Pink and Green Mother's Day

I am still cleaning scraps from my desk.  Today's find was this pink and green patterned paper and pink cardstock.  I did have to dig out the green from my "new" papers to match it, so it's not entirely a scrap card. The layout is inspired by the fancy ribbon cards Joanne posted on the OWH FB page yesterday and today. 

Patterned paper: DCWV Spring Stack from 2008 or 2009
Cardstock: American Crafts and The Paper Company
Stamp: Studio G
Ric Rac: Wrights
Bow: Martha Stewart (from an invitation kit)
Punch: Marvy
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2013: 340 blank and 140 AnyHero (as of 1/7/13)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 1284 blank and 218 AnyHero
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

Odds and ends = cards

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was cleaning my craft desk this weekend.  It's been quite the undertaking since I'd let it get out of hand.  Now, instead of simply filing scraps or getting rid of them, I've been making cards.  I also had a large stack of semi-completed card fronts that needed attention.  I guess I ran out of time or inspiration when I first made them and I just haven't gone back to finish them over the past several weeks. 

Here is the first group finished off into a set of 16 identical Mother's Day cards.  Just to be fair to all the dads out there, I should disclose that my mom and I were shopping at JoAnn together a year or two ago and when she saw the stamp, she requested it for her Mother's Day card that year.  It's nice to offer some humorous choices for Mother's Day; why are the fathers the only ones we can poke fun at?  :)  I used the same paper I'd used for some Mother's Day cards last year since Caro had commented how nice it was that they weren't pink. 

 
The butterfly cards came about in much the same way.  There are nine of these in my box now.  I was so pleased to finally find a project on which I could use this American Crafts ribbon.  Since purchasing it, I've all but sworn off printed ribbons, with the exception of neutral or subtle patterns because I can never get them to match.

 

My box of cards is about half full with 153 cards and a goodly stack of kids Any Hero letters.  I wonder if I'll actually get it ready in time for the Mother's Day deadline or if these cards will be waiting for 2014.  
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2013: 340 blank and 140 AnyHero (as of 1/7/13)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 1284 blank and 218 AnyHero
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

OWH Sketch #77

More pretty My Mind's Eye paper for this sketch.  I just picked up the stamp at Michaels this weekend though I think it's been around for a few years. 

Today is the beginning of my summer vacation.  Woot!  I've been ready for summer for a month, so I cannot wait to get started on the fun, travel, and home projects that come with the season! 

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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 620 blank and 200 AnyHero (as of 4/24)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695
Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

My mom's mother's day card

Mom and I were shopping together at JoAnn a few months ago.  Since we live a few hours apart, that doesn't happen often and I love those times together!  We spotted this stamp along with several Father's Day stamps.  She picked this one out and said she wanted me to use it on her card.  We decided she'd probably forget by the the Mother's Day rolled around.  We'll see if it's truly a surprise when she opens up the card!  (Dad, by the way, will get a similar sentiment when his day comes next month.  Can't have him feeling left out, now can we?)

Paper: We R Memory Keepers Madame Royale
Sketch: OWH 74
Tools: Tim Holtz Distress tool
Flowers: Making Memories
Brad: My Mind's Eye
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 620 blank and 200 AnyHero (as of 4/24)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695
Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

Mother's Day for my aunt

Here's the Mother's Day card I made for my aunt.  I think she'll love the shape of the card and the monochromatic look.  

Paper: American Crafts
Dies: Spellbinders Labels 8
Stamps: Studio G (sentiment), American Crafts (flowers)
Twine: We R Memory Keepers, inked
Ink: Martha Stewart
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 620 blank and 200 AnyHero (as of 4/24)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695 Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

Mother's Day for Mommom

This is the card I made for my grandmother for Mother's Day.  She loves flowers and surely misses gardening now that she lives in an assisted living facility.  She has a few houseplants and is always eager to feel the soil to see if they need water.  :)  The colors of this card remind me of the flower pots she kept in her shed, the yellow in particular.

Paper: from stash
Ribbon: Offray
Rhinestones: JoAnn and MME
Stamps: Hampton Arts (sentiment) and American Crafts (flower)
Ink: Martha Stewart
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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 620 blank and 200 AnyHero (as of 4/24)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695 Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

Mother's Day

You know, the only thing I don't like about making cards for Operation Write Home (and I do mean *only*) is that by the time the holidays roll around, I am tired of making cards for them.  I have yet to get organized enough to make my family cards at the time I'm making them for OWH.  So, I finished making Mother's Day cards almost two months ago.  Now I need to make the ones for my mom, grandmother, and great aunt.  Tonight.  Mom picked out her stamp, so I at least have that much of the design decided.  I need to make three totally different cards because they'll all open the cards together and it's more fun when they're different. 

