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Happy Mail and a Card

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The big brown truck pulled up in front of our house this afternoon and left two copies of the new Papercraft magazine (May/June). Inside is my first published card. Interestingly, I did not submit it. It was one of three cards I created for a Moxie Fab challenge. Several months afterwards, I received an email from Cath Edvalson asking if I still had the card. Fortunately, I did, and here it is published. Quite exciting, actually, even though being published wasn't one of the things on my "To Do" list.

HappyMail 

And here is a card for a challenge on Kim Kesti's blog, another sketch from the Go To Sketch magazine. This was a really quick card, but I like it a lot.

HappyAnniversary 

Cardstock: red and black from scrap file, PTI Kraft; patterned paper: Pink Paislee Bayberry Cottage 6X6 pad; sentiment:  Savvy stamps; flowers from stash; brad: Making Memories; Cuttlebug embossing folder; I drew the lines on the sentiment strip with the new "no bleed" Sharpie marker.

CPS 161 Plus Two

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It's been surprisingly difficult to get back in the groove with crafting. The last couple of nights, though, I've been up late watching the men's and women's NCAA basketball championships and have finished several projects as I watched. The first two are for this week's CPS challenge.

Here's the sketch:

161 

And my interpretations:

CPS161.1 

Cardstock:  PTI Hawaiian Shores & Select White; patterned paper: PTI Green Boutique; Cuttlebug embossing folder; AC Dear Lizzy crocheted flowers; silk ribbon from Ellen Huston; pearl: Michael's; stick pin unknown.

Sunshine
Cardstock:  PTI Pure Poppy & Vintage Cream; patterned papers:  October Afternoon Thrift Shop; ribbon from stash; AC Dear Lizzy crocheted flowers;  sentiment:  A Muse; Nestabilities: long rectangles.

Now a card from a sketch in the newly released Go To Sketches by Papercrafts. The sketch I used is on p.142. I'll be using this publication regularly. So many great sketches and interpretations.

JustANote

AC Dear Lizzy patterned papers and phrase sticker; ribbon: Michaels; cardstock: BoBunny

This card is a lift from Debbie Olsen, one of the very best in the industry. My friend is a wonderful seamstress so this seemed like a great choice for her birthday card.

SewSweet 

Cardstock: PTI Pure Poppy & Vintage Cream; patterned papers: Cosmo Cricket "Material Girl;" twill: PTI Vintage Cream; buttons: PTI; safety pin from stash.

Gift Box

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One of my good friends celebrates her birthday while we're away. We're having dinner with her soon after we return. One of her gifts (she doesn't read my blog) is the set of cards in this post (which due to user error did not post in the correct order). I made a gift box for it, and wrapped her other gift in a piece of the patterned paper.

GiftBox 

GiftBoxDetail

Cardstock:  Papertrey Ink "Ocean Tides" & "Vintage Cream," patterned paper: Papertrey Ink "Tea Leaves," ribbon: Papertrey Ink "Ocean Tides" satin.

Happy Birthday, Tracy!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you, and Happy Birthday to Tracy! Here's his card:

TOWBDcard
New Papertrey stamp, "Luck of the Irish," and Hero Arts sentiment. Jillibean patterned paper and New Leaf (PTI) cardstock and black twill (PTI). The inside sentiment says, "You're my pot of gold." Truly.

So here's my Weekly Gratitude a few days early:

Gratitude3.17w

Scrap-Mart Projects

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I thought I'd share a couple of Scrap-Mart projects that have gone up on their blog recently. The first is a layout I did for the Friday challenges.

8oMemoriesw
The patterned papers are all new American Craft papers from the Dear Lizzie and Letterbox lines. I love both lines. The white Thickers are also American Craft. The embellishments are all from my stash:  Prima flowers, Papertrey Vintage buttons and Amuse Creative Candy pearls.

And a card using the same papers:

Butterfliesw
It's a little busier than my usual card, but it's just the card for a friend of mine whose birthday is in April.

And one more with the Dear Lizzie papers:

Splendiddayw
The stamped sentiment is also from a Dear Lizzie stamp set. This one was lots of fun to make.

And now for a set of cards I made with the new Just Rite stamp set "Seeds of Kindness." Also for a friend's birthday in April.

SeedsNotecards 

Notecard1
Each sentiment is different and the colors of each patterned paper differs. Both the cardstock and the patterned paper are from Papertrey Ink. The ribbons are all from Paper Source.

Something From Nothing: Metals

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Classimage

It's been a particularly productive week, but finding time to get to the computer to blog has been difficult. I broke down and decided to take Shimelle's class Something From Almost Nothing for two reasons. One, several of my blogging friends were taking it, and second, I have plenty of stash to work with even after cleaning out and giving away a LOT of my supplies since the holidays.

The first prompt involved using your metal stash. I have several little drawers filled with metal letters, words, and frames as well as a little box devoted to brads. One items I saw used in the prompts was bottle caps. Ever since I bought them (probably 3-4 years ago) I have wondered what I was thinking. So I pulled them out and this is what I came up with.

