VCMP Weekend!

I'm blogging from my phone :) in an attempt to post my entries for the VCMP!! 

Here's my cards for today. I'm going to have to work backwards from Sunday, in between chores.... 

My first for this weekends' sketch. 

Tiddly Inks digi, DCWV HarvestGathering may stack, Darcie embossing folder, Copics for coloring and a Dazzles sentiment. I'm already loving fall colors. Is it too soon??

I can't figure how to link in this app.. So if you'd like to play along with the Virtual Catdmaking Party for Operation Write Home, head on over to their blog, Stars & Stamps. Http://operationwritehome.org/starsandstamps 

World Card Making Day 2013!

Truly, no day is better!

Thanks for visiting my stop on the blog hop!

(Click here to see ALL of the stops!)

I didn't use an OWH sketch  because the background is just CAS, one blue and one white embossed mat. Then I added my favorite punch people from this year. I produced an entire army of minions in order to fulfill my goal of making tons of cards for kids for Operation Write Home this year. I thought I would try making a "thank you" card with them as well. Did you know that minions even have their own language? Google it! :)

If you love them, the Minion Tutorial is over here.

Happy World Card Making Day! Be inspired! Go make some cards. Thanks for stopping by!

Stampers Best - Logo Stamp Set

(Welcome, Skippers! Did you come from Pam's Place?)

 The Birthday Bash continues for Operation Write Home this week with some goodies from Stampers Best! Wow, they have a whole truck load of stamps for OWH and donate $1.00 per each set sold to us... isn't that awesome!? I bet that you will see lots of their focal point stamps along your hop today, but I'm here today to show you another side of things! (Does this surprise you? No, it should not.) :)

My favorite set from Stamper's Best is this one:

The Logos Rubber Stamp Set for $8.99

When first the name changed from "Cards for Heroes" to "Operation Write Home", we all got the free little red rubber stamps for the backs of our cards! You can read up on the history here, if you want. It's a fun story. You can also still, thanks to Stampers Best, get one of those freebie stamps here! If you haven't done this yet, and you participate with us, please, make this important step! Stamping the backs of your cards to label them clearly as coming from Operation Write Home is such an important finishing touch. If your cards arrive to your shipper already stamped, it is such a huge help!

Now then, about that freebie. My very first freebie stamp remains to be the one and only stamp in my collection that I have almost lovingly used to death. I use it so often that I have given it a little place of honor. I'll share that with you later. My freebie stamp was used so much that I decided to supplement it with the Logos set from SB. I have always been so glad that I did! It's fun to have a little variety and options for my card backs. These are all cards that I have shown here on my blog in the recent months. You've already seen their pretty faces. Now it is time for me to show you a little behind the scenes? Are you ready, cards?

Aboooooout... face!!

(There are lots of them, so I made them small. You can click them to zoom in if you like.)

The logo stamps in this set are slightly larger than the freebie stamp. I like this, and I love that the little "Thank you for your service" message is included. It's such a nice touch.

Sometimes, especially with my patriotic cards, I like to get a little bit fancy and color my stamps with markers, to make the logo in red and blue. 

Here you can see two cards made on a kraft base. Stamping the backs of these can be done with a dark colored ink, or, you can use the label method. I bought a sheet of label paper - the kind that you might put through a printer - and stamped several logos onto it and cut them out. I keep these on hand for labeling the backs of dark colored cards, so that our OWH logo is still very easy to see!

This is another card made on a dark base. This card is more formal and elegant on the front, rather than cutesey and fun. I used gold embossing powder to stamp the logo on the back of this one. Now isn't that fancy?

The stamp set includes two little stamps that say simply, "OWH" instead of the whole title, "Operation Write Home." When using these ones, it is best to also include the circle part that says, "Thank you for your service - operationwritehome.org" That way, there is no confusion over what the "OWH" stands for. I do love that this part includes the URL, so that the sender, or recipient of this card can easily look us up and see what we are all about!

Now then, as for my old freebie, I gave it a place of honor. I picked up a self-inking stamp at the office supply store and mounted it carefully inside. It comes in real handy when I have multiple cards to stamp after a card party. If you love this idea, you might like to know that you can order your favorite logo stamps this way too, over at StampXpress. They are more expensive to order them individually this way. For my needs, Stampers Best was the way to go, because I love the variety of looks that I can get for the backs of my cards with this one, great set. 

Hey, thanks for stopping by today to see my favorite set - and thanks to Stampers Best for their awesome support of Operation Write Home!

Your next skip stop is Beth's Place, so hop on over to BunnyScrap and see what she's got for you today!