I also need to make a couple of simple scrapbook pages tonight for my homeroom's Character Counts Coach.  The kids wrote him letters and I always put them into an 8x8 album for him at the end of the year with a class photo.  I need a page for the photo and a title page.  Which means I need to take a class photo tomorrow and print it this weekend.  Hmm...too bad I already know at least one kid will be absent.  

Off to be crafty!  And write lesson plans!  And get things ready for the weekend! 

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Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 620 blank and 200 AnyHero (as of 4/24)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695 Check out OWH at www.operationwritehome.org to learn more about its mission and how to get involved.

More for Mom

Using a pack of Fiskars Cloud 9 Mom stickers, I made a variety of cards for OWH.  I made 8 like the top card using different stickers  Then I used several other stickers to make cards using the papers shown in the bottom card.   These cards were in the box I mailed to Caro on Monday. 

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 302 blank, 200 AnyHero (as of 3/5/12)
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

More love for Mom

Thanks to another great digi from Paula, I created another set of Mom cards for my OWH box.  Just four more Mom cards and my box will be evened up with 151 Mom/Mother's Day and 151 year-round sentiments.  I'll be mailing it early this week if all goes to plan.  

The first card uses papers by Pebbles, Inc, a flower by K&Co from the ancient archives of my stash, and miscellaneous ribbon.  The sentiment digi from Paula was recolored in MS Word.  (Click on the digi image in Word.  On the formatting toolbar, choose "picture" then "recolor."  You can choose any custom color.  This doesn't work if you want to only recolor part of the image, however.  I think you need other software for that.)

The second card turned out masculine.  How I managed that, I cannot tell you, since I usually struggle to make a masculine card.  I'll send them anyway because I know there are some moms out there who aren't into girly pinks and purples, so they'll appreciate a modern looking card.  This card uses papers from Making Memories 5th Avenue line and from the Paper Co as well as Paula's digi.

If you're trying to make some more Mother's Day cards for the half and half challenge (see sidebar), consider digis.  They're quick, free or inexpensive, and a practical way to increase the number of images you can use.  Thanks Paula, for sharing your digis! 

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely! I'll finally have a number to put here this week-hooray!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

I'm still here

My blog's been neglected in the past few weeks.  The neglect started because I was expecting my best friend for Presidents' Day weekend and was getting things in order for her arrival, then entertaining her.  The blog silence persisted because of some family matters that weighed heavily on my heart and kept me from wanting to make cards.

I was itching to craft this weekend in a big way.  I went through two rolls of ATG tape today, something I've never done in 24 hours before!  I know that OWH is having a Mother's Day challenge (see sidebar) and I wanted to finish my box.  I've been playing with some new papers that I got at Tuesday Morning on President's Day.  I love when they have great American Crafts and Pebbles, Inc. papers for $1.99!  Here are a few of the Mother's Day cards I made using my new papers.  I am also linking several of these to OWH challenges!

This card is for the March Our Daily Bread Designs Challenge on Stars and Stamps.  We were to play tic-tac-toe on the board given to choose three elements for our card.  Mine actually gets tic-tac-toe from both diagonals!  Do I get extra credit?  :)

This card is OWH Sketch #65.   I dug through my stamps again today and found this Mother's Day stamp that I'd forgotten about.  Good thing I found it so it could get some use this year! 

This card uses the scan strip from the bottom of the paper.  Love the cute designs they put on these strips.  I just wish they didn't make them perforated.  

I went searching for Mother's Day digis this afternoon.  I was thoroughly weary of looking at my Mother's Day stamps.  I have about a half dozen, but after making over a hundred Mother's Day cards, I couldn't bear the sight of those stamps any more.  Paula came to my rescue with this digi she posted last year for use on OWH Mother's Day cards.   It's so nice to be able to print a digi and save yourself a trip to the store!  Thanks for the freebie, Paula!  I made 14 of these cards with various eyelets and brads.  It also follows OWH Sketch #63, but I realized this only after I had put the card together.  :) 

 




Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely! I'm going to be shipping 300 blank cards and 200 AnyHero notes this week.  Watch out, Caro! 
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

scrappy day

Barb posted a tutorial by Thermoweb on how to use scraps efficiently. I grabbed a handful of green scraps and threw together some strips of the papers.  These new striped papers were the basis of all the ideas in the tutorial. 

I used some of the striped pages to make waves like you see in the top card.  I wish I had the CM wave cutter- it would have looked even better.  I lined the wave with dots, added paper flowers by MM, and adhered a sentiment flag to finish off the top card. 

