year-end closeout

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Dec 312012

Hello!  I hope all of my blog visitors have had a wonderful, joyous holiday season, no matter whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or something else.

I took a little hiatus from crafting over the holidays, and now I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.  I used the mirror image of the latest Freshly Made Sketch for the layout, although I didn’t get the card finished in time for me to enter it into the challenge.  Oh well.  I decided to go with a brown color scheme for the bunny image.  The current OWH Midweek Throwdown challenge is calling for “miss you” cards, so that helped determine the sentiment I chose.

Here’s wishing you all the best in 2013!  Thanks for visiting with me throughout the year.

Supplies for today’s card:
Digital Image: Contemplative Bunny (Amber Ink)
Sentiment Stamp: Year Round Sentiments (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Kraft (Stampin’ Up); Solar White (Neenah); designer papers from Pyrus 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: printer ink; Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Other: petite oval Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders); Browns twine (Queen & Co.)

Posted by PH in VA at 4:00 pm Amber Ink, Basic Grey, Cards, Digital images, Hero Arts, Nestabilities, Operation Write Home, OWH Midweek/Midmonth Throwdown

two sketches, two cards

1 Response »
Sep 012011

Since I slipped up and forgot to post earlier in the week, I decided to share two cards with y’all today.

The first one is just an easy peasy one using this week’s Stars and Stamps sketch.  I had printed the digital image a while ago, so all I needed to do now was color it and cut it to size.  Embossing the background took just a few moments. I decided to use twine instead of ribbon, so I used three pieces to give some width to that feature of the sketch.  And within about 20 minutes, I had a card.

I actually made today’s second card about a week ago.  This time InStyle Stamps’ Chloe is happy to present someone with a gift.  I’ve always interpreted it as a birthday gift, but there’s no reason this image couldn’t be used for any other gift-giving occasion – Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother’s or Father’s Day, or even as a thank you.  Just change the colors and add a sentiment of your own to suit your needs.  That’s one thing I love about creating my own cards – there’s no really “right” or “wrong” way to make them!

Anyway, back to the card.  I used the Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge #83 for the layout and decided to make it a birthday card.  During the OWH CAS Blog Skip a few weeks ago, Kate at Hello from Kate! had used this floral print designer paper with the sandy-colored background.  I’d always been kind of stumped as to how to use it, and she inspired me to give it a try.  So I paired it with a multicolored stripe paper from the same package, and used the colors in the striped paper to determine my color scheme for the card.  After all,  just because there’s a girl on the card it doesn’t mean the card has to be pink.

And there they are – two more cards for Operation Write Home.

Supplies for the bunny card:
Digital Image: Bunny Hug (Amber Ink.)
Cardstock: Kraft, Pink Pirouette (Stampin’ Up); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: printer ink
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); D’vine Swirls embossing folder (ProvoCraft); brown sugar twine (Really Reasonable Ribbon)

Supplies for the Chloe card:
Digital Image: Birthday Chloe (InStyle Stamps)
Sentiment: It’s Your Birthday (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Delicate Dots designer paper (SU); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Bashful Blue (SU); printer ink
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); circle and petite scalloped circle Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders)

Posted by PH in VA at 10:00 am Amber Ink, Cards, Digital images, InStyle Stamps, Nestabilities, Operation Write Home, OWH Stars & Stamps sketches, Stampin' Up!

return of the sad bunny

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May 202011

The image is named “Contemplative Bunny”, but so many people thought he looked sad when I used him earlier this year that I think of him as the “sad” bunny now. (Yes, I’m taking the liberty of assuming the bunny is male.) Here he is again in a card that I sent to Operation Write Home earlier this week. This was a really quick and easy card featuring the OWH sketch #68 layout. I used a font called Film Cryptic Oblique to print out the sentiment. The bunny is popped up with dimensional adhesive.

Supplies:
Digital Image: Contemplative Bunny (Amber Ink)
Cardstock: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Afternoon Tea designer series paper (Stampin’ Up); Basics White (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: printer ink
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts)

Posted by PH in VA at 8:00 am Amber Ink, Cards, Operation Write Home, OWH Stars & Stamps sketches, Stampin' Up!

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)

Posted by PH in VA at 8:00 am Amber Ink, Cards, Digital images, Operation Write Home, SFYTT sketches, Stampin' Up!

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

Posted by PH in VA at 10:00 am Amber Ink, Cards, Digital images, Operation Write Home

quick as a bunny

4 Responses »
Feb 142011

If you are here for the Virtual Valentine’s Day Blog Hop, please click here – BLOG HOP POST.  Thanks!

I recently discovered a new challenge blog, Desert Islands Crafts Challenge.  Those of you who know me well know that I have a difficult time resisting cardmaking challenges!  This one sounded pretty neat so I decided to play along – and then I realized the challenge ended in 2 and a half hours!  YIKES!

So here’s what I very quickly came up with.  The challenge blog listed 10 different elements, of which a minimum of three were required to be on the project to qualify for the challenge.  I had the bunny image from Amber Ink printed out as an “extra” from my blog hop card posted earlier today, and I colored it with Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits.  I embossed the white background panel with a Cuttlebug folder, added some ribbon and some Prima flowers, and added pearls for the flower centers.  I would consider the Nestabilities shapes to be die cuts, too – so that gave me four of the required elements.  Hooray!

