Cute Characters for Hambo

Hey.. Stop over here today to see some really cute digi-stamps by Hambo for Operation Write Home! There is a blog hop too... Which I will have to check out when I get home from work. :) But here are my samples, and the link:

http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org/2012/03/cute-characters.html








Each digi also comes with its own sentiments... How cute they are indeed!

Location:On My Way...

Moneysaver Monday - Beg For Scraps!!

Here's a sure-fire way to make cards for less - get supplies for free! My friends and family know me all too well. I seem to be the recipient of a lot of leftover paper... How fun! My sweet Mom sends me great paper for liners, and pretty patterned paper that she finds. My friends, who scrapbook but haven't been bitten by the card-making bug, will often donate their leftovers to to make cards for OWH. No problem! I can make a card out of anything! Sometimes the challenge of looking at a little pile of papery odds and ends is just what you need to get your creativity flowing. I love to look at what I am given and try to think of what kinds of embellishments I might also have to match. Need a little more inspiration? Just find a sketch that matches the measurements of the scraps you have. You will find that it is possible to make cards out of even the tiniest of pieces of paper that you might have otherwise thrown away.

Last week, I found a little Baggie of scraps on my desk when I got to work in the morning. Best day ever. :) My co-worker saved them for me after doing some kind of project. I love these colors and had some brads and dark blue cardstock to match. I used the Pair-A-Phrase stamp set by Close To My Heart. I love that she even saved the scraps with the fancy cut edge!!





Want one more fun idea? Set up a scrap trade. You may be tired and un-inspired by your scraps, but a friend might find them appealing. Set up a box at your next page or card gathering for trading scraps. Put a few coordinating bits into a Baggie, or fasten them with a pretty paper clip. Find a scrap trading friend! Trade a few Coordinating scraps at a time and challenge each other to make a card out of what was given to them. Send the completed card back to your friend with new scraps inside! This could be a never-ending game. Who is ready to play???

Just a little appreciation today for Hero Arts (heroarts.com) who recently added three stamp sets to their collection for Operation Write Home. All of them are great.. But this one is my favorite.





Perfect for making cards for our heroes, right? Here is a fun card that I made with this set... I also used some patterned paper from DCWV and the little "hands" are actually out of a little set of embellishments by Tim Holtz called game spinners. I think that they make fine hands! I looked everywhere for little clock hands or something that would be just the right size for this.



If you love that little stamp set as much as I do, hop over to Hero Arts and pick it up... 25% of the proceeds go back to Operation Write Home which is also just super neat!

Location:Hero Arts Stamps...

Moneysaver Monday - Sentiments

One of the things that I struggled with initially when making cards was my complete lack of sentiments for cards. I have since purchased several beautiful sentiment stamp sets over time. . . but in the beginning they were frustrating to find, expensive to purchase and difficult to come by. Here's a solution that I have used many times that I also love sharing at card-making parties. ANYONE can do this:

Scroll down for yesterday's cards done based on OWH sketch #112. I used a few of these dollar-bin sentiment stamps by Studio G. To get them to stamp in different, coordinating colors to match my cards, I colored on the stamps first with Crayola Markers. See... how I used the teal and orange markers to stamp the cute sentiment above? One dollar per sentiment, plus the price of a package of markers (or steal them from your kids...) can be an affordable alternatve to stamping sentiments, especially for some that you won't use very often. This is another good reason to keep an eye on that dollar bin. :) Keep scrolling down, to yesterday's post, for more examples. Thank you for stopping by!

Sketch 112

Did you see Sketch 112 over at Stars & Stamps today?

I still have lots of paper left over from my Express The Moment March kit. . .

The paper is all from the kit, but the sentiments, flowers, stickers, clips and etc. are all various things from my old stash that I am trying to use up. EIGHT! EIGHT HAPPY HEROES AND THEIR FAMILIES!!! AH AH AHHH!!!  :)

March Expressions

Hello! Heyyyy... I see a melding of the minds between Operation Write Home and Express the Moment this week. It's so nice when all of my friends can play together! :) I love using my ETM kits to make OWH cards, and I love using OWH sketches to make cards out of my ETM kits! Win win win!

So, a very cool new thing about this year is the combination of kits from Express the Moment. There is no longer a difference between the card-making and scrapbooking kits - just one big kit each month with tons of goodies inside. Amanda is still designing all of the scrabooking pages and I am still banging out the cards... :) this gives all you folks a lot to do with your kits. I still love the value and things that Kim picks to put in the kit each month - and now there is more to love! Don't forget to stop by the Express the Moment blog to see what can be done with the kits! Oh my gosh, did you see that mini-album project that Alicia made last month?

Soooo... it's March...here are a few cards and things from my March kit that features papers and goodies from My Mind's Eyes' "On The Bright Side" collecton. My favorite papers were the denim patterned ones. . .

Do you recognize any of those card layouts? My point of frquently using OWH card sketches is to show that, when your scrapbooking is over, you can use even the smallest of leftover scraps to make beautiful cards. Huge thanks to the ETM ladies who have been using their kits to make cards for the troops! I got your box of donations from Kim last week and I will be mailing them off to Operation Write Home soon. You guys are the best!

Here is one last project from the March kit - an 8 x 8" page with room for two 2 x 3" photos. . . I am also building one 8 x 8 page each month to make a gift album for Christmas - by making one 8 x 8" page each month, when the holidays roll around, my gift album is already complete. How easy of a gift is that?