(Or, you can start at the beginning of this blog skip, over at Stars & Stamps.)

Unity Stamp Co. / OWH Blog Skip

Hello everyone.. I'm so excited to be skipping along in today's Unity Stamp Company event with Operation Write Home! If you would like to start at the beginning and see all of today's beautiful creations, you can do that over at the Stars & Stamps blog.

If you came here from Lee Mae's blog, you are hopping along in the correct direction! Hooray!

I'll keep it short and share this Any Hero card that I made with my Unity Stamps!

My inspiration comes from a project that I did many years ago. When A.J's dad came home from Operation Desert Storm and finished his service with the Marines, he showed me a collection of dog tags that he was keeping in a cardboard box. It included his own tags, his uncle's tags from Vietnam, his fathers' tags from the Navy and even a set from his grandfather's service in WWII. What a treasure... I had fun trying to create a shadowbox with them.

Here is my "shadowbox" inspired card:

Here's how:

• I cut three papers - two wood grain pattern papers at 4.25 x 5.5" and one red at 4 x 5.25"
• I used one of the wood grain papers as a base and mounted the red layer on top of this.
• I used an oval die to cut the "window" out of the other wood grain paper.
• Using the frame, I centered  it onto the red cardstock and traced a light line so that I would know exactly where to stamp the tags.
• I stamped the tags onto the red paper using VersaMark and some silver embossing powder.
• I stamped the tags with VersaMark again onto some grey paper and embossed with clear embossing powder. I fussy-cut these and added them over the copy on the red paper.
• I embossed the top "frame" paper using an embossing folder by SU and gave it a little extra dimension by distressing lightly with some chocolate colored ink.
• Finally, I mounted the frame to the top, using "The Precious" dimensional tape to give it the shadow box feel. I added the ribbon last, because it just seemed to need something more.

I think that the wood grain paper gave this card a nice masculine feel, and I hope that one of our heroes enjoys this card! I'll leave you with a little close-up so that you can see the dimension better.

Much gratitude goes to Unity Stamp Co. and to OWH for allowing me to participate in the skip this week, it's always so much fun! Thanks for stopping by!

Now hop along over to Ronni's Spot and see what she has for you next!

Labor Day Weekend VCMP!

Welcome everyone! I'm so excited to be participating in the Operation Write Home, Labor Day Weekend Virtual Card Making Party! Woohoo! If this is your first VCMP, let me just tell you how much fun you are about to have! Every few hours, another link will be posted over at the starting place on the Stars & Stamps blog. You can visit each stop and play along by making a card to go along with the challenge on that page. Are you ready for your first challenge? Go!

My challenge is to make a winter or Christmas themed card for OWH following  a sketch! My card turned out to be Christmassy, because of the papers and sentiment that I picked, but you could definitely do this with a general winter theme by using any wintery themed papers or colors that you desire! Here is the sketch for you to follow:

I made this one up because it was such a good opportunity to use up my last little bits of some of my favorite papers. The 1" squares were done with a punch, although cutting 1" squares could also be done with any trimmer. (I must thank Paula for her awesome photo shopping skills and helping me with the sketch today! Thanks, Paula!!!) Here is my card:

Running the mat with the inchies and white cardstock through an embossing folder was kind of an afterthought, but I do like how it turned out, with just a little bit of added dimension.

Here are a few more tips if you are going to try this!

Inchies are best when punched or cut from paper with small patterns.

When assembling the card, start by placing the inchie at the top center onto your card first! Then place the other inchies around it, to complete the pattern.

Don't get hung up on the inchie squares... I think that it would also be fun to use other inch-sized shapes to complete a similar pattern... maybe some hexagons or even some snowflakes! 

Maybe some of your stops along the VCMP will include a little bit of incentive! As for me, I will be picking one of the InLinkz participants at random to receive a little blog candy. I've got an adorable, brand new acrylic snowflake stamp that needs a new home. Isn't he cute?

Single Snowflake by CTMH

Can't wait to see what you all come up with! Play along by adding your card below and thank you so much for stopping by!

That's A Matter Of A Minion...

Punch art is fun... i've been collecting a board of things on Pinterest to make using my punches. I've also been collecting lots of different punches to use for this.. much to my wallet's dismay! :)

Here is a little guy I have been thinking up for a while. I did use a few punches but some of the pieces are just cut with a trimmer. So this is my take on the little Despicable Me minions! Love them!

Here are the pieces and sizes that I used:

I used a 1" square and 1" circle punch and a 1/2" circle punch and a corner rounder, 1/2" round side.

The body is 1 1/2 x 3"

The pants are 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 square.

