HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY -- FIVE YEARS OF SHARING

Five years ago today, September 5, 2012, the little seed I'd planted emerged full-blown as Paper Seedlings, the blog you are reading right now!

My first blog post, On Track, explained where I thought this blog might be headed into the future. I know I was all excited about recently having acquired My Digital Studio through Stampin' Up!. I saw a GREAT future of digital creativity with that program. In fact, the header of my blog was created in My Digital Studio. (Unfortunately, this program is no longer available from Stampin' Up! But, I have lots of fond memories of MDS!)

In that post, I featured a little MDS-created decorative quote, a quote that I've always loved and is so true:

Even if you're on the right track, 

you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers gave us that nugget of wisdom, one that each and every person setting out on a journey that requires some effort to succeed is duly reminded to take heed of constantly.

The post for my first blogiversary, A Year of Inspiring Others, acknowledges the fact that, even though I felt I'd made progress in my first year of blogging, I still have a long way to go. I also mentioned that I continue to struggle with the looks and workings of my blog, and hoped to make improvements.

I guess that I did not realize that I was celebrating my second blogiversary in September 2014. I never acknowledged it in the posts surrounding that date. Huh. Disappointing. It seemed it was just business as usual that September.

Having just completed three years as a blogger, I published this September 2015 post, Celebrating Three Years of Blogging. As I perused the contents of this celebratory post, I smiled a few times. You see, I was talking about re-working my blog and creating a new header, expressing the hopes that, if I could figure out the technical stuff, I hoped to get this done in the next few months. Funny. We'll talk about that in a few years, I mean paragraphs.

Unfortunately, I guess I didn't realize that I was celebrating another year of blogging in 2016. I always acknowledge this important date within my own mind, but I guess that's where all the celebrating remained, since I didn't mention it in any September 2016 posts. Oh well. It was four years since I'd started to plant those little creative paper seedlings, and I am proud to report that, even four years later, I hadn't wavered from my initial intent one bit. One more unfortunate bit of info about this next year's milestone: My blog was still in the deplorable condition it was a year ago. Ah. The best laid plans . . .  

This year, however, I am very cognizant of the fact that it is FIVE YEARS AGO THAT I FIRST HIT PUBLISH! Happy Blogiversary to ME!

I am still sticking to my original plan for the blog -- I am still all about planting those little creative paper ideas, Paper Seedlings. And I am proud to have clung to that initial intent for five years, without wavering at all. I still love to share with all of you, hoping you become inspired enough through what I share to jump on the Creative Journey with me!

OK. NOW is the time to address the very old problem of an outdated, not-working-well blog. Even though my original header has had just a slight makeover, it remains true to my roots in its overall look. I am thrilled to announce that about two weeks ago, my blog finished undergoing a complete makeover! Not by me. Oh no. I have not progressed technically as I'd hoped. I actually hired a wonderful lady to do all the improvements for me. And I think she did a beautiful job! 

I now have a larger header, my blog posts fill up the screen, my right column looks sleek and slick, and everything fits nicely. AND she added little buttons underneath my header with which you can access all the various areas of my blog! 

One of the things she added to these buttons and also on the right side, is a button that reads "Shop Now". This enables you to shop directly with Stampin' Up! through me! And, if you click on either the Events or Specials button, that click will bring you to my DBWS -- my demonstrator website. There are so many cool ideas on there, not only from me, but from Stampin' Up! too!

Please take a close look at the new and improved Paper Seedlings blog. I thought that by doing this blog makeover, it would be a perfect way to commemorate my five years of blogging. And I am right! I am so thrilled with the results!

Now, to celebrate my five years of planting Paper Seedlings, I would like to host a little giveaway. 

In order to enter to win the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post any time before 5:00 p.m. CST Tuesday, September 12. 

That evening, when I write my blog post, I will announce the winner, which will be picked randomly (the old-fashioned way, with slips of paper) from the comments I receive up until 5:00 that day. 

The winner of the giveaway will have two choices of prize. 

I show two photos below. The first photo is a set of four cards featuring images that were stamped and fussy cut from Designer Series Paper. The second photo shows the set of four quilted Christmas cards that I featured in this blog post. 

