Kiddy cards

Last year I bought a couple of 'sporty' paper packs and some diecuts... and I decided it was time to finally use some of them up and make some kid cards. Not at all my usual style, but fun once I decided what to do with them. I started making them before the challenge was posted, but these match last week's 'Cards for Kids' challenge on the Stars and Stamps blog.

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!

Catching Up again

These two cards are about as far from my usual style as you can get... I picked up a couple of 'scrap packs' and paper stacks at the discount store yesterday. I tend to buy this stuff and stash it away and never actually use it, so I decided to use one of the packs for today's challenges. Teenage boys and young men need cards too, and I need to try to think outside my 'pretty-pretty' box! Everything on these two cards is from the kit except the bling.

The first card is for S&S Sketch Challenge #12 - last weekend's Stars and Stamps sketch. I'm too late to get it into the slideshow, but not too late to post it! Here's the sketch.

And here's my take on it. I took a few liberties with the sketch because the game ticket just seemed to belong there. I need a new paper-trimmer - it tends to make ragged edges instead of nice smooth cuts and I have to trim everything down again with scissors if I want it to be neat, but for this card I think that's an advantage.

My second card is for 365 Cards last white-space challenge, Day 48. It's been fun, but very challenging, to do all these white-space cards. I don't usually use a lot of negative space, and it's hard to think SIMPLE instead of complex! But I love the end results, so it's been a great week.

The embellishment on the base of my card came pre-made in the kit, and I kept the top part pretty simple and used some blingy stars to echo it. It still looks like it needs something on the top arrow to me, but I'm not sure what!

Oops!

I HAVE been making cards... but I love to watch the Olympic ice-skating and it's taking a big chunk out of my time every evening! The other day I went to the Dollar Tree and they had some Miss Elizabeth's paper packs with matching diecuts (they called them 'vellum quotes' but they're just printed on white cardstock...) so I opened the pack and started making simple cards. I used a few of my own papers to co-ordinate but I mostly just used the pack. And here are my cards... I still have half the paper and some more diecuts left to play with too!

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!

WCD Challenge #2 - The Envelope of Goodness

For one of the challenges this weekend, we were mailed an envlope of mystery goodness to make into cards. Here's what was in mine - two pieces of blue cardstock, three different patterned papers, a couple of big stickers, a long red ribbon, some stamped camping images, some really cute little mini-buttons, and some even cuter handmade embellishments. (note - if you can't see all the image on the screen, click on it to go to photobucket and see the fullsized version.)


And here's what I did with it... I still have half the goodies left, but I made three cards.


I've always liked doing collage cards and when I saw the caravan sticker it seemed like a natural to me! These two cards use a landscape border strip that I have had lying around for a long time. I cut it in half and it was just long enough to do two cards. The one card is finished with handmade paper that someone gave me, and the other has a couple of strips of torn cardstock to make the 'grass'.I cut a few of the images out of the patterned paper and coloured in the stamps to make my camping scenes. The one thing that my envelope of goodness was missing was people, so I used a cute little stamp that I happen to have to round things off. I may possibly add a greeting or some tiny flowers to these cards but for tonight they're finished...

And then I made an entirely different style of card.

This one uses the brown patterned paper with writing on it, some punching, and the gorgeous little pair of handmade embellishments that was in my envelope. I was going to use the red ribbon to finish it off but I forgot to glue it down before I put the dragonflies on... oops! so I finished the card off with a pair of sticker strips that happened to match nicely.

Fall challenge - one sheet, ten cards

I tend to be a patterned-paper hoarder... I get something pretty and I think to myself 'I'll save that for something special' and I never actually cut into it because I don't want to 'waste' it, especially for something small like a greeting card that I could make out of scraps. I don't toss out any patterned paper or cardstock that's more than about an inch square unless it's hopelessly mangled. I put it into a set of iris drawers sorted by colour, and I can pull out whichever colour I feel like using that day and rifle through the scraps at my leisure. But that doesn't deal with the paper stacks that are sitting on my shelf almost unused, or the beautiful Debbi Mumm holidays stack that I just bought! So today I set myself a mini-challenge. I took one sheet of paper from last year's Fall stack and started cutting, and when I was done I had ten cards to start my Fall collection for Cards for Heroes.

From this -


To this in an afternoon -


The cards were embellished with various stamps, stickers and other bits and pieces from my collection of 'stuff'... The three dark brown cards were very lightly dry-brushed with gold and copper paint because they needed a little brightening up.

And now I give you a challenge - how many cards can YOU make from one sheet of patterned paper? You can use as much cardstock as you like and any other embellishments or decorations you want, but only ONE sheet of patterned paper. Cards for Heroes can use any kind of greeting card you care to make, but especially Halloween/Fall/Thanksgiving and holiday cards. Start creating! Then link back here and show us what you've made... if I get enough responses somebody will get a prize!