Operation Write Home

Hi everyone. In the spirit of the holiday that we just had, I decided to box up all my cards and get them sent in to Operation Write Home. Here's a picture of all of them that I sent in...I'd say there were about 100 or so in there!

Here's a little blurb I took from the web site:

Our Mission:

Supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them.

This merry band of thousands of cardmakers is made up of Americans - and citizens of other nations too - who care about our military, and want to support them through creativity and encouragement. Crafters of all ages and levels of experience have participated since 2007...and are on the way to a landmark one MILLION cards!

Care packages filled with hundreds of handmade cards are sent to our contacts, restocking every 6-8 weeks, and are sent in time for the long journey back home to loved ones. Each box is packed with great care, alternating styles, colors, and cardmakers from all over the USA, creating "eye candy" for heroes who see only khaki around them. The topper on each box is a plastic bag filled with 20-30 letters from adults and children across the country, letters handed out especially to those in need of a positive word from the homefront.

Boxes are shipped through every week of the year, so join us anytime in sending your beautiful creations to help our heroes keep in touch with home!

For more information on this wonderful organization please see this link!
Thanks for stopping in and have a great day!

Inspired Father's Day card

Hi everyone! Here's a card that I did for the inspiration challenge over on SCS yesterday. The inspiration site is called Plates and Napkins and here is what inspired me. LINK

The fern is a retired stamp from The Angel Company and one of my all time favorites. It's stamped randomly in Memento Bamboo Leaves then cut apart. I put it back together on a dark green cardstock from Bazzill then onto the white card base.

The sentiment is from Masculine Motif's from PTI. Stamped in Palette Noir and cut out using one of the smaller long rectangle nestabilities. Added a bit of olive green grosgrain ribbon tot he back to form a tag and then popped it up using some foam tape.

Thanks for stopping in!

Out on a limb

Hi everyone! Happy Memorial Day weekend! any exciting things planned? Nothing on my end since the weather is not cooperating! I'm going to actually get some creative time in the studio!

Here's a card I did a while back that I just realized that I never posted.

Leaf branch is from Memory Box. I colored on the stamp with markers, huffed and then stamped on ivory cardstock. The crow is cut out of the Martha Stewart border punch and popped up on the branch using foam tape.

The sentiment and surrounding decoration is from Papertrey ink, as is the die. Memories chalk ink in Alligator used to stamp the decorative border. I hand cut the black border and found green brads in my stash that matched!

Designer paper is from Crafters workshop.

Thanks for stopping by!


“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” -Pearl S. Buck

Flowers - PTI blog hop

Hello everyone! I had a blast playing around with some of my PTI flower dies and felt last weekend! Here are two cards that I created using them.

This first one is a clean and simple get well card. Stamps are from Papertrey Ink.

The leaf is stamped in Memento Bamboo leaves ink and the sentiment in Palette Noir. Button is from American Crafts.

This next one uses the same die and felt but only two layers instead of the three.

Stamps are from PTI's set Flower Fusion #2. Polka dot paper is also from PTI and is die cut using the edgers #1 die. The green cardstock is embossed with the lattice embossing folder from Sizzix. Mat stack #4 die used to cut out the white cardstock and stamp the sentiment and stem for the flower.


Here is a close up of the last flower. I used a bit of scrappers floss to tie a little bow for the center of the button. Button is from American Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by and please let me know what you think of the two flower cards that I created for this hop!

Be well

Hey everyone! I needed to stock up on some get well cards and used this little guy to assist me.

The Bear stamp is from Victorine Originals and colored with Copic Markers. I just got some X-press paper and tried it out on this. I likey!

Designer paper is from my stash and I think it originated from K&Company. I added some faux stitching along the top and bottom using a Copic Multiliner pen. Black buttons are from American Crafts. The Be Well sentiment is from Hero Arts and the kraft cardstock is from Papertrey ink.

Isn't he a cutie? Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day!

Sending you

Hi there! I got a chance to participate in the Inspiration challenge over at SCS yesterday. I had most of the ingredients done already and just had to assemble it to match something on the IC site that was picked. Here is what inspired me. Dress


Here is the finished project.

Flowers and the darker leaves are cut out using Nestabilities rose and foliage dies. The roses on the left are done using grunge paper. I painted them pink using acrylic paint and then gave them some definition and highlights with white craft ink. The rose on the right is done with cardstock and was a lot easier to manipulate the petals. Martha Stewart branch and leaf punches used to fill in.

Sentiment is from Papertrey ink and the top note die was used to cut out the blue cardstock which is from Hot Off The Press.

Thanks for dropping by.

Hello Baby

Hello! I've been playing around a bit with the new doily dies that I just got from PTI. It seems I waited forever for these to get back in stock. Definitely worth the wait!

Sentiment and baby booty stamps are from The Angel Company. The booties are colored with Copic's. I did some fussy cutting and then popped them up with some dimensional foam tape.

The darker pink designer paper is from Hot Off The Press and the bottom is from The Angel Company. Scarlet jewel grosgrain ribbon from PTI was used to separate the layers and it also happened to match the color I used on the ribbon on the booties. Bow easy used to tie the bow.

I highly recommend that if you buy these dies that you also get the punch out tool. It makes getting all those little bits of paper out a snap!

Have a great week and thanks for stopping in!

