Mid Week Throwdown - Operation Write Home

My second challenge entry today is the Mid Week Throwdown for OWH. The challenge was Christmas in July. Again the papers are DCWV, the stamp is from HOTP. I colored the reindeer with Copics, but the rest is my new Smooch! Let me know what you think!

For Fun Challenge

This week the For Fun Challenge was to show the colors of summer. This is my entry: papers are DCWV, I embossed the happy birthday and butterfly with Zing! neon powder. The colors are more vibrant in person. Thanks for stopping by!

Operation Write Home Sketch Challenge #27

I'm definitely coming late to the party, but I recently discovered Operation Write Home which is a group of crafters who make cards to send to deployed troops from all services to facilitate keeping in touch with friends and family. I think this is just AWESOME! When I was deployed, we didn't have this, but it would have been terrific if we had. We did get "any soldier/sailor" letters which were always a lot of fun to read.

Anyway, this is the sketch created by Martha, her blog is: Peachy Papercrafting.

And this is my version of the sketch:
The papers are DCWV, Bazzill cardstock and stamps from HOTP. I just got Smooch and I highlighted the tree with it - I'm already in love with Smooch! I have 10 colors and may just have to paint my dog, Nugget.

If you haven't already, please check out Operation Write Home and if you can help out with this wonderful effort - go for it!

I am thrilled to have gained new followers in the last week! Thank you so much! As always, thanks for coming by and I look forward to your comments.

Cuttlebug, For Fun and Practical Scrappers Challenges

Here are two more challenge cards I did today. The first is For Fun Challenges which was based on a sketch. All materials are HOTP. I love teabag folding and it makes such a great focal for a card!

The Cuttlebug Challenges was also a sketch during their Christmas Festival week. All papers come from DCWV. I used the Swiss Dots folder and then lightly sanded the dots. I usually have a tough time adhering vellum, but the ribbon made it easy: I glued the top of the saying and hid it under the ribbon!

The Practical Scrappers challenge this week was to use up your stash! To qualify either the products or the tools used had to be at least a year old. Both cards qualify on that criteria! I've had the Christmas papers since I started scrapping 5 years ago and I've had the purple papers for at least 2 years!

Thanks for stopping by!

Party Time Tuesdays Challenge

Party Time Tuesdays challenge this week was to make a pocket card. I've never made one before, but here is my take on the challenge. Paper is Sasafrass and the focals are HOTP which I colored with my Twinklettes to give a little sparkle to the card. The flower at the top of the tag comes from a punch! Have a great day!

Butterfly Bliss Challenge

My Time to Craft is having a butterfly bliss challenge this week. I had made a masterboard of this Crafter's Workshop stencil using Adirondack Brights and I had this narrow piece left. Then I remembered I had this great vertical Happy Birthday stamp (from Dee Greunig) and I had a cheerful card in no time! I stamped the butterfly (Autumn Leaves) twice - once on the card and once on white cardstock - I cut out his inner wings and popped them on foam tape for dimension.

Have a great week!

New page and more cards

Well, going back to work really put a damper in my crafting! However, it pays for my supplies, so I guess it all evens out. Cheryl of Inspired Designs asked me to make a sample layout using a product she has from piggy tales called sliding doors. It is at the bottom of the layout with a quote and a picture of my daughter. The quote is glued to the sliding door, when you move it over there is a space underneath for journaling or another picture. I put another picture of Toni there. I sprayed the white chipboard piece with Glimmer Mist - it gave it a cool mottled look; I also sprayed the various chipboard flowers with the same color, but some of the flowers were gray and they came out darker. This is the first time I have used paint on a layout - I just put a swoosh across the top for my title, but I really like the effect. The paper is Starry Night by Sassafrass Lass.

I've also been busy making some card samples for Cheryl's store. Actually, I've really been busy playing with my new line of inks. I just got the Adirondack inks in the bright and earth tone lines and they are fabulous! The ink seems to "move" really well so I went wild one night and did up a bunch of coffee filters in a tye dye effect - it is the background and flowers on the card. After die cutting the flowers I ran them through my Big Shot in an embossing folder to give them a little more dimension. My favorite colors are the Wild Plum in earth tones and Purple Twilight in the brights. I'll post a sample using the brights soon.




