Flowery CASE

This is a card I made for my anniversary, coming up on Friday the 13th. My husband and I will be celebrating our sixteenth year of marriage. It's a bit surreal... so much has happened, yet so little. I believe we are both healthy and happy, and anything that seems like a struggle dims in comparison to what some other couples face.

I CASEd this week's SCS Featured Stamper, Cindy (a.k.a. YLM). Her card, Embossed Petals, used the SU! Pick a Petal set with heat embossing. I decided to break out a Cuttlebug set I bought a while ago that included the die and embossing folders for a similar flower. I took off a bit from her design, but it definitely got me started. I had to keep it a bit on the masculine side, but there are still some girly aspects.

Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches

Paper: SU! Ultrasmooth Vanilla and Au Chocolat, Bazzill brown textured

Ink: SU! Chocolate Chip (edges of petals and sentiment)

Ribbon: SU! Creamy Caramel taffeta and Chocolate Chip twill

Corduroy Button: Who's Got the Button (Bazzill)

Embossing: Cuttlebug

Caardvarks

I have been popping in and out of the Caardvarks site for a couple months now. Today, I decided to take the plunge. The theme for this month is, "Drink Up!" Like I need another opportunity to use my Cosmobella? How could I pass that up?

So, here's my first (and I daresay NOT my last) Caardvarks entry: Live it Up!

The details:

o I have decided that Saturday and Sunday will be scrap days. That means I will try my best to use only scraps from previous projects on new ones. Therefore, I am taking a stab a some of the colors on this card.

o I decided to use SU! Soft Sky as a base. On top of that came Bazzill gray textured cardstock, SU! Ultrasmooth White and Creamy Caramel, and The Paper Studio Brown and Blue Dots patterned paper. I used the patterned paper to piece her outfit, and colored the rest of her with marker or pencil.

o The scallops are actually a series of small circles (1/4", I believe). I saw this in a scrapbook magazine and thought it was an ingenious scallop method.

o I had not used the sentiment stamp yet. It's designed by Alison Wong for Studio G. I love the little $1 Studio G clear acrylic sets at Michaels. I have to say, I needed to convince this one to hold on to ink, but eventually, I was successful. I popped up the "it" with pop dots.

o Cosmobella... how I love her. She is one of my favorite stamps. I really want to purchase some other Bellas, but I have not used PMSbella yet, and she needs some ink before I move on.

o I embellished with SU! Creamy Caramel taffeta ribbon and hardware from SU! Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware.

I think she's cute. But then again, any card with her I love. Slight bias.

Master Bedroom Inspiration

For today's IC 131, we had a room to use for inspiration. I came up with two cards that could not be more dissimilar. The first one, the pink one, I am not crazy about at all. However, with as many redos as it got, I figured taking a photo would be the least I could do. I tried a close up on the metal tag, as in the larger picture it looks white. It is actually a brushed silver that I stamped with Staz On and inked with Adirondack acrylic.

I am up this "early" because I created card #2, a card I like MUCH better. I think it better captures the softness and patterns of the room.

I'd love to hear which one you prefer.

SERENITY

Size: 4 x 4 1/4 inches

Paper: SU! Pink Passion and Ultrasmooth White

Stamps: Serenity Now (My Favorite Things)

Embellishments: Vellum flower, sheer white ribbon, olive grosgrain ribbon, Thickers, Dots Fiskars embossing plate

Ink: Black Staz On, Adirondack white acrylic

GOD IS

Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches

Paper: SU! Bordering Blue, Deja Views Wedding, and unknown (inside panels)

Stamps: SU! Refuge and Strength

Ribbon: Off white from Michaels

Hardware: SU! Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware

Ink: SU! Bordering Blue and Adirondack white acrylic

Happy National Yo-Yo Day

Interesting, yes? It's National Yo-Yo Day! Who knew? Apparently me and the hundreds of people who do the SCS Limited Supply Challenge.


We were asked to choose among National Yo-Yo Day, National Doughnut Day, or National Gardening Day. I was intrigued by the yo-yo, of course.

So, I search for some funky yo-yo design to CASE. Suddenly, I happen upon a yo-yo of "a different color." I suppose the quilting world has known of yo-yos like this for quite some time. The round felt embellishment on my card is called a yo-yo circle. There are tons of sites that show the yo-yo circle, and it is apparently a useful embellishment for many, many crafts. It was called a "whirligig" for some time before 1928, when yo-yo quilts went in to mass production. There is a lot of interesting quilt history on the site where this picture is house.

So, knowing this interesting little embelly is named after our friend, the yo-yo, I decided to use it for today's card. It doesn't necessarily celebrate National Yo-Yo Day, but it keeps the yo-yo in mind... an inspired piece, if you will.

