Goodbye, July

 

What a fun month! Although I spent a great deal of July in Physical Therapy for my broken knee, I feel like I was also quite productive and was able to do a lot of fun card things! Aside from all the challenge cards and just regular cards I have been able to throw together for OWH I was also able to have two card drives.

First was one with the ladies of the Taylorview ward LDS church. . . this card party, put together by my boss’ wife Treasa was a ton of fun and I got to meet lots of nice new people. We had a great time and I think that the final card count was around one hundred. . . I still need to finish stamping the backs and boxing these up. . . shoulda done that first, I suppose. . .

  Here’s a little phone pic of our tables and some of the ladies. I had different projects to put together at each table. . . Christmas cards, general cards, ruffle cards, star cards, etc, varying in degree of difficulty. The ladies got to rotate through the tables at their leisure. This was a lot of fun, at least I sure thought so. :) And the cards, what a variety we ended up with! And so beautiful! I would definitely love to do this style of card party again!

Yesterday was another crop for Express the Moment and Kim was so gracious to allow me to have a “drop zone” box at the crop and I had a small make-and-take or make-and-drop card

for the ladies to put together. I don’t think that anybody took their card home. . . they ALL went into the drop box, along with many other cards that the ladies made throughout the day, and some cards that they brought in with them, to donate for the troops. I’m so darned proud of all of them! I got to give some cuttlebug lessons too so that was a good time. . .

We made card similar to Sandy’s awesome star card (lower left) only with different textures and stamps. . . I was also able to post the due dates for the upcoming holiday cards AND ETM will be having another crop in October, so I am hoping for a HUGE card drive before the Christmas Card deadline of October 31st. We can doo eet!!!!!!

Gratuitous photo of my awesomely embellished new crop bag. For you boys who don’t know, a crop bag or tote is a lot like a purse, only with EVEN MORE STUFF inside that you don’t want to know about. I see punches, scissors, pencils, tools, brushes, a nail file that is not for nails, and aherm, yes, that green bladed thing is indeed a scalpel. Hey, I pilfer tools where I can.  :) Best of all, there is my major award! My super bling! My OWH patch. . . I love it. It is perfect on my tote!

Last but not least for today, here is sketch #80 from OWH. . . and DON’T miss out on this awesome treat. . . some nice lady has recompiled ALL of the OWH sketches to date into a .pdf file that you can download and print for your very own records. How handy is that! I have copies of all of them in my OWH binder and use them all. . . seriously all of the time.

Here is sketch #80, and my sketch card. I used paper from a new DCWV paper pack that I picked up yesterday called the Tradewinds stack.

     

 

That’s all for today and I have a long week ahead. . . so many things to catch up and do before school starts. Can’t believe that it is August already. :)

Challenge Time

 

For those who love challenges, there is always something fun going on. Here are a few weekend challenge cards that I have thrown together. . . first for sketch challenge #79 over at Stars & Stamps and another for the Copic / Marker challenge over at Crafting By Design.

As you can see I have hauled out my stash of Halloween / Fall already and I am really resisting the urge to go wild with Halloween projects. . . Halloween is my favorite holiday and I just love all of the great cute and spooky paper crafting products that are out there!

I got this great digi stamp from Bugaboo . . they have some really great digi’s and sentiments too. The inside of this one says, “Today’s witches ride swiffers.”  Bwahaha! I am a big fan of the Swiffer mop. Truly. I turned this week’s sketch sideways for this project to fit the stamp. . . but I might have to follow this sketch again because it was a whole lot of fun.

This chillin’ cat is from Hambo . . . now really. how else is a black cat supposed to cool off in a heat wave like this?

That’s all for today. . . hubby and I are Chilling Out too and might go catch Captain America at the theater here in a bit. . . hey, they’ve got AC.  :)

PP&P Challenge

One of the things that I love best about my mentor Cindy’s blog is that she is always teaching something of value. Please do stop by to see her recent posts about using color on your cards. . . I always love to learn about tones, hues, accents, warms and cools. . . and it is amazing how paying attention to such details can really help turn out some cute cards!
Here is another example of mixing warms and cools to make the accents really pop!

