Splitcoast Color Challenge Card

Mary gave us some of my favorite bright colors for this week's Splitcoaststampers color challenge.  Unfortunately this was one of those days that everything I envisioned didn't quite come out as planned.  I had these polka dot stamps (surprise!) out for one of my efforts.  I can't believe in all the time I've had these stamps I've never layered the open circle and the closed circles.  Duh!  It makes a great effect.  Now I'm thinking of all the ways I can make my own tone-on-tone backgrounds with them.

Anyway, for this background I did the Pacific Point for the outlines and the Daffodil Delight for the insides.  A little very simple paper piecing and we'll call it done.  Now I'd better clean up my work table. It looks like I've had every stamp set in my collection out!

Tomorrow I have a scrapbook layout and I promise there isn't a polka dot stamp in sight!

Thanks for visiting today.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Polka Dot basics by Papertrey Ink
Ink:  Daffodil delight, Pacific point, Rich Razzleberry
Ribbon:  SU!'s Pacific Point and small dot ribbon from fabric store

Stars

I was 9 years old before I realized all little boys didn't grow up to be soldiers and go off to war.

My Dad had told me stories of being stationed in Tokyo and then arriving cold and scared near the front lines in Korea just as the war came to a close.  He had been drafted just out of high school.  His brother was also in Korea.  

Both of my grandmothers had photos of their daughters as WWII war brides with their handsome husbands in uniform.  I knew my grandfather had served in World War I.  One of my earliest memories was my cousin Owen coming home in his dress whites from his early Navy days and pitching me into the air while the family stood around chatting on a Sunday afternoon.  Later on we went to visit him and his new wife at one of their many posts.

While we are not a traditional military family for the most part, many have served.  I still have a cousin in the Navy now. Fortunately, I don't know of any in my immediate line who have not made it home.

Yet, so many haven't made it back.  To all those who give up the comforts of life in our country to defend us and to improve the lives of others, I thank you.

The card above will be a "Any Hero" card in my next Operation Write Home box.  For more info on OWH, check out their website at:  http://www.operationwritehome.org/

I'll also use this post as my TIP for the week:

To make the open stars on the card, I used a closed star image on my Cricut and the Center Point feature:

1.  Position the cutter in the middle of the design area you want to cut.

2.  Press the Center Point button.  Select the image you want such as the star from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.

3.  Select the size for the outside dimensions of your star.  I think my largest one was 3".

4.  Cut.  The cutter will return to its original position in the center of your image when cutting is completed.

5.  Dial down the size by 1/2" so my next cut was 2 1/2".

6.  choose Repeat Last and Cut again.

Then you have an open star.  You can repeat steps 5 and 6 to get smaller and smaller images.

These steps work great for any simple design such as hearts, stars, circles, pointed squares, etc.

Thank you for visiting today and thanks to all who serve us.  I can't imagine what it must be like to leave your home, family and friends to go abroad to the unknown and unsafe.  I hope our cards bring a tiny bright spot into our hero's and their families' lives.

More Dots

When I get back to my crafting space after a break, I like to start in with a card or other small project often a take off of something I've done recently or a CASE.  This card uses the same background stamp I did a few days ago.  This time I punched hearts and flowers to fill in the circles.

Of course, it was also a good reason to use the small heart punch from Stampin' Up! that I finally got around to ordering.  I picked it up yesterday so no sense putting it in the drawer with out a test run :-)

Having a little crafting time was necessary yesterday afternoon after spending the morning helping my husband replace our hot water heater.  I was the fetch, carry and hold stuff helper; he really did all the work.  Thank goodness we have water again!  I was in such a hurry to get errands done and get back to the final installation steps that I didn't get to the park for my walk.  I hope to do that on what looks to be a gorgeous almost summer day.

Hope you are having a fun holiday weekend!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Line Dots by Hero Arts; Stitches by Hot off the Press; greeting by Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Crushed Curry, Kiwi Kiss; Chestnut Roan by Colorbox
DSP:  Various scraps from Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket

Peonies

Nothing crafty today; just a pretty peony from our yard.

Hope you are having a lovely day.

TIPsy Tuesday - Favorite Embellishment Storage

Today's tip is to shop the tool section of a discount store for storage.  This is my absolute favorite small item storage system.

I believe this came from the home tool section at Walmart.  I have another one I use in my workroom that came from Sears tool department long before I started my business.  It hold buttons, needles and stuff.  These little drawers are ideal for holding papercrafting embellishments.

Embellishments that go with a collection are typically stored with that collection.  All the others go here:  buttons by color, grommets and most of my Stampin' Up! embellishments, binder clips, etc.  I keep it right over my worktable so they are handy.  The drawers are removable.

