Fourth of July & Father's Day Cards

I got three of the four cards for my swap done and I used sketches to do it.This is the sketch for PaperCraftPlanet and my take on it.You can see inside a little bit. Normally I don't do anything inside my cards, but I had photo corners to use and thought a couple of them would help tie the outside to the inside. I don't have a sentiment on it, it can be used for any thing in July like Birthday or Thank you. I hand drew and cut out the star from a scrap of golden yellow cardstock, then inked it in red. The stamp of course is TAC since this is for a TAC group swap. I colored the firecracker light blue with a regular colored pencil.

Below is my attempt to follow StampTV's sketch.
I had to turn it to the side so my TAC image would fit. I'm using a pre cut circle scrap with gold dots on it that I bought from Barns & Noble a couple of years ago. I also colored in the blue area of the stamp with a colored pencil. The cream card stock was rounded at the corners because the circle had the only soft edge in the entire card and I didn't want it to be the only one. The Dk. Red cardstock is from the free download by TAC. The light blue paper around the stamped image is from a 200 sheet pack that I ran thru my cuttlebug.

Cutie Sunday's Sketch #43. I had to squish the elements together to make a square card sketch fit an A2 rectangle.
My card uses the same star background, a cuttlebugged light blue paper from an 200 sheet block, Dk. Red cardstock is from the free TAC digital paper download. The stamped image is a TAC stamp that I colored with light blue pencil. I distressed the edge of the cream oval with my heidi swapp edge distresser. The ovals were cut with my Creative Memories cutters. The circle with the silver glittery burst came from a scrap pack of shapped papers that I got from Barns and Noble a couple of years ago. I picked it because it reminded me of the star-burst firecrackers.
Not following any online sketch with these last two...

I liked the watermelon on the background paper and that's what I based my design on. The "Happy Father's Day" stamp is TAC and the blobs are made with my Matte accents dimensional medium. The dark red with argyle print is a free printable download from TAC (it's black/white but you can change the white to any color by printing on colored paper/cardstock).


Actually, the one below is my sketch but I can't show my drawing until I get my computer fixed because I need the scanner (won't show up in a photo and I have no photo editing capabilities now so I'll try showing it when DH gets my computer back up and running). Again the sentiment is TAC and the Dark Red and Dark Blue cardstocks are from the same digital download. The glittery area under the cream rectangle is a stamp from the swirly holiday set (not positive of name but it's similar). I didn't add glue to the dots, just the heart and swirls.

OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!!

I'm so excited! I can't convey in words my level of excitement. "Why?" do you ask? Because I got a blog award! I got it a few days ago, but the rain has been preventing me from just surfing the blogs (one draw back to having a satellite internet connection it's more sensitive than Dish TV to clouds). Plus, you also know from a previous post about my computer troubles.

Anyway Thank you Lindsay for this award. Be sure to check out her blog for freebies and sales. I've bought several of her digital images (right before my computer problems so I haven't had much chance to print things out but I did get one card made earlier (it's the "Thinking of Ewe" card here) and one kit printed (I'll make a birthday card from it to show you later today so check this post later today).

Anyway, I need to do a few requirements to accepting the Honest Scrap Award and they are as follows.

A) I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link…Check

B) I must list 10 honest things about myself.
1) Like Lindsay, I am a huge Sci-Fi fan too, but my favorites are Eureka, Babylon 5 (if we had a daughter she would have had Delene as her middle name), Star Wars (my boys love it) Star Trek: Original series, Next Gen., Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise and I've already seen the new Star Trek Movie! :) I usually don't care to watch movies in the theater but I may have to watch "Land of the Lost". I'm not a Will Farrell fan (but I don't dislike him either) but I used to watch the original tv series as a little girl. I even had a 3 ft tall doll that I named Holly.
2) I also like watching Educational stuff like "The Universe", "How the Earth was Made", "Life After People", "Dirty Jobs", "Mythbusters" and "Time Warp"
3) I wish I could create something everyday ;)
4) I have been watching Days of Our Lives since I was 7 or 8 years old.
5) I am more Night Owl than Early Bird. If I could sleep later in the mornings, I'd stay up later at night crafting, but I have to be awake at my school job and on weekends, DH likes to sleep till noon and the youngest DS is still an early riser.
6) I grew up in a tiny town so I can't handle the high traffic volume of Kansas City or St. Louis. Someone else has to do the driving when we go there. I have learned how to handle the highway traffic around me but I still prefer the country lanes where the traffic is so light that you have to watch out for the wildlife.
7) I'm a Jill of all trades and a master of none: I've worked in a Pizza Restaurant (4 years), an insurance office/web design office (I even had my insurance license), and I've worked in a school setting for 5 years, first as a Substitute teacher, and now as a Facilitator.

