It's Time to Relax!

This is a card I made last weekend at Rita's Ohio gathering. She was the one that designed the card and gave us directions, but the coloring is all mine. I thought this was the perfect card to kick off Memorial Day weekend.

I'm actually going to give this card to my aunt, who just retired from her job. I figure it's the perfect card for that too.

The card uses The Angel Company's Anchor to the Soul stamp set. The pattern on the left side uses the Diamonds Impressabilities plate as a stencil, and the coloring is done with Copic markers. Since I did it at the gathering last week, I wasn't thinking about writing down the numbers. Wish I had, but oh well.

Hit The Beach ATC

Last weekend, I spent some time in Ohio at a stamp gathering. I had a wonderful time, and I can honestly say it was one of the best I've been to. All of the projects were amazing without being too complicated and yet utilizing various techniques. I have many plans to use those techniques in future designs.

One of the things we were requested to bring were ATCs to trade with the other stampers attending. It was supposed to be an ATC and not a card front. The reason it was supposed to be an ATC was because we had a project called create-a-card. We made a divided holder where we placed plain white A4 cards with various textures in one of the divided sections, all the ATCs we traded in another and then panels of sentiments in a third. The idea is that you keep this little kit around and when you need a card in a crunch, you can put one of the ATCs on the textured white card and add the appropriate saying in a flash. It's a great idea that I will probably get a lot of use out of, since I spend much of my time making the card I need at the last minute because the cards that have been completed are either at work to sell to co-workers who find themselves in the same sort of situation, or at the shop that sells my cards. It's amazing that I spend so much time making last minute cards when I make so many all year long.

Here is the ATC I created to trade. It's made with The Angel Company's Hit the Beach stamp set. The side squares are textured with the Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug embossing folder and Sea Scape Impressabilities plate. The image is colored with Copic Markers Y08, Y11, Y21,YR04, BG49, B21 and C1.

Watercolor Ship Collage

This card is also one that we created in the watercolor class a while back ago. For this one, we colored the background paper with shades of blue watercolor crayons and blended with the water brush. Then we stamped the image using The Angel Company's soon-to-be retired Ship Collage stamp (one of my favorites for masculine cards) and colored the image with watercolor pencils blended with the water brush. The sentiment comes from the Trendy Greetings stamp set.

Of all the cards we did in the class, this is the one that took the longest because of all the detail in the stamped image, but it is so much more spectacular when you color it.

Watercolor Thinking of You

This is another card from the watercolor class. On this card, we colored the rubber stamp itself with watercolor crayons, spritzed and then stamped along the bottom of the card, with green leaves painted on by hand. The girl in the hat on the image panel is from The Angel Company's Hats Off stamp set that will be retiring in June. She was colored with watercolor pencils blended with a water brush.

Watercolor Fun

This card is one that I did a watercolor class on a few years back. The background is done with acrylic blocks and watercolor crayons. We took the watercolor crayons and scribbled some complimentary colors on an acrylic block, then spritzed the block and wiped it across our paper to make the background.

The image panel uses The Angel Company's retired Blissfully Ever After Stamp set colored with watercolor crayons applied with a water brush.

May Create A Bunch At Lunch Club - Graduation Card

This month, my CBL group made a Father's Day card that I posted last year. They loved using the "blasting box" so much in the January class, that they were asking to do it again, so we made the Ship Collage Father's Day card where we made a spray from Perfect Pearls and used the Tim Holtz compass mask. You can find it by choosing the Father's Day label on the right side-bar if you missed it before.

The other card for today was a graduation card made with The Angel Company's retired Keep Smilin' stamp set and the current Hostess Level C Thinking of You set that will be retiring in June. The solid green and yellow paper is Die Cuts With a View and the patterned paper came from JoAnn's open paper stock.



Since not everyone might need a graduation card, I made a variation that could be used for a birthday using the same stamp sets and supplies. Some of the girls in the club even used the same stamp set and supplies to make a baby card instead.

Mother's Day a little late

I did see my Mom and make her a card on Mother's Day, but I didn't download my picutre to post until now.

While cleaning up some of my paper, I found this sheet of K & Co. yellow collage paper that my Mom would love. From it, I made this butterfly card - she seems partial to my butterfly cards. We met my Mom, Gradma, Sister, Nice, Dad and Brother-in-law for lunch followed by several rounds of dominoes, which my sister and I tied for winning. Grandpa always taught Mom to play to win, and she's passed that mentality down to us. And now you know why I don't use my dominoes for crafting (I might use the one I need to win!)

Cleaning Up

I just got back from vacation in New York (hopefully some of the pictures I took there can be used on cards sometime in the future - but I guess that would mean that I have to PRINT them first).

Now that we're back, we're concentrating on getting our condo in order to put on the market and hopefully find a bigger house (with a REAL craft space)! We've been doing LOTS of downsizing and cleaning, and now I'm to my scrap area. Even though it was originally rather small, trying to fit ALL the paper, ribbon, supplies and tools that I just can't part with into a much smaller covered space is going to be a challenge. Of course, some of it can go to the off-site storage unit, but who wants their creative freedom hampered by a trip to the storage unit to try and find exactly what you're thinking of at the moment? That's almost as bad as having to go to the store (which is actually closer) and buying something new.

One of up-sides for you is that in order to make some room, I've been scanning card samples that I created in the past so that I can put them up for sale and still use them for inspiration in the future, and this is a great place to share them and find them easily.

Another is that I have this grand plan to actually finish some of the projects that got started and then put in project envelopes to await completion when I had some free time. Clearly there hasn't been much free time since I've got a stack of unfinished projects, and who knows how much free time we're likely to have when we're busy selling and looking for houses. But hope springs eternal, and we'll just see how many projects get completed and shared.

In the interim, this butterfly card is one that I did from one of the first sketch challenges I ever took part in.



All the supplies on this one came from The Angel Company, and rather amazingly, since the card is several years old, all of them are still in the catalogue. The paper is from the Juliette paper collection and matching cardstock, and the images are from Butterfly Swirls.