Jean Scene

Hi, everyone.

This month's Our Daily Bread Design challenge for OWH is to make a card with stitching -- faux or real. Glad they included that faux part!

Core'dinations paper, lightly "worn"at the bottom
garage sale sticker; garage sale brads
faux stitching in Zig chocolate

I bought 8 of these stickers dirt cheap at a scrapbooking garage sale a while ago. Last year, I made 6 cards for OWH and set aside 2 stickers for 2013 nephew cards. (Please click here to see the original post that includes tips on making the card.) Since one nephew actually turned 13 this year, I decided against the "kid" card idea for him. So, this left me with one last jean sticker. And, since these cards were crowd favorites in my Top Ten of 2012 list, one last jean scene card seemed perfect for this month's ODBD challenge.

One quick word to the wise: When you make a template, ALWAYS keep it. :)

Have a great rest of the weekend. Thanks for visiting and happy scrappin'!

An All-American Classic

Hi, everyone.

They say the third time's a charm. And, I'm hoping that's the case for the card that I made for this week's CAS-ual Friday challenge to make a project that uses fabric, canvas, etc. My first effort went in a totally different direction, trying to make a super hero card involving aluminum foil Then, the canvas idea came to me. But, the star stenciling did not go quite as I hoped the first time around. However, it led me to the card below.

Recollections natural canvas
Distress Ink core (chipped sapphire)
computer-generated negatives, sponged in Distress Ink (chipped sapphire, fired brick)
Stampin' Up! sponge daubers; garage sale brads

First, let me give credit where credit's due. Becca posted a similar design on Operation Write Home a few weeks ago. I loved her card -- and even remembering asking if I could CASE it. Thanks, Becca, for a wonderful idea.

That's the good news. The bad news is I remember Becca using a Cricut-like machine to create her card. So, to create my star and stripes, I created basic shapes in Word. Then, I cut out the shapes to make stencils and sponged using these negatives. I'm really pleased with the look of the sponging on the canvas!

To make sure the canvas stays in place for OWH, I used brads to secure the canvas to the cardstock.

 Parting Thoughts

Thanks CAS-ual Fridays, for really taking me out of my box this week!

Hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful holiday weekend.

Thanks for visiting and happy scrappin'!

Sweet Birthday Wishes

Hi, everyone.

Today's card is for a friend who lost her husband to cancer a couple of months ago. It's sure to be a tough day for her. So, I wanted to send her a card that wasn't overly celebratory, but... just something sweet to let her know she was being thought of on her special day. Hope this card will do that.

bubble wrap background, heat embossed with clear powder and inked with Distress Ink
Really Reasonable Ribbon ribbon-of-the-month ribbon
Inkadinkado sentiment, heat embossed in Distress Ink
Distress Ink core paper; Stampin Up! cupcake punch
Creative Memories corner rounder
Zots 3D glue dots, Glossy Accents

I'm kind of ambivalent about this little card. At times I really like it; at other times, well....

Please click here to see original post.

One thing I do love is the background. The polka dots were created using the same technique that was used on The Sky's the Limit card at the right. I then inked the background in Distress Ink tattered rose.

I also like the ribbon itself. I placed a narrow strip of tattered rose under the ribbon so that it coordinated with the background and the sentiment paper. As it turns out, this is one of the elements about which I am ambivalent. I like the effect of the ribbon and paper, but am wondering if I should have chosen a contrasting color of paper. But, then again, I was trying for sweet and not jubilant...

Speaking of the ribbon, it is from Really Reasonable Ribbon -- one of the ribbons in the June Ribbon of the Month pack. The ribbon on the card is so pretty -- and I so love this company!

Another element I went back and forth on was the color of paper to use for the icing. I wanted it to pop, but not pop too much. It actually blends in much better on the card itself than it appears to blend on the screen. I think the color is Distress Ink barn door.

Two other quick notes: I rounded alternating corners because of the arcs of the cupcake icing and the straight lines of the cupcake base. Lastly, the sentiment was from a birthday set of Inkadinkado stamps that was $2 at a garage sale. :)

Parting Thoughts

It's a really rainy day here. Sounds like a perfect day to go to an afternoon movie and make some cards in the evening. :)

Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend.

As always, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Lady Liberty

Happy Birthday, America!

Sandy Allnock's card

The card below was inspired by today's Midweek Throwdown color challenge to make a card featuring red, blue, white, and kraft, and by the layout Sandy used for the card she posted yesterday. (Okay, so I'll never be able to color like Sandy -- not in a million years. But, CASE-ing one of her designs.... Now, that's something I can totally do. Thanks, Sandy, for some wonderful inspiration!)

