Rest Time

One of the classes I'm taking in this year's Camp Scrap is "Design." Each week, May Flaum, our intrepid camp director & instructor, gives us a sketch/design based on her best layouts. The sketch for Week 1 was a grid design. She used 4x4" photos in her sample, but I had only 3x4" photos, and one 4x6". But I still utilized the basic design she gave us to create my 2 page layout.

I shot these photos of our youngest cat, Barney, sleeping on my mom's lap while she was reading. You can't really see it in the photos, but the funny thing is, the book my mom was reading was one of Lillian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who..." book series.

I first laid out my photos on my kraft cardstock background. When I got them positioned like I wanted them, I took a photo of the layout, so I wouldn't have to remember where each photo went. (I learned this trick from Jennifer McGuire.)

I cut my circle elements using Spellbinders Standard Circles and Lacy Circles dies. I formatted the title in Photoshop, and printed it directly on a piece of patterned paper. I used the same patterned paper for the journaling spot & date. I also stamped a few miscellaneous images on that paper, and matted them with the slightly darker green cardstock that I'd used to cut the Lacy Circle mats.

After I adhered my photos, & title, journaling, and date blocks, I went around the perimeter with my We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy tool, using the Cross Stitch head. Then I stitched using a dark green embroidery floss. I finished up by gluing down the small images and several threaded buttons.

"Thick" and "Thin" Card Challenge

Another of the challenges for the Operation Write Home Virtual Card Making Party was to make a "thick" AnyHero card--to send a thank you note to a hero overseas--and a "thin" version, for a hero to write home on. AnyHero cards can be quite dimensional, since OWH just puts them in zipper bags in the shipping boxes. But the cards that our heroes send back home have to be pretty thin, so they do not have to pay extra postage to mail them.

For my cards, I made 2 versions using the same sketch from OWH:

For the "thick" card, the sample card from the challenge post inspired me to make rosettes for the circle elements. I also decided to go with a red, white, & blue color scheme.

Because of the size of my "thank you" stamp, I made a 2-inch rosette using the Tim Holtz "Mini Rosettes" die, to put in the center. Then I made 4 smaller rosettes to go around it. When I glued the rosettes to the backing pieces to keep them in shape, I had to put a somewhat heavy object on each to keep it flat. After that came the hardest part--waiting for the glue to dry!

For the background, I embossed a piece of white cardstock with the "A2 Tiny Stars" embossing folder by The Paper Studio, and mounted that onto a piece of the same dark blue cardstock I'd used for the blue rosettes and "thank you" piece. I stamped one of the borders from Mama Elephant's "Basic Borders" set onto a strip of red cardstock using Versamark ink, and heat embossed it with Recollections "Snow" embossing powder.

I threaded silver embroidery floss through the holes in 4 white buttons, and glued them to the centers of the smaller rosettes. I finished the card by gluing the rosettes in place on the embossed background, and gluing the red strip down the left side.

My second, "thin" card is basically the same design, using many of the same supplies. I substituted the Cuttlebug "Spots & Dots" embossing folder for the white background. Instead of the rosettes, I die cut scalloped circles using a Lifestyle Crafts die set. I glued the white circles, cut from The Paper Studio's "Pearlized Cardstock" mat stack, to the red and blue circles. After I'd assembled the card front, I felt the "faux rosettes" looked a little too plain, so I did some dots with a white gel pen on the red and blue cardstock circles, and red and blue gel pens on the white circles.

I'm entering these cards in Virginia's View Challenge #5: Die Cutting.

Grunge Hello Card

One of the challenges during Operation Write Home's Virtual Card Making Party over the July 4th weekend was to make cards for teenagers. You can read about this challenge at Becca W's blog. I also am participating in this year's Camp Scrap. One of the "classes" in camp is on mixed media. So I figured, what better than to combine this challenge with using mixed media?

I've had this "hello" die cut that was left over from another card sitting on my desk for about a month now. I decided the neon colors would be great for a card for a teen, especially paired with darker, "grungy" colors. Plus I wanted to use the inlaid die cut technique again.

While I didn't use a specific sketch for this card, I was inspired by this one from OWH:

I used the same type of angular composition. But because of the size of my die cut, I did it on a landscape-oriented card, rather than a portrait one as in the sketch. I also left out most of the strips.

I had die cut the hello from a piece of watercolor paper on which I'd painted bands with neon-colored watercolors. For this card, I first cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5". Then I spritzed it with "After Midnight" Dylusions spray ink. I daubed Adirondack's Silver Acrylic Paint in three areas on this panel. Finally, I die cut the "hello" from that piece using this Simon Says Stamp exclusive die. I made sure to save the inside pieces from the letters for when I adhered the neon die cut.

