Phewwww!

I just finished two projects and shipped them off to The Stamp Art Shoppe to be displayed for January classes. That is a weight off my shoulders! It is so hard to get any personal stuff done when it is this time of year! The framed Paper Heart Quilt is one class and the card will be another where we make 4 Valentine's Day themed cards. I have 2 other classes as well, but they will be towards the end of the quarter. The new calendar comes out the end of this month so check out the Stamp Art Store website for dates and times. You can always leave me a comment with your email address and I will send you the dates.

I have a couple of weeks to finish other projects and get things in order for the holiday. I am hoping to get a few things up on Etsy as well, but I think I have kinda missed the window for Christmas and I need to move on to Valentine's Day! I do have a few cute things I just need to put the final touches on that I can put up in the next few days.

*CRAFT TIPS*

I was making some Christmas cards (for me!) and I was thinking about Stickles. You know the little teeny bottles of wonderfully colored glitter glue? I love those darned things, especially this time of year. Since I have used them so much lately I realized that they require some instruction for the newbie. So if you are a Stickle newbie, listen up.

The regular Stickles have a nice fine tip to write with, but honestly they look better if you put just a thin coat and smush it around with the tip. The new Distress Stickles have a fatter tip, but you can do all the same things with them I promise, and not as many clogs in the tip. All of them take FOREVER to dry if you glop it on thick. My advice is to do a really thin coat and add more if needed. If you are covering a large area I like to use my finger to spread them out. Like I said, you can always add more.

If you are covering something like lettering where you want a fine line, it works well if you do a practice run on some scratch paper just to get the feel of how fast they come out and how much to squeeze. Then, work kind of fast, don't hesitate. Kind of like writing frosting on a cake. If you slow down the frosting gets thick and gloppy.

If you happen to get too much-it happens-keep toothpicks handy. They are invaluable to remove extra stickles and spread them out along a line or shape. If I am going along and I get a blob and then a skip, I just go back over it with my toothpick and smooth it down and spread it along the line. It is also a good idea to have a pin lying around to unclear clogs. I don't get too many, but every once in awhile... I hope this helps and make sure to use them ALOT so you get lots of practice! Just a little advice from your friendly neighborhood crafter!

We got a huge Christmas tree last weekend. We started decorating it, but we will finish tomorrow. Nick's girlfriend came with us and helped decorate and put up the lights. What a sweetie! Finally someone besides me who wants to decorate! We had fun tromping around the tree farm arguing about the trees, bossing each other around about how the tree goes in the stand, fighting over how the lights go on the tree. Good times! We even took both dogs, and packed a picnic lunch to eat up there! The weather was beautiful! Seriously, it was a fun day.

Well, I am about to turn into a pumpkin, so I'm callin' it a night.

Joy to the World!

Susan