Steadfast Spirit

I don't have much to say about this card, other than the fact that I liked cutting in the curved shape to make room for the sentiment. The blues in this one didn't photograph well, so they don't appear to match too well, when in fact the blue of the flower and lace perfectly coordinates with the blues in the paper, in real life.

Sometimes I get a little too literal with these card ministry cards, and worry that I might be offending the recipient. Take this card, for instance: am I (me the card maker) asking God for a pure heart, or is it the implication that the recipient needs a pure heart? (I mean, we ALL do, but I think that's a conclusion for each of us to reach for ourselves, rather than me suggest that someone else clean up their act.) Sometimes it's best that I just get out of my own head and not worry about it. Does this happen to anyone else?

Mentally unbalanced or not, I'm glad you stopped by today! Have a great weekend!


Supplies:

Stamps - Verve Scripture Medley 1

Paper - Pebbles "Garden Party"

Ink -  Memento "Love Letter"

Dies - unbranded edge border dies; unbranded lacy flower die

Bird Confetti

I have used "watercolor" paper before that was labeled as such, but then when you start applying water, the paper curls up, or the brush messes up the tooth of the paper. That's why I LOVE Tim Holtz's watercolor paper, because it holds up to all kinds of watercolor abuse! You can get the paper really soaked, but it will dry up nicely. And the paper is 2-sided, with good texture on one side, and smoother on the other. In my card above, you can see that I used the textured side.

The confetti-cake look of the background was achieved by squirting Ken Oliver's Color Burst powders onto the paper, and then misting them with water. I used a combination of yellow ochre, burnt orange, and sepia; however, each of these colors contains granules of other colors (for example green, mixed in with the yellow), which accounts for the spots of blues, purples and reds that you see.

I was so late to jump on the bandwagon of stamp platforms, that I ended up just kind of running along behind it. But when I finally got one -- the Tim Holtz/Tonic platform - I can see what all the fuss is about! Although I haven't had it long, I know it has saved some cards. In the case of this card, since I was stamping on texture, the first take, though pretty good, didn't come out as dark as I liked, so I just inked up the stamp and hit it again. Nice, rich color was my result.

I like the pairing of this verse with the birds, because they are showing us how it's done: to be still, and know that God is there -- the perfect example of trust!

Thanks for looking! Have a great Wednesday. :)

Supplies:

Stamps - Verve scripture stamp

Paper - Tim Holtz watercolor paper

Ink - Versafine onyx black

Dies - unbranded birds on a wire die
Accessories - Ken Oliver Color Burst powders

Split Personality

I have two cards to share today that use the same basic layout.

This first one features a two-part butterfly (or moth?) die, which I like because you can use the solid die alone, or the detailed one, or you can combine the two as I did here. {Time out: I just Googled it, and one physical difference between a butterfly and moth deals with the antennae. A moth has feathery or comb-like antennae, and a butterfly's antennae are thin with club-like tips. So there you have it. Although it's hard to see, on the print there are tiny club-like tips, so those are butterflies. But I don't see any clubs on the die cut, so that one must be a moth. Which means despite the similar shape of the wings, I've apparently mismatched my insects, and now I feel stupid. So let's move on quickly...}

And my second card:

The "Forget Me Nots" seed pack image on this card was a rectangle I cut out of the designer paper. One sheet in the pad had different colored, coordinating seed pack images including this one, plus one for daffodils, pansies, lilies, daisies and peonies. These images along with the coordinating colors and patterns of paper made for some easy-to-design cards. I wanted to make an "I Miss You" card, and thought the sentiment paired well with these flowers, because both connote distance to me.

I'm subbing in a 1st and 2nd grade classroom today, so maybe I can teach the students about butterflies and moths, and they'll grow up smarter than I did. 

Have a great week!

Supplies - Card 1

Stamps - Hampton Art "Hope & Faith"

Paper - "Garden Party" by Pebbles

Ink - Versafine onyx black

Dies - unbranded butterfly

Supplies - Card 2

Stamps - from Hero Arts "Everyday Sayings"

Paper - "Garden Party" by Pebbles

Ink - Versafine onyx black

Cheater, Cheater

I don't know if this card should count for anything, because I did very little to make it. The main image comes from the front of a pack of very small note cards, one that is sent in the mail by an organization in hopes that you send a donation. I think there were 6 tiny cards in the pack, but the paper was very thin in addition to the small size. But the picture and verse on the front is beautiful, and perfect for card ministry, so I just "paid it forward" by jazzing up the cards a little and donating them to the card ministry of my church. I cut off the front panel and matted it with a coordinating color, and then attached it to a A2 size note card. I did all six of the cards this way, using different colors to mat, and I think each one was lovely. I wish I could give credit to the original artist, but even if it was included with the original packaging, these were received so many years ago, I no longer have that packaging.  I am glad, however, that I held on to the cards, and that they were finally able to be used.

