2011 March »

just a reminder...

Mar 302011

This is just a quick post to remind you that it’s not too late to participate in the March color and sketch challenges at InStyle Stamps! The deadline for submitting cards for the sketch challenge is Tuesday, April 5 at 11:59 pm PST. You can submit a project for the color challenge until 11:59 pm PST Tuesday, April 12. Use an InStyle Stamps image in your creations and you could win two free InStyle digital images of your choice! Even if you don’t use an ISS image, you could still win one digital image of your choice. Go for it and link your work to the respective posts on the InStyle Stamps blog. I’d love to see what you can make!

Today’s card combines the sketch challenge and the color challenge.

Supplies:
Image: Tia & Cuddles He is Risen (InStyle Stamps)
Cardstock: Basics White (Papertrey Ink); Barely Banana textured, Spring Flowers designer paper (Stampin’ Up)
Other: markers (Copic); lacy circles Nestabilities die (Spellbinders)

In the spirit of full disclosure, the image used on today’s project was provided to me by InStyle Stamps to aid in promoting their products.

bugs in the system

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Mar 282011

Hello! Welcome to the last week of March! Here’s hoping we finally get some warmer weather in April.

Today brings the last of the weekly Paper Therapy Design Team challenges. Starting April 1, the Design Team challenges will move to a bi-weekly format. A new challenge will be posted every other Friday, alternating with the Paper Therapy Mix it Up challenges. That means a new challenge will be posted at Paper Therapy every Friday, but you will have two weeks to complete each challenge! I’m looking forward to the new format and I hope my readers will be able to join in more of the challenges.

This week, our challenge is to make a card with a bug on it. I couldn’t decide whether a butterfly counted as a “bug”, since they are so pretty and elegant! So I made two cards – one with a butterfly and one with a bug. Both cards will be shipped to Operation Write Home either today or tomorrow along with the other cards I’ve been making for OWH since Christmas.

The OWH Midweek Challenge last week was to create a card that a hero could send home to a child. I decided to pair this cute ladybug stamp with some bright colors. I’ve had this polka dot paper for a LONG time and it feels good to be putting it to use. The Midweek Challenge the week before was to use scallops, and you may be able to see some peeking out around the circle that the bug is on. (I should have made that mat a bit larger. Oh well.)

I keep reading that OWH still needs Mother’s Day cards, so I made a few extra to include in my shipment to them. My second card is one of those. It’s pretty clean and simple. Just in case it doesn’t make it to the troops in time for them to send back home for Mother’s Day, I went with a non-holiday sentiment. I came upon this ribbon by a stroke of pure luck. I recently received an order from Really Reasonable Ribbon and they had wrapped it around the plastic bag containing my things. It just happened to coordinate excellently with this designer paper! The butterfly is attached only at the middle, to give some dimension.

And now that I’ve gotten the bugs out of my system (LOL) I hope to have more cards to share with you in the next few weeks. I hate that I haven’t been posting as much the last couple of weeks!

Here are the supply lists for today’s cards.

Ladybug card:
Stamps: Petite Phrases, Everyday Sayings (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up); polka dot paper (Creative Memories)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: markers (Copic); standard circle and big scalloped circle Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders)

Butterfly card:
Stamp: It’s Good to Be Queen (LAD)
Cardstock: Basics White (Papertrey Ink); Raspberry Tart designer paper (SU)
Ink: Rose Red (SU)
Other: Beautiful Butterflies die (SU); grosgrain ribbon (Really Reasonable Ribbon); half pearls (KaiserCraft)

InStyle Stamps March blog hop!

7 Responses »

Mar 252011

Hello! Today I’m excited to be participating in my first InStyle Stamps Design Team blog hop! Join us on the last Friday of every month for some great projects and inspiration!

I was put at the beginning of the hop. There’s no pressure in going first, is there? 😉 Unless you’re one of my regular visitors, you should have come here directly from the InStyle Stamps company blog. If you didn’t start there, you’ll want to check back to get all the fun details about this hop.

