Love Owls

It is "anything goes" at Simon Says Stamps Challenge. Last year I had a successful sale of Valentine's at my gym. So I thought I would try that again and get started on some Valentine's. This is my 3rd one today. See the other's here. I am staying with the sketch from Pals Paper Arts with just a different orientations this time.

Do Not throw away or store that red Christmas paper. They will look great on Valentine's. These strips are both from SU Holiday Catalog. The owl stamp is an old one. Actually 2 separate stamps. I put them on the same block to stamp.I just noticed they are not straight. I guess the left one is leaning toward his true love? haha!! Coloring done with Tombow markers. The sentiment and tag punchs are also SU. I love the googly eye stickers. Makes them so cute. 

 

2 Valentines

Cold, snowy, blizzardy day here so I am taking advantage and crafting. I made 2 cards for Pals Paper Arts sketch challenge. My crafting resolution for the New Year is to pull out ribbon from my box of scrap pieces and design cards around them. I really need to use up some of them. So this is the perfect challenge to start that resolution.
Here is my masculine version:

 

I found this cloth tape measure in the box. It was old but still a little bright yellow so I sponged on SU chocolate brown. Ran the kraft card base thru Big Shot with CP wood folder and then sponged chocolate brown on the highlights. Red heart is cut with Cricket. The sentiment is done on computer and trimmed in a white heart shape. I used the negative image of a heart cut with Cricket, centered it over the sentiment, traced the outline and cut it out.  Accents are  hammer and copper brads.

 Here is the inside:

My second card is the feminine version of the same layout. Here there are 3 scraps of different design pink theme ribbons.

The white doily looked a little lost on the white card base so I sponged on some Martha Stewart pink geranium ink. The fairy stamp has lost her label so I can't give credit there. She is colored with colored pencils. I used a clear star gel pen for the wings and gold star gel pen for crown. There are actually stars in the image but I covered them with small pink punched hearts. Happy Valentine's Day sentiment is from SU. Haven't quite figured out the inside of this one yet. It will probably be for my granddaughter.







heart balloons

More of the Valentines I am making for Operation Write Home who sends hand made cards to our troops. If like me, you accumulate a lot of excessive cards just because you like to craft, send them to Operation Write Home.Check out their website for guidelines.
I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches

Here is my take on the sketch:

Ignore that Kraft background. It is just to make the white show on the scanner. I used white cardstock base, a scrap of ribbon. The white square was run thru Big Shot with lace IP. The ballons are SU colored with a water color pen. Since this will be mailed back home by some soldier, I didn't want a lot of dimension so I just drew in a ribbon to tie the ballond together. 

Hoppy Valentine

This is for Retrosketches challenge with this sketch:

I love this little frog from Sizzix. Not what you would usually use for a Valentine but I thought it would be okay for kids. It usually has a flower but I replaced that with a punched out heart. The DP is Paper Studio. The tag punches are SU. The sentiment done on computer.

This one look's a little girly. Scroll down to the previous post for a more masculine version of the same frog.

 

"Hoppy"

Keeping score at Cas-ual Fridays challenge to use score lines on a card. Since Christmas cards are done and mailed, I decided to start on Valentine's cards.

I've used this Sizzix frog a lot. He is just so darn cute!!. I colored the eyeballs white and added a black dot. The stem actually comes with a flower but I replaced it with a heart from the hearts Embossolit from SU. The label punches are both SU. The sentiment done on computer. The score lines are with the Scor-bug, makes bumpy lines like warts on a toad? 

 

"favorites"

My crafting favorites--not a short list for sure. On this card for Simon Says Stamps challenge, I used the Big Shot (which I use on about 80% of my cards) with lace impression folder, Cricut to cut out heart, Scallop punch and square punch (to notch the ends of banner). Also another favorite is using up scraps of paper. This DP is actually Christmas paper from SU. I have been able to do several Valentine's from scraps of Christmas paper. The sentiment is also SU.

