What's a sick, broke crafter to do?

PROLOGUE: I have been battling pneumonia since the start of April. I never had it before, and I must say it has kicked my ass.  One of the main things I have learned about myself is that I do not know what "rest" means.  I know what "sleep" means, but when you are done with "sleep," this illness is one where you do not pop up and do whatever.  I have not been to work.  Sometimes, my cough and headache are so egregious that I do not do much at all.  So, what I am about to show below is "What JoLynn Does When She Can Only Lie Down."  It's also, "What JoLynn Does When She Does Not Have a Boatload of Money." 

Enter Silhouette Studio and my laptop. Over the course of a few weeks, I have watched lots of videos, some showcasing these dies:

Simon Says Stamp Dahlia Frame

Simon Says Stamp Lotus Frame

Simon Says Stamp Corner Dahlia Frame

Those of you that know me know that I do not have an abundance or flowers on hand. I do like a flower from time to time. But if I bought these dies at $17 a pop, I would be giving someone a $17 card.  It is then that I say, "JoLynn, can you make something similar?"  Since I was tied down to a couch or a bed, the answer became, "Yup." As you click on the Simon Says Stamp links, there are samples of what people have made with these dies.  I love the simplicity!

Let's start with my version of the lotus die cut frame.

I wanted to try to replicate the frame SSS used, as I like the idea of doing more than stitching in a frame.  The flowers and stems are a bit skinny, delicate if you will, so I may edit them to be thicker.  

It took me a while to find a free dahlia .png that was what I was looking for.  There are so many versions!  I loved the look of the SSS corner dahlia and how the leaves "creeped" up the sides. I am pretty pleased with this one.

The tulip was actually the first one I tried.  I created a stitched frame, and the tulip .png was pretty easy to find.  It's simple and lovely.

These frames are a great design concept.  Mine are not, nor will they ever be, as intricate as SSS. However, there's times in every crafter's life when she must say, "Can I make it? Does it make sense to buy it?"

JMcGuire Does Inspire

I have been watching a LOT of video.  A LOT.  I have been laid up with pneumonia for the past week. The torturous part of that was that I had a great deal of inspiration, but I had absolutely no energy.  For example, this seemingly simple card for my son took me (no joke) 3 hours to complete.  Granted, there was a lot of self-creation of some things in Silhouette Studio, but it was not a three-hour card.  It is also stacked, like today's card, but I was not in a photography mood that day, as you can see.  That was a week ago, before my diagnosis.

Today, I created this card, completely inspired by the design of Jennifer McGuire.  Her card uses the word Hugs and is pictured below.  I TOTALLY dig how this turned out.  Click on the photo for a much better resolution.

I have, as of late, enjoyed stacking die cuts to create more dimension.  This one was too cute, as it used different colors to create the stack.  Jennifer used an alphabet die that she links on her website.  I created this sentiment using the Alexandria free font.  Using Silhouette Studio, I made the letters a wee bit "chunkier," as well as the base they are glued on, using the "offset" option.  Then, the machine did a whole lot of cutting. Underneath the panel, as suggested by Jennifer, I took strips of the colors I used in the stack to tie in a rainbow.  I used Love Your Guts from Cathy Zielske's Clear Stamps Simple Sentiments No. 1 for Simon Says Stamp. If you would like to see how Jennifer created this, and other cards that use the alphabet dies, take a peek at her video around minute 21.

Turnabout Thanks

The Triangle Turnabout background that I conquered the other day has turned into this! A simply lovely little thank you card.  I used some gray cardstock on white along with a Lawn Fawn die layered gray on white.  The turnabout what a challenge for me because I insisted upon rushing.  Once I slowed myself down, I was able to get a decent product.  

A Lawn Fawn afternoon

Inspired By This Pin

Inspired By This Pin

Kim's stash was VERY helpful in the making of these cards.  If it's Lawn Fawn, she's got it!

