Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The OWH Spring Break Bloghop is coming!

 
It's time for the annual Operation Write Home Spring Bloghop. I'll be making a special blog entry for the hop and offering up a tutorial/challenge - there are 75 bloggers signed up already. Will you join us? Sign your blog up here. 

While we're on the subject of OWH their current challenge is the Half and Half Challenge - send in half Mother's/Father's Day cards and half general cards... but they have to be in the hands of the shippers by March 15th, so time is short! I mailed in a small package last week and I'm working on a second today because if I do my maths right it has to go out in the mail tomorrow to make sure it gets there on time! 

And now on to the next Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge. 

This design isn't new to me... in fact I submitted my own version that was almost identical just last week, but Erika got in first! When I have scraps and oddments of cardstock or paper left over, I'll trim them into even-width strips and use them to make a card base, arranged either horizontally, vertically or diagonally according to their length. The main difference between my version and Erikas is that I run the strips all the way across the card and trim them off at the edge - that way I don't have to try to line them up evenly at the ends! 
Erika incorporated a border, so I cheated. I cut myself a rectangle of coloured cardstock the right size to have a border around it and lined three strips up it, then I glued THAT onto the card base. The visual effect is the same, it was just easier to line up! The paper strips were long enough to do a horizontal card as well as a vertical one, so I made them both at the same time - I just left the end strips wider for the second card.
 
Here's another variation I did on the sketch... This one actually only uses two strips of paper - I cut the border on the middle piece and mounted it, then trimmed it at the appropriate width and glued it onto the card base. I finished it with sticker lettering and some cute little hearts.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the masculine twist. Very nice cards.

Erika said...

Great cards! And that's so smart to do the larger rectangle with 3 strips - I never would have thought of that (even though it's so obvious!!).

Thanks for playing!

Anonymous said...

Well... that's quiet interessting but honestly i have a hard time seeing it... wonder what others have to say..

hiscreation2 said...

Karen, I love you cards expecially the 3rd one! Just fabulous!

Anonymous said...

Good intrepretation of the sketch karen. I like the horizontal one to, and the border used on the the 3rd is a great twist! TFS

Seongsook Duncan said...

Nice cards and great tip! I was thinking about the same tip as you mentioned. Thanks for sharing.

CARO said...

Especially love the colors in the first two cards! Interesting how they look so different with same paper, just turned the other way!

Sandy said...

Great job on these!!