I've also been playing with texture plates lately. I have some from Sizzix as well as Fiskars brand. This card is made using a Fiskars plate I ran through my Big Shot. The Fiskars were designed to be embossed by hand, but they do beautifully in the machine! For this card, I inked the positive and negative sides and they both made such a good look I decided to put them together. The stamp is Michael Strong (I love his stamps and seem to use this one in particular a lot). I rarely make monochramatic cards, but even I think it came out great!








My last card tonight is a quick and simple photo card. The picture is a close up of a bouquet of flowers I was given. I cut the picture into 4 strips and mounted them on pink cardstock. The "ribbon" is actually green cardstock run through an embossing folder and the medallion is a Sizzix embossing folder. The colors are much more striking in person.


That's it for now, thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear from you!

Miss You Card

I usually don't like sketches, but this one at the Corrosive challenge Blog was simple enough that I thought I could do it! I've combined it with the Operation Write Home Mid-week Throwdown
which was to make a card to send to a child back home. It is a very simple card, but I think a teen-age girl would be happy to get it from Mom or Dad!.

Have a great day!

Cleaning up!

Today I decided to try and bring some order to chaos in my scraproom - with limited success! I also found the time to make myself a set of pretty 3x3 note cards after watching a tutorial on Cardztv.

My scraproom used to be the boys' bedroom, but with them all gone it's mine now. The boys painted it purple for me as a Christmas present a year or so back and I very quickly filled it with all my treasures. Like a lot of scrappers though, I love, love, love to collect things and generally run out of places to put it. My actual scrapping space is an old dining room table that I have a piece of plexiglass on and my husband made me a shelf for it as well as a great holder for my Stickles and other small bottles. Trust me, my table never looks this good for very long! And, I'm not showing the rest of the room!

I love this holder! Everything is upside down so it is always ready to go! Problem is, I've already outgrown it so Paul (my DH) has making me an additional one on his "honey do" list.






This is my favorite part of my scrap desk. I thought about alcohol inking the plexi-glass which would have been a very cool look but I decided to put pictures of my family there instead! Of course, most of the time they are covered up or have glue/glitter/paper something "hanging" off their noses, but I like knowing they are there. The orange set of drawers I made from a tutorial at Splitcoaststampers. I've run out of drawer space right now, so I'm using it to store all my eyelets. I am waiting for an ink storage "thingy" I ordered and when it comes in I'm going to have to do some more rearranging because I NEED my inks within reach! Right now, all my stamps are on the other side of the room, but it is a work in progress. If I ever get it right, I'll put other pictures up.

Now, for the note cards: I alcohol inked coated cardstock to make the box and I inked 4x6 photo paper as well for the cards themselves. I finally broke out my Xyron 2.5 sticker machine to make the assembly line go a little faster. I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder on the scallops and the
yellow cardstock and covered the seams with white knotted ribbon. When I was done, I had bits and pieces left and it was enough to make 2 more cards mosaic style! I made envelopes out of yellow copy paper using my Martha Stewart scoring board. I think I've hit on my SILs Christmas presents! I love the look of alcohol inking and how no 2 pieces come out looking the same. I also used my Cricut to cut out the letters - I rarely ever use it in my crafting, but it certainly made this project go faster.

Thanks for looking! Have a great week. I'm going to try and go back to work again tomorrow - I've been out for 2 weeks now - I don't want anyone at work to realize they can get by without me!

Christmas in July Challenges

Another down day at home but more time to play! Mary from Purrfect Sentiments always tells me I should join more challenges, so here is another. PaperCutz Challenge this week was a Christmas card using no red or green. Fussy and Fancy and No Time To Stamp were general Christmas in July themes. Here is my entry. The paper is from DCWV, and the adorable penguin stamp set is Be Naughty from Firecracker Designs . I double stamped the snowballs, used foam tape for added dimension and Twinklette pens to give the penguin and the large snowflake some shine!

