip it, had I known. As for brushing, she’s not usually THAT bad, but if it’s not done in increments, she starts snapping a bit. Not that she’s ever bitten someone (that’s a big no-no in our household), but she gets rather cranky, that’s for sure. So, I brought home a pamphlet about getting your dog adjusted to brushing. I even stopped at a pet store yesterday and brought home a new brush and comb for her. We’ll see how she does.

On a different front, the tiredness that has plagued me for months continues. Right now, I’m doing the countdown until I can leave work, go home and take a nap. Although, I might have to defer the nap as there are some bills that need to go out soon and, at this rate, they’ll never go out! I am so tired of being so tired. I guess it’s time to have a chat with the psychiatrist and see if any of my medications are contributing to the problem. This just has to stop. I got up this morning with no desire to get out of bed whatsoever. In fact, if I hadn’t rolled over and checked my email on my BlackBerry to see that there was a problem that I needed to fix, I probably would have chosen to go back to sleep. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this! While I’m doing well at work, I feel like a slacker just because I constantly feel like I need a nap. Whenever I accomplish something big, I tend to say to myself, “okay, I can go home now.” I’ve even contemplated going out to my car and taking a nap. *sigh*

As always, though, this too shall pass. I remain optimistic and look forward to the day when I can go back to stitching nearly every night, instead of barely clinging to consciousness.

More from me tomorrow, as I have photos to share, two SBQs to catch up on and a piece of stash to sell. I accidentally picked up something while I was in Arizona that I already had at home and didn’t realize it. Whoops! That’s a sign that you have too much stash, folks! 😆

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