In-Country Christmas

As your

Serve our Country

at Christmas -

A heartfelt thanks to you

as Christmastime draws near,

you're far away from home

at this special time of year.

May the New Year bring us hope

for peace in coming days,

May next Christmas find you

at home for the holidays.

I looked for a very long time for the perfect sentiment for the cards that my card group sends to soldiers.  It didn't even have to be a stamp - we could write it or print it.  So when I stumbled on this stamp and the coordinating outside stamp by DRS Designs, I was absolutely thrilled.  It says EXACTLY what should be said at this time of year.  Let's hope for peace and that each soldier will be home next year.

I won't be sending this card this year - it's a little late to get there, but one of the comments that I got on my series on Church Card Ministries made me realize that I had totally glossed over an important part of making cards for the church - taking care of our own members.  The commenter gave some great advice from her own church card group and talked about making sure that all of those that were hospitalized, or those serving our country, or those that had special needs of other kinds, knew that they were cared for by sending them cards. 

Our church card group does do "special request" cards and we have done such things as working with confirmation age kids to create Christmas cards for soldiers or made cards for Thanksgiving baskets going out to our shut-ins.  But the comment made me realize that we wait to be asked. We weren't asked for cards for soldiers this year, so we didn't make them.  I'm resolving right now to be more proactive.  We are the ones that love making and sending cards - we are going to make sure that we show others how much we care!

(We HAVE recently been asked to work with our pre-teens to make Valentines for soldiers.  If anybody has a great idea for how to say "I Love You"(?!) to a soldier, let me know!)

• Stamps: DRS Designs
• Inks: Stampin' Up Always Artichoke
• Paper: Stampin' Up Always Artichoke, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Hobby Lobby Greetings of the Season paper pad
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Cherry Cobbler seam binding and gold cord, misc star brads (FYI, I didn't have gold brads so I embossed them with gold powder), Quickutz embossing folder, EK Success corner punch
• Challenges: SplitCoast Inspiration Challenge to find inspiration in one of Don Cherry's jackets (I picked a fairly tame one.  Of course, I left out the orca hat!).  The layout comes from Card Patterns.

Friday Focus: iPod Apps

Set 289 - Alphabet Soup

I had a wonderful Friday Focus post all ready to go today except for one thing that was supposed to be in my mailbox yesterday so that I could include that product in my post.  Of course, it wasn't there.  So I am improvising today.  Since I mentioned a serious iPod Touch addiction in a recent post, I thought I would list all of the apps that I use for cardmaking!!

For those of you that are seriously bored already - I do have a card for you before I move on to the geeky stuff!

Yesterdays Ways to Use It challenge was the first challenge hosted by Kim Hughes and she selected "All That Glitters".  I have had the idea for this card in my head for awhile as a way to use the set Alphabet Soup.

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Alphabet Soup
• Inks: Stampin' Up Real Red, Garden Green, Wild Wasabi markers
• Paper: Stampin' Up Real Red, Garden Green
• Accessories: Martha Stewart bell punch and antique silver glitter, small jingle bells from Michaels, Stampin' Up Scallop Border Punch, Sizzix Embossing folder

Now for the Friday Focus: iPhone/iPod Touch apps!

My hope is that some of you will read this and leave comments regarding apps that I have missed.  There seem to be a lot of scrapbooking apps out there, but there just aren't that many for cards.  Here are some that I like:

1. CSS Daily: Clean and Simple Stamps has an app that gives you one card and the full recipe for that card each day.  It's very nicely put together.  It's a pricey, but since there aren't many other cardmaking apps out there - I definitely purchased it.

2. CraftCard Gallery: This is a fairly new app that seems to have a very extensive card gallery.

3. Sayings - for Greeting Cards and Guestbooks: This app has 100s of sentiments for all occasions.  I am not going to say that this is the best set of sentiments ever, but it can come in handy.

4. Cartridge Checklist: A nice way to keep track of your Cricut cartridges - it also includes pictures of each cartridge.  It seems to be updated very regularly.  FYI: While I was looking at iTunes I just saw an app called Cricut Cutting Guide that appears to give the settings you need to cut a whole variety of papers...interesting??!!!

That's it for the very specific cardmaking apps, but I have a variety of things that I use regularly that are very helpful for my cardmaking.

5. Paperless: This is a nice list making app.  I use it every day for such things as:  keeping lists of cards that I need to make and, right now, I am listing stamps that I need to use to meet my stamping goal!  Here's a pix so you can see how nice it looks and works.

