Just a little Love

Hello blogland!  I have one more valentine's card for this week made from the scraps on my desk:

The scraps were from a Crate Paper valentine collection, the heart stamp is from StampersBest and the love stamp is from Unity.  Tie it up with a little bakers twine from Martha Stewart and I was done in no time flat :)

Next up, Crafting by Designs has two great Guest Designers this month for our new features A Year in Cards and Get Ready for Christmas.  Take a peek:

Heide Dronchi  challenged us to make a sympathy card based on this card - sympathy cards can be hard to make, but this this is a gorgeous card.

Gwen T. challenged us today to make a few Christmas cards based on her  card - simple design with just the right touches.  Want to join us?  Sure you do - there's still time to make some projects for our January challenges at Crafting by Designs - go HERE to join.

Operation Write Home Deadlines

Hello blogland!    I've been working on a box of cards for Operation Write Home and I thought this would be a good time to remind my bleeps of some deadlines coming up FAST:

Easter - due Feb 15

Bunnies and chicks, as well as religious cards are welcome! Please separate "spring" from "Easter" in your packages, as we want to be certain anything for Easter specifically gets mailed in time.

Mother's Day - due March 31It's not too early to start thinking about Mom and Dad cards! Consider sending in a half dozen of these while sending in your other spring cards, just to get our stash built up for the first Moms Day boxes! Also - if you can separate your cards out so that the ones that say "Happy Mother's Day" are separate from the ones that say "Love you Mom", that helps us be able to get the Mother's Day cards targeted to mail first, and fill in with the general ones!

A few special notes regarding holiday cards:

1. With the reductions in overseas deployments, we need fewer cards. (We still need a lot, but much less than before.) Therefore please take your time, and focus on quality over quantity. We get a lot of cards tossed together as multiples - speed is no longer an issue, so we can take time to play and really get creative now!

2. If you're making a lot of cards for any season, multiples OR just a large number, remember to get your cards in TWO WEEKS BEFORE any posted deadlines; sending a couple hundred cards right at the deadline really makes it nearly impossible to get your cards mixed in the last couple boxes!

3. Make "general" cards that can also be used for a holiday - those are the MOST useful to our heroes. Love cards during Valentines season, spring flowers at Eastertime, snowmen at Christmas. No sentiment gives the card a longer shelf life and makes it more flexible for our heroes' use.

Remember, just because the military is finally out of Iraq doesn't mean that OWH doesn't still need cards!  Please consider making some cards for this wonderful organization!  Go HERE for all the details.

A birthday card from scraps

Hello blogland!  I've been catching up on my scrapping and was on a roll this weekend!  I got three layouts finished yesterday in no time using the "Happy Day" collection from Simple Stories - love it!  Today I wanted to clean off my desk and decided to make a birthday card for my next box to Operation Write Home from the scraps sitting there and here's what I came up with:

I distressed the edges to make it a little more vintage looking and popped up the sentiment and banner with some pop dots to give it just a little bit of dimension.  One-two-three and it was done and is already in the box ready to go to one of our heroes.  Don't forget to stop by OWH and check out today's sketch challenge HERE.

More CAS cards and fun techniques

Hello blogland!  I had another fun day at Day 8 of the On-Line Clean and Simple class and have two new cards to share with you:

This first card is from Jennifer McGuire's  Mirror Image Stamping technique and was tons of fun.   I'm not crazy about the stamped images I chose and think I'll be re-doing this one.

This second card is a cut-out shape on the front page and masked that image on the inside of the card.  This was very quick and easy to do but tomorrow I'll be adding a large stamped image onto the front of the card - just too plain like this. 

Can't wait for Day 9 of class - this has been so much fun and given me so many great ideas for CAS projects.

