OWH Thick & Thin Challenge

Finishing up the challenges at OWH's virtual cardmaking party. Yes, I think I did all 18 challenges over the past four days . . . whew! It's been a while since I did so much papercrafting.

For THIS challenge, we were to make two similar cards, but one was to be "thick" and a card sent TO a service member and another "thin" to be donated to OWH for a military man or woman to send home. 

I chose buttons as my thick and thin element. We aren't supposed to use thick embellishments on cards that the troops send home, because of the additional postage required. However, they also accept cards and letters TO service men and women. Everyone needs a word of encouragement, right? So, the first card has real buttons on it. I'll write a message inside and it will be given to someone at one of the units.

This card will go in a box for a someone to choose to write home on. (I love "missing you" sentiments on cards.) The buttons are die cuts, so they are paper thin--no extra bulk or unevenness that the post office frowns on.

Now my studio needs a good straightening up after making all those cards. It was fun, though, and I'm glad my mojo is back!

Until next time,

Lisa Kay

Graffiti Greetings to Go

Hello, blog hoppers! Thanks for stopping by as you hop along the Graffiti Blog Hop. I'm sure you are enjoying the fun and creativity of the various bloggers. You may have arrived here from Tiare's blog (iClassygirl). If not, go to the beginning (and see the entire list of bloggers) at Club Scrap Creates. 

I'm a scrapbooker at heart, but for the past year I've really been enjoying cardmaking. I'm not sure if it's the smaller size, the fact that I can complete a card in less time than a page, or the amount of cards I can create in one crafting session, but I really like making cards. 

For this blog hop, I pulled out my Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. Every month, the G2G pack includes enough materials to create 15 cards in three different sizes. First, I made this trio of cards. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, the love theme is quite appropriate.

In my attempt to use more of my older supplies this year, I pulled out some Zig Writer pens to color in the stamped Love image from the Graffiti Greeting Unmounted stamp sheet.

The heart and string image, also from the Greeting UM sheet, makes a fun and whimsical background on the white panels. For one card, I stamped the hearts in Club Scrap Fuchsia ink, coloring with three Zig writer pens. A second card was stamped using CS Onyx ink (no coloring to allow the "Love" to pop). The third card background was created from the paint splatter stamp on the Graffiti Art Nouveau stamp sheet.

Here is another card I created from the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. The preprinted panel (love those!) had "Congratulations" printed on it. I actually have plenty congratulations cards in my greeting card boxes, so I stamped "Life is beautiful." onto a piece of white cardstock and trimmed it down. (That stamp is also on the Art Nouveau sheet.) I wanted to matte it with the same black as the large matte. Black papers come in so many shades that sometimes it's hard to get a perfect match. Using the exact paper fixed that problem, and I remembered a trick that Julie (Cape Cod Scrapper) showed us in a Club Scrap Creates post last summer. You can read her post HERE.

I adhered the stamped panel to the center of the black matte. Then, I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the black piece--allowing plenty of space around the stamped panel.

After trimming the black matte with a paper trimmer, I mounted it to the center with black foam adhesive. You can see the dimension in the photo below. Layering the orange panel onto the black, then onto the white card, no one will ever know that I took a piece from the center of the black panel. (Sneaky, but smart!)

And there you have four of the cards I've made using the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please hop along to Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel to see even more Graffiti creations!

Have a crafty day!

Lisa :-)

Stripes and Hearts

I haven't been participating in many challenges lately, but I recently acquired some new supplies and wanted to play with them. The January OWH* challenge hosted by Our Daily Bread Designs is to use stripes, so I pulled out my new 6x6 pattern papers from Gina K. Designs (newly acquired item #1) and cut 1" strips to create the striped backgrounds.(*Operation Write Home)

The other new item in my papercrafting studio is the Love & 5 Hearts die set from Hot off the Press. You can see the dies in their online store HERE. I thought it was a great purchase since we are nearing Valentine's Day. And they combine very well with my new Love Letters pattern papers. :-)

The cards are simple, yet intricate, with the layered die cuts. That's my favorite thing about cutting shapes with my die cutting machine--the intricacy. And the way these hearts fit on and in the other hearts really adds some interest and complexity to the designs. The die cuts were all cut from Club Scrap cardstock--my very favorite paper!







I'll be sending these cards in my February package to OWH. I've challenged myself to send 12 cards a month in 2014. While the Valentine card deadline has passed, since these don't say "Happy Valentine's Day," they are acceptable. After all, love is in style year-round!