6. Byline: I read A LOT of blogs and I do it through Google Reader*.  Because I have an iPod Touch and not an iPhone I only have internet access when I am near WiFi.  But Byline lets me download all of the unread blog posts from Google Reader before I leave home and then, as I am waiting yet again for my children to get out of school or finish a rehearsal, I can read those posts and then sync back when I am home!  Love it!

*Just go to Google, set up an account, click on Reader and starting "adding subscriptions".  The Reader will keep track of new posts on each blog to which you subscribe

7. My Create Ink Color Combos.  No, they don't have an app.  If you haven't been there on your computer, simply go to http://www.mycreateink.com/.  It is a huge database of color combinations (using Stampin' Up colors). You put in the colors you know that you want to use and it shoots back possible other colors. I like to have it handy so I have created an icon for it on my iPod Touch.  Simply bring it up in Safari.  Then click on the "+" symbol and "Add to Home Screen".  You have just made your own "app".  Touch it and you have instant access to a full database of colors!

8. 2Do. This is the to do list for my life, but the reason that it relates to cardmaking is that it has a nice function for birthdays.  You can import all birthdays from your Contacts, then you can set it up to give you a specified amount of notice.  I have it set up to give me a To Do item one week before each birthday - then I can be sure to get cards made and out on time!

9. HanDBase - If you are not a former actuary/mathematician that now makes cards, you can skip this one.  I have included it because it is probably my most used app for cardmaking.  It's actually a relational database.  Relational databases are powerful things - one big step up from a spreadsheet.  This database is what causes the majority of my friends to call me anal.  But let me give you an example of how great it can be.  I have one database set up for "colors".  It has every Stampin' Up and PaperTrey color in it (including retired).  Then there are checkboxes by each color so that I can indicate whether I have coordinating CS, ink pads, buttons, ribbons, etc.  Then I have another databases for "ribbons".  When I input a ribbon, up pops a drop down box with all the colors from the first database - super easy to select.  So, here comes the powerful part.  The two databases keep talking to each other.  So after I input the ribbon, if I go back to the "colors" database, the database now shows how many ribbons that I have of each color.  Cool, huh?  (Or really, really boring!)

10. Photos.  I spend a lot of time managing photos on my iPod because I "right-click save" card photos when I see them on blogs or SplitCoast.  I then have to sync those cards over to my iPod.  But one feature that iPods are seriously missing is a good photo management tool, e.g. to sort those photos into such things as "Wishlists to Buy" or "Cards to CASE".  (FYI - one of my databases is a Wishlist database.  The database can hold photos so I can always see what I am shopping for.)  I am currently using Photo-Sort but it's not perfect.  In my case, it loses badly because it doesn't include the photo name that's on the computer and I often include information like stamp company and name in my photo name.  I just downloaded PhotoMgrPro.  It seems to solve the problem, but I haven't played with it long enough to know.  I would love to have any recommendations on this subject.



Congratulations - you made it to the end of the list!

If you made it to the list, that means you are as addicted as I am - and if you ARE that addicted I would love to read comments regarding the apps that you like!  Hope you found a new one in my list!

Do you think that I'm cheating??

Sets 283 to 288 (list below)

Do you see all the sets that I will be using in this post?  Sets 283 to 288 for my 2010 goal of making sure that all of my SU sets see ink.  That's six sets on one project!

I should be happier than I am, but I feel like I have cheated.

First, you should know - I DO NOT CHEAT...EVER. 

I take that back.  I cheated once in high school.  I never got caught, but I still feel awful about it.  I've used it as a cautionary tale to my children - all the great things in my youth, but one of my strongest memories is the bad feeling of cheating.

I don't think that I have technically cheated on my goal of using all of my sets.  The goal was simply to make sure every set saw ink - not every stamp in every set - just every set.

You should know that I'm starting to panic a little about finishing my goal.  I have a couple of days this week, then I am away for a week, then I have the week after Christmas and I still have a lot of sets left.  So when I sat down to do this gift set for my youngest son's teacher, I found sentiments from my remaining sets.  I feel quite guilty, because in all cases, the sentiments were the minor part of the set.  I ignored the gorgeous images that were really what the set was all about - I simply pulled a sentiment. 

Cheating or not, I am going to count these sets as "seeing ink"!

(And then I am going to get over myself!)