For this card I started by chosing that bright cheery polkadotty spring paper for a BG. . . I thought I would get the last little bit of spring colors out of my system before I retire all of my springy stacks and scraps to the bottom of the shelves. . . it’s time to get out the autumn and winter colors and I just can’t wait. :) Talk about some fun colors!!
The cartridge that I used is to create the snail and mail are from my latest purchase, Create A Critter. . . and I can not do without it! I love this cartridge! I can also use this card in a challenge over at Crafting by Designs. Hooray, my first entry!
Don’t forget to join Cindy’s challenge about warm and cool cards . . . it’s very fun!

I didn't make new cards. . . :( But let us revisit an example of the difference between a few, I thought that maybe these cards that I did for the 4th of July S&S Bloghop would suffice.

Close To My Heart + Cricut = I think I just wet my pants. :)

 

So I woke up around 2:30 in the morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep. Yesterday’s 2 1/2 hours of Physical Therapy on my poor broken knee was brutal. I was so exhausted after a week of work and PT that I fell asleep shortly after I got home. . . so I was up walking to help with the pain and I made myself some iced tea and went outside because the full moon was so bright that it was almost like daylight! The yard looked and smelled so pretty.  Anyways. Where was I?

OH! So I jumped on the computer to see what is new with Close To My Heart . . . convention is going on right now and I am a little relieved that I had not decided to go, I would have missed out on the trip anyway due to my accident. . . but new catalogues are coming next week and I’ve been so excited to see what the new products are going to be. It was then, that I clicked on a few links on my CTMH site and saw this video.

 

I can’t even wait to get my hands on this cartridge and I am just super excited that CTMH has joined forces with Cricut to create something so awesome. . . Christmas cards are going to be a blast this year! In addition, the new catalogue will be marked. . . stamps that go along with the shapes you can cut out on the Cricut are outlined in red. This will definitely cut down on having to cut out small shapes which can sometimes get tedious and difficult.  My Idea Books will be here before next weekend, I bet. Who wants one? :)

July Expressions

 

You are not going to believe what appeared in my July Expressions Kit from Express the Moment.  A whole set of Liberty papers and embellishments by Bo Bunny and oodles of embellishments to match! The red white and blueness of it seriously caused me to hyperventilate. I really had my eye on this paper this year. . . but hadn’t purchased any yet. . . oh my gosh it was like Christmas in July!!!

I love the 4th of July . . . I have lots of favorite holidays. But what really gets me excited about this month’s kit is Express the Moment’s support of a cause that is so important to me, Operation Write Home.  Stay tuned for more exiting news about their involvement. . .

And so for my first projects, I set about to make two things. . . a little easel card that I will use to display at my booth at the ETM Crops, and a sign to hang in the shop for a drop box for donated cards. I love these. :)

     

 

Then I just started creating. . . all of these are cards that could be great for July birthdays, announcements, or they would make really fun Any Hero cards.

           

 

The next ETM Crop is July 30th – so don’t forget to sign up for that one, local peeps! And for you not-locals, if ever you wanted to own one of these $15 card kits, this would be the one to get to see what they are all about. I still have lots of leftovers so more cards will be coming, I’m sure. . . what a great one! I am still so excited!!!

S&S Sketch #77

 

I really look forward to the weekly sketch from over at Stars & Stamps. I don’t always do all of them. But I have been saving them all to a file. They sure are great for when you need a card idea or when you want to “practice” using scraps and different papers, or maybe try new stamping techniques. That’s what is fun about making cards – you can practice just like any other hobby, technique or sport . . . practicing makes you better and more confident in the work that you do! And it’s so much fun!

Here is sketch 77 and my card. I am running out of kraft paper. This is a very bad thing.

 

 

This card was made using papers from my DCWV Playtime stack and I stamped the clouds and balloon with my CTMH set called “Over the Rainbow.” My circles aren’t exactly the same dimensions as the photo. I used a ready made Kraft Border by CTMH and punched the bottom scalloped circle with a nestie. The clouds were stamped in white and sky. The balloon was stamped on a separate scrap of kraft paper and I stamped it first in daisy white, then with sunny yellow and I colored the basket part with chocolate. The bottom sky paper has glitter inlaid, the kind that won’t flake off. :) Non-flaky glitter makes me happy because it is ok for sending cards to the troops. There are dimensional squares behind the balloon, and the yellow dotted paper.

