MMSC26

This is my submission for Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge 26

I was asked by one of the foster grandmas at work to create a retirement card for the Foster Grandparent/Volunteer Services Coordinator. I am tight with the foster grandparents. They "hang out" right outside of my office and the room down the hall. Mary Claire, the coordinator, often comes down to check on the grandparents. I have gotten to know both Mary Claire and the grandparents over the 10 years I have worked at the center and I just adore them! Grandma Virginia asked me to create a card for Mary Claire's retirement party. She gave me designer's choice as she said she likes all of my cards (I thought that was really sweet!). I knew I would use this sketch challenge, but I didn't have a stamp set in mind or a theme.

School ended early today so I rounded up the kids and we went to Michael's. I looked through the 12 x 12 paper and saw this paper there. The card was starting to form in my mind now. Since I saw the butterflies on the paper I knew the Clear Dollar Stamps set Beautiful Butterflies would work perfectly for it. I also bought the charm and the rub-ons, but wasn't quite sure how they would fit on the card.

I started with a 6 x 6 card so that there would be more room on the inside for people to sign their names. I have to say, a-hem! Midnight Madness people that I am not fond of the cone shaped elements you put in the sketch (and a few sketches ago). I have a hard time making that shape! It took me forever to figure out how that was going to work, but I got it.

I eventually downsized the card to 5 x 5 because there was too much empty space on the card with the 6 x 6 size.

The butterfly is colored with copic markers. I put the rub-ons on the ribbon (I thought that was quite clever!). I then cut the glitter part of out the glitter paper to make the bottom two strips and adhered the butterfly charm on top. Unfortunately, the glitter paper in the three panel cone elements can't be seen. The inside of the card has another rub-on butterfly and the sentiment, "congratulations".

The final thing I did was make a matching envelope using The Enveloper. It took me awhile to figure out what size to cut the paper and what score line to use as this sized envelope is not included in the directions. For my own information, because I am sure I will forget, I used a 8.5 square piece of paper and I scored each side at "E".

Stamps: Beautiful Butterflies by Clear Dollar Stamps

Ink: Memento tuxedo black

coloring medium: copic markers: red, orange, yellow

paper: designer paper from Michael's , solid paper from Michael's

accessories: rub ons, charm, cuttlebug folder

Thanks for looking!

MMSC25

What a story for this card. For the past couple of weeks we have been battling colds in our house. The children passed the cold on to me. I went to work on Monday and it wasn't a good day. I felt awful. Tuesday I went to work, didn't feel any better and left after 4 hours. I came home and slept and relaxed on the couch. After awhile I got up and managed to work on the midnight madness sketch challenge.

I decided to use Clear Dollar Stamps for this card. I bought this stamp set and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. As I was coloring it I decided to use a cotton ball for the fur around the hood, cuffs and bottom of the jackets. I outlined the whale with green stickles and filled in the fish (upper left) with blue stickles.

Meanwhile the electricity went out. We finished making dinner on my camping cook stove outside and I went around lighting many candles throughout the house. I even got out my headlamp so I could finish stamping! The kids really wanted to play "go fish" so I did that instead. By the time the game was over the electricity was back on and I was back to this card.

The background paper is the faux silk technique. I enjoy this technique as I find it an easy way to make a dp when I don't have one in my stash that will work.

I really wanted a lot of texture with this card so I have the fuzzy yarn, the cotton ball, the stickles, the embossed paper and then I struggled with the doo-dad in the lower right hand corner. I didn't have a buckle piece that would work there as the sketch challenge indicates. I tried a button. No. I tried ribbon. No. I tried more fuzzy yarn. No. I finally slapped on more cotton to make a snow ball! I uploaded the picture and went to bed, but I wasn't happy with the snowball and the fish were so hard to see. I actually tossed and turned about this all night and didn't sleep. Crazy I know. I even woke up around 2 am to come here and pull the first picture off of my blog. A little OCD? Naw! just dorkiness! Remember I am Queen Dork of the Travelin' Dork Sisters!!! I am still sick and with the lack of sleep I decided to stay home. I work in a facility with individuals who are medically compromised so I am sure staff and clients alike are grateful that I am home today.

This morning I changed the snowball to snowflakes, but bits of the snowball are behind the snowflakes which I think adds to the texture of the card. To make the fish pop out more I put them on little circles.

I hope you enjoy this card and I do!

Stamps: Eskimos by Clear Dollar Stamps

Paper: Bashful Blue, Rose Red, garden Green and White

Ink: Memento Black, Garden Green

coloring medium: copic markers

accessories: cuttlebug folder, nestabilities circles and scalloped circles, snowflake punch, stickles, cotton ball, brayer, tissue paper.

techniques: faux silk, trial and error!

