Another Million Dollar Idea...

I know. Hard to believe I have so many of them.

But as I was sitting in my 115 degree car scraping off my registration sticker with a razor blade so that I could put the new one on, I realized what a stupid exercise that is.

Why don't we have a little barcode or tag like a toll tag that stores all our info and gets updated when we get an inspection or renew our registration? Since they're scanning our tag at toll booths, think how many people they could scan on our highways for expired tags or inspections, freeing up our police officers to arrest all the bored students that are going to be vandalizing and stealing things this summer, or the people who are driving around Austin like lobotomized ferrets!

More importantly, think how happy I'll be not to be scraping stickers off my window and putting new ones on! Don't those stickers drive you nuts? You have this ONE CHANCE to get them straight, while squishing your head between your steering wheel and your boiling hot windshield, and praying you don't get a bubble under there. It's very stressful.

I'm glad I survived it. But it made me think about getting things straight, which is very hard for me on my cards. My head appears to be two degrees off based on the adjustments I have to make to my photos. Apparently I'm tipped a wee bit counterclockwise. So simple things like putting a row of images across the front of a card are pretty challenging for me. I actually wrote an article on this topic in Scrap n Stamp magazine called Straight Talk. 

I have to come up with little systems to help me, so I thought I'd dissect today's card for you. First, since I was going to be stamping a row of images, I needed a line on the front of my card. But I can't do that straight without lining my ruler up on my grid sheet. Then you can draw your line with a pencil or score it - I scored mine.

 Next, I had to find out if my stamp was mounted straight. Since my head is crooked, there's really no way to know without stamping it. So what I do is line up the vertical and horizontal edges of my wood block with lines on my grid sheet and stamp it. If it's all wonky, then I know I have to use the stamp positioner to stamp that image with. But look - it's a milagro! It's straight!

 So now I can just use the line I scored to line up the bottom of my wood block as I stamp across my card. From years of using the same few sizes of wood blocks, I know that the 3" x 1.25" wood blocks go nicely four times across the front of a vertical card. So voila!

I covered up a score line with the outrageously sassy new scalloped edge polka dotted ribbon from the upcoming catalog. The stamp set is Chere Amie (upcoming) - I actually bought this set in both the English and French versions because I just like my greetings in French sometimes! I love this bold, sassy font. I stamped it on Just Add Cake (upcoming) DSP - LOVE notepaper!! - in Early Espresso. The card base is Crumb Cake and I added dots with my white gel pen.

I used today's Featured Stamper Challenge for my inspiration - Taylor's gallery is full of beautiful things, and I picked this Fly Free card - I loved the kraft, the dots and the simplicity.

See what kind of little rabbit trails a girl goes down when her registration expires? You never know where inspiration will come from. Keep an open mind. :)