The blog hop theme this month is Springtime, and seeing the daffodils bloom is one sure way to let me know that Spring has arrived. I decided to use the daffodil from the Patty Bunny Wuv set for my card. I know, I’ve already used it several times this month, but I just really love this image! It seems so cheerful to me. I wanted to color it to try to look like my Smiling Sun daffodils, but I had to mute the yellow some so it wouldn’t clash with the designer paper and the cardstock I wanted to use. I drew in the grass by hand so the flower wouldn’t just seem to be floating in space. The card’s layout is a mirror image of this month’s InStyle Stamps sketch challenge layout. I thought with the daffodil facing left, it looked better when I flipped the sketch. If you like the sketch, you have until 11:59 pm Pacific Time Tuesday, April 5 to enter the challenge for a chance to win at least one digital image from InStyle Stamps! Click the link to the sketch challenge for more deets on that. I decided to use a scalloped edge on the circular part of the sketch and add a bit of piercing to it. I couldn’t decide on a sentiment to use, so I decided to leave it plain. That way when I send the card to Operation Write Home, one of our military heroes can use it for any occasion.

Thanks for hopping with me today! Here’s the rest of the blog hop lineup:

Angelique
Axa
Kimme
Sherry
Jennifer
Kerry
Virginia
Patty

Details for today’s card:
Image: daffodil from Patty Bunny Wuv (InStyle Stamps)
Cardstock: So Saffron, Tea Party designer paper (Stampin’ Up); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: printer ink
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); paper piercing tool (Making Memories); petite scalloped circle Nestabilities die (Spellbinders)

In the spirit of full disclosure, the image used on today’s project was provided to me by InStyle Stamps to aid in promoting their products.

daffodil row

2 Responses »

Mar 212011

I’ve seen some daffodils blooming in my area, although the ones in my flower border haven’t opened yet. So the flowers on today’s card will just have to suffice for making today feel like Spring has finally arrived.

Today’s card uses this week’s Paper Therapy sketch challenge layout and this month’s InStyle Stamps color combination. The color combo allowed me to use some of my retired Stampin’ Up products. For the focal panel, I used the daffodil image from Patty Bunny Wuv and repeated it twice. Patty Bunny Wuv is available at the InStyle Stamps store as a set of unmounted rubber stamps, but as a design team member, I was able to get this one image in digital format. That allowed me to tweak it a bit – my daffodils are just slightly different sizes, since in nature they wouldn’t all be exactly alike, know what I mean? I apologize if that throws anybody off if they’re interested in purchasing this stamp set. In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have tweaked. Sigh… that’s part of the fun of digi images, though! Anyway… I colored the flowers with Copic markers. I decided to show off my totally awesome drawing skills (LOL!) by adding some grass to ground the daffodils, so they wouldn’t look like they were just floating around.

And now I have another card for Operation Write Home!

So, here is the card:

And here is the supply list:
Image: daffodil from Patty Bunny Wuv (InStyle Stamps)
Cardstock: Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Wild Wasabi, Afternoon Tea designer paper (Stampin’ Up); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Other: markers (Copic); Soft Sky ribbon, filigree brad (SU)

In the spirit of full disclosure, the image used on today’s project was provided to me by InStyle Stamps to aid in promoting their products.

sad bunny misses you

7 Responses »

Mar 142011

When I was reading the comments I received on my Bunny Blog Hop card, I noticed several people mentioned how sad the bunny looked. I have to admit I was kind of surprised that people would write that. Since I’d made the card for Operation Write Home, in my mind I’d kind of personified the bunny on the card as being representative of the military member overseas who will be sending the card home to his or her loved one(s). I imagine if I were stationed overseas away from my family, I’d be pretty darn sad thinking of them and missing them.

