Quickie mini journal

I was happily stamping away on a few weeks ago when I was reminded that we had a graduation party to go to. I had not exactly forgotten, just put it on the back burner. I had handmade graduation cards on hand, so that wasn't a problem, but a gift was. The girl is not going to college or leaving home, so I didn't want to just write a check. My dd mentioned that this girl liked horses, so I decided, two hours before it was time to leave, to re-create a journal! Obviously I quickly realized that it was a ridiculous idea, but for some reason thought I could manage to re-cover a small notebook I had. It was crazy! I'd work on it for a few minutes, stop, and say, "Wait, I don't have time for this!" But, I couldn't help it! I had to complete it!

Being in a hurry, I was not working efficiently. It was a spiral bound notebook, and after unwinding the spiral, I then covered it with cardstock, folding over the edges and gluing them down. This was not smart. If I had just glued the front, then flipped it over, I could have had the punched holes on the other side as a guide. Instead, I glued down the flaps, covering them up. Help!!! I burnished the edges, and that gave a vague outline. I took my punch and punced all the holes through (I had also glued down the back of the journal as well. Fortunately, I had used wallpaper which was a little easier for seeing the indentations!) I volunteered my younger daughter to help me out!

I didn't quite finish it in two hours, but we did make it to the graduation party in a reasonable amount of time!

reunion

I think this is my favorite of this set ... too funny! Don't we just love excuses not to diet, lol?!

Pinch an inch

Another Becky card!

Has anyone seen .... ?

Wow, what a weekend! I think we had 48 people in our house! My son's graduation party started out in our backyard, where we had our traditional huge bonfire pile set up. We made it until 8:30, I think, until the rain hit! The backyard is a ways from the house, so while the teens made the dash to the house, most of the adults remained under the little tent-thingie that the food table was under. Lots of fun... I'd post pictures, but we're still without a working camera...

Anyway, here's the next Becky card!

Not for sissies

Another Becky card. I used sparkle dimension on the flower, a little hard to see in the picture.

My son's graduation party is Saturday, so the next couple of days will be too busy to post!

See you Monday...

Time for more "Becky cards"

"Becky cards" are cards I've made from Becky Christian's Artist Trading Cards. She does the fun work, I just showcase it on a card!I just love her sense of humor! Becky is also great to do business with: generous and so personable!

Perhaps it comes from being a small town girl, but I really prefer to purchase from the internet version of a "mom and pop" store. Just as I love to connect with the owners of local businesses here in my town, I enjoy it when I can get, albeit a shallow one, a glimpse of the person behind the internet business I am shopping from. I hope I'll continue getting to know Becky!

Opalite anniversary card

I had forgotten I had this panel; it was from when I was trying to win a smARTworks contest this spring. I used the tiniest pieces of foil, so there are not distinct colors, and it looked a little blah. So, I sponged opalite inks around it, then decided not to use it. I thought it would be perfect now for an anniversary card!

Anniversary Toad

I needed to make a couple of anniversary cards, and decided to go for the light touch!

Sympathy card

My son is working in maintenance at a local Christian camp/retreat center. Also working there are three of the children of our closest friends, who moved two hours north of us a year and a half ago to pastor a church. It's been so hard to have them gone; their children are like our own. Their oldest daughter, Lydia, is my daughter Karen's closest friend. She and her brother Jon (who stayed with us for three weeks for a summer session at college), and probably their sister, Maryrose, all consider our church, which they attended for most of their lives, to be "home," so they often come up for the weekend. We love it! Anyway, one of the girls has a camera that is compatible with mine, so I will get to take pictures of the cards I have been making and unsuccessfully trying to scan. I rarely make a card without either embossing or embellishing, and my scanner just does not do a good job with those, especially embellishments.

So ... this picture is an older one that I had not posted at the time I made it; I'm glad to have it to post now. I was really pleased at how it turned out: simple, but elegant, my favorite kind of card. The stamped image is lightly chalked.

Opalite ink birthday

I am so missing my camera! This card is much crisper than it appears here, but our scanner does not do very well with embossed images or embellishments. :-(

I love opalite inks! They are so much fun to work with, especially the re-inkers. Stamping straight onto (dark) cardstock does not always give a visible image, but used on glossy (you'll need to emboss - it won't dry otherwise) you will usually have success. However, as I did with this card, sponging onto an embossed image shows the colors well. The only problem with doing this is that the embossing does not react well to the opalite inks; it actually will disolve a bit. So, try not to touch the embossed image with ink any more than you have to.

Birthday squares

I love using squares this way, they seem so elegant. I had a hard time finding the right shades of red and blue cardstock to match the inks used on the stamped squares.

Surprise finding

Today was a "half card" day: I kept starting cards that I couldn't seem to finish. It didn't help that I got distracted by youtube: I found some old movie favorites (Random Harvest with Greer Garson, for one)to watch while I stamped.

But in the process of looking for something, I stumbled across this card from a folder used for workshops. I generally make cards for my workshops that can also be sold. So I bring them to the workshop packaged with their coordinating envelopes inside a clear plastic envelope for protection. This card did not have the envelope, which generally means it was too flawed for resale, or I simply didn't like it. Hmmm ... it doesn't look flawed, and I'm not in love with the layout, but it seems saleable. I'll have to look at it again in the morning; sometimes daylight reveals flaws or color problems not seen in the night. The layers were all glued with temporary bond glue; I do this whenever I am unsure I like a card. This keeps it together, yet allows me to alter or replace portions of the card. Then when I know what I am doing, I add permanent bond glue.

