Placed and Paged...

First, I absolutely love this new tool I've added to my arsenal, MSC Scoring Board. Thanks to it, I've had much more success scoring card stock for different paper projects. I learned about it from a blog I visit for ideas.

Last week, a friend who hosts our ladies community group I attend asked me to make place cards for our fall dinner party this Friday night. I had great aspirations to formally hand-letter proper, pretty little cards, but one new set of markers and pages of practiced names later, I remembered script computer fonts for a time such as this. Yep, I copped out. That said, I spoke with our hostess and got an idea of her place setting/table color scheme.

I was going for a rich, layered look. One trip to Hob Lob, and I gathered supplies—foiled card stock and vellum in both gold and a dark bronze. (Oh, and that set of calligraphy markers I wound up not using this time. Used my 40% off coupon. [By the way, did you know you can show their online coupon to the cashier from your web-enabled phone to get the discount? No need to print and take in coupon.]) From 12x12 sheets of card stock, I got nine cards per sheet. I scored each 4x4 square at the two-inch mark. I printed names out on the inkjet paper onto the gold velum. The dark bronze vellum ran through my Gypsy/Cricut and cut out small circles. Then I cut notches into the folded card and inserted the dark bronze semi circles to hold each person's name, sort of like photo corners. I taped them down securely with Mavalus tape. (This stuff is great—I keep a loop of it stuck to my top kitchen cabinet door for holding recipes when I bake.) One of the benefits to hand lettering the names was I could add new names up to the last minute and they'd look like everyone else's. Oh, well. I know it's going to be a fun time with great gals! 

Zentangle Sketchbook

After the Zentangle class in October, I've been looking for 'just the right' sketchbook to collect and practice patterns. After several 'maybes,' I found a sure thing. Again, Hob Lob to the rescue. Not only is a square format, the paper inside has a nice amount of 'tooth' for sketching/inking. Additionally, there is a clear plastic pouch in the back—perfect for holding printouts of numerous Zentangle patterns for quick reference or inspiration.

Then my left brain took control of the situation. Certainly I can't be left to having all that free roaming white space—gotta rein it in, or at least keep it in tidy, manageable formats. What I need is templates—oooh, aahh... Yep, it's THAT bad. So I measured the pages; got on the computer; created several different formats based on various column widths; and printed them off on plain card stock.

Again, using my scoring board, and then trimming each to page size, I cut out each of the 'windows.' Each template is placed on a page, pencil traced within and lifted away. Tah dah—now I can color outside the lines. Yeah, right.

I've got some supplies gathered for Christmas hand-mades (secret surprises I can't share here) so am looking forward to getting started. And there's another project I need to finish NLT next Monday. My freelance client is happy and their project is getting closer to going to press—both good. Add into the mix the electricians will be here for a few days in a row to work on our wiring. Temperament, tasks and timing must adapt. Sigh.