Perpetual Playtime

My oldest granddaughter will be sixteen tomorrow and we have been working for the last few days to finish up work on her party invitations. Since her mom is taking her on a cruise (departing New Years Day) they have opted to have her party the middle of January, so we are not horribly late on finishing & getting them in the mail.  This has been a laborious and tedious task, but I can't complain since it is for my granddaughter and she helped with a lot of it (last night we recruited her mom to help with a final surge trying to get all the pieces glued & glittered. And, since her party will be at a State Park that charges and admission, her mom was suppose to buy a quantity of the little red ticket for each person to gain access (the little tickets that are used for door prize drawings at a lot of events). However, she asked them about us making tickets that fit the party theme and the State Park agreed, so we had to make tickets to go with the invites. Here is what we mad...

Well, I have been A.W.O.L for a while. I can't really blame any one cause for my absence, but I can see several factors that played into it. One was the World Card-making event's that I participated in several of which used up a lot of my card making energies. Another is, that while I did not post it, I did work on a set of ATC's for an ATC swap. Spent a good bit of time on those since several ideas I played with didn't pan out. One thing I learned is that I don't find myself very fond of ATC's due to the size limitation. None-the-less, I signed up for it and I persevered until I finally managed a finished product I was okay with swapping. Unfortunately I was so stressed and so afraid of missing my deadline that I mailed them off without getting a picture. Oh well. And then the third issue to is a major contributing factor is that I asked my DH for a Kindle for my birthday and he obliged and even let me have it as soon as it arrived rather than make me wait for ...

Well, I have started this post no less than three times this week and seem to keep getting pulled away by other things. This time I intend to get it posted no matter the obstacles! These three cards are my making, but not my design. On World Cardmaking Day, Saturday last, Oct. 2, 2010, my 15y.o. granddaughter & I went to the LSS and took a Make & Take Class.I really like taking these classes because I learn techniques and find products I had not tried before. I also love that my granddaughter has discovered the fun and pleasure of scrapbooking & card-making and we can spend time together with this craft. So, for this class we made Christmas cards. Three to be exact. I will highlight them one by one, but we actually worked on all three simultaneously. We started with the first card I will highlight because we needed to color the small circle detail and paint it with a crackle product and then leave it to dry. That circle detail was the first we worked on and the last we wo...

Well, that was a busy & exciting weekend. I was part of a blog hop sponsored by the CardSwap Forum, which is a part of Cardmakermagazine.com . It was my first time to be one of the hops along a blog hop and it was so exciting to see new comments posted throughout the weekend. That is without a doubt the most comments I have ever had, and probably will ever have again until I am a hop along another blog hop in the future. And I enjoyed visiting all the other blogs on this hop as well as the hop along the Imagine-Nation Blog Hop. I also submitted entries into several challenges (and I was actually the winner of one - yay me. Don't know what I won, but I won - lol). Here is a quick rundown of the challenge cards I made: KISS - Monochrome (the one my number was drawn in):  For my monochrome entry I went with green simply because I have tons of green paper - no clue how I managed to accumulate so much green since pink & purple are my favorite colors, but since I do have so ...

Hello and Welcome!  You are on the CardSwaps World Cardmaking Day Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Faith Skrdla (Designed 2 Delight) - http://designed2delight.blogspot.com/2010/09/cardswap-blog-hop.html . If you got here differently, make sure you start at the beginning and work your way around.  Comment on every blog by midnight CST, October 3, 2010, to be entered into a drawing for prizes. The full list of prizes are on Lora's blog . For my part in the Blog Hop I was assigned an Individual Challenge. The Individual Challenge I was assigned is: Recipe Challenge - Create a card using the following items: 4 brads, 3 flowers, 2 patterned papers, 1 image. (Okay, I'm going to give everyone a good chuckle here. Being relatively new to cardmaking and challenges I had to ask Lora what the "recipe" part of my challenge meant. Did it mean I had to actually put a recipe on or in the card? Eek, do I have a recipe that will fit on a greeting card? Well, she ...

Well, I am finally going to post some pictures of my Craft Room. Mostly so my little sister can see the minor changes made since her visit here a few weeks back. It's not the "magazine" craft room I have seen others post, but it is mine and it makes me happy and that's what really counts.  My husband & I built the room twenty-something years ago in our basement. Twenty-something years ago when I liked to sew and make clothes. When we bought our house the entire basement was unfinished. Before long we started sectioning it off and building spaces. One end is now his den. Originally the opposite end was walled off and he had his workshop in there. But as time went on he outgrew the space and we had a detached shop built out back. Once that was complete we walled off half of what was his shop and turned that half into my sewing room. The other half remained a small garage area, and by small I do mean small. The only car that will fit is a very compact compact. When ...

SRM Stickers is also sponsoring a challenge featuring Operation Write Home (OWH). This is my entry in the SRM Stickers Challenge. The cardstock is AC Textured White and the printed paper is from the Pink Paislee Bayberry Cottage 6X6 mini stack. I added some of that generic grosgrain ribbon that I got on eBay (no name brand to share on that), and the small red square is part of some generic cardstock I bought from Michaels Craft Store years ago.The Hello stamp, gee I don't really know for sure. A very simple card. And easy to put together, the hardest part was probably the bow, but even that was easy enough - I used the "Fork Bow" method. I found this on several blogs and forums, but I originally found it on Diana Gibbs blog, Stampin with Di & everyday this 'n that .  And, Here is the sketch provided for this challenge: I rather enjoy doing challenges that also offer me the opportunity to add to my OWH collection.

