Tuesday, June 26, 2012

OWH Sketch #127

I spent last weekend at a crop and got 14 pages done!  One of the best things at the crop was meeting fellow OWH cardmakers!  Two ladies at the crop made cards for OWH the entire time and after seeing their system, I was impressed.  They made the elements for each card, put them in baggies and assembled the cards at the crop.  I told them they were like a card-making machine! 

I just sent over 100 cards to my shipper, but one of the ladies told me she just sent 190 cards!  Wow!  It really inspired me to keep going with my card making.

Whenever I return from a crop, I spend time organizing my craft room and I found a set of Ali Edwards everyday life stamps that I've never used.  Shameful!  So, I used them on these two very different cards.

My first card is feminine - I used American Craft paper as the background, a piece of white pre-embossed paper and then I embossed the "Love you everyday".

My second card is masculine looking, using those great Bobunny World traveler papers.
Here's the latest OWH sketch.

I'm off to work now!  Have a great Tuesday!


Sunday, June 17, 2012

OWH Sketch #126 & my inspiration notebook

I had a fun weekend making cards, which I will put in the mail and send off to my OWH shipper this week.  Promise!  I've got to put my card making aside temporarily and get ready for a crop next weekend.

I've been catching up on technique videos and was getting overwhelmed with the amount of information.  I decided to start a notebook with notes and samples of different techniques.  I included notes from the Creative Chemistry class as well.  Here's my notebook:

I hope this will help me utilize more of the techniques that I've seen.

This week's OWH sketch went together so easily for me.  I used pink marbled paper and then stamped Aged Mahogany with the Hero Arts diamond stamp.  While the ink was still wet, I pounced Perfect Pearls all over the stamped image and set it with a slight mist of water.

The rest of the card came from the June Simon Says Stamp kit, including the papers and stamps.  The corner rounder I used on all the paper edges is from Creative Memories.  Here's my card:

Here's the sketch:


I also made more masculine cards this weekend for OWH, using various inking and embossing techniques.  I just love the image of these three men and I use it often on my cards:

I'm very excited to take another card class - this one is called "Stretch Your Stamps".  I've bought most of my stamps from Ellen Hutson and I couldn't wait for the class to start using them!  Let me know if you're taking this class too! 



Friday, June 15, 2012

Happy cards inspired by Patricia Zapata

I am seriously looking forward to Fridays - not only because it's the end of the work week, but because I get to download a free SVG from Patricia Zapata!  Happiness!  (Yes - it's the little things that are so much fun.)  Her freebie is a Birthday cake and I cut it out on glitter paper which is hard to see in the picture.  I wrote the Happy Birthday sentiment using Lettering Delight's Thin Cursive Font and one of my Cri-Kit pens.

I also made another card from one of Patricia's files on the Lettering Delights site - her bloom box collection.  I've made these boxes into decorative wall art, but I've wanted to also use them on a card. 

Just lovely!  Lettering Delights just released a new set of Patricia's artwork, which I'm going to buy tonight.  These cards were super quick to put together!  Thanks for looking.



Thursday, June 14, 2012

SSS #162 & OWH MWT

The title of my blogpost looks like some secret code, but I'm posting for two blogs:  Sweet Stop Sketch #162(SSS) and Operation Write Home's Midweek Throwdown (OWH MWT).
The MWT at OWH challenge is to make a card with wings. I went to my Tim Holtz "Air Travel" stamp set, which has a map and airplane stamp.  I stamped the map in Fired Brick and embossed the airplane over it with gold embossing powder.  Then I just inked up the rest of the image with my Distress Inks.
I was lost on how to put the card together until I ran across the latest sketch from The Sweet Stop:
This is my card (another masculine one):

The paper is from BoBunny's Weekend Market 6x6 pad.

Thanks for looking!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Father's Day card

I am soo late putting my Father's Day cards in the mail, even though I made the cards this past weekend!  Argh!  I've got no excuse.  Before I pop them in the mailbox, here's what one of them looked like.  I used the car from the Wrap It Up cricut cartridge and the paper is from Graphic 45.



The sentiment is from an Inkadinkado stamp.  My father-in-law used to own a Model T car and although I didn't have a cut for that, this one should remind him of that car.

I'm entering this into the latest Cardz TV challenge for Father's Day: Cardz TV Challenge #110.

Now I've got to get to work!  Have a great day.



Monday, June 11, 2012

You make life brighter!

Patricia Zapata, over at A Little Hut, is releasing a free SVG on Fridays!  Yippee!  Her art work is amazing and I've got quite a few of her beautiful files.

 Last Friday she offered an image of sun rays and I used it to make this card.  The sentiment was printed on my computer and cut with a Spellbinders die:


I embossed the sun rays as well with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.  This one will go with all my other OWH cards.  Thanks for the file, Patricia!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

OWH Sketch #125-His and Hers versions

Today's OWH Sketch is #125 and was fun to put together.  I made both a his version (from Graphic 45 paper) and a hers version (from Basic Grey 6x6 Hopscotch). 



I know there's a need for more masculine cards - what about the soldiers who aren't married and just want to write a note home?  I'm going to keep trying to make at least one male/female version of each card. 

Our deadline for the Duty.Honor.Cards challenge is nearing and I want my box to be stuffed with cards!  Better put off all those household chores to make cards!  Ha ha!!

Hugs to all the OWH cardmakers!


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Encouraging thoughts

The midweek throwdown challenge at OWH is to make an encouraging card for one of founders of OWH who is battling cancer.  I definitely wanted to participate in this!  I used sketch #38 from Freshly Made Sketches as my inspiration.  Check their blog out here: Freshly Made Sketches and the latest sketch:


I used the Authenitque 6x6 paper pack called "Delightful" to make the card elements (the card itself is from Papertrey Ink).  The Imaginesce tool was used to make the buttons on the dragonfly.
I cut the dragonfly from the Home Decor cartridge, which was a surprising cartridge to find this beautiful dragonfly on.  Since the latest FCCB challenge is to use a bug, I'm entering this card on their challenge as well!
Dragonflies symbolize many good things - one which is living in the moment - because the dragonfly actually flies for only a small part of its short life.  It's a good reminder to love the NOW in life!

I hope you enjoyed my card and thoughts.  I'm entering it in the following challenges:



Monday, June 4, 2012

OWH Sketch #124

Hi there, blog friends!  I actually set aside some time this weekend to scrap instead of card making, which put me a little behind getting the latest OWH sketch ready.  I had fun just piling on the happy papers from SEI called "Cheery Brights".  Here's my take on the sketch:


In hopping over to Facebook, I caught Sandy Allnock's video on the "Tuck 2" method and I spent time re-tucking my cards - I've got over 70 cards so far!

I also made an SVG file of the card sketch, located here: OWH Sketch 124 ,  I can put the card together so much quicker when the layers are ready to cut.  Thanks for looking!