You will need a few 1/4" strips of black yellow and blue for his headband, arms, stirrups and some little strips that are about 5/9" for his pants. 

Next, I cut some gloves and boots using the Cricut Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. The ones that I liked best were from the "Supergirl" shape, but there are tons to chose from on that cartridge. I cut them at 3/4". When I was browsing the cartridge, I noticed a lot of other "dress up" parts like hats and accessories... they might be fun for making dressed-up minions later!

I punched circles at 1" and 1/2" out of grey paper for his goggles and used some different sized googley eyes that I had on hand.

The first step is to round the corners of the yellow rectangle and then round the bottom corners of the blue square. Cut a few notches so that your pants are shaped like this:

Layer these together and add some blue strips for the stirrups. I just trimmed down the sides after I glued them on.

Next glue your arms and legs onto the back side of your minion.. he's starting to take shape, don't you think?

Here, I added the gloves boots and strap for his goggles. I trimmed down the sides again when I was done. Or, I suppose you could fold them around the back.

I used a fine tip black pen to add hair and a mouth and I added some little black button brads for his cute suspenders.

I googled a bunch of minion images to get ideas of how to doodle their hair and mouths. No two minion is the same, of course, so it doesn't really matter what you try! You could also try doodling some mouths and hair on a piece of scrap paper first if you want.

Minions come in all sizes, so it is okay to shave of a few sides or two to make them shorter, fatter or whatever you want. They come in one eyed, and two eyed varieties, so that is where the bigger circle punches and eyes come in. I've been working on a small army. :)

Soon I will take over the world!!! I gave this little guy a sign to hold. :)

Into the Operation Write Home box these little minions will all go... I hope that they brighten the day of lots of children when they receive them in the mail! Thanks for stopping by!

Tombow 4th of July Blog Hop!

Nothing better than a little blog hop on the 4th of July, right? :)

Thank you for stopping by! If you came here from The Paper Garden you are in the right spot! 

I'm very excited to be taking part in this hop that is the collaborative effort of Operation Write Home and Tombow. Tombow is the maker of some of our very favorite adhesive products when making cards for the troops and with good reason! When making cards that are going to travel halfway around the world and back again, there's no room for fall-apart cards! Nope, no mamby-pamby adhesives here, folks. You'll only get the finest from Tombow.

I had such a large variety of Tombow adhesivies to chose from to showcase today. The regular glue runner has been a favorite of mine forever, but this one was a new runner to me! I fell in love with it immediately, and made up a little video tutorial for the use I found for it. Here you go - watch now or save for later and learn how to use this POWER BOND adhesive to put together your pretty, shaped cards. It's only 4 minutes of your time, but you can always save for later, if you like!

Now then, I hope that you have had a wonderful time learning about all of the wonderful Tombow products! You should definitely check out the whole hop lineup, and hop along to Melissa's blog next.

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to make it all the way around to all of the hops for your chance to win a little Tombow of your own. :)

Art Impressions / OWH Blog Hop!

Well Hello! Welcome to Scrap Happens!... My little corner of the blogosphere! I'm Nancy... the Tutorial Wrangler from Operation Write Home's blog, Stars & Stamps. I'm super excited today to share the news about two great new fund-raiser stamp sets by Art Impressions!

We're having a little hop today to celebrate these cute sets - the one I wanted to share today is "Sending Love"! I think that you're going to love it.

If you're just joining the blog hop, you can start here - at the Art Impressions Blog!

If you came here from Kerry's Blog... congrats, you have landed successfully!

Here is my little card I made for Operation Write Home using the OWH "Sending Love" set:

What a cute set - it reminds me of childhood when we used to use cups and string to make little "telephones" and we would string them all over the house! I had in my brain, that I wanted to make the little cups look like little Red Solo cups. (Feel free to sing along with me, if you like!) The way that I accomplished this was to stamp the image first on the kraft paper and I heat embossed with white powder to make the "string". Then, I stamped again and embossed the "cups" with white on white paper, and red on red paper. After a little fussy cutting and shading for dimension, I pieced the parts together and added the sentiment, done in red and blue with clear embossing powder. I added a few heart punches and some doodles to finish it off. Here's a close-up of the details.

The two new stamp sets are so much fun and of course they support my favorite cause. I can definitely see making many cards for OWH with them. You can get these cute new stamps here! (Please clicky the words, instead of the photo.)

Click here to order!

I do want you to see what everyone else has created with these two new sets, so be sure to hop on over next to A Touch Of Creation by Piali Biswas. (And isn't that a beautiful name? I can't wait to meet her too!)

Thank you so much for stopping by, OWH'ers and new friends from Art Impressions!