So I’ll warn you now that today’s card has another sad bunny on it because it’s also going to be donated to Operation Write Home. Because I’m such a technological whiz kid (ROFL!) I used Microsoft Word to print off my image and added in the sentiment along with it. This time I did some masking and sponged some grass and sky as background before coloring the image. I added some Liquid Applique to give the bunny the appearance of a fluffy tail. The color scheme is from this week’s Paper Therapy challenge, and the layout is the March Sketch For You To Try sketch.

My apologies for the quality of the photo. I had a really hard time getting enough natural light when taking the photo, and I couldn’t get it adjusted all that well with my photo editing software.

Oh, here’s what the sketch looks like:

And here are the supplies I used for today’s card:
Digital Image: Love Bunny – Contemplative (Amber Ink.)
Cardstock: Basics White (Papertrey Ink); Chocolate Chip, Petal Patch designer series paper, Certainly Celery Prints designer series paper (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery (SU)
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); sponge; Liquid Applique (Marvy)

butterfly in the round

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Mar 122011

This week’s Lizzie Anne Designs sketch challenge forced me to think out of the box, quite literally. Joslyn Nielson came up with a sketch for a round card. Although I’ve made a few shaped cards in the past, doing them is not within my comfort zone. I finally came up with this:

None of my Nestabilities circle dies seemed large enough for a card, so I pulled out my old Creative Memories Cutting System stuff so I could create a 4.25″ diameter card. Instead of a plain circular element for the focal panel, I decided to fussy cut the butterfly. I even got daring and cut around the antennae. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love my Cutterbee scissors?) I gently turned up the butterfly’s wings and attached only its body to the card, to give some dimension. I’m no butterfly expert so I don’t know if there really is a yellow and coral pink butterfly in nature, but I have to admit I like the way it turned out. I used textured cardstock for the card base for some subtle visual interest, and I hope that shows up on your monitor.

I made this card with a certain recipient in mind – my sister! Today is her birthday, and she really likes butterflies. I hope she has a wonderful birthday! (And I hope the actual card gets to her in today’s mail!)

Supplies for today’s card:
Stamps: Au Naturale, Everyday Sayings (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Barely Banana textured, Whisper White {for stamping the butterfly}, Spring Flowers designer paper (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: Premier colored pencils and blender pencil (Prismacolor)

is it Spring yet?

3 Responses »

Mar 102011

Here in Virginia the weather keeps teasing us, going back and forth between warm sunny days and cold rainy ones. The mountains east of us had a dusting of snow on them Tuesday, and (yuck alert) yesterday morning we got a little sleet mixed in with the rain. Personally, I’m ready for more of the warm sunny days!

My daffodils and tulips are growing again, so I suppose Spring really is on its way. The daffodils have buds, but the stems are only about 8 inches tall so they still need to do some more growing before they’ll bloom.

Today’s card brings a daffodil in full bloom. The image is from one of InStyle Stamps‘ newest sets, Patty’s Bunny Wuv. I used Copic markers to color the image and used Nestabilities to cut out the image panel and its mat. The layout is a tweaked version of sketch #54 from the Operation Write Home Stars and Stamps blog. I hadn’t made a square card for a long time so I just kind of scrunched up the rectangular layout to make it a square. I added some designer papers and a ribbon cinched with some twine, and then assembled it all. I used dimensional adhesive to pop up the daffodil panel.

I had the current Desert Islands Crafts Challenge in my mind as I was working on this card. The elements I chose were making a square card, using nature as inspiration, having a hand colored image, using two or more patterned papers, using twine, and not putting a sentiment on the card. The card also works into the Stars & Stamps blog’s Midweek Throwdown challenge to use polka dots on a card for a hero to send home.

