Are you going to be entertaining this summer - or have you been asked to bring a dish for a get-together? My son gave me this recipe for a spicy relish to be eaten as a dip with tortilla chips. Oh Yeah! This is good!

So, what do you listen to while you're crafting? I have a little stereo in my studio where I cycle through a variety of things.

There's always the radio - set to a local Christian music, oldies, or jazz station.

Books on tape, CD or MP3 are favorite listening, too. I love reading, and being able to read a book while I craft is a bonus. (I listen while I clean house and drive, as well)

I have some music on CD in the studio and can load up to 5 disks to play straight through or randomly select from the stack. I have a variety of musical styles in my collection including all of the above as well as Celtic, men's quartets (Statlers, Oak Ridge Boys), and (don't laugh) Yanni. I also like to listen to Julie Cruise, Nickel Creek, Charlotte Church, and Sarah McLachlan.

However if I had to pick just one thing to listen to forever it would be Alan Jackson's CD Precious Memories. This man has the perfect voice for singing my favorite old hymns and he presents 15 of them in this 2005 release. Disappointingly, the title song is not included!

Someday, I hope to have a mini TV and media player in the studio so I can play instructional DVDs and craft along with the instructions. I guess I could do that now with my laptop..... say..... I better go check out some DVDs!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

While I am traveling, watching TV, riding in the car... I love to do paper embroidery. I started designing my own patterns soon after I started stitching, but there are SO many designers with books and selling on the internet. But, I only own ONE book of paper embroidery because I have found so many sources for FREE patterns on the internet that I will have enough to keep me busy for a very long time.

Lisa Burns is one such source - and very prolific. You will enjoy the variety of embroidery patterns she provides at http://www.freewebs.com/lisaspapecraftsdesigns/  

There are a variety of embroidery designs in the book Classic Cards: 60 projects for the discriminating crafter as well.

This book published in 2006 combines embroidery with other cardmaking techniques, something the 'paper embroidery books' rarely do.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Well as you read today's entry I will be winging my way to Pittsburgh. This is the 4th year I will meet with several ladies there.

We stay together at a local motel, eat the free breakfast, rent the breakfast room for the rest of the day (till 10 at nite!), and teach each other paper crafts.

This year I will teach a card and a piece of jewelry. In past years I have taught papermaking, making a stitched signature book, paste paper, making a flag book, carving rubber stamps, and other books and projects that now escape me.

We all take along a handmade item for each person (this year there will be 8 of us) and have a swap the first nite. I have made parchment liners for plastic mugs, paper bead necklaces (you can see these on my website), and parchment cards (the angels on the website). This year it will be the ceramic boxes marbled with alcohol inks shown previously on the blog.

We eat out for a late lunch/early dinner and reserve one day for shopping. My favorite place to shop is Pat Catan as they are a discount craft store and EVERYTHING IS ON SALE! I save up my craft money for this trip. In fact I have a list of things I want to get there. LOL!

One other activity is that everyone arrives with one craft supply for each person, identical. These are distributed to paper sacks so everyone has a set of supplies exactly the same as everyone else. The challenge is to make a card using at least 5 things out of the bag - secretly. We take these on another of our shopping trips to Stamp Fanci and the owner graciously acts as judge. The first year I won 1st place and last year came in 2nd.

I will be flying home on Saturday and give updates on the projects and activities starting Monday, July 16. In the meantime, I will pre-date my entries for this week so you can continue to see new materials every day while I'm gone.

Have a great week - I know I will!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

For the Feburary ladies event at church the theme was 'Falling in Love With Jesus'. Again, I did the decorations.

This time I took the wreaths from Christmas and wrapped the greenery tight around the wire frame, then shaped them into hearts. I made crosses out of garden stakes and set them in pots using floral foam and white garden rocks. Then I wired the hearts to the crosses and used silk roses to decorate the left side of the heart on each face.

These topiaries were very popular.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

I did decorations for the church women's event in December. We had a theme of 'Home for Christmas' so I set up a real tree in the corner, decorated with handmade ornaments. I added a little wooden rocker with a light blanket tossed over it, a side table with a tablecloth, oil lamp, Bible, glasses, and a mug of hot chocolate. Behind, on the wall, was hung my farm painting.

The tables were alternating red and green tablecloths with a centerpiece of an oil lamp sitting inside a wreath. Handmade ornaments were scattered around both and each place setting had a handmade Christmas card with a Victorian illustration. These had the program glued inside.

Here is a photo of the centerpiece.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

Did I 'sell you' on 3D cutting yesterday? Well perhaps a sample of a finished project will do the trick!

Here are a couple more favorite sites from which to print images:

http://community.webshots.com/user/d0npen

http://www.thelilacgarden.co.uk/

Now print, clip, glue, repeat. Come on - you know you want to!

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

3D pictures... decoupage... paper tole... whatever you call it, done well is is a classy, elegant card form. You can print up multiples of semi-simple images and cut away smaller and smaller sections. Then they are mounted one on top of the other with some spacer like silicon glue, pop dots, or foam tape to make an image that appears three dimensional. Some artists curl the paper slightly so it lays more naturally.

