I received another bookmark in the mail today. This one is from New Hampshire and it's a penguin with a little quote that says, "It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry"
Here are the three I've received. My penguin, my sweets and my giraffe/birds. Yay! I love them all!
I had some time this afternoon and worked on my Altoid tin a little. I'm pretty satisfied with how it's coming along so far. I'm working off the premise that my partner loves fairies. It's going to be whimsical and somehow love-y too. Lots of pink as you can tell!!
Also! I received two bookmarks so far! One has a giraffe and birds (love both of those) and the other has all sweets with a pastel plaid background. The one on the bottom is a Blackberry inspired Dilbert comic from quite awhile ago that I made with packing tape and lots of love!
My first bookmark is a sugary girly themed one! It's really cute!
I got my partner tonight. So here goes the brainstorming.
She likes magnets, the Smurfs, charms. She doesn't have a wist, so I'm doing the Craftster stalking. Bowling, fairies, scrapbooking (meh), animals. Hmm. Sounds pretty vague...
I will start decorating my tin, possibly tonight, probably tomorrow. Work zonked me today. I'm going to work out in a bit.
My bookmarks are sent out.
My zine is about half done.
And, because I am a true addict: I signed up for another swap. That makes four at once, a new record. The new swap is due Feb 3rd--it's a Vday cookie swap. You make two dozen, craft a small item and purchase a small item and ship it off. The good thing about the cookies is you get a dozen and your SO gets a dozen.
(click to make them bigger--much much bigger!)
Bookmarks are done! Yay! This was a great swap to sign up for and I'm so glad I did. From left to right: vintage/dog/music/polka dots, natural/fantasy, zombies and Jane Austen/romantic.
Zombies (again) and my Jane Austen bookmark. It's vintage pink paper with swirly flourishes and then was embossed (using the Cuttlebug) with more swirls. I wrote the quotation out and added some beads to the string (it's upholstery thread). The beads are a nice touch, I think.
The back of the Jane Austen bookmark has my first die-cut cutouts (paisley, naturally) in pink and purple. It's all so romantic and periodic! I'm not an Austen fan but I think the marker came out pretty swell. This one was heavily mod-podged before it was laminated. It looks a bit shiny, I suppose. I like it.
One of the group members likes "dogs, music, polka dots, vintage patterns and things that are funny." I couldn't think of anything funny to write (people's senses of humor are quite different) so I just drew a goofy looking dog. The vintage paper is paisley. Both sides of this marker are the same, more or less (I did freehand the dog). All the bookmarks are laminated with heatless laminate--though I should've just used clear contac-paper or shelf liner. Next time...
Finished my Zombies Bookmark!
It says, "Reading makes your brains taste yummier!" with a picture of a brain. It looks nearly identical on the back. Turned out very cute, IMO. The recipient for this is Samantha, as you can see by my gift tag.
I made a few bookmarks tonight. I am nearly done with this swap and I just got my partners. The themes I chose to work with are:
-zombies
-jane austen
-music/polka dots/dogs
-fantasy/nature
Zombies is all the way done. I bought some heatless laminate @ michael's and I'm laminating the marks when they're complete. I think zombies turned out great!
I just can't stop myself!
I signed up for (yet) another swap.
So now I'm in the Zine Swap (send out Jan 14th), the Bookmark Swap (send out Jan 5th) and the Altoid Tin-Valentine's Day Swap. They're all pretty small.
1. Bookmark Swap is 4 bookmarks (I'm using paper, I don't care what my partners ask for). I haven't started because I want to see what my partners like for patterns and 'feels', textures, etc.
2. Zine Swap. I'm moving along nicely. I have about 10-15 pages in my zine and I have about 10 to go. I'm going to write a review for the movie "Doubt", a little recommendation section for books and cds (Dewey the Small Town Library Cat!!) and maybe 1-2 short articles about a current topic in feminism/GLBT rights. I might talk about derogatory language (f--, g--) and why it's harmful. I want to put my beliefs out there a little bit. I did a Post Secret and I've included poetry but I don't really have any "this is my belief" pieces. Oh. I'm making my zine into a PDF so that everyone can see. I've got the 10-15 pages done and scanned and ready to be published on teh interwebz. I just gotta hustle up and finish my last pages. My zine is very small, about 4x6" but has about 30 pages. Note to self: GET A GEL PEN! I need to be able to write on black paper.
3. Altoid Tin Swap. I've never done one of these before. It looks fun and easy. I'll probably tuck in a cheesy card, some die-cut/punches, some candy and some fun valentine's paper. I looked through the Altoid Tin First Aid Kit gallery and the tins came out PRECIOUS! One said, "Kiss My Boo Boo!" on the front and the things people thought to include were awesome (condoms, tweezers, lip balm, instructions for the Heimlich...)
It's a flipping addiction. I am nearly done with my little zine, "zineswap" and I signed up for another swap: book marks. You craft 4-5 book marks and send them out. You receive 4-5 book marks back. I figure it will be a good chance to do some embossing!
I can't decide how I want to upload my little zine. So far, it's all original writing (poetry, short essay) plus an easy sudoku from websudoku.com. I think I'm going to include a little mix cd too (I wrote my 2008 anthem playlist up in my zine) but not sure how that plays into copyright laws.
Yeah, so the writing is good. I went back as far as when I started college. I have my high school journals that I might be able to salvage some good pieces. I also want to do a few etymological pieces. "did you know that ______ came from _____?" I love etymology.
