I hope you enjoyed the blog skip

I hope you enjoyed the first OWH blog skip on the weekend. I had great fun making my cards and seeing what I could do with the supplies I was given. There'll be another one soon, so keep your eyes peeled for it. I'll draw my three winners a bit later today just in case anyone's running late, but this morning I have 48 comments to choose from.

In the meantime, here are some cards I made over the weekend. The Stamphaven group were holding a spring-themed Challenge week last week and I made some time to play. (Interested? The board is free, and you can go check out the challenges and posts any time to get some inspiration.) I hosted a challenge on one of my favourite topics - punched flowers. The hardest one was the 'raid your stash' challenge - not because you had to dip into old supplies, but because you had to incorporate a rubber stamp that you owned and had never used for a card! I really don't do a lot of stamping and I made plenty of cards that qualified on the stash front, but without a stamp.

Colour challenge - red/orange; and punched flowers

Colour challenge - red/orange and punched flowers (flower was made with a circle punch and a tree punch)

Black and white challenge

Black and white challenge again, made with scrap cardstock and a Martha Stewart border punch

'Clear the Clutter' challenge - using stuff you had lying around on your desk and in your stash)

3D challenge (the bird is done in four layers with cardstock scraps inbetween to raise them more subtly than popdots)

Fruity card challenge

Pure Stamping

I've been playing with my stamps this week and I've made a bunch of cards that are ONLY stamped as part of the Stamphaven Summerhaven celebration (there was a challenge to do pure stamping and one to make blue birthday cards and one to make a card about staying cool in the summer... The first trio of cards also happens to fit into the Stars and Stamps midweek challenge for this week - Something Tasty. :)

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. :)

Stamphaven Blog Banners

I post a lot to the Stamphaven board... it's for stamping cardmakers and other stamp-artists, and a lot of the people there support Operation Write Home (which was how I found the board in the first place!) The stamphaven logo is a rectangle and it didn't translate to my blog very well... so I disassembled it and made some square versions. There are lots of cool tools and tips on Obsidian Dawn Resources, including the Scroll Brush I used to decorate my banner (yes, it's exactly the same scroll that was originally used - I was thrilled to find it on google!) 

Here is the original rectangular banner...

And here are my blog versions... As you can see, one uses the central (blank) part of the orginal banner for a background, one uses another misty winter scene that ends up generally pale and un-tree-like, and the last uses plain black and white... feel free to make use of any of them to link back to Stamphaven!

 

Card with stamps

Somebody RAKed me the crocheted ribbon ages ago. I think it was meant to be a bookmark... but I didn't really have a use for it so it sat in my 'miscellaneous' drawer waiting. The challenge for this card was to make a vintage-style card, and the lacy crochet made me think Vintage, so I finally put it to good use.

Button Cards for Winterhaven and Stars and Stamps

I made these two for a Winterhaven challenge that simply said to use buttons on a card... I bought a stamp that says 'hoppy easter' at Joanns. It had a hopping bunny in between the two words and I didn't really like it that way, so I dismantled the stamp and cut it into three parts. That gives me the freedom to use the words together or seperately, since that's the only Easter greeting stamp I have!

 

Card Number One uses flower buttons from Joanns and a little blingy flower to fill in the empty space. The little bunny is a sticker from the Dollar Tree.

 Now I think of it, this second card is eligible for the Stars and Stamps midweek challenge, so I'll have to go and add it to Mister Linky - that challenge was to use two patterned papers and a button on your card. I don't think it said 'ONLY' one button! I stamped the bunny with an Inkadinkadoo stamp and coloured him in with markers (please ignore how poor my colouring skills are!) I left the bunny white and coloured in the background instead. I double-matted him and finished the card off with some lovely shiny buttons.

Altered Diecut Challenge

Here's a card I made tonight for the 'altered diecut' challenge on Winterhaven. I used a set of nesting diecuts and stamped them (and the card base) with stamps from a Heidi Grace set. It needed a little something more so I trimmed the largest size diecut into a border strip and added brads and a silk flower.

Today's Challenge - the Winterhaven Spring Fling

No, you don't have to throw anything out... the challenge was to grab five random items from your stash that you didn't have any definite purpose for, and to combine them into a card.

 Item 1, and my starting point, was the pre-stamped card base. I was making another card design and I messed up my sentiment so the card was ready to be trashed. But I figured I could reuse it if I covered over the botched stamping with another similarly-sized sentiment from my RAK box (item 2). That left a lengthy rectangular space to fill in and what better than some punchie flowers? (item 3). Item four was a little purple diecut tag floating around in my diecut collection, and 4b was an odd purple flower brad that went with it. But a tag needs something on it, which brings me to my last item - a message recycled from the inside of a Christian greeting card, which just fit nicely when I trimmed it into smaller segments.

Want to give it a go? Here's the original challenge thread over on Winterhaven.