Until next time, blog readers!  ~~Lisa Kay

Aspen Blog Hop

Welcome to the Aspen blog hop! If you are following along, you got here from Tiare's BLOG.  If you have stumbled upon my blog or got here from Facebook, you can start back at the beginning to see ALL the amazing creativity from the bloggers this month HERE at Club Scrap Creates.

With this being Christmas week when the creative juices sometimes flow more slowly, I opted for a simple project this month. (This is mainly because I created this project the day after Christmas, when my energy level was low from all the festivities! I'm a natural procrastinator, though I've been trying to change that for years. I'm afraid it's too late.)

Here's the card I created with my Aspen kit. I call the technique "layering with ink" because there are no paper layers. In fact, the only paper used is a 5.5x8.5 piece of Almond paper.

Ink Layer 1 uses the 5.5x8.5 Almond paper folded in half, Club Scrap Hybrid Ink (Moss), and the leaf border stamp from the Aspen Borders and Backgrounds UM sheet.

For Ink Layer 2, tear off 3/4 inch from the front of the card and ink with Club Scrap Hybrid ink (Earth).

3rd Ink Layering Technique uses the group of trees stamp (also on the Aspen Borders & Backgrounds sheet), the same Moss ink, and a brown marker. I stamped once, then again (without reinking the stamp) a little higher and to the right to create more trees in the distance. I wanted more trees behind those on the left, so I inked the stamp again and stamped onto a scrap paper, then stamped some background trees on the left side of the first image.

For the greeting, I used a 4th ink layering technique with Moss and Earth CS inks, Post-It notes, an ink applicator, and the Happy Birthday stamp from the Aspen Greeting unmounted sheet.

For this technique, I ripped a little bit off the sticky ends off two Post-It notes, covered the area where I stamped the greeting, and lightly sponged ink over the tree trunks. Repositioning the Post-It notes, I inked under the greeting.

And that is how I used inks to create layering on my Aspen card. I have to admit that I was very tempted to add ribbon or other embellishing, but I held back and let inks take center stage.

Bonus project: For Christmas, my oldest daughter gave me a framed picture of her and her fiance from their engagement photo shoot. I'll have to ask her for another picture for the frame, because I just had to create a page! The papers, green ribbon, and buttons are from Aspen, while the words and alpha stickers are from Bridges (February 2006). Leaves are from my stash.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you have been inspired to create something with your Aspen kit. If you don't have a kit, you can get one HERE. 

The next stop on the hop is Marya's blog. Click HERE.

Fire & Ice Blog Hop!!

Welcome to Club Scrap's Fire & Ice Blog Hop! If you are following along, you may have come here from Janet's blog. If not, or if you need to start at the beginning, check out Club Scrap Creates.

The November 2013 kit from Club Scrap is an interesting mixture of warm and cool colors and hot and cold designs, hence the name: Fire & Ice. Don't these colors just scream "burning hot!" and "freezing cold!"? Lovin' it!

When thinking about this blog hop, I was trying to come up with a Christmas card like I did last month with Lock & Key. You can see that card here. I could have used the red and gold, but there is a really cool "ice" stamp on the Borders & Backgrounds stamp sheet. 

See it in the top right hand corner? Very unique! And although it's quite rare to have icy Christmas weather here in Georgia, this stamp did make me think of snowmen, and I love a "white Christmas" as much as the next girl.

Here are the supplies I used for my icy blue Christmas card (though I did change out the white StazOn ink for my much better Club Scrap white pigment ink pad). 

• Black StazOn Ink
• Faded Jeans Ranger Distress Ink
• CS White Pigment Ink
• Two shades of Blue and the White Glossy Cardstock from Fire & Ice
• Icy Background Stamp (Fire & Ice)
• Snowman Stamp from CS 2005 Christmas Collection
• Post-It Note
• Small Snowflake Stamp from CS 2010 Happy Holidays
• Snowflake Brads
• 3/4 inch Blue Ribbon from CS 2009 Birds of a Feather
• Greeting Stamp from CS 2009 Joyful

First, I stamped the cute snowman on the Post-It note with black StazOn ink and trimmed out the lower part to create a mask (the sticky part is at the bottom of the snowman's body). Then I stamped the same cute little guy on the white cardstock. This StazOn cleaner is great for cleaning the stamp (I love clean stamps!).

I used the stamped Post-It note as a mask and covered the stamped image on the white cardstock. Then, I covered the lower part of the cardstock with the ice stamp inked with the distress ink. Peeled off the mask and voila! the snowman is standing on the ice!

To prepare the blue panel, I stamped it with small snowflakes using the CS white pigment ink (I stamped first onto scrap paper to make a lighter image). Adding three snowflake brads adds dimension to the background.

