OWH Sketch & Club Scrap Cutting Formula

Club Scrap created a new cutting formula for us OWHers using Sketch #39.  Instructions are here: New Formula for Sketch 39.  I've been meaning to try one of these formulas out and when I completed this one, I couldn't believe how quickly I put the cards together.  Wow!  And....when I was done, I threw away my scraps!

 

Here's three of the four cards I made (I put them all in one picture):

I used the Tim Holtz Visual Artistry stamps and embossed each card a bit differently; once with gold, once with white and once with clear powder.  It really gets my creativity going when I'm able to crank out so many cards quickly.  Club Scrap's created other formulas for us and I'm going to give them a try soon.

 

Now on to today's OWH sketch:

 

Very cool.  I always love the dimensions because it helps me get my first card right.  I bought this Joe Cool stamp from Hobby Lobby recently and I stamped & embossed him in black, then colored him in with my Inktense pencils. 

 

The only phrase I could think of was "Stay Cool".  I used stickers to spell that on this first card.  The papers are from my stash.

On the second card, I created an SVG file with the phrase:

If you'd like my "Stay Cool" SVG file, you can upload it from this link: Stay Cool

I can't tell you why I created a beach scene in the middle of winter!  I guess I'm wishing for warmer weather.

 

 

Suzume's soaking up the sun here.  One of her paws is swollen so tomorrow we're taking a trip to the vet to see what's wrong.  She probably got into a fight with something outside or got a bee sting, but she's limping on it and taking life slow.  Good thing I'm taking tomorrow off from work!

 

Hope ya'll have a great New Year's!!!

 



OWH Sketch 152 - I almost gave up!

When I first saw today's OWH sketch, I had lots of ideas.  But when I sat down to work on it, I really struggled.  It took me a while to realize that the two squares were not meant to be proportionate and I almost gave up. A flat background paper looked boring to me and I saw that our sample card had embossing.

 

I ended up using SEI paper with a small pattern and that satisfied me.  I colored in a digi stamp from Bird's Cards and inked around the edges with Antique Linen distress ink.  I couldn't find a place for a sentiment, so I just left it as is:

 

I made another version using different colors:

Last night I was working on more children's card using Elmo's Party cricut cartridge.  Here's one of them:

 

And what is my cat doing today?  Why, she's bathing in the sun:

The rest of my day will be wrapping presents & running out to buy a few last minute ones. I'm also packing my OWH box up to mail tomorrow and (gasp!) I plan on scrapbooking for a few days.  Hey- I'm only about 5 years behind!

Here's our sketch....I'm interested to see what our other talented ladies did with it:

 

 

 



FCCB #142 - Shaped Card

It's been a while since I played in one of the FCCB's challenges and this week's challenge was to make a shaped card.  This was a real struggle for me because I pulled out my Gypsy and welded a butterfly from Simply Charmed.  I had to re-teach myself the buttons on the Gypsy because it had been soooo long since I used it!

 

I added bling to the card with Imaginesce buttons and used Liquid Pearls on the circles with the yellow strip.  Shaped cards are so unique and I'm glad I pushed myself to make one.  Now that I've got the Gypsy file, it should be easy to make more of these.

 

Here's the link to this week's challenge: FCCB #142.  Hope you're all having a nice holiday weekend!



OWH MWT-Red White & Blue

Hi everyone!  I'm sooo happy to have our four day weekend coming up with Christmas!  For the first time, I watched OWH TV live (usually I'm asleep when it comes on).  Sandy has an unofficial challenge for us to make children's cards for our heroes.

 

I had already started making the cute crayons from the Elmo's Party Cricut cartridge and I just turned some of them into red, white and blue.  The stamp I used is from the Stamps of Life, which I bought in August and am just now using for the first time (shameful!).

 

Here's my card:

Elmo's Party has lots of cute images and I'm using them to make lots of cute cards, like this one:

I'm trying to get all my cards done to send off my box next week. 

I hope to enter some challenges this weekend too.

Have a nice holiday!



Tuesday Tutorial - Snowy Scene

Today's OWH tutorial is on making snowy scenes.  I have to admit that I was intimidated by this tutorial and I read it about 5 times before diving in and just giving it a try.

 

Here was my first try....umm not very successful because I failed to follow the instructions!  I didn't mask the bottom line straight and also didn't ink enough sky at the top.  Also, the three stamps don't belong together.  I don't think the dandelion stamp is an accurate winter stamp, duh!

So, I tried it again and here's my card.  Much better, but I wish I had some leaf stamps or the lovely pinecone stamps from the tutorial.  I'm going to keep my inks out for a bit and get inky with some more cards.

 

When my cat hang outs with me, I put on bird videos from Youtube for her to enjoy.  She bats at the screen, but gives up and is content with just watching them.  She's quite the little huntress and brings me lizards, squirrels, and birds, which is supposed to be a complement:

Thanks for all your nice comments.  I enjoy reading them!  Take care and consider giving this tutorial a try.