Have a great week!

Cactus Joy

This one was fun to make! I'd like to say it's a one-layer card, but I suppose it's not technically one-layer when you use a die cut? The potted cacti are all one die which I then colored with copic markers.  Rather than have the plants "float" at the bottom of the card, I used a solid elliptical stamp to help anchor them. I had planned to mask the bottom of the pots so that the "rug" would stamp around them, but on my practice sheet, the masked version looked weird, so I just went ahead and let the rug show through. My daughter preferred the see-through version too, so maybe it's better not to overthink it.

Thanks for looking, and Happy August!!

Supplies:

Stamps - sentiment from Hampton Art clear "Hope & Faith" set; A Muse "Skinny Oval"

Ink - Memento "Northern Pine" for sentiment; Memento "Toffee Crunch" for oval

Dies - unbranded potted cacti

Faith Hope Love ... and Persistence

One day I was playing around with Distress Oxide inks, and while not everything I made turned out the way I wanted, almost all produced something that could be salvaged. Such was the case with the colored panel above. The distressed piece as a whole was kind of crazy, but trimmed down, I liked this smaller panel. I embossed the Stampendous agapanthus flowers in white so they would stand out from the multicolored background. The sentiment is from the Penny Black clear set called "Faith."

I have to be honest: I had originally used this flower panel on another card that I'd made for my card ministry. I have a card rack in the lobby at church where people may browse the cards, and take any cards that they'd like, with the purpose of sending to a church member or friend who could use a lift in spirits.

Mostly I put general "hello/thinking of you" themed cards, with a few "get well" or "sympathy" cards thrown in, and the cards are usually chosen fairly quickly. Occasionally, though, there are "duds" -- cards that no one wants. The original one with this panel was one of those duds. I'd liked the card I made, but for some reason, no one else did. I got tired of seeing it left on the rack week after week, so I eventually brought it home. Not wanting to throw the whole thing out, I pulled this colored panel off the card and saved it, until I decided to use it on the card above. I put it back in the card rack the next week, and it was chosen immediately. This card wasn't that different than the original, but for whatever reason, this one must have spoken to someone, whereas the other one just sat there being aloof. LOL

I guess the lesson to be learned is to never throw anything away ... uh, be persistent! :)

Making Some Noise

REMINDER: Now thru July 8, enjoy 40% off ALL Hambo stamps! See our SALE page for details. 

Now on to today's card:

While on a stamp retreat years ago with some of my Hambo Stamps designers, I was privileged to receive a tutorial from card-maker extraordinaire Melissa Edwards. She is a master of coloring, but the technique she showed us was using markers on an acrylic block and spritzing to do easy water-colored backgrounds. I've since made dozens of cards (you can see some here and here) using her technique, because not only is it very easy to do, but the results are STUNNING. But we didn't merely lay down the watercolor -- she taught us to add "noise" to the color, which kicks it up a notch.

My card above demonstrates such "noise." Although this time I used a swatch of designer paper instead of using markers to make the water-colored strip, I still started with basic variations on a color:

Above is the paper I chose from Love Nicole's "Aquarelle" pad. I cut it down so that I just had purplish strip on the left. I could have left the strip as it was, glued my die cut on top and finished the card, but it would have looked a little more dull than it does with the added "noise." I started with a script background stamp, and stamped it in an ink that coordinated with the paper's design, but wasn't too dark. You want the noise to be there, but not stand out too much on its own. Next, I chose another coordinating color to stamp some leaves randomly over the script. The paper already had some white spots included in the design, so I was satisfied to stop there. You can see a close-up of the noise below:

With the paper now jazzed up, I was ready to glue it to my white card base, and add the "Prim Poppy" die cut. Finally, I finished the card with a scripture stamp from Verve. The noise adds just enough extra drama to help the die cut stand out a little more, and leads to a more interesting card.