8) Since, I'm being totally honest, I hate my skin - I still suffer from acne.
9) I hate having to clean up after everyone else - esp. DH's cooking messes
10) I need to exercise more to lose weight (like 40+ pounds)

C) I must put a copy of the The Honest Scrap logo on my blog. Check

D) I must select at least 7 other worthy bloggers and list their links. This will be easier than the 10 things about me. :)

Diana already got this award from Lindsay so I guess I shouldn't mention her (in fact I saw that she had the award first before I knew I had it too) but she's a great friend to get together with so I'll give her a "shout out" anyway.

I can't find Diana's pick so I'm not sure if my next person was on Diana's list (I thought she was) Anyway, another good friend to get together with is Lisa

Oops my next choice already got it too:Penny Duncan

This may be harder than I thought. LOL

Mary

Danni

Michelle

Barbara

Stacy

Heather in Florida

Lisa of the quilling patch

Did I have only seven blogs listed? There are more blogs that I could list so if I miscounted and have 8 instead (I did delete one because I had too many but I could still have too many blogs), please forgive me. I do know how to count. LOL

OK, time to feed the kids and then go create my birthday cards (SIL and her DH have birthdays about a week apart so I need some for them) and watch Days of Our Lives.

May be off for a while

My computer (the one with the scanner so I can show my creations and the only printer in the house (DH has a scanner on his computer I think but his lazer printer died a couple of months ago)) caught a major virus last night. If I can't get my computer techie/guru DH to fix it quickly (he said that he won't trust it unless he completely wipes the hard drive which means I spent time last night (after disconnecting it from the internet) saving all my photos, cutting files, fonts, etc. to an external hardrive (something I was wanting to do for back up anyway-nothing like necessity stopping procrastination) and then he has to load my programs like MS Word, Adobe Reader, and of course Mozilla), I'll be off for a while. My other option is to use my laptop (which seems to be virus free-thank goodness-so I'm using it to change passwords to be safe) and my camera, (and my camera isn't that good at taking photos).

If I didn't save to the external harddrive the virus, I feel good about what I found/saved. I found the original download of Design Studio (I'm still using the 1.1 version, not the 1.3 version) , I'd been collecting fonts for years before Cricut/SCAL could even use them and I think I found all of them, and I had photos in my Photoshop Elements 4 (that tells you how old that computer is since I never upgraded that program either) and I've saved all but three photos (I got a message that they couldn't be saved for some reason but they were older photos and I had done a backup of photos last fall so I didn't care about 3 photos). Maybe, DH will actually give me a CD writer program this time around (I had a CD drive capable of burning CDs, but he never installed the program to do it and I'm not sure why).

Good about this: Clean hardrive, maybe upgraded hardware/software. On the bad side of this, 1) I'm changing important passwords (like this blog, the bank, eBay, etc) so hopefully I'll remember the new passwords, 2) no scanner and printer access until computer is fixed, 3)losing all my bookmarks, 4) and having to re-enter all my information (like when I sign up for swaps, I have a drop down box with my information already and all I have to do is click instead of type - I know, I'm lazy) but since money informaton is also kept by the computer we disconnected it from the internet as fast as we could.

Father's Day card #1 & #2 - for Swap

Cards made for swapping but instead of doing 4 cards exactly alike, I'm going to use the same background paper, but try using sketches to make each one unique.
For this card I was following SplitCoastStampers sketch #227. I used a red polka dot ribbon for one of the "blocks" and I had to increase the size of the skinny oval to fit my TAC stamp. Speaking of the stamp, I've trimmed it so I don't have so much space beside the letters to have ink stick to. Hopefully, it will improve the looks of the image without sacrificing the stamp's ability to stick to the acrylic block.

This is another Father's day swap card. Again I was following SplitCoastStamper's sketch but this time it was sketch #229. I used my cuttlebug on the golden yellow cardstock and took a green water color pencil to fill in the swirls. The gray striped paper is creative memories and the present image is a TAC stamp that I colored with a metalic green pencil. I inked the edges of both of those papers (almost got too much on the cream but I think I like it).

