A UFO Card

In my world, I start a lot of cards then get stuck and set them aside. Sometimes they land in the UFO box, and sometimes they sit on my table. Sunday, while getting ready to work on my 20 cards for OWH, I finally said ENOUGH and cleared off the right-hand side of my work space. In the pile were a bunch of long-expired sketches that, while still good sketches, I knew I'd never do them, so I tossed recycled them. Nested in the layers of printed paper were a few UFOs, and one that I decided needed to be saved, like right now. Here is the resulting card, then I'll explain:

I'm fairly certain the washi tape pattern was a sketch I started, then ... stopped. I've since used that yellow tape a lot, so you've seen it before, but these three tapes are a set. Well, they come as a set.

So I stared at that white layer with the washi, then I spied a piece of Caribbean twine laying out, and declared it a match.

Sentiment, it needed a sentiment. This is probably where I got stuck before, but this time I stamped I love you on the left side. Afterwards, I realized I should have left room for some bling in the corner, but, well, no. What you see is what I ended up doing. Not my best work, but it's done and off my table.

Note: All whites are not equal. When you use a piece of remnant white for a layer, good luck finding a matching white card base. This is especially difficult if you're like me and have no brand loyalty yet, so your white remnants are from all over kingdom come. I plan to settle this issue one day, but for now it's a mish-mash, so I opted for a no-stress solution and layered it onto a Pool card base.

And yes, there is a BIG WHITE SECTION up there, but I'm pretending it's not there. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same.

In other news, Sandy has come and gone, and I suffered not one bit. I had power the whole time, and I think I slept through the biggest winds. The Federal and local governments, all schools, and all public transportation were shut down, so with zero traffic it took me about 10 minutes to get to work. That part was sweet. It's back to normal today, though. I feel for all my East Coast peeps who didn't fare as well. Be safe, and I hope you get back to normal very soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used but not linked below: Twinery Caribbean twine, misc white card stock.  

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HYCCT1230 - Cork, Canvas or Clay

[Please scroll down to see my Shopping Our Stash post.]

Today's fabby HYCCT hostess is my bloggy pal Donna, and she challenged us to use cork, canvas or clay on our card. Well, I took this as a challenge to use some of the homemade buttons I tried to make last year. Actually, I was pretty much just playing with polymer clay and made ... well, you'll see.

Here's my card:

I wanted to use those sushi-looking things that were supposed to be buttons, but ... Anyway, I thought they should be flower centers, so I used my MFT Layered Rose Die-namics to cut out enough petals for three flowers. I used my Memento Tuxedo black marker to add a few lines in the center of the flowers before I covered them up with the sushi.

The letter stickers are by Me & My Big Ideas, and they are very glittery. I put some Glossy Accents on a piece of scrap paper and used a tiny brush to paint it over the glitter, Believe it or not, it actually dulled it down a bit! Lookie:

You can also see the cork and the sushi bits in the flowers. I used a die to cut the cork, but it's kinda thick (not the nice thin stuff you can get) so it just left a suggestion of a cut in the cork. I had to help it out a bit. Then I trimmed it anyway, so I guess ... why did I even bother with the die. Sigh.

Only one more HYCCT challenge day after today! Why not stop by the challenge forum and play along?

Thanks for stopping by!

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SOS #75 - Flower Power

It's Tuesday, and that means a new challenge over at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Flower Power and we ask you to use your handmade or 3-d flowers! Your project can include stamped images, but it also needs to have at least one flower that is either handmade or a 3-d flower you bought. Think Wild Orchid Crafts, puffy stickers, Primas, etc.

One thing I do not hoard is flowers, so I chose to make one instead. Here's my card, then I'll explain:

The flower is constructed by folding four scallop circles into quarters, sticking them to a small circle base, and securing them with a brad. I cut some leaves from the reverse of the flower paper, and totally disappeared that paper form The Heaplet. Also from The Heaplet is that piece of textured paper.

The Always Artichoke layer was easily retrieved from my newly organized remnants. The strip of patterned paper is from a now-opened pack of DCWV papers that jumped into my basket from a Mike's sale display. I was weak.

The cork letters are older than dirt. I got them years ago from the Mike's dollar bin, and maybe more than one set of them. As I desperately searched The Captain's Quarters for letters small enough to fit in that corner, those were the only ones. Still perhaps not a great choice.

Did you notice I sewed that strip of Artichoke card stock into place? :)

I followed this expired (of course) sketch from Retro Sketches:

Now it's your turn! Go into your stash and make a flower, or find one that is 3D. Then make a card and link us up at Shopping Our Stash so we can see what you've made!

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: My card also qualifies for today's HYCCT challenge. Please stop by later to find out how. :D

OWH Sketch Challenge #144

I spied the new OWH sketch challenge this morning and set it aside with big plans to use up some more patterned paper. Then things kinda got out of control.  First, here's the sketch:

Do you see the possibilities? :) So I went rummaging in my Basic Grey collection of 6x6 pads, and I found one that looked untouched, so it was today's victim. It was undoubtedly the result of my OMG, PLEASE ORDER ME ONE OF EACH BASIC GREY 6x6 PAD THEY MAKE FOREVER UNTIL I TELL YOU TO STOP era. Yeah, when you do that you sometimes get things you don't like. I finally did give it up, which is why I'm working through them now.

So ANYway, today's paper pad was Curio, and it is now mostly gone. Here's one of the cards I made:

Here's how I approached this effort. First, I pulled out papers in pairs I thought would coordinate for the two main panels. I ended up with five different pairs, two of each pattern, so let's say that was 20 of the 36 pages in the paper pack. Not bad, not bad.

