S&S CASE Challenge

Yes... it's another entry for today! This weekend Stars and Stamps held a CASE challenge. CASE stands for 'copy and share everything' and it's otherwise known as scraplifting. You find somebody else's design that you really like, or that gives you an idea, and you make your own version of it. I had a rummage around various blogs tonight, and this particular card struck me as cute and simple, and it gave me a chance to use my circle punch, which was a lovely gift from Teresa.

Here is a link to Cat's original card design. The card I chose is at the bottom of the entry so scroll down a bit to see it. It's a nice simple design using squares and circles of patterned paper with embellishments added to fancy it up. And now for my version. Actually this is just mark one. I've got the bits cut out to do another few, as well!

I don't own a corner punch so I traced the edge of the gluestick and trimmed the corners by hand. The squares were cut with my trimmer (1-1/2 inches square if anyone wants to CASE my CASE) and I used my circle punch to cut the insides. Embellished with some odds and ends from my embellishment box, and I hand-wrote the greeting because I don't have any Easter stamps. 

PS. There is ONE stamp on this card for the purists... the pink butterfly paper was randomly stamped to make my own patterned paper.

S&S Sunday Sketch Challenge #02

Time to roll out my attempt at the Stars and Stamps Sunday Sketch Challenge... henceforth referred to as the SSSSC (or the 4S!) Today's sketch was provided by Karen (Feline Creative). Here's her sketch on the left.

And now I give you my version. I used some RAKed materials in this card. The cat is from a set of small notecards a friend gave me to recycle. I trimmed the cat down to size, and rummaged around for patterned paper that would compliment it. In the end I settled on this adorable pale green glimmer paper, which has a very subtle hint of glitter safely embedded under acrylic. I matted the cat on a very narrow mat and decided to put a strip of the same paper down the edge of the card so you could see the adorable pattern. Next to it is a strip of plainer green paper and I used a strip of rub-on stitching (also a RAK!) on the long edge. Add a pseudo-bow, some brads and a tiny stamped greeting and it's done.

Want to try your hand at the challenge or check out the Stars and Stamps blog to see what everyone else has made? Here's the link for you. 

Spread the Happy!

My wrist is too sore to make any cards today. :( So rather than skipping an entry, I'm going to share the cute video that was posted to Operation Write Home today. One little card can make a big difference in the world! Enjoy it, and then go spread the happy!



Remember - the next mailing deadlines for OWH are:
Postmark by these dates:

• Valentines: (passed)
• St Patty's: Feb 12
• Easter: Feb 26
• Mother's Day: April 1
• Graduation: April 19
• Father's Day: May 15
• All other cards: anytime

Cards from scraps and stamps

Today's mission was to see how many partially-assembled cards I could get finished off... I pottered around remounting card fronts and adding sentiments etc. Which brings me to these four - I started to make fridge magnets for Christmas presents but I never glued magnets onto them. I found the stash today and I decided that they'd make cute cards, or at least the non-Christmas-themed ones would!

The pink background is a scrap of bazzill that I'd punched some flowers from. The 'You and me' stamp is my favourite Heidi Grace line and the hearts are Scrappy Cat. The roses were unmounted.
I cut the magnet squares from used cereal boxes and covered them with patterned paper and recycled greeting card images.

The stamps on the left are Heidi Grace. Isn't that corner stamp elegant? It reminds me of Art Nouveau (sp?) My mother had a lovely sideboard with carving very similar to this. I mixed things up a bit for the second card. I used a card background from my ever-dwindling stash... and since I had to use light cardstock for the sentiment, I nested the words on jigsaw pieces.

I'm pretty pleased with this last card. The green background was already stamped and there was a slight flaw in the ivy, so I covered it with a ribbon... then I added a sentiment and a cute wateringcan stamp from my stash. I finished it with a 3D punched flower that's been in my stash forever, with a gem in the middle for bling, and I drew in the rain with a marker - because if it never rained on our gardens, the flowers would never bloom!

Going to try for a Card A Day! EVERY DAY!

I've been wanting to do this for ages... for the next month (February) I'm going to try to post a card a day, every day. It's not that I don't make plenty of cards,  I just never remember to blog about them!