Another favorite, although not directly crafting, is volunteerism. I am making Valentine's for Operation Write Home that sends cards to our soldiers overseas so they can send them to their loved ones back home.
 

Loads of love

Sending "loads of love" to Freshly Made Sketches for this clean and easy sketch this week

So in continuing with my Valentine's frenzy, here is my card with the sketch inverted.

The airplane is from Stampabilities stamped with black onto a scrap of silver paper and cut out. I colored the windows with a white marker. The tag is a modified Spellbinders banner die. I just cut of the edges, and "v'd" the end. I glued it to a scrap of Cherry Cobbler paper and trimmed close to the edge. Sentiment is SU stamped in Cherry Cobbler. Then I stuck on a lot of puffy heart stickers to make it look like the plane just released it's load.



 

Hearts & Love

I am making good progress on the Valentine's I am making for Operation Write Home. The last of the Christmas card are going in the mail tomorrow. So I thought I would use the next couple of weeks to make Valentine's for our troops. I am using the sketch fromRetrosketches and the color challenge fromThe Paper Players. Pool Party may not be the traditional color for Valentine's but I think this turned out to be a good combo.

 

Ignore the brown in the background. I had to back the card for the scanner to pick up the white edges. My camera is in the shop.

The Cherry Cobbler paper is done with Sizzix IP and the aqua is with Cuttlebug. The heart is a very old Delta one stamped with SU's Cherry Cobbler. Twine is Tim Holtz. The little love tag is TAC and punched with SU tag punch.

Here is the sketch I used:




 

Hearts

Well, I have come full circle. I think my crafting journey started about 60 years ago (oops, I'm confessing my age) when I started making Valentines. So after the circuit of all kinds of crafts, here I am back making Valentines. I'll have to say, they are a bit more sophisticated these days.
Here is my Valentine for Case This Sketch and Cas-ual Fridays challenges. Cas-ual Fridays challenge is using knots.

These cute heart stamps don't have a label and I don't know where they were from. The sentiment and punches are SU as well as the Cherry Cobbler ink. Twine from Tim Holtz. I have trouble deciding if there is too much white or not. I first tried just the twine but the card looked too stark so I cut a piece of SU cherry cobbler scrap and slid it behind the twine. Much better.
Here is the sketch:

You & Me

Took me awhile to come up with a design for Retrosketches challenge this week.

Ignore that black background. I had to use it as a backing on the scanner for the card to show up. My camera is in the shop. This is quite the colorful Valentine. The heart DP is from Paper Studio. I pulled out the different colors of hearts for the rest. The you & me stamp is from the dollar bin at Michaels stamped in pink geranium from Martha Stewart. The little tag says "love" and is punched out with tag punch from SU. I had this done without the hearts on the circle and decided it was a little flat so I punched out all those little hearts and glued each one on the scallops. Certainly won't qualify for any timed challenge but is just the "pop" the card needed.

 

Lots of Red

Crafting with a timer. That is the 10 minute craft dash challenge from Pretty Pink Posh. Thinking time doesn't count. Which is a good thing as coming up with an idea if often a lengthy process for me. Frequentlly occurs in the middle of the night when I can't get back to sleep. This weeks dash was to feature red. And I have lots of it. This fell right into my plans of starting on Valentine's. This one took 9 min. 11 sec.because I had to do the lower punch scallop twice to get it right.

DPs are strips of leftovers from SU Christmas papers. Stamp is from Stampabilities. Punches are EK. I think that larger punch resembles tops of hearts.And I see now that it needs a little leveling. Well we could say my heart is just getting bigger with love!! Right?!  I used this sketch from Freshly Made Sketches  

Snowman

The Paper Players challenge is "snowmen". I love the image of this happy snowman. Looks like he  has his shopping all done!

I'm sorry I can't give much credit here. I borrowed the stamp from a friend and stamped a bunch of these images. Then returned the stamp to her so I don't know who makes it. I colored the image with colored pencils and gel glitter pens. The snowflake IP is from Cuttlebug. The sentiment is one of my very first stamp purchases long ago. 