For this card, I used a Bargello technique.   Thinner strips would have looked better.  I had trouble with certain strips not having enough adhesive.  Make sure you use more than you see in the picture in the tutorial, or your pieces will fall off when you cut your new paper apart. 

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Tutorial Part 2: Repurposed Stickers

Yesterday, I shared a technique to repurpose epoxy stickers using a Sharpie marker. 

 

Today, I want to take that tutorial one step further.  You'll need:

• epoxy stickers
• black Sharpie
• Versamark
• embossing powder (opaque color)
• heat tool
• protected work surface

We're going to make these: 

1. Color your epoxy dot stickers with the Sharpie and let them dry.  I also tried this without coloring the dots and it produced a lighter finished product with the original color showing through.  Experiment! 
2. Gently stamp the dots into the Versamark.  If your Versamark pad is new and clean, you might notice some ink rub off and stain the pad.  Avoid excessive pressure when inking the dots to reduce ink transfer.  (Ask me how I know.  ;)  Thankfully, my Versamark pad is 7 or so years old, so this wasn't its first small stain.)
3. Coat the dots in embossing powder.  I used a color called "hematite" by Stampendous that produces an interesting metallic look.  
4. Use your heat tool to melt the embossing powder.  
5. If you have ragged edges on your finished product, they will likely come off easily with your fingers, or you can use a small sanding block to gently remove excess embossing powder trails.  

The finished product on a couple of cards:

 This one is lighter because I didn't color the dot first.  The dot was pink before it was embossed. 

I hope you try these dots on your cards and let me know what you think!


Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely! Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Tutorial: repurposed stickers

I know letter stickers are SO passe now that electronic die cut machines have come into vogue.  That said, I still use them on my scrapbook pages and sometimes on my cards.  The leftover alphabet soup of letters that are seldom used is always a frustration.  I ended up spelling "btw u r gr8" on a card tonight to use more letters after running out of the letters A, E, and O.  I hate throwing away the leftover letters.  Maybe I will have a use for copious amounts of the letter Q one day.  For now, I want to repurpose the leftovers into something I can use now. 

I started with a sheet of epoxy letters circles.  These are by KI Memories from a kit given to me by a friend. 

Once I made a few titles and sentiments, I was left with alphabet soup or a license plate number, your pick. 

Would the driver of the car with license plate HPSZZ456 please report to customer service? 

After I'd used everything of value, I used a Sharpie to recolor the extra letters and numbers.  I tried a few colors, but only black was able to completely cover the print.  (Black Copics may work too, but my colors are too pale to test out.)  I applied three layers of ink, letting each one dry.  The first coat had the stickers covered, but left streaks.  You may do more or less coats to get the effect you desire.  Within a minute or two, I checked the pieces and found that they had dried to a nice shine and weren't at all sticky.   

You don't want to know what this part of the sticker sheet used to spell.  Time to black out those letters.  ;)

I used the new embellishments like we would use brads on a card.  It's easy to apply them since they're stickers and they're FREE since you were going to throw them away anyway!  I used them on a Mother's Day card, but I think they'd be great for masculine designs as well. 

The letters FLQ wouldn't make sense on this card, but black accents do!

Have you tried this or something similar?  If you try this technique, I would love to see a link to your card.  :)

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

I love bargains and a little CANDY!

I joked to my mom yesterday that my bargain shopping paid for the upgrade to leather seats in my new car.   It's probably more true than a joke- I am a major bargain hunter and rarely pay full retail for anything.  I said this as we were entering a junky liquidation shop to poke around and satisfy my sense of curiosity since I hadn't been there before.  Mom assured me it was worthless, but I had to see for myself.  We were both pleasantly surprised to discover they'd gotten an entire shipment of cardmaking and scrapbooking supplies in that were selling for $1 each or 12 for $9.   I came home with a haul worth about $200 retail that I got for $9.54 with tax.


Here's what I got:
100 A2 scallop rectangles in confetti white
100 sheets of dark gray 6x9 cardstock (to be used for layering)
40 sheets of red 8.5 by 11 (sold in packs at big box craft stores)
40 sheets of burgundy 8.5 by 11
25 sheets of yellow 8.5 by 11 (sold individually at big box craft stores for 59 cents each)
25 sheets of brown textured 8.5 by 11
25 sheets of evergreen textured 12 by 12
25 sheets of cream textured 12 by 12
25 sheets of white and grey diamond print 12 by 12
25 sheets of brown 12 by 12
25 sheets of pale blue 12 by 12
1 roll of about 25 sheets of Karen Neuburger flower stickers (meant to be sold individually at an LSS)


The cards below use some of the stickers.  I made a dozen of these cards and used up four sheets of the stickers. The cards also make use of bargain cardstock from Tuesday Morning.  I figured that this set of 12 cards cost 60 cents to make, or 5 cents per card.  