I will say, for someone who does not consider herself a seamstress, this was not difficult to make. I looked around at some sites. There are some sites where people use shapes other than a circle (like a heart). I thought I was doing well to make one circular one. :)

Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches
Paper: SU! Brilliant Blue and Barely Banana, SEI Dill Blossom
Stamp: Friendship Sentiments by My Sentiments Exactly!
Ink: SU! Brilliant Blue and Close to Cocoa
Yo-Yo: Blue felt circle, thread, Paper Wire, Basic Grey colored button, Making Memories Animal Crackers felt button (Jack)
Brads: Spare Parts
Ovals: Coluzzle

How JoLynn Got Her Groovy {Guava} Back

OK, there's no way to sugar coat this. I have been very cranky this afternoon/evening. I was chalking it up to being too busy to create... and I was right! I feel so much better now that I have had a chance to make something. Whew!

This card started off fulfilling one SCS challenge: Ways to Use It. We were asked to use wire in some way. I used an oldie but a goodie... one of the first crafting supplies I ever bought... Paper Wire (in Hunter). This is extremely easy to manipulate into whatever you need. I used it for flourishes. In my first SCS post EVER, I used it for a flower (do you love my photog skills or what?). That was an awesome card.

This card also fulfilled SC179. This was an interesting sketch, and fairly easy to work within its parameters.

When I decided on the Sketch Challenge and the Ways to Use It Challenge, I had some color choices. I decided to use the combo in CC130, Always Artichoke (which was still laying out from the previous challenge) and Groovy Guava. This was a pretty cool combo, and was done before I had started the challenges. It was really helpful that I had printed out the master list of all the color challenges. I simply scanned for Always Artichoke and found what I like.

So, I got my Groovy {Guava} back. Woo hoo!

Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches

Paper: SU! Groovy Guava, Always Artichoke, Very Vanilla, and Always Artichoke Prints DSP

Wire: Paper Wire

Hardware: SU! Hodgepodge Hardware

Embossing: Cuttlebug Swirls folder

Ovals: Coluzzle

Stamps: SU! Delight in Life and Expressive Flexible Phrases

Ink: SU! Always Artichoke

Multitasking

Multitasking takes all the fun out of crafting for me. I was trying to do some "work" along with some "play," and I got totally frustrated with both. Lesson learned.

Anyway, it's 1:30 AM, and I need to catch some zzzs. So I thought I would post today's challenge. Every decision seemed to be slightly off tonight. One particular problem was I didn't want to print the envelopes on the cardstock/paper because the lines would show on one side and that bugged me. However, when traced, the template was too big for the box. So, I tried elongating the flap (hence, the blue flap) and that flopped. Now, looking at the pic, everything looks OK. But this will be a prototype, I think, for future boxes of cards like this. Too many little things that could turn in to big things if given as a gift. But, the prototype is kind of interesting, I think.

The template for the box is found here. The template for the envelope is found here. Thanks go to sandee74 on Splitcoast for these templates. Please heed my warning above and make necessary changes. Play first, then commit to paper/cardstock you love.

Paper: SU! Always Artichoke, Always Artichoke Prints DSP, Chatterbox Scrapbook Walls Chateau Stripe, Chatterbox Scrapbook Walls Gazebo Bias Plaid

Stamps: Friendship Sentiments (My Sentiments Exactly!)

Ribbon: Offray wide blue grosgrain

Late Birthday Greetings

For people whose birthdays are at the beginnings of months, I stink. The calendar jump is a delay in my brain. So, here is a belated card for my niece, who is, I believe, now officially the age I was when her mom had her. Hmm, have to check on that one. Her mom's birthday is also on the 2nd... of January... imagine how late those cards have been (and non-existent sometimes).

For this card, I also chose to CASE the SCS Featured Stamper, Maren (aka mmbc). I CASEd her Fabulous Pearl Brads card.

I changed:

-Color choices (kept the Old Olive, though)

-Brads to eyelets

-Sentiment choice

-Matting to inking on sentiment panel

-Two layers before the base rather than three

-Stamped all three layers in the same color and the same stamp

-Ribbon color

I kept:

-Old Olive

-Felt flowers

-Sketch

-Wide grosgrain ribbon

Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches

Paper: SU! Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, and Sahara Sand

Ink: SU! Old Olive

Stamps: SU! Paisley background, Hero Arts Happy Birthday

Eyelets: SU! Antique Brass jumbo eyelets, SU! Only Orange and Old Olive eyelets

Adhesive: Glue dots for a lot of the front