For Today's entry I'm going to show you the cards I made last weekend while we were away. We were meant to go away for an entire week, but DH got sick on Monday morning, so we cut it short and came back on Tuesday instead of Sunday. I tend to take everything but the kitchen sink with me when we go away, and then I don't use the stuff! So this time I made a real effort to travel light. My main source of paper was a paper bundle called the 'Cuteworld Collection' which has plain paper, patterned paper, diecuts and sticker lettering all in the same stack. I rounded up a pile of embellishments that would coordinate with it and packed them into a small plastic box, and I took some of my acrylic stamps and a stack of pre-folded card bases. I also took a couple of paper punches (which didn't get used) and my favourite edging scissors, and of course my basic tool kit. Everything packed neatly into a small scrapbooking tool bag (NOT the big roll-on, I take way too much junk when I use that!) I didn't use everything, but I was only crafting for a couple of hours on one night - if we'd been there for the whole week I'm confident that the kit would have got more use!

There was one important thing I forgot to take with me - glue dots! When we went to dinner the first night, there was a Joanns right beside the restaurant, so I dashed in and got some gluedots and popdots... and they had a bunch of Heidi Grace acrylic stamp sets on clearance for 50% off. I got a set for Christmas and I adore it, so I bought four more. One of the stamps made these first two cards possible. I stamped the background with it. The sentiment on the top card was pre-stamped and the paper came from the paper pack. I finished it with some little metallic heart stickers.
The sentiment on the second card is a black brad... and I used a stray bow to fill in the space underneath because none of my stamps or stickers looked quite right.

My next two cards don't use my stamps at all. The first one uses a diecut from the paper pad, mounted on some red cardstock and popped off the card. The card needed a little something extra so I used some flower stickers in the corners and it was done.
The second card uses a pre-stamped image (I think it's Stampin' Up but I'm not sure because it was a RAK) and a 3D heart sticker that I had handy. The sticker's really cute because it has stitching on it.

And here are my last two cards. The first one uses a diecut from the kit (recognise the punchout center from the card above?) and a simple sticker mounted on paper. The 'I love you' stamp is from Joanns, and the flower border is one of my new Heidi Grace stamps.

The second card uses a piece of patterned paper laid on the diagonal, a simple vintage-style sticker, and a RAKed sentiment that I cut into a mini-tag and fastened on with a brad.

And that's what I did while I was away. The cards are simpler than I usually do because my resources were limited, but they definitely reflect my 'girly' style. I have to work hard to make cards that AREN'T girly!

OWH Stars and Stamps Sunday Sketch Challenge 1

Let's see if I can make this work.... I'm not used to doing challenges from other people's blogs yet!

Operation Write Home now has a card challenge blog... and here's the first challenge!

 The first one I'm quite proud of. I used the sketch as-is and didn't mess with it - sometimes simple is the best. The message was embossed with my Fiskars Scrapboss and then rubbed with ink to darken it.
I cut the border with my favourite Fiskars border punch (if you look at many of my cards you'll see this heart border over and over again because it's so cute!) This simple sketch seemed like a good moment to use a more elaborate patterned paper rather than stamping... the floral sheet is from the 'Cuteworld Collection' that I picked up at Ross.
Lastly I inked the inside edge of the card just to the width of the punching so that it has contrast, and I glued the little heart punchouts from the border onto the card.
Oh, and the challenge said you got bonus points if you incorporated stars, so I used tiny star brads in the corners! Left to my own devices I would have used hearts to tie in with the border but the stars don't look out of place.

And then I made a second card...

This one was intended to be very whimsical and childlike and to use some cute little foamy shapes that a friend gave me. But it didn't come out quite the way I imagined it in my head. It looks better IRL than in the scan but I'm still not entirely thrilled with it. I didn't have enough of the cloud paper to use it as a background for the entire card and it kind of disappears... If I'd been thinking a bit longer I would have turned the card on its side and used it that way, but it didn't occur to me until I'd already cut the strip in half. :( That's one of the hazards of designing your cards as you go along - I never really know how they're going to work out until they're at least half done!
The border is printed vellum, the stars are the cute foamies, the patterned paper and cardstock are scraps, and the sentiment was a RAK from a friend. The biggest squares are three inches but I skewed them. And yes they really do cut off like that at the edge of the card.

My Valentines Box

I never got around to posting this yet... but here's my stash of Valentines that I sent to Operation Write Home. I made 83 cards, and also sent in a bundle of Any Hero Letters that I wrote last month.

I would have liked to do a lot more Valentines - they're fun to make - but I hurt my wrist and couldn't do much crafting. I got a new toy for Christmas and it made the card-making much easier - I got a Cricut Create!  All the cards with the nice clear lettering were done with the Cricut. I only have the Don Juan cartridge that came with it... I LOVE MY CRICUT!