Sitting on top is this little cat.  He/she has it's own story.

When my husband and I first started dating over 20 years ago, he had to go on a business trip and came home with this little cat to perch above my desk at home and watch over me.  Lenny said he had seen these before but could never find one when he wanted to buy a special gift for a cat lover. But on this trip, right after dating me, he easily found the cat in a small town gift shop.  (I think he saw it as a sign.)  The little kitty has watched over one desk or another of mine for 20 years now.

If only the little kitty could talk... she could tell me where my glue dots got off to this time :-)

Thanks for visiting today!

Little Flowers

Since I was working with "Big Flowers" the other day, I thought I'd get out the companion set "Little Flowers" and stamp over this background stamp.  I've always loved this ribbon which I think came from Walmart ages and ages ago.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.  We are finally due for some warm, pretty weather!  Let's get out and enjoy it.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Little Flowers by Stampin' Up!; Line Dots background by Hero Arts; greeting from Cloud 9
Ink:  Groovy Guava, Dusty Durango, Kiwi Kiss, Old Olive, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise

Art Journal - A little bit Stronger

Until a few months ago I didn’t know what an art journal was.  Now I’m seeing them all over the place.  When I first found out about them I was excited and went out and bought a watercolor notebook with the intention of making that my own art journal.  Then it laid around on my guest bed until I finally stuck it in a drawer.  After seeing a few more videos and postings about art journals, I decided to give it another chance.  Maybe this time I would actually put something on the paper.

I’m not really good with just staring at a blank piece of paper and suddenly starting to put something on it.  I’m not a doodler.  So if I was going to do an art journal I would need some sort of theme or direction.

I decided to use my struggles with joint and connective tissue pain as a foundation for my art journal.  I wanted it to be inspirational for those days, well, those days when things just aren’t that great.

For this first page I chose the lyrics from a song I’ve been hearing on the radio lately.  Every time I hear the song Stronger sung by Sarah Evans, it reminds me that I’m making progress, I’m no longer spinning my wheels, I am getting a little bit stronger every day.

So for my journal page, I wrote out the portions of the lyrics that are applicable to my situation.  The song is about recovering from a failed relationship.  I’m trying to recover from the times my body fails me –some of those are temporary conditions and others chronic.

Project notes:

First I wrote out the lyrics with a black Sharpie.

Next I used Ranger Ink to create the background.  I pressed the ink pads to my craft mat, spritzed them with water, and dipped in the paper wiping off the excess.  I started with darker more clouded colors at the top and work down to brighter lighter shades on the bottom.  I wanted to emphasize that I was getting to be more like myself again as I'm a bright and light color person.

I used some stamps at the top and the bottom of the page to show the confusion at the top and the better life at the bottom.

The stitching was meant to emphasize certain sections of the song.  It’s the only part of the page I’m not crazy about and I’m not sure why.  Part of doing art journal is experimenting with different techniques and seeing what you like and what you don’t.  Normally I love stitching on my pages it just didn’t work for me here.


The final step was to spritz with Angel's Glimmer mist.  I waited until after stitching so as to not get any  glimmer on my sewing machine.


The page is now propped up over my worktable and I can see it from where I sit with my laptop which isn't really on my lap - another adjustment I've had to make.  Eventually I'll put in a notebook.


Now that I've done one page, I've got lots of ideas for other pages.  It was fun to do and truly therapeutic.


Ingredients:  Ranger Distress Inks
Stamps:  Circle and Dots by Inkadinkado; God's Beauty and Petal Prints by Stampin' Up!
Various markers by Stampin' Up!   

Brightly Colored Birthday Card

Still hoping for a little sunshine here!  The rain has not produced flooding, of that we are very thankful.  My heart goes out to those who are dealing with the floods.

While we wait for better weather, here is a bright card based on the Greenhouse Gala paper from Stampin' Up!  I'd been saving this paper for a series of scrapbook pages.  I'm nearly through the pages and have hardly touched the paper.  Sometimes things just don't end up going for what I bought them for.  Anyway, it is pretty paper and I'm sure it will find a home.

I haven't used the Big Flowers stamp set in quite awhile.  It has always been one of my favorites.  I'm using the three circular elements in place of squares in this week's card sketch from Splitcoaststampers.  I did several of these cards to start populating my next OWH box so I stretched the ribbon by cutting and stapling on the ends.

Thanks for stopping by!   

(Is there still something goofy going on with Blogger?  I can't get it to take my labels.)

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Alpahbet Soup and Big Flowers from Stampin' Up!

DSP:  Greenhouse Gala

Cardstock:  Lemon Tart from PTI

Ink:  Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Baja Breeze

Ribbon:  Making Memories