I drew my angled cutting lines on the back of the die cut piece, and cut off the bottom portion along those lines. I cut another piece of white cardstock to the same dimensions as the first, then glued the top (die cut) portion of the inked cardstock to it. I lined up the bottom part of the inked cardstock piece, leaving a gap between the 2 sections, and glued it down, trimming off the overhang at the bottom.

To adhere the die cut hello, I applied glue with my Zig 2-way glue pen to the back and popped it in place on the card front, inside the cut-out space. Then I took the inside parts of the letters left over when I'd die cut the background, and glued them in place. I felt the white angled section was a bit too great a contrast, and drew the eye from the "hello," so I painted it with more of the silver acrylic paint. To finish, I just adhered the whole front to an A2 card base. Now I just hope a hero overseas will see this card and think immediately of writing to his/her teenager!

His & Hers Card Challenge

One of the challenges issued during this weekend's Operation Write Home Virtual Card Making Party was posted by Sybrina K. on her blog. She challenged participants to choose one OWH sketch, & do a "his" and "hers" card using that sketch for both cards. Sounds easy, right? Well, I at least found this REALLY challenging! In fact, my first attempt used a different sketch entirely, and I recycled both those cards (or at least the parts I'd finished)!

I finally chose the following sketch for my cards:

For the masculine card, I decided to use the light bulb & one of the greetings from this Simon Says Stamp set. I cut a piece of white cardstock to the combined dimensions of the smaller panels (3-7/8x5-1/8"). I stamped the silhouette of the light bulb onto a piece of scratch paper, and cut that out to use as a mask on the cardstock piece. I positioned it, and stuck it down with temporary adhesive. I blended Weathered Wood Distress ink over the whole piece, and then placed the 6x6" Polka Dots stencil from Donna Downey Studios over it. I sponged more Weathered Wood ink over the stencil, to give a tone-on-tone effect. (I had gotten this idea from this post by Jennifer McGuire.)

After I finished stenciling, I removed the light bulb mask and stamped the outline bulb image there in black dye ink. I colored it in with colored pencils, blending them with Gamsol and a paper stump "pencil." I went over the heart with my clear Wink of Stella glitter brush marker, and sealed that in with a coat of Glossy Accents.

For the greeting, I blended Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink onto a piece of white cardstock, then stamped the greeting in Versafine Onyx Black ink. Once that dried, I traced around a Spellbinders Classic Ovals die, and then cut it out with scissors. (I had to do this because I couldn't directly die cut the right size of oval.) I inked the edges with Weathered Wood, and matted it with a slightly larger oval cut from white cardstock, to mimic the "mat" around the light bulb. I adhered all the pieces to a piece of black paper, then mounted that to an A2 card base. "His" card--finally done!

For the feminine version I stamped several images from this set in Versamark onto a piece of watercolor paper. I heat-embossed them with Ranger Super Fine Detail White Embossing Powder. Then I colored them in with Master's Touch watercolors. After the flowers & leaves dried, I wet the background areas of the paper and flooded them with a dark teal watercolor.

While that piece dried, I stamped the greeting from the same set onto white cardstock with Versafine Onyx Black, and die cut it with a Lifestyle Crafts scalloped-circle die.

After the watercolor panel dried, I cut it into the smaller panels indicated in the sketch. I cut a piece of very pale grey cardstock for the front, and glued the panels to it. I placed the smaller panels closer together than on the "his" card, so the flowers would "read" better than if they were placed farther apart. Then I glued down the die cut greeting and adhered the whole front to a card base.

Happy Birthday Balloons

This July 4th weekend, Operation Write Home is hosting a Virtual Card Making Party. The idea is that, every 2 hours, a different blogger will have a challenge to make one or more cards using a specific theme. One of the challenges, at the a2z Scrapbooking blog, is to make a card appropriate for a child, using paper piecing. So I decided to do a birthday card.

I used this sketch from OWH as the basis for my card:

I am not sure if the width measurement in the sketch for the long vertical piece is correct, since it looks proportionally narrower there, but I used that measurement for my card anyway. Hey, it works!

I used a stamp from this Hero Arts set for the balloons. I stamped just the balloons once on each of 3 patterned papers from My Mind's Eye "Boy Crazy" 6x6" paper pad, then cut each balloon out. I stamped the whole image, using the same black dye ink as I'd used on the patterned papers, onto a piece of white cardstock, and glued the patterned balloons in position over that.

For the greeting, I cut a piece of yellow paper with a subtle stripe pattern that I had in my scrap stash. I stamped the "Happy Birthday" from this set by Lawn Fawn in Versafine Onyx Black ink.

The paper for the vertical layer is from the same My Mind's Eye pad. I cut it to size, and adhered it to a piece of aqua blue cardstock. Next I adhered the greeting panel. I felt the contrast between the balloon panel and the rest of the papers was too stark, so I inked the edges of the white cardstock with Barn Door Distress ink. The I stuck that down, adhered the whole front to an A2 card base, and was done.

