Pansy cards

These pansies are based on a tutorial that was posted to the Stars and Stamps blog this week. They're actually really easy to make - you need five punched petals and you trim two of them in half to make the smaller petals. The tutorial used a large butterfly punch and I don't have one, but I figured out how to get a similar result using a small seashell punch. My flowers are a lot smaller and fiddlier than hers (because of the size) but I love how they came out. I guess mine are violas. One nice thing about flowers - no two of them are ever exactly the same, so it adds to the verisimilitude to use different colours and slightly different petal shapes. :P You can see the tutorial here.

May RSC Sketch Challenge

When I looked at the sketch for this month's card contest on the Rubber Stamp Chat site, it reminded me of one of the templates I have for my Fiskars scrapboss... so I sat down and made myself a 3-dimensional layered card. Btw the paper behind the butterfly is white, not grey... but the butterfly is 3D and it raised the card up enough that it didn't scan very well.

I started with my oval wreath template - I embossed it, then I turned the template over and put the card back underneath it and I coloured in the flowers and leaves with my chalks using tiny bits of tissue as a brush. I haven't ever tried this technique before - I have chalks but I virtually never use them! But I wanted the colours to be softer than ink would have produced. A bit of green got where I didn't want it to be, but it was easily rubbed off with my sticky eraser.

Once the wreath was coloured to my satisfaction I took it out of the template and put my Colluzzle Oval into the center to cut out the middle. Then I inked the edges and the sides lightly with a couple of shades of green ink, stamped my corner designs and sentiment, and put a plain white card inside. Lastly I stuck down my butterfly (a 3D sticker) and my card was finished. And now I'm done, I'm going for a swim!

365 Cards - Ippity Week

I just wasn't in the card-making mood this week... so today I had a whole week's worth of cards to do! Good thing I've been inspired by the Operation Write Home Memorial Day Bloghop... I was originally going to make all my cards red, white and blue in honour of the weekend, but that didn't really work out, so I settled for making them all Thinking of You/Miss You cards. OWH always needs these and I don't make enough of them!

Day 84 - Sketchy Sunday
I kept it very simple and used scraps of paper for the rays... I wish I hadn't drawn those stars in around the stamped sentiment because they didn't turn out at all the way I'd pictured them, but what's done is done! It wasn't horrible enough to need to cover it up. 

Day 85 - Flora and Fauna. Use a plant/flower and some kind of wildlife on your card.
This is where the red, white and blue theme broke down... because the first thing I thought of was some wild animal stamped images that I was RAKed, and that went with my gorgeous Safari paper pack. 

Day 86 - Keep it Simple. Use ONE stamped image, ONE stamped sentiment, and ONE embellishment. No patterned paper allowed.
I've had this printed image for donkey's years... 

Day 87 - All Natural. Incorporate something natural (flower, leaf etc.) into your card.
I tried making a leafy card with skeleton leaves... but they looked horrible when I glued them down so I trashed that one and went with something a bit more cooperative - some genuine pau shell :) I just adore those colours... 

Day 88 - Insect Frenzy. Use three different kinds of bug on your card, with at least ten bugs in total.
There are about 25 dragonflies on this card alone... I stamped the background with a stampin' up leafy stamp and layered the dragonflies on top. 

Day 89 - Courage and Strength
A very simple card. The sentiment and embellishment were both RAKs. 

Day 90 - Card Recipe.

• 5x5 Card
• 3 stamps (including the sentiment)
• String, fiber or twine
• 2 patterned papers
• 4 blossoms 

This is the only card from this week that's HARD! I'm still working on it. I've never made a card quite like this before... but that's what's great about the challenges - they really stretch my imagination!

And that's the end of Ippity Week!

Memorial Day Bloghop Goody List

(Go back one entry for my bloghop proper.)

The lesson I learned last time is never try to REMEMBER where the goodies are when there are more than a dozen blogs involved! After forgetting where everything was I went back and revisited the blogs and made a list, and it worked great for me and everyone else... so I'm doing it again. As I go through the 150+ blogs on the list, I'll be noting down any that have giveaways or that I need to revisit for future inspiration.

Starting with mine and moving down.

• Creating with Kajikit - free Any Hero poems, coloured digital frame and ready-to-print cards. Patriotic blog candy to win.
• Splashes of Joy - email for a free Missing You patriotic digit set with a puppydog theme.
•  Carolyn has blog candy and three cards so gorgeous I couldn't pick a favourite if you held me at gunpoint.
• Anita has blog candy if you sign up to follow her blog, and instructions for making sweet little pinwheel cards.
• Kathy has promised to make a card for OWH for every comment she recieves, so make sure you leave her some fodder! She also has cute blog candy.
• Joanne has made a card with a very unusual spiral popup, and she gives you instructions on how to make it yourself. She also has a link to a perfect digital freebie for OWH. 
• Sherrie at Impressionable Art has blog candy in return for spreading the word about OWH.
• Sbartist has blog candy, and she shares a cute flag card I might have to borrow.
• Claudia shares a link to a free downloadable spidey digi.
• Debby shares some unusual vintage-style cards and tribute to a fallen airman... and if you follow her blog she has candy too.
• The Midnight Crafter shows us how to many many different cards from one simple background design.
• Lindsey has some blog candy to give away, and a simple sketch to try.
• Lastly, the OWH blog has some gorgeous digital freebies to download and some bumper boxes of cardstock to give away.
• (I sense a trend here! Not a lot of tutorials etc to link to, but LOTS of candy to win! It's time for a break. I'll be back later with more from the first half of the blog.) 