Supplies:
Digital Image: daffodil from Patty’s Bunny Wuv (In Style Stamps)
Cardstock: Daffodil Delight, Tea Party designer paper, Prints series designer paper (Stampin’ Up); Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink)
Other: markers (Copic); Buttercup ribbon and Apple baker’s twine (Really Reasonable Ribbon); standard circle and big scalloped circle Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders)

In the spirit of full disclosure, the image used on today’s project was provided to me by InStyle Stamps to aid in promoting their products.

announcing...

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Mar 102011

We have a winner for the blog candy I offered during the Operation Write Home Bunny Blog Hop! Random.org chose Erika’s comment:

“Cute! And as a military wife, let me say thank you for donating your creations to OWH!”

Erika put a link to a blog in the information section of the comment form, so I clicked on that to see if I’d visited her blog during the blog hop. No, I hadn’t – she has a personal blog rather than a papercrafting one. But what I read got me feeling verklempt. I emailed her, and she responded, giving me permission to share what she’d written on her blog. Erika’s husband has been reassigned to a post overseas, so the two of them and their young daughter will have to move away from the States for about 4 years. While they are overseas, Erika expects her husband to be deployed 3 or 4 times. Erika shared her mixed emotions about moving, being away from her parents, her siblings and their families, and the likelihood of needing to find new homes for their pets.

I’ve always lived in Virginia. Even though I grew up very close to an Army base and knew lots of Army kids while I was in school, I can’t fully imagine what it’s like to be uprooted every few years. Being in a foreign country sounds like an exciting opportunity at first, but the idea of being a single mom for a while with no available support from extended family, while in a foreign country, is (in my opinion) a little scary.

And that’s why I am so glad and willing to make cards for Operation Write Home – to show support for families like Erika’s. To thank them for the sacrifices they make in their personal lives, being separated from spouses, children, extended family and friends. To thank the ones being deployed for defending our country and trying to make things better in lands far away, and to thank the ones staying at home for their efforts to keep things as “normal” as possible.

And thank you to Operation Write Home for giving me that opportunity.

challenged!

10 Responses »

Mar 072011

My regular readers should know by now that I have a difficult time resisting any challenge that sounds interesting to me. So when I saw that Kyra at The Bunny Nest was offering up a challenge, I decided I’d give it a try.

Never mind that I just found the challenge about 3 hours before its deadline, and it required making two cards for Operation Write Home.

Since the pressure was on, I knew I’d better keep the cards pretty simple. The first one is a Mother’s Day card that uses this week’s OWH sketch challenge layout. I even kept the monochromatic scheme for this week’s Paper Therapy challenge. I added a corner punch treatment and a few half pearls to dress it up, and raised the focal panel with dimensional adhesive. Just in case it’s hard to read, underneath “MOM” is the sentiment “You are wonderful in every way.”

I decided to make a Father’s Day card for the second card. Earlier today I had gone through some of my crafting stuff and found the start to a card that I’d worked on a couple years ago. Something about it never seemed “right” to me so I never finished it. Until today, anyway. I originally had the designer papers with the hardware and ribbon treatment on a background of Blue Bayou, which didn’t really look so great against the paper with the paisley pattern. The layers were stuck together too well to try to separate them, so I just trimmed the edges to cut off the bit of Blue Bayou that was showing. Then I put it on a Whisper White background. That was much better! I rounded the opposing corners of the sentiment panel to match the designer paper panel, and added a couple brads to coordinate with the other hardware. The final step was attaching it to the Blue Bayou card base. Ta-da! My card was finally finished!

And now I have two more cards for my Operation Write Home box! Thanks, Kyra, for giving me the incentive to get these done!