Here is my entry for the OWH (Operation Write Home) Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge #36. This card is made on an ecru cardstock. I'm sure to many it would seem this card would have been better with white cardstock & white for the circle & sentiment, but this is what happens when I start out with different paper in the beginning & the card slowly migrates to something different. It is what it is - lol. Both designs of the printed paper are from the Bayberry Cottage 6X6 paper stack by Pink Paislee. The right side is a smaller image of the Picket Fence print and the left side is a smaller version of the Gazebo print. The grosgrain ribbon is some generic ribbon I got off eBay.  The flower stamped image is from Hero Art and I believe the sentiment is from an Inkadinkado set, but I can't say absolutely. I have to confess I was not very cognizant of the need to note who a specific stamp set was by when I first started collecting my stamps. Here is the sketch prov...

Dutch Dare is featuring Operation Write home in honor of OWH's first birthday! In featuring OWH, Dutch Dare put out a challenge that simply required the card meet OWH criteria and have a Birthday theme. Well, they said any theme would be accepted, but since it is a Birthday Party they were hoping for a Birthday card. So I made a Birthday card. It's a very simple card, but I was kinda pushed for time since I was not able to get any card making done over the weekend most of my Monday was taken up with things that needed to be done. Not the least of which was to get a very large box out of the middle of my scrap room floor. The card base cardstock is generic cardstock I bought from Michaels years ago. The Pretty blue flowery inset is from a Nana's Nursery Baby Boy mini stack by DCWV that my little sister brought me a few weeks ago on her way back home from a trip. It has shiny little blue flowers, to add a little glitz. And the sweet little kitty is from my Cricut Create-a...

Today I have two cards I made for challenge entries. Operation Write Home Midweek Throwdown Challenge - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 The challenge for this week is a technique challenge. We had to make an easel card. Now, I had made an easel card once before, but I didn't have the size constraints of making it fit the A2 size. This time I needed to make it fit the A2 size (the recommended, but not mandatory OWH size). And, as always happens I could not find the tut I used the first time, which to me was easier to follow than the one OWH linked us to. Since I was negligent in saving the first tut, I did save this one, and if I ever find that first one again, you can be sure I will save it!  (edit to add - Julie posted a link to an easel card tut that is on the OWH site and to me it made better sense in regard to the direction of the folds. For anyone interested, I have saved both tuts on my "Saved Tuts" page.) Okay, so, for this card I decided to try my Tim Holtz ...

H ere is another card I made for the OWH (Operation Write Home) Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge . The solid cardstock is some generic paper that I got from Michaels several years ago and the print paper with the bats I recently purchased from Oriental Trading. I believe the cute little trick-or-treaters and the small bat at the top (on the purple stripe) are Inkadinkado sta mps. The small "boo!" is from a Lawn fawn stamp set. And I added some black three  dimensional dots using Pearl paint from Viva.  And here is the sketch provided for this weeks challenge: I will send this card to the OWH project, but since the majority of Halloween themed cards have already been processed I will hold this one and work on adding to the Halloween theme for next year. I could have, and maybe should have made a more generic "Thinking of You" or "Miss You", but I had Halloween papers out for another cards and was on a roll.

I found a new forum this week and this card is for their Weekly Sketch Challenge 9/15-9/2 . I think I like sketch challenges. I'm not sure what the limitations are for modifying a sketch, but so far I have tried to stay as close to possible with the two I have made. So, here is my entry for the CardSwap Weekly Sketch Chhallenge. I made Halloween Card with some cute bats and a spider from my Fawn Lawn stamps and I cut the tree from my Cricut Happy Hauntings cart. The cardstock is all generic that I bought many years ago. And here is the sketch: Eeeek! Happy Hauntings!

I made this card for the OWH (Operation Write Home) Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge . It was quick and easy. They provided the sketch, the color scheme and the theme. I used a variety of paper - the solid pink, solid green and large polka dot paper are from DCWV stacks. The tiny polka dot ribbon is from Creative Memories and the cake is from the Cricut Stretch Your Imagination cart. I am also making a bunch of rather generic cards for the OWH project , but I don't have enough of those to take a group shot, and since I plan to make several dozen I'm not sure I want to post all of them one by one. But I will post something about them when I get far enough along with that project. 09/21/10 - adding the image of the sketch:

I bought a pre-assembled card kit from my local favorite scrapbook store, Scrapbook Mania , and used this as a mini card challenge for my granddaughter and I. The kit contains the materials to make two identical cards as well as the instructions and an image of the card the creator, Christine Ousley , made. When I saw the kit I thought it would be a lot of fun to see if my granddaughter wanted to do a mini challenge, and she did (YAY!). I thought it would be interesting to see how far apart we were in style and character. Of course I also wanted the Sarah Kay stamp to add to my collection. First we had to decide on three elements from the kit that were required components and the rest were optional. No other rules. In this kit we decided the three required elements would be the Sarah Kay stamp, the pre-stamped tag that reads "Friends Forever" and the small length of bakers twine.   We divided our materials up and since she was anxious to get working on hers I gave her a man...