A Texture "Tease"

I had to smile when I saw today's SplitCoast Stampers Free For All Challenge: Texturize Me!  I have wanted to do fairly regular "Friday Focus" features on my blog and my list of future possible posts including Cuttlebugging.  (Click on the "Friday Focus" label in the right column to see past posts on such things as shimmer paints.)  Here's today's "texturized" card:

Later today, I will have a lengthy post on "Cuttlebugging" - consider this post a "tease".  I will have new techniques, shopping sources for those off-brand folders and European Exclusives, and at least one source of amazing inspiration!!  Be sure to check back in!

• Stamps: Verve Amazing Grace single
• Ink: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake
• Paper: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake and Blushing Bride
• Accessories: Sizzix embossing folder (the leaves from the Fall set), Stampin' Up embossing folders (the folder on the base of the card and the polka dots), Stampin' Up butterfly sizzlit, nestie narrow oval and scalloped oval, Stampin' Up Crumb Cake Seam Binding, SU Bling colored with Copic E44 to match Crumb Cake
• Challenges: Mojo Monday 173
• 

Crafting with Tweens

SIXTY 6th, 7th and 8th graders making cards.  I don't know whether to be thrilled at how involved they were or to sit back this morning and nurse my headache from the noise levels!!

Once a month in our confirmation program, we have a service and/or social project.  Last night we had two service projects going on - cookie making (to go to local police and firemen) and Valentines for soldiers.  Since I don't even do well with those rolls of refrigerator cookies - I definitely was not in charge of cookie making!!

I tried to put together a very simple card that still included a touch that might be fun for the kids.  In this case, the "fun" was simply a punch and a 3-D flower. (Given that twice the number of hearts that were needed were punched and put together, I think they had fun!!)  Here's the card:

The card uses all Stampin' Up products - a stamping wheel, a stamp from Service and Sacrifice, the heart punch, Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler and Vanilla.

I had four stations set up with instructions (as if tweens read instructions??!!!)  1) the wheel stamp, 2) the 3D heart, 3) writing a note for the inside and 4) putting it all together.  Here's a couple of the stations.

The kids dove right in!

Even though it was utter chaos - here's the final product!!

They made 100 cards that I will now get over to Colorado Supporting Our Troops to tuck into the next box of goodies (and essentials) that they are shipping overseas.



Valentines for Youngsters

We had our monthly church cardmaking gathering last week and our focus was Valentines.  As I was putting the completed cards on our racks, I realized that we didn't have any for youngsters (or the young at heart!) so I have been working to remedy that situation!

This sweet little girl is an image from the darling Stampin' Up set Greeting Card Kids.  It is impossible to go wrong with a card if it includes this image!!

The colors come from Inkspirations 4U.  Inkspirations 4U has opened up a whole new world for me.  You buy a membership for a specific session and you get tons of tutorials, challenges, chats and lots of new friends!!  The tutorials tend to cover anything from cute paper boxes and bags, unique card folds and fun mini scrapbooks.  I actually won this membership from my new Australian blog friend: Andrea from EnchantINK, who is a designer for this session of Inkspirations.

My second card for youngsters is based on today's SplitCoast Sketch Challenge.

This is one of the early, early sets from Our Craft Corner - I would doubt it is even available anymore.  I had to have it because I have never seen any other stamps with beavers?!?!  But of course, it hasn't seen ink until now.

If you were to ask me what embellishment that I couldn't live without, it would have to be the brown brads on this card.  I actually buy them by the thousands!  Really!!  (You have to remember that for every card you see on this blog, I have either made or put together kits to make three others for our church card sales rack.  So I go through embellishments quickly!!)

These brads are by Creative Impressions.  They are the Antique Bronze mini rounds.  I have tried very hard to get a close-up and I just can't capture their "colors".  Depending which way you are holding the card, you see a little of the bronze or even a little gold - but all antiqued and subtle.  They go with every brown CS that I have ever used.

If you live in the Denver metro area, Donahue's Paper Emporium on Yosemite between Arapahoe and Dry Creek sells normal-person-size packages of all the Creative Impressions brads.  I order online so that I can get the 1000 packs!

If you check Creative Impressions out online, be sure to look at their ribbons.  The ribbon that I used on my snowman from a couple of days ago is their Swirl Organdy.

Greeting Card Valentine Girl:

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Greeting Card Kids, Well-Scripted
• Inks: Memento black, copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Baja, Real Red, Blushing Bride, Candy Cane dsp
• Accessories: Martha Stewart border punch, American Crafts ribbon, Cuttlebug heart folder, misc gems, nesties circles

I Chews You:

• Stamps: Our Craft Lounge Bubs the Beaver
• Inks: Memento Black, copics, Stampin' Up Early Espresso
• Paper: Stampin' Up Early Espresso, Soft Suede, River Rock, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla
• Accessories: Tim Holtz woodgrain embossing folder, misc grosgrain, brads by Creative Impressions

I'm back!!