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge 23 AND Blog Hop

Here is my submission for Midnight Madness's Sketch challenge. Wow, this one was a challenge for me. Some how the 3 layers to the left of the main image just threw me off. My first idea was to make little paper fans. It looked great, but it was too bulky for the card. I was getting close to giving up, but knew that you, my loyal followers (and mostly dork sisters) were waiting for baited breath for my next posting. Okay, go ahead and breathe now!!
I bought this red pattern paper just this past week. I got it in the origami section of Michael's. I didn't realize that it is a kind of clothy paper. Very cool. I used the stamp set Asian Plants from Clear Dollar Stamps as my first idea again went back to the asian paper fans. I'd like to say the rest fell into place easily, but it didn't (:

Stamps: Asian plants by Clear Dollar Stamps

Paper: Real red, garden green, blue (can't remember which one), origami paper, white

Ink: black

Coloring medium: Copic markers, R20, R27, R29, E37, E77 and a green

Other supplies: embossing folder, oval dies for the cuttlebug, the little window brad thingy, pearls and ribbon from my dork sister, Joyce.

*****I would also like to mention that Midnight Madness has a blog hop starting on Friday. Please click one of the links to the side to learn more about their blog hop. Hippity hoppity!!! See you there!*****

Sympathy Card and Tilda/Pansy practice

Shoot, I uploaded these in the wrong order. Anyway, here are my practice Tildas and Pansies. Getting better!!

This is the sympathy card for my uncle's funeral. I went with the same sketch I just used with the Tilda's. I spent most of my hours, yes, I said hours, working on coloring. I had a few pansy's that weren't card worthy. I also practiced coloring Tilda's today.

I am too tired to say more so thanks for looking and hey, don't forget to leave a comment.

50th Anniversary Card

A coworker asked me to make a 50th Anniversary card for her parents and she needs it by Friday. Gulp! I might take Friday off to go to Chicago for the funeral. That leaves me tonight and tomorrow. Thankfully, the stamping mojo was flowing tonight and this beautiful card emerged. I find it difficult to stamp when under the pressure, but I actually made this in a decent amount of time and without TOO much frustration. I bought the gold sparkly paper at Ace Hardware for $2.50. I thought that was pricey but I don't have a Michael's or scrapbooking store anywhere near here. I am glad I did though despite the cost. I think it really makes the card.

Stamps: Pansy by Clear Dollar Stamps

Ink: Versamark Cloud White

CS and papers: Gold sparkly paper, white

markers: none

embellishments: keys, ribbon, cuttlebug embossing folder, computer (to type the date), embossing powder

Techniques: embossing

Sympathy Card

Candy Fosta of Clear Dollar Stamps lost her Dad this week. My dear sweet dork sister, Linda B, who also is a part of CDS, let us dork sisters know of Candy's loss. I made this card for Candy even though I don't know her. I watercolored the butterfly and used the faux silk technique for the the second layer. The layout was supposed to be a sketch challenge on SCS, but of course I deviated from the sketch a bit. Not too much though. The triangle was supposed to be in front of my faux silk panel, but it just didn't look right. I put it behind.

As I was working on this card I got a phone call from my mom that her brother passed away tonight. This was not unexpected, but she is devastated all the same. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers this week.

Photo Booth

I bought a photo booth (small portable thing) to help me take better pictures of my cards. This is a card I have already displayed here on my blog. I just used it again to practice using the photo booth. The blurriness of the words is from not using the enclosed tripod.

Slide Slider Card

This is my final card using the Hanging Out stamp set by Clear Dollar Stamps. I had this idea that wouldn't it be cool to have a card that just kept on going? Don't we all feel frustrated with the amount of laundry we do daily and weekly? No matter how much we do there is always more. That was the feeling I was trying to get across in this card. I got the idea to make a slider card inside a slider card after seeing a birthday card invitation my BIL's girlfriend showed me. There isn't a tutorial (that I am aware of) so, after looking at the pictures she sent me, I winged it. I am calling it a slide slider card for a lack of a better definition.
I paper pierced most of the clothes. When I got tired of cutting itty bitty clothes out I resorted to markers and just colored the images in.
I used my computer to type the sentiment (although "Hang in there" is part of the stamp set) so that both ends with words would match in typing. The third panel is the wording I added.
I sponged the sky, added a sun and some ribbon. I love, love this card. I hope you enjoy it and make one yourself!!


Here is the second panel pulled out. Notice the care I took to make sure my designer paper lined up and my clothes line lined up!! UGH! Look at all of that laundry!



The final panel pulled out. Doesn't it feel like that sometimes??? You will see there is a mix match of socks. I did that on purpose because some socks just seem to go to heaven and we never find the mate. Peggysue, I made the purple ones on the right hand side with you in mind. They remind me of some of the sock yarn we use.

