The light

Here's another Kaylee from Some Odd Girl, this time a digi (digital 'stamp' = an image you print off yourself on a printer, rather than a physical stamp you'd stamp with ink) called Bright Lights Kaylee.

I think I like her with blue hair the best (maybe because I coloured the blue better than the pink!).

I used some of the excellent washi tape I got recently at the Papercraft Festival at Penrith when I went in to help Sammi on the Mad for Markers stand. We were right across from the Papercraft Hub stand, and they one whole 'wall' of their stand was just rolls of washi tape (a kind of Japanese paper tape) in all kinds of patterns. The temptation proved too much!

I love the informal yet sweet look washi tape gives to cards (I remember first seeing washi tape in Pentimento Bookshop in Newtown years ago, and coveting it desperately but thinking "when would I ever use that? I really can't justify buying it just because it looks pretty." It was quite expensive too, but now it's far more common and much cheaper and I need less and less justification to buy pretty things!)

I printed out an appropriate Bible verse to stick on - Jesus is the light that came into the world at Christmastime (and of course it's also a lame pun because, well, fairy lights). I don't like a lot of the 'sentiment' stamps that are around at Christmas, mainly because they're so bland and generic. As a Christian I love to celebrate Jesus' birth so I am pleased to take the opportunity to say more than 'Merry Christmas' or (worse) 'happy holidays'!

 

PS - hopefully it doesn't seem too condescending if I occasionally explain a term...it's easy to just use jargon and forget that not everyone will know what things like digis and washi tape are. I mainly am aware of this because that's how I feel whenever I start exploring a new craft and I'm too scared to ask questions!

It took me SO long to feel familiar with crochet patterns, for example, and I was always thinking I was doing everything wrong. But eventually I realised that even if the way I did it wasn't 'right', it was still getting good results! Starting to get back into paper craft has been a bit of an eye opener, because there are a lot more commonly available tools and different techniques around than when I used to run Christmas card making workshops at church...I suppose the images I made up and printed out to use were digis, but I didn’t know that’s what they were called!

I think we get hung up on right and wrong ways of doing things and forget about the joy of just making stuff! A lady at the Papercraft Festival was watching one of the girls colouring and said wistfully, "I used to love colouring in with my son when he was little. We had so much fun! But I'm so not artistic, I could never do anything like this." I said, "Artistic has nothing to do with it! If you enjoy it, that's one of the biggest reasons for doing it!" That's advice I would do well to heed myself sometimes...