smARTword challenge

This is the last of the smARTword challenges, so take advantage of this last opportunity for free stamps!

The word for this month is "merry"!

The adorable vintage image is available in two sizes at smARTworks. :-)

Sympathy

I chose this card from my unposted file as I pray for a friend who lost her husband in an accident yesterday. I'm so glad that she has the comfort of the Lord, and a wonderful church family to help her and her children get through it, but although a distant friend, I ache for her in her loss. I love the scripture on this card, "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." What a picture of the precious comfort of the Lord!

Tiger, tiger...

As I started to post, I remembered vaguely some poem about a tiger. Of course, googling provided the source. The Poem is by William Blake:

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

smARTword challenge

The theme for this month's smARTword challenge is simple.I inked the stamp with butterscotch, then lightly tapped the sides of it in rust before stamping onto the panel. I then lightly chalked some green. I wish it had photographed better, I used bronze mica which looks really elegant, and the stamped image and panel behind the bronze are actually more rust colored, and not so orange.

Make a simple card, and get a chance to win free stamps!

And two more...

Set me as a seal, upon your heart...

Is this a romantic scripture, or is this more about our relationship with God? I guess that depends on your interpretation of the book of Solomon. I think it can be used either way, and so two of these I put under the "love" category of my cards in the places in which I sell, and two in the "scripture" section. :-) I'll post the other two tomorrow.

The black floral panel was stamped using opalite inks. They are a little more subtle than this picture shows them to be, but it is still really pretty; I love using these inks! But they will not show up very well if you are using anything other than a very black black. I have some blacks that are not quite as dark, and I've been disappointed with the look of the inks.

The harvest is plentiful...

Finished my first quarter at college this weekend, hurrah! Now I can have a couple of days (I hope - lots happening here this week; my oldest daughter is moving away, so of course, everyone wants to see her before she leaves. I told someone today that I look forward to an empty nest, but the actual process of emptying is absolutely awful, lol!)

Anyway, I hope to post regulary this week, I have a "not yet posted" file of cards that I can draw from. Occasionally I use one for the blog, but forget to move it out, so hopefully this card really has not been posted before. It's a remake of a simpler card I made a few years ago. I trimmed it down and mounted it onto another card to give it another layer, and added extra brads.

smARTword challenge

Wow, is it really a month since I last posted? Going to college full time definitely makes life, um, full!

This month's smARTword challenge is "brown." Make a card focusing on this color, link it to the smARTword blog, and have a chance for free stamps!

Lamentations 3:21-23

I love to make cards with this scripture!

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

The images are stamped with opalite inks. This ink looks wonderful, very shimmery and colorful, but does not photograph well.

smARTword challenge

The theme for this month's smARTword challenge is "Juvenile." I rarely make cards for children, but I do enjoy stamps of children, and this is one of my favorites!

I colored the frogs with markers, and the boys with chalks.

Happy September!

To know God is to trust Him. If one does not trust Him, it's because one does not truly know Him. :-)

This is a card design I have used often; it's one of my favorite designs.

I am trusting Him for grace to get through this semester; I'm returning to college after 15 years, I think. I never graduated, and so it's going to take me 2-3 years to finish. I'm taking 18 credits this semester, divided into two quarters of 9 credits each. It's a bit overwhelming, but I am thrilled to be doing it!

May Joys Abound!

I needed to make a set of notecards (for me, that means cards without layers or embellishments), and this design worked perfectly for one! To make the background stripes, I used strips of rubber trimmed from a set of bookmark stamps. I love saving those scraps! These were unusually large, but small shapes are helpful too. You can make a homemade mosaic background stamp, form funkly letters, etc.

Joyful!

Another great collage set from smARTworks. I love anything with the word "joy" in it, and this little girl is darling! I wanted her to look like a little Latina, and I think it turned out well enough that way. I did edit the picture a little; the hair looked very patchy, and with the low-level photo editing program I have, I couldn't "fix" the hair without altering the overall color. I mention this also because I've realized just in the last few months (I made this several months ago), that I had been underusing my stamp-a-ma-jig. In the card set I made with this - my card sets are always without layers or embellishments - I would have had much better results stamping the girl image twice. With a stamp-a-majig, you just place the tool up to the stamp before removing it from the cardstock, then hold on carefully to it while you re-ink the stamp, then apply it again. This is very helpful with solid images, such as the hair on the little girl, and with clear stamps, which don't consistently give a crisp image. :-)

Anniversary

When I switch out a set of cards from a store, I go through what didn't sell to check for damage or cards that really never should have been for sale because of an un-noticed flaw or clash of color, etc. Sometimes it just isn't a card I feel good about, but left in because it was in a category I had too few cards for! In a recent set of cards, I realized I had not one, but two anniversary cards with "issues." Neither was slavagable, so I went to work on a couple of new ones. This one is very similar to a couple I made a month or two earlier for the other store. :-)

Wedding card

I have lots of pictures that haven't even made it to my "not yet posted" file, which has pictures that are edited and ready to post. I totally forgot about this card, which is odd because it's recently made ... I had several of the dove image colored in, but hadn't used them all, so it was a quick card to make. Of course, I take forever to make up my mind about embellishments, image placement, etc, so it probably took longer than it should have!

Card redo

This was a card from the days I used to put white paper inserts in the cards. This card really should have been layered from the beginning; the outside margin looked too wide. I also only had brads in the top part of the card (my supplies then were so limited, I couldn't stand to use four brads!

Happy discovery!

In the frenzied pace of finishing up all card & journal making for the rest of the year by the time we leave for our first ever family reunion the first weekend in August, I was delighted to find an envelope with parts to make several of these cards. It was from a workshop done several years ago, and I had two dogs completely colored in, O happy day!

