It is hard to believe we are at the end of another week already. I have been trying my best to stay caught up with things, and for the most part, I think I am doing alright. I have long ago abandoned the idea having to do “x” number of designs per week/month/year. If I measured my productivity by those numbers alone, surely it would be depressing and I wouldn’t be fair to myself. There is so much more that is involved in my day-to-day activity that takes a good deal of time.
I have learned that the way to be most productive and feel the best about things is to just keep doing the best I can and be happy with that. The reason I am mentioning that here is because I see so many of my friends and followers gearing up for the busy weeks ahead and I can already see the stresses they put upon themselves. Most of them are self-imposed and unnecessary, as they tend to set standards for themselves that are not only impossible to reach but that they wouldn’t require of anyone else. We do these things to ourselves, it seems, and it tends to take the joy out of things for us. Many of us need to really take a look at ourselves and understand that much of the fanfare isn’t what is needed or even appreciated. It is more often the simple things are the things we remember most during the holidays. The friendships. The company. The families.
Letting go of the unnecessary stresses can make things so much more enjoyable and fun. It is something to think about.
With that said, Keith and I both finished up some new woodworking designs for you to enjoy. Both of these patterns are fun, cute and relatively simple to cut out on the scroll saw and would make wonderful gifts for just about anyone on your list.
I’ll start with Keith’s pattern …
He had a wonderful idea to create these lovely “SLDK694 6 Simple Nested Ornaments” pattern:
These are really cool and unique because when you cut ONE ornament, you wind up with THREE pieces:
Not only do them make pretty ornaments in themselves, but they also make lovely tags and quick little last-minute gifts for just about anyone. They can be easily stack-cut to make several sets at once and can be decorated any way you choose. I think they are fun and easy and should be very popular.
For my own pattern, I created six layered angel ornaments (SLD536 Layered Lacey Angel Ornaments)
I finished them in two ways (as usual!) – one using DecoArt Americana Gel Stains (as shown above) and one version using DecoArt Metallic Lustre acrylic waxes, as shown below:
Both versions are “EASY-PEASY” to do with NO shading. I used some beautiful crystal hot-fix rhinestones from Rhinestone Canada to accent them and they came out just fabulous!
I really love how they came out. They would also look great done in hardwood and left their natural color or even painted using regular acrylic paint. I just wanted to play with these colors to see how they would come out. I was not disappointed at all.
For the stained pieces, I also tried Folk Art Extreme Glitter in 2782 Hologram for a really neat effect. The shimmery wings look lovely in the natural wood tone and the effect is subtle, yet effective.
I think that all together they make a pretty impressive set:
I am spending today writing the pattern packet and also writing the newsletter to send out to our subscribers. (You can subscribe to our newsletter HERE if you haven’t already and are interested.) Besides these two patterns, we have updated our two catalogs and there are additional specials, sales and painting patterns added to the site. We hope to have something for everyone.
I hope to have everything done by the end of the day. All the product links should work by then. I then want to spend part of the weekend doing some much-needed things around the house here, as well as cut some orders. As always, it will be a busy time.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend yourself. I hope you are enjoying these cool and beautiful autumn days. Before long they will be behind us.
Have a great Friday.
via Tumblr http://davidpires578.tumblr.com/post/153344161614
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