Photo card

My dad took marvelous pictures. He saw things in ordinary scenes that others would miss. I think he could have gone professional had he so desired. I scanned a few of his pictures, and decided some would make great card fronts. I'm still trying to figure out my new scanner; so far it is not doing justice either to scans, or prints, so I probably will not make more of these types of cards until I can have better results.

John 3:16

The Salt challenge for this week is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life." I immediately knew that this was going to be a light, fun card - I love my "I'm a whosoever" stamp!

Journal for Abbie

Yes, another journal before the year ends! Our oldest daughter is at a "One Thing" conference (a part of "International House of Prayer" in Kansas City, MO. She journals constantly, and told me a few days ago that she needed a new journal before she left (early this morning). This is the first journal I've made in awhile that wasn't for sale. Wow, it was soooooo nice to make a journal that could have errors, lol!

The purple of the ribbon actually matches the purple in the stamped images, the scanner struggles with color! The scripture is from Eureka, and the quilt squares from Sunday International. As I was in a hurry to get the journal done in time, I had searched through my already stamped images for something to put in the corner, and found the quilt squares. The colors were a perfect match!

Abigail plans to be a missionary to Italy (and other regions), and has been studying Italian for years, and spent the summer in Sicily last year, after an honors program tour in the Balkans in May. I asked her to give me a scripture in Italian to put in her journal (she also chose the cover scripture); she chose Psalm 23.

Lawyabella journal

It's becoming almost a joke in my family; I can't seem to stop making journals! I had posted a journal I had made toward the end of November, saying it was the last of the year. I was so relieved! But then I got a phone call from a lawyer, who had seem my journals at the City News where my cards/journals are sold, and wanted me to make a memory journal for another woman in the office who was moving to a new practice. Since I would not lose commission on this, I agreed, even though it was already December and they needed it by December 21st! My friend who owns the City News was agreeable to ferrying everything back and forth. (The store is 45 minutes away, but she attends the same church as I do). It was quite an adventure trying to find legal or lawyer stamps, and the woman I was dealing with gave me only her work number/e-mail for contact, and is a very busy lawyer. So communication was also an adventure. I finally found the right stamp at stamping bella. But until I had gone back and forth a couple of times for info from the owner, I did not realize the company was in Canada, meaning shipping on short notice was not going to be cheap! But the lawyers absolutely loved the stamp, so I placed the order. Meanwhile, I was sending design ideas down, cardstock for them to choose, etc. I received the stamp, found an agreeable layout (simpler than I would have liked for them, but so hard when working with long distance)... then the blizzard of the year caused church to be cancelled, so my friend could not bring up the chosen pages for me to bind! It was rather amazing, but it all worked out and the journal arrived on time! It was close, though - when I suddenly got a call from someone headed toward the town it needed to get to, I had not yet scanned it, as we had just replaced the horrible scanner my dh had bought only a few months ago with a new model, and I had not yet used it. So I never checked the scan, but just grabbed the journal and got it to my friend! So, excuse the poor quality.

The project did mean an early end to Christmas card making, though that really was fine, it just meant a few stamps I'd bought for the season did not get used, but that will help me exercise self-control next year, lol!

O Christmas Tree

I love taking a stamp that strikes me as cute or quirky and turning into something that seems (to me) elegant. I originally wanted a light-hearted card with this tree, but I had been wanting to use my foil flakes for awhile, and suddenly I thought of using it for this stamp, with which I was planning to make a wordless card for a thank you, and I really liked the result. After making the first card, I just had to keep going! I think it may be my favorite for this year's Christmas. The images are all from smARTworks. I absolutely love doing business with this company!

Finding Storage

I found a battered old medicine cupboard in our basement from the previous owners. I knew it would be absolutely perfect for my ink pads! I painted the outside white because it was such a mess I could not have stained it nicely (and one side is sawed off, so it looks a bit odd anyway).

The shelf to the right of it was a cast-off of my sisters, and the one on the left came from a goodwill store. So, if money is an issue for you, be creative!

Life at the Kornhauses

I haven't had much stamping time lately, as we've been running a youth hostel.

Well, not quite! But we have had a household full of young people! Due to complicated arrangements, weather issues, etc, we had our four, ages 16 to 20, and three other college students for three nights. In addition to that, one of them volunteers at the local YFC, and brought one of his kids from that to our house, where he was there for the better part of the next few days. Sunday our church closed do to weather, and we had all of the above, plus three other young male college students for "house church" and then lunch. Today we're down to just two extra college kids, who leave tomorrow. It's been absolutely wonderful, but not conducive to stamping, lol!

Oh, we also had our annual tree trimming party. I make (with lots of help from Susannah now) a huge variety of party foods to eat, including lots of Christmas cookies and punch, etc, and we spend the evening doing the tree. I grew up with a gazillion ornaments on the tree, and my family is continuing the tradition. Some of the ornaments are absolutely stunning; many are really strange ... can you see the funky stork in the middle of the tree?

