Memorial Day Bloghop!!!

Welcome Operation Write Home Bloghoppers!!! Thank you for stopping by!

If you came here from The Corner Studio 

you are on the right track!

If you wandered here aimlessly, you can join in on the fun by starting at Stars & Stamps. This will set you on the path to more than one hundred great Memorial Day card projects by the fantastic group of cardmakers for Operation Write Home!

Here is my little bloghop card. I created this new layout and design myself. . . if you are interested you can click here to see the tutorial post. I call it a "Z" card because of the zig-zag fold. It's a great way to use up a ton of random little embellishments, stickers, stamps, buttons etc. . . and so easy to make! I thank you for stopping by. . . now please click and travel next to the Friskars blog. . . The Friskateers!!! How exciting!  Have a safe and happy weekend! Hugs to all.

Eets Zee Card!

 

Welcome. . . I’m glad you stopped by for my little tutorial. . . this is a card that I made up this week. . . for the Operation Write Home Memorial Day bloghop! My card will be featured on the hop this coming weekend, but here is the tutorial so that you can play along if you like!

I call this a “Z” card because it is built on a fun little “Z” shape base. It sits up like a fun little decoration, and the inside edge matches the front. When closed, it looks like this:

Here is a a few shots of the card when it is standing up:

 

Here is another example of the “Z” card. . .

 

This card is fun to make to use up a whole lot of small embellishments, stamps, or leftover bitty things that you might have lying around. It would be a great use for small stickers or punches without causing the “sneeze” effect (just looks like a bunch of small things splattered all over the front of a card, without much organization!)

The instructions for making this card are really pretty simple.

Your base measures 4.25 x 12”.  You can use a patterned, or solid piece of cardstock for this as shown. The 4.25 x 12” piece is scored at 3.25 and 6.5” and are folded as shown. Layer the card base with pieces of white that meaure .25 inches smaller than the surfaces that you want to cover. For example, the Red white and blue card has white pieces that measure 4 x 5.25 (inside), 4 x 3” (middle) and 4 x 3 1/8” (front.) Make sure you glue that front piece flush with the right edge so that the blue part doesn’t show when the card is closed.

The squares and 1 x 1” and 7/8 x 7/8” . Decorate each of these squares with your stamps, punches, or various small embellishments. I used a few Close To My Heart stamp sets for this – “Beautiful Day” and “Happy Holidays” stamp sets both have tons of small cute stamps.

The last step is to add these squares to the card as shown. The third row over, is centered on the fold and they stick out over the fold a little. Here is a shot of the card when open:

You can see how those squares stick out a little over this folded edge. The fourth row of squares is adhered to the inside of the card, as shown. Don’t be afraid to use a ruler as a guide to center these squares until they are exactly where you want them to be. Here are a few more helpful hints: Gluing the third row down first kind of gives you a good guide for where to place the rest. Also, you can use a light adhesive first, or some kind of glue that is slightly repositionable until your squares are where you want them to end up permanently.

Thank you for stopping by for the tutorial, and if you are blog-hopping for the weekend, I hope that you have so much fun! My week is going to be crazy busy, as we are trying to prepare for the holiday weekend. . .big hugs and Happy Memorial Day weekend to you all!

Red White & Blue!

 

This weekend Stars & Stamps posted their 70th sketch for those really fun sketch challenges. I love this one, because it talks a lot about the simplicity of using things that you have at home to create shapes. Here is the sketch:

To make a big round shape as shown at the right, you could trace a saucer, jar, or any other round object . . . what a great idea for when you don’t have exactly the right shape!

Here is a little card I made following this sketch – I didn’t end up tracing something round, but I used a few leftover oval shapes that I had in my scrap bin, and a digi-stamp that came from the Stars & Stamps blog too.

 

I’m still using a lot of red white and blue as you can see – due to the upcoming Memorial Day weekend and the 4th of July. Have you made any red white and blue cards? If so, you should definitely stop over to Cindy’s Blog and participate in the Red White and Blue challenge! Scroll down a little to read about this challenge – but be sure to post your card up top for your chance to win some great stuff. . . and check out Cindy’s other pretty things too. :)

Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to stop by for the Memorial Day Blog Hop. . . coming soon! I just finished my blog hop project and I can’t wait to share!

The Cheeseburger Card

Here in Idaho, we are just hitting some high temperatures that everybody is happy about. After over 200 days of temperatures below 70 degrees, we are finally creeping up there. 72. . . 74. . . ohboy! That means that our (albeit short) summer is getting here. . . and I can’t wait! I love outdoorsy things like camping, bbq and just enjoying the sun! It’s also fun to make summer cards for birthdays, Father’s Day and summer get-togethers like barbecues and holiday parties! I actually made this card last year for a party we had for work.

Kate, over at the Stars & Stamps forum was looking for a little tutorial help, so I thought that this would be a fun summery card to share. I made up a little video so that you can see the fine details. Here is a close-up too, of those paper pieces. Doesn’t this card make you hungry?

And here is the video:

The Cheeseburger Card!

 

A fun thing happened since the other gals started making their cheeseburger cards over at S&S. . . I think that sharing ideas with others is one of my favorite things because it’s what other people bring to the table that inspires me even more. You can see the tutorial, and other people’s cheeseburgers here. . .

Among the ideas shared came a lot of great ones like patterned picnic paper with ants on it. .. so cute! Way to go Velda! She also used a punch for the cheese called “drippy goo!” I love it! Kate made hers with orange paper for cheese . . .no two cheeseburgers are turning out exactly alike and I love that. I can’t wait to see what other people can do with this.

