Another Monkey Card

Another card for my Operation Write Home box.  It is monkey cards on the midweek challenge on Stars and Stamps - and since I have a multitude of monkey stamps - I thought I would make some extra monkey cards this week.

I don't know who the monkey couple stamp is made by.  The paper is by Cosmo Cricket and the Love Sticker is by SRM Stickers.  I think someone will be very happy to get this love card.

Come back tomorrow - I heard there was going to be some red, white and blue fun.

Hello Monkey

Good afternoon - had the day off work - I ran one errand today - and then have hung out at home - have not accomplished much so I need to get something done.  I did make a card - the midweek throw down on Stars and Stamps (Operation Write Home card blog) is to make a card using monkeys.  I have lots of monkey stamps - and I need to get them out and make cards and make people smile.

The other challenge I am entering this in is on the Moxie Fab Blog - there are celebrating the release of their new issue - Stamp It - and one challenge on Moxie Fab is a Hello card.

Everyone enjoy the remainder of your day - very hot here.

Authentique Paper and Freshly Made Sketches

Once again I needed to make a sympathy card.  I decided to let this beautiful paper by Authentique provide my inspiration and focal point.  I chose to color just a few butterflies and cut them out and adhered on top so they look like they are floating there.  I did use my Stardust pen to add glitter to all the butterflies - just to dress it up a little.  The card is a 5 1/4 inch square.


The design of the card is based on the weekly sketch from Freshly Made Sketches - the idea is to be clean - I never know if I can accomplish that.  I do try though.  

I also used the color challenge from Authentique paper for the month of June.  I do love their paper - it has such beautiful weight - and it is double sided - the back side is always a nice plain color - which is so wonderful to have for stamping or layering.  I used papers from their 6 x 6 pads from two collections - Carefree and Fresh.  

Well I must head to bed - I am tired and my kitchen is a mess.  Potluck at work tomorrow and I tried a new chicken salad recipe - I sure hope it is good.

Card Positioning System, SRM Stickers and Operation Write Home

A quick post to start my day.  This card is based on the weekly sketch from Card Positioning System.  When you look at the sketch you can see I moved my sentiment down rather than overlapping the doily.

The paper is from an 8 x 8 pad from Making Memories.  The doily is from Martha Stewart and the sentiment sticker is from SRM Stickers.  The card will go in my Operation Write Home box.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Oldie Moldie Monday

Good Monday morning - a quick post to share my cards for Oldie Moldie Monday - the day to show some love to your older supplies.

The first card is based on the sketch at Retro Sketches.  I got most of the elements into the sketch - I see I forgot to round the corner on the top corner of my strip.

This card is also for the Midweek throw down challenge from Stars and stripes to use blue and yellow on your card.

The paper is from an 8 x 8 pad from Making Memories - English Garden.  The brads are from Basic Grey and the stickers (sentiment and bird) are from SRM Stickers.

Dig into some old supplies - they still make some beautiful cards.  Have a wonderful day.

These cards will go into my next box for Operation Write Home.  Please join us in helping our heroes keep in touch with their loved ones at home.

Operation Write Home Sketch Card

Good Sunday morning - trying to start my Sunday off with a little creativity - maybe I can jump start my creativity for later in the day - you know - after you get groceries and new wipers for your car - etc - maybe then while you are cleaning and doing laundry - you might find some time to create something.  We will see.

This card is based on the sketch on Operation Write Home's card blog - Stars and Stripes - a new sketch every Sunday morning to start your mo jo engine running.

The focal point is the beautiful Penny Black sticker.  The background papers are from We R Memory Keepers.  The matting around the bird and the little brown strip are Christmas papers.  The sentiment sticker is by SRM Stickers and I think the ribbon is May Arts.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Stampendous and Play Date Cafe - Summer Fun

Good morning - a quick share on this beautiful Saturday morning.  The weather is gorgeous - doors open, fresh air - so wonderful after a week of being stuck in the office.  I have a card I played with last night.  It satisfies two challenges.

Stampendous - for the month of June - is to make summer cards.  My other cards were very whimsical - today we are more elegant.  What is more summer than an beautiful blue sky and beautiful flowers.

The blue, black and white color combination is the challenge from Play Date Cafe.  The inspiration photo is this beautiful photo.  

The blue background is Twinkling H2O's on watercolor paper.  My friend Ivanka had hers out and played with them with some beautiful results - so she inspired me to use mine.  Thank you.  Luckily they do not dry up or go bad.  The blue has a beautiful sheen to it.  The stamp is an old one from Stampendous white embossed.  I found some black and white houndstooth ribbon so dug out my houndstooth embossing folder to add a little texture to the card.  A SRM Sticker finishes off the card with a little touch of bling.

