HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

A very Happy Valentine's Day to all. We don't celebrate it much here at our house, but I know for many folks it is a very important day. Since I had asked for a group of people to come out and help make cards today at our church I told them I would have a couple of designs just for them. These would be Valentine's cards they could take and give to whom ever they choose.

These were simple cards; a bit of punching and a little stamping, but nothing wither time consuming or difficult. Though simple because of the paper I choose to use for them they were I think classy. The papers I have had for several years....can we all say horde??? They came from a very large package of handmade papers I found at Costco at a price that could hardly be believed. I did two simple designs one using red paper on a white card stock base the other being a red card stock base with white paper.

I think everyone that choose to make them were very happy with them. As for the other cards we made for the Cards For Heros program, 8 of us finished 80 cards in two and a half hours. I thought that was pretty good for mostly card making novices. by this coming Tuesday these will be packaged up and mailed off.

Every one said they really enjoyed making the cards and had a good time, but I don't think I convinced any of them that they could do it on their own. Of course I think they all could if they would just give themselves a little credit for being creative! I will just have to keep working on them...........

I still have a few more designs for the project to show. I will post these tomorrow. For now I need to think of what my next project will be. Probably going back to preparing for the Spring Quilt Show!

Bye for now!

MONKEYING AROUND VALENTINE

Another card using my COPICS for coloring. Sometimes they work better for me than other times. This is one I was very pleased with.

I think SU's Sock Money is such a fun set. I don't ink it up as often as I'd like to. It's just one of those sets that needs the right inspiration in order to use well. The bottom border is another stamp from the set I used in my card posted yesterday; A Little Bit of Happiness. Besides the shading with pink and red COPICS I used my white gel pen and red stickles to add some detail interest. And I am so loving my rectangle nesties. That is what I used to cut out the sock monkey image and the scalloped background behind him.

The coloring on this card took a while, but other than that it was a very easy card to put together.

That's it for today.....I hope to have time tomorrow night to share the card I made for a Valentine Wish Challenge. It was a very challenging challenge because I had a very limited set of supplies I could use. So please stop back.

I AM SO HONORED!

If you are a regular reader of my BLOG (and I know there are a few of you out there) you know that last week I had quite a time "baking my cake" for the 52nd Belli Challenge. But I persevered and on the third try got it made correctly according to all the rules of the challenge. You can see my card here.

Yesterday I went back to Chrissy's BLOG to see what this weeks challenge was and as I was reading through the post I came upon the winner of last weeks challenge. I cannot describe the squeal that came out of my mouth when I realized IT WAS ME!!!!!!! I was so honored! Thank you Chrissy. I think that was even better than finding out I won BLOG CANDY.....not that I Would ever turn down winning BLOG CANDY mind you.

So today I worked on this weeks Belli challenge #53. It's a Valentine Challenge. I'm not big on Valentine Cards (I think it goes back to my childhood when I was the one in the classroom that didn't get many. It was before they made the kids give one to everyone so no one felt left out!) but hey, this is a challenge and I'm up for it.

Here is my card. I had fun playing with my Cuttlebug both embossing with my Swiss Dots folder and also cutting out the swirly heart outlines. The out lines are so thin I was glad I have a xyron sticker maker to use for applying adhesive to the back of them. It worked great. I also got to dig out some of my special handmade paper I've had for a couple of years. I love its texture and also it has cute little hearts embossed on it. Add a little double heart charm I got from the bridal aisle at Michael's hanging on red gingham ribbon, and of course a few stamped sentiments from various Stamping Up stamp sets and voila a Valentine card. I was a fun one to make because I got to play with and use a lot of my stamping toys.

Thank you for another great challenge Chrissy!

Tomorrow I have a few more quilt cards to show you. I promise that will be the last of them for a while. But they are so versatile. Thanks for stopping by.

LEE CHALLENGES US TO EMBOSS!

Lee issued another challenge this week. We were to emboss something. IT could be anything and we could emboss anyway we wanted. Heated, dry cuttlebug whatever suited our card making fancy.

I have been doing a lot of embossing lately. I love using detail clear embossing powder over sentiments stamped using craft inks. The colors really brighten up and pop. I also used a great deal of clear embossing powder in working with the emergent colors technique earlier in the week. I'm beginning to think that I need to find a location where I can purchase clear embossing powder by the pound not the ounce.

For Lee's challenge I decided to use some colored embossing powder for a change. I dug around in my powder keg and found a jar of glittery red powder. It's hard to see in the scan but the circle in the center of the flower with the heart and the dots is embossed as is the "o" with the heart in it in Love.

