burst of creativity

wow, it's been a while... like usual- I really admire people who can post regularly, but I will never be one of them. Obviously, I did make it back from Chicago- finally. I was sooo glad to see the lights of the East Valley appear out of the airplane window as we came in for a landing at Sky Harbor Airport!! For a couple reasons- two weeks is too long to live in a hotel room, at least for me- I really missed our house, with our things and our furniture; I really missed Tom and the pets (two weeks is about the longest we've been apart since we met); and I was good and sick of all the cold and snow in Chicago! I took some craft supplies with me to Chicago, but didn't do too much with them... not sure if it was the cold weather, the impersonal hotel room, or the early darkness. Finally this past week, I've been in a creating mood again. These first two pictures are decorated envelopes for a swap on swapbot- mostly stamped, which I haven't done much of in quite a while! The swap was for a set of 10 envelopes to two partners. The only rule was that they couldn't be plain. Mine ended up mostly being rubber stamped (see all of them on my Flickr page). I haven't stamped like this in quite a while; it was really fun, and I ended up wishing I had made some extras to keep for myself. It was difficult to pack them up to send them off; hopefully the recipients will like them as much as I liked making them!

I also started a couple other projects this weekend. One is a visual journal, which I've wanted to do for a long time, but I've been reluctant to start it (that's because of my inner perfectionist, darn him- I've never done anything like this before, so I don't think my pages will be "good enough" so I just don't start). I finally got past the scariness of the "blank white page" by painting some backgrounds. I hauled my notebook, paints, and palette out onto the dining room table, so I could paint while we watched TV and waited for the Sprint Cup race to start... (Tom wasn't feeling good this weekend, so he hung out on the couch most of the time. )

Now that I have some pages started, I can take the next steps and add more paper, stamping, texture, and all that other fun stuff! And then, of course, there's the cover, which looks pretty boring now, with only a black and white design... (see more of these pages on my Flickr page, too)

Next weekend is the Spring Fling rubber stamp show in Mesa, where I'll get more inspiration and ideas ... Sedona has an appointment at the groomer's, so I'll have a few hours of time to kill while I wait for her to get beautified... so I "have" to go, right?? lol!!