Lamentations of a Southpaw

I'm a lefty, southpaw, goofy....whatever. I'm a messy lefty, too. I don't write like MOST left-handed people do by contorting their hands over what they write and pull their pen in the opposite direction.  I smear my hand directly across what I'm writing--pushing my pen essentially--and get ink all over the side of my left hand. That's what I mean by messy.

Being a crafty goddess (yeah, why NOT call myself that!!) I've discovered a few tools that HINDER the left-hander.  I discovered just how frustrating it can be to have tools that are very specifically designed for RIGHT HANDED PEOPLE when I was creating my Christmas Cards last year.  Here's a picture I took of the 3 products that made me want to pull my hair out.

First....the gel pen. The ROLLER BALL gel ink pen. GAH!! Since I push my pen, roller balls won't work for me. Roller ball pens are designed to be pulled across the paper. They pull the little ball away from the casing and the ink flows smoothly. But pen PUSHERS like myself make that little ball go inside the casing and the ink comes out uneven. Grrrrr. I don't buy roller ball pens for this reason...except that to have WHITE INK ...usually only comes in gel ink roller ball (or paint pens). OY!

Next, that bazooka of a tape runner--the ATG by Scotch Tape. I'll never EVAH run out of tape for my crafting with that thing....except it's like trying to handle a baby goat with 2 fingers. Good grief. To make it worse is if you're holding it in your left hand it's impossible to see the tape placement since the tape runner is left justified on the rubber roller. I kind of have to wing it on the tape placement.  Again....grrrr.

Finally...Stampin' Up's Ribbon Scissors. These fantastic shears are ONLY for right-handers. See the molded plastic handles? Yeah. Not too comfy for us leftys. These shears are expensive. I paid good money for scissors that do NOT fit me properly. I didn't even realize until after I'd used them a couple of times because I'm so used to adapting to right-handed items like can openers, etc. But REALLY?!? Stampin' Up?!?! You couldn't sell a universal scissor? Oh well...

On a more positive note...here's a card I stamped using the Medallion background stamp and the Vintage Labels stamp set.

Stamp sets: Medallion and Vintage Labels

Ink: Soft Suede, Crushed Curry

Paper: Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla

Accessories: Vintage brads, Scallop circle punch

Have a great week.  I leave for Scotland in 5 days!!! SQUEEEE!!!

Get Ill Blog Hop!

Welcome to the GET ILL BLOG HOP! I'm the last stop on this fun play on the Get Well bandwagon! If you haven't already had the flu, maybe you'll get it soon.  I mean that in the BEST possible way! Or...if you're like ME, when you get your flu shot, you will for sure get sick!  I just spent the last week getting over a mini-flu (that's not a medical term for real)....I got my flu shot and about 24 hours later I wasn't sick enough to NOT WORK, but sick enough to take Theraflu and DayQuil.  ANYWAY...I digress!!!
Some of my Stampin' Sistas (from Twitter and real life) and I decided to have a little fun with a Blog Hop in the Flu Season....so here are the cards I made for the occasion.  In retrospect I wish I'd had a Pig Stamp, I'd have had a lot of fun with some little swine-y on my cards.  But--here's what I got:

This card (above) has the Medallion stamp embossed in white on Elegant Eggplant cardstock. The greeting is inked with a marker and comes from the Grateful Greetings set in the Holiday Mini catalog. The ribbon is Ribbon Originals-Mistletoe, also from the Holiday Mini catalog.

I am SOOOOO loving the sentiment from the Full of Life set...my hubby and I got a good laugh about how "perfect" this went with the Get Ill theme....don't you think? BWAHAHAHA

With this card I inked up a couple of the flowers from the Pretties Kit (Stampin' Up!) with Elegant Eggplant classic ink and attached them with silver brads. The rick-rack (can you even see it? it's in the middle of the card LOL) is from the Ribbon Originals-ORCHARD.

All papers are from Stampin' Up: Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive and Night & Day Decorative Series Paper (DSP), all inks are Stampin' Up as well: White Craft, Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Basic Black.

I used the Stampin' Up Jumble Alphabet for "flu" and Gina K Designs "Nurse Feelgood" for my syringe. The sentiments come from Stampin' Up's Full of Life or Grateful Greetings.

My friend Auntie Princess of Etsy fame is going to be judging our cards--all in good fun.  (I'm my own worst critic EVAH.)  But in tribute to my friend, please visit her awesome Etsy Shop for all things awesome and vintage.  She is amazingly talented!!!

Now...if you happened by my blog and this whole blog hop thing has you a bit confused, PUHLEEZ start at the beginning with my friend Leslie Hanna's site aka The Crooked Stamper and see how this GET ILL got started!!! SO FUN!!!

If you'd like more information of some of the great products featured above, please contact me through my Stampin' Up website