Tuesday, November 15, 2011

2-Step Bird Punch Quote Card

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  I Need To Stop Living Life In "Countdown" Mode
Have you ever been to a New Year's party or watched a New Year's celebration on television?  If so, then you know the tradition of starting to count down the seconds, out loud, as the stroke of midnight nears.  Unfortunately, this little tradition has started to invade my daily life.  I call it living in "countdown" mode.  It seems I am always counting down the minutes until my next trip or counting down the minutes until I will return home again.  Or I'm counting down the minutes until Buddy's next walk...or my next meal...or a television show I'd like to watch.  If I'm spending all of this time in countdown mode, I am not living in the present moment!  I know you have heard me share my thoughts before on living in the now - it is something I am continuing to work on - something I haven't learned how to do as regularly as I would like.  When I find myself counting down I want to have a mantra to turn to - maybe something like "Breathe in the now."  Just typing that seems to relax my shoulders and make me feel at peace.  Breathe in the now :)  Maybe that is truly today's lesson from the craft room :)
Today's card was inspired by the Chinese proverb I shared with you last week.  I decided to type it up on the computer and then print it out on plain paper on my laser printer.  I then cut out each of the pieces and adhered them to the card base using glue.  A layer of Crystal Effects was then added to each word to give the words some dimension.  I stamped images from Artistic Etchings in River Rock and Basic Black and then added a bird punched from Basic Black card stock using the 2-step bird punch.  If you are noticing the very subtle rectangular image in the background, you don't need new glasses :)  I was actually playing around with instant film and decided to smoosh one side of the developed film paper onto the card stock and got that nifty look :)  Of course I am already thinking that I can recreate that same look using an acrylic block...I may have to give that a try :)  I hope you like it!

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

I do love what you've done with this quote. Stamping those images over each other adds so much interest and the black bird really grabs your eye.

The countdown - it is hard to try to live in the present when you have to pay attention to the clock. I just hate it when I go into work on Monday and someone inevitably says "Is it Friday yet?". I like my weekends but there's so much more to enjoy, or at least try to enjoy, in between. And yet, I do rush home because there's only so much daylight, or so much time before an appointment. Sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day.