Day: November 18, 2010

DIY: Christmas Card No. 1

Today, I’m bringing you the first ever Do-It-Yourself tutorial on my blog! We are going to create a Christmas card and I will take you through the process step by step. Before we get started though, I should point out that being in China I don’t have access to all the wonderful craft supplies available in other places around the world, so there will be a lot of improvising, and for those with only a small budget available for their crafting, I’ll show how you can save on paper and supplies as we move along. 1. Choose a scrapbook kit or whatever papers you want to work with from your digiscrap stash. I chose “Joy to the World” by Kristin Cronin-Barrow (her Christmas kit is still available at the Sweetshoppe). 2. Open your graphic designs program and create the basic design. In my case, I decided to go with a bright background paper on which I will layer all the other papers and embellishments. I used Melissa Bennett’s “Matted” star (also SSD) to duplicate, resize …

Around Town: Bike Repair

So, every Thursday I go on a bike ride with a friend. Last week, when it was Thursday-Bike-Riding-Time I could feel something was wrong with the chain. (Actually, I had realized the problem for some time before that, but it was then that it really caught my attention.) Silly me didn’t think much of it – I assumed it had to do with shifting the gears and that the problem would simply dissipate, if I just shifted several times, until the chain was properly adjusted on the gears again. (Can you tell I don’t know much about bikes?) Well, you’re right because my logic didn’t work. Though nothing happened on Thursday, the following day when riding my bike to the tennis court, the chain came off as I was going uphill and shifting the gears. I fixed it after I got home (yes, I know how to put the chain back on, though I really hate getting my fingers dirty) – or at least I thought I’d fixed it. Saturday, riding my bike again, all …