I'm sorry for my week-long absence (especially for those that have told me they look up my blog each day!!)  I actually have been working on cards - rather frantically and stressfully.  Remember all of those cards that I pushed through at the end of 2010 to make my goal of making sure that all of my Stampin' Up sets see ink.  As I was rushing through them, I would make the card, toss it to the side and move on to the next card.  Well...last Thursday and Friday were our monthly church cardmaking gathering (see the "label" list in the right column for more info), and I had to pull out each and every one of those cards and kit them.  That means I had to pull out all the papers, inks, stamps, punches, etc that I had used and then cut the papers to the correct size.  It took all week! Then over the weekend I was subbing as church pianist so had three services to prepare for and play. 

Now...I am free to play!!  And the perfect challenge came up for the SplitCoast CAS Challenge: A Day in the Snow.  It's perfect given that my children are still asleep because their schools are having a snow day.  (Kind of strange given that the skies are blue and that their schools are in the only major school district that closed in the Denver area!)

My snowy backyard:

This is a school snow day??!!  I can still see
my weeds through the snow and the
sky is blue!

My snowy card:

I had Valentines on the brain this morning and I was thrilled to see the link to this digital stamp on somebody else's blog this morning.  I immediately downloaded it and many other darling characters.  (This is the advantage to digis - instant gratification!!)

• Stamps: Heather Ellis digistampcharacters, Stampin' Up Tiny Tags
• Ink: copics
• Paper: white
• Accessories: misc heart gem on hat, ribbon from Creative Impressions, Cuttlebug heart folder, Impress Sparkle Glitter

I had two more cards recognized over the past week.  I love the little widgets that you get that I can add to my blog - makes me feel so pro!!  I would expect these moments of recognition to slow way down given that I won't be bombarding all of these challenges with cards.  I get to go back to my normal pace of 1 or 2 cards a day now that I am not challenging myself to use all of my stamps!

• Picture Perfect Creations selected this card as a runner-up for their color challenge (card details here)

• This card was a showstopper for the Curtain Call Color Challenge (card details here)

Now..assuming my children can entertain themselves (can you say "snow day" and "video games"?), I plan on cleaning up my craft corner.  I have some new stamps and supplies that came while I was working on my Stampin' Up cards and I want to get it all organized so that I can easily play a few more challenges!

See you soon!

CAS with Kissing

Hmmm...I spent the morning "kissing"...and my husband is out of town!!??

The Splitcoast CAS Challenge this morning was "kissing".  This is simply inking one stamp and then...before stamping onto paper...stamping onto that stamp with a second stamp to leave a shadow of an image.  Then it goes onto paper.  The second stamp can be uninked in which case it removes some of the ink from the first stamp (which is what I did here), or the second stamp can be inked with a contrasting color.

My intent was that the brown swirl just shows as a "shadow" on the bird.  This picture shows it a little better.

The flaw in my plan was that you need a swirl image that has a mirror image swirl (which my PaperTrey Fancy Flourishes set happily had!)  The mirror image swirl is used on the bird.  Then I had to mask the bird (with something see-through), then I had to line up the original swirl so that the lines matched.  Maybe not so simple, but it is definitely clean!

• Stamps: PaperTrey Bird Watching, Fancy Flourishes, Verve sentiment
• Ink: Stampin' Up Baja, Suede
• Paper: white, Suede
• Accessories: Stampin' Up embossing folder, Baja seam binding, Antique brad

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

I was getting a lot of e-mail notices yesterday that various people had left comments on my cards in my SplitCoast Gallery.  I didn't check any of them - after stamping my fingers off finishing up my 2010 goal to use all of my SU sets, I definitely wanted a break from anything stamping-related.  But I did notice that a number of them were on VERY old cards.

This morning I started reading the comments and I got the thrill of my year - I have been mentioned on the SplitCoast CAS Best of 2010 thread with these cards.  Here are the cards that were mentioned along with the link to the gallery if you want more details.

OLW21 Cattails and Prayers

Peach/Cajun Paint Prints

CAS91 All I Have Seen



Botanical Garden

CAS97 Always Inspired by Birgit

This card was mentioned in the "regular" (not CAS) 2010 favorites.  I was a little embarrased by this mention because the card was a fairly blatant CASE!!

Peaceful Tree Line with Buck

Now...I am going to wake up the last child to get him back to school (my first child is in by 7:30, this one doesn't go in until 9:00).  Then I am going for a long walk.  Then I am going to settle back in and look at all the other cards mentioned on this CAS Best of 2010 thread because each and every one gives me something to CASE!!!