If you want to get started without figuring out for yourself what parts to cut away, try these two sites which offer free printable pages. (some offer coordinated backgrounds and inserts for the cards as well.)

http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d130/Craftypixiedust/  

http://www.3dsheets.com//index.html  

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Group leader on one of my lists issued a challenge to make a card using: an A4 card, two 2 inch circles, patterned paper measuring 3 x 4.5 inches, a piece of paper 1 x 3 inches, a button, a peel-off sentiment, and either sewing, pop-dots, or sandpaper.

Here are my two cards.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Another new book that is a useful resource for card-makers is Shirley Toogood's "100 Great Ways to Make Cards" (ISBN 0-7153-2308-3) May 2007.

Many cardmaking styles are covered in this 25 chapter book, with 4 designs using each technique. From Parchment to Punches, Stenciling to Stickers, Tags to Teabag folding, Collage to Confetti. 100 card-making tips are scattered throughout the book as well.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

WOWZER! If you like to play with color... if you want inspiration for what color to combine with something in hand... if you want to see what others are doing with color... then this site is going to knock your socks off: http://kuler.adobe.com/

First you will want to poke around to see what color schemes have been posted by others, but don't wait too long before you click on "Create" and go to town! Play, Play, Play, Experiment, and Play some more.

If you want to save your color schemes, you'll need to register. Who wouldn't want to?

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I collect two things. The first was foreign coins and the second in boxes. It started out when my dear hubby and I were dating and he bought me this box with a gift of perfume in it.

Like the coin hobby by husband buys be boxes as gifts and I buy them wherever we travel. Family buy them for me and many have been hand made as well. In fact, I have made a number of the boxes in my collection.

I have no idea how many boxes I have, though this display holds most of them. Too understand the scale of this, the length is 6 feet and the height 2 feet (plus that bit on the next shelf down ;-)

The largest box I have? I guess that would be my cedar chest built by my brother-in-law. The smallest is this

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

A while back I participated in a couple of swaps. One was to create a card combining paper embroidery with teabag folding.

The other swap was to combine paper embroidery with rubber stamping. For this I used one of my hand-carved stamps and embossed it with gold powder.

I really like paper embroidery as it can be combined with so many other techniques. 

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Last summer when I went to Pittsburgh to meet with some Internet friends we had one whole day of parchment lessons. I had been self-taught up to this, then Em started from the very basics and worked us up to more advanced techniques. Along the way we learned tracing, embossing, piercing, and coloring with a variety of mediums. These are the four cards that I completed in the class.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

Last year one of the groups I am on issued a technique challenge. We were all to make a card by stamping a 'sketch' design style on black cardstock and embossing in gold. A bit of Twinkling H2O mixed with Future Floor Polish is painted onto this background. Since I did not have the requisite rubber stamp style, I used an embossing pen and drew my design on the cardstock.

This is one of the cards I did for the challenge.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Three months last year I did the decorations for Women's Ministries events at church. For the January program I decorated on a 'snow' theme and made snowglobe centerpieces for each of the round tables.

These are based upon the collapsible unit from Some Assembly Required (http://www.some-assembly-required.com/index.php?section=browse&action=product-detail&view=&sku=NAS-Die+SG&img_num=1&sn=12). However, I enlarged the largest of the clear elements to the biggest it could be made to fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of transparency. Each of the other parts was enlarged the same percentage. The base units are all cut from regular cardstock. The center designs are two identical designs mounted on either side of the centermost transparency.

These collapse just like the small die cut units and were a big hit at the event.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

There are two things that I collect. One of these is foreign coins. I think the whole thing started when my mom got a Bolivian penny in some change back when I was a kid. Coins have held a fascination for me ever since.

I pick them up when I travel, friends send them from their own countries and my husband buys them for me from a local coin shop. The shop only really deals in US coins so when they get foreign coins at estate sales and such they just toss them in a box and sell them by the pound.

I sort the coins by country, then by denomination and save only one of each issue style. Whatever I have left in duplicates I use in crafts or donate to the Boy Scouts to use in their merit badges of coin collecting.

The ones I keep are marked in my catalog and filed in coin holder in drawers. I also keep a computer log of countries and the number of coins I have from each one. At last count I had 1179 different coins from 121 countries.

I do collect a few US coins. Mostly the state quarters, the presidential dollars, the westward nickels, and very antique coins.

I'll tell you about my other collection another day.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net  

Here's a neat website for some instruction and some inspiration. www.docrafts.co.uk  has project ideas for cards, scrapbooking, and kids crafts, a gallery of artists' work, instructional videos and 'tips' categorized by papercrafts, rubber stamping, glass painting, funky foam, stickers, punching and cutting, scrapbooking, and adding color.

Other areas 'for members' are most likely to be helpful for UK residents.

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net

Ever have one of those days when you don't want to do anything but veg out and waste time? Fortunately there are plenty of places on the Internet to assist you with this AND a couple of people ready and willing to help you find them!

One of our local radio stations posts daily (Monday through Friday) a 'work waster' designed to let you look busy at work while you actually waste time. Its a running gag they have, and sometimes their postings are useful, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes truly a waste of time. Check it out for yourself: http://www.1190kex.com/pages/pages/work_waster.php

Ddd studio3d@ccwebster.net