I'm also entering this in Simon Says Stamp's Monday "W is for White" challenge. (used white cardstock for the background of my paper piecing)

The Perfect Pear

Camp Scrap 2014, a 6-week online event led by May Flaum, started this past Monday. She is leading/teaching 4 sections: art journaling, design/sketches, working with kits, and mixed media. One can register for just one or two sections, or take all four. I am doing all four. While I don't really do art journaling, I felt there might be techniques I could learn that I could then use in my card making & scrapbooking activities. Registration is still open, and I would highly recommend this camp!

Having said that, the first two days of camp I just got a horrendous case of crafter's block. Every time I'd go in to the craft room to make something, I would just feel totally overwhelmed, get stressed out, and leave. I spent my crafty time over those 2 days piddling--doing stuff like sorting cardstock by color. What a friend of mine calls "pulling weeds": necessary, and it gets something done. But it was still not exactly what I thought I should really be doing.

Finally, yesterday I thought of this week's "Anything Goes" challenge at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, and decided, come hell or high water, I was going to make a card for that. So I did. I took the sketch idea that May came up with for the first design session, and put my own spin on it. She basically used a grid design, and made her own card using a combination of rectangles and squares for the background. I recently got the "Custom Panels" die set by Avery Elle, and decided to use the angle die from that to cut the 4 panels for my card.

I used scraps of patterned papers in a green, yellow, and white color scheme for my card. The hardest part was actually working out the cutting angles for all the pieces. I worked on a piece of thin cardstock for my base, and cut and adhered my patterned paper pieces to that. I machine-stitched around each piece with black thread, much like May had done on her card, because I liked the contrast she'd achieved.

For the focal panel, I stamped the pear image from this SNSS set onto bristol paper using Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink, and again onto scratch paper. I cut out the second image, used it to mask the first, and then stamped again over the mask, to make the second pear look like it is behind the first. I colored them with colored pencils, and blended that with a paper stump dipped in Gamsol. I die cut that panel with a Spellbinders Standard Circles LG die, and inked the edges slightly with Wild Honey Distress ink.

I cut another piece from bristol paper using the smallest die from the Sizzix "Labels, Wavy" set, and then stamped the greeting onto that. I inked around the edges, again with Wild Honey.

I glued the focal & greeting panels in place, then matted the front panel with a piece of dark green cardstock; and layered that onto a piece of yellow-orange cardstock, cut to a standard 4.25x5.5" card size. I went over the eyes and mouths on the pears with a black gel pen, and coated the eyes with a little bit of Glossy Accents for some shine. Finally, I mounted it onto a card base, and I was done!

I don't know if I've totally broken through my block, but at least I was able to sit down and create something. And hopefully my creation will bring a smile to the face of one of our heroes overseas, and to the face of whomever s/he writes to!

Je t'aime

I've had this die set from Spellbinders for some time, and have not used it all that much yet. I decided, though, that I wanted to make an elegant card to send to Operation Write Home, and figured these dies would be perfect. This particular type of die doesn't cut, but instead embosses or debosses. So, if you want to die cut your designs, you do need the basic Nestabilities. But for this card, I used them only to emboss.

Because I knew I wanted an oval in the center of my card I chose this sketch from OWH:

I chose a lavender cardstock for my base, and lined up the dies, taping them in place in the middle of the cardstock piece. I ran that through my Grand Calibur, using the standard embossing sandwich. I wanted the opening in my cream cardstock frame to be right around the embossing, so I traced around the largest oval Nestabilities and cut it out with scissors. (Had I die cut the oval, there would have been a "gap" between the embossing & the opening in the frame.) I popped up the frame onto the lavender cardstock with foam adhesive. I felt the frame was a bit too plain, so I punched 4 hearts from the lavender cardstock and glued them in the corners.

I decided, for such an elegant card, I needed an elegant greeting. So I stamped one of the greetings from this Simon Says Stamp set in Versamark onto a piece of vellum. (Je t'aime means "I love you" in French.) I heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder. (I highly recommend this powder for detailed images, as it is a nice bright white and embosses beautifully.) I punched an embossed lavender heart using a Martha Stewart punch, and glued it over one end of the vellum strip. Then I glued the heart & strip to the card front, tucking one end of the strip under the frame to help hide the glue.

To finish the card, I coated the plain purple hearts in the corners with my clear Wink of Stella glitter brush pen, and then went over them with Glossy Accents. That not only gives them some sparkle & shine, the Glossy Accents also seals in the glitter so it won't rub off. Glitter that doesn't rub off is a requirement for OWH cards, since it can otherwise make our heroes visible to enemy night vision goggles, putting them in danger.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.