Live Simply

Hi everyone!
Today I'm sharing a another clean and simple card! Which I seem to be doing a lot of lately for some reason!

This stamp set comes from Papertrey Ink called Little Bitty Bird. Bird is colored with Copic markers. I used Palette dark chocolate ink to stamp the tree branch and colored in the leaves with Copic markers. To ensure that the ink didn't run or bleed, I heat embossed using clear embossing powder.

I just got the new spellbinders latice rectangles and put it to use on this card. Designer paper is from PTI and I finished off the card by adding the loopy satin ribbon.

What do you think? Isn't this kind of feminine or could maybe be used as a baby card? Thanks for dropping in and have a fantastic day!

Distressed CAS collage

Hi everyone! The sun is shining and we might just have four days in a row to soak up some of that vitamin D before the rain comes back! Yea!

I stopped in at Impress Rubber Stamps (that store is dangerous) and picked up a few items last week. Not that I needed anything, but this Vintage record sheet from Memory Box spoke to me.

I stamped it in Palette Noir and then added in the other images. the Tree branch is also from Memory Box and is done with markers. The butterfly is from Cloud 9.

To distress or grunge this up I added some Distress ink in Antique Linen and Vintage Photo. I did take a pair of scissors to the edges of the image before adding on the Vintage Photo ink.

Lastly, I used the branch with some versamark and stamped randomly around the outside of a piece of kraft cardstock. I ended up heat embossing it using clear embossing powder.

I decided to tilt the main image just to be different, which I know most of you don't like. But in real life this looks pretty good!

Thanks for stopping in and have a creative day!

Card a day for the month of May

Hi everyone! It's my turn to participate in the Card a day for the month of May over on the TAC Savvy blog.

Here's the sketch from Heather Scott.




Here's my card!

The butterfly is stamped in Versamark and Palette noir ink then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Copic markers are used to color it in. Then did a little (or a lot) of fussy cutting. It's popped up using foam tape!

Designer paper is from the Emma Soar With It Collection. The butterfly and sentiment are from the Happily Grateful set. Spellbinders circle nestabilities used to cut out the circle and emboss it!

To see the original post and what everyone has come up with using this sketch and other's please click on the link above!

Good things

Hi all! Did everyone survive the outages on Blogger? It was kind of quiet there for a while! (grin)

Here's a non-traditional shaped card for you today and an inspiration piece!


The tank top is something that I found on the Coldwater Creek web site. I thought it was interesting and would make a cool background for a card.

Leaf stamp is from A Muse Studio and stamped in Palette Fresh Snow, Colorbox lavender and Archival black ink. I decided to use the light blue cardstock for the background so that the white ink would show up.

Sentiment is from The Angel Company (hostess set - Happy Today) and stamped in Archival black ink.

Spellbinders label 17 die used to cut out the shape of the main image and used as the card base. I used some scor-tape to adhere the left side together.

Thanks for stopping in and I'd love to hear what you think of my inspiration piece!

Blessings

Hi everyone! I've been playing around with some images to practice coloring with Copic's and here's one that actually got made into a card.

Image is from one of the hostess sets available through The Angel Company. Designer paper in the background is also from TAC.

I decided to use the scalloped border die from Quickutz on the bottom of the main image. Funny thing about that is that I had already added the flower (it had a white center) and the pearl in the center of the small flower to it. Well, after I ran the die and the image through the Cuttlebug to get the scalloped border - it had smashed both of them to smitherines! LOL! Totally forgot about it - so the white center in the flower became a bigger self adhesive pearl!

Sentiment is also from TAC - called Tag TidBits, which is one of my go to sentiment sets. Pink satin ribbon is from my stash!

Thanks for stopping by and let me know what you think!

Picture frame

Hi everyone! Quick post today! I had some play time over the weekend and was practicing on making flowers out of the new rose spellbinders dies and grunge paper. Here's what it ended up being.

I'm also loving the new foliage dies as well! All the grunge paper is colored using the new distress dyes from Tim Holtz.

I think I OD'ed on the stickles, though!

What do you think?

Happy Mother's Day

Greetings! I hope all of you are enjoying the day with family! Here's a card I completed for the Victorine's Originals blog, but it doesn't seem to be posted for some reason, so I thought I'd share anyway.

All stamps are from Victorine Originals. Daffodil pot is colored with Copic markers as is the blue sating ribbon.

Labels 4 in standard and small used to cut out and layer the image. Martha Stewart border punch used on the right hand side to add some visual interest.

Kept this clean and simple so that the main image was the focus. What do you think? Have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Happy

Everything!

This is the card that I'm sending out to my Dad's girlfriend for Mother's day!

Flower stamp is from A Muse Studio. I colored the stamp with Marvy Le Plume markers and then spritzed with water and stamped it onto watercolor paper. Sentiment is from Stampendous.

I used the newest label die from PTI to cut it out and then found some pink paper in my scrap pile that matched the marker color to layer it. Brown cardstock is from American Crafts. Designer paper is DCWV Once upon a time.

I used the scallop die from Quickutz on the bottom of the dp, rounded the top corners and then distressed it with dark chocolate ink from Palette and a dauber. Finally, pink self adhesive pearls used on the scallops which are from Kaisercraft.

Sorry I've been MIA the last few days, The boss was in town! Nothing like 14 hour days to keep you away from stamping and blogging!