Little Scraps of Heaven Designs - Blog Hop Day!

Welcome, welcome! This is my first participation in a blog hop by Little Scraps of Heaven Designs . . . if you have come here from Janet's Blog you are in the right place! If you just happened to visit my blog today, you can start the hop at Tricia's Blog.

My name is Nancy and I found LSHD through my many card making adventures with Operation Write Home. While I am primarily a card maker, I love all kinds of paper crafting projects and scrapbooking too. I love the things that LSHD have to offer crafters like myself . . . here is my blog hop project I made to share today! It's a clean and simple but very cute summery card. . .

I made this card by using paper from "The Playtime Stack" by DCWV. I love it because it is kraft paper based. . .and I am really into the kraft (cardboard looking) paper right now! I cut several different patterned papers down to 4x6" (photo sized) and printed the cute LSHD kite digi onto each one. I used the cloud paper as a base and cut out the kite pieces and bows from the other pieces of paper and layered them. The kite digi also has those cute motion dots. . . I simply pierced through each dot to give this card a cute combination of paper piecing and piercing! (Say that five times fast!!)

Here's a closeup of the card work and the inside of the card.

  

I love blog candy but the toughest part is deciding who to give the blog candy to - therefore I am offering the little digi-sentiment that I made for this card to everyone for stopping by! You can download it by clicking the picture to get the bigger version and then selecting "save as" . . . it would be fun for making your own little kite card or layout.

Thanks for stopping by to see my little project. . . don't forget that there is a GRAND PRIZE GIVEAWAY from LSHD for participating in this hop! To be eligible to win, all you have to do is visit each blog on the hop and leave a comment. What is this GRAND PRIZE you might ask? It's amazing. . . $100.00 in cash, plus $100.00 of  FREE PATTERNS from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs too! WOW!

Now then, hop along to Lisa's Blog and see what she has made. . .  and thanks so much for stopping by!

July SoTM–American Celebration

 

Hey friends – especially you Operation Write Home people! I wanted to be sure to put up a post about this July stamp of the month. I think that it has a lot of appeal to those of us who are crazy about making patriotic holiday / hero cards for the troops.

The reason why I want to announce this LOUD and CLEAR is two fold – My Close To My Heart website is scheduled to close July 19th. I have decided not to continue selling online. The great majority of my sales come from close friends and customers who love to receive those catalogues in the mail. I do plan to continue with that, for as long as my paycheck will let me. I love CTMH!

Also – this fantastic stamp set is a STAMP OF THE MONTH set – which means that you can ONLY buy it in July, and after that, IT WILL BE GONE! Nooooooooo!  So please, if you would like the opportunity, take it now.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THIS AMAZINGLY CUTE STAMP SET HERE BEFORE JULY 19th OR EARN IT FOR FREE.

As always, you can earn the set for free for your purchase of $100 or more – but you don’t have to purchase anything else if you only want this set. Here is the set, and a card, and some project photos.

The firecrackers are adorable with those sparkly stars!

 

For this project, I used red white and blue embossing powder to stamp and heat emboss the background on some kraft paper. Next I stamped and embossed the “Celebrate, AMERICA and LET FREEDOM RING” on another layer of kraft paper. I added some bling to make those little fireworks pop.

Here is a closeup of the background paper and it shows how I popped up the “AMERICA” layer with some dimensional squares.

Now then, my mentor Cindy over at Papers Pads & Pictures also used this stamp set this month for a blog hop. (Sorry Cindy, I am totally stealing your photo!!!) I just wanted to share how she even used one of the firework stamps for an alternate card -

Isn’t that the cutest snowflake ever???!?!?!?  Cindy is a genius, I tell you!!!

 

Thanks for stopping by to look! I hope that your holiday celebrations continue to be safe and fun. . . Happy 4th of July!

