Second "freebie" card

I think this is the last time I use opalite inks for a contest card; they just never photograph well. There must be some trick I am missing (feel free to enlighten me if you know), but I've noticed published submissions on other sites don't seem to be able to capture it well either. We'll see how it looks on the Inkadinkado site when they publish it sometime this summer. The tiny bit of coloring I did on the flowers with glitter pen looked exactly like the opalite inks on the text.

Free stamp cards

Inkadinkado had an incentive running this past month in which one could receive up to three free stamps by sending up to three cards. As I work best under deadlines, this was great for me ... I only heard about it two days before the deadline, and managed to get in three cards. I had not used any of the stamps I own from Inkadinkado yet, so that was an added bonus for me!

The background is done using the faux batik method.

More polka dot cards!

Since I am looking for a new place to sell cards, I decided that I would "convert" this design into a couple of A2 cards!

black and mint

It's interesting the different things that inspire people in creating. My daughter had a combination of black and mint green that had sent me into my craft room to make a card with those colors. I didn't have the exact shade of green that I wanted, but I liked this shade ... especially as I had bought a package of the cardstock years ago but only used it once. :-) I originally really liked just the black background, it seemed more sophisticated or something, I'm not sure what word I really want. Anyway, that's how I photographed it, though I hadn't yet glued it to a card. It sat on my counter until last night, when I finally decided to do that last step. Before I attached it, I looked at it one last time against a green background, and decided I prefered it that way after all. :-)

smARTworks challenge & free shipping

The challenge over at smARTworks was to make a card with a shape. I didn't intend to participate, but last night I suddenly got the idea for a tag card. If I had really been thinking, it would have had a side fold instead of a top fold, but, well, I completed it so here it is!

smARTworks has free shipping through Friday, so it's a great time to order! Susan has put a lot of new stamps in the catalog, and they are wonderful!

Thank you #2

This is the second thank you card I made with scraps. It feels so good every time I take something out of that drawer instead of adding to it!

I purchased a set of thank yous a while ago, and did not realize until using them that there are no credits printed on them. So, I can't give credit.

Thank you #1

While digging through my pile of stamped items to make the spanish card, I had pulled out a few other bright pieces, and made a couple more cards. I never seem to have enough thank you cards, so that was my motivation. I put a piece of vellum over the plaid background to mute the pattern a little.

The season of singing has come...

We have dear friends in Cuba who have been going through an intense trial for nearly two years now. I hope hearing from us will be a little encouragement. It's hard to be so far from people one loves...

See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.

Song of Songs 2:11,12

Micah 6:8

Evidently, with the little room recruits have for stuff, it's best not to send bulky letters ... and of course, handmade cards take up a lot of space. So, my cards for Stephen are going to be without embellishments or thick layers.

Psalm 103:17

I had the stamped background to this, white embossed on beige. I don't know what my original plan had been, but it really looked uninteresting. Adding the pink and peach inks spruced it up nicely. :-)

A scrappling grows up

I liked the design of the scrappling I made for the smARTworks challenge that I decided to make a couple of cards with it. :-)

Bridal Shower

One of my daughter's best friends is getting married this summer, and we attended the family bridal shower. I had helped Sally design her own wedding invitations. Her colors are brown and burgundy, and she will be carrying lillies. She lives out of town, so I created a number of invitations for her (using repositional glue so that she could mix and match). I kept the "card parts" that ended up not being used, and they came in handy when I remembered rather last minute (as usual!) that I didn't have any pre-made shower cards. The bottom portion that reads "blessings is actually a mini-card; after writing a little note and signing it, I glued it down with the repositional glue, then punched out a "button" to lift the flap with.

From grief to Joy

Some months back I shared on here that I'd been thinking about the scripture "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." It said to me that even grief is a blessing because of His comfort.

With Good Friday and Easter arriving, I am reminded of that scripture again. The grief the disciples and others who loved Jesus had to be the most excruciating grief imaginable, but oh, what an unbelievable comfort - more than comfort, inexpressible joy - they experienced at the resurrection!

We cannot relate to their experience, though ... not understanding the resurrection was yet to come, they had no hope of comfort. No matter how serious I contemplate the cross, in my deepest understanding of the grief of his death - for my sake, even - deep within my heart beats the cry of "BUT HE ROSE AGAIN!"

Amen.

See you Monday.

smARTwork challenge: Scraplings!

Whatever will they think of next? The stamping world is so much fun! Today's challenge at smARTworks was to make a scrappling. Definition from the site:

There are no hard and fast rules because the idea is to use scraps you have lying around, but scrap-lings are usually a folded card with dimensions about 1-3/4 by 4-1/4 inches. Anything goes though... just use scraps and odd and ends as much as possible in your creations...

I'm off to Bible Study, but I'll post the details later...

...it's later now ... much later! I knew I had to post before my Bible Study because the pressure of getting it done before it was time to leave would cut down tremendously on the amount of time I spent making this little thing! I am just too much of a perfectionist. I still had to talk myself out of redoing the butterflies...