Everyone enjoy your Saturday.  I need to make a 40'th birthday card yet today.  We will see - hopefully I get it done before the party.  

Penny Black, Prima, Hero Arts and Freshly Made Sketches

I needed to make a sympathy card - a co worker lost her grandfather - so this will be the card from her fellow coworkers.  I wanted the card to be a little masculine (the tree) but wanted some softer colors for her.

The card is based on the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.

The paper is from a 6 x 6 pad by Prima (Madeline).  The tree stamp is by Penny Black and the sentiment is from Hero Arts - I may replace the sentiment - looks crooked to me - probably is.  The ribbon was given to me by my friend Robin - love it.

Well time to go to bed and get up and go to work.  Hopefully this is my last week of the hard push.

Authentique and Hero Arts

Close up of Flower

Good morning - a quick share of a card I did for the color challenge on the Authentique Paper blog.  the card is a little bit different shaped but it is nice to step outside the A2 box.  Most of my cards are for Operation Write Home  and A2 is the desired size for those cards.

The challenge is to use the colors Driftwood, Calm Ocean and Persimmon.

I used papers from two collections Carefree and Fresh.  Some very yummy colors.  Their paper is so wonderful because it is double sided with solids on the backside.

The flower was made with some Spellbinder dies and then crumpled up and distressed.  The flower stem and sentiment are from Hero Arts.

Have a wonderful day - dinner out tonight with my Ya Ya's.

Oldie Moldie Monday

Oldie Moldie Monday - time to show some love to old paper or supplies.  In days of yore I made most of my cards from paper - I was not a stamper - I have changed - but I was looking for some vellum for some challenges and I found this sheet of paper.  All shades of lavender on one sheet along with this beautiful dragonfly.  The sentiments are both from Hero Arts.

Have a wonderful day - dig into you supplies and make something beautiful.  Just think - you may be a much better card maker today than the day you bought those supplies.

Paper Smooches and We R Memory Keepers

I saw this sketch challenge on Facebook from Paper Smooches - so I had to play along - I needed another card for my Operation Write Home Box.  Did you realize that this stamp set also benefits Operation Write Home - thank you Kim for your generosity in supporting the OWH cause.

 I am also entering it in the Paper Smooches - Be Our Guest.  I might as well try.

I love this little eagle - he is so whimsical - I could never color a true eagle image.  I stamped the stars on patterned paper and cut them out.  I added a little shading with my Copics - and also colored the sentiment banner - I think maybe I should have added some shading around the stars also.

The paper is a 6 x 6 pad from We R Memory Keepers - 6 x 6 pads - my addiction.

I am off to a neighborhood party - should be lots of fun.  I think there will be a washers tournament in my yard later on.

Webster's Pages and Merry Monday Challenge

I really think this should be an Oldie Moldie Monday post because I have had this paper for a year or two - but it is not.  It is a card for the Merry Monday challenge on Always Playing With Paper - a sketch challenge for making Christmas cards.

These are quite funky colors - I will have to pick who gets this Christmas card - some people may not appreciate non traditional cards.  The paper is a 6 x 6 pad from Webster's Pages - I have used some of this paper for non Christmas cards also.  The sentiment is a Hero Arts stamp that I heat embossed in white.  The card base and other pink is a bling paper.  I don't think it is the Bazzill because it does not have any texture to it.  The gold is Bo Bunny.

Enjoy your day - party in the neighborhood and I need to go dig out some supplies for Amy.

Freshly Made Sketches, Operation Write Home and We R Memory Keepers

Card for Freshly Made Sketches

Operation Write Home - Things that Fly

Good evening - a double share tonight - the top card would have worked for both challenges but I had stamped a couple of the birds so I wanted to used them.  Also I cut the circle and strip on the second card and did not like it with the background paper on the first card - so I reversed the colors - you should use your paper when you have it out.  Someone said they liked to use up their 6 x 6 pads - I just seem to collect them - maybe I should make a goal to use this entire pad up.  Hmmmmmm - I wonder if I could do it.

The first card is based on the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  The second card is for the midweek challenge on Operation Write Home's card blog Stars and Stripes to make a card with things that fly.  My birdie flies.

The paper and stamp are both from We R Memory Keepers.

Enjoy your evening.  

Stampendous and Jillibean Soup

Good evening - a quick share tonight - the June Challenge at Stampendous is to do summer items.  I have all these Stampendous Changito stamps so this gave me a wonderful excuse to use them  I had bought many of these stamps when a friend was battling breast cancer - I sent her a card each week and somehow it was mostly monkeys - the idea was to make Shari smile at least once a week.  Breast cancer took Shari from us but I need to use my stamps to make other people smile.  This card will be for my Operation Write Home box.  I think many people will smile when they see this card.