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Fifth Ave Florals, Funky Flowers ("thank you"), Blooming with Happiness ("may your day bloom with happiness"), Inspirationals ("May the good Lord..."), Sweet of You ("special thoughts"), Matchbox Messages ("Celebrate"), Thoughts and Prayers ("Sharing in Your Sorrow"), PaperTrey Ink Turning a New Leaf (the olive and blue cards)
• Inks: Stampin' Up Regal Rose, Peach Parfait, So Saffron, PaperTrey Ink Plum Pudding, Versamark (on the olive and blue cards)
• Papers: Black, White, Stampin' Up Regal Rose, Peach Parfait So Saffron, Old Olive, Buckaroo Blue (really, really old!), PaperTrey Ink Plum Pudding
• Accessories: ribbon from Michaels, Scalloped border die and file template from PaperTrey Ink, miscellaneous gems and pearls
• Challenges: the layout is from Just Add Ink.

The Butterfly That Fought Back

Set 281 and 282 - Winged Things, Labelicious

I saw this morning's SplitCoast Sketch Challenge and then went through my remaining Stampin' Up sets to find something that would fit.  I couldn't find anything that fit the main panel exactly.  Then I had the thought that I would add the butterfly from Winged Things at the top of the panel.  For the sentiment I saw that I still had the Labelicious set to use, and the scrolls around the Celebrate sentiment seemed to fit nicely with the butterfly.  Plus, I envisioned a nice ribbon treatment to work for the long panel on the sketch challenge.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for coming up with this.

That was 10 hours ago.

I didn't actually work at it for 10 hours.  I did have to get kids to school, wait in line at the UPS store, buy 150 plates and cups for my son's band concert, also some groceries to make goodies for the concert. I had to set up the church for confirmation at Wednesday Night Family Faith Formation and practice the organ for duets that we are doing on Christmas Eve.  I had to pick up my oldest at 11 a.m. because his finals for the day were over.  Then I had to hassle with him to make him realize that he DID have one more day of finals and couldn't just play video games because he was out of school early.

But in between all of that, I kept playing with my idea.  I tried bright, colorful paper.  I Copic'ed the butterfly, then I watercolored him.  I tried muted papers.  I tried stamping in black and then in brown and then in various colors.  I've never had a butterfly fight back as hard as this one did!!

But at some point in my day, I thought - monochromatic!!  Emboss the darn butterfly in white and use monochromatic dp on the card.  It's not a great card, but I really like it.  And, in the end, it took 10 minutes to do!  (I do wish that he was flying the other way, but I can't have everything!)

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Winged Things, Labelicious
• Ink: Stampin' Up Peach Parfait
• Paper: Stampin' Up Peach Parfait, Peach Parfait dsp
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie striped grosgrain, Stampin' Up punch, Cornish Heritage Farms Glacier White Embossing Powder

My "Duh" Moment

Set 280 - Together Forever

This post started out with the title "Two Easy Techniques" and I do still have two techniques, but one of those was such a "duh" moment for me - I couldn't believe what I had been missing.  First... the card...

This card uses the colors from today's SplitCoast Color Challenge: Basic Gray, Concord Crush and Marina Mist.  It also uses the layout from this week's Stamping 411 Sketch Challenge.

When I saw the sketch challenge, I knew that I wanted to try a technique that I had bookmarked some time ago.  It was actually the reason that I ended up buying the Decorative Label punch from Stampin' Up (that's the smaller punch with the image on it).  I loved the punch, but punches don't have mats.  I tend to prefer Spellbinders Nestabilities because then I can easily layer up.  Gretchen Barron did this post on lining up three of the decorative label punches to get the large mat.  It works beautifully.  (She also did this post on how to easily cut up the punch to make a regular mat for the punch.)  Her blog is Inspiration in Action and it IS just full of Inspiration.

But...now for my "duh" moment.

For most of this year, I have been seeing people color their gems with Copics so that they match the card.  For completely unknown reasons, I had never done it.  So I decided to color my rhinestones today.  My card includes a "Concord Crush" gem and four "Marina Mist" gems.  So...so...simple...

I just sat back and laughed at myself.  Why?

Here is my gem box...overflowing...impossible to find the rhinestone that I want...and...I keep buying more...

Here is my Copic collection...neatly organized...colors that match every SU CS and PTI CS...

I don't need that box of rhinestones!!!!  One package of clear rhinestones and I am ready for anything, because I have that huge collection of Copics.

"Duh!"