Little Bo Peep Best Friends

Well, I think I'll have to buy some skinny red line tape because my glue bottle kept "burping" and so I don't have a nice line for my glitter. The best friends tab is a print out from Scrapbooks etc., I think.

June's Calendar

Here's the calendar page for June for MomI've been sending her one each month, using the same three background papers. Scroll down a bit here to see the beginning of this. I matted or decorated each month differently. Last month was May and the Emerald is the birthstone. I chose yellow for June because July will have RED/WHITE/BLUE. I embossed the yellow cardstock then sanded to reveal the white core. I also used my new fiskars flower punch.

Challege Cards (bad photography skills)

I am playing the challenge on Scrap 'n Stamp Canada trying to follow this sketch

First my purple card:
I used purples on this card. Each strip is 15/16" (or just a smidge under 1") wide and I used a corner rounder on the corners for interest. Then I used CM pale purple marbled paper and rounded the corners again. Next, I took some purple cardstock (looks teal in my photo and I don't know why) and this time I cut them into squares and rounded the corners again. I spread them out a bit then attached the purple prima flower and added a big drop of silver tulip paint in the center. I have left room to add a sentiment when I need it. I think it will work nicely as a Sympathy card and I don't do a lot of those (thankfully, I also don't have much need for them either but it is one that's nice to have on hand when you do). Looking at the sketch right now, I see I forgot the 2 "dots" in the upper corners. I guess that's what you get when you try to save paper by not printing the sketch (my small attempt to be green, or you could just call me cheap LOL). To do these sketches, I look at my laptop screen that's about 5 feet away from me and my crafting area. Sometimes, I have to go move the mouse or else the screen saver kicks in and I lose my sketch until I type in the password.


then my "mistake" card:
it still looks good, it just doesn't look like the sketch
I made it first. I think it must have been a long day because for some reason I thought 4 times 1/2" was going to equal 4". Needless to say, I was a bit confused when I saw how much white space I had. Then because the strips were so skinny, the next rectangle didn't look right straight on, so I angled it. I figured I might as well change the smaller rectangle too while I was at it so I made it a circle then attached my bow. Again I'll add a sentiment when I need to use it. The colors would be good for a birthday or wedding or even a baby (gender neutral - not totally boy-ish or girl-ish).

Now I took photos of these cards so show how horrible my camera is at doing cards. This is why I use my scanner all the time even though it tends to wash out the colors.

Everyone have an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend.

For my co-workers

For the teachers I work with, I made these cards. Our last day of school is this Friday (I'm ready for a vacation). Inside I have "Thanks for making it a great year." And this group of teachers have supported me when my student has had behavior difficulties. Don't get me wrong, the other teachers I've worked with over the years have been good, but most of them leave me to deal with my student and don't step in to help. For example, I was wearing a long skirt one day and my student stuck his feet under the hem and lifted up. I told him not to do that and stepped back. He didn't take the hint or command and tried to do it again. The classroom teacher saw all this and got after him. Most teachers would have kept instructing the rest of the class and I wouldn't have done anything except step farther back because I wouldn't want to interrupt the teacher or the rest of the class.

Two for MIL, One for me

Laundry is done, house is clean, and I'm home alone.
TIME TO CREATE SOME CARDS!!!!

First I have a card for Fridaysketchersblog (no sheep but it's still for MIL)
I used Creative Memories new ribbon paper and Making Memories Hullaballo buttons. the light green paper (which came from one of those big packs of paper) was cut with my Cricut and Sure Cuts A Lot program. The Thinking of You Phrase was from the dollar bin at Michaels and is a Colorbok rubon.

and an old PaperCraftPlanet's cuttlebug challenge card to show
The button is a Making Memories Hullaballoo button that I threaded some white embroidery floss thru the holes. I used some solid cardstock for everything (different than my "norm" since I use patterned paper for most stuff) but I did cuttlebug the top red piece for texture. The bottom card is also using the same sketch but I didn't add as much "stuff" that the sketch had so it really isn't exactly the same. I use another Colorbok rubon from Michael's dollar bin.

