Catching up on some recent work

OK. I made a reasonably large stack of cards in the past month or so, but I have been very slow to photograph them. I finally got around to it tonight, only to have pictures with crummy lighting. I wish I had taken the opportunity to do it on Saturday when the sunlight was bright and my photos came out well. Alas, my photos look pink.

Patriotic thank you cards made with metallic silver paper and using the MM tag curler.

Cards for boys.
Variety of thanks cards.

Hi cards.


Mixed sentiments using one of my favorite papers.

A thanks card with inchies.


Who doesn't love a pirate card? I almost said "no one" but then I realized this might not be the best card to send to the Navy.

Publish Post

I'm especially thrilled with these cards. There are 8 total, each slightly different than the others. The paste paper background is left from a project in college about 6 years ago, I think. The design is simple for each card, but I think they're fairly elegant designs. The crystal brads make me happy. :)

I'm going to let myself make cards for the next hour if I also do laundry in that time.

Virtual Card Making Party

Yesterday was an awesome Operation Write Home day for me. OWH hosted a Virtual Card Making Party on Facebook and on UStream. Every two hours, Sandy posted a card challenge and a question to answer. Some even had prizes, and in a random drawing, I won the very first one! Sandy is going to make a digi stamp of Maryland's state flower, the Black-Eyed Susan.

Here are the cards I made for each challenge. I really pushed myself to be more detailed with every card and to use some of my Cuttlebug products that I don't always drag out. I made seven cards during the party. My favorite one is the first one I made featuring the colors of Maryland's flag and the Black-Eyed Susan. The toughest card was the vest because I'm not usually one to make shaped cards nor ones with papers like I chose.


Challenge #1- Use your state flag colors.


Challenge #2- Make a Mother's Day card inspired by a piece of artwork Sandy posted.


Challenge #3- Make a vest card. I made two because the first one felt wonky. The second one is better, but this is just not my kind of card.
Second attempt is a better shape, I think. I decided to reshape the arms when I saw that some other crafters had. Changing the bottom was completely my idea and I'm proud of that.


Challenge #4- Make a card inspired by the sights and sounds of summer. Duh...watermelon!

Challenge #5- Make a card with embossing. I missed this one because I was with friends but I had embossed a few cards I'd already made, so I don't feel like I missed out.

Challenge #6- Make a card with a free bear digi. I also missed this one, but I wasn't that upset since I don't have a working printer anyway. By the time I got home, the digi wasn't available anymore, so I can't even try this after the fact.

Challenge #7- Make a love card with a stamped image. I got back in time to get one in under the wire. I had actually started this one before going out and just added the sentiment when I got home because it happened to go with the theme (unless stamping the sentiment doesn't count.)

Challenge #8- Make a card inspired by a picture of a decorative pillow that Sandy posted. This was a bonus challenge because we were only supposed to have 7, but people were clamoring for more! I did this one after midnight, so I kept it simple. The best part was that I used paste paper I made in college and have been saving for too long!


I hope OWH hosts another day of challenges like this one. It was an absolute blast to get involved and chat on UStream with other OWHers!

My first box and a birthday challenge to myself

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I posted, but a lot has been going on with family and friends, plus I had a very stubborn cold that kept me away from card making for the better part of a week.

I recently celebrated my 26th birthday and challenged myself to make 26 cards for OWH over the holiday weekend to commemorate the event. I started off making birthday cards and then realized I wanted to flesh out my Spring Thaw box with some additional Easter cards. I ended up with one third birthday and two thirds Easter. I was dumb and boxed them up before I took any pictures, so there's nothing to see in this post.

My favorite card was an Easter card that said "Alleluia He is Risen" and had a cross made of ribbons with a jeweled brad in the center. The papers I chose were floral and polka dot browns and the card just had a unique look for Easter, I thought. I might whip up a couple more for myself and post the picture later.