Do you like to add noise? If you've never tried it, give it a shot, and feel free to link up your result in the comments below.

Happy stamping!

Supplies:

Stamps - scripture from "Scripture Medley 4" by Verve; script background by Recollections; leaves from "Fanciful Filaments" set by Hero Arts
Paper - "Aquarelle" (6 x 6 pad) by Love Nicole
Ink - Memento "Lilac Posies" for sentiment and leaves; "Sweet Plum" for script background
Dies - "Prim Poppy" by Memory Box 

In Distress

I'm unable to read or hear the scripture on today's card, without automatically starting to sing the song in my head that we sang in rounds at summer camp. Does anyone else know the song? It is simply the words of Philippians 4:4 repeated over and over. Still, it's quite catchy, and an easy way to learn and remember the verse. This is one of the stamps in Verve's "Scripture Medley 1" set.

Craft cardstock serves as the base of this card, which I thought coordinated well with the distressed patterned paper from an old Making Memories "Travel" pad. I added a couple of cardboard buttons tied with cord.

While on the subject of distressed, I'll go ahead and share a bonus card I made in the same sitting:

This card makes me laugh, because in one photo I took of it, you would think you'd have to wash your hands after handling it -- it was very dingy looking. Thankfully the other photos came out better. This one also uses a patterned paper called "post mark" from the same "Travel" pad as the paper above, along with a craft cardstock base. The "thanks" is a stamp by Hero Arts.

I think the "thanks" card is appropriate, since you'll certainly want to thank me for the earbug, if you played the song on Youtube that I linked above. You're welcome! ;)

Metallics

I've decided that I really like metallic cards! The shine catches your eye and makes them look special. I might not have tried using solid metallic sheets had it not been for this background paper ("Delicate Floret" pad by Love Nicole) which I loved, but wasn't sure how to use alone. When paired with some solid metallic gold - WOW! (<---- that was my daughter's exact response.) I wish you could see in person how pretty this looks! My metallic paper is from a DCWV 6"x6" pad.

To go along with the papers, I embossed the Hampton Art sentiment ("Hope & Faith" set) using a champagne-colored embossing powder. It matches quite well and doesn't look gaudy, as sometimes TOO shiny gold does.

I used the trimmed scraps from the patterned paper to make a second card:

This time I used a really large Penny Black scripture (from "All Great Things" set), also embossed with the same champagne powders. I'm happy with how both cards turned out, and look forward to more opportunities to use metallics.

Clothed with Strength

Here is another of those easy cards where you let the pretty paper do all the work. Here, I used a floral design from the Love Nicole "Aquarelle" 6x6 pad, and stamped the Verve sentiment. This verse is included in the "Scripture Medley 4" clear set. (In real life the ink color is not purple as it appears in the photo, but rather a deep pink that matches the flowers.)

My kids get out of school today, so I while I HOPE to be clothed in strength and dignity, I will DEFINITELY be clothed in a sundress and flip flops in the near future! Have a great weekend!

Walk by Faith

Gray is my husband's favorite color. Of all of the beautiful colors in the spectrum, he chooses gray. The fact that he's an artist would make me think he might be drawn to color, but that has not been the case. Then again, given Baskin Robbins' 31 flavors, or Cook Out's 40+ milkshake flavors, he'll choose vanilla every time. So the fact that he married me ... does it mean I'm dull? Or am I a classic?? I digress...

I don't make a lot of gray cards because I DO prefer color. However, in this case, I think the gray looks elegant. It's paired with navy blue card stock to frame the DP. (Love Nicole's "Bouquet of Color") The sentiment is from Hampton Art's "Hope & Faith" set, and says "I will walk by faith, even when I cannot see. - II Corinthians 5:7."

Have a great week!

More Color!

My friend Jeannie runs "Dragonfly Journeys," a challenge blog, and her challenge this week is called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It sent me looking for rainbow paper so that I could play along.  I found a perfect sheet in an American Crafts 6x6 pad called "#Summer" that allowed me to make two cards. This first one uses a strip of the striped paper, along with a sticker I found in my stash, which I popped up on dimensionals.

