Kindness

Here's the last card I made yesterday:

I was following the current CAS(E) this sketch challenge:

I even started out with skinny strips of washi tape, but I didn't like it, so I started over. I spied a UFO that was already cut on the diagonal, so I used it. I stamped a sentiment from a new Hero Arts set (available Nov 1st) in Memento Luxe black and clear-embossed it. I affixed the two UFO panels, then added thin strips of black card stock for contrast.

My last act was to add a wood veneer heart, colored with a Copic, painted with clear Wink of Stella, and covered with Glossy Accents.

I forgot about the CAS part of the sketch. DUH. But I like how the card turned out.

I'm also linking this to the current Crazy 4 Challenges color challenge:

Thanks for stopping by!

SOS #172: It's The Most Colorful Time Of The Year!

Happy Tuesday! It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is It's The Most Colorful Time Of The Year! and we're using Fall/Autumn colors.

I had some tiny die-cut leaves left over from making my card for our Shower Time challenge, so I cut a few more and made this:

That's supposed to be a wreath of leaves. I even drew a circle, but it still seems off-balance. I think it's the light green leaf at about 4:00 that's doing me in, but all those leaves were used, so there's that.  The card base and piece of textured wall paper were in my UFO pile, so my card base was already done for me. I just drew the circle (no, really, I did) around the center part of the design, and used it as a guide to place my leaves.

The sentiment is from the Avery Elle Modern Leaves set. I bought the set and matching dies for the leaves, but I mostly use it for the sentiments.

About that wall paper: Last year a friend of mine bought several rolls of the stuff, and gave us each a small section. Like a Parent Sheet from The Paper Source, I will never use it all, so I was quite proud I used one small piece of it here. It was distressed with some Old Paper ink in an attempt to highlight some of the embossed areas.

In other news, as I rode home shotgun from last weekend's road trip to Traverse City, MI, my pal and I discussed how I could rearrange my furniture. (It's been a year and I'm still not happy with how I have it.) Last night after I got home, I moved furniture to try out her idea, and that forced me to re-locate my ghetto photo studio. Anyone who has a cat knows that this means "it's new and must be investigated", so here's Bobra helping me photograph my card:

He's such a good boy.

So, Fall is in the air, and I think you want to play our challenge. Please do, and when you stop by the SOS blog to link up, please check out the other DT gals' projects and leave them some comment love.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: a piece of textured wall paper, and the following:

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SOS #171: Sunshine On A Cloudy Day

Happy Tuesday! It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Sunshine On A Cloudy Day, and we'd like you to use a sun or clouds on your project.

Is anyone else humming this right now:



You're welcome.

For my card, I used both:

I needed an excuse to break out my not-yet-used MFT Sun, Moon & Stars dies, and this was perfect. I've used clouds on a sponged sky before, but not with a sun.

I cut the sun from one of my UFOs, which was an embossed paper colored with a rainbow. I don't even remember how I made it, but the orange & yellow part became a sun. I die-cut a few clouds from some textured card stock and put them at different levels under and over the sun.

There are a few more drawn birds than usual, and that's because I found a spot of ... something ... on one of the clouds, so I drew a bird over it, then another, then one on the card base, then two more to keep it an odd number. Sigh.

You know how you just KNOW you have a sentiment somewhere, but you look at your collection of sentiment sets and dread looking through them? Yeah, I was there. This is the first "you are my sunshine" I came across, so it got used. I may or may not have others. One of these days I'll figure out an index system. Actually, I made an index many moons ago, but then it got way out of date, and I gave up. Perhaps it's time I begin again. I'll keep you posted on that effort.

So, I think you should play along with us this week at SOS. Why not pop over and see what the other ladies have made to inspire you, and leave them some comment love?

Thanks for stopping by!

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September ODBD Challenge

Once again, I've failed to keep up, and I almost missed the chance to make a card for the Operation Write Home Our Daily Bread Designs monthly challenge. Each month ODBD offers to pay for shipping for up to two boxes of cards to our heroes overseas. The only things WE need to do is get 50 people to post a card for the challenge. This month we're at 46, so I'm here to make it 47!

September's challenge is to make your own background, so I cheated and pulled one from my UFO pile and used it to make this card:

 

I made this by first stamping a Hero Arts background onto water color paper and heat-embossing it with white embossing powder. Then I used Distress Markers to color in the openings, one at a time. It was a technique I think Shari Carroll shared at some point, but I've sadly forgotten where. You color the marker onto two sides of the opening, then use a water brush to pull the color out and fill in the rest of the space. It makes a cool dark-to-light effect! It's tedious, but the result is lovely!

I have no idea why I haven't used this piece until now, but I'm glad I have -- easiest card ever! I just had to trim it and add a sentiment.

We still need a few more entries -- only one per person. And we can go over 50, too! :) If you have time, please make your own background and come on over to link up!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Last of the UFOs

Finally, my last post with cards I made last weekend, trying to put a dent in my UFO pile. Today I bring you two cards made from experiments with alcohol inks and glossy paper. First one:

 

I applied alcohol inks to a piece of glossy card stock, pretty much in rainbow order. I added some silver along with the regular alcohol inks, just because I had three bottles of the stuff, and I know I'll never use it all, so why not.

I wasn't sure what to do with the panels I'd made -- they didn't look right all by themselves. Then I got an idea to use one of the SU dies I have for sale ... I think it's called Tulipe ... to cut out a shape from the colored paper. I really liked it!  I used the negative piece to place the die-cut pieces on a piece of card stock and glued them down. I traced around the design with a silver pen.

Here's my other card:

Same idea, but this time I put the negative part over a piece of black card stock.

Both of these landed in my UFO pile because I wasn't sure what else to do with them. Last weekend my friends said to just put them onto a card base and call it "done", so that's what I did. I'm still not feeling the love, but at least they are out of my UFO pile. 

There's no "Stuff I used" section this time, because if I did write down what I used, I've since lost it. But I don't think the list is that important here. You can use any alcohol inks you want to and get a similar effect. If you have any questions, please ask!

Thanks for stopping by!

Purr-fect Day

Today I bring you another card I made last weekend using stuff from my UFO pile:

I broke open my new Lawn Fawn Spooktacular stamps and dies. Say what? A Halloween set for someone who doesn't "do" Halloween? Yeppers! I broke my 50% rule and bought this set just for that cute cat. Can you really blame me?

I started by coloring the cat, then stared at it for a while. I went through my stack of printed challenges and found this one from Fusion:

I thought the kitty would be perfect for the star element in the sketch. I tried to ignore all the (gah) pink in the suggested photo, though I think it's really more of a rose red.

I needed a rectangular piece of paper, and wouldn't you know I had one, the right size, even, in my pile of left-over MAMBI pieces. I suppose I could call it "pink-ish" and milk the challenge, but I won't. heh

For the background, I chose another UFO water color panel. You'd think I'd be making a dent by now, but nooooo. I practice a lot and save most of them. I'm sure you'll see more of my weird background experiment pieces in the coming weeks and months.

Oh, about the sentiment: The "have a purr-fect" part is from the Spooktacular set; I cut off the "halloween" word. The word "day" is from a Winnie & Walter set. They have a ton of small words in their sets with the BIG words, which makes all the stamp mixing & matching pretty easy.

I should only have one more post blathering about the cards I made last weekend.  Thanks for hanging in with me while I share. :)

And thanks for stopping by!


Stuff I used: remnant of the still-not-all-gone MAMBI paper, piece of water color paper from the UFO pile that was made by spritzing water over a stencil, SU Naturals White card stock, and the following:

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