Back to the start of the Hop... (I started from my own blog, 2/3 of the way through the list.)

• You get some yummy blog candy and a freebie to get you started on the Stars and Stamps blog
• Kate has a questionare on blog tutorials... and blog candy for answering it.

And it looks as if every second person has blog candy so I'm not going to list them all... this is getting repetitive! Let's see if anyone has anything else to note. :) (nothing against the candy, but if almost everyone has it then it defeats the purpose of trying to make a checklist. I'm going to just note things OTHER than your basic candy or I'm going to wear my fingers out typing.

• Pat's card is very simple... but I'm bookmarking it for exactly that reason. It takes a deft touch to make such a clean and simple card look good... and I want to borrow her design for OWH. I need some quick-and-easy card designs to help fill my next box!
• Caryl has a challenge for us! Make a card using the simple sketch she's included in her blog entry, and you could win a genuine set of SU stamps. 
• Paula has a sweet little patriotic chick for us to download.
• You can't go past Sandy's blog - she's made us a whole sheet of digital images to use, AND she has a tutorial on making backgrounds with waxed paper AND as if that's not enough, she has a challenge for us to make a card this weekend using her image/s to win another prize.
• WinkWinkInk is giving us a free patriotic teddybear to play with...
• Don't worry be Scrappi has free digital graphics featuring Oscar the Camel... and if you make a card featuring Oscar you could win a yummy stack of blog candy.
• Create with me has a little video tutorial on masking

There are too many to list everyone... everyone is so generous with their stashes this year! I'm not even halfway through the list and it's time for bed. 

It's bloghop time!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to you all...

This entry is part of the Operation Write Home Memorial Day Weekend Bloghop. If you are following the hop in order you should have come to this blog from Christy's 'Wonderfully Complex Designs'. If you've come from some place else, you're welcome to join the hop - there are well over 100 blogs signed up, so there's plenty of beautiful cards to admire, ideas to be gained, and blog candy to be won. The official start of the hop it at http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org but it's a big circle so you can pick it up from here and not miss out on anything.

Speaking of blog candy... Last time we had a blog-hop I asked people to do a challenge - but I didn't realise that when you have 100+ blogs to get through in a weekend you really don't have the time to follow up on them all! My challenge was too complicated for the time-frame available, and my blog candy was unclaimed. So this time I'll make it easy for you. I have not one but two small patriotic grab bags of goodies to give away, so there are two things you can do to win - 1) Follow my blog. And 2) Leave me a comment on this entry. Don't forget to include your blog/website/email etc so I can get in touch with you some way if you're a winner.
If you do both you get two shots. On Tuesday I'll draw some lucky numbers from a hat and two people get an envy. Now that's not too hard, is it? :)

Your prize will contain various goodies to make beautiful patriotic cards, and they'd make great Any Hero Cards for Operation Write Home. OWH always needs notes and cards of encouragement to include in the shipping boxes... The message doesn't have to be fancy and complicated - just from the heart like these little ditties I created (feel free to borrow/adapt them to your needs).

Dear Hero

this I pray

God bless you

every day

 (OR God keep you

Safe today)

*****

To our Heroes

Thank you for your courage

Thank you for your dedication

Thank you for your willingness to serve

Thank you for your strength

Thank you from America

My other gift to you is is a sheet that I created to print patriotic cards. I made the frames from scratch in photoshop and added free graphics I found online. It was made to print on a standard sheet of paper. Just print it out, cut it into four and mount the images on a plain card and voila.

And in case you don't like the whole sheet, here's a single frame with a blank center you can use to make your own card from scratch.

When you're done with my entry, your next stop on the hop is Katlyn's 'Splashing with Joy. She's new to OWH so make her feel welcome - and she has a lovely free graphic to share.

Stars and Stamps Wednesday

This week's challenge is to make a card with stars on it... which fits right into my push to make some 4th July cards before the deadline! 4th July cards have to arrive at a mailer by June 1st, which means this is your very last week to get them done. If you think you'll be too late to get your cards to a mailer, don't put 'July 4th' or 'Independence Day' on them, make them general cards in red/white/blue etc and they can still be used afterwards.

If you're still in the mood for red/white/blue cards, Operation Write Home is having a big bloghop next weekend for Memorial Day. There are approximately 130 blogs signed up and it's not too late to join in! Click here. I know what I'll be doing next weekend...

365 Cards - Day 81/82/83

Day 81- Setting the Scene (make a picnic card)
The ant and cutlery are diecuts somebody gave me... I've had them for ages and I didn't have a clue what they'd come in handy for - it just goes to show you'll find a use for ANYTHING eventually!  I made my own paper plate - I cut a half-circle with the colluzzle and used my Fiskars Scrapboss to create the rim.

 Day 82 - Substitution Please (use a number in your sentiment instead of a word)
This was a lot harder than it sounds... In the end I came up with a very simple card that has a lot of hand-writing on it. Inside the card is a fancy swirly 'congratulations' stamp because it's obviously for a wedding or an engagement.

Day 83 - 4-wheel drive
I hope some little boy will like this monster truck card!