I used a modification of a technique that OWH shared last year.  The technique was to stamp a branch, glue paper flowers to it, and emboss the whole thing.  Instead, I stamped a sentiment, used stickers all over the card front, embossed it, and layered it with coordinating cardstock.

I'm pointing out the bargains I found not to make you jealous, but to encourage you to use your resources well and not be discouraged if you've seen your crafty budget shrink in recent years.  With the advent of digi stamps and numerous websites offering freebies, there's almost an unlimited supply of images and sentiments available to anyone with a printer.  With careful shopping, you can find papers to compliment your projects.  If you have any friends who also enjoy paper crafting, you may be able to get them to split packages with you to lower your cost and offer more variety.

Now, for the CANDY!  I doubt I'll be able to finish off all these stickers, so I'll be happy to send a few sheets and some card front-sized coordinating colors of cardstock to one lucky reader who leaves a comment on this post with a tip for saving money while crafting.  Comments must be submitted by Wednesday at 3:00pm EST (noon for West Coast peeps).  US addresses, only, please. Followers will get two entries! 

Don't forget about the Mother's Day challenge for OWH.  Boxes with half Mother's Day/Mom and half general themes are due by March 20th.  See my sidebar for a blinkie with more info.

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

VCMP #3- Funky Fold

When I saw Sandy's funky fold tutorial this morning, I just knew it would be one of the challenges we'd face tonight for the VCMP.  

The directions were fairly straightforward, but that didn't stop me from making three mistakes on this card.  1) I cut the strips 1 inch in from the edge instead of 3/4 inch 2) I scored all the way across at 5.5 inches and 3) I scored all the way across at 1 inch.  Despite these three mistakes, the card came out alright.

The glittered paper I used is from Fiskars and is very, very well sealed, so it's safe for our heroes because it won't flake off on them!  I also used polka dotted paper from K&Co Girl Scouts stack and the Best of K&Co stack.  The ribbon is by Offray.  Stamp by Studio G, label punch by EK Success, modified by me.  Because this card has a smaller writing space than normal (the front panel would be hard to write on), I'm going to line the card with a piece of paper folded into fourths and trimmed to size so the hero can open it up and write a longer note if desired. 

If you need some cardmaking inspiration, check out the challenges posted each night at 5 and 8 EST all this week on the Stars and Stamps blog!

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

VCMP #1

 

It's time for a Virtual Card Making Party!   The first challenge during this weeks "party" is to create a card using green, yellow, and hot pink.  As soon as I read the challenge, I thought of a pack of paper I have with exactly those colors of cardstock.  I used a technique I saw on Tonic's blog a while ago to make another Mom card.  It's a bit time consuming to make because of the border punch work, but I really think it looks nice, so I'm happy to put in the effort!  I wish I had a heart die so I could do the same thing to a heart shape. 

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Mother's Day CAS card

In case you didn't already know, I love a bargain. Today while I was at Goodwill, I stumbled upon 3 boxes of 40 print-your-own wedding invitation and response card sets by Martha Stewart for $1 per box. I read the back of the box and saw that the response card envelopes were A2 size, so I figured I would buy the sets just for that. $1 for 40 envelopes is a good price. The other pieces I could either use to stamp images on or as card elements. They have one edge that is punched like eyelet. I am using the large invitations folded in half as A2 card bases. Here's a CAS Mother's Day card I made using one of the invitations.



The stamp is from a Hampton Arts clear set of Mom/Dad stamps. (It was $2 at Big Lots several months ago.) The ink is Studio G. The ribbon is Offray Simply Grosgrain.

I'm planning to make about 20 of these depending on what grosgrain ribbon I have that matches my inks. I used up the green ribbon on 8 of these and found enough lavender for 4 more. Have you seen that OWH has a challenge for Mother's Day cards? Get your boxes to your shipper by March 20th- half Mom cards and half general. My sidebar has more details!

Look around carefully, and you might also find a bargain to use in your crafting! What's your best crafting bargain?

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

Sketch #34 for Mom!

I made this card with Sketch #34. As it turns out, there's some mystery surrounding that sketch, so go here to learn more. As it turns out, there is also a lost Sketch #34 here. I'll have to do that sketch soon- I really like it!

This card uses papers from Making Memories, a punch by EK success, a corner rounder, and a stamp by Studio G. I made several of these for my box. I think I have my box about 3/4 full, so after another 50-75 cards, it should be ready to send.

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695