 



Sunday Sketch - OWH 151

If it's Sunday, then it's time for another OWH sketch.  After watching a few of the Interactive Card Project videos, I've learned how to change-up the sketch by rotating it.  I did that with today's sketch:

 

I made three cards with the sketch.  For the first one, I used the sketch as is, and embossed the paper on the right and put paper strips around it to define it a bit more:

I goofed with my stamp and stamped "IH" at first, so I made another stamp and pasted it over my mistake.  Ha ha! 

For my second card, I used an EK success border stamp that makes me think of Frank Lloyd Wright designs.  I wanted a masculine card and I turned the sketch on its side:

My last card used shiny paper from my stash and it was hard to photograph:

 

My cat is still in the habit of keeping my company while I scrap.  She likes to sit on my laptop, making it impossible for me to use it!

We're having a cold, wet day in South Carolina today, so all I want to do is stay inside.  I hope you've had a great weekend!

 



Dollar Stamp with Inktense Pencils

Hi everyone!  I bought a $1.00 stamp at Michael's today and was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's latest post on Simon Says Stamp to color it in with Inktense Pencils.  (That post is here: Hero Arts Release Party).

 

I used Mojo Sketch 244 to create my card, using paper from my stash:

My cat is still hanging out on my craft table and she enjoyed tugging at my ribbons, thinking it was a toy I left out for her:

Now if I just get her to cut some paper for me!

Have a nice Saturday!



OWH and Interactive Card making

Sandy Allnock, the president at OWH, has really outdone herself!  She's put together tons of videos for us in an Interactive Cardmaking project here: ICP.  Wowza!  I've had tons of fun watching some videos and I've only selected Card A!!  Already I've learned some great tips and it helped me put together these cards fast.....I think this is just a wonderful project and I can't imagine the hours that Sandy put into this for us.

 

Here's my first card...Card AAABB...using Tim Holtz stamps.  The papers are all from my stash, as well as the ribbon.  This is a masculine card...no sentiment or occasion, so that makes it a general card.

My next card is Card ABBBB.  It's fun to watch Sandy take the same sketch and make it toally different.  This time I used two different embossing folders for the circle and background.  I created the coffee mug from a Scrap Chick SVG file and the stamp sentiment is from Stamps of Life:

It's going to be fun to go back and go thru the other cards and videos.  I plan on using this to get my creative mojo back or when I need help.  Great job, Sandy!  Thanks for all your hard work.



OWH Sketch 150

Hi bloggers!  It's just a peachy day in sunny South Carolina - in the high 70's!  Wowwee.  I had a very productive weekend, getting a lot of chores done (even cleaned my washer!) and putting away a lot of my scrap stuff. 

 

I like to have blank cards ready to go and I took the time to cut & score cards. I discovered that I can score two cards at a time on my scoring board if I put them together.  May seem like a duh-moment, but I had never thought of this before:

 

Here's my basket of cards, ready to pull out and finish:

 

I cut plenty of white paper for the inside of my cards too, it's stacked in the back.

So now I was ready to take on today's OWH sketch:

I made three cards with this sketch - two feminine and one masculine.  The papers on my feminine cards are from the August Simon Says Stamp card kit.

On the card below, I embossed the flower and used Inktense coloring pencils & water to color in the flower.  Too easy!  Oh - and this card will be my submission for this month's ODBD challenge.

Finally, my cat has started supervising my crafting and now insists on sitting on my craft table.  I distracted her today by opening a window for her to sit at, but I'm going to have to find her another place to sleep...ha ha!

Excuse the messy desk!

Have a great day!

 

 

 



OWH MWT - Love!

I'm making holiday and love cards this week.  It's a nice break to make a feminine Love card for a serviceman/woman to give to someone!  I incorporated the OWH tutorial this week as well into my card, but instead of Triple Stamping, I used Triple paper layers (an idea from Bobbi's Treasure ). 

 

The word "Love" is from the Cricut Sampler cartridge.  The heart on this first card was embossed in gold then brushed with Perfect Pearls and water:

 

 

My second card used a heart stamp from the November Simon Says Stamp card kit, which I embossed with white powder.

 

I hope you're all having a "love"ly week!  I can hardly wait for the weekend to get here!



OWH Sketch 149

Today's OWH sketch went together pretty fast for me, because I already had the center "Love" stamp colored.  I bought Inktense pencils because of Jennifer McGuire's recent blogposts about it (she enabled me, darn it!).  They really are as good as she claims!

 

I white embossed the "Love" stamp and then used the watercolor pencils and a water brush to color it in.  The papers I used are from the Simon Says Stamp August Card kit:

 

This really was a 15 minute card for me.  Woohoo!

 

Yesterday I went to my first card & cookie swap and had a great time.  I was inspired by so many of the cards that the ladies prepared and we spent hours happily making each other's cards and chatting.

These are some of the cards that I made:

The ladies made not only cards, but gift cards, tags and candy holders - very creative.  I hope we do this again soon.

 

I can't believe we're into December already, but I've got plenty of holiday cards to send off now so I can concentrate on getting more OWH cards done!  Hope you had a nice weekend.



