2,000,000 Congratulations

Two million congratulations to Operation Write Home

 

Until next time,
Becca

Penguin Fun

My best friend's birthday is coming up. She loves snowmen, but I decided to do something a little different for her card this year. Instead of a snowman, how about an irresistible penguin?

 

Peter Penguin is an old DOTS image, but he is still adorable.  His body is colored with Copics in warm greys to coordinate with the brown background paper.  His hat brim is colored in cool greys to give it a contrast to the body.  I even used a Copic marker to color the small, clear button on the bottom left. 

 

The following are all CTMH products: snowflakes cut using CTMH Art Philosophy (and qualifies it to enter in the Heart2Heart Snow Much Fun challange), banner sentiment from the Artiste bundle coordinating stamps, and B&T paper.

 

The kraft paper directly behind Peter Penguin was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.

 

I love how even my really old stamps have held their quality so I can create clean, crisp images with them.  And how they can be pulled out and given new life with more current products.

 

Until next time,

Becca

When You Give of Yourself

One of the reasons I love making cards is because I give something of myself to the recipient, so the sentiment on this card is one of my favorites.  It's also my first card as part of the new Color My Heart Design Team.  Yeeee!  Next week begins our official team duties.  This week is just for fun, and the colors are neutrals.

The colors are Colonial White, Bamboo, Chocolate and Cocoa.  The main stamp sets are Treasures and Unscripted. (Both are retired.  I love to use these sets together.  For another example, please see this blog post.) The background script was created using Universal Background. The other CTMH products used here are white embossing powder, Artiste Cricut cartridge (for the notched paper), paper piercing, B&T paper (Vintage Travel, retired) Cocoa cardstock, and baker's twine.  I also accented the flowers with white gel pens to give a little more white to tie in the white stripes of the B&T paper, baker's twine and embossed sentiment.

The overstamped (Treasures) images were stamped first in Chocolate, stamped on scratch paper to remove some ink, then rolled in Cocoa around the edges.  The leaf was stamped in Bamboo then rolled lightly in Cocoa.  The veins were hand drawn with the white gel pen.

I used a square punch to create the banner by angling Cocoa paper into the corner and eyeballing the center.  Thank goodness for my new prescription glasses.

Now lest you think I came up with this card idea all by myself, I must give credit to Sheri Carroll.  I highly encourage you to visit her blog and soak in all the creativity shared there.

Speaking of shared creativity, I have updated the sidebar of my blog with all the other Color My Heart design team ladies.

Until next time,
Becca

Cards for Kids

Like you, I have been attempting to process the tragedy of Newtown, CT.  I wanted my response to be thoughtful and to do good.  Instead of rushing into debates on Facebook or raging through a blog post, I decided to take up a challenge.  If you have followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that I support Operation Write Home.  The president, Sandy Allnock, wrote this very thoughtful piece on the Homefront blog.  Today, on the Stars and Stamps blog there is a sketch challenge. Here's my contribution:

It's a very simple card and uses old CTMH stamps and papers along with a doilie and three different ribbons.  To give it a little extra touch, I mounted the B&T paper on a piece of the same cardstock as the card (cut at 4 x 5.25) and sewed around the edges.

The thing which struck me most forcibly was the idea that one of the sacrifices our heroes make is the opportunity to simply hug their children when something tragic and inexplicable happens.  And tragic, inexplicable things happen more often than random shootings.  Here at Fort Sill we are coming off a week of three deaths: suicide, car accident, and the spouse of deployed soldier killed when a man driving himself to the ER passed out and crossed a double yellow line. 

Can you send a hug in a card?  I hope so, and I hope this sweet card lets some little girl know her daddy or mommy loves her very much.  Now, I'm off to make a boy card because they need hugs, too.

Until next time,
Becca

Anniversary Star

In two days my hubby and I will celebrate 28 years together.  I decided to combine three challenges to make his anniversary card and let him know he is the star of my life.

CASology: Star
Less is More: Anniversary
Color My Heart: Sweet Leaf & Twilight

The stamps are CTMH Shining Star (retired) and a very old wood mounted sentiment set which has no title on the side.

I embossed the star with clear powder then sponged Twilight from the center out and Sweet Leaf from the outer edges toward the center making sure to give my edges definition.  The ribbon was tied using a Bow Easy (after looking up a video tutorial on how to use it), wrapped with white waxy flaxy and tied into a bow, then topped with a button.  All of this was held in place with various layers of Glue Dots, Liquid Glass, and tape runners.

The sentiment banner was hand cut, sponged with Twilight, and the curled around a pen to get the wave.  I secured it with a thin strip of doubled sided foam mounting tape.

And here's my favorite picture of the two of us.  It was taken by a friend at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs before we were transferred to Oklahoma.

Until next time,
Becca

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post to share another Christmas card for the Heart2Heart Challenge this week:

Stamps are all CTMH (Snowflakes, A Holiday, Frame it Up) in Juniper, Outdoor Denim, and White Daisy.  All the snowflakes were cut with Art Philosophy cartridge.

Glitter is Studio G from Hobby Lobby.

Okay...gotta run.  My husband is ready to see The Hobbit.  NOW!

Until next time,
Becca

Tea Makes Everything Better

I love tea. I can't stand coffee, but I make up for it with my love of tea. When I heard about a friend going through a rough patch with a disease flare up, I wanted to make her a feel better card.  Not a get well card, mind you, because this is not something from which you recover.  It's something that comes and goes with varying degrees of disruption.  So, I decided to send her some tea because--as the English have known for years--tea makes everything better.

 The image is "Feeling Rosy" from House Mouse colored with Prismacolor pencils; B&T is old CTMH. I made my own pins by adding beads to sewing pins.

The ribbon is one of my favorites (purchased from Hobby Lobby) and I'm almost out of it. Eeek!  Time to do another HL run, although they are extremely dangerous.

Can you see the shimmer on the cup (below)? I didn't want to cover the entire image with liquid glass to give it that porcelain look, but I did want it to have a little bit of shine.

 

This loosely follows the Mojo Monday Sketch 270. Loosely. But that's the beauty of sketches.

 

 

Whether you drink tea or not, little Miss Rosy is sure to bring a smile even when you aren't feeling so hot.

Until next time,

Becca