Heart

The Playdate Cafe challenge colors for the week are black, white, and maroon. I have my Christmas cards done so thought I would do some Valentines for Operation Write Home. The deadline for Valentines is Dec. 31.

I found this cute b/w heart sentiment paper yesterday at Hobby Lobby so it fit right in with the challenge. I didn't want to cover up much of the DP with ribbon so did just the 2 loops with a sheer maroon. The sentiment stamp is SU.
 

Love is in the air

I am done with my Christmas cards, well at least making them. I still need to write notes and mail them. So for the challenges at  Simon Says Stamps and Freshly Made Sketches I decided on a Valentine.  I apologize for the pic. Had to use the scanner, camera needs repair.

So the scanner did not pick up the rich shimmering red of the background. That is Crayola Color Wonder mini magic metallic paper. The markers are clear and will only work on the special paper. I had it for my grandsons last week. They showed me that you could color the paper solidly and have this cool shimmer look. The DP strips are leftovers from SU Christmas papers. The sentiment is also SU. The doily is just the cheap Dollar Store variety. Here is the sketch I used.



Layers of Christmas Greenery

I am back after a visit from my daughter's family. As my craft room is also a guest room, I had to put everything away so my grandsons would have a space to sleep--I tend to scatter things out on the bed--and everywhere else also. LOL!!

Loved having them here--grandsons are 4 & 7. They actually inspired part of my card today. I bought them an art set from Crayola called Color Wonder. It comes with markers that applied to the paper create colors. There was a magic mettalic pad in the set. They showed me that if you color the paper solidly you come up with gorgeous shimmer paper. So I colored this one with the blue marker. The picture doesn't do it justice.
Other supplies: Kraft cardstock, Dark blue cardstock, DP scrap, Hero arts evergreen stamp, sentiment from an old Christmas greeting set. Tim Holtz distress dark green ink, Color Box royal blue ink.
Here is the inside.

 

This is for challenges from: Papercraft Star (holiday greenery), Tuesday Throwdown (lots of layers)

and I used an old sketch from Simon Says Stamps. 

 

Thinking of you masculine

I have 2 cards to show today for the challenge at Simon Says. I tend to prettify my "thinking of you" cards. Sometimes I need to send one to a man. So I made 2 masculine type cards for this challenge.

The first one is on SU summer starfruit. Cuttlebug IP folders on the wood grain and the circles. The ticket is Tim Holtz. The anchor is a $1.00 bin special at Michael's. Sentiment is Studio G.
The second one is on white cardstock with layer of SU Midnight muse. Other papers are from scrap file. The sailboat is Inkadindadoo. The eyelet punch is Martha Stewart. The sentiment is the same as the top one only done in 1 line.
 

Santa

I wanted to do some Santa cards so turned to the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches



Santa stamp from SU, colored with colored pencils, highlights with clear star gel pen. You can't see the clear well in this picture but it gives a little shine to the snow parts. Snowflake punch from Martha Stewart. Ribbons from my shoebox of scrap ribbons.  Admit it you all have one--we crafters never throw anything away. It just might be exactly what you need sometime.
I backed the Santa with a silver glitter circle. I started to assemble and couldn't buy all that smooth white background so ran it through the Big Shot with Cuttlebug snowflake IP. There was a little clear space at the bottom so I added the Happy Christmas from SU. Just looks like a happy card.

 

Happy Christmas

What a challenge with this sketch at Mojo Monday this week. 

I have literally struggled with this one all day. I sat down in the craft room early this morning to start. I knew I wanted to do something Christmas. I would get out some papers and maybe even go as far as making cuts. Didn't like it. So I would get up and go away. I think I did that about 3 times. Finally I got it!! Found just the right combo. Love when a plan finally comes together.