Another CAS card and technique - masking

Hello blogland!  I'm playing catch-up with some of the cards from the On-Line CAS card making class, and this card is from Day 2 - masking.  How come I've never done this before??  It was so fun and easy, I'll be doing it more :)

Fun, fun, fun and so easy too - and the big secret?  Post-it notes!  I used the Post-it notes to make a rectangle in the center and used one of the new Sizzix/Hero Arts Die and Stamp sets to cut out a mask for both the flower and sentiment. After stamping the text in the center and removing the post-its, it was simple to stamp the flower and large sentiment.  One-two and it was done :)

Next up, here's another quick and easy valentine card made from a wide ribbon and a thin ribbon:

Another super simple CAS card - the LOVE stamp is from a Tim Holtz set but the heart was cut from 4 inch rosette trim from KarlaS001 Etsy Shop.  I stamped a heart image on a piece of scrap cardstock and traced in on the back of the trim to cut it out - no shredding or tearing :)  I finished the card off with two pieces of red/white ribbon and two pieces of white pearl sprays also from Karla's shop and viola, done!

Distress Inks and Watercolor Paper

Hello blogland!  Today I have two more cards to share from the On-Line Clean and Simple class - Day 5:

This first card is my version of the project presented by Jennifer McGuire and I had a ball making this one!  Using watercolor paper for the card base, I heat embossed the butterflies and sentiment with white embossing powder, then topped it off with some Distress inks sprayed with Perfect Pearls and let it air dry.  Quick, easy and fun.

This second card is my take on the project presented by Shari Carroll and although it used the same supplies it was much more detailed and took a while to complete.  I changed a few things but in the end, it's a fun project.  Can't wait for day 6 of class :)

Paper Piecing and a Bloomer

Hello blogland!  I'm on a crafty roll this week and have another card to share :)  I'm trying to catch up on the weekly challenges at Crafting by Designs and the challenge was to bread out some valentine stamps, and I knew just the stamp to use:

Both stamps are from StampersBest and you can find them HERE.  I stamped the heart image twice; first on some light brown cardstock and next on the red gingham cardstock, both from K&Co.  I cut out a few of the hearts from the gingham cardstock and then layered it on top of the other piece.  But it still needed something.....and lucky for me I just got an order from KarlaS001 Etsy store that had the pink bloomers in it.  One was sort of heart shaped, so I played around with a little glue and helped it along, and viola - a valentine bloomer!  Be sure to check out both StampersBest and KarlaS001 Etsy store - fabulous!!

Two cards from CAS class

Hello blogland!  I had some time to play today and got two cards made from Week 1 of the Clean and Simple on-line card making class going on this week.  What fun!  CAS is my style anyway so I've been looking forward to this class :)

This card is from a sketch from day 1, and the idea is to mask off a section of the center and then use a large background stamp around it - easy.  Then I took a Unity stamp and inked up just a small section of it and added it to the middle and lightly colored the image with Copics.  A small Unity sentiment and three tiny brads and I was all done with this one!

Next up is a card from Day 2, and took out the largest stamp I have (from Stampin' Up) and used the brightest red ink I had (also Stampin' Up), and masked off sections of an A2 card so only a portion of each image stayed on the card. 

Two minutes and this card was done :)  By changing just the sentiment, this card could be used for so many occassions.

Putting away the holiday stamps

Hello blogland!  It's time to put away the holiday stamps and take out something with flowers :)  This is one of our first challenges over at Crafting by Designs this week, and I dove right into it.

This version was colored with Copic markers, layered on a scrap of DCWV paper and some Tim Holtz paper and a piece of antique ivory lace.

This version I colored with some watercolor pencils and blended with a water pen, layered up on scraps of DCWV paper and a piece of Stampin' Up ribbon, and used a Unity stamp for the sentiment.

Come on over to Crafting by Designs and join our new challenges - so much great creative inspiration!!

A Year in Cards

Hello blogland! The first week in January is just flying by - almost Thursday already!  I wanted to share my first project of the new year.

This is the first card in a new series at Crafting by Designs - A Year in Cards.  We're building up our stash of everyday cards and I chose to make a Thinking of You card for a dear friend who is having a rough time right now.  Sometimes it's just a little thing like a card that can bring a smile, and I hope this card does just that. 

Stop over at Crafting by Designs and see the other great creations and challenges.

What's new for 2012 with Crafting by Designs?

Hello blogland and Happy New Year! The holidays came and went in a woosh, but we had a wonderful time.  And this week it's finally time to get back to some new features and challenges at Crafting by Designs. 

Want to join us?  Sure you do - pop over HERE and join us!

Brand new weekly challenges, some new weekly features, and two great sponsors this month.