JoAnn's Craft for a Cause

Here is a card I made and entered for Operation Write Home in JoAnn's Craft for a Cause contest. I have to use only items purchased from JoAnn's (online for me) and scan the receipt plus 3 photos. The top 3 charities with the most entries go on as finalist to win prizes (and money) for their charity. OWH made the top three! SO now it is down to a vote. You can vote once in a 24 hour period per IP address. VOTE for OWH! The money will help pay for postage to mail the boxes of cards to the desert and also to help pay for envelopes, etc.. If you want to learn more about Operation Write Home click on the button on my sidebar. Card details; Image and sentiment by Inkadinkado, Paper by DCWV Pocket Full of Posies stack, ribbon by Kaisercraft. Did you notice I paper pieced the Turtle shell? She has flowers on it!

backlog of cards

So, I haven't posted for awhile but I have been making cards on a fairly regular basis. Every other week I meet with my friends Lisa and Ashley and we stamp! Since I am a stamping veteran of at least 19 years, I feel like I need to share my knowledge with them. I hope they enjoy it. We have done thank you cards (this post), funny birthday cards, halloween tags, learning to use a card sketch, masculine birthday and different types of embossing (dry, heat, & machine). Here are some of the card examples I have made for these classes.

This card features a sketch from OWH Stars and Stamps. The image is a stamp from Two Scoops Rice design. Mochi is a Japanese food of pounded rice and will include a sauce. I have even had mochi covered ice cream. I used Crystal Effects to make the Mochi glossy. I free handed the swirls on the red paper with a gold spica pen.

One of the techniques I have learned by reading Nichole Heady's blog of stamping on the patterned paper and piecing the image together. I used a versamark pad to creat the background on the teal strip of paper. Images by PapertreyInk. This is also a OWH Stars and Stamps sketch.

Image by MelJen's, colored in with Copics, and sketch by OWH Stars and Stamps.

This is one of my Thomas Kincade stamps by Cornish Heritage Farms, sentiment by PTI. This is the cracked glass technique. I have been wanting to try this forever. I did not have/could not find my Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel, so I used regular clear embossing powder, about 7 layers. Then I stuck it in the freezer (forgot it was there) and pulled it out and cracked it. Sentiment is embossed with gold filigree embossing powder.

I have a few more cards that I haven't finished that I will post another time. I have a few more posts to finish up today and then maybe I will feel "caught up" in the blogging world.

Down to the wire!

This is my entry for this weeks Designed2delight Digital Stamps artists challenge. I don't really have much to say about this one and I don't have the time to say it either! If you have questions about supplies or techniques, leave a comment and I'll respond later.

CAS Flowers

No matter how hard I tried to add printed paper or more embellishments, I just could not do it. I am a "Clean And Simple" girl at heart. Especially since I fell in love with coloring all over again once I got my Copics. The image is the center of attention, not all the doodads.

This image is from Faith at Designed2delight digital stamps. I received it free for participating in last week's challenge. The first image I printed, my printer was almost out of black ink and I felt like it was bigger than what I wanted to use. So I set the image aside, replaced my ink and printed a smaller, darker image. Because it seemed "faded" I decided to use my Prismacolor pencils on it and Gamsol with a blending stub. I really like the way it turned out. It reminds me of folk art.

The smaller, darker image I used my Copics on. I was trying to find a printed paper with blue and brown designs, but I just couldn't find anything I liked in my stash. So I layered it with my oval Nestabilities. Other supplies for both cards include SU! cs and misc. ribbon/rickrack.

D2D October challenge

Here is my entry for the Designed2delight digital stamps Artists Challenge. The free digi is the two apples together. I printed, colored, and cut 4 sets of apples and cut strips of brown cs to weave a basket to hold them. Sentiment is from PTI.

Comfort and Hope

Here is my Designed2delight digital stamps artists challenge. I earned these free digis by Faith by participating in last week's challenge. I can't believe I've been good and stuck with this for 2 months now. Yay!

This is a sympathy card. I don't think I have ever made a sympathy card before although I have a slew of stamps that would be perfect. I need to make some ahead of time so they are ready to send when necessary. I decided to try to make the flowers 3D. It is kind of hard to tell in the first picture so I took this one at an angle. You can also see the wonderful texture from my new PapertreyInk impression plate. You can also see the sparkle in the flower centers from my yellow spica pen. Other supplies include SU! cs and ribbon, copic markers, foam dimentionals.

PapertreyInk Blog Hop!

I am SO excited to be a part of this blog hop. Nichole challenged us to share something that we new we have learned about creating and who is our inspiration. As far as inspiration, Nichole herself and many of the Design team members inspire me everyday.

Being a rubber stamper for over 19 years I was really skeptical about acrylic stamps. When I finally tried them I still wasn't sold. After finding PapertreyInk and their awesome quality of product with Clean and Simple designs that create such a variety of looks, I wish all my stamps were acrylic stamps!

There are so many techniques, tips, sketches etc... I wasn't sure what to share. I was working on this project when I read Nichole's post about the Blog Hop. It is a small thing I am going to share and probably most of you know it already and I don't know where I learned it, but besides being clear to see exactly where you place your stamp, acrylic is also flexible. "i'm batty for you" is actually a straight stamp. Because it is acrylic I was able to curve it on the handle so it would fit just perfect.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: All PTI and Copic markers and spica pens.