So here is my card

 

The DP is from SU. I just had a couple of small scraps left and they were exactly what I was looking for. The snowflakes--if you can call red & green ones snowflakes--are a Sizzix die. I alternated the red & green ones and used a deminsional between each. Happy Christmas is SU. I added sparkle with clear glitter glue.

Whew! that wore me out. I think I'll go watch some election results and probably fall asleep in my recliner.

 



 

 

3 challenges

I am really behind in my challenges this week so I am doing some combining.
A Blog Named Hero: use punched image
Pals Paper Arts: colors of crumbcake, vanilla, red
Cas-ual Fridays: masculine project

I didn't have crumcake so I used Kraft for card base. Just slap on a strip of Duck Tape, a strip of drywall tape, and a bandaid. There you have your background. How easy. I did the sentiment on computer, punched it out with scalloped square and sponged on red border.

I think if you are sick, a little humor can be good for cheering you up.

There 3 challenges done this week!

 

SHINE

Time for another Cas(E) This Sketch already. I think I am really going to enjoy this site.



Last week, I kind of struggled with what image to use--guess that's why its a challenge! You think?! Well this week it only took me a few seconds to look at my stamps to decide what 3 images to use.

Disregard the black, that is merely for background. The card is simply white cardstock. I turned the design upside down. Wouldn't be too effective otherwise. The kites are from SU. I cut them out and popped them with dimensionals. The twine is from Tim Holtz. The kites really look like they are blowing in the wind. Sentiment is one of the $1.00 bin specials at Michaels. I have astigmitism so don't always get things lines up--especially if my glasses are a little askew. So I guess we can say the SHINE is blowing in the wind also.



I think this could be a great encouragement card. I used the same images in another way for a good luck card for my son and DIL before their running of the Chicago Marathon. Did some good--they were both awesome!

Glitter Holly

Trying a challenge from a new bog for me. Freshly Made Sketches Found it one day when blog surfing. That have great sketches to try. Here is this week's:

Looks simple huh? Well it took me awhile. I couldn't decide what to put in those squares. Finally spotted a piece of DP that I have had for several Christmas seasons and hadn't used it yet. I guess I was saving it because it is so pretty. So that decided, I emphasized the holly with a stamp from Inkadinkadoo stamped with Tim Holtz distress ink (peeled paint). I colored the berries with red star gel pen. I chose the sentiment from TAC because it was the only one I had that fit on the square. Sometimes that works out as seems to go well with the rest of the card. Red and gold ribbons complete the look.Lots of glitter here.

 

Toadily Christmas

It is square or round week at MoJo Monday I don't usually do round or squares but thought I should challenge myself to try one. I used a 4x4 card so it would fit the A2 envelopes and not need extra postage. I wanted some kid type Christmas card and I think my Grandsons will love this one.
Front:

Inside:

 

Inspiration is from a Hallmark Christmas card but I have also used this image in the past for a birthday.

The DP is from SU. The frog is Sizzix run through Big Shot. Sentiment is tiny tags from SU punched with SU tag punch. I printed  the Santa hat from clip art and cut it out. I think the googly eyes are the cutest. It makes me chuckle everytime I look at it. Hope you  do too.



 

CAS Birthday

Okay, this may get confusing. I am doing a card for Cas-ual Fridays whose challenge is using Kraft. And using this sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch , Cas-ual Friday's little sister, a new stamp company. Check their site out for some really cool designs and sentiments.
The sketch:



I was intrigued by that cutout and had to try this.
My card:

 

The DP and stamp are from SU. This is a great stamp, design and sentiment all in the same stamp. Quick! Hard to see in the pic, I used a clear star gel pen to color the plate and ruffle to make it look like crystal. I also lightly colored the cake with an aqua colored pencil to match the DP. Then to top of the candles, I used a gold metallic pen. 