Big thanks to all of you guys for playing along with me! I just checked in on my YouTube Channel and noticed that I currently have 126,700 views of my tutorial videos, and that is amazing. As long as you guys are enjoying them, I will keep cranking them out. Do we have any requests? :)

Thanks for stopping by!!!

One Million Cards For Operation Write Home!

 

Today I want to share with all of you – the happy announcement that Operation Write Home has shipped their ONE MILLIONTH card to a deployed soldier! I couldn’t be happier for everyone involved in this fantastic organization. I think that a photo of the millionth card says it all. . .

The card itself was made by a lady named Seongsook . . her blog has always been a favorite stop of mine along my way for inspration for cards for the troops. The card was made following a sketch from the Stars & Stamps blog . . the sketch was made by Julie . . another fabulous OWH supporter and great card maker! The card ALSO contains a digital stamp made by Paula just for OWH cardmakers. I think that it is really cool that this card showcases the effort of so many involved with the cause! Amazing! Now then, grab your kleenex and be sure to catch this video about the millionth card. . .

Now then, no time to rest! It’s time to work on that next million! :D  So grab your stamps and paper. . . I also want to share with you guys my efforts for the weekend. . . Express the Moment had a crop on Saturday and Kim generously allowed me to have a booth to celebrate Operation Write Home and teach others about their cause. Here are a few shots of my table. . .

(Thank you Debbie for helping me with deocrations!!!)

    

Here’s me, showing my book of pamphlets, coloring pages, and sketches. . .and holding up the box for us to fill up with hand made cards!

   

Thank you Kirsten for helping me with the photos!!!

Kim gave me a few minutes to do some teaching about OWH so I gave a little lesson. :) I will never forget how quiet the room was and how everyone was giving their full attention. . . when told everyone the part about the millionth card, there was an audible gasp and a big round of applause! I wish I could have caught this on film for my OWH ladies to see. Kim also donated BASKETS of scrap paper and embellisments – so I spent the rest of the day giving card tutorials and lessons. At the end of the day, our little group had made 54 cards. More are on the way. . . as people have said that they have more at home to donate to this box!

Whew! What a weekend! I am so proud of my friends at OWH, and at Express the Moment . . . and I am super excited to continue with this quest. . . Memorial Day is coming soon and we will be gone camping but I will have a little stop along the OWH blog hop. Be sure to watch for that over at Stars & Stamps – there will be plenty of inspiration to be found I am sure! One last thing – be sure to stop over at the Homefront Blog for more news about that card. We are hoping to keep tabs on it during its’ journey to the troops and back home again. . . it will be a story worth watching for.

Thank you for stopping by!

May Expressions!!!

 

Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all of you! I’m a little sad. . . we kind of had a tradition in the making of going into the park (Yellowstone) for Mother’s Day but this year the weather is holding us up. Parts of the park still have way too much snow and as much as I love going in to see all of the new babies and beautiful spring weather, Mother Nature has different plans for us this year. So we will hold off for a little while longer!

What better to cheer me up than the May card kit from Express the Moment?? The kit came just in time to help me stock up on on BIRTHDAY cards this year. That’s right, the whole kit is birthday themed with some great papers and embellishments by My Mind’s Eye, BBP, 7 Gypsies and a whole assortment of things hand picked by Kim.

Here are a few thumbnail shots of the cards I made with this kit – and don’t miss out on this bonus video with this months’ lesson on finishing touches.

At only $15 you can see what a great value these kits are. For you locals in the area, I will be at the ETM Crop next Saturday the 14th in Idaho Falls. I even get to host a booth which will be all about using your leftover supplies to make cards for the troops! Kim is generously donating some of her own leftover supplies so we will all get to practice. I can’t wait!

May Expressions–Finishing Touches!

 

If you enjoyed watching the video, feel free to browse older examples by going to my YouTube Channel  . . you will find some videos with older kits in them for more examples of what you get in your kits from ETM.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Moms out there!

Istream Ustream We Allstream. . . .

 

Another wonderful thing that I have discovered lately is called Ustream. It’s sort of this mad mix of live video chat and YouTube videos. Once a week, Operation Write Home has an hour long program about their latest news and card making ideas. This is a great program – if you can’t catch it live, you can watch the recorded version later. (How convenient!) If you are lucky enough to catch the live shows, it’s a lot of fun, because you can chat with the other viewers, while the program is going on.

Here is an awesome use of “Ustream” in a complete sentence.  “I watched all of last weeks’ Ustream episodes on my laptop while my husband was watching NASCAR on the couch.”  - and yes, it was great quality time as well. We even shared a blanket.  :)

Here are a few handy links:

The Operation Write Home channel has a live show on Thursday nights at 7:30 MST.  This one is super fun – it includes segments like the reading of hero mail, and “Extreme Card Makeovers” which are always entertaining.

It’s A Colorful World channel has shows at various times that are announced – mostly by facebook or on the Stars & Stamps blog. These shows, by Sandy, focus more on tutorials and fun things to keep us card makers inspired and current with some of the latest tips and techniques.

Here is one of the latest shows by Sandy – it’s a tutorial about how to make this ruffle card. The tutorial shows are fun because you can find your list of supplies on the S&S blog before hand. Then you get to watch the show and make a card along with everyone else – then we can all post the cards back at S&S to share with each other. Genious! I love it. So here is my ruffle card. I went with Red White and Blue since Memorial Day is coming up at the end of the month. So……go Check out Ustream. You will love it too!!