If you are the winner, you will choose whether you want the set of four floral cards or the set of four quilted cards. The quilted cards don't necessarily need to be Christmas themed. If you would prefer non-Christmas quilted cards, I will create that set for you. 

When I contact the winner, you will give me your snail mail address as well as your choice of prize.

Now, get down there and leave me a COMMENT! I can't wait to hear from you!

Blogiversary

Smiles.

PINWHEEL PETALS

In looking through my ancient issues of Stampin' Success, the publication Stampin' Up! demonstrators are lucky to receive, I came across a project that I thought could be made into an adorable card. The issue, from 2008!, has an article entitled "Punch It Up". Of course, it requires punches that were current product at that time, but have since been retired.

As a devoted aficionado of almost everything I've ever purchased from Stampin' Up!, and since I am very reluctant to give anything up, I, of course, still had on hand the punches the article requires. If you'd like to give this project a try, maybe you too still have your Tag Punch? If so, grab it! If not, there are lots of punches and dies on the market now that would work equally as well. Maybe the shape would be a bit different, but it would still work. The punch I used measures 1 3/4" tall by 1 3/8" wide.

I do apologize that my flower is created from retired Designer Series Paper. You see, I wasn't sure how it was all going to work, so I just grabbed something to give it a try. It turned out so cute that I decided to go ahead and use it on my card. I hope you don't mind.

Anyway, this is the card I came up with, using the Tag Punch for my Pinwheel Petal creation:

There actually is a lot of current product at work in this card: the Basic Gray cardstock, the Whisper White cardstock, the Softly Falling embossing folder (page 211), the sentiment from Basket of Wishes (page 125), the center of the flower from the Hello Color set (page 168), the scallop edge die from the Seasonal Layers Thinlits (page 216), and, of course, the pearls on page 197.

The following photos merely show various angles of the Pinwheel Petal flower. This next photo shows just how cute the small flower from Hello Color is as the center of a larger flower. The flower is not perfectly centered, thus the little bit of lopsidedness when punched with a circle punch.

Before I added the embossed dots on the Basic Gray background with the Softly Falling embossing folder, the card was quite boring. This little bit of dimension adds a perfect punch of interest.

Following is the actual process for creating each petal. The first photo is what the DSP looks like when punched with the Large Tag Punch. There are only two simple steps:

The first step is to fold the bottom edge of the tag so it lines up with the left edge of the tag. (See the center photo.)

Finally, fold the top layer back so the original bottom edge of the tag lines up with the folded edge. (the last photo) Looking at all three of the pictures, can you visualize that?

Once that second fold is made, you have now completed one petal. To make a flower like the one on my card, you need to make eight of these petals.

To build the flower, start with a circle punched with the 1 3/4" Circle Punch. I found the center of the circle to start the first petal, and, if the petals are lined up against one another, it should come out perfectly. Once this is put together, this will be the back of the flower. The front center of the flower can be built up, first starting with another 1 3/4" circle, then adding layers as desired.

Here is a little awareness scenario for you: Look at my completed flower in the photo below, and note that the inside folded edge -- which is the reverse side of this DSP -- is completely white. Now, look at my photos above. See that annoying burgundy piece interfering with my pristine white? As I was making my petals, I noticed that this happened on three of my petals. And that bothered me. Thus, I ended up punching and folding 11 petals for my 8-petal card so that the inside of each of them was pure white. That's OK. They were good to use for my pictorial instructions. Right?

Does it bother you that I use retired product at times in my blog posts? I just love all my goodies so much that I really need to play with them! If you don't own the actual products that I am using, there are so many current items available through Stampin' Up! that would work similarly in each of my projects. Since I can't afford to replace things that I already have, I can't always feature current product in my posts. I simply present my projects as a starting point, as an inspiration, enticing you to try these technique with other options if you need to, and make them your own!

As always, if you would like to purchase Stampin' Up! product through me, just click on the Shop Now button, either at the top under my header or on the right side. 

Pinwheel

Smiles.