The paper is from Jillibean Soup - Southern Chicken Dumpling - it is a spring collection - and the colors are so yummy.  I cut the hello with my Silhouette and colored it with Copics - the same colors used on the flower around the face of the monkey.

I hope this card brings a smile to your face.

Hero Arts and Echo Park Christmas Card

My card today is based on one of the sketches in the June Challenge on Hero Arts.  I had made a Christmas card earlier in the month and had all these strips of paper left so this card sketch seemed perfect for all those strips.  The paper is from the 6 x 6 pad - Season's Greetings - from Echo Park.  I love the vintage like colors in the pad.  I recently bought this sentiment off Amazon - it has three other sentiments with it for the holidays that are perfect for card fronts.  They will make great sentiments for cards for Operation Write Home.

Thanks for stopping by.

Oldie Moldie Monday

Oldie Moldie Monday - time to show some love to some old paper - the patterned paper and the cardstock are oldie moldie but I think they made up into some great general cards.  I used some different Hero Arts stamps to add the sentiments to the cards.  You will note the sentiments are in different locations on the card front - I tried to work with the design elements in the patterned paper to place the sentiment.  These cards will go in my Operation Write Home box.  Very simple cards - but they will bring smiles to many faces.

Hero Arts, Creative Corner, Tim Holtz Technique

Yee gads - photo editing gone wrong - must work on my skills - the card is really more the colors of the 2nd picture.

On Creative Corner this week - the challenge - is to use your favorite Tim Holtz technique - well how can you pick a favorite - but I chose to use this one - I wanted a soft colored card to send to a friend's Mom who just had surgery.  I used the paint resist technique.  I painted (inked) up my background stamp (Hero Arts) with Adirondack paint dabber (pearl metallic) and stamped on white paper.  Let dry.  I then rubbed Distress Ink (broken china) over the card.  I also just stamped the butterfly on a separate piece of paper and colored with distress ink.  I cut out the butterfly.

A little matting, the addition of a wonderful SRM Sticker and some colored tape (wonderfully given to me by a friend) and a little bling complete the card.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Hero Arts and CAS ual Friday

The challenge on CAS-ual Friday is to make a clean and simple card using Polka Dots.  We are going for the very distressed masculine polka dot card.  Another card for my Operation Write Home box.  Both stamps are Hero Arts.

Hero Arts, Imaginisce, and Merry Monday

I started this card last night working on the flower.  It is a clear stamp from Imaginisce - it also has the little holiday sentiment I used on last week's holiday card.  I stamped it on watercolor paper and embossed with brown embossing powder.  I then grabbed my distress inks and perfect pearls mist.  Swiped the inks on my mat, spritzed on some perfect pearls and started painting the poinsettia.  I just kept adding layers.  I wanted it to look very vintage.  The perfect pearls adds such a nice shimmer.  Each layer of the poinsettia was pop dotted on the card front.  I added the brownish pearl to the center.  The paper is an old collection from Cosmo Cricket - but it has some great papers in it.  The sentiment is by Hero Arts - three sentiments in the set - I think it will be one of my better purchases - I will get lots of use out of it for holiday cards for Operation Write Home.

The card is based on the Merry Monday Sketch Challenge on Always Playing With Paper.

Have a wonderful day - we will see if I can get the card that is in my head out onto the drawing board tonight.

Lucky Finding becomes a card

One day while shopping - my friend that I was shopping with spotted these carrot seed packages - you say what is so special about that - well YaYa Carrots.  I have a special group of friends that our friend Shari named the YaYa's after we watched the movie together - well I had to take the carrot seed packages and make a card for each of my YaYa's.  It is just a sheet of A2 sized cardstock, patterned paper and added a strip of paper and embellishment and ribbon to the strip.  On the back I stamped the saying "you are a 14 carrot friend".  Wouldn't this be a great idea to use flower seed packets and all our wonderful flower sayings we have.

Stampendous and Retro Sketches

Oh Happy Day - I got a card made for two challenges.  The sketch from Retro Sketches and the monthly challenge from Stampendous for summer cards.

Don't the colors scream summer - gingham, denim, eyelet lace and a cute little bee waving a flag.

The sketch is very simple but fun.

The paper is from Simple Stories.  Stamp is by Stampendous colored with Copics and some bling added to the flowers and bee boppers.  The sticker is from SRM Stickers.  

We have four generation of women in our family with the middle name of Bea.  This card will go to my daughter who is now living in Alaska - it will be her fourth of July card.  I may have to make a couple more especially one for the Queen Bea - my mom.  

