Brenda Baker Productions

It's so hard to throw away good design. In this age of all things online, I still appreciate many of the paper catalogs and magazines I get in the mail--especially those with exceptional photography and art. Some brands do them SO well. Rather than toss these in the recycling bin, get a little more life out of them. All you need is a little assortment of envelope templates. I have had mine for years but you can still probably find these at Impress or you can make your own with cardstock. For this tutorial, I used a beautiful holiday Anthropologie catalog, my envelope templates, a scoring tool, my favorite Tombow Mono Glue, pencil, scissors, and a little ruler. I started with my largest template that will fit a 4.25x5.5" handmade card. Although this is the size of card I typically make, I decided that I probably wanted smaller gift enclosure envelopes since I'll be doing a lot of gift wrapping this week. Here's the largest one I made in this session. Catalog ...

One of my favorite books of all time is "Go, Dog, Go!" Today, I'm tweaking that fabulous title to read, "Go, Blog, Go!" Because...it's a Blog Party! I won't even ask you if you like my hat. I'm just so happy to be invited to the party. This Blog Party is hosted by Karen Valentine, creator of the "My Desert Cottage" blog . Every July, Karen urges women to blog about the spaces in which they create their art. Links for the blog hop will be available at www.mydesertcottage.com on Saturday, July 14. Now I'm not a professional artist, but I love to spend my free time paper crafting. Who wants to cook, clean and do laundry when you can stay in your comfies and scrapbook or make cards? I think Twyla Tharp had it exactly right when she said, "Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." And what better way for me to kick off my "staycation" from my day job than to share with you my favorite place to be. I ho...

It's the fourth of July, and we're FINALLY seeing some sunshine in Seattle! July also means I can start relaxing into summer a bit, too. School is out, grades are published, my daughter's ballet intensive is nearly here...and my vacation days are drawing near. I know it's a little weird, but I do prefer stay-cations because I love being "home" and--as the blog header suggests--I find a lot of joy in being creative and making messes. Although I haven't taken any vacation days yet, I got out my craft stuff the other night and got to work. I needed to make a few birthday cards for my July "babies" and I wanted to make something to give to my sister on the fourth of July. Now, my sister is the Queen (capital Q, for sure) of crafting so I had my work cut out for me. I didn't just want to make a card--so I came up with this instead... I made a trip to Trader Joe's last night and picked up a four-pack of their yummy root beer, covered...