StarBottleCapCard
Matt thought this was a particularly cool card–"Wow, a card with beer bottle caps!" Well, not exactly, but it sure is the idea.

3BottleCapCards
Three very similar cards, but all with a slightly different shape and size.

BottleCapDetail
These cards will need to be hand delivered or put into a padded envelope, but I like the flowers.

And a card with brads. I saved this paper when I cleaned out earlier this year and cut it into little squares. But then didn't know quite what to do with it.

BradCard
I have quite a bit of it left for another project or two or three.

When I was perusing my metal goodies, I found a set of Making Memories metal frames. Then I started going through the little square photos I have in a drawer (a tip from Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom). I found a set I have piled on my desk for a later layout, but these four fit the frames perfectly. Since the three of us were just talking about Kiawah the other night at dinner, the journaling came easily.

MetalFrameLO
I have a lot of ideas for prompt #2 (patterned paper), and hope to get to some of them this week, but the days are pretty filled with appointments and errands that need to be done before we leave for California early Saturday morning. I knew when I signed up that I would never be able to keep up, so I'm pleased to have created a few things for the beginning of class.

Jillibean Goodness

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In addition to the CPS 156 Challenge, I've made several other cards using the goodies I won on the Jillibean blog. The embellishments are so versatile and can be found at Scrap-Mart. I already owned most of  the Jillibean papers I used.

JillibeanBDWishesw 

All Jillibean products unless otherwise noted:  Patterned paper (New England Clam Chowder & Lentil Soup), Canvas flowers (Green Grid), Twine (Pigs), Sentiment (Birthday Party), tag (Spellbinders), brads from stash, epoxy tile sticker (EK Success), cardstock (Papertrey Ink Dark chocolate)

JillibeanSongw
Patterned Paper (Jillibean Soup Staples "Light Blue Sugar" both sides), Stamp (Jillibean "Hand Made"), Copic markers, button and rickrack from stash, flowers (Prima) 

JillBDw
Jillibean stamps ("Birthday Party"), cardstock from stash, Copic markers, Making Memories glitter alpha

JillibeanFabulousw
Cardstock (Papertrey), patterned paper (Jillibean Soup Staples " Red Sugar"), Jillibean canvas flowers (Red Polka & Brown Letters), rickrack (Jillibean Bean Stalks "Red & Black"), sentiment (Papertrey "Signature Greetings)

CPS 156

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I've been playing with the fabulous goodies I won on the Jillibean blog a few weeks ago. Today I used some of them to make a card for the CPS 156 challenge. Here's the sketch:

156 

And my take on it:

JillibeanSmilew 

I hand cut and folded the edges of a sunflower from the Lentil Soup "Vegetable Soup" paper. In the center I added one of the great new canvas flowers "Green Grid", a button (PTI), and some twine from the Jillibean Stalks "Pigs". I added a strip of the B side of the same patterned paper as a border with a piece of twill from the Bean Stalks "Red & Black." The sentiment is from Papertrey's "Signature Greetings."

Project 365 & A Card

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Here's the February Photo 365 Layout. I used an Ali Edward's template and simply listed the photos under the collage. That's really all the journaling I need for this month. I chose photos that represented what happened this month as well as a couple of favorites from the month. I decided to go with graph paper again. If I have enough in my stash, I think that will be the consistent element in the layouts. I'm not nuts about the font style of these Doodlebug stickers, but I'm determined to use my stash, and these were the only ones that were the right color.

February365LO
Journaling:

1. Snow, lots and lots of snow 2. One of my favorite photos of the month 3. The night sky 4. My new high-tech point and shoot camera 5. Valentine flowers and cupcakes 6. Books read  7. The 2010 Olympics  8. Goodies from a road trip to Buffalo 9. Wacom tablet & pen class

I've been wanting to try the Flower Soft I got in Buffalo, so while I watched the news tonight I put together this card. I love the soft, spring-like feel to it, and have a spring birthday recipient in mind for it.

FlowerSoftTree
Cardstock: Papertrey (Sweet Blush, Spring Moss) & Bazzil textured white, stamp: Memory Box,  pearls (A Muse Creative Candy), sentiment: Papertrey (Vintage Picnic), silk ribbon: Papertrey, Flower Soft & glitter

Happy Birthday, Matt

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It's a rare three post day. Matt turned 27 today. We decided to eat at home instead of going out since he's taking the Graduate Record Exam tomorrow. We'll celebrate both tomorrow night at his favorite restaurant.

MattBDw 

The birthday cake never varies:  a cookie cake from Wegmans. This year I forgot to order one ahead (gasp!) so it has a bit more frosting than usual.