DOODLE CATS

Are you a cat person? It is often said that either you are a cat person or a dog person. I personally can refute that statement because I love both cats and dogs. 

But, my persona as a dog person is fairly recent, oh, about 20 years, when Pebbles, a Lhasa Apso, came into our lives. Even though she ruined every single carpet in our house with her less-than-ideal potty habits, she was so lovable and turned me into a bona fide dog person. Then, of course, our Harley, our unforgettable Harley, who left our lives in December 2015, . . . well, because of him, I will forever consider myself a dog person.

However, a cat person? Yes! That's me. Furever and ever. Amen. As a kid, cats were part of our family on a few occasions. But, I always always loved kitties. Pretzel was my honey princess for 16 years, until she had to leave us about 3 1/2 years ago. Growing up with Pretzel, Fred, a stray, is still a part of our life. Remember Fred. At 11 years old, is our current -- and last -- resident kitty.

Anyway, being a furever and ever cat person, when I spotted the Cat Punch on page 53 of the Holiday Catalog (going live on September 1!), I had to have it. Even though I hadn't intended to purchase the coordinating stamp set on that same page, I just HAD to have the punch. The punched cat measures about 2" x 2".

When I first got the punch, I punched out a few cats from DSP, especially spooky Halloween type papers. Yeah. They were cute. But I KNEW I just had to do more <personal> things with punched kitties.

The photo below shows you my cat menagerie so far. I punch the cats from white cardstock. These white kitties can be facing either way. I start by penciling a design on the punched shape. I then spiff it up a bit with my Sakura Pigma pens. After that, I choose some of my Copic Markers, and go to work completing a unique original. 

So far, I have completed 11 cats that you won't find anywhere else in the world that make up my cat menagerie. I'd like to introduce you to them individually:

Bullseye Cat

Circle Cat

Bold Stripe Cat

Forget-Me-Not Cat

Triangle Cat

Checkerboard Cat

Diamond Cat

Big Square Cat

Wavy Cat

Starry Cat

Sunflower Cat

There! Now you have met what I've come to think of as my Doodle Cats. I hope you like them!

And here is the whole bunch one more time. I do have two more drawn, inked and ready to be colored. So this is not the end of this family. And I know many more will follow in their pawprints.

Now. I'd like to ask your advice. I get tired of using everything I create as part of a card. These Doodle Cats surely deserve a project all their own. Don't you agree? Do you have any ideas for projects where they would find a comfortable and suitable home?

Feline

Fine

Smiles.

A CHRISTMAS QUILT

I have been quilting lately. Shown below are my four most recent quilts. Aren't they adorable?

I know I had you fooled. You REALLY thought I had taken up quilting -- like with fabric and thread -- didn't you?

These cozy little Christmas quilts are made from paper! 

They are the end result when you take advantage of what I consider the star of the Creativity Delivered 2017 Holiday Catalog, which goes live to the public on September 1. The Suite I am referring to is Quilted Christmas, which can be found on pages 4 and 5 in the Holiday Catalog.

I realize that later on in the catalog, you can become smitten with mittens. But, I am tragically smitten with this quilted suite. 

The Quilt Builder Framelits Dies on page 5 include 15 dies. But the one I am most in love with is the second from the right, the square with a quilt pattern in the center. And then do you see the darling Quilted Christmas 6" x 6" Designer Series Paper stack at the bottom of that same page?

Using 3" squares of four of the different designs in the paper stack, plus, four 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" squares of Garden Green cardstock, with a 3 1/4" square of scrap cardstock for the back of the quilt piece, yields these four completed quilts! The die I referred to in the previous paragraph is the magic behind these little quilts.

I didn't notice until I had crafted several quilts that you can actually make four quilts using the same set of cut papers. I guess I'm a slow learner. But, by simply switching up the various pieces among the four quilts, you end up with four quite different-looking quilts, as can be seen in the four photos below. 

The perfect sections created with the die and the cardstock makes it so so simple to put together a quilt, and have it look perfect every single time.

Before I begin adding the quilt pieces to the diecut frame, I glue a 3 1/4" square of scrap cardstock to the backside to form a base into which you glue the quilt pieces.