Supplies for the first card:
Stamps: Messages for Mom (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: So Saffron, Whisper White, Delicate Dots designer paper (SU)
Ink: So Saffron (SU)
Other: ticket corner punch, dimensionals (SU); self adhesive half pearls (KaiserCraft)

Supplies for the second card:
Stamps: All Year Cheer II (SU)
Cardstock: Blue Bayou, Whisper White, River Rock, Western Sky designer paper (SU)
Ink: Blue Bayou (SU)
Other: Hodgepodge Hardware, Blue Bayou ribbon (SU)

monochromatic Monday in March

2 Responses »

Mar 072011

Hello! If you’re looking for my Operation Write Home Bunny Blog Hop post, don’t feel bad – I’m still making my way through all the blogs, too! You’re welcome to read and comment on today’s post (or any others) too, but if you’re in a hurry and just want the Blog Hop post, click here.

Because it’s Monday, I have a new Paper Therapy challenge to share with you! This week’s challenge is to make a monochromatic card. You have until Saturday, March 12 to upload your card to the Paper Therapy challenge forum – and because it’s the first Monday of the month, you could even win a prize! I don’t know exactly what the prize is, but I can pretty well guarantee you that it’s something related to cardmaking and something you’d probably like having in your craft stash!

I had a harder time coming up with today’s card than I thought I would. I’ve done a number of monochromatic cards in the past so the concept of it wasn’t difficult. Deciding what color to focus on and whether or not I had embellishments to coordinate with it was the hard part! Blues? Greens? Purples? Pinks? Reds? I kept coming back to wanting to do something with browns and this sketch from the OWH Stars & Stamps blog. And as it turned out, I didn’t even use any sort of embellies, LOL. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?

You may be wondering why I chose to make a Father’s Day card in March. Or, maybe you know me well enough by now and have correctly guessed that it’s going to Operation Write Home. I’m planning to send a few Father’s Day cards in the box I’m sending at the end of the month since OWH will be needing them soon.

Maybe it’s just my monitor, but trust me – the card base and background piece for the trees does match the light stripes in the designer paper better in person than it appears in the photo.

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to check out the other Paper Therapy design team members’ blogs, linked over in the left sidebar.

Supply list:
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree (Stampin’ Up); Dream Big (Lizzie Ann Designs)
Cardstock: Naturals Ivory, Chocolate Chip, Recollections designer paper (SU)
Ink: Chocolate Chip (SU)

It's Bunny Blog Hop time!

110 Responses »

Mar 052011

Today I’m excited to be participating in Operation Write Home’s Bunny Blog Hop! About 130 papercrafters are participating – it’s HUGE! If you’ve come here from Corinna’s My Scrapbook Life blog, you’re hopping right on track. If you just popped by because you’re my friend, and you’d like to start from the beginning of the hop after you’re done here, you’ll want to go to the Operation Write Home Stars & Stamps blog.

As I’ve mentioned before, Operation Write Home collects handcrafted cards to send to our military men and women stationed overseas. Then our troops can use the cards to send messages to their loved ones at home. I consider it to be a wonderful way to show support to our heroes and their families who must be separated for long periods of time.

Because of the time it takes to ship the cards to the Middle East to get to the troops, and then again for them to mail home, Operation Write Home sets deadlines ahead of holidays. If you’d like to send them Easter cards, they’ll need to receive them by March 18, 2011. Mother’s Day cards need to be received by March 31, 2011.

When I first started on my card for today’s post, I used a sketch from the OWH Stars & Stamps blog. I love the Stars & Stamps blog because besides the sketches, they also provide other challenges to spark my creativity. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the way that card turned out. I’ll still donate it to OWH, but I didn’t feel like it was blog worthy – especially not for a big occasion like today’s hop! So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

I used several papers from Basic Grey’s Gypsy paper pad and fit them into the spaces from Deluxe Cut’s Card Making Template 1-C. (I don’t like that Deluxe Cuts went out of business a few years ago because I still think their templates rock!) I added some sponging around the edges of each block. The bunny is a digital image from Amber Ink. I reversed him so he’s facing left instead of right, colored him with Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits, and cut him out reallllly closely with my Cutterbee scissors. He’s attached to the pink background with pop dots for some dimension.

