Happy Easter

God's blessings to you on this happy Easter! Wherever you are, I hope that you got to enjoy hearing the good news once again surrounded by family and friends. My family may have been far away, but the wonders of speaker phone made me feel almost as if I was there with them. The only things I really missed were the pancakes after church (just kidding BLady, I wish I could've had those peeps, too!)

Here is my list of all the things that I wanted to do today. I have new supplies and a couple of new craft toys laying around here, but I couldn't summon up the energy to do much with them this weekend. It's been a rough couple of weeks, with back to back to almost back travel and other work in between. I'm now going to be home for all of the next week (meaning not traveling, not on vacation by any means), so expect to see a couple of these projects come to fruition. 

Still, yesterday, I did go on an inspiration and supply gathering trip. First, I visited my favorite store on State Street - Anthology. The store is almost everything I need for supplies, ideas and a general feeling of craftiness. In addition to a pack of paper scraps and some buttons, I also got a Fiskars large block party squeeze punch. There are so many possibilities - I can't wait to show you the mess I'm gonna make with that thing.

I also stopped at the art supply store on State for the first time. Oh my goodness, if I didn't love my apartment, I'd have to move downtown just to be within walking distance of these two places! I am now the happy owner of some more iDye, other fabric dyes, two paint brushes and a pack of color-bleeding tissue paper.

So, with supplies and a couple of good nights' worth of sleep and a nap, I think I'm ready to hit the week both for real work and crafts/blogging crafts.

Easter cards

You'll see a lot of different greeting and notecards here at the Table. I've been into card making for a couple of years, maybe more than that! What started with leftover scrapbooking supplies (when that was my thing), has become a way to try new techniques. Friends and family have come to expect handmade cards on their birthdays and any holiday worth sending a card (no cards for administrative assistants day!). I combined three different techniques on these cards: potato stamps, sewing on paper, and collage. 

	1) Cut eggs out of potatoes. It's surprising, but I didn't cut myself! After cutting the (russet) potatoes in half, I took my paring knife and ran it about a quarter an inch from the cut edge, at about a quarter of an inch in. Then, I start to carve the egg shape. I tried to add different designs. Straight lines were easiest, polka dots didn't turn out well at all
	2) Grab some acrylic paints in assorted spring colors and start painting the different sections of the egg. I reused the best of the 'eggs' with different color combinations. Here, remember to wipe off the paint, including the crevices or you get green when you expect yellow after a couple of stamp
	3) Lay out the cards and start stamping. I tried different combinations of one, two and three eggs. I also tried horizontal and vertical layouts. My favorite turned out to be two eggs with minimal overlap on a vertical card
	4) To keep the eggs from making a mess on my table, I used an egg carton. Yes Mom, I know I forgot to put down a drop cloth over my nice table. I promise I didn't make a mess and I won't do it again
	5) Cut strips of text from a magazine. Time Magazine worked well because it has large blocks of text and the paper is pretty thin. Then, cut a fringe along one edge. I used a glue stick to tack down the newspaper grass
	6) This part was messy. Open up a bag of the green plastic grass for Easter baskets. Cut the pieces in half because you don't need the whole length
	7) Lay the card on the sewing machine and spread some of the grass over the other grass. Just grab a handful and lay it on top; not all of it will get caught in the stitch. I probably wouldn't recommend this method if you're a perfectionist, but it was interesting to see what stuck. If there are holes in the green grass, just grab another handful and run a second stitch
	8) Trim the grass. This was definitely the biggest mess. Thank goodness for my dustbuster! I tried to trim the green grass so that it didn't stick off the card or cover too much of the eggs
	9) Fan out the newspaper grass, pop in an envelope and drop it in the mail. If you want to skip all but this last step, you can get a handmade, unique potato egg card at my etsy shop