I cut all the pieces according the the awesome measurements provided with the sketch, but I messed up and made the bottom layer wider, which I decided I liked, especially since I'd have less paper left over. Layers. It needed layers. Now if you're with me on the numbers here, that's enough parts-is-parts for 20 cards x 2 pieces of patterned paper for each card = 40 layers. Add in the fact that I had 10 different paper patterns and colors, and that's when my head exploded. I opted to make fake layers, which means I distressed the edges of each of those papers to give it some contrast. It's uneven, and not perfect, and now that I look at it, that pink piece above resembles a light switch plate, but I'm okay with that.

Here's another card, then I'll continue my tale:

Next I needed something for the heart element in the sketch, so I had lunch. After a while I decided it needed to be a banner part, so let's do some more math. This is a 6x6 paper pad, and every piece was cut into tiny parts, leaving long strips of patterned papers at least 1" wide. So for all 10 patterns, I had remnants I could use for the banners, and I started mixing and matching until I'd cut 20 banners. I had no idea what the next step would be, so of course I attached the banners and added the faux stitching.

Humor me for a moment and place your hand over that doily part. It took me hours to get to that point, so I wanted you to see the card without circle or sentiment. Yawner, right? Then I had a snack.

I cheated and looked at the other cards posted at OWH to see how they handled the sentiment, but none of them I saw at that time had taken my approach with the sketch, so I was outta luck there. Finally, in an effort to make this day end, I opted for something round, and chose the mini doily die with the least number of things to punch out, and I cut 20 of them. (Use the steel plate - it helps.)

Here's the third card:

Now I had cream colored doilies and still no sentiment. If you'll recall the cards I posted earlier today, I used a small round sentiment in the center of the doilies. Meh, been there, done that. So instead I took more of the cut-offs and punched out coordinating 1" circles for the centers of the doilies. Some of them match their banners, but most do not.

I still had no sentiment, so I had dinner.

Here's another one:

I've also noticed that most of them are crooked. Sigh.

So I rummaged through my sentiments until I figured out I don't need no stinkin' round sentiment. Who said it has to stay inside that circle? So now I had way more options, and decided to use that Paper Smooches sentiment. I measured it and found I needed to cut 3/8" strips of card stock. Twenty of them.

I cut, then I stamped. Then I started notching the edges and I had to sit down. FINALLY, I attached each of them to their circles with tiny squares of dimensional adhesives. FINISHED. I WAS FINALLY FINISHED.

Here's the last one, and it may be my favorite:

So there you have my whiny tale of mass production. BUT, I did disappear most of an unloved pad of paper, and I'm so excited about that, I might make something this week to use up all the remaining parts plus the few whole sheets I didn't use.

The winner here is OWH, who will get at least 15 of these 20 cards. I might hold out 1 of each for my dying Etsy store. I need to pump some life back onto that place.

In other news, Sandy is very close. The rain has started. All mass transit in the area has been closed for tomorrow. The schools are closed Mon & Tues, and the Federal Government has also closed, as well as local governments. This means it will be clear sailing to the office tomorrow (no traffic) and I pray they grant us early dismissal. It's supposed to be bad late tomorrow afternoon, and I'd rather be hunkered down here at home than at the office. Just sayin'.

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used but not listed below: Basic Grey Curio 6x6 pad, GinaK cream card stock (I think), 1" circle punch.

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OWH Friends

Saturday, while rummaging for something in one of my overflow boxes, I re-discovered a package of 12 pre-scored card bases:

The colors of the card bases are actually quite rich colors, which you'll see here in a moment.  I decided to use washi tape on all of them, with a plan to add a round shape with a sentiment later.

From previous experience, I knew if I wanted the tapes to have good color and be visible, I needed to put them onto white card stock. I did some math: 12 cards x 3 strips each = 36 pieces of white card stock I needed to cut. Ugh. I did disappear a bunch of white scraps, though. :)

Next I chose six tapes: three for the green & blue bases, and three for the red & gray bases. Let me show you one of the cards so you can see what I'm blathering about (about what I'm blathering):

I stuck all the tapes onto the white strips, then applied them to the card bases. I used the same tapes on both red and gray bases. Here's a gray one:

I used three different tapes for the blue bases:

and also for the green bases:

Can you believe that's the only dark blue patterned tape I have? Sigh.

There is a lot of open space here, so I made two attempts to fix that, then I had to save myself from myself and undo it all without destroying the card fronts, or at least in a way it could be covered up. I started out with Liquid Pearls, thinking I could "make" varied sized pearls. Not.  Here is save #1:

I had to leave the Liquid Pearls in the die-cut, but I scraped them off of the top left and covered the spot up with some Doodlebug pearls. It still looks odd to me, but maybe that's just me.

Here's save #2:

Again with the dots on the die-cut piece, but this time I added dots to the left of the mini doily. They were also removed and replaced with pearls. Both of these were fairly traumatic for me, so I opted to leave the other 10 untouched.

So that's 12 more cards for OWH.  Yay!

In other news, Sandy is headed our way, and will hit either tonight or tomorrow. I'm far enough inland (North West of the DC beltway, and hour inland from Annapolis, two hours inland from the Atlantic) that we won't get slammed, but they do predict lots of rain and wind. I have pitchers of water and a vat of key lime cheesecake-like bars, so I'm all set if we lose power and water. Oh, I have wine, too. And Tequila. I'm good.

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used but not linked below: SU Punch Bunch stamp set, KaiserCraft Basics pearls, ancient DCWV card bases, and some washi tapes. I'm also not certain about that orange one I included below - mine may be more gold. THIS is why you should label your tapes when you take them out of their packaging.

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