Perpetual Playtime

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 ...

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 ...

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...

My 15 y.o granddaughter was here this weekend and she has has so much fun playing in my scrap room. I'm so glad she is enjoying herself making things. Here are some of the items she made this weekend. First is a card she made. I'm not sure what her motivation is for any of it, but I guess she was just in the mood to color an image so she made this card. Not bad for her second card. She was also intrigued by a card on my bulletin board that I had made for a challenge where I had colored white flowers with Copic markers, so she wanted to try her hand at that also. She used a Sarah Kay image from Stampavie. And then she discovered the Create a Critter Cricut cart and had some fun with that! Here is an owl and a small card she made. She has attached a strip of magnet to the back of the owl so she can hang him in her locker at school. I'm not sure what she will use the little note card for. But I am glad she enjoyed herself. Okay, that's all for this post because I now...

This is my second card made specifically for challenges. I enjoyed making this card because there was a specific type of card required for one challenge (Squigglefly Challenge #63) , and a specific color scheme was required for a second challenge (SAV Challenge #31) . Well, actually, they are both color specific, but the Squigglefly color requirement is fall colors and the Stampavie color requirement fits. Additionally the color scheme challenge also required a Stampavie stamp be used. It took me a minute to figure out how to get my elements to come together, but I did it. I decided to make a miniature card for my granddaughter with the stamped (My Sweet Lili by Sarah Kay) image to use as one of the inserts for the pocket. I made her a bookmark for my second pocket insert. Card with inserts Here are the inserts - a miniature card with a poem about granddaughters inside and a bookmark with "KNOW" & "LOVE" tags. A non-challenge, non-card specific note...

My little sister made me a handy little booklet to keep my Copic color combinations in and to say Thank You I made her a card (I mean, aren't we always looking for a chance to make a new card?). I was so excited to have finished my card that I put it in the mail to her before I took a picture and had to ask her to snap it and e-mail me some shots! Okay, maybe it wasn't so much my excitement as it was my rememberer not being as good as it  once was, but that's beside the point!  On this card I knew Lisa liked red so I had to make red the predominant color. And, since I like pinks & purples, I thought it was pretty neat to find a paper with a pink & red pattern. By far, the hardest part of making this card was pleating the ribbon to frame the stamped image. That ribbon is a 1/4" gossamer like ribbon with a think satin border on each side. And along with my rememberer getting older, my fingers have too. But it was a labor of love so I plugged away and finally g...

Well, I haven't gotten any more done in my efforts to revamp the sewing room into a craft room, but, I will get back to it. It is really a bit overwhelming at times. I did however make a couple of new cards. This first one is okay, but not really that good. But, I love bright colors and pinks and purples so I had to make a pink or purple. It just didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped. And, I discovered I'm not as thrilled with stickles on a large scale. But, it is what it is and I did like the teddy bear, so here I post it. This stamp is Being Together by Gillian Roberts of Stampavie. This next one I did this morning and I really like it. Of course, being one of my harshest critics, I do see flaws with it. But I really like it. This is my first attempt at coloring something other than cute little girls. And . . . this is also my first card made with a digi stamp. However, it is not my first attempt at coloring a digi stamp. With the first one I colored I disco...

I haven't ever really taken pictures of crafts I've done in the past, but I did recently take a Copic Make & Take and took pictures of those to post on facebook. I thought I did pretty well at it, until I was at home with no instructor and tried my own hand at it. I realized then that there is a lot more to adding color with a Copic than just putting pen to paper. I think I went through about 7 stamped images with all but 3 going to the trash because they were beyond salvage. But I did finally start feeling better about my efforts and actually turned one into a card. Anyway, here is the first card we did in class. Isn't he a cute little dragon? He's okay, but not as good as he could be. He was my first ever attempt at shading & blending. And, being the rebel I am, I colored him some red shorts - the instructors version had his bottom colored green - no shorts! O.O Colored with Copic Markers. the stamp is by Nancy Hain of LeLo Design. And, here is the seco...