Bo Bunny Anthem dp; Distress Ink core: vintage photo and chipped sapphire
Stamper's Best image, stamped on watercolor paper, heat embossed in Distress Ink vintage photo
garage sale brads

I believe the Lady Liberty stamp was included in an order awhile back from Stamper's Best -- a complimentary token of appreciation. She seems to really work well on this card.

I soooo love Bo Bunny paper. And, I didn't think I'd ever like a patriotic pad of paper as much as I liked Bo Bunny Liberty. But, this yummy Anthem pad (that just happened to make its way into my Archiver's basket last night) might just give Liberty a run for its money. :)

One of the things I most love about Bo Bunny papers is that the patterns are so easy to combine. For this card, I simply chose three of the papers that had vertical stripes -- small, medium, and wide (tone-on-tone), added some crimped paper, and used one of the bolder, more solid papers for the bottom layer and a few accents or two and.... VOILA!

I wanted to ink the edge of the banner, but never quite know how to handle the triangular cut-out portion. Today I realized that I could lightly brush an ink pen against those edges. Duh! Why hadn't I ever thought of that before?

Parting Thoughts

Have a fun, festive, and safe celebration!

Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Holly, Holly, Holly

Hi, everyone.

The first batch of craft fair cards is finished. So, it's on to batch #2.

My strategy this year is to alternate between making general-themed cards and holiday cards. So, cards like the one shown below are next up in the rotation.

Hero Arts stamp and embossing folder
heat embossing in Inkadinkado glam gold
Bazzill jade cardstock; May Arts wrinkled ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon

I was going for an elegant CAS card. Hope I've achieved that. Still tinkering with ribbon treatments, but loving the overall look of the card -- and the yummy ribbon. :)

Speaking of the ribbon, this pretty ribbon came from Really Reasonable Ribbon. This was my first order from this company -- and I couldn't be happier. An e-mail inquiring about ribbon samples was answered immediately, ribbon samples came soon after I placed my request, and my order was filled and shipped so very quickly. Bonnie's customer service was AMAZING and the ribbon is so pretty. Thanks, Bonnie! (Loved the service and ribbon so much that I enrolled in the Really Reasonable Ribbon's monthly ribbon club.)

Parting Thoughts

Think it's about time to turn in for the night.

Have a wonderful holiday celebration. Be safely festive!

Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Recipe for a Happy Birthday

Hi, everyone.

Maybe it's because hubby and I both have July birthdays... But, for some reason, I've been motivated to make some birthday cards. Hubby would actually like me to try a couple of craft shows this year. So, I'm trying to get a little jump on craft-show cardmaking. :)

ODBD background stamp; Distress Ink core papers and ink
Stampin' Up! cupcake punch; Fiskars border punch
original sentiment, computer-generated as a table in Word (Lucida Handwriting)

I'm actually making an assortment of these in various color combinations -- mainly as a matter of necessity based on the current availability of Distress Ink papers and coordinating inks in the menopause room.

The background for the card above is from Our Daily Bread Design, a wonderful supporter of OWH. This stamp was part of a blog candy prize. The minute I saw it on the ODBD Web site, I knew I wanted to use it as the background for some recipe cards.

Please click here to read original post.

But, that meant coming up with the recipe itself. So, I went online and checked out some recipe card sentiments. Next, I did some
word smithing of my own and came up with the recipe shown -- with special inspiration from similar verses at Zazzle.com from Scribble Kitty. I used a table in a Word doc, with some cute bullets, to help with formatting, alignment, and so on.

My first attempt included some lace. (Interestingly enough, hubby didn't care much for the lace.) There are also some glue dots in the original -- and a hand-written, less sophisticated recipe. I decided to change things up a little to make cards that were a little more craft show friendly -- cards that a craft show customer could drop in regular mail without worrying about bumps and or thickness.

Parting Thoughts

Hoping to knock out a few more of these birthday cards. All is cut out -- but there is still some assembly required.

Thanks for stopping and a happy scrappin'!

America: my home sweet home

Hi, everyone.

It's been an interesting OWH week. The Midweek Challenge was to create a CAS card. Music to my ears! (The first time I came across the CAS-ual Fridays blog, well I felt like Steve Martin's character in The Jerk hearing his kind of music for the first time.)

Then came today's multi-layered sketch. There are times when I really struggle with multiple layers. Don't get me wrong, it is a great sketch -- and Kathryn's sample card is fabulous. But, it just isn't my kind of sketch. So, please accept my apologies in advance for taking quite a few liberties with this one.