Triple embossing

When I saw that today's OWH sketch had a tag, it made me think of Tim Holtz, which made me think of Distress Inks, which made me think of embossing, so off I went.  I've had this "Love" stamp for a while (one of the first stamps I ever bought) and I've been playing around with it, coloring it, embossing it...without good results.   I decided to give it another try.

 

I pulled it out again, placed swirly Inkadinkado stamps around it and embossed it on a tag in red embossing powder.  For the second embossing, I colored in the word "Love" with my Versamark pen, and embossed it with Antique Gold powder.  Then I distressed the entire tag with Vintage Photo and embossed one of the flowers again with my Versamark pen.  I shook clear embossing powder over the whole tag. 

 

I hunted down some World Traveler 6x6 paper from Teresa Collins and used that behind the tag.  After playing with the paper, I ended up changing the entire card and it really doesn't look much like the sketch...but hey - the sketch still inspired me!

 

A little closeup of my triple embossing:

And here was the inspirational sketch:

 

I had a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm sad to see it end.  I'm getting ready for my first card swap with 15 ladies.  I accidentally bought deep purple Stampin' Up paper (I thought it was blue) and thought a white/silver/purple holiday card would be great.

 

But....I really struggled with it.  I wanted to make a swing card, but couldn't get it right.  In the end, this is the card I'm bringing:

The deer is cut from the Winter Woodland cartridge; the embellishments are from Spellbinder dies and the white background is white glitter paper, embossed with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder. 

 

Then I had to make 15 kits for the ladies.  Here's some of them on my desk...

And that's not all!  We're also doing a cookie exchange and I've got to churn out 7 dozen cookies!  I'm looking forward to it, but I'm going to be worn out from it too!

 

Thanks for reading my long post and wish me speedy cookie baking.....

 

 



Thankful color challenge

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you're enjoying a relaxing day at home with family or friends.  I made two cards for two challenges - the MWT Challenge at OWH and the Be-ye-thankful challenge at FCCB.

 

The MWT challenge was to use two colors together - turquoise & silver.  Since I started this at night, I had a hard time finding turquoise paper - everything looked blue or green!  I cut the word "thanks" from silver paper in my stash, using the Cricut Sampler cartridge.  I used both the positive and negative parts of the cut (on page 61) for the two cards.  I embossed the flower stamp in silver on white vellum and used an EK border punch for the scalloped border.

 

Here's my first card:

Here's my second card, using scraps left over from the first card:

 

I loved this color combo and of course, my pictures don't show the silver embossing very well.  I'm going to do some more of this for OWH Valentine's Day cards....fun!  Have a great day.

 

Challenges entered:

OWH MWT

FCCB Challenge #138

 

 



OWH Sketch 147

Happy Monday!  Yesterday, I spent a few hours crafting and I was so inspired by the latest OWH sketch - #147.  I loved it because it uses up scraps of paper.  In fact, I loved the sketch so much that I made three cards using it:

 

This was my first card using up scraps, so now I don't remember who created the paper.  I cut the small embellishment using my Cricut, which was supposed to have brads, but I made a mistake with my small punch and ended up punching two small holes and running a piece of twine thru the top.

 

My second and third card isn't for OWH, but for my holiday stash:

 

Each card need something between the small stripes and the larger stripe.  On my first card, I put a piece of Mrs Grossman's sticker (yes I STILL have those), the second card was a piece of paper and the last card used a piece of Martha Stewart ribbon.

 

I'm back in my card-making groove....thanks for the inspiration, OWH!

 



Fussy cutting

This week's OWH tutorial was on Fussy Cutting, which I do from time to time.  I found a digi stamp, colored it with Copics and cut around the basket.  I colored it in a dimly lit room, so I'm happy to see that the colors look good!

 

Here's the card:

I've been staring at the yellow/white background paper for a year and haven't been able to use it on a card, so I was very happy to finally use it up!

 

Hope you're having a great Saturday!





I got lucky!

I used two sketches tonight and got lucky with how both turned out....it's not like I spent hours pondering the choices on how to put the cards together, so I consider that lucky!

 

First, I saw Paula's sketch on her blog Handmade by Paula and thought it was a great way to use up scraps.  I'm still using up last year's Recollections holiday papers and punched out the squares to come up with this happy card:

 

Here's Paula's sketch:

I was about ready to call it a night, but I wanted to use this week's OWH sketch to make a Love card.  This card was much more time intensive, but I love the old-fashioned look.  I stamped a floral stamp onto watercolor paper using Versamark, then embossed it with white embossing powder.  Next, I used Perfect Pearls Perfect Copper and Perfect Gold with water and brushed it over the embossed image.

 

I had some doily paper from the cake section at Joann's and used Antique Linen distress ink to age it a bit.  The sentiment is from Stamps of Life, which I again stamped with Versamark, embossed in white and then used Antique Linen and Rusty Hinge to age it a bit.

 

I found two pieces of brown & rusty paper from my stash - got lucky there too - and here's the card:

 

 

Sorry for the crooked picture.  Yippee...I'm keeping up with OWH again and couldn't be happier.  I've also signed up for another online card class from Julie Ebersole via Ellen Hutson and can't wait to learn some more fun stuff.

 

Catch ya'll later....