Rubber stamped flowers

I made three cards tonight with the same basic stamp - a gorgeous flower from Heidi Grace. I finished them with other stamps, brads and a few stickers... all three are for Challenges over at Winterhaven.
The first is for the 'use at least three stamps on your card' challenge:

The 'Use something Wood on your card' challenge.


And lastly, '3D stamping' challenge.

Girly embossed cards

You might wonder why I keep talking about how hard it is to make my cards - I injured my hand on Jan 1st, and after struggling along all month, it's in a thumb brace for the next two weeks... it sure slows me down, but I'm doing my best to complete at least one card a day to follow through on my promise.

I made these two cards for the 'A little brassy' challenge over at Winterhaven - to use brass stencil/s to make your card. I haven't used my brass stencils and lightbox in living memory but I dragged them out for this challenge and made a pair of girly cards... I embossed the tag first as a practice run and I decided to make it into a card as well because it worked out.

Aside from the stencils I used a whole flock of  ink pads - the very pale one is Memento angel pink; the middling dark one on the edges of the cards is from Joanns Essentials pink rainbow pad, and the purple accent is Stamp It Circus Rainbow.
I also used some rainbow edging stickers, sticker lettering, some photo corners from the Dollar Tree, and a big pink blingy butterfly.

A 3D flower card & my first blog candy!

I actually made two cards tonight... but one of them is a sample for Winterhaven 2010, so you'll have to wait till next week to see it! I'm excited about Winterhaven - there are lots of juicy challenges lined up for the two weeks and exciting prizes to be won. Come along and check it out - it'll be lots of fun. Now on to today's card...

Like most of my cards, this one designed itself... I started with the stamped border, and I got ink on the corner of the block and made a big mark in the middle of the card, so I had to cover that up somehow. I used the center of a sticky diecut frame to cover up the mess. It also covered up part of the border but that was okay! Then I added a RAKed stamped sentiment mounted off-center. And lastly it needed something to embellish the top of the mat and tie the colours together. I dug out some pastel punchy flowers and layered them into a 3D flower. To make the leaves 3D, lay them on a felt pad and draw a stylus down the center of the leaf to stretch and curl it. It adds a lot more life to them than leaving them flat. Apologies that the pic is so blurry. It's dark and the card had wet glue on it so I had to photograph it rather than scanning (besides the scanner would have squashed the flower!) and it came out rather blurry.

Stamp - Heidi Grace, Ink - Big and Juicy Hydrangea

On another note, I have six followers! Thank you for adding me to your list... I'm very excited, and when I get to 12 followers I'd like to reward someone with a RAK. So tell your friends... and don't forget to leave me comments so I know you're here!

WCD - How many challenges could I do at once?

I challenged people to see how many of the 14 listed challenges they could incorporate into a single card... and then I had a go at it myself. Almost everyone managed two (a tag with an eyelet does that nicely without even requiring any extra imagination!)... a lot of people did three-in-one (eg. a red tag eyelet card). And two people managed four. I made two different cards which incorporated four challenges... and then I topped it all off by cramming no less than SIX onto a single card! So without further ado, let me show them off to you...


Firstly, a red, punched, tag card with glimmery hearts on it. I've already written about this card, so I don't need to repeat myself, and it's so simple it should be self-evident. I punched a border strip on the light red cardstock and then added the dark red strip with the dragon punched in it. There was a flaw in the edging that I needed to cover up (it's easy to slip with the border punch and to double-punch one of those little holes), so I made the tag run the full length of the card and it magically disappeared underneath... I made it a new years card because the red and the dragon made me think of the Chinese New Year. And that's it. (more cards after the break)

World Card-making Day Wrap-up

I was planning to make a post for each individual challenge I completed... but I was too busy making cards to take the time! So I decided to wait until the end of the weekend and sum everything up. There were 15 challenges posted over the weekend, and I managed to complete them all, making 17 cards in total. A few cards overlapped and counted for more than one challenge, but I managed to cover the lot. And here is the list of challenges for you in case you want to try any of them:

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.

WCD Challenge #1 - make an entirely red card

This one was a bit trickier than I anticipated... the rules say to use red and ONLY red. Not red background with a coloured pattern on it... it has to be red on red. I rummaged through my scrap box and found that I had more pieces of red paper than I thought I did... and in the end I came up with two very simple cards. Sometimes simple is the best.

My first card plays off the New Year theme - I have a nice big dragon punch in my punch drawer and I found a negative image I'd punched out for something else (the darkest cardstock is nice thick textured CS), which gave me the idea. Red is the traditional colour for good luck to the Chinese people, and you'll see a lot of red and gold around the Chinese New Year. I had to skip the gold here... but the card works anyway. I wanted to stamp on the tag, but I didn't have any ink that would show up effectively on the red cardstock - my red ink is too light and it just faded into the background, and darker colours just looked black or brown. Not to mention smeary because acrylic stamps work best with the quick-dry black ink! So I grabbed a red pen and hand-wrote my tag, and then I finished it with a couple of little red hearts for a touch of bling, and a tangle of shiny red fibers.