The reason I was so eager to get my box ready is that I'm finally done filling up my first box. I crammed 336 cards into the medium flat rate box and used a ton of packing tape to seal the top. I weighed it too. 10.6 pounds of love and paper will be heading to shipper Dixie in N.C. tomorrow.

Today I finally got all of my clear stamps put away. A pile of used ones had been growing a little too long. I find them tedious to clean and put away, so I may soon have to go to another storage system other than their original containers. I'm normally not one to toss original packaging if it's meant for storage, but this may have to be an exception. My clear stamps take up the space of two reams of paper. I am leaning toward laminated cardstock in sheet protectors in a binder, but I don't think this will be any faster at all. CD cases sound expensive and like they would also be a pain because they would hold so few stamps. There has to be something else. I also wouldn't want to break my sets apart like some people do to organize by theme.


I used to be counting how many cards I made this year. Then I got busy making cards and lost count.
Cards shipped in 2011: 336

The card you never want to make

The father of one of my best friends passed away today. Rest in peace WLK.

An AnyHero card and a few more kits

Sandy challenged us to post an AnyHero card on the OWH wall tonight in honor of State of the Union tonight. I opted for a simple design using one sheet of striped paper from cloud 9, a "thanks" stamp from an unknown manufacturer, and a star punch.


Yesterday, I worked on a few more kits. My favorite one is this cute lion/giraffe combo. I cuttlebugged the orange cardstock, used decorative scissors to trim the DCWV patterned paper, and used clear stamps from Studio G.


This tiger stamp from rubber stampede doesn't get enough love. I find it hard to color because my inks tend to smudge it, so I chose to leave it white today. A few eyelets and another sheet of DCWV paper, and I was all set!


I CASED this card from Sandy who copied it from a store. It's fun and easy to put together.



OWH Cards made in 2011: 85 (Remember how my goal was 365 for the year? I'm on a roll!)
OWH Total since December 2010: 145

Kits- a first attempt

Hi! It was a busy OWH weekend for me. I re-organized my craft room a little and mostly put things away that were out of place. It made it SO much easier to be productive!!!

I'm hosting my first OWH party on Friday and I have a couple of friends coming who don't have much paper crafting experience. Kits are a must. I had no idea where to begin because I've never made kits before. I looked up some hints on the OWH Stars and Stamps blog and was on my way in no time. It seemed to me that I was doing the majority of the work without the fun of a finished product, but it works. I'll get better at doing these in the future, I'm sure and it will be worth all the work when I seen the results pile up on Friday night. Maybe next time I'll ask some friends to put together a kit also.

I ended up with 79 kits. Some are easier to finish than others. One requires embossing with the Cuttlebug and coloring. Another requires stamping, using a border punch, and distressing edges. I made dozens of paper flowers for two different cards.

Here are my kits and the assembled results. With my samples, this is a total of 90 spring cards for OWH. With all these cards made, I need to think seriously about ordering envelopes.

79 kits, complete with tools/stamps/inks.

Some variations on an Easter card:

Easter chick:

My favorite, an Easter bunny:


Father's Day:

Mother's Day:


OWH Cards made in 2011: 80
OWH Total since December 2010: 140

Sketch #52 from OWH

I just recently found OWH in December but they celebrated one year of Sunday Sketches this past week.

Here's my contribution! I started with some coordinated patterned papers from Colorbok (I think?) and a circle of my new sparkle cardstock. Notice how it's completely sparkly and completely laminated in to be OWH friendly?

I made the card and then just needed an embellishment. I see that OWH is already looking for some early Fathers' Day cards, so I went with a #1 Dad clear stamp from Studio G.

I also found these great super hero stamps at Ollie's recently and just realized that they could be good Fathers' Day cards, too. The one on the left makes me think of scuba now which was not my intention- oops!


A birthday card for my aunt.

Simple to do, yet really nice. The colors look better in person, so I need to get better with my photography.