Get Well Soon Blue/Green Card

My Oz-somestamps sketch attempt following Color Create's 15th color combo of blue and green. Their example was more a royal blue and grass green but I have pastel or dark "heritage" colors and I thought springtime needs pastel colors more. I took a light blue paper and embossed it with my Cuttlebug. I used a yellow-green printed paper for the next background piece as well as the sentiment piece. The image I used as my next part of the sketch because it was almost exactly the same size as the diminsions given. The Get Well Soon is a rub-on by Colorbok that I found in the dollar bin at Michaels. Too bad Hobby Lobby doesn't have a dollar bin but then I might be spending more money at Michaels if I had one closer. :) Since this is another lamb image, it goes to my Mother in Law for her card collection.

Fluffles - hello busy bee! and Congrats

I just found this new sketch site, Designer Showcase. I've tried their first sketch challenge. They didn't list sizes of the elements so I guess-timated (and guessed incorrectly as evident by the under square). My stamped image is Stampendous's Fluffles (love that cat!) that I colored with what ever markers I found lying around at school (colored in a free moment-not that I have a lot of them) and the rectangle and square are Creative Memories papers. The card bottom is from an unnamed card stack that I bought at a Books Are Fun sale at my school.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is my entry to PaperCraftPlanet's sketch challenge. The image came from coloringpages.com, colored with Bic markers and Copic markers (skin and background). The Colorbok chipboard heart came from the dollar bin at Michaels yesterday and the ribbon I've had for a while and don't remember where it came from. The "Congratulations" paper was in my scrapbox.

Scrapbook pages for DS Z

The Christmas layout still need the yearly Santa photo. Bet'cha know where it's going.

Cards Received

This is a Mother's Day Card and the neat thing about it is the smaller "door" on the right of the card to see the sentiment inside.

This card is from the Asian swap. The gold can rub off so be careful. :)

This is for the Anything swap. Purple and gray? On my computer it looks like a denim blue but in real life it looks more grayish. Whatever it is, it's a pretty color combo.

Another very pretty Mother's Day Card

And some more that I'm adding to this post instead of creating another post just for them.

Teacher Appreciation gifts

I just counted up all the cards I've made in 2009. 115
I don't know about you, but I'm sure impressed. And it's not even the middle of the year yet. Included in the 115:

I have two boys in elementary school and they each have three "main" teachers (I'm not including the PE coach, music teacher, and art teacher although they might like being appreciated too). I made 6 of the card magazine holders (I've seen this on splitcoaststampers, but where I first saw it was on SheetLoad. Unfortunately, I do not have the link handy). I did tweak the measurements so I could have regular A2 sized cards (originally, it was made for 3x3 cards) . I made 3 cards for each teacher so that meant 18 cards total. I covered each holder in a different color paper (each common color was pink since I don't have much need to use pink) and the three cards that went with it also had the same background paper.

Speaking of my sons, I had the oldest tested and he scored 98, 100, & 107 so he's in the average range for intelligence.

Lil' Lamb & Lovers

I did a Mojo Monday #85 card. I used scraps and the bow I made using the "fork" method with some shear brown ribbon.
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The card below is my attempt to do SplitCoastStampers sketch225. I tried to do this color swatch:but I didn't have goldrush, creme brule, juniper, or vanilla creme so I did the best I could. My juniper became evergreen, the goldrush became golden yellow, and the cream brule is orange ink. It is mounted on a cream colored cardstock. The image is an internet coloring book image that I colored with Bic Markers.

Sorry Kitty, My Heart Belongs to You

The Green card is for a Chalks swap. I made this one a center fold/opening card (I inked the edges so you can see where the card opens). I stamped the flowers on pink or yellow cardstock and cu them out (I must remember to do that on paper next time because it was difficult cutting those tiny areas). I chalked the background behind the flowers and used green chalk inks for the stems and the words.



















I used the challenge on 2RedBananas (but by the time I got the card made, scanned and posted, the Mr.Linky thing was gone) to use stripes (which I love) and the sketch on PaperCraftPlanet (sk050209). I used brownish colored Prima Flowers, a scrap of solid blue cardstock, another scrap of blue/brown striped paper, brown ink for the phrase (I accidentally smeared a little of the ink on the "I" before it was completely dried), and cut a Pop up Glue dot into quarters to adhere the flowers. I colored the image with colored pencils, the light blue for the water in the glass is so light that it looks like it disappeared.

These cards aren't following any sketches or color challenges - I just "threw" them together. The calendar page is for my mom. I have been forgetting to scan the other months after I made them but before I mailed them to her. This month I'm late getting it mailed to her. :(