Shoe Box Swap

Because so many in my crafting circle of friends are involved in education, we have {somewhat} annually had a Shoebox Swap in the summer.  For this, we design a card or two and prep all the materials needed for the persons involved to create two cards.  This year I opted for one design.  In previous years I have done more than one.  I seem to never have sympathy cards when I need them, so I used my new So Sorry set from SU! and some patterned paper from SU! that I had sorted in with my other papers...and could not believe I had forgotten about it!  I LOVE the colors and designs.

This card is a wee smaller than A7: it's 5.25" x 4".  It would still fit fine in a standard invitation envelope.  It is smaller because I uses the Cuttlebug embossing folder and it just did not cover the whole area.  And that drives me nuts.  It is important to note that the So Sorry sentiment comes separately from the other sentiments you can choose for your sorrow.  You want to have slightly different darkness of inks for this to work out without being illegible.  I used SU! River Rock and Sahara Sand.  I started to use Basic Gray, but I could not find my Going Gray pad (I think I gave it away, in truth), so that did not work out.  Plus, the Basic Gray was pretty harsh, and I like how these colors soften the sentiment. I have the main sentiment oval (cut out with Nestabilities) in some SU! version of yellow and inked on the sides with Sahara Sand.  This is raised with Dimensionals.  Then, a snip of ribbon is placed above the next oval of patterned paper.  I am taking all of my sentiments to the swap, as well as several choices for the inside sentiment.  The one I used is a Hero Arts stamp I bought years ago that never gets old with me.

I am really liking this design as well as the colors of this card!

Jawhol, Mein Kommandant!

My crafting buddy and all-around pal, Ann, and our dealer, um, demonstrator, Karen, and I were joking about giving each other challenges.  Or so I thought.  Ann was bemoaning that, while searching for a challenges,  she found many ways to spend her crafting dollars.  Thus, the challenges joviality began.

So I told her, my clean and simple friend, to create a card with at least 3 layers and 3 embellishments.  She threw in that she would do that AND make it a masculine card!  Well, she whipped that challenge off pretty quickly.  My challenge from her: pink.  I had to use pink.  I rarely use pink (except I sure did use it for a little six year old's birthday card just last week, but did I take a photo?  Why no, I did not.).  Then, the day after we discussed this challenge, CAS-ual Fridays announced this week's challenge: to use pink in honor of National Pink Day (Saturday).  Oh my.  All roads were leading to pink.  

It is my last, YES LAST, week of taking two classes at the same time (insanity).  I have two papers due this week.  Yes, that's right, time to procrastinate.  While doing very important business on Facebook and Pinterest, I get a wall post...a demand that my challenge be tended to, by--yes--Ann.  Suddenly, I am flashed back to one of my dad's favorite shows, Hogan's Heroes, where Sgt. Shultz (shown right) is known for his buffoonery and his cheery and bellowing, "Jawhol, Mein Kommandant!" to his leader, Col. Klink.  So, for you, "Mein Krafty Kommandant," here is my pink card.

I first started with patterned paper, as I figured that's where I could sneak in some pink.  I found this sheet from SEI that had pink as an accent color.  I saw a very cute scrapbook page design today using circles, but they were hand cut and full of whimsy, and I was not feeling that way, so I used circle punches.  {A side note: holy cow, do I have a large amount of circle punches!}  I decided to ink up my PTI Signature Greetings set and I wanted to do two colors of the "So Sweet of You."  That was interesting.  The SU! Pretty in Pink marker did not want to work well with that, but Baroque Burgundy did.  So,I ended up using the Pretty in Pink stamp pad and coloring over the "of You" with a marker.  I am not 100% in love with the sentiment treatment.  I was going to stamp in white without a panel, but I wanted to add that one more kick of pink.  I did an accordion fold above the sentiment panel.  If I could work my sewing machine, I would have added some stitches to that for good measure.  

So there you have it, a circuitous explanation (ha! get it?) of a pretty simple card.  Thank you for reading this far.  Challenge complete! :)  Now, back to my comfort zone...

Happy Father's Day

Bittersweet. Every year. Happy Father's Day to all fathers! This is the card for my hubs this year.

Obviously June

As of late, I have been enveloped in all things related to School Law and School Finance, the two classes I am attempting to simultaneously juggle.  However, necessity is the mother of creative time, and it's June.  Those who have followed this blog know that June is a big month as far as cards are concerned.  Many birthdays, Father's Day, my anniversary... you get the picture.

I shall start on a somber note.  The following card from Cheryl Ann Robinson...

was a pin on Pinterest.  I used it as the inspiration for this card...

created almost entirely of Stampin' Up! products.  My card was made in response to the sudden death of a co-worker of my husband and her six-year-old daughter in a car accident last week.  It is things like these that remind you how very precious life is, and that none of us is guaranteed the next breath.  