The Reason for the season

It was looking for Christian stamps in Spanish that I found Biblical Impressions. I was so happy to find them! I made this card the first year I found their website (under the former owners. All of their Spanish stamps have English equivalents.

This card was made for someone in prison with whom my husband struck up a correspondance with. Friends of ours had visited their son in prison, and had met this man, who did not speak much English, and was from a latin American country we visit. They thought Bruce, who is always looking to improve his Spanish, would enjoy encouraging this man.

wise men

Remember my odd wise men card of Tuesday's post? The scrap used for that was from trying to make this card. I could not get the wise men stamp to make a crisp, unmottled image. I was using Stazon, and I've since learned that when using Stazon, it's important to ink and stamp your image quickly, applying it firmly, but removing it from the cardstock immediately.
I wanted to make some Spanish Christmas cards last year, primarily for dear friends in Cuba. When I tried to get inspired by looking up Spanish Christmas cards on the web, I was surprised to see that Latino cards do not focus on the American/European combinations of red and green as primary colors. Instead, their Christmas cards are as vivid and multi-colored as any cards. I did not realize how much I was tied to that, even though I did venture into occasional blue or purple dominated Christmas cards!

The wise men stamp is from Eureka , and the text is computer generated, and printed on pink vellum. I used a Big& Juicy pad on glossy for the colors underneath the vellum.

Copper Buck

Hunting season is a big deal where I live. Often people from other states are thinking "city" when I say I am from NY, but here in Allegany county, we're far from the city in every way! Our town of Wellsville, with a population of 8,000, is the largest in the county! There are lovely hills, the Genesee River, and a good bit of farmland. When our children took ballet lessons in another town, we enjoyed, toward the end of winter, pulling over at a couple of different places just to enjoy seeing the cows, accustomed to being fed by truck, come charging up to us to see if we had something for them to eat!

Our house is just barely outside the town proper, and we enjoy seeing the deer here regularly. They like our decrepit and neglected apple trees!

Anyway, I did not intend to emboss with copper, it just sort of happened! I like how the buck turned out, but I was not thinking, and stamped the trees in the middle, then glued the green panel to the card without realizing the trees should have been placed higher or lower, so that I could put either an embellisment or greeting above or below. It seemed tacky to do both, and I finally just assembled it without anything.

Humor?

My family has probably an over-developed sense of humor. Mostly we focus on puns, but just about any (clean!) humor is appreciated. This card started out as a nice Christmas card, but then my husband or my youngest daughter (I sure hope it wasn't me!!!!) quipped the "got myrrh" line when I was mentioning my frustration with getting the wise men image to work on glossy. They decided I should not throw out the scrap, but should make it into a card with "got myrrh" and send it to our daughter Karen at college, who loves off-beat humor. I was not going to do it, but they wore me down! She and her friends all got a kick out of it!

I could not bring myself to remake one for sale or to even post it in my galleries - it could possibly offend someone. But I did decide that maybe with the stress of getting ready for Christmas, this might bring a few chuckles.

Bach

This is an appropriate card to post today; our family just came back from an amazing classical Christmas concert our daughter participated in at Houghton College. Truly inspiring music, really well performed. I remember a similar event I participated in as a Houghton student, though I sang, and Abbie did ballet.

Anyway, this card has one of my favorite music quotes, and will be part of the next sheet of stamps I put together.

Music stamp is from Stubby Stampers.

Salt Challenge: Light

I love these challenges! I knew just the scripture I wanted to use, and was so glad I had a full sheet of stamps from Biblical Impressions that included it. It's one of the prophetic scriptures from Isaiah.

I used opalite inks, which are wonderful interference inks. I have the refill bottles as well, which are great for painting in designs on dark colors, or just to swirl in unique designs. They take a bit of time to dry, so I usually heat set. If used on glossy, opalite ink needs to be embossed with clear embossing. Even then, if it is put on too thick, it will be very easy to smear, so be careful how much you use.

The circle is actually raised, and more gold in color than the scan shows it to be.

Note: I used this stamp, and two other stained glass style stamps I own to create a personal coloring book for a young friend. I embossed each image several times in gold, silver, and copper. I stamped them on index cards (really inexpensive cardstock!), created a simple cover, calling it "Gracie's book" or something like that so it was very personal for her, and used my bind it all to assemble it. Having the images embossed seems to me something children would really enjoy, and for those that have more trouble staying inside the lines when they color, this makes things easier and neater! (I still remember the humiliation of not being able to do that! That's probably why I hated art for decades, lol!)

College dorm door hangers

I made a bunch of these last year for an annual craft fair at a local college. It's that time of year again, so I'll see if I can sell some more. Text is all computer generated.

Joy

I made a background to use for the card I last posted, but it didn't look right. But I so liked the look of the flourishes, that I tried it on burgundy, and used it for this card. The "joy" image (Eureka) was on a scrap that I had stamped, planning to closely trim and affix to another card, but changed my mind. When I went to trim it for this card, I just decided I liked the odd shape and left it alone! I tend to like everything straight and even, so this was not a typical thing for me to do!