Anyway, this is a "spotlight" card: The image is embossed twice, once on the card or panel, and then on a matching - or contrasting - piece of cardstock. The embo Usually a single "spotlight" is done. The chosen area is punched or cut out, colored, and aligned with the matching full image. I love to do this with florals and with maps.

Pink & Black birthday

I need a couple of birthday cards for my next "batch" of cards for the store; I'm hoping to bring them down this week. I was looking for something entirely different when I spied this cute print. I remembered as I was making it that I had some black and pink ribbon, and voila! Easy card for late night stamping!

Childhood friends...

I have been frantically stamping my borrowed Paperbag Studio images all day today; I am determined to mail them out on Monday, and I need my Sundays to be "stampless!"

I had the idea for this card earlier. I originally wanted to put some of the lyrics from "Sunrise Sunset," but I wasn't sure that most people would get the connection. I could not find any childhood romance type quotes, so this was the best my tired brain could come up with! :-) The flowers that look very red in the scan actually blend very well with the pink of the girl.

Here is a portion of the lyrics I originally wanted to use part of:
(Tevye)
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?

(Golde)
I don't remember growing older
When did they?

(Tevye)
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he get to be so tall?

(Golde)
Wasn't it yesterday
When they were small?

(Men)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Women)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

Letters from Grandma

I thought of my French grandmother when I saw the script on this, and the picture of the girl just seemed to go with it, so I thought of the lovely letters my Grandma would send me. We absolutely adored her, she was the ultimate grandmother ... loved to talk to us, write to us, and generally make us feel special when she or we would visit each other. She would always teach me a little bit of French, because I loved the language, and usually at least a couple of her sentences in her letters would also be in French.

The girl and script portion was done very quickly, several weeks ago, but then I got stuck. I won't embarrass myself fully by saying how much time it took to get it done, but it was ridiculous! I simply could not make it "work." In fact, I still am not happy with it, but it was either settle for it like this, or never finish it. :-) I may take a portion of it off if I can figure out how to better it. Someday. !!!! But I got another idea for this cute little girl that I will try out tomorrow ...

Another boyhood card

I dreamed about stamping all night last night! I want to return the the borrowed Paperbag Studio stamps Saturday, and have not really gotten to use them as much as I had hoped, so my dreams were all about trying to use each one at least once before returning them (the next day, according to my dreams), but all these college students were sitting at my craft counter playing games! I tried to move to another large table, but they joined that one, eating pizza that I was sure would mean grease all over my cards. And so it went ... I was vastly relieved to wake up!!!

It turned out to be too busy for much stamping; this card was the only one I managed to do! Happily, tomorrow seems to be a fairly clear day!

Coffee Mug Rack - a winner, wow!

I was so excited to discover I actually won this quarter's contest at smARTworks!

The layout idea came from my own kitchen. I love wood, and have wood wainscoating about halfway up the walls. On one wall I have an old cupboard I'd found in our barn and repainted. I had my husband put hooks on the bottom to hang mugs (we have a tiny kitchen with five doorways, so space is precious.

I wanted the mugs look ceramic, so I stamped them (adding the flowers in the darkest ink with a very light touch), then cut them out, and then embossed them twice with FTP. I do not own a stampamajig, so I had several unusable mugs ... time to consider getting one! The hooks were made by punching gold mica cardstock with a scroll punch, then carefully trimming out the "hooks". The board for the mugs and the wainscoating were made by covering cardboard with wallpaper (the background is wallpaper as well). I get mine from a local Sherwin Williams; they have lots of retired wallpaper books to get rid of every month or so.

The coffee beans were the hardest. I actually own coffee bean stamps, and it was so hard not to be able to use them, lol! So at first I was going to edge the text with ground coffee beans, but they did not want to stick, so I gave up. Then I thought of gluing actual coffee beans to the card, but that looked ridiculous! But as I looked at the coffee beans, I realized that with a little embossing powder I could get the color and shine just right, and an embossing tool would complete the job. Oh, happy day!

boyhood

My last week to play with my friend's Paperbag Studios' stamps! I hope it is a relatively uneventful week!

I think the printed paper is from provo craft, but I'm not certain. The '57 chevy and "remember" text are from Stubby Stamper. I purchased the chevy for Cuban-themed cards; those 50's vehicles (now with Russian diesel engines!) are pretty much the only ones that Cubans are able to own. I suppose the vehicle "ages" the car, but it seemed right!

And the winners are...

Congratulations to Diane and to Sandyh50! I hope you'll both be blessed by your stamps! Be sure to contact me by Friday!

And thanks to all of you for your encouragement, and your stories of cards that have encouraged you! I hope you will all take whatever opportunities come your way to encourage another person, if you've read the comments, you know that a simple card can make a big difference!

Blessing to everyone, and thank you for participating!

Love,
Sarah

Happy 4th of July!

A great day to celebrate! We live in a nation that while not Christian, was founded largely on Christian principles, by men who understood the need to worship freely, and live honorably. I love this Patrick Henry quote!

As my friend Diane reminds us, we need to pray for our nation, now more than ever, but today is a day for celebration!

Family collage

I love these collage stamps from Paperbag Studios! This stamp is one of my favorites. I do wish I had used a lighter green for the dragonflies. I had just meant to put a couple in the top part of the card to give a little balance, but the color was so dark, I then needed balance on the lower part! :-)