I was going to leave the quilts as is, solely made of paper. After looking at them this way for a day, I decided to add the tiny buttons I'd had in my stash to the center of each one. Of course, it makes it more of a challenge for mailing, but I like the nice touch it adds.

Looking at the papers close-up, don't they look like actual quilting FABRIC? I am so impressed. And so in love.

By adding a Real Red mat and mounting it to a Whisper White card base, you end up with a precious 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" card -- with very little effort. It's a chance to let your tools do most of the work for you! 

And, at 4 1/4" square, the cards fit inside a traditional A2 envelope. Unless, of course, you want to make an envelope to fit it perfectly, then grab some paper and your Envelope Punch Board!

My girls will be making one of these cards at my September Stamp-In. You're welcome to come!

Quilted

Smiles.

COLOR CRAZY

I am here to permit you -- no ENCOURAGE you -- to get a little crazy with color once in awhile.

You see, I've been coloring these flowers for several months now. I finally got tired of trying to make them look realistic, traditional, and/or at least, cohesive.

Do you remember me talking about these coloring pages of Designer Series Paper that Stampin' Up! had available during Sale-A-Bration?

I love them, and am tending to hoard them. In fact, one of the designs is still sitting whole and untouched. I don't want to RUIN it! Huh? Linda!!

Two of the designs I had cut up into 3 1/4" x 4 3/4" pieces for a workshop I'd had featuring them. I took all the unused (unloved??) pieces that were left over, and stuck them inside a folder which I bring to the 319 Gallery where I volunteer each Tuesday.

Recently, while I was there I pulled out a piece similar to the one I show above. I looked at all those lovely hand-drawn flowers, trying to decide what to do. I'd colored them in so many different ways. I wanted something that wasn't so cliche.

I always bring along with me to the Gallery a random selection of my Copic Markers. Seriously, no rhyme or reason for the colors I bring with me. I'd love to bring them all, but since I have about 130 of them, it's way too heavy. So I just pack up whatever fits in a pencil box.

I decided to treat this sparse floral scene the same way -- randomly.

I blindly grabbed inside my container for a marker, and colored two petals in that color -- two petals not near each other, but on different parts of the canvas.

Next, I randomly selected another marker, and colored two distant petals in that color. 

I continued in that fashion until I had all the petals colored, sometimes reusing colors I'd already used. What a feast for the eyes! The mishmash of colors was so much fun! No rhyme or reason gave way to a plethora of colorful petals. Fun!

And talk about coloring being therapeutic! Doing it in this fashion requires little thinking. Just do it!

 I decided to leave the dragonfly as is, thus adding no color to him at all. Later on in the process, he seemed kind of like dead wood, so I added a layer of clear Wink of Stella. Of course, no matter how I positioned this while taking the photos, I could not capture the glisten. Just imagine that it really is there. It is!

After I had all the flowers colored in, sure, it was fun and vibrant, but there was so much WHITE space. I know, I know. A certain amount of white space is a good thing. A place for the eyes to rest, a break from the routine, etc. etc.

 But I wanted MORE! And I just did not want to color all that white space. Yuk. Boring.

So I drew in squiggly double lines to create a grid across the piece. Then, having three markers in the yellow family with me that day, I randomly colored in each of those squares with a yellow hue, not paying attention to the fact that sometimes the same color is next to the same color. Like I keep saying: RANDOM. The theme of this piece.

Do you notice that the black mat the piece is set onto is cut squiggly to match the squiggly lines of the grid? I thought that was a cool touch.

After I had my background completed, the flowers seemed a little lost. Believe it or not. With all that color. Refer back to the photo of the uncolored piece. See how the line work is just that? Line work?

So I had a great time RANDOMLY thickening the lines of the flowers. Yes! I really liked that!

Since, of course, because it's what I do, I turned the creation into a card. And here it is!

So there! How little fun it is to constantly follow the tried and true path. Have a blast and do things RANDOMLY! It will be a complete surprise as to what you end up with. Sure to be a little different and outside the box!

Random

Smiles.