  

Virtual Card Making Party–Day Two

 If you haven’t jumped in on the 4th of July Card Making Party over at Stars & Stamps you are missing out on a ton of fun! Here is my collection of cards from yesterday and there are 8 more challenges today!

We get to start with Patricia over at Thinking of Inking who wants us to make a card using one designer paper, two stamps, and a three word sentiment:

Well, I messed up a little bit. I forgot the DESIGNER paper, but maybe that embossed white paper counts? I used stamps from the Close to My Heart July stamp of the month (heat embossed with silver gold and red) and my sentiment from the same set “Let Freedom Ring” is also heat embossed with white. I followed one of my current favorite layout patterns by Sandy from OWH. . . I love these colors together!!!  (Psst. . . those July firecracker stamps are only for JULY this year and then they will be gone . . . also, my CTMH website is closing, so if you want this super cute set, snag it now! Last chance! They are great for making patriotic cards!!!)

Speaking of Sandy. . .over at  It's a colorful world. . . We were asked to use the same image and make two different cards for two different seasons. So here is a nice autumn leaf for fall and a vibrant green leaf for spring! I'm still struggling to learn to use Copic markers, so this was good practice for me. Not gonna lie, blending the greens was kind of a disaster. There you have it, spring and fall.  S.S.D.D . . . it means, Same Stamp, Different Day!

Super quick, easy and fun! This one helped me get caught up and I even had a little time to clean up my work space a little bit. Ahh.  Learn how to make this little pinwheel card over at Hello From Kate!'s place! I didn't decide on a sentiment for it yet. . . this card is so cute I could use it for just about anything. . . what did you put on yours?

Beware of stopping at Sarah's Stamping and Stuff if you are hungry, where the challenge is to make a food related card... here is a little one made with more of some of my favorite Imaginisce supplies. This DOES make me hungry. . . is it time for BBQ yet?

Oh my stars. . . I colored a bunch of these little bears from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs with Bic markers a few posts back. It feels good to give them a home. . . how nice of  ScrappinBear's Studio to have a bear challenge today! I did a slightly different take on the ruffle technique and used a star border punch, putting the ruffles out to the right. . . I feel like I might have gone a little overboard. But isn't he festive?

Ooh! I am totally entered to win some cute Bugaboo stamps over at My Craft Central! I love Bugaboo stamps! The challenge at My Craft Central was to "Color Me Crazy" - or color a stamp with a color that you would not usually use. Just check out Tammy's red white and blue frog, and her yellow turtle! I admit that a purple elephant is probably not too far out of the norm, especially on a card for a baby or toddler. Pink elephants however, now that is a different story!

Stamping with a Mission challenges us to create a card using words how they would not otherwise be used. She gave the example of "bee" instead of "be" and I think that is just what sort of stuck in my head - also, I have been wanting to use this cute Imaginisce bee. . . what a great opportunity. I heat embossed him with black, colored with markers and used black flocking on him so he is fuzzy too!

Last one! Mouse Print Creations wants us to make a card with an animal on it. . . I think that I have a couple of those already this weekend that fit the bill. . . but I love my new Create A Critter Cricut cartridge and I can't seem to get enough of this frog. I enjoy trying to see how many funny ways I can make his little face turn out. I used circle punches to create his eyes for this one. . .


So that's it for the Virtual Card Making Party from OWH and this has been by far one of my favorite blog-hopping, weekend challenge kind of activities. . . It's been so much fun and I just really enjoyed all of the other blogs and cards that people have made. Tomorrow I will have lots of time to browse through everybody's cards . . . we will also be doing the usual 4th of July things like the parade maybe and the city fireworks. . .I can't wait!

I wish all of you a safe and Happy 4th of July - God Bless and Good Night!

Independence Day Weekend!

Hello everyone, Happy 4th of July weekend! I can’t think of a better way to spend my day. (Well, camping would be nice, but is not in the cards for me this weekend, with my broken knee!) Not in the cards! Hahaha! Whee!