So, let's say that today's Any Hero Card had its beginnings in OWH Sketch #179.

dp: My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market
sentiment: Stamper's Best,  heat embossed in Distress Ink black walnut
inking in Distress Ink black walnut; garage sale brads

I've had this paper for a while, but hadn't used it. My thinking was that the softer colors might make it easier to work with the multiple layers. Unfortunately, I still had issues with the four-layer layout.

I made a couple of other changes to the sketch. The second change was scoring the right hand side of the sentiment strip, and then sponging this smaller section with black walnut using Stampin' Up! daubers. I chose to do this instead of adding another element/paper. (Just can't get that CAS out of my system no matter how hard I try!) The third change was the placement of the three small circles in the upper left corner of the sketch. I chose to place them under the sentiment strip to bring more attention to the sentiment.

To better pop elements, I inked edges in black walnut. And, I double matted the star paper on 2 layers of the same color paper.

Oh, one more thing, the brad in the top left corner was placed to cover a stamping smudge -- which led to the bottom right brad -- which led to the three smaller brads. Guess we've all been there, done that. :)

Parting Thoughts

We're getting some much needed rain. Not good for the pool, but good for the grass and flowers. (Hubby just called it a million dollar rain! He's a very happy camper right now.)

Have a great week! Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Zing, Zing, Zing

Hi, everyone.

The card below was inspired by two challenges: this week's OWH Midweek Throwdown challenge to make a CAS card and this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge to make a card featuring an arrow.

Distress Ink core paper, Bazzill black
computer-created arrow, computer-generated font (Harlow)
large heart: hand-cut with template, small heart: EK triple heart punch
Stampin' Up! brads; Sizzix embossing folder; Zot 3D glue dots

Since this was going to OWH, I embossed the background cardstock to give the card a little more texture. I initially tried embossing the larger circle using a different folder. But, the pattern didn't feel right with the arrow. So, I went with two plain hearts.

Parting Thoughts

Hoping to visit some blogs and leave some comments this weekend. Also hoping to find some time to make a few more cards.

Have a great weekend!  Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Thanks!

Hi, everyone.

A quick post for an Any Hero card inspired by OWH Sketch #178.

dp: We R Memory Keepers Red, White & Blue
cardstock: Bazzill admiral and watermelon, AC (aqua color), Distress Ink core antique linen
sentiment in Stampin' Up! Night of Navy; Recollections brad
Paper Studio star punch

Other than omitting the third vertical rectangle, I stayed pretty true to the sketch. This is another one of those sheets in this dp collection that I struggle with using -- and ended up cutting it down quite a bit and rotating it for this card. So, the busy-iness of the dp seemed to call for one less layer than on the original sketch.

Parting Thoughts

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a good work week.

Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

Got Sunscreen? -- Take Two

Hi, everyone!

Let me start by thanking everyone for the comments you've left the last couple of weeks -- and apologize for not reciprocating with comments of my own. All of your comments have been so kind and very appreciated.

One of my New Year's Resolutions has been to leave comments. And, I've done a better job of that this past year -- culminating in the OWH Memorial Day Blog Hop, where I left tons and tons of comments. Then life got in the way just a little, and I dedicated the time I had to make and post cards. So, please accept my apologies for neglecting the blogs of my cardmaking friends.

Got Sunscreen?

For card details, click here.

Today's card has two inspirations. The first inspiration is this week's Tuesday Tutorial about making window cards. The second is taking another stab at a card I made for last week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge to make a theme-inspired card. The card at the right was made for the CAS-ual Fridays challenge.

While I liked the idea for the card at the right, it felt like it could be better. Then, I saw the Tutorial challenge. The window idea rolled around in my brain a couple of days. The light bulb didn't come right away, but when I made the connection between the challenge and the sunscreen card... Well, the card really came together quickly. And, I have to say that I am really pleased with the results.

tree: negative of image cut out from DCWV travel stack
tree: sponged in Distress Ink black walnut
sentiment: computer-generated (Lucida Handwriting)
Distress Ink core paper; blue paper sponged in Distress Ink milled lavender
gems, including Hero Arts Hues; Tombow 3D foam tabs
Stampin' Up! trimmer and sponge daubers
Creative Memories corner rounders

This card would never have been possible without my Stampin' Up! trimmer. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this trimmer! If you're in the market for a new trimmer, this one is definitely worth checking out.

The only thing I would change on the card is replacing the larger gems with a few smaller ones. But, this was the best I could do with my available stash. DONE!  Added a few Hero Arts Hues after a trip to JoAnn's. :)

That said, one of the added bonuses of a window card is being able to use larger gems without adding extra bulk -- which is always a nice thing. :)

Parting Thoughts

My brother's in town one last day. Waiting for a call to meet them for breakfast. :)

Enjoy your weekend. Thanks for visiting and happy scrappin'!