The embossing in the flower center was fun and very easy. It is a sticky tape type decal that I rubbed onto white card stock and the embossing powder stuck to it really nice. I found this design and several more from Oriental Trading long before Stampin' Up came out with their sticky letters and shapes. I have a set of those coming on an order in mid February. I'm curious to see if they are the same type of product.

So here is my card for Lee's challenge. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching I'm working on having enough cards to send to family and friends. Fro some reason the scanned image makes the scalloped edge at the bottom look crooked. In real life it is not. Also when you open the card to the inside message the red band you see here is actually attached to the inside of the card and there is a scalloped edge at it's top.

I used stamps from four different SU sets in this card. I really need to do a better job of writing down the names of the stamp sets used as I use them. The only ones that I can remember the name of right now are Holidays and Wishes is the Happy Valentine Day and the stem of the flower is from Serene Sunflowers. All the sets I used except for Holidays and Wishes are retired sets.

Thanks for another fun challenge Lee!

FLY BABY WEEKEND OF STAMPING FUN!

This weekend there were some SCS FLYBaby friends that had a get together in McFarland, WI. You might ask why McFarland? Well for stampers that's an easy question to answer....it's because that is where Gina K's store is located! They had such fun meeting Gina K. and inviting her to become a FLYBaby; which she did! They stamped and laughed together all weekend. Alas, many of us FLYBabies who lived further away from McFarland did not make it there, but we did stamp together using a set of challenges we issued to each other on line. Here are the cards I made for these fun challenges.

The first challenge was a sketch challenge posted by Diane. I had several cards I needed to be making this weekend to be sent out on Monday and I used this challenge to make a baby card for a special little girl named Aimee and her parents of course. It was a pretty straight forward card to make. I colored the image of the baby basket using my SU Stampin' Pastels and a blender pen. The stamp set used is a retired set called Baby Talk.

The next challenge was given by Beth. It was a lonely unloved challenge. We were to use a color card stock, stamp set and embellishment that we didn't really like and hadn't used in a long time.......The card stock was easy for me. I went right for my Bold Bright selections. They are my least favorite to use. Their name says it all. They are just too bold and too bright for my tastes. I chose Orchid Opulence for my card stock. It's really bright! The stamp set I chose was Botanicals. A very old SU set. It is a set I like a lot, but I don't think it has been off the shelf in two years. Which says a lot since I've only been stamping two and a half years. It is a set I purchased on E-Bay. The embellishments I choose where the old silver SU brads that are shaped like diamonds. I've just never found a way to use them. I'm stuck on thinking brad = round. I also used a piece of wide organdy ribbon I found languishing on the bottom of my ribbon box. I did add some Going Grey and Basic Grey card stock and Stamped the main image on water color paper coloring it in using SU watercolor crayons and an aqua painter. Guess what....when I got done I discovered I had a card I liked very very much. I only wish is didn't have to be a sympathy card that will sent to a friend who lost her young college student daughter in a car accident this weekend.

I issued the third challenge. It was simply to use one or multiple tags on the front of your card. I did two for samples. I will only show one here. On it I used a pre-made tag from SU. It was from their tag sheet sets that they don't make any more. I guess it doesn't really both me that they don't carry them any more because I have more than I will ever use and I got them in my demonstrator kit when I began as an SU independent demonstrator August 2005! Obviously not one of my favorite items to use. They are actually why I issued this challenge. I wanted to challenge myself to finally use one! I colored my image here with a compination of Copic, Prisma and SU markers. I'm still not sure which I like the best. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

The last challenge card I will show in this post was given by Jennifer. We were to make a Criss Cross card. I made my first card of this type in last weekends SCS January VSN weekend. They are such fun and I was glad for the opportunity to make another so soon. Maybe this will help set into my mind that this is a type of card to make more often. With February coming I'm finding myself making lots of hearts, love, and Valentine themed cards. I did make three of them this weekend. This is the second one here. I also used one of the hat-pins From my SU Pretties Kit. I really don't like using these. I find them very difficult as a design element. In fact the one used here with it's ribbon was one I put together to use last weekend and I just couldn't get it to look right. I am happy with how it worked on this card. BUT it will have to be a card that I hand deliver to someone. Cards with these would definitely take extra postage and probably would need to go into a padded envelope.

So those are the first four challenges. I will post the rest of my challenge cards in another post later this evening. Right now my fingers are getting tired! And I'm going to go visit some other BLOGS to see what others have been up to this weekend!