There is a fantastic event going on over at the Stars & Stamps forum for Operation Write Home today and tomorrow. . . every couple of hours there will be a challenge and different blogs to visit. It looks like each blog will give a project to do. You can participate in as many or as few as you want. There are going to be prizes and fun things along the way.

For example, the first challenge is up and running at Brenda’s Stamping Corner. . . Her challenge is to make cards using camouflage. It just so happens that I had some scraps of camo paper in my “patriotic” stash – I love these patterned papers by Karen Foster Designs!

I will be posting photos and links all day for the card challenges I am able to participate in. I hope to do a lot. . . For my first two I chose to make “Any Hero” cards – so these will be completed with a short letter of thanks to a random service person. Soon, these little home made cards from Idaho will be half-way around the world, in the hands of one of our deployed heroes. I can’t think of a greater way to spend the 4th than by thanking our troops for what they do for us every day. Without them, we wouldn’t even have our freedoms to celebrate!

So check back again for my other weekend projects, and thank you for stopping by! Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone.

Challenge at Brenda’s Stamping Corner – use of camouflage. These “Any Hero” cards will go to a random service member, so I kept them clean and simple.

For the Challenge at 2 Paw Prints! This card had to have a fish bowl. Oh my gosh! It's like a treasure hunt! Do I have a fish bowl??? Let's thank my little digi-image by Dustin Pike. I also used my cuttlebug embossing folder with the swiss dot pattern, a random scrap of orange and yellow ribbon and some acrylic beads for the bubbles. . . and I colored with Kirsten's Copics - she says it's my weekend for visitation with the markers. . . yay!

I do not believe I would have otherwise been inspired to use the combination of colors challenged by Tanya over at Tinkerin In Ink. . . I will definitely have to participate in more color challenges in the future - I found this to be both challenging and fun! BG patterned paper is positively ancient DCWV and the rose stamp is Rosy Regards from Close To My Heart.

(Insert brief intermission for an afternoon nap!)

Over at Our Little Inspirations we are invited to make a card describing what freedom means to us. So here, I tried something new. I have never used a photograph on a card for the troops before, but when I think of freedom, I think of this beautiful country that we live in. Here is the view from my back yard. Well, it's a little further than that. Only 45 minutes from our house, is the country that I love best. It's where my ancestors lived, it's where my family has vacationed for generations, it's where I will take my grandkids some day, and it's where my ashes will go when I die. . . and we are free to live and love in it because of our heroes, past and present. I thought that maybe a random hero might enjoy this photo of "home" . . . maybe one of them will recognize this beautiful place.

Here is something vintage for Holley over at Holley's Hobbies. . again I do not think that I would have otherwise been inspired to go for the vintage look today, but these challenges are really fun, and I am having a good time using up some of my old stash!

This is getting tricky. . . over at Petunia's Paper Passion we have been asked to make a card with a moon on it. She has a beautiful woodsy card, with a wolf howling at a night sky. Try as I might, I could not locate a stamp, patterned paper, or die cut of a moon. So I took things into my own hands and created this "Get Well" card with some cute medical brads, a silly sentiment, and a hand doodled original image. . . after 20 years of patient care, do you really think that my mind goes anywhere else when I think of the word, "moon?" Seriously.

I learned something from Marti at the Essence of Paper today. . . there is a name for that kind of patterned paper or a sentiment with just words on it of a coordinating theme. . . it's called Subway Art and I have some cute camping Subway Art paper in my stash! I decided to use mine as a cute background. This entire card is Imaginisce. I don't yet have all of this "Happy Camper" line of goodies, but oh yes, they will be mine!

Here's my last one for Saturday - Scrappily Ever After's challenge is to make a card using, or inspired by this photo. I had so much fun using a photo on a card earlier in the day, I decided to give it another go.I printed the photo on a plain cardstock paper and then added it to the card along with an "America" stamp by CTMH. I blinged up the flowers by adding stickles and outlined the letters with a clear star gel pen and added some red white and blue bling - this card is very sparkly - the photo doesn't do it much justice.

That is all for Saturday's cards! Please stay tuned for Sunday. . . and thank you all for stopping by - I have had the most fun ever hopping and creating with all of you today!