Character Cafe Challenge

The Character Cafe Feature Friday Challenge is to create a gatefold card using one of their images. I used one of their Freebies for my card. The papers came from CraftyCatz as a digi download. I colored the images with Copics and added some Kaisercraft pearls to finish off the design. I backed the image with some wonderful suede-feel paper. Normally, I don't use these specialty papers, I keep them to pet, but I bought 2 sheets this time so I could play! I cut out the inside of the paper though to save for another project. I try to be a little frugal with the more expensive papers and it doesn't effect the overall design, I backed the focal with white cardstock. Does anyone do similar things?

Scrapping Day

Unfortunately, going back to work lasted for 2 hours before I went back to the emergency room! No worries, I'm on the road to recovery, but I've got a few more days at home...sometimes asthma is the boss of me! LOL We have had record heat and humidity here in Maine and a lot of folks with respiratory issues are suffering! The weather service states there will be nicer weather coming this weekend, we will see! Anyway, I decided to take advantage of my time off and finish off some projects.

My daughter, Toni, is spending the summer in California working an internship as part of her college scholarship. We are all very proud of her! She returns in August for her Senior Year at the University of Maine, Orono where she is majoring in Computer and Electrical Engineering. After she graduates she has a civilian position waiting for her with the US Air Force. The problem, for me anyway, was that she wanted to have her car in California for the summer and she thought it would be fun to drive herself cross country! I vetoed that idea and her brother, Alex, who is also at UMO as a grad student in Chemical Engineering took some time off to drive with her. Because of her school schedule she had 6 days to travel from Maine to California, get settled, and start working. We all had breakfast together before they left and I wanted to take a picture to scrap the start of her new adventure. You can tell in the pictures neither one of them thought that was such a good idea! The PP is from HOTP and the border punch is from Tonic. It's a simple, fun layout.

I've been sending her a card a week just to keep in touch. She likes e-mail and cell phones and I do to, but I like crafting cards for her! I was looking through some blogs this morning and I stopped by Fab's blog and saw his post about Crafty Catz and a digital freebie. Now, free is my favorite price so I clicked on over and found a wonderful business! This charming guy (he looks like a boy dog to me) caught my eye right away, the set is named Alaska and when my husband and I took a cruise there we saw a presentation about Huskies and the Iditarod. So I snatched him up along with a few other goodies. Pamela, the owner of the shop was wonderful, answered my e-mail right away and provided great customer service! I printed the background on plain paper and the dog image on photo paper. I used Scor tape around the edges of my card and added loose glitter (it works great!) used a Spellbinder's label and put the card together quickly - I just noticed he is crooked - I'm going to blame it on my asthma meds, they make me shaky...

Last today was finishing up a goodie bag project - also for Toni! These are little milk boxes in a holder, there are 4 in all. I used neon cardstock from Joanne's, a Michael Strong stamp which I embossed with neon green embossing powder from Zing and I filled each one with Starburst. Truly not my best work, but I know she is going to love it, eat all the candy and then throw it away! That's ok though, she saves all my cards.
Well, that's the end of my all Toni day! Thanks for stopping by!

Elegant Ellipse

I was at my LSS while the owner was unpacking a new shipment (it's like Christmas!) and as soon as I saw this new Cuttlebug folder "Elegant Ellipse" I had to buy it right then and there. All the way home I was trying to decide what kind of card I would make with it, to me it seems it should be romantic or vintage - 2 styles that aren't really me. But, I decided to give it a try and these are what I came up with. The one above is my favorite - the detail on the embossing is wonderful and there are just a few evacuated spots on the cut out, so I backed it in vellum. All supplies but white lace (clearance from WalMart) are from Hot Off The Press.







This card is much simpler but uses the same products. There was another medallion which was round and a larger frame type die which would look terrific on a page or as the background on a card.









Thanks for stopping by. I didn't make it into work again today! However, my asthma is finally settling down, so it's back to work tomorrow for me. Wish me luck!

As always, appreciate any comments.

4th of July and Cuttlebug Asian Folders

I seem to be doing posts in two's, but that's ok; it's either feast or famine for me, I guess.

