Christmas is for Kids

The last few weeks have found me making Christmas cards for OWH troops to send home to the little ones in their lives. A bunch of bright and shiny reindeer were crafted from Caboodle's Deck the Halls kit. The stamp itself is one of Imaginesce's Snag 'em Stamps. Final adornments included painting with watered-down acrylics and stickling noses and collars. Honestly, the image doesn't do justice to the way the noses and collars pop!

In addition, the shipment that will go out on Monday will include more colorful penguins from this year's Jillibean Soup Christmas collection. A little stickling added some pop to snowflakes, tree stars, and tree ornaments, as well as to the backgrounds of the last two cards.

Just a reminder about using glitter, glittered paper, and stickles. Operation Write Home asks that glitter never be used. When using glittered paper or stickles, please be sure that the glitter does not rub off. Even the tiniest speck of glitter can be detected with night vision equipment.

Please go to OWH Card Guidelines for more information on guidelines on cards being made for Operation Write Home.

Falling for You Snowman

I'll admit I have Christmas cards on the brain. So, the OWH challenge to do something round  at Robyn's Fetish meshed with my earlier VCMP "Falling for You" challenge. And this little snowman came to life.

There are a couple of things I love about this card.

• It was my first time to use the heat embossing technique I learned in a card-making class.
• The card combines two of my loves: card making and painting.

The circles forming the body and the snowflakes were punched from a metallic-like, textured, light gray cardstock. The sentiment was embossed with EK Success silver embossing powder. Since I have a rack full of acrylic paints from my tole painting days, the following paints were used to bring out this little guy's personality.

• Light Ivory for the spattered background,
• Midnight Blue and French Grey Blue for the shadows on the right side of his body,
• Light Ivory and Warm White for the highlights on his left side, 
• Sand for his arms,
• Burnt Orange and Heritage Brick for his nose, and
• Soft Black for his eyes and buttons. 

Not bad for a first combination painting/card making effort. I'm thinking future Falling for You Snowmen cards should be on darker blue cardstock -- with a more gray/ivory/white embossing powder. But, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with the way this little guy turned out.

A Whimsical Ornament

The card below was inspired by three separate Operation Write Home posts: this week's Stars and Stamps challenge to "do something round" from Robyn's Fetish, the Virtual Card Making challenge to do a paper piecing card, and Sandy's blog post about strip cards.

I played with a number of paper combinations before I came up with this one. The patterned paper is from Caboodle's Deck the Halls kit and the sentiment is a Best Creation's peel-off-sticker. Finishing touches include a hand-drawn hook, a shimmery ribbon, 4 gems, and a little stickling. The natural affinity for odd-numbered things entered into the ribbon/ornament/sentiment arrangement, as well as the choice of 1 and 3 gems. I went with 1 gem at the top -- with the larger bow -- and 3 gems at the bottom -- with the smaller sentiment -- as a way of striking a balance of elements. Finally, the 3-D glue dots nicely raised the ornament, but created a shadow when the card was scanned.

I'm thinking this would make a nice card for family and friends since my cards for OWH have already been planned out -- and in some cases, completed. However, if I manage to master the fork bow, a few of these might make their way into my next OWH shipment.

This card's design is a little out-of-the-ordinary for me. I'd love to hear what folks think about it.

Scrapbook Art

July 30 was a wonderful day for Central Ohio paper crafters! That was the day that Scrapbook Art, one of their favorite scrapbook stores, reopened  after being sold by its original owners to one of its staff members.

Soon after SBA hosted our McGraw-Hill card-making party for Operation Write Home, Caron and Amy -- who were huge supporters of OWH -- sold the store to Terri -- another huge supporter of OWH.

Today is another big day for SBA. It marks the day that the store's new Web site goes live! Take a few minutes to make a virtual visit.

http://www.scrapbookartpolaris.com/

A Few Cards for Family and Friends

Inbetween autumn and Christmas cards for OWH, I took a short break to make a few cards for family and friends.

The Halloween card materials were included in a wonderful package from http://notimetostamp.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ that had: Matilda 6 X6 papers from Cosmo Cricket, 5 coordinated ribbons, and black rhinestones.
Of course, the two ghost cards are going to nephews. The thing I was most excited about was that I was able to print the sentiment (in Chiller font) directly onto 6 by 6 papers. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities...

Pumpkins were cut from one of the pad's papers. Candy corn stickers came from Creative Memories. Stickles added a little sparkle to the ghost and pumpkins.

This Good Luck card will be going to a friend at work who has accepted a position with another company. (My only consolation is that she is so excited about this new opportunity.) The paper is from SEI's Moonshine collection. The card is adorned with Prima Festive White flowers that were transformed using pastels and small metallic brads.

OWH VCMP Challenge #9 -- Any Hero Card

I was checking the first VCMP challenge of the day before watching the 9-11 Remembrance Coverage this morning when I read the challenge to make an Any Hero card. What a perfect challenge to honor our servicemen and women -- especially today.

So, I've made my first Any Hero cards using a digital stamp -- another first -- and K&Company Americana paper. The card shown is an example of one of my more feminine versions.

Next, the hard part.... finding just the right words to express my gratitude... and my prayers and wishes for their safety.

OWH Birthday Bash -- Falling For You

Welcome, card makers!  And, Happy Birthday, OWH!

So, what do you think of when you hear the phrase, "Falling for You"?

• Perhaps your thoughts go to the holidays and a wintry card of falling snowflakes.
• Maybe you picture a romantic, "falling in love" card with valentine hearts and Cupid's arrows.
• Or, maybe you visualize something totally quirky, like a monkey slipping on a banana peel.

The phrase came to me when I was making autumn cards for OWH.  With college football games on tv, a nip in the air, and papers of orange, yellow, and rust all around me, falling leaves just felt right. 



"Falling for You" was made using leaf stickers from Reminisce's Harvest collection, paper from Creative Memories' Bountiful designer print pack, and a computer-generated sentiment (Mistral font on white paper rubbed with pastels to soften the paper's appearance) -- with a taupe-colored ribbon for extra texture and shimmer.

Now it's your turn to make the phrase your own.

No rules -- other than using the phrase "Falling for You." -- and no time limit. And, apologetically, no candy. This is my first time hosting an OWH event. I'll know better next time. :)

Can't wait to see what everyone creates! Happy scrapping to all and thanks for stopping!

(BTW If you have a minute, please check out the May posts about an amazing OWH card-making event in Central Ohio.)

Colorful Penguins for VCMP Nontraditional Christmas

Found the Jillibean Soup's Christmas Eve Chowder paper at my new favorite scrapbook store, Scrapbook Art is Lewis Center, OH.

It seems a perfect fit for this challenge -- as well as the Garanimals challenge.

Autumn Cards for OWH

Printed papers, border stickers, and leaf stickers from Reminisce's Harvest collection were used to create the following cards that will be making their way to OWH this coming week.

Reminisce materials were paired with other papers to create the following cards.

While holiday-themed cards are always appreciated, deployed troops often request general-interest cards, such as seasonal cards without sentiments, birthday cards, missing you cards, and thinking of you cards. I'm hoping these autumn cards are just right for any fall occasion, including Thanksgiving.

These gorgeous Reminisce papers and supplies were purchased at the newly reopened Scrapbook Arts in Lewis Center. Central Ohio paper crafters are thrilled that one of our favorite stores is back!  I can't wait to start making Christmas cards from the papers I picked up there this past week.