• White cardstock base 8x8"
• Blue denim paper 7.75 x 7.75" - round the corners and adhere
• Light dotted paper - 5.25 x 5.75" - round the corners and adhere with 1" gap to the right side of the page.
• A strip of floral patterned paper - 7.25 x 2" - round the corners on the left side only and mount in the middle of the page.
• Cut several 1/2 inch strips of red dotted paper and build a frame with them. The frame is 7" tall and 3" wide.
• Cut two 2x3" mats for photos. Adhere using dimensional squares.
• Cut the left edge off of one of the journaling circles. Add some flowers and buttons as shown.

Round Easel Cards

Happy Saturday! My house smells like bacon and coffee. :)

Don't forget to stop over to the latest Stars & Stamps tutorial for a great demonstration post by Sandy about how to make these Round Easel Cards.

I lucked out and had quite a few round card bases left over from Christmas. . . and made this little guy.

I cut my pieces using my Close To My Heart, Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. . . Here are the measurements -

• Two orange scalloped circles - 4.5 inches - layer these overlapping to make his beard.
• One flesh tone circle - 3.75 inches - for his face
• One  flesh tone "Oval 3"  1.5 inches - for his nose - mount with dimensional squares
• One green "Oval 1" - 2 inches - brim of his hat
• One green "Oval 3" - 2 inches - cut in half - top of his hat - mount with dimensional squares

I also added a strip of ribbon, a gold buckle brad and a bow, and doodled on some cheeks, freckles, eyes and a mouth. The sentiment was stamped and mounted inside with dimensional squares so that it pops up for the base to rest on. Here is a side view. Isn't he a cutie! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Make Some Brads!

I know, it's not Monday... Sheesh... my schedule has been goofy. :) But I did finish my project for the brad tutorial today and uploaded to YouTube. Since it is already getting hits, I thought I had better post it here, along with a finished project I completed with some of the brads that I made. So, Happy Moneysaver Monday, on Thursday. Or whatever. :) I hope you enjoy it. It's been too long since I had time to make a whole tutorial video.

Here is a card too, and a few close-ups of the finished brads. Thank you for stopping by!

Here are the silver acrylic paint "nail" brads, the orange flocked brads, and the yellow glitter brads.

A close-up of the denim paper covered brads and the green heat embossed brads. Heat embossing the brads turned out to be my favorite, despite the war wounds. :)

These brads are painted with nail polish, which is also a nice technique. The ones in the center have stickles on them, which did not dry as evenly as the coat of glitter nail polish. The lady bug is red nail polish with black marker doodles.

 

Moneysaver Monday

Yes yes... I know, I promised something about brads this week, but I have happy news today. Grandma Bonnie is moving back home from the nursing home soon and so I spent the afternoon trying to help prepare her home for the big day. So, next week! Come back next Monday for brads! I promise, I will have more time to be prepared.

I do have a quick Moneysaver for you this week... This is the one that will solidly earn my place in the looney bin! Are you excited???

One product that I have always been intrigued by, but too cheap to buy is that fluffy flaky colorful stuff that you can add as an embellishment... There are a couple of different brands of it, but it is all very expensive. I wanted something like this to add "grass" to this cute Dustin Pike digi... So here was my cheaper alternative.





Do you like it? It's dried cilantro, which sells for about a dollar per metric ton. Well, not that cheap, but close. :) It's no secret, I struggle in the kitchen. All of my creativity and patience and talent, if you will, is with paper crafting. Cooking is just not my forté. I really hate to see my pretty spices go to waste... Hey, here is something that I can do with them! Alternatives to cilantro could be parsley, or Italian Seasoning also makes nice "grass." What a neat bonus, this card smells delicious!




I finished the card with a light dusting of finishing spray, to keep the cilantro firmly in place after I glued a little on and shook off the excess, just like glitter.

Did you know, you can also make your own colored "Flower Soft" stuff by coloring a piece of styrofoam with a permanent marker, and the grating it with a cheese grater? This is time consuming, and messy, but it works. I have tried this method in the past, but this alternative was much faster and I think it looks better too.

Hubby is on the phone with some nice men in white coats who are coming to see me and take me for a ride somewhere... I can't wait to see where we are going! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

I Do Love Sundays...

Here is a little bunny digi that I found in my stash... he's from Dustin Pike's place. I thought that maybe while I was there, I would enter a cute little challenge. I need to do more of these. :)

This card has glitter inlaid in the striped patterned paper (by Imaginisce) which is okay for sending to OWH, but I did glitter the eggs, which makes this card a no-no for the troops. Sorry troops,  gotta keep some cards to myself. :D I made this one as a 5x5 easel card. See all the bling that I added to the border punch? That's one of my new favorite things. This style is heavily influenced by Jenny Gropp. I have been stalking visiting her blog for quite a while now and I love what she does with her nesties and embellishments. Do you have a favorite paper crafting artist? I have so many...

It's sketch day over a Stars & Stamps - so be sure to stop over for Sketch #111.

I am loving the springy colors that I am playing with today. In addition to the Imaginisce paper, I used a Cuttlebg embossing folder, a Spellbinders nestie scalloped circle, a circle punch, some white embossing powder, and a really ancient "Spring is Here" stamp from the dollar bin at Michael's. Hubby has just turned NASCAR on, so you know what that means, nap time for me. :)  I love Sunday!