My second card uses the same paper:

This time, I added a tag with a die cut "hello" (Hero Arts), and stamped a sentiment below from Hero Arts' "Everyday Sayings" clear set. This is perhaps my most used set in my card ministry, because it contains nearly every saying I need, including "thinking of you" in 3 different fonts. Inside this card, I added a verse from Hampton Art's "Hope & Faith" set:

I AM truly glad, because today is the first day of June, and summer break is just around the corner. "Wonderful Joy" indeed! Wishing you joy as well!

Shout Out to Verve Stamps

When linking to the Verve stamp I used on my last card, I realized that Verve no longer sells these "Plain Jane" scripture stamps. I was really upset to learn this at first, until I saw that these same scripture stamps that have become favorites of mine to use are now available in sets. AND, there was a great set on sale full of verses I don't have, so I quickly ordered the set, along with another clearance sentiment that was marked down to 75 cents. Are you kidding me? 75 cents for a beautiful sentiment? Yes, please!

I shouldn't have been shocked when my order arrived less than 48 hours later, because I've bought from Verve before. But not only did my order arrive FAST and packaged beautifully in pretty tissue paper, but there were lots of extras thrown in:

In addition to the stamps I ordered, they included some coordinated papers, a paper doily, a stamped sentiment, plus a free clear stamp that says "Enjoy today" -- everything I need to make a card. Awesome!

In case you're interested, this scripture set is called Scripture Medley 4. It includes 8 scriptures and one beautiful "grace" sentiment that says "Grace... meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us."

Needless to say, I'm thrilled with my ordering experience, and wanted to spread the word. I'm not affiliated with Verve in any way -- heck, I run a competing stamp company! --  I'm just sharing this as a happy customer.

Stencil 2 Ways

I have two cards for you today, both using the same "Dot Fade" stencil by Tim Holtz, but in a yin/yang kind of way. For the first card, I used different colors of Ranger oxide inks to color over the stencil, until I had a random pattern of colored dots. Over this, I stamped wheat stalks from Inkadinkado's "Meadow" set, and finally added the Proverbs 3:5 scripture stamp from "Scripture Medley 1" by Verve. This resulted in a very quick one layer card which will be perfect for my card ministry, in that it can be sent for any occasion.

As I began to clean up, I noticed that I still had quite of bit of oxide ink residue left on the stencil. Instead of wiping it off, I misted it up, turned the stencil over, and positioned it on a new white card base. Because the oxide ink reacts with water, I ended up with a beautiful water-colored design.

This time I used a Memory Box "Prim Poppy" die cut over the colors, and stamped a sentiment from Penny Black's "Faith" clear set. And just like that, two super simple, minutes-to-make cards!

What's a Card Ministry?

I've seen a lot of posts on message boards saying "I've made these cards -- now what do I do with them?" If you are a person that only makes cards for specific occasions, then this would seem like a dumb question. But cards are often made with no special occasion, or even recipient, in mind. This could be the case for those on design teams who need to feature certain stamps or supplies as part of their requirements, or a person who loves to create, but maybe doesn't have family members who appreciate hand-made things. {Clutching my pearls!} Either case could result in a pile of cards with no intended destination.

My own card ministry serves my church, but a card ministry doesn't have to have religious implications.  The main idea is to make/provide/send cards to someone who will appreciate receiving them. It's that simple. Hospitals or rehabilitation centers are often receptive of cards for their patients -- both to receive, as well as to send out. Elderly care facilities might love donations. (The assisted-care facility where my in-laws live has a small "general store" where they sell these cards. Not only does it allow the residents to be able to find inexpensive cards to send, but the proceeds are added to a fund to buy games and things for the residents to enjoy.) Then you have the military option. While Operation Write Home is no longer collecting cards, you might find other agencies who will accept them for our troops. The main thing to keep in mind if you wish to donate cards is to keep your target audience in mind, and only send cards that would be appropriate for those recipients.  When in doubt, ask a representative of the organization or facility for guidelines as to what would work best.

My card-making tip for today is: when you have beautiful paper, don't fight it and don't cover it up! Such is the case for this water-colored design. It is so pretty that I hate to even use it! I would love to just put it in a frame on the wall so that I could admire it every day; luckily, this comes from a pack ("Aquarelle" by Love Nicole) that has more than one sheet of each design, so I have some to share. ;) I used the white space of the design for my scripture, which is from the Penny Black set "All Great Things." This set has scriptures in large sizes that are also great for making bookmarks. Though super simple to make, I'm quite satisfied with the end result of this one-layer card, and know it will be a hit (= immediately selected) in the card rack at church!