Holy Cow!

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My five for September...

Here are my five for September.  Since there has been a significant drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, we no longer need to send the same amount of cards we were sending to Operation Write Home.  My last shipment of Christmas Cards went postal last week.  Which means THESE cards are for my personal stash... :)

Monday, September 22, 2014

The Encouragement Project...

After making the card on the left for the weekend challenge on Seongsook's Stampers, I decided to dedicate my entire Sunday to making cards for it. This is a challenge started by a Senior in high school out in Utah (daughter of a fellow crafter I've never met). She is calling it the Encouragement Project. The idea is to have cards available to teachers and staff to write encouraging notes to students who are struggling, or being bullied or feeling very alone. They will also be used for students who went the extra mile or finally "understood" something. With each card I made, the more I thought this was an incredible project...

Although no cards were asked of us during this challenge, I have decided to send these for the project and I have TWO reasons...

1. I think it's a FANTASTIC idea and I hope it gets wings and flies... :)

And 2. When Zack was doing his project during his junior year to get every student at his high school to send an "Any Hero" note, I was overwhelmed by the amount of help I got from my crafting community. People I hadn't even met sent us card fronts to adhere the notes to OR helped color in the notes. Since we had 710 to do, the help was much appreciated.

This is MY opportunity to Pay It Forward...


Sunday, September 21, 2014

Inspiration Challenge...

 Colleen gave us a challenge this weekend on Seongsook's Stampers to create an inspirational card for someone who could use some encouragement.  This first card, I was trying to keep with fall colors.  I used three different Marvy pens on the sentiment and then huffed on it to make the ink "wet" again before stamping.  I know someone I would really, really like to send this to... but I don't have her address.
 
This second card is the good ol' Starburst that I've taken completely circular.  I think the paper with the black printing in the lower left is a little too out of place in this card (didn't look that way until I photographed it).  Next time, I'll skip that piece... :)
 
So, here are two submissions for the challenge... time for more?  Who knows...


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Scrappy Backgrounds...

Last night I had a special request for one of my Scrappy Backgrounds.  I whipped it out pretty darn quick and got it in the mail...
 
This morning (5am btw), I see all the scraps still on my craft table and they were just screaming to get used.  I forgot how much I LOVE doing these.  In three hours, I had these all made, cut, layered and put on card bases.  All but the sentiments... they were a struggle.
 
You see, I have a little box of already stamped sentiments and I was DETERMINED to use only from that box.  Now, that wouldn't really be a problem if these cards were going to Operation Write Home.  There are plenty of missing you, thinking of you, thank you and happy birthday.  However, I want to use these personally and there just aren't alot of people to whom I wish to say I'm missing you, thinking of you, thank you or happy birthday.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

More from Saturday's playdate...

I cut this down from one of the papers I created on Saturday at Susan's.  Using a gelli plate and one of Susan's favorite stencils, I added red, brown, white and gold acrylic paint.  After cutting it down, I mounted it on brown and then onto a card base.  It looked so much like a poinsettia that I added the three red beads.  I LOVE how this came out.  If I could create another thirty like this, I'd call it our personal Christmas card... :)


Sunday, September 14, 2014

All in a day's work...


Working with acrylic paints and Staz-on inks yesterday at my friend Susan's, I created several sheets of paper with mixed media designs on them.  This morning, I cut some of them down to create these cards.  The one in the middle, I used handmade stamps that Susan had received in a swap AND one I made myself out of her stash.  The one on the right is done on a ripped out page of a book.  I thought by mounting it on black helped to "pull" the words out.  The one on the left seems very cheerful with the yellow in it.  All of these fulfill the current ODBD (Our Daily Bread Designs) Challenge.  All of the sentiments are from a RAK I received from my friend Sherry a few months ago...

A closer look...
 
Patriotic maybe?
 
Up close and personal...