Thursday, May 31, 2012

Productive!

I have had a busy couple of days and have been pretty happy with the cards I've made!


This card was for today's Ways to Use It challenge on Splitcoast Stampers.  The challenge is "Let's Get Negative," and the idea was to use the negative left behind after using a die cutter or punch to cut out a shape.  I used my Martha Stewart butterfly punch to punch three butterflies from a piece of green Authentique paper and backed it with a strip of a printed paper from Basic Grey's Out of Print collection.  To get a little more contrast between the layers I outlined the butterfly shapes with a black Sharpie.  I held the Sharpie so it was just touching the paper and let the natural small tremors in my hand make the line skip and stutter to make faux stitching.  I attached both strips to a 3"x6" kraft card and created the greeting from DCWV letter stickers.


This was from last week's Ways to Use it Challenge, which was simply to make a card using green in the design.  I recently got a great card making resource, Card Sketches for Paper Crafters, and this is based on one of the sketches.  I simply dug through my scraps for anything green, used a circle punch punch out circles, and then played with the arrangement til I had the colors and designs I liked.  I cut another scrap into the banner shape and backed it with solid brown paper for contrast, and stamped the sentiment (Stampendous) onto it.  I added an antique gold brad and attached the banner with foam tape.  This card is a great way to use up scraps, and depending on the color combinations and sentiments, can be used for all sorts of occasions!


This is for another challenge from Splitcoast, last Friday's Free for All challenge, which called for using hot pink.  I don't have a whole lot of hot pink papers in my collection, but I did have a lovely multi colored one with these paisley shaped color splashes which I had never used because it is so busy, I wasn't sure what to do with it.  I decided to fussy cut a section out of it and attach it to a white card for contrast.  I added a Me and My Big Ideas dimensional flower sticker in complementary shades.  Not sure if the flower is exploding off colors, or streaming them behind like a comet.  It's a little weird, but I like it.  I thought the exuberant look of the "Celebrate!" stamp went well with the card, so I stamped it in orange.


This one is a ridiculously simple card, I am almost embarrassed to post it here.  It came about for Splitcoast's Tuesday color challenge, that called for a green/pink/brown combination, and I had just been fiddling around with some K&Co. die cuts and border stickers that I had gotten on clearance.  Since the colors worked, I combined them into a quick card using another sketch from my new book.  I used a white card as the base and layered on some brown, that I sanded on the edges and outlined with distress ink in walnut brown.  I also added some distress ink at the edge of the card.  I placed the border sticker on the brown paper and used foam dimensionals to pop up the bird die cut and the heart, which I had stamped in the walnut distress ink with the sentiment from A Muse Art Stamps.  Not only did this fit the color challenge, but it also works for both of Monday's challenges this week, Try a New Technique (distressing) and Clean And Simple (love themed card).  I was a little disappointed that the sanding distressing isn't more visible and I would probably try to do some more distressing if I had it to do over again, but I think it turned out okay.


Here is a bright happy birthday card I made using just Basic Grey papers and stickers from the Cupcake collection, which I bought a bunch of when it came out a few years ago.  I love it for birthday cards because it is so bright and festive.  I used a design from another recently purchased book, 175 Fresh Card Ideas by Kimber McGray.  The blue loopy border and the two presents are stickers from Basic Grey, the "It's my party" sticker is from Sticko.  The star brads are from Joann's.


Another birthday card.  Have you noticed that I am a little obsessed with orange lately?  It is just such a happy summery color, and it goes so well with aqua or sky or turquoise blue, which are also favorites of mine.  Here I used papers from Recollections Mosaic Memories pad for the background and orange strip.  The light blue solid cardstock is Bazzill so it has a nice subtle texture to it.  I used that to back the orange strip as well as the circle birthday greeting, and used light brown ink to set off the edges of both.  The circle and cake are from Stupendous! and since they are clear positionable stamps, you can change out the circle edges and the images in the centers of the circles, which makes for nice variety.  I finished off the card with some half pearls, which I had been coveting for a while but always found the stick-on ones at Michael's too expensive, and not enough in the colors and shapes I wanted.  I found an Etsy seller selling them in bags of 100 for the price of one sheet of stickers.  I have to use my own glue but it's worth it!


Another Father's Day card, this one made for the Featured stamper challenge on Splitcoast.  Each week one member is designated as the featured stamper, and we choose cards from her gallery to inspire cards of our own.  My card was inspired by this card by this week's Featured stamper, Susan Bridgman (Susanbri).  By changing the color scheme to more masculine colors I was able to make this a Father's Day card, though I kept the basic layout including the shape of the squares, the centered greeting, and the embossed edges.  To make the center element I punched a circle out of a scrap of designer paper (both papers on this card are more from the Mosaic Memories pad) and stamped the sentiment on it.  I layered it onto a white metal-edged tag from Staples, and mounted it with foam tape.  I used my new Martha Stewart scoring board for the edges and finished it all off with some navy blue eyelets in the corners.


This card was for two challenges:  the monthly Christmas card challenge and another card for the Featured Stamper challenge.  I made four of this card to fulfill half of my monthly goal of 8 Christmas/holiday cards.  I used this card by Susan as an inspiration, but the size of the image I was working with determined various changes that ended up wandering pretty far from Susan's original.  I finally got to use this gorgeous Christmas image from a set by Inkadinkado, which I stamped in red onto cream cardstock.  That was layered onto dark green plaid, which was layered with foam tape onto the front of the cream card, that I had covered with dark red plaid paper.  I ran a metallic gold ribbon across the bottom and stamped the sentiment (JudiKins) on another cream scrap, added green backing paper and a bit of foam tape to pop it up as well.  I kept the "doodads" to a minimum to make this a good card for mailing.

One last card, made last week:


This is my other card for the monthly goal, as I also made four of this one.  It was inspired by a torn tree design in a Cards magazine back issue.  I again used a cream card base and more paper from my ProvoCraft Christmas slab.  I layered red and dark green plaids onto the cream card, then tore a triangular tree shape from a different plaid paper.  I decorated the tree with various Christmas colored buttons, and stamped the sentiment (Studio G) in dark green ink onto a metal edged tag.  The tag is attached to the card with small gold brad (Making Memories).

Whew!  That was a lot of cards!  I still have a backlog of cards to load up and will try to do so this week.  But for now, I think I want to make a few more before I have to start preparing for my return to work tonight.

Have a great day, and thanks for looking!

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