 

 

 

 

MoJo Monday

It is MoJo Monday time again. My card today is a fun  tribute to our Latino neighbors. It is inspired by a sweatshirt I saw at a flea market last year. And I used this sketch from MoJo Monday:

 

This cute little lamb is Stampabilities with cotton glued to the body. His Santa hat is from Clip Art. I cut it out, glued it on, and added glitter to the white border and ball. The green cardstock and DP are from SU. The white border punch is from Martha Stewart. I did the Fleece Navidad on my computer and punched it out with Modern Label punch from SU. I punched a red label also, cut in 2 and glued it behind the white. Then for more glitter, I traced the words with a clear star gel pen.

 

Boy baby

Pals Paper Arts new sketch challenge worked really well for this baby card:

 

White cardstock base. Strip of Kraft paper. DP from Paper Studio. Stamps are really old ones that no longer have the packaging and label. I colored the giraffe with colored pencils as I wanted a pastel effect. I fussy cut the giraffe and glued on top. Not enough DP showed when I tried a wider strip to accomodate the entire giraffe.  Even boys need a little sparkle in their lives so I traced the Bundle of Joy with a sky blue star gel pen. Easy fun sketch to put together quickly. 

 

Tea time

Tuesday Throwdown theme this week is "Tea at Granny's". That thought evokes flocked wallpaper, lace, ribbons, and pearls. I included all of that on my card.

 

White cardstock base. DP from Luxury Stack by DCWV. Image and sentiment are Fiskar. Colored with colored pencils. Highlights with rose star gel pen. Ribbon and eyelet are from my stash. I added pearls at center of flowers on eyelet and at top of sentiment. Both shapes are from Spellbinders. Now that I'm the "Granny" or actually Nana, I get to have fun tea parties with my 2 granddaughters. 

 

Happy B'day Mom

Its Monday. Time to do the fun sketch challenge at Mojo Monday. I always love their inspiration. It is truly a challenge for me to get all the elements included on a card. Here is their sketch:

 

I made a Happy Birthday for Mom

All the colors are drawn from the DP which I found in my scrap box. The MOM is SU stamp. I colored the stamp with water color pens so I could get the hot pink on the flower. The shape is Nesties 6. The birthday sentiment is The Angel Company stamped in Martha Stewart Geranium and then traced over with Rose Star gel pen--gives it a little glitz. I used a scrap of the DP for that little butterfly made with Sizzix Embossolits Beautiful Wings from SU. It makes 5 different sizes and designs. I used 3 more of them on the inside with the sentiment.



 

Peace heart

This is a little more elaborate than the usual clean and simple for cas-ual fridays challenge. But I was really pleased with the outcome and wanted to share. The challenge is use a heart. I am big into recycling almost everything. So this is a recycled card from a Christmas card I received last year. The background of "peace on earth" was on the inside flap. The dove was on the front and I cut it out and pasted it on the background. It looked a little plain on just white cardstock so I backed it with silver metallic paper. Then I thought it probably needed a punch of color and added the red/silver ribbon at the bottom. I had been thinking what I could do for the Cas-ual Fridays challenge so decided on a heart cut from red metallic paper and glued on the dove. Gives it just the perfect finishing touch. You can see this a little clearer if you click on the photograph.

Chicks Rule

New blog, new challenges at CAS(E) this Sketch. Done by a bunch of very creative, very talented ladies. Here is their first sketch:

When I saw a row of design across the bottom, I immediately thought of Denami chicks. They are soooo cute! So here is my card:

If anyone tries to say clean & simple is a snap don't buy it. I did about 4 of these before I had 1 that turned out right. I still didn't get those chick spaced out right no matter how many times I told them!!. The sentiment is done on computer. Coloring with pastel pencils. And of course there is always 1 that stands out in a crowd so chickie #2 has a purple flower while the rest have pink flowers. 

baby boy

I finally have time today for some creativity. So this if for Mojo Monday sketch 262. I actually cut pieces of ribbon on a roll but it would be great to do one with those scraps of ribbon we all have stuffed in the shoebox. You know who you are!!! I'm not the only hoarder!

 

Congrats is Stampabilities. The other I have to confess I lost the label so don't know where it is from. The button brad is Paper Studio.