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Together Forever
• Ink: Stampin' Up Basic Gray
• Paper: Stampin' Up Concord Crush, Marina Mist CS, Basic Gray dp
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Decorative Label Punch, rhinestones, Basic Gray and Marina Mist taffeta, Copics: BV08, B52, Nestabilities Oval die





CAS CASE of Biggan

I love the phrase "CAS CASE".  I actually took me quite awhile to figure out the acronyms!  CAS - Clean And Simple; CASE - Copy And Share with Everyone!  Now if somebody would explain TFS along with the dozens of other letters that typically follow that!  (FYI: TFS is Thanks For Sharing - it's all the other letters that I don't get!)

Today's Clean and Simple challenge at SplitCoast was to CASE a specific card by Biggan.  I have always admired her cards, so HAD to play along:

Birgit's gallery is just gorgeous.  One thing that I noticed right away is a lot of textured paper - even to stamp on.  That small touch makes each of her cards so interesting, so I had to try textured paper.

I also played along with the Pal's Paper Arts challenge which was "white" along with this inspiration piece:

• Stamps: none!
• Inks: none!
• Paper: Bazzill white textured, misc gold
• Accessories: Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, EK Success leaf punch, Mark Richards gold nailheads

The Cuttlebug is actually an early product called Cut and Emboss.  The dove is difficult to find, but I did track it down at Happy Scrappin' Scrapbooking.

----------------------------

Oh my gosh!  I got a blog award!!  Andrea at EnchantINK sent me this:

As part of the award, now I have to tell you eight things about myself.  My blog is only a month old so I haven't had to do this before, but I will tell you that I am nervous about it!  As I have read other people's blogs, their lists are always so funny and so creative.  I do NOT have funny and creative writing skills.  My life isn't particularly funny (it's wonderful, but fairly normal and basic) and I have such a small amount of creativity that I have to save it for my cards!!  But here goes nothing...

• My other creative outlet is music.  I play piano for church services.  I also dabble at organ, clarinet, recorder, penny whistle, hammered dulcimer and kantele.
• My living room is no longer for "living", it has become a music room.  The center is fully taken up with a piano and organ.  The outer edges are full of my instruments, plus my children's trumpet and saxophone plus a variety of other odd things such as an accordian.
• My children and I have fully converted my non-musical husband.  When my 6'2" 14-year old announced that he would rather be in marching band than play on the basketball team, my husband (a former hard-core athlete) said that he had come to realize musical groups were teams too!
• I am a recipe-follower.  I don't vary recipes by a smidge. If I don't have a certain spice, I don't make the recipe.  This definitely makes me wonder how I can be a cardmaker as I am clearly lacking a creative, adventurous spirit.
• My entire life is on my iPod Touch (not to mention a fair number of games).  My husband chastises my children for being on their iPods too much.  If only he knew about me!!  Having said that, a lot of my apps are essential(?) organizational apps and cookbooks (to find those recipes for which I have exactly the right ingredients!)  I even have a database app on which I have databases for such things as every Stampin' Up paper that I own sorted by color and every ribbon that I own that coordinates with the paper. 
• I follow 142 blogs.  I probably should narrow that down but everybody has their own style or focuses on different companies.  (More on this later!)
• I am a mathematician by training - an actuary!  I spent over 15 years in the actuarial profession before I realized that I really wanted to be a full time mom - and I have no regrets!
• I am fairly anal and obsessive!  Not a big surprise if you read the first 7 comments!

So...that's me!

Now I am supposed to pass this along, but here's my problem.  I do follow 142 blogs and should have plenty to choose from.  But I have followed these blogs on Google Reader which makes it an extra step to leave comments and, more importantly, to establish relationships.  I haven't left a lot of comments. Now that I have started my own blog, I realize how wonderful it feels to get comments and to get to know those that are leaving the comments.  So I am fully resolved to change my ways and to take time to share my joy at seeing everybody's cards.  For now, I am not going to pass along this award - the recipients would scratch their heads and wonder "who gave this to me"?  But if I ever get another award - watch out - I will have plenty of blog friends to share it with!

An Early Christmas!

A wonderful package arrived on Friday!  It was like an early Christmas for me!  (Maybe even better than Christmas since I am surrounded by boys and men who will NOT get me anything rubber stamp related for Christmas because they say I have too much!  Bummer!)

Thank you again Kerin.  These pictures show just a few of the people who excitedly looked at all of the cards and purchased a bunch of them.  Your cards are absolutely beautiful!  Thank you for the donation.