Now, what’s a blog hop without some blog candy? 🙂 I’m offering up the following goodies: Basic Grey’s Gypsy 6″ x 6″ paper pad (that’s been retired for a while!), a package of Making Memories white and pink paper flowers, some clear and some pink self-adhesive rhinestones, a package of pastel brads, a package of ribbon charms, and a package of jump rings. Wanna see?

Disclaimer: the basket in the photo is just for background display purposes and is NOT part of the blog candy package. If you had your heart set on it, I’m sorry! The papers used on today’s card are in the paper pad, and the flowers on the card are the same as what’s being offered here too. I’ll use random.org to choose one prize winner from the people who comment on today’s post. Because this is such a huge blog hop, you have until 10:00 pm eastern time Wednesday, March 9, 2011 to comment in order to qualify, and I’ll announce the winner on Thursday, March 10.

Now, I’ll send you to Penny at Penny’s Page so you can continue on the hop! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Here is the complete supply list for today’s card:
Digital Image: Love Bunny – Contemplative (Amber Ink.)
Stamp: Everyday Greetings Collection (Wordsworth)
Cardstock: Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink); various papers from Gypsy 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Close to Cocoa (Stampin’ Up)
Other: Card Colorblocking Template 1-C (Deluxe Cuts); Wildflower spotlight Blossoms (Making Memories); Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); dimensionals (SU); sponge

moum! parp!

2 Responses »

Mar 042011

I couldn’t help but think of a certain blog post on Hyperbole and a Half while I was making this card. If you’ve never seen Hyperbole and a Half, go check it out after you’re done reading this post.

Today’s card uses this week’s Lizzie Anne Designs sketch challenge layout. The flower images above the designer paper panel were stamped and colored with markers. The half pearls match better in real life than they appear in the photo.

You’re probably wondering why I’m showing a Mother’s Day card at the beginning of March, when Mother’s Day isn’t until May here in the United States. It’s because I’m trying to get a start on my next shipment for Operation Write Home. They need Mother’s Day cards by the end of March so there’s enough time to send them to our heroes overseas so they can send the cards to their loved ones here at home.

Speaking of Operation Write Home… you’ll want to be sure to tune in tomorrow, because OWH is hosting a HUGE Bunny Blog Hop tomorrow! Over 130 blogs are participating! WOW!

Here’s the supply list for today’s card:
Stamps: It’s Good to be Queen (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink); Blush Blossom, Bashful Blue, Petal Patch designer series paper (Stampin’ Up)
Ink: Close to Cocoa (SU)
Other: Blush Blossom, Bashful Blue, and Certainly Celery markers (SU); pewter half pearls (KaiserCraft)

for my gamer

1 Response »

Mar 012011

Both of my sons really enjoy playing video games, whether it’s on the Xbox 360 or the Wii. So when I saw this stamp at InStyle Stamps, I immediately wanted to get it to make cards for them. It looks so much like a younger version of my boys!

Today’s card is the birthday card I recently made for my older son. I used the current In Style Stamps sketch challenge sketch, but changed it up from a horizontal layout to a vertical one. I also used a diamond shape where the original sketch had a circle. The color scheme came from a recent color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.com.

If you’re interested in participating in this sketch challenge, it’s not too late! You have until 11:59 pm (Pacific time) March 1 to link your card to the sketch challenge post linked above on the InStyle Stamps blog.

Supplies:
Stamps: Ben (InStyle Stamps)
Cardstock: Daffodil Delight, Cajun Craze, Not Quite Navy (Stampin’ Up); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: markers (Copic); Happy Birthday embossing folder (ProvoCraft); diamond nesting dies (Dies Direct)

just a reminder...

bugs in the system

InStyle Stamps March blog hop!

daffodil row

sad bunny misses you

butterfly in the round

is it Spring yet?

announcing...

challenged!

monochromatic Monday in March

It's Bunny Blog Hop time!

moum! parp!

for my gamer

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Really great links

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Thank you for visiting!

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