...and now it's time for coffee!!!

If I were a more experienced blogger/computer person, I would have figured out a way to have fireworks going off all over your computer screen as you are viewing this post, because...I AM DONE!  Every Stampin' Up set that I own has seen ink!  (And...for the first time in my life...I have successfully completed a New Year's resolution...and only two days late!)

Before I get to the last two cards, let me say one more time - I LOVE challenges.  Today's Featured Stamper challenge at Splitcoast showcases a phenomenal gallery.  Whiterockmama's Gallery is just full of vivid colors surrounded by lots of white space.  I have never seen such bright and wonderfully colored cards with so much white on each card.  So...I have learned something...and now feel like a better cardmaker just because I had the privilege of viewing her gallery!

I didn't start out planning this (although I did figure it out in the last week), but my last two sets involve coffee.  Which is exactly what I am heading out for after this post.  I am treating myself to the most decadent Starbucks treat that I can buy!

Set 328 - Like It A Latte

NOTE: The mats are actually Always
Artichoke, but I have been completely
unable to get a good photo!

I CASed this card from her gallery.  I just love the little turned up corner!  And, as I have already gushed - I LOVE the white space!

The whipped cream is White Opal Liquid Pearls. The steam uses Stampin' Up's Frost White Shimmer Paint.  You can learn more about shimmer paint on this post.

Set 329 - Morning Cup

I CASed this card from her gallery.  The colors come from an old Curtain Call challenge which I had not played at the time (typically meaning that I was unable to make the colors work together!)  But her fantastic use of these colors made me try again.

I did use Spica glitter pens on various cups - this picture might show it a little better.

The other thing that "called to me" from whiterockmama's gallery was her use of lots of Verve stamps.  I do love Stampin' Up (as attested to by 329 stamp sets!), but I really miss my other stamps.  So my plan now is to have a great cup of coffee, perhaps spend some leisurely time cleaning up my nightmare of a craft desk, probably while watching a chick-flick (I'll give the boys extra video game time!), and by tomorrow I'll be ready to play Splitcoast's CAS challenge - probably with a different brand of stamp.

But never fear if you are here for Stampin' Up cards, I have a huge wishlist from the new mini and sale-a-bration catalogs!!

Like It A Latte

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Like It a Latte
• Inks: Stampin' Up Chocolate, Cajun, Bashful Blue
• Paper: Stampin' Up Always Artichoke, white
• Accessories: White Opal Liquid Pearls, Stampin' Up Frost White Shimmer Paint, nesties long rectangle and scalloped rectangle, Sizzix embossing folder (from a birthday set), Stampin' Up button and oval/scalloped oval punches
• Challenges: Curtain Call Color Challenge

Morning Cup

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Morning Cup, Happy Harmony (already counted!)
• Inks: Memento Black, copics
• Paper: black and white
• Accessories: Cuttlebug embossing folder, misc gingham ribbon
• Challenges: Curtain Call Color Challenge

The Penultimate Post!!

I LOVE the word "penultimate".  What a fancy way to say "next to the last"!!

No, it's not my "next to the last" ever post.  I just started this blog on Nov. 13th of this year last year (2010!).  I plan on blogging for quite awhile to come.

But it's my "next to the last" post for my 2010 goal of making sure that all of my SU sets see ink!!

Set 327 - Thanks for Everything

Wasn't it nice of Our Creative Corner to do a Thank You challenge when one of my few remaining sets was a thank you set??!!  It was a very unique challenge - must be a Thank You, must use a blue and cream color palette, AND must use vellum and metal.  Check...check...and..check!!

FYI:  The background is double-embossed, which I LOVE to do.  First emboss with the polka dot folder, then emboss with the butterflies - the hint of polka dots remain for a very unique look.  Any combination of folders can work, although I prefer a plain, regular pattern for the first folder.  It's very fun to play with and to see what comes out the other end of the Cuttlebug!

I do want to thank everybody for all of your encouragement as I worked through my goal.  There have been so many wonderful comments on SplitCoast and on this blog.  The only reason that I am going to make it through all of my sets is that you all were so supportive.  The world of cardmakers is a wonderful place to be!

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Thanks for Everything
• Ink: Stampin' Up Marina Mist, Versamark
• Paper: Stampin' Up Marina Mist, Very Vanilla, misc polka dot vellum
• Accessories: Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Stampin' Up Scalloped Border Punch, detail silver embossing powder, brushed silver brads, Cuttlebug polka dot folder AND the butterfly folder (It's a European Exclusive folder - but you can get them at http://www.cropstop.com/) 
• Challenges: Our Creative Corner Thank You Recipe Challenge

There have been multiple posts today so keep reading...