Monday Musings -- An Early Edition

Hi, everyone,

Thanks to everyone who visited this last week. Extra thanks to those leaving such kind comments.

Hope everyone had a chance to get outside this weekend. Yesterday was a rainy, kind-of-raw day here. But, today's been gorgeous!

Yesterday's weather was perfect for tinkering with this week's CAS-ual Friday challenge. And, in spite of today's beautiful weather, I managed to squeeze in an OWH card.  :)

Card #1: OWH Sketch #119

Sketch #119 was the inspiration for the Any Hero below. Of course, I turned the sketch horizontally. I swear that one of those circles is is 2.5 inches in diameter! (And, what would I ever do without my Creative Memories circle and oval cutting system?)

Papers: Bo Bunny Liberty, Bazzill Admiral and Watermelon, BasicGrey kraft; jute and blue mesh; border punch

I played a little with the layering of the papers for the circles before deciding on this combination. Other than that, this card came pretty easily. The criss-cross patterns of the jute, mesh, and kraft paper really seemed to work well together.(Sadly, it;s about the last of my blue mesh.)

Card #2: CFC50

This week's challenge is a spring-inspired challenge to make cards featuring flowers or trees. Since I'd been wanting to try out a technique shared by a Stampin' Up! consultant at the recent Pizazz It! scrapbooking event, I was pretty excited to work on a flower card. And, I must say, I'm really pleased with the way the card below turned out!

card base and sentiment oval: core paper; Punches: Stampin' Up!: all else: garage sale finds

Stampin' Up Technique: Secure end of twine/floss with tape at back of flower; loop twine/floss across diameter of flower, moving around the circumference of the flower, and taping the end of the floss to the back of the flower to secure it. The consultant used baker's twine in her demo, but the lighter weight of the floss seemed a better match for the delicacy of this paper.

There are three things that I love about this card:

• The way the embellishments came together so nicely. And, the fiber I used for the stem has a natural fraying element to it, which made for a perfect leaf. :)
• The image was taken with our new digital camera. I decided to forgo the usual scanning because I knew the shadows would not do justice to this little flower.
• Most of the elements were made from garage sale finds: the funky fiber, the buttons, and the lovely Stampin' Up! paper. 

The one thing I don't like is that the card is probably a little too delicate and a little too thick to send to OWH. Feels like mail fail. Guess it'll just have to go to a friend who is need of a smile. :)

Speaking of Garage Sales...

  

Yesterday was the first garage sale of the season for hubby and me.

• The good news: I always enjoy spending the day with hubby.
• The bad news: The sale itself was disappointing -- aside from a couple of cute magnet stocking stuffers.

But while I had my camera out to photograph Sure to Bring a Smile, I took a couple of photos of some of my best scrapbooking/card-making garage sale finds.

 

A great cabinet that holds brads, gems, buttons, Distress and Alcohol Inks and their applicators. The little clown is a souvenir from a visit to FAO Schwarz in NYC 30 years ago -- and is a constant reminder to be as creative as possible!

Not quite sure what the original owners used this for, but it's been a CD holder and is now a card organizer. Years of tole painting classes came in handy when I changed its appearance to better fit the room's decor.

a wonderful cutting board and the book full of dies that came with my $25 Zip'e Mate

 

a pair of chairs that came painted white with butcher-board-like seats that matched perfectly with the room decor

A fabulous find! A drawer for punches, another for stamps... The top actually folds down (to make a changing table), which I originally used to layout 12 by 12 pages. However, the baskets from Pottery Barn fit the space so perfectly it's as if they came together. So, the baskets now hold stamp pads, pens, rulers, etc. I painted the drawer fronts and sides to better fit the room decor, but the base color was already white.

So, what are your favorite garage sale finds?  I'd love to hear about them!

Parting Thoughts

Not quite sure what the week holds card-making wise. I still have a couple of Tim Holtz's classes to watch. And, I'd like to try to use up some scraps with last Monday's {Mojo}Mondays challenge.

 

Have a great week and happy scrappin'!

Friday Night Writes

Hi, everyone,

Hope it's been a good week for all of you.

More about last Saturday's Crop

On Monday, I mentioned I would give a little more information about one of the event's at last Saturday's crop.

Ashley and Tiffany are two of my favorite people from Pizazz It! days. They are both up-and-coming graphic designers -- and they have collaborated on an initial book of sketches. And, at the crop, they held a book signing. :) 

To check out their blogs, click here for Ashley's blog and click here for Tiffany's blog.  