I hope you’ll check out the Desert Islands Craft Challenge and help make their new venture a success!

Supplies:
Digital Image: Bunny Hug (Amber Ink)
Cardstock: So Saffron, Groovy Guava, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up)
Other: Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); flowers (Prima Marketing); pearls (Kaisercraft); Groovy Guava ribbon (SU); petite oval scalloped and petite oval plain Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders); Paisley embossing folder (Cuttlebug)

Posted by PH in VA at 6:30 pm Amber Ink, Cards, Desert Islands Craft Challenge, Nestabilities, Stampin' Up!

Hoppy, happy Valentine’s Day!

74 Responses »
Feb 142011

Today I’m super excited to be participating in the Virtual Valentine’s Day Blog Hop!  A group of over 50 crafters has been organized by the fabulous Taylor Usry and we are all showcasing Valentine projects on our blogs today!  If you’ve just arrived from Wendy Price’s awesome blog, welcome!  If you came here for my weekly Paper Therapy challenge post, I hope you’ll take the time to hop to at least some of the other blogs in the group because you’ll be in for a real treat for your eyes.

Before I get to my card, I thought you’d want to know that there is a terrific assortment of 21 prizes from 19 different sponsors being given away in connection with the Hop.  Prize winners will be drawn from random comments on the participating blog hop posts – so, the more blogs you visit and comment on, the more chances for you to win!  You can comment until 6:00 pm EST on Thursday, February 17 to be eligible for a prize, and winners will be announced on Friday, February 18.  What kind of prizes are being awarded?  Check out this list:

– Stamp Insanity –  1 digital stamp set of the winner’s choice
– Meljens Designs – 4 digital images of the winner’s choice
– Pixie Dust Studio – 2 digital images of the winner’s choice
– Lizzie Anne Designs – $10 gift certificate to the Lizzie Anne Designs store (donated by Taylor Usry)
– Christian Paper Crafts – 1 year general membership
– Paper Pretties – 3 total winners: 1 person will receive Timeless Love acrylic stamp set; 2 people will receive 5 digital images of their choice from the store
– Karber Digital Images – winner’s choice of 2 digital images
– Di’s Digi Downloads – 5 digital images of the winner’s choice
– The Scrappychick Boutique – 2 6″x6″ Cosmo Cricket paper pads to one winner
– Stampendous – 4 cling rubber stamps from their new release to one winner
– Pink Cat Studio – 5 digital images of the winner’s choice
– Amber Ink – $10 gift certificate to the Amber Ink store
– Simply Betty Stamps – 3 digital images of the winner’s choice
– Mark’s Finest Papers – 1 stamp set of the company’s choice to the winner
– Dreamweaver Stencils – 1 “love” stencil, 1 rose stencil, pearlescent embossing paste and a palette knife
– Chi Chi Memories Designs – Meaning of Love Digital Stamp Set to one winner
– Little Potato House – $20 gift certificate to the Little Potato House store
– Kenny K digis: 4 digis to one winner
– Kraftin’ Kimmie Stamps: winner’s choice of 2 rubber stamps

So… now, on to today’s card.  This week’s Paper Therapy challenge is to make a Valentine – and that played into this blog hop perfectly!  Like a lot of my cards, today’s has a story behind it.  Remember a few weeks ago I shared the card I planned to give my husband?  That didn’t pan out.  I got hit with the flu the middle of last week, which messed up my plans for making cards for my family to send to my parents and my husband’s parents.  Because I was under a time crunch and the card I’d made for my husband was so quick and easy to make, I ended up making a twin of it and mailed them out Friday afternoon.  Unfortunately, that left me back at the drawing board for my husband’s card.

I didn’t think I should use a tree image again – and besides, I’d used a tree image on the Valentine I gave him last year.  He’s not into the red and pink thing, with hearts and lots of mushy stuff.  Love birds didn’t seem “right.”

Then I remembered I had a sweet bunny image from Amber Ink.  Oh yes – that would work.  And I decided to color the bunnies brown rather than grey, because we don’t need any additional reminders of our grey hares, um, hairs.  The Chocolate Chip and Soft Sky striped paper seemed like a good idea, to stay away from the traditional girly looking Valentine colors.  My first attempt at printing out a sentiment didn’t go very well so I decided I’d just scrap that idea and write something about hugs or snuggle bunnies inside.  Then I thought about using Liquid Applique on the bunnies’ tails to make them look fluffy. The bunnies are popped up from the background with dimensional adhesive.

And the card gradually came to life:

And of course there’s the additional pun of bunnies on a card for a blog hop.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by today and reading through this really long post.  The next stop on this tour of Valentines is Maria Levine’s lovely blog.  However, if you somehow get stuck or lost, you can always go back to Taylor’s blog and find your way again.  Be sure to thank Taylor for organizing this hop!  Enjoy a happy Valentine’s Day!

Supplies for today’s card:
Digital image: Bunny Hug (Amber Ink)
Cardstock: Naturals White, Chocolate Chip, Soft Sky, Afternoon Tea designer paper (Stampin’ Up)
Other: Seaside Ribbon Originals ribbon, dimensionals (SU); Premier colored pencils (Prismacolor); odorless mineral spirits (Houston Arts); Liquid Applique (Marvy Uchida)

Posted by PH in VA at 8:00 am Amber Ink, Cards, Digital images, Paper Therapy
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