I'm still enjoying creating tealight Christmas villages with paper.

Can you hear the Christmas music?

I'm beginning to make Christmas village houses in August. A little early you might say, but it is keeping me out of the sweltering heat of Minnesota and giving me a boost up on getting my products ready for my November craft fair. I used to make them with Tim Holtz steel dies but have now discovered the convenience of the Cameo Silhouette 3 machine. I'm tired of lining little pieces of paper up on a die and having to do that several times for just one house. The Silhouette lets me automate that process so I can get to the fun part of constructing and decorating the houses quicker. Using the Silhouette software, I'm also designing my own houses which adds to the fun of it.

I'm Back!

After a long absence from paper crafting, I'm finally back! As life throws so many things at us, we can stray from what makes us truly happy. For me, happiness has always come in the form of pure creativity. Not creating for financial gain or for anyone else's taste, but purely for the enjoyment of making something new that had not yet existed until it flowed out of my brain, my heart and my hands.

I took a day off from crafting for craft fairs and prepared tags for a swap hosted by Stephanie Miller withagrin. I always look forward to her swaps because she makes it so simple and easy. The swap consists of stamping two separate images on ten tags each for a total of twenty tags (I used two Tim Holtz images). We send them to her and receive twenty different stamped images back which we can then embellish on our own and use in future projects. Thank you, Steff! They're on their way.

Rooster Mini Album

Finished another mini tp album. Really easy to complete in a day or two...instant gratification.

Preparing for Craft Fair

Obviously I have not been to attentive to this form of communication as of late. It seems that more and more of my time gets sucked into the social-online-media-void and less of my time is spent actually creating something. I am torn between continuing this downward spiral and cutting myself off from what now has become a huge part of my everyday. I need to replace staring at my computer screen with some more constructive activities...which is why I've committed myself to preparing for the Pickerington Antique & Craft Show in Ohio this November. My good friend Chris A Little of This and I decided to jump into the "craft fair pool" together...head first. Wish us luck!

Here is a couple of the things I've created...

a PARIS THEMED MINI:

and this...

A BUTTERFLY THEMED MINI:

Now I need to step away from the screen and get CREATING!