Photo Inspiration from the Craft's Meow

The Craft's Meow is celebrating their first anniversary with several challenges.  The last one I played along with was a photo inspiration.  I took my cues from the neutral color scheme and several potted plants when I made this card.  The flowers are all Making Memories, the patterned paper is American Crafts, and the background paper is The Paper Co. 

Thanks to the Craft's Meow for providing great inspiration for my Saturday!

The Craft's Meow Color Challenge

The Craft's Meow challenged us to use blue, green, and yellow on a card in this challenge.  I used the flower digi from their Facebook page and colored it with Copics.  The papers are from American Crafts and the die is Spellbinders Labels 2.  I hand cut the sentiment banner. 

 

Be sure to check out the Craft's Meow challenges before they close tonight.  :)

Craft's Meow Sketch Challenge- Birthday Bash

For their birthday sketch challenge, The Craft's Meow let us make any card with their sketch.  I chose to use the great flower digi from their Facebook page.  I colored it with my Copics and this is one of my best results so far, I think. 

The papers are from American Crafts and the dies are Spellbinders Labels Two. 

This card, like almost all cards posted on my blog, will be donated to Operation Write Home.  Follow the link in my sidebar to learn more about this great organization and how you can help.

The Crafts Meow Challenge - Birthday cards

I wanted to play along in The Crafts Meow first anniversary challenges.  You can see the birthday card challenge here. 

I made a card using the free digi they're offering on their FB page.  I love using digis because I can make them any size I need for my project.  I paired the digi with Spellbinders Renaissance Hearts and Labels 5 dies along with various DCWV cardstock sheets.  Lots of dimensional adhesive on this card, too. 

Make sure you go and check out the challenges from Crafts Meow.  :)

Happy Birthday

My Copics and I are getting to know each other.  I only have a few so far and I really need to fill in some other colors in order to be able to color well.  Just having one marker in a color family isn't good, but I'm learning with what I have before I get more. 

I made this simple card tonight using some scraps that were laying around and an SU Lots of Bots image I colored last night with my Copics.  I think this card counts for the masculine half of the box and I think I like it enough to make more.  I'm having friends over to make cards on Friday, so I'm looking for simple ideas I can work on while hosting that won't having me hauling out every supply I own.  :) 

Manly cards!

I am not a great masculine card maker.  I went through my stamps recently to see what I had that would match the OWH Muscle Cards challenge and I found a very small number of masculine adult appropriate stamps.  I do have some papers and some stickers to work with, so I'm starting with those. 


I started this card with the SU sentiment.  I'd seen it on Paula's blog a few months ago and sought it out on eBay.  The compass is a very old Dollar Tree sticker, I think.  This card would work for Father's Day, thank you, or thinking of you.  I'll let the sender decide. 

This simple card makes use of Boy Scouts paper by K&Co.  I have both their Girl Scouts lines and the Boy Scouts line and I love them.  The patterns are fun and the color palette is more mature than you would expect.  I did an entire travel album out of the Girl Scouts line a few years ago and it's the best album I have ever done.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Pretty dies!

I got some new Spellbinders last weekend and decided to try them out on a simple card.  If you read my blog regularly, you know I love a bargain.  The set of dies retails for $24.99.  They were marked down to $5.97 at JoAnn's and everything was an additional 25% off, so I paid about $4.75 for them with tax.  :)  Here's the card I made:



I cut the Renaissance Hearts dies from DCWV cardstock (Harvest matstack) and used foam tape to pop the layers.  I used my mini half pearls (meant for fingernail designs- so cheap on eBay) to amp it up a little.  The stamp is by Hampton Arts from the Mom and Dad set.  The background is DCWV cardstock embossed with a Sizzix folder.  The rectangular scallop was purchased premade from the Paper Company.  I cut a cardstock base to 4 by 5 and attached it behind the scallop. 

It was a major pain to get the cuts out of the dies.  I used my Tim Holtz craft pick but I think there's probably a better tool to use.  Any suggestions for getting intricate cuts out of the dies?  None of the other dies I own are so detailed.  Thanks for looking!

Faux Leather Tutorial

I gave the Faux Leather Tutorial Kris offered a try this week.  I like the look, but I'm wondering if I did something wrong.  When I heat embossed the sheet, the tape curled up in some places.  Did anyone else have this problem?  I wonder if I need to use a better brand of tape.  What I used was from a discount store. 

 

I used Martha Stewart copper ink for the background, random cardstock for the solid colors.  Stamps by Studio G and ki memories.  Border punch by Fiskars.

I'm sending this card to thank a couple for their hospitality recently.  I think I'll make some of these for Father's Day with a different image and sentiment. 

Round Easel Card

I've been absent from blogging again, but I'm back to share a round easel card that I made based off the OWH tutorial here. 

I followed the directions exactly (well, except for that part where I had to rip the whole card apart and re-cut some pieces because I attached parts out of order and in the wrong place).  This was fairly easy to construct and is super cute.  My only gripe is how little space is left for writing, but that can be overcome with an additional sheet of writing paper. 

I used an image from SU Lighthouse and the accompanying sentiment.  I tried Staz-on but it doesn't work well with Copics.  I guess it's Memento that everyone uses.  Darn!  I was so excited that I finally bought Staz-on, too.  Nevertheless, I used Copics to color the image.  I stamped the sentiment in blue chalk ink.  The cardstock is Bazzill (dark) and Pebbles Inc (light).  Eyelets are Making Memories.

 A little perspective:

Thanks for stopping by.  Don't forget to link your round easel card to the challenge. 

Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: 302 blank, 200 AnyHero
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695

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

Mother's Day- the encore!

I finally shipped my box to Caro this week, so I'm done making Mother's Day cards for this year's rush, but I still have a few to share with you.

I used a paper from American Crafts Enchanted that has embossed red flowers and matching red cardstock from the Paper Company to fashion these Mother's Day cards.  The stamp is by Hampton Arts (Mom and Dad set).  The top card uses Martha Stewart ribbon threaded through a Fiskars border punch. 

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