BDCakew 

And his gift:

MattiPodw

Cosmos Cricket "Boyfriend" had the perfect paper for a card:

MattBDw
MattBCInw

Alice in Wonderland Challenge

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I've been thinking about Rhinda's Alice in Wonderland challenge, and really didn't have any idea what to do, but finally decided to give it a whirl. I ended up with this card, just in time!

MadHatter
I used my Maya Mist for the very first time on sticky back canvas, and then stamped three different watch stamps for the background. I ran a Jillibean "Repair Tag" through my corrugator (haven't used that in years) and added a quote from Alice in Wonderland. The image was a download kindly given to us by Rhinda. A Heidi Swapp watch finished the card front.

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop

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Bloghoplogo

Tonight is the February Blog Hop for Papertrey Ink. The challenge was to choose one of the designers who is an inspiration to you, find a project they've completed, and make it your own. I could choose almost any of the Papertrey designers, and I get lots and lots of inspiration from their blogs. I chose Debbie Olsen whose work blows me away time and again. Her coloring with Copic markers is the very best, and details in her cards are amazing. I spend a lot of time on her blog looking at her techniques. Here's the card I chose from Debbie's blog:

6a00d8341c5b6153ef012877985b9a970c-800wi
It's a perfect example of her beautiful work. I chose to replicate the paper-pieced violets from Papertrey's new stamp set "A Year of Flowers: Violets," but chose to stamp the smaller violets in the set.

Violetsw
The shape of my card is also a "lift" from Debbie's blog seen here. I used Papertrey's "Perfect Pastel" papers to piece the violets and mounted them on a piece of Memory Box "Gossamer" paper. The ribbon and safety pin are from my stash. The sentiment on a Quickutz tag is from "Vintage Picnic Sentiments" (Papertrey).

Three Challenges

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I recently acquired the Cosmo Cricket Mini-Decks for both Material Girl and Garden Variety. The papers are so bright and cheerful; just what's needed on these cloudy February days. And they seemed perfect for all three challenges as well.

The first is the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger. This is the first time I've played along with this challenge. The inspiration piece was this:

Daisy Cottage Lampshade 

I took the yellow and gingham and used some papers from Garden Variety:

Wish 

Pure Poppy (PTI), Quickutz tag and rub-on, Hero Arts "Big and Little" flower stamps, ribbon and safety pin from stash

The next challenge is CPS 155. This is one of my favorite challenge sites. Here's the sketch:

CPS155
And my take on it:

Just@Note
Cosmo Cricket "Material Girl;" Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate & Terracotta Tile (PTI); stamps by Judith and PTI ("Take Note"); Jeni Bowlin journaling spot.

And last, but not least, the sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketch:

SSSC57

And my card:

PubSign
 

 

Cards

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It's been a busy, but fun-filled couple of days. Thursday I spent the afternoon with two friends crafting. Yesterday Tracy and I went to the Fingerlakes region with two good friends for lunch and a visit to a couple of favorite wineries. I'm hoping to scrap a few photos from the trip this afternoon. I've also been watching a lot of television thanks to the Olympics. Because it's hard to me to just watch TV, I've been making some cards as I watch.

Topiary

Cardstock (Rustic Cream & Ripe Avocado-PTI), stamps (Memory Box "Vintage Notes" & Cavallini "Birds & Nests"), Antique Linen distress ink, Prisma colored pencils, Amuse Creative Candy, ribbon from stash

InBloom
Cardstock from stash, Midori ribbon, "In Bloom" stamp (PTI), Copic markers, Hero Arts pearls, Bitty Dots patterned paper (PTI), Nestabilities scalloped circle

4You
Raspberry Fizz cardstock (PTI), Patterned papers ( Soup Staples-Jillibean), gems (Michaels), AC Thickers fabric alpha

TrueFriend1
Pure Poppy & Vintage Cream cardstock (PTI), Early Bird patterned papers (Cosmo Cricket), sentiment from "In Bloom" (PTI), Amuse Creative Candy, rickrack from stash

And a card I made earlier for the Scrap-Mart Design team with the new Impressability plate and Spellbinders die.

Sweetwm 

Sentiment "Everday Button Bits" (PTI), Core'dinations cardstock (embossed and sanded), Nestabilities oval and scalloped ovals, ribbon from stash.

And last, but not least, a long overdue photo for Rhona who wanted to see the quilt that hangs over our fireplace. I bought it over 15 years ago in Pennsylvania when we were visiting Amish country.

Quiltw
 

2 Sketches 4 You 46

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I haven't participated at 2 Sketches 4 You for awhile, but I wanted to play around with some sticky-back canvas and used this Week's sketch 46 as a starting point.

Sketch
 

I rotated it 90° to better suit my image.

Sketch46w

Kraft Cardstock (Papertrey), yellow cardstock from stash, patterned paper (Bella Blvd), stamps (Through the Trees-Papertrey, celebrate-Amuse), sticky-back canvas, inks (Antique Linen Distress-Tim Holtz, Vintage Cream-Papertrey), button (Making Memories)