Less Is More: Butterflies

This week's Less Is More Challenge is to use butterflies.  If you don't usually click over to Less is More to see all of the participants, be sure that you do it this week because already on the second day of this weekly challenge, the cards are stunning! 

Be sure to click on #72 - Sarita's card.  I follow her blog and literally gasped aloud when I saw this beautiful card - the thumbnail just doesn't do it justice.  Then there is an earlier card (#19) with a swarm of white butterflies that is just simply sweet.  Of course, I could list all of the 84 cards that are currently posted - I'm sure there will be hundreds by the end of the week.

Here's my humble entry:

• Stamps: Just Rite Friendship Blooms Cling Set, Verve Thanksful Hearts sentiment
• Ink: Stampin' Up Pear Pizzazz, Soft Suede
• Paper: Stampin' Up Pear Pizzazz, Peach Parfait
• Accessories: Stampin' Up embossing folder, Pear Pizzazz Taffeta and pearls, Nestabilities Labels 18, Martha Stewart butterfly punches

For a Super Dad!

This is a seriously bright card - nothing subtle or stylish about this one.  It's way out of my comfort zone, but that is the great thing about being part of a church card ministry - I HAVE to get out of my comfort zone.  As I was making Father's Day cards, I pictured a little boy and wanted him to be thrilled to give a card to his dad.  I am hoping this is the one!

The inside simply says:

I'm so glad

you're my Dad!

I used The Sweet Stop Sketch for this week.

• Stamps: Sweet 'n Sassy Super Dad digi
• Ink: copics
• Paper: SU Basic Black, Daffodil, Poppy, misc patterned paper from Hobby Lobby
• Accessories: Candy Cane Stickles, sparkly black brads, star punch

Confirmation Weekend with Mojo

This upcoming weekend is the big weekend for our 8th graders being confirmed (an affirmation of their baptism).  They read their faith statements at two of our church services and are confirmed at the third.  There is an Evening of Honor Saturday night for which I had made this set of invitations.  I also made many other cards for the members of our congregation to choose from and give to the confirmands. 

Then I needed to mass produce some cards for the church to give to the confirmands, but I was fresh out of ideas.  Confirmation cards are the hardest cards for me to make.  They are for teenagers but they are for a formal occasion - those don't always go together!  Also, there are very few stamps specific to the occasion.

Luckily, the Mojo Monday sketch came up and I knew instantly that I was using it for these cards.  I think that the notched panel gave it a formal look as befitting this occasion.

My color choices were easy - these are the colors of our sanctuary.  (I do hope that the kids - or at least the parents of the kids - get the connection!)  I chose stamps that aren't specific to "confirmation" but at least make an appropriate statement.

I really took the sketch seriously - see the background on the sketch - here it is on my card!

There are a few more layers here than I would normally like to use for a mass-produced card, but cutting is an easy task.  There are no fancy techniques, just a little woodgrain texture on the background and I am done.

• Stamps: Verve Artful Elegance background, Our Daily Bread sentiment, Clear Dollar Stamps small cross
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Dark Chocolate
• Paper: Stampin' Up Creamy Caramel, Bravo Burgundy, Papertrey Pinefeather
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Burgundy grosgrain, Papertrey Woodgrain Impression Plate, misc gem colored with copics

Deconstructed Sketch #1 and SCS colors

When I saw this morning's Splitcoast Color Challenge I almost didn't play.  In my opinion, Regal Rose and Rich Razzleberry are very "in your face" colors and I didn't see any way to put them together.  But then I rallied and realized that it is why they are called "challenges"!

Since the background colors are so rich, I kept the coloring on the flower quite muted.  (OK, I actually first tried coloring the flower in Regal Rose and Razzleberry and quickly realized that it was all totally overwhelming!)

My digital image is from Wax Fruit Company.  The artist and owner, Arielle, had recently announced on her Snappy Stamper blog that she was on the design team for a new sketch challenge - The Deconstructed Sketch.  So even though I started out scared of the colors - everything came together in the end!  Here's their first sketch...I look forward to more...