All the stamps come from smARTworks Cookie Plate #1. The large fern was stamped with versafine black ... the best and blackest stamp pad out there! The smaller fern was stamped with Memories Soft Leaf. Memories ink tends to "spread" just a bit, so I love it for backgrounds. The butterflies are done with sticky emboss powder and foil flakes. Foil flakes start out as large pieces, and as it's used up, it also breaks up. I dropped a few small pieces from one bag onto the butterfly, and then brushed on what has become "foil powder" at this point. I could have done it with large flakes, but I didn't want the butterflies to be too "glitzy."

I really had fun playing around with these "scraplings." I order papers from a company that has a paper auction every few months. Along with standard size papers/cardstocks, they will also sell strips from orders they've had. They had a favorite of mine in these strips, so I purchased them. How fun to discover they are the exact size of the standard scrapling!

Day for stamping ... NOT!

Today was a "telephone" day. One call was one I had needed to make for months, to a young mother who was looking for advice. I was honored she had called me, but frankly, she didn't need me ... she's an amazing person, and I think she will, if she isn't already, be someone that is herself going to be called on for parenting advice. Anyway, I hadn't ever called her back to see how the particular situation with her daughter had turned out. It was a great phone call...

This afternoon the phone call I had been waiting for finally came ... my son Stephen called from boot camp! It took a moment for it to register that it was really him! It's rather ridiculous, but I think I was convinced that he would call while I was gone tomorrow at the Bible study I am leading, and not only would I miss the call, but Stephen would find no one at home. Actually, there's no guarantee of getting a call until after the final test of bootcamp, "Battle Stations." So, I was grateful! He's the Mail Petty Officer for bootcamp (every recruit gets assigned some type of responsibility), so we know he's getting his mail. :-) He's doing well; he knows this is where he needs to be, so he just does what he's told without stressing over it. I thought this picture was a fun one to post - Stephen doing what he loves to do, sleep, and is doing very little of at bootcamp!

I've wanted to stay close to home the last week or so in case he called, so since the call arrived, we celebrated by going out to dinner! Bruce works second shift, so we normally don't get to do that, but he's taking some classes in Olean for his job, so he's been home in the evenings for a week. Definitely not the day I planned for, but definitely, much better!

Old favorite

I love this stamp set! It's long discontinued, so I'm glad that I got it when I did.

This was a card I had in my "stash" of cards that for whatever reason I am not selling. I thought it would be appropriate for a recruit! Supposedly, this third week of bootcamp is the toughest.

quick masculine card

Ask people who know me how often I write letters to them, and they will give you a blank stare and ask "Sarah WHO???"

So, it is really amazing that I have actually mailed three (would have been four, but the mail carrier came early today) letters to my son at Bootcamp. I wrote the first on just a piece of lined stationery ... normally, the only people I write are our friends in the country of Cuba, when we manage to find someone going down there, and then we're trying to send as light a packet as possible for that person to transport. I realized that I didn't need to worry about that, so the next letter was a card I had on hand. Now, though, I need to be making cards ... I really want to encourage Stephen with scripture on each, and to my surprise, I'm out of scripture cards that aren't pink, flowery, or in some other way, feminine. So, this was done very fast to get out with that afternoon's mail. For bootcamp, I have to be careful of how ornate I get, so perhaps the star brads were not a wise idea. Anything that sticks out at all may be taken advantage of by an RDC (Recruit Division Commander). I've learned, for instance, that musical cards are totally bad news. (I wouldn't dream of doing that personally, but evidently one recruit's RDC made him dance before his division the entire length of the song on the card his mom sent!) We're advised not to decorate the envelope either.

Thank you

The beautiful lamp my friend Laurie made deserved a really amazing card ... but I think I'm in a rut! I just could not finish it. After several days playing around with different ideas, I finally realized that she would never receive one from me if I didn't just DO IT! I am realizing more and more that I just need to focus on something other than card making for a few days when I'm just not getting anywhere.... the problem is, I so often have "must do now" cards...

The background was done with alcohol inks.

An amazing lampshade!

Laurie Smalley, who makes beautiful lampshades, is someone I knew slightly from homeschooling years, but have gotten to know her a little better through the annual Christmas Craft Fair at Houghton College, where she sells her lampshades. Some of the shades are made with unique papers, and then others have wonderful designs carved into them, that look amazing when the light pours through them.

I have a really difficult time decorating; I don't have the money to fully do a room at any time, and when I do have some, I don't know where to start! But my son Stephen's room just sort of evolved into a vintage theme, focusing on boats, especially ships. Nothing intentional; we haven't bought any of them. One was a wedding gift, others were passed down to him when my father died and Mom moved in with my sister's family.

He's been in need of a beside lamp for awhile (miner's lamp clipped to the headboard just didn't cut it, lol!), and seeing Laurie's artwork gave me the idea to have her make one with a ship for Stephen's room. She was terrific! I couldn't really get up to Houghton to show her just what I wanted in terms of color and design, so she let me send pictures of his room. When I told her that I had not yet gotten the actual lamp, she found one for me! The shade blends perfectly with the room, I couldn't be more pleased.