Loving this find for dimensional cards

My buddy Kim, as well as some online crafters, have a love-hate relationship with shaker and wheel cards.  These cards require the making of a "sandwich" that is usually created with foam mounting tape or craft foam.  The foam can look kind of icky on a card you invest a lot of time making.  Enter this product that Kim found in Florida:

Game changer.

Here is a card we made today with the Lawn Fawn Reveal Wheel.**

Check. It. Out.  Yes, the wheel still turns quite easily.  But no more horrific looking tape.  This can be used for a multitude of cards: shaker, reveal wheel, water color mounting...the possibilities are endless.  It was, surprisingly, not available through Amazon, but WalMart and Target supplied it.

This card was inspired by this pin.

**NOTE: The Lawn Fawn Reveal Wheel has its good moments and its bad.  There is an impression it leaves, especially on card stock, that requires a lot of care (and occasional curse words).  Here is a picture we took of the impression, which happened several times and most usually when we used cardstock.  It works better on patterned paper.  You must be cautious how you position the die through the die-cutting machine, and even then, there are inconsistencies.  Just wanted to be sure you knew before buying.  We have contacted Lawn Fawn about this flaw.

See, what had happened was...

I was minding my own business, admiring some cards, when I happened upon this current trend (or pendulum swing) of shadows on die cut sentiments.

Cathy Zielske's dies

Concord & 9th Stamps and Coordinating Dies

Honey Bee Stamps Dies

This reminded me of when I started considering buying sentiment stamps.  "I can write that myself," I said.  "Why would I buy a stamp?"  I soon realized that sometimes a stamp is quicker, cleaner, and more convenient.  But not cost-efficient.  One stamp makes maybe three cards unless you are in mass-production mode.  But we (yes, "we") get caught up in the cuteness factor, watch a Jennifer McGuire video, and suddenly need "all the things."

Lately, I have decided that this cycle is ridiculous.  Case in point: Concord & 9th has a turnabout stamp concept that is ingenious.  However, there are things that they have decided are important must-haves that they did not conceptualize before production.  Now, they are trying to sell things that make using the stamp set easier.  The stamp set, mind you, that cost $24 to the average crafter.  Now buy these two other things as add-ons?  Nah.  Or the wreath builder from the wonderful Gina K.  While I purchased the original wreath builder, I have since cut several different sizes of it on my own with my Silhouette Cameo.  It's two squares, people.  For real.

Back to the shadows: When I saw some of my favorites using shadows with their sentiments, and when I was ever so close to buying some of them, an epiphany hit: Hey, JoLynn.  You can make these.  And the tinkering began.  Please forgive these photos.  In my excitement, I literally did not wait for the glue (which dries clear) to dry.

First, I wanted to get a serif font look going on like my girl, Cathy Z.  Two things: kerning and cut blade.  I did have to go in to Photoshop to get the letters as close as I wanted.  The Silhouette software had its limits.  Second, I used a pre-cut that was in the Silhouette Studio software.  The white paper did not have as smooth of a cut as I would have preferred.  And, let's just say I need practice gluing a sentiment to a shadow.  It's a little wonky, but a good prototype.

Then came this beauty.  I was like, "Hmmm, let's use some script fonts."  A couple of tutorials later, and voila! Script font, with shadow, and a smooth cut after some tinkering with blade depth.

So, it may be completely real: I might never buy a word die again.

Apparently, I like rotations

Today's card is brought to you by the Concord & 9th Retro Petals Turnabout Stamp Set.  I was inspired by this card, which uses the stencils for this set (which are on their way from SSS).  I was also inspired by the recent offset shadow word dies I have been seeing.  This is my first shot at designing one with my Silhouette.  I plan to play a LOT more with this idea.  

Interested in the Turnabout stamps?  There are some things you must set up, but once you do, it creates a great background.  I am not a fan of all of the designs, but I like this one a lot.  Again, I will get braver as time moves on.