I "fussy cut" the snowman. No Copics in my studio since I'm not much of a color-er, so I pulled out my old Sakura micron pens to add a bit of color to my little guy. And to add more dimension, I added foam squares to the back of the white piece. On the front, I added a strip of ribbon and a fun sentiment to go with the fun snowman.

And here is my completed card. I love the effect that the masking does--the snowman looks like he's sitting on an icy hill, and he's as pleased as he can be!

If you've made it this far--thank you! I hope you like my fun Christmas card using papers and a stamp from the Fire & Ice collection. 

Your next stop on the hop is Marya's blog, so click here. Happy hopping!

OWH in the News

I love it when someone takes the time to compile a large amount of information into one easy-to-navigate format, and someone at OWH has done just that. If you ever wanted to know pretty much all the terminology related to cardmaking, you can find it HERE!

Operation Write Home (OWH) serves American servicemen and women around the globe by providing handmade cards for them to write letters home to their loved ones and supporters. In fact, OWH recently "deployed" its 2.5 millionth card--that's 2,500,000 handmade cards that have gone to military personnel so that they can keep in touch with their families since 2007. I am very pleased to be a tiny part of this amazing project. 

To see a recent local news segment about OWH founder Sandy Allnock and her mission, click HERE, and then click on the photograph. When you see Sandy open her door to pick up a box of donated cards, look closely at the return label. I'm pretty sure that's a Club Scrap label--and those cards are from CS members!!

OWH has guidelines to follow for submitted cards on their site. Another way to help is by donating money to help SEND those boxes overseas. It costs quite a bit to mail those packages! All donations are tax-deductible.


I do wish OWH was around when my hubby was overseas!

It's Blog Hop Time!

Welcome, Hoppers! If you have just left Tiare's blog at iClassyGirl.com, then you are at the right place. If not, then hop on over to Club Scrap Creates to start at the beginning of this month's hop, so you don't miss any of the fun and creativity!

The featured kit this month is Lock & Key, and I challenged myself to come up with a Christmas card for this kit. The name doesn't really cry out "Christmas," does it? I knew I really had to put my thinking cap on! (To see the Christmas card I made with last month's Take Wing kit, go here.)

So, I was looking at the UM rubber, and the large words caught my eye. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus is the embodiment of these words: Hope, Faith, Love, and Joy. I realized that I had my connection between Lock & Key and Christmas!

 

I paired the words with the holy family and a snowflake from the Silent Night (December 2010) unmounted stamp sheet. Such unique artwork, don't you think?

Here's one of my final cards. Below you find the basic steps I used to create this unique card and four others.

However, if you are ready to hop on, your next stop is Marya's blog at A Notebook Novel.

I chose to work with five cards in the Lock & Key Greetings to Go pack. It's so handy to have cards that are precut and scored, with panels that fit so well! The pack even includes envelopes; I told you it was handy! Each month the Greetings to Go pack has 15 card/panel/envelope combinations (in three sizes) with cutaparts and fibers. One of my favorite Club Scrap products! (It's hard to tell, but those tan-colored panels are actually metallic--too cool!)
 

 

To start the cards, I stamped each of the ivory panels with the words using Club Scrap's Sandstone ink. An acrylic block with lines on it comes in real handy for keeping words straight.

 

On the words, I used CS Earth ink to stamp the holy family, then added snowflakes at half strength. Some folks call that "second generation" stamping. You just ink up the stamp, then stamp once onto scrap paper and then onto your project. You get half the amount of ink. I like the way Joseph, Mary, and the manger really stand out darker than the other elements. I stamped five similar ivory panels.  

When using metallic paper, I love to emboss it--there's something about the way the light hits the raised areas on metallics. Anyway, I used a Fiskars embossing plate for four of the panels and a Cuttlebug folder for the fifth. Since this Cuttlebug folder doesn't have an all-over design, I wasn't sure how I was going to use it, but I came up with a way. Below are the embossed panels. The fourth one is the Cuttlebug one.

And here, again, is my favorite of the five cards. I just layered the stamped and embossed panels on the card base and added some torn handmade paper and brads (the paper was from a 2003 (?) CS kit called Evergreen. I like the addition of the green for Christmas, but a deep red or burgundy would look nice.

Below are the other four cards. You can see the way I used the Cuttlebug embossed metallic on the top card--just cut along the image with a craft knife to create a frame.

I hope you enjoyed a little early Christmas cheer using Lock & Key in an unexpected way. Next month's kit is Fire & Ice. Oh, dear!!

Thanks for making it to the end of my post. Your next stop on the hop is Marya over at A Notebook Novel. I'm looking forward to her Lock & Key creation!