Happy 4th of July to everyone! This weekend I was supposed to be at camp with my husband, visiting with friends and celebrating with good food and outstanding fireworks in the little town of Industry, ME (to get there, you take a right at the back of beyond which is out past the middle of nowhere), but it is worth the drive. Each year the Volunteer Fire Department puts on a glorious show as a fundraiser. A local farmer is gracious enough to let hundreds of cars into his field for the show. If you happen to be up in Maine over a 4th, be sure to look them up! Unfortunately, I'm home, not at the fireworks. My asthma decided to act up so I'm home in the air conditioning! Feeling a little better, but the meds make me very shaky, so I can't really play today, but I can type (thank goodness for the backspace key!). Now, on to the cuttlebug folders!

When I received them, I wasn't so sure that I would like them. There are 8 in the set and I could wrap my brain around several of them right away, but some of the others took a little longer, i.e. the fish and lanterns. Here are a few things I made:





This is my favorite! The paper is Rose Thicket from Sassafras. I made a gatefold card and embossed orange cardstock with a folder from the Oriental Weave collection. I used the scalloped border that was on the rose paper and a simple thank you stamp embossed on another sheet of cardstock to hold the card closed.






This card is used using the same folder. I used my brayer to roll Memories Metallic Red ink onto the positive side of the folder and then inserted black cardstock (the ink rinses off the folder fairly easily). As soon as I took the folder out of my Big Shot, I sprinkled clear embossing powder over the image and heat set it. I cut it out, embossed the sentiment and put this card together as a masculine birthday card.


I used 2 different folders on this card. Again, both come from the oriental weave assortment. I must admit, the bamboo had me stumped at first! I embossed it on to a textured-looking PP and used my Memento Rich Cocoa to highlight the embossing. I then embossed a small piece of vellum for the upper right hand corner as a backdrop for my sentiment.

The birthday card at the top of this post was done on plain cardstock from WalMart. This folder came from the plum blossom assortment. It is a wonderful flower design, I inked the edges and popped on a little bling! The edge treatment is from the Hot Off the Press Lattice Fold template which is so very versatile for cardmaking and scrapbooking!




Here are the fish I mentioned earlier! This card again uses two folders. For the first step I again used my brayer with Memories Aqua ink on the inside of my folder, ran it through my machine and let the ink dry. I then used my bone folder to flatten out the raised embossing! Because I inked it the detail stays visible. When I had it as smooth as possible, I embossed using the fish folder and then lightly inked those raised images with Memories Midnight Blue ink.

My last samples are 2 ATCs I did using the folders and wonderful stickers from Joy Crafts.

For the one on the left: after I had used my brayer and red ink for the Celebrate card above, I ran my brayer across a piece of cardstock which gave me a slight impression of the embossing folder! The Memories Metallic inks are very "juicy" and I didn't want to waste the ink. The purple one gives you a better sense of the floral folder. To both of them I added a little bling!

Again, thanks for stopping by, love to hear what you think about my designs.

Happy Birthday America!

Freedom isn't free, please thank a vet!

Scenic Stamping

Here are a few of the scenic stamping projects I have been working on. I have to apologize in advance, just as for my other posts. I don't have the world's best picture/camera skills, but I'm working on it. The 2 images above are the first two I did. A wonderful woman named Anita taught us how to sponge on color and use post-it notes to our advantage. I was pretty impressed that I was able to do these, but she kept on adding new techniques and products to the classes.

This image above is using some of the absolutely gorgeous Stampscapes stamps. Using them is addictive! The detail and depth of these rubber stamps is a joy to work with. This piece was made using Lakeside Cove, one of my favorites, it is everything but the ducks!

This was my first full page piece. The young lady is a little large proportionally (or so my engineer son told me), but it is still a very pretty image. I used the crooked path, rocky peaks, meadow, sedge filler and my favorite oak branch. This was done on shiny cardstock (Stampin Up) and used various Stampin Up and Staz-on inks.







This image was done on Stampbord, which was a
new product to me. It is hard to see in this picture, but the fun part of Stampbord is to scratch out highlights into the stamped image before sealing the piece with a spray sealer. These images came from Nature Sheet 6. I've slowly been adding to my collection of these stamps, but I keep on finding just one more that I really need.





These images are also done on stampbord with Stampscapes and other manufacturers. The small piece is a Michael Strong stamp which I turned into a pendant.

All of the supplies here are available from Inspired Designs you can e-mail her from her blog or give her a call at 207-576-8610.

Thanks for taking a look! Please let me know what you think!