One more thing about last weekend's activities, I took some time this week to finish up a few cards from Saturday. This week's sketch at {Mojo}Mondays was a loose inspiration for the first two cards below. All three cards were made from Kaiser's Lush collection. 

Kaiser Lush collection

Kaiser Lush collection

Kaiser Lush collection, with a cut-out flocked flower from one of these pretty papers

For all three cards, I had already punched the borders and adhered the base paper and bottom strip paper. So, I didn't really have the real estate on the first two to add the banner strip on the bottom right of the {Mojo}Monday sketch.

While it would have been possible to go with something other than circles for the four featured elements, I really thought circles would work well with my background paper. However, I decided to go with an odd number of featured circles on both cards.

OWH Sketch #117

Okay, talk about loose interpretations...  I even considered not posting the card below for this week's Sunday sketch. I swear that I started off with every intention of being true to the sketch -- other than making it a horizontal card to go with my pre-written Any Hero card bases.

Bo Bunny Liberty collection

• For the background, I cut out the middle of a 6 by 6 paper and then positioned the top over the bottom. I adhered the top to two other rectangular papers so that it would be a little thicker than the bottom. So far, so good!
• Then, I played with circles -- and rectangles with rounded corners -- before deciding that the sentiment really need to be on rectangular paper.
• Next, I tried the sentiment behind a ribbon -- as shown on the sketch -- but no sale.
• Finally, I tried putting the sentiment in the center, but it really felt like it should go in the bottom right corner to balance out the flag's field of stars.

So, forgive me if I've posted an "illegal" card. In my defense, the sketch was the original inspiration. And, I am pretty pleased with the end result. Hope the hero who receives it will be, too. :)

CAS-ual Fridays

Remember all the wonderful challenges from the OWH Virtual Card Making Party during cruise week? Well, this week's CAS-ual Friday challenge brought back memories of one of my favorite cards. So, I think I'm going to post Beach Currency at CAS-ual Fridays.

This was the first card to have die cuts made from my garage sale Zip'e Mate!

Parting Thoughts

Just a couple more cards to make before I mail my Muscle Card challenge package to Kris. :)

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



Monday Musings

Hi, everyone,

Boy, it was gorgeous here yesterday -- simply gorgeous!  Hope everyone had a chance to get outside for a little while this past weekend.

Saturday's Crop 

What a fun time on Saturday at the all-day crop!  What can be more fun than cropping with my best friend and other scrappers?! As if that wasn't enough, there was a make-and-take, a raffle, a book signing, and a garage sale!  More on the book signing on Friday. But, as far as the garage sale went, I found lots of goodies -- including 2 new pads of 12 by 12 Core paper, 2 new Distress Ink pads, lots of kid-themed stickers and chipboard embellishments, and some "new" ribbons and gems. :)  

I spent my day putting together some Dad My Hero cards and working on general sentiment cards for OWH's Muscle Card Challenge for Father's Day. The first 3 cards were made from Kaiser's Hippy Girl collection, the fourth from Kaiser's Lush collection. (Again, I apologize for those annoying shadows that appear when I scan cards with dimensional elements.)

simple

a little more adornment -- This one includes a few gems bought at the crop garage sale. :)

even more adornment -- Butterflies made with Martha Stewart's punch-around-the page and popped up with 3-D dots.

Adorned with "lush" flocked paper and pearls.

CAS-ual Fridays: CFC48

This week's challenge was to make a card using complementary colors. As I always do when I visit other sites, I started thinking about a possible OWH card. So, I decided to make the card below -- a card similar to a Father's Day card I made for our dads last year -- and reminiscent of OWH's necktie card.

Ranger Core Paper

To make a similar card last year, I sketched the design on an A2 envelope and then made templates for the shirt "halves", collar, and tie from an old gift box. (Luckily, I still had the design and templates.) When piecing together the shirt, I sanded the collars so that they would stand out but still be in the same color family.

Parting Thoughts

Kudos to everyone who participated in this weekend's Make Em Laugh blog hop featuring so many of OWH's wonderful vendor partners. Your creations were amazing!  Sorry I didn't have a chance to devote much time to this hop.

Plans for the week include finishing up cards from Saturday's crop -- adding a little glue and a few embellishments, doing some Stickling. My goal is to have cards ready to stamp, tuck, and box up Muscle Challenge cards next weekend. :) Once crop cards are done, I'll turn my thoughts to this week's sketch.

Hope everyone has a wonderfully creative week. Happy scrappin'!