• Stamps: Wax Fruit Company digital images
• Ink: copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Rich Razzleberry CS and dsp, Regal Rose CS and dsp, Very Vanilla
• Accessories: misc clear button (backed with Regal Rose dsp), misc ivory ribbon, All Night Media butterfly punch, Martha Stewart glass microbeads

Gifts for CAS and LIM!

I have been missing in action the past few days but I did warn you on my last post that my iPad was being delivered and being a total addict to my iPod Touch, I knew that I was going to spend all my free time setting it up.  More on this later!

This week's challenge at Less Is More is a one layer card using embossing - either dry embossing of heat embossing.  I use embossing folders virtually all the time, so I decided to challenge myself to use heat embossing.  I have many vials of embossing powders that I love, but it's been awhile since I used them and I had forgotten how that powder ends up everywhere!  My eyebrows are glittering!!

This morning's Splitcoast CAS Challenge is the word "gift".  I have some beautiful stamps regarding God's gifts so pulled those out.

And...in the end...it is all about the stamps.  CAS cards and especially one layer cards can be difficult.  I find myself hunting for fun and unusual techniques to show off on my CAS cards.  But, in reality, if I use a beautiful stamp, I have a beautiful card!

I did try to do something different on the sentiment, but likely I am the only one that can tell.  After I stamped it in Versamark, I used my fingers to sprinkle a little bit of the sparkly black powder on the main words.  I tapped it off and then added a plain black embossing powder on the rest.

• Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps Ephesians 2:8-9, Eureka Crosses Border (Eureka carries many Christian stamps)
• Ink: Versamark
• Paper: white
• Accessories: Stamp 'n Stuff Starry Night embossing powder, Ultra Detail Black Embossing Powder, misc gem

Now...since I am practically giddy over my iPad2, you get to suffer through some of the really fun stuff I did regarding my cardmaking!!  You aren't going to be nearly as excited as I am - first, because I am more obsessive about organization than anybody that I know and second, these photos do not capture the spectacular clarity of the HiDef iPad screen!

I am going to do all of my blog reading on my iPad.  I found Feeddler Pro which totally replaces Google Reader.  (Another highly rated app - Reeder - just supplements Google Reader.  Feeddler lets me bring over categories, etc.)

I just click on a blog (the little blue circles tell me there are new posts) and here it is!  (Hi, Andrea!)

So then I found an app called Chronicle.  I am going to use it to save the challenges that I like to play.  When I am reading a challenge blog, I tap the photo of the challenge with two fingers, it saves it.  I pop over over to Chronicle and it's a simple touch of the button to bring it into the date of the challenge!  See the challenges listed for last week...

 Then I tap on the day of the challenge and up pops the sketches, colors, etc.!

The next photo is a really cool feature.  The app ibooks lets you download pdf files.  I have previously listed various sites that collect their challenges into pdf files (see the iPod app button at the top of my blog.)  Here they are all downloaded and nicely organized.  So...for example, if I click on that last file, a pdf of all of the Splitcoast Color Challenges opens up.  If I'm ever stuck on a card - I just come over to "ibooks" and I have files of ideas!!

FYI - the first document is actually the "pdf" download of all of the My Digital Studio stamps from Stampin' Up.  You can get that at the My Digital Studio website under Resources. 

This next one is going too far, even for me.  I have a number of databases to organize all of my supplies.  In this photo I have clicked on "Colors" and it shows me all of the PTI and SU colors with checkboxes as to whether I have cardstock, ink, refills, buttons, etc.  The ribbon column is really exciting, because I have another database with every ribbon that matches PTI or SU that I have - the database you are looking at runs over to the ribbon database and tells me the number of ribbons that I have!!