I really have a card time putting a card front on a card that entirely covers the card base.  I take it off and put it on and take it off - you get the picture - so I finally get it on and I am happy with how it looks and I have it on backwards - well it is on there - and it is going to stay that way.  Hopefully they will smile when they have to open their card backwards.  I have a neighborhood family that all their cards are made that way because the first card I made I was in a hurry and running out of time so it had to go as it was - so now it is a tradition.  They would be offended if I gave them a card that opened up normal.  

Enjoy your day.  

Oldie Moldie Monday

Oldie Moldie Monday - time to show some love to some old supplies.  I dug out this one sheet of patterned paper and was able to make 4 of these cards for Operation Write Home.  The paper had stripes so I was able to cut two of the stripes so I had the xoxo border on each side and at each end was the brown medallion.  The blue was cardstock - not heavy enough for a card base but works great for a backing.  The sentiment is a digi created by Paula for Operation Write Home.  It makes such a great card and it is so easy to use.

Echo Park and Merry Monday

Second post this morning - but the deadline for the Merry Monday is noon today - so since I want to head out the door after a shower to get groceries - I wanted to get this posted.

Always Playing With Paper has a sketch challenge on Monday for holiday cards.  I don't always get a chance to play along but it is a great idea to get some cards made ahead of time. Here is the sketch.

This is a smaller card.  - 5 x 3.75 - and the reason I made it smaller is that I wanted to also enter the challenge on Moxie Fab for postage.  I knew I had a Santa stamp that looked like a postage stamp and wanted to use it - of course - it was small so it is matted and pop dotted on the circle to fit in with the design.    There is no name on the stamp so I have no idea who made it but the sentiment is by Imaginisce.  The pearls are from Michael's.  The paper is by Echo Park - Season's Greetings collection.

Hero Arts and Operation Write Home

I know it is my second post of the day but I wanted to get some challenges done and posted.  The first card is for the midweek challenge on Operation Write Home's Card blog - Stars and Stamps to do a thank you card.  I made a stop at Tuesday Morning and found some great collections of paper for $4.99.  They are both by Momenta.  Wonderful weight papers which are double sided in fun colors.  I also bought some packages of card stock.  Here is my thank you card - I used a Hero Arts stamp and die cut set for the flower and a sentiment from one of the sets Hero Arts created with Hero Arts.  A wonderful versatile set of sentiments.  I cut the background shape on my Silhouette.

My second card is made for the monthly challenge sponsored by Our Daily Bread Design - for every 25 cards - up to a maximum of 50 - they will pay shipping on a box of cards overseas to our heroes.  Thank you for your support.  The challenge this month is to make shaped cards.  I turned to my Silhouette to see what I could find for a shape and to also get it to be an A2 size.  I will have to find a way to be creative to add enough writing space on the inside for our heroes to send a note home.  Once again I used my Hero Arts stamp and die set and a different sentiment.  Hero Arts also has a challenge on their blog this month for "thinking of you cards" so I will post this one over there also.

Now I need to get busy and get some work done - I need to start mowing.  I had to pick up lots of sticks because of the wind last week so now I can start mowing.   Someone in the neighborhood needs to have a bonfire and burn all my sticks.  Enjoy your day.

Yeah - It is Saturday

Good early morning from the State of Wisconsin -the sun is shining and the weather is suppose to be in the 70's - which is good since I do need to get outside and do some work.  I will be polite though and wait till 9 to start mowing.  I have done some housework - so I think I should be able to play with a little paper - before I start mowing - I highly believe in the reward system - work a little - play a little - ok the play sometimes turns into alot - but oh well - if I am happy that is the most important thing.

Today I am sharing a card which can work for two challenges.  CAS-ual Friday's challenge is to use bling on your clean and simple card.  I always struggle what is clean and simple - in my eyes this is clean and simple compared to most of my many layer cards.  Also Hero Arts has a monthly challenge and this month one of them is Thinking of You cards.

I have been wanting to use this Hero Arts background stamp for ages.  I stamped on watercolor paper with versamark.  I then embossed with white embossing powder.  I colored the leaves and flowers with Copics (now that was time consuming).  The flowers are two colors of Copics.  The first color was too light so I added another color and this is what turned out.  I then colored the sentiment strip with the same technique and then stamped the sentiment with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder.  I went looking for some green ribbon and this ribbon must be recycled from something.  Very sheer but it accents the green in the leaves.  I matted the image and sentiment with black to ground them.  Bling was added to the center of all the flowers.

Everyone enjoy your day.  Hope you find time to play also.