The white cardstock is Papertrey Ink, and I will strongly advise you that if you plan to use an embossing folder of any type, Papertrey's white cardstock is a must.  It's heavy enough to withstand the embossing and still be a fairly sturdy card.  Using SU!'s white cardstock, I would probably emboss, but glue a panel to a card base, as the embossing folder will substantially weaken the cardstock.  I used SU!'s Square Lattice folder for Big Shot with my Cuttlebug.  I used SU!'s wide satin ribbon in Chocolate Chip, which I am not sure they make anymore, but it is one of my favorite ribbons to work with.  I used Kraft ink for the sentiment (SU! Close as a Memory) and Close to Cocoa for the inside (SU! Thoughts and Prayers). Clicking on the photos will give you a closer view of the sentiments.  I used my Cuttlebug and a Spellbinders die (no idea which one!) for the cardstock shape for the sentiment.  I used Tacky Tape to adhere the ribbon treatment and a pop dot to adhere the sentiment to the ribbon.  I loved the simplicity of this.

On a lighter note, the hubs turns 47 tomorrow.  Woo hoo!  Here's his birthday card:

You might be asking yourself, "What's up with Edward hanging out back there?"  Well, the gift was from my Secret Santa a couple years ago when I was in a deep Edward phase.  My girlfriends and I used to discuss how it really wasn't Edward himself, but was the concept of an Edward that was appealing in the Twilight books.  Someone who would do anything to protect and save.  Someone whom you felt would love you in a way that transcends the normal "human" thing.  My card was misbehaving and would not stand up for the photo, so I enlisted Edward's help.

I had a little starter help from my dealer, Karen, with this one.  At some point, she had a Stamp-A-Stack or something that involved the patterned paper and the colors/layers, as I had them around in a Ziploc bag awaiting the right card.  Today was the day!  I then put some marker ink (SU! Brilliant Blue and Almost Artichoke) on some long neglected stamps (SU! Patterned Party and Bring on the Cake).  I topped it off with a few twists of Baker's Twine (red...what a departure for me!), and voila!  Birthday card for the man!

Two cards in one day.  Sigh.  I went through the new SU! catalog today and was greatly inspired and excited.  Now all I need are 26-hour days, and I will be set!

Challenge 4: Baker's Twine

Definitely a challenge to use baker's twine.  I like the look of it, I am just not always adept at how to make it work well in crafting without it saying, "Oh look!  I used baker's twine!!"  I dig subtle.

I have had these "Max-isms" written down for a while.  Ignatius and I added a few from 2012 as well.  This Jenni Bowlin paper was super easy to write on, and, as a teacher, I loved that it was handwriting paper.  I stitched baker's twine on the side of the journaling.  I also used to to seemingly anchor the photo to the page.  Digging the Thickers, as always, and it's been a long time since I did a picture framed with several layers.

Page Deux

This page comes from the "Reflection" challenge of the Creative Crop.  For those keeping score...it did not take me hours...I had some family/nap time in between.

This is a page of the 8.5 x 11" variety.  My photo is of my page hanging from my Ikea display rack.  I love it, and it is so underutilized!  I really love the concept of displaying scrapbook pages for a bit rather than stuffing them in a book and forgetting about them for a while.

 And here's a bit closer, for those who might wish to read the journaling and see the elements.

Love the Amy Tangerine Thickers, as well as the Echo Park letter stickers.  Yellow and gray (tones) are quickly becoming a staple of mine, too.  So cheery!  

Creative Crop begins

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!  This year, I am consciously trying to mark the event by participating in the Creative Crop sponsored by Big Picture Scrapbooking.  Here is my contribution for Challenge #2 (there's a challenge offered every hour by some of the big names in the biz).  Ali Edwards presented this challenge, which allowed me to make a page I had been thinking about for a while regarding Ignatius and running.  The challenge was to compare/contrast a photo from a few years back to a photo from today.

I chose a pic from a 2006 Fun Run and one from Ignatius's first high school track meet.  I really like how it turned out, although the asymmetry was challenging for me, that's for sure.  I had seen and worked a little with pages that have a lot of white space, so I thought I would give it a whirl.  I love the bingo card, because it had both of the ages from the photos that I stamped in blue.  I framed the page (textured SU! 12 x 12 cardstock) with some twine.  The paper ribbon that says Saints is paper that I bought at The Scrapbooking Studio.  I love that they have papers for the local schools.  The sticker "In the blink of an eye..." was from a package I got from my secret Santa this year.  I also placed the years of the photos in Thickers.  On to some other challenges.  If you have a chance, check them out.  It's free and there are prizes.  Plus you have more than just today to complete them.