Even with my love of databases sometimes I just make lists.  "Manage" is a great little list make.  You can make tons of different lists, tag the entries, check them off - and even more fun, are the tools to highlight items or to handwrite little notes.  If you want a "color" list like I have in my database, you could make a list of the colors and then use the blue marker to indicate CS and the red marker to indicate ribbon and maybe highlight it if you need something!  So much fun!

So how many of you are totally laughing at how anal I am.  Not only am I anal, but I get absolutely giddy with excitement as I am organizing.  And just so you know, it isn't just cardmaking.  I also have apps for books to read, I have a checkbook, a todo list, facebook, cookbooks, etc.  It's organizing my whole life.

Of course, my kids have to play with it too.  Their favorite is the front-facing camera and an app that comes with the iPad2 called Photo Booth.  Here are my darling children distorting themselves!!

Now I have to go and start getting all of that embossing powder off of my desk (and my eyebrows) and...I'll probably do a little more iPad organizing!  (Or maybe I should do wash some dishes or do some laundry.)

cQc84 Father's Day

Really?!?!??  It's May 12th!! 




I played at a girlfriend's house yesterday.  She always has display boards of ideas and I often just happily CASE her ideas.  I did start CASing this card with the randomly stamped image panel, but the colors and the entire layout are my own.

I have absolutely no natural light this morning so the whole photo has a yellowish cast. I do wish the goggles at the bottom were moved to the left, but they aren't my stamps and I didn't notice until I was taking the photos this morning!

The colors are from the colourQ challenge.

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Plane & Simple, Itty Bitty Backgrounds (for the yellow sprinkle)
• Ink: Stampin' Up Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy, Daffodil
• Paper: Stampin' Up Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Daffodil dsp
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Modern Label and Designer Label Punches, Old Olive Grosgrain, Cuttlebug embossing folder

P.S. If you read last week's Rabble of Butterflies and Flock of CAS Birds, I did finally go back and add the recipes.  Sorry it took so long!

Splitcoast Sketch 332

It's May, isn't it?

I can't argue too much because we desperately need the moisture - we've already started having wildfires.  So many people assume the Denver area gets lots of snow - but that's the mountains.  Where we are, we can get snowstorms, but it will all melt in a few days and we are out bicycling and golfing.

When I saw today's Splitcoast Sketch Challenge I knew that I was ready to go, because I have piles of leftover scraps on my desk from the past weekend's cardmaking for service day at church.  We made a very simple card with an embossed kraft background, one of Papertrey's mat stack dies and their Tiny Treats set which included lots of cute birthday images to color.   (I am describing this in detail because the actual hundreds of cards that we created are in my car and you just saw the picture of what it is doing outside - I am NOT walking outside in my PJs!)

I used some leftover stamped shapes, a different image and I stepped it up a little bit to match the sketch.  It's not real fancy - but it's a guy card!

I plan to be at a friend's house crafting this afternoon so I hope to have some cards to share after that.  But there will likely be some blog silence after that.  As you may know, I am totally addicted to my iPod (as is evidenced by the iPod App tab at the top of this page.)  I am the queen of organization and my 15-year career was as an actuary - so my iPod isn't just for games and music - it totally feeds my {anal}ytical side.  I have databases of ribbons by color, paper by every color, buttons, wishlists, copic matches and current challenges. And that's just for cardmaking...I also have reading wishlists, databases of mysteries, lists of all the hymns in all of my piano music.  It's a little overboard!

But I am slowly going blind trying to see them all on my iPod.  So guess what my wonderful family did for Mother's Day?  I have iPad2 being delivered tomorrow morning.  Happy day!!  I may not come up for air for days as I get my iPad set up to organize my life!!!

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Tags & More, Papertrey Tiny Treats: Birthday for dots on diecut
• Ink: Memento black, copics
• Paper: packs of paper from Michaels
• Accessories: Papertrey Mat Stack 5 die, Cuttlebug dots (it's one of the 5x7 folders) and star border folder, yellow stickles, Mark Richards black nailheads