Sunday, June 27, 2010

Alphabet Soup

I picked up the DCWV 'Alphabet Mat Stack' at TJ Maxx and I decided to make all the 'mongram' pages into a set of simple notecards for Operation Write Home. I used plain white cardstock and decorated envelopes to match. Hopefully people will be able to use the cards to write simple notes in. :) I just trimmed the pages down slightly smaller than that cards and glued them on.

When I was done I had a whole pile of small offcuts from the edges of the stack. I didn't want to throw them out but they're a lot smaller than any of the scraps I usually keep... so I made up a simple design that would show them off to advantage and I made a second set of notecards! I put the lighter-coloured paper onto dark cardstock so it would show up, and I lined the dark cards with a simple white liner. It's not often that I can get 50 cards made in three hours!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

My Summerhaven Card Recipe Challenge

The Stamphaven board is having a celebration of Summer and cardmaking called 'Summerhaven'. I'm hosting a number of challenges, but the largest is to follow a card recipe and make a set of four cards celebrating the four seasons.

Here's the recipe I have assigned for the challenge:
I've given you two weeks to do this challenge because you have to make more than one card to complete it. The theme of this recipe challenge is The Four Seasons.

1) Choose a stamp set or three/four individual stamps that you would like to use. You will use these same stamps for ALL the cards.
2) Choose a colour combination for each card - black/white plus TWO other colours. Do not repeat colours between cards except for black/white. (ie. one card might be pink/blue, one might be yellow/red etc.)
3) Choose ONE patterned paper to use on each card. Again, do not repeat.
4) Choose TWO embellishments that you would like to use to finish your cards. (eg. brads and ribbon, lace and buttons etc.) Use these same embellishments on all four cards (but they don't have to be EXACTLY the same - they need to reflect your colour combos.)
5) Now make four cards that reflect the four seasons - Spring, Summer, Autumn/Fall, and Winter.

Upload your completed card set to the gallery with the tag SH10 recipe, and post links to your cards in this thread.

And here are my four sample cards. As you can see we have Spring - red/green, Summer - yellow/pink, Winter - blue/purple, and Fall - orange/brown. And my two embellishments are buttons and bling. Oh dear - I just noticed that the blue button slid off-center before it dried. I'll fix that, but you get the idea. :)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Sign, sign, everybody needs a sign

No, I haven't run away from home... we went away for the weekend so I didn't do any crafts from Thursday through Monday because of getting ready, going, and coming back. Actually that's not quite true. I took my Cricut into the library on Monday because the children's librarian had asked to see how it works, and I cut a whole bunch of cute things for her then. But I didn't make any cards.

It took so long to cut out the lettering on the Cricut that I offered to make up the signs at home myself during the week. The Children's Program kicks off on Tuesday night, so I have to have them done by the end of this week.
I made six signs yesterday... and I've got seven more to go! I used a sheet of 12" cardstock as the base, cut out lots of lettering with my Cricut, and added assorted decorations to finish the posters off. Thomas is a kiddy colouring page I cut out. I made the paper plate for the cookout sign myself... and the alligator and heron are cute clipart I found online.
And lastly, here's a photo of all the cards I sent in to Sandy last week for OWH... No Any Hero cards this time, but I sent in 50 assorted blank cards for her to play with, and before I packaged them all up I spread them out on the dining table and took a photo.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Thank you for stopping by on the Bloghop! Winners announced!

I'm glad I could share with you on the weekend... I hope everyone saved my free graphics and poems and you're inspired to make some cards with them, as simple or complicated as you like. It doesn't take a lot of skill to make a beginner card - at the most basic level simply print out the sheet and cut it into for and glue it onto some folded cardstock!  Or else you can print out the frame and glue it on and write/draw in the center... Or getting more complicated you can add stickers/embellishments of your own. Either way, you'll have given someone a blessing!

Now to draw my random winners. I usually get DH to pull a number out of the hat but he had to run off to work already, so I'll let random.org do it for me. I have two prizes to give away... my first prize goes to somebody who left a comment on my Memorial Day blog entry - there are 69 of you! And the lucky winner is...

Comment number 59!
Blogger Wendy said...
I've been making cards for OWH since I discovered them during the blog hop last year! Thanks for the inspiration!
May 31, 2010 6:53 PM
WENDY, you don't have an email or profile on your blog page, so I hope you can get in touch with me to claim your surprise. I've got an envy of goodies to send you.

My second prize was for somebody who Followed my blog either during the weekend or earlier. I have 41 followers now, and the winner is...

Follower Number 5! I'll count from the top of the list simply because it's easier to get to. That would make it BETTY! I didn't realise that you can't get from the little pictures under 'follow me' to the person's blog, but Betty was kind enough to leave an email addy in her comment so it's not a problem. (That's not why I chose her, Random.org picked the number, but she made it easy for me!) Congratulations Betty. I just need me a message with your address to claim your prize.

And lastly, there were a  few people who left comments that said something along the lines of 'I'm a beginner/new crafter and I've been inspired to make cards by the hop' - I've been crafting for ten years, and I've got more supplies than you can shake a stick at and I love to share. :) So please, if you would like a beginner's package of goodies, get in touch with me and I'd be more than happy to send you some stuff with no strings attached.