Two Challenge Card Entries in this Post

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 Alcohol Inks and make my own background. A bit of a masculine color scheme too. I used Willow, Sandal, Cloudy Blue and Copper. Just random stamping on Inkssentials Glossy paper by Ranger. The leaf strandis an Inkadinkado stamp, stamped with Cocoa Brown Memento ink and colored with Copic. I then trimmed around it and used foam tape to attach it. Near the bottom front I attached some adhesive back glossy front lace look tape from Cutetape.com. The sentiment is from Close To My Heart and is also stamped in Cocoa Brown Memento ink.

And, here is an angled view to see the easle. You can see that I attached a sheet of plain white paper to the inside to be sure the troop using this card has a white surface to write to their loved one on.

CardSwap Weekly Sketch Challenge 9-22-10 TO 9-28-10

The second challenge card  I made is for CardSwap's Sketch Challenge. This card was super quick & super easy since it was mostly a paper project. I was feeling fallish since the it is now officially fall here in the Northern Hemisphere.

For this card I used a generic brown cardstock that I bought at Michaels several years back and the printed paper is from g.c.d Studios Autumn Afternoon stack. I used the back of one sheet to get the blue sentiment tag and both the blue & brown sentimane tags were cut with Spellbinders on my Cuttlebug. The blue ribbon is a generic grosgrain ribbon bought on eBay (I love eBay, and based on how much I have bough through them, I bet they love me too!).

I also made this card A2 size so that I can include it in my OWH shipment.

And, here is the sketch provided for this challenge:

Wow, four images in one post! I think that may be a record for me - lol.

Hope everyone has a wonderful & blessed day!

(EDIT - after I posted this I realized I forgot to crop my images for a closer view. I may (or may not) go back & do that later & re-upload them.)