Wheelie

Tuesday Morning Sketches Challenge 4/21/15 - I MISSED THE DEADLINE by an hour !!!!!!  How many times am I going to do this?  GRRRRRR......

How's this for a literal interpretation of the sketch?  I found a piece of cardstock in a 6x6 pad from Basic Grey called Highline that already had a banner at the bottom, so I used that.  This is a really flat card. Great for sending to Operation Write Home. The Wheel is stamped with Stazon and die cut on a very shiny scrap of silver cardstock.  The hampster is stamped with Versamark on craft paper and heat set with black embossing powder, then colored with a Spectrum Noir marker.  The exclamation mark had a heart for the bottom, so I added a yellow enamel heart over it.

Every piece of paper except the background was made from scraps.
  

 I do love my newly reorganized scraps.  I finally dug out a photo box from the garage and cut some dividers.

Card Box

My first try at Mod Podge....

After making a dozen cards with assorted sentiments for a male friend of mine's birthday, I needed something to put them in besides a gift bag.  Didn't have much luck making something out of cardstock, and I though I'd like it to be a more permanent storage box.  I found this hard cardboard recipe box at Hobby Lobby and thought it would work.  It's just a plain brown, paper bag colored box.  Needs decorating, right?   Dug through my huge stash of paper that my friend Bobbi gave me, and what do I come across?  A 12x12 sheet of paper that is full of stamps.  Now this is perfect, isn't it?  Got the cutter and scissors out and cut them all up.  Now, I only had this one sheet and this is my first try using Mod Podge, so you'd think I'd try it on something else first...but no, I'm a go for it first time kinda gal.  I was sweating it because there were only so many stamps.   It ended up that there were enough for the top, front, and sides, but not enough for the back. I did have to fill in with some "real" stamps, and I cut up some current mail I received, but I think that just adds to the charm of it.  On the back, I took my Fiskars "stamp" punch and just cut out some coordinating paper and pasted it on.

I think it came out pretty good!  I might put Steve's initials inside the cover.

Operation Write Home Mailed!

Forgot to post this when it happened a few weeks ago, but I finally met my goal of 100 cards to send to Operation Write Home.

I am so grateful to my good friend, and card mentor, Bobbi (http://bobbistreasure.blogspot.com/) who got me started in all of this when I retired, who has been my go-to person to learn techniques, and who never tires of all of my questions, after questions, after questions!  She set up this blog for me and supplied me with boxes and boxes of paper, punches, stamps and ink.  Bobbi does this all long distance, since she lives about 250 miles away.  I already had the skills as a shopper, so now we even shop for each other via text and cell phone. This can be VERY DANGEROUS!!!!

This box actually contains 175 cards since I included Bobbi's cards as well that I brought home with me after a visit with her.

(http://operationwritehome.org)  check it out!

If not for Bobbi, I'd be watching too much TV!!!! 

Hippie Birthday

I feel like all I've done is make birthday and sympathy cards all week.  I really wish I could have said all birthday!  This one is for my aging hippie friend :-)  She's gonna love it!

I can't remember what those little fleecy balls are that are attached to a small material tape are called.  I remember them from the 70's and when I looked in my ribbon box, I found these mini ones.  I was looking for ribbon to match and found this gem!  So much better on this card than ribbon.  I used the 3 I cut out from behind the "girl" and attached them like bling at the bottom.  Who says bling has to be shiny?

I'll enter this one in the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers J is for Just Kidding challenge

Hampton Art KI Color Crush Paper
layered on dark brown and hot pink cardstock
Sentiment from SU Words By Wanda
Memento Rich Cocoa Ink

Earth Day Birthday

I have a friend whose birthday is April 22, which is also Earth Day.  I needed to make her a birthday card and this really fits with the challenges at Words to Scrap by and Shopping Our Stash.

I should say that she is a gal from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is in love with the earth in all ways. She also LOVES buttery yellow.  I found this great 6x6 pad of paper called Wanderlust that I've been saving to make her card and this piece of paper is so her. In the stack there was also a small map of the US so I cut a circle around Michigan, and added it so it kinda looks like a moon.  I know you can't see it in the picture, but I put a little tiny black dot right where her town is in the UP.  

It's simple, just some layers, not a whole lot going on in the way of embellishment or embossing, but I wanted it to be a no nonsense kind of card because that is the kind of person Margy is.  But, then, I just couldn't help myself and added two very tiny rhinestones.  You can hardly see them so it will be ok.

I will a note and birthday sentiment inside which always ends with Happy B-EARTHDAY!   I know she is going to love this card!

American Crafts Wanderlust paper layered with
dark gray cardstock in the back and
a small piece of yellow ribbon that I had many challenges with!

Smile

I needed to make several masculine birthday cards for upcoming birthdays and I am also making an assortment of cards to give to a friend for his birthday so he will always have a card to send, no excuses, right?

I saw the challenge for The Male Room (Challenge #7 - Use a metallic Embossing Powder) and decided to try my hand at this one.  This is the first card I came up with.  Nice, a little bit of metallic embossing, but not a whole lot.  Camera and sentiments are heat embossed in silver, but it doesn't show up very well in the pic. It's plenty silvery in person and is masculine as well !

Woodgrain Embossing Folder from The Paper Studio
Sentiment Hampton Arts Vintologie
Small Silver Brads
Recollections Silver Embossing Powder
Spellbinders Labels 23 die cut
Craft Medley Bakers Twine in gray and white

So then I was perusing the entries and saw the one my friend and card mentor Bobbi had entered.  I don't have any background stamps, so I couldn't completely CASe her card, but the camera stamp set I just purchased also included a stencil.  Well, I've never used a stencil before, but thought I'd give it a try.  This is what I came up with.  I completely covered the stencil with silver pigment ink using a marshmallow type thingy because I don't have the proper tools to use a stencil, and then I heat embossed it with Silver Embossing powder.  I also die cut some backgrounds from some silver paper I got from Bobbi. I ran ink and embossing powder around the edges too.  The black looked too stark without it.  It's very shiny!

Sentiment and Stencil Hampton Arts Vintologie

Recollections Silver Embossing Powder

Spellbinders Labels 23 die cut