Another tie

Not satisfied with my earlier cards and inspired by designs that Ann H. posted on Facebook, I tried an additional tie example. This one I love. I like the colors a lot better. I am such a sucker for the lime and olive greens and anything in between!

I folded the tie from a 4" square of MM paper. I used a star brad from Colorbok. The green cardstock is American Crafts and the background patterned paper is from Pebbles. The pocket is 2 and 3/8" tall with a corner cut off. The collar started as two 1" high rectangles and I just laid the right sides together and sliced off the corner into a point. Glossy Accents for collar buttons. Edges inked with studio G green ink.

I thought about adding a pocket square with a sentiment, but decided not to go there quite yet. Perhaps if I do another installment of this card. :)

Neckties to go with the shirts!

OWH came through today with a new necktie tutorial. It's the perfect companion to the shirt tutorial from last year around Father's Day.

I put the two together and -voila- five more Father's Day cards for OWH. :) Oh, and one "Praying for you" because the papers reminded me of that sentiment.


A close-up of one card.

A few sizing tips to share. I made the shirt with paper from a mat stack (4.5" by 6.5"). The best size for the tie paper was then 2" square. You can see some of my cards have larger ties. Those were 2.5" square. I think I prefer the proportion of the smaller ties, even if they're a bit harder to fold. I also found it was easier to put some ATG tape down the middle of the tie as I went to keep things together.

Have fun making your ties!!!

More cards for Father's Day

I made another batch of Father's Day cards this evening. I decided to ink up a stamp I recently got on eBay. I liked the lighthouse motif but I hate coloring! I knew that if I went with a monochromatic scheme, I wouldn't have to color. Problem solved. I have a lot of green and generally find greens easy to put together, so I pulled a few sheets of coordinating solid green and a wavy grid pattern green. I stamped the image, cut it out, and matted it a few times. I varied the backgrounds for fun. I'm very, very bad at making multiples. I generally make multiples with the same elements, but mix them up somewhat. My favorites are the two on the right. I might make more like this tomorrow if I have the desire. Right now, I have 42 Father's Day cards ready to go in my box.

Stamp: Stampin Up
Ink: Studio G
Papers: Pebbles and American Crafts
Eyelets: Making Memories



Close-ups

Father's Day on Mother's Day

A holiday ahead, I spent some time today making Father's Day cards for OWH. I have 36 done now and will try to make another 12-20 over the coming week. I am getting closer to filling my large flat rate box.

Here's a sampling of my Father's Day cards. They're largely composed of shirt cards because I folded 50-some shirts a month ago and needed to use them up! Even after tons of shirt cards, I still have 22 shirts left. That will teach me to fold while watching TV...I got carried away!








This one is my interpretation of this week's OWH Sketch #68.

And so it begins...

Christmas is more than seven months away, but in OWH terms, the deadline is in about 5 months. I had been looking for a stamp saying "Oh Christmas tree" since, well, Christmas. I finally found an acceptable one on eBay and got it inked up so I could finish a Christmas palm tree. I figured it would be perfect for the heroes in the Middle East to send home.


I also worked on some snowflakes on this "Let it Snow" card. It was a fun one to design, but a pain to glue down. If I get into making these, the Xyron is coming out. Doing all this gluing with a glue pen is nuts!


In other news, my cleaning was going slowly, so I decided to count my stamps (knowing this would force me to organize as I went). The total was staggering to me. 1435 stamps. I would estimate that I had less than 100 when I moved to this apartment, meaning I've collected over 1300 in 2.5 years. Oh my goodness- that's a bit embarrassing. Around 400 are wood mounted and most of the rest are acrylic. Additionally, I have over 75 punches (but never the right size) and over 50 ink colors (but never the right shade). I'm glad I did my little inventory. I think it will help me curb my collecting. At least somewhat.

I started cleaning today...

...and had to use up some scraps, so I made some cards too!


This paper was another cheap back at Tuesday Morning with 25 identical sheets for $1.99. You can see that the blue lines are glossy. I knew I needed a car stamp to go with it but I actually don't have one. I think I must have well over 2000 stamps now (perhaps I'll count soon), so I'm surprised by this hole in my collection. My new scooter was a decent substitute. A little texting lingo let me use up some stickers on a sheet with no more of the letters e, t, a, and a few other crucial ones. I used more of the grosgrain ribbon from the towels I bought at Target. Scrappy indeed!


I've really gotten into the quilted background idea recently. I made my mom's Mother's Day card with this technique as well as a love card for OWH. This birthday one would have been great last month for the funny card theme on the OWH FB page. The inside says "mine is unlisted." I love the trim on this little guy.


Another patchwork background. My new staple design. Sandy gave me the idea for cutting the sentiment as a flag on the last episode of OWHtv. I really like it.



The OWH Father's Day deadline is approaching quickly...May 21st. That's just two weeks from today. I want to have my box full by then. It might happen, but I might have to bump down to a medium flat rate box instead of the large that I wanted to send. I thought this was a perfect sentiment for OWH Father's Day cards. Since our heroes are sending them home, it'll be nice for them to tell their dads how much they look up to them. I made tons of these shirts a few weeks back, so there might be a few dozen of these cards in my box.

Blog hop inspired

I saw a blog hop hosted by the Stampin Addicts and got a little mojo over the weekend. Here are the two cards I created.

This one has a quilted look, achieved by tiling scalloped square punches. I finally used a few of the half pearls I bought about a month ago. After wanting them for a while and finally buying them in the dollar bin at JoAnn's, I couldn't figure out how to use them. All in all, this was an easy scrap card with a nice result.


Ready...set...rotate! I don't know how to turn a picture once it's in blogger. I'm sorry! This is a cute apron card. I found a similar example on the blog hop and did my spin on it. So cute!!!


Hoping to get a little craftiness in this weekend. After that, there won't be many chances until summer vacation. I have a large flat rate box that I wanted to have filled in time for the Father's Day deadline, but that's not looking likely. It's 2/3 full, but I don't see myself having the time, energy, or creativity to make 100 cards in just over a week. We'll see...