Oops

This seemed the appropriate card to post today - the Balloon Rally did not benefit me after all. The craft store is on a side street, and all though in plain site of Main st., where the sidewalk sale takes place, no one turns their heads in that direction! It didn't help that Crafty Crafters was the only business set up outside...

I love this balloon stamp - I can't believe it's taken me so long to get around to using it!

Another Wellsville Balloon Rally Card

Another card from my Balloon Rally stash. I remember not being able to find most of the photos we'd taken from previous balloon rallies, and this was the only decent picture to use. I played around with settings on my photo editing program so that I could at least have a little variety in appearance.

At this point in my cardmaking I owned no punches, made every outer panel the same quarter inch difference, and just had very little supplies of any kind. I still make relatively basic cards, but I have learned a few things, and certainly am blessed with a lot more supplies!

I've only got a few more days to finish projects ... not sure I'll manage to create any new cards or do much of anything to these...

Balloon Rally

I have been posting so little because I've been working frantically to get ready for our town's annual balloon rally, held the third weekend of August each year. I have not sold cards locally since the year I made this card ... which never sold. Happily, I kept it, so with a little tweaking it will go into the craft store this week. :-)

Thursday already!

Wow, how did a week go by so quickly???

That's what happens when one is hyper-focused on something! Our town has it's annual "week-before-the-balloon-rally parade Saturday, and then the Balloon Rally itself next Saturday, and I'm busily putting together as many journals as possible. I am almost exclusively just making very basic wallpaper journals ... wallpaper is lovely because you can clean it, the mitered corners stay nicer much longer than cardstock, and best of all, the wallpaper is free!

I went through my previously made journals for some inspiration for the few decorated journals I want to have. This one is one of my favorites. It's a little too time consuming to recreate, but perhaps I can simplify it a little....hmmm....

smARTword challenge!

Every month over at smARTworks there is a challenge word. There are free stamps awarded for a randomly chosen winner, and no limits to number of entries! This month's theme is "bright." You can click on the title of this post to get there!

I had a lot of fun with the stamps I used. For the dotted block, I masked the block then stamped the other. I kept the scrap left over after trimming, as it was big enough to have items punched out of it. :-) I scored the wings of the butterfly, bent them up, then applied tombo multi to the body. I was concerned that the glue, when I placed the b'fly onto the panel, might spread out to the wings, but I wanted to burnish the body well so that it would be secure. So, I placed it on the panel, with the wings still up, and waited just long enough for the glue to be set up enough not to spread, and then weighted the card down for a firm hold.

Prayer

What a great scripture! Come BOLDLY to the Lord! Yes!

I don't know why I didn't just sponge green on the edge of the folded hands image; the card front is a bit too thick as the patterned cardstock is thick.

Oops!

There's nothing precisely wrong with this card, but I didn't actually translate this scripture before stamping it. In my English version, the end reads "and the time of the singing of birds has come." However, this Spanish translation has only "the time of singing has come." I know enough Spanish to figure this out, but if I were fluent, I think as I was mounting the stamp and looking right at it, I would have noticed the difference. Oh well!

More Graduation Mice

I had some extra mouse images .... I tend to stamp more images than I need so that if I make a coloring error, etc, I have more already to use. I had discovered they looked really cute sitting on top of a mortarboard (here), but I didn't want to waste these first images. :-)

Super Simple Birthday Cards!

It doesn't get much easier than this! I had these cuttled birthday backgrounds made when visiting a friend, before I owned my own cuttlebug. I simple brayered a darker shade over the panels, and the rest is obvious. :-)

Horse card

Friends of ours have a recycling business, and at there annual sale, I picked up a roll of super thin wood laminate. It's easy to cut with scissors, and will run through a cuttlebug (though is rather fragile, so pieces of the laminate will sometimes break.

Give thanks!

I've had this cute paper for a few years, but never used it until this card. This scripture is repeated all throughout the Old Testament. I always know a person is not familiar with the Old Testament when they say that it's all about the law, and not about grace. In fact, grace, love, and the goodness of God are all over it!

Fantasy

This card did not turn out as I had hoped, but I had a lot of fun working on it!

Korean Thank You

I have been unable to find a Korean to translate phrases or scriptures from English to Korean for me, but I finally have decided that I've found enough evidence that this is the correct way to say thank you. :-)

I found it interesting that the alternating of blues and yellows really made a difference in the overall look of this design!

Journals!

I'm not sure why I bother posting such simple journals, but perhaps it will inspire someone to create their own! Even if without a bind-it-all, wallpaper is great stuff to cover any notebook with. It's easy to work with, and protects the covers from "stuff" that can get on them when placed carelessly on a table or wherever. :-)

I am getting ready to order paper from a local printshop. I'm not sure it's worth the expense, but I have them use 24 wt. paper which is thicker than copy paper, and means the writing doesn't show through on the other side, which I really like.

Ordination cards

Someone expressed interest in purchasing an ordination card today, and I realized I hadn't posted these last two cards. They are identical in design to a couple of others I have made, just a change in cardstock used.

Graduation card

I'm don't know what company to credit for the bicycle; it was in a handful of stamped images from a friend. I thought it fit well with a graduation theme!

Edit: Thank you, Mary Frances, for your encouragement and for the company credit on the bicycle! Art Impressions created the image!

Poor Charlie Brown!

I needed a humor break tonight, so here are a couple of Charlie Brown cards. It's a design I've made before; since I have two stores in which I sell cards, I decided to make some for the second place.