Stamps: Hanging Out by Clear Dollar Stamps
CS and Paper: Various scraps of patterened paper, green galore, garden green and white
ink: Stazon black, bashful blue
markers: ballet blue, pretty in pink, black, orange, elegant eggplant, mellow moss, yoyo yellow, blue
accessories and embellishments: scalloped punch, circle punch, ribbon, tag punch, computer/printer
coloring medium: markers
special technique: slide slider card, paper piercing, sponging

Well, my followers, with this card I have completed my stay as guest designer with Clear Dollar Stamps. I enjoyed the ride and wish all of you who are competing this month the best of luck. I found this month fun and challenging and if you win I hope you find it the same.
Don't lose heart, I will continue to stamp and post. But maybe, just maybe, some more knitting might find its way back to my blog posts.

Ta Da!

Tri shutter Pansy Card

Here is my final card made with the Pansy set by Clear Dollar Stamps. I thought of the Tri shutter card technique when I was thinking of the last design to make. I wanted to stay away from purple for the colors. I have 12x12 designer pattern paper in Perfect Plum and this technique calls for 12x12 paper. By default I used purple again. This card actually took me two days to make! Egads! I just couldn't get the "T" paper cut right. I finally gave up and went to bed Saturday night. Sunday I got up and easily made the cuts. I went to go take a shower and DS3, whose is 23 months old, scribbled on my paper!! I highly recommend making a template for this part of the card so you don't have to make all the mistakes I made. I used a whole sheet of 12x12 paper to make this card. That is so not right.


A picture of card opened up.


A view from a different angle. Can you see that I outlined the white box with piercing?? I don't have one of those cool hole-y mats from SU, so I used a ruler and a paper piercer.

Stamps: Pansy by Clear Dollar Stamps
CS and paper: 12x12 designer paper in Perfect Plum, white, perfect plum
Ink: Stazon black, perfect plum, old olive
Markers: yo-yo yellow
accessories: primas, pearls, ribbon, brad, flower stickers, paper piercing tool, ruler
Coloring medium: water coloring
Special techniques: Tri shutter card

Hang in There

Above, a new picture taken outside.

I wish you could see better that the bird on the left is sitting on the branches. The bird is adhered to the top of the card and when flat it looks as if it's feet are resting on the branches. I drew in the branches. I am not sure what kind of birds these are and whether or not they are in a region that has evergreens! But that's the only tree branch I can draw. I sponged the sky with a torn piece of paper, sponge and bashful blue. I paper pierced the clothes and colored in the clothes pins with brown. Oh shoot, I forgot to add glossy accents to the beaks and feet. I better go back and do that!

Stamps: Hanging Out by Clear Dollar Stamps
CS and paper: Certain Celery, white, scrap designer paper from my stash
ink: stazon black, bashful blue
markers: brown, black, barely banana, green
accessories: sponge, torn paper, prima, brad, tag punch by SU!
coloring medium: sponging, watercoloring
special techniques: sponging, paper piercing.

Upright Ballerina

This is my third design using Bee-utiful Ballerina by Clear Dollar Stamps. I decided she needed to be upright this time. I inked her body intentionally staying away from her leg and positioned the block so she would be upright. I used blue stickles on her wings and watercolored behind her with bashful blue. The layout is from my friend, Berly (pronounced Barley). I really liked her layout and CASED it here. The designer paper is all from The Glitter Mat Stack.
Stamps: Bee-utiful Ballerina
CS and paper: The Glitter Mat Stack, white, pretty in pink, regal rose, going grey, creamy caramel, more mustard
ink: stazon black
Markers: yo yo yellow, black, creamy caramel
accessories: prima flower, pearl, ribbon, nestabilities circles and scalloped circles, blue stickles
Coloring medium: watercoloring, markers
special techniques: none

Orange Bee

Here's another example of the stamp set by Clear Dollar Stamps, "Bee-utiful Bee". I wanted to try not using pink. I keep gravitating to pink since she's a ballerina so I forced myself to try a different color. I found the patterned paper in a pack called The 180 Pack. I liked that it had the yellow in it to tie in the bee aspect of the stamp. This layout is no where near what I had in mind! I like it though! I accidentally tore off the girl's antenna when I was scrubbing the stamp. I fudged. I drew it in. Can you tell?

Stamps: Bee-utiful Ballerina by Clear Dollar Stamps
CS and paper: patterned paper by "The 180 Pack", yo-yo yellow, white
ink: Stazon black, only orange, black, yo-yo yellow
markers: only orange, black, yo-yo yellow
accessories: flowers, pearls, scrapper's floss, yellow stickles
coloring medium: markers
special techniques: none