VCMP Challenge #6, #7, #8

Goodness, I'm finally done with yesterday's challenges! Challenge 6 is found here on Elizabeth's blog. The challenge is called A Piece of Birthday. It has everyone doing paper piecing to create a masculine birthday card. Let me tell you, this was really a challenge for me. I have a tough time making masculine cards and I discovered quite awhile ago that I don't enjoy paper piecing. But I was determined to try!

Here is the card I ended up with:

It's more of a boy's card than a man's, but it's what I came up with when I plopped myself down at my table.The monster came from the Recollections set My Little Monsters. The Wish Big is from SU! Word Play. The little bursts on the background are a stub from Stamps by Judith. He was just begging for a googlie eye, so naturally I conceded to his wishes lol.

On to Challenge 7: Nontraditional Valentine. It didn't surprise me when I saw Dixie was sponsoring this challenge. What did surprise me were the hearts on her card! Most of us know of her ambivalent feelings about hearts.  It just so happens I didn't use any on my card:

This one was fun for me. I adore the alien with googlie eyes. He is from SU! Make a Monster. Ok, I know, it's supposed to be a monster, but it looks like an alien to me! I wanted to make him pop a little, but with the eyes, I wasn't able to do it. I printed the sentiment out in Word. The patterned paper is BoBunny. This can also be used as a love or miss you card. Don't we love cards that have possible multiple uses?

Over on Sheila's blog is Challenge 7: Take the Scenic Route. This one was hard for me. Most of my stamps don't fall into being able to make a complete scene, but I gave it the old Girl Scout try!

I'm still not completely happy with this card. I think it needs trees in the background, but I don't have any tree stamps and the ones I attempted to draw weren't that great. So I settled for what I had on hand. I could've made a trip to Js or Ms, but that would be way too tempting.

I haven't used this set very often. I got it to scrapbook the pictures from when I was a Girl Scout leader. I honestly don't even know where those pictures are at the moment lol. The set is from SU! and I'm not sure what the name of it is. I colored it all with Copics, cut the images out, and popped up the fire. Since it still needed a little zing, I used black Pearl Pen around two of the corners.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Cherie

VCMP Challenge #4: Pick one and Challenge #5: Falling for You

This is a bit long, so take a deep breath and go for it!

It's day two of the VCMP over at the Stars & Stamps blog. There were eight challenges yesterday, but I only got through three of them. It's time for me to get moving!

In order to do a little catching up, I only did one card for the next two challenges. I actually did challenge 4 last night, but had already shut the computer down for the day so I didn't get it posted. So, let's go...

Here is my card for Challenge 4: Pick One. You can check it out on Julie's blog as well. She challenged us to pick a number then use a sketch from the S&S blog that matches that number. I chose the number 6. I was so glad I picked a low number so I didn't have to scroll through all of them lol.

I've been thinking about tags for a few days, so this was a perfect sketch! I tried three new techniques on this card. The first one is the background paper. I inked up my embossing folder from Sizzix then put my paper in it and ran it through my Cuddlebug. It was a bit messy, but I love how it turned out, even if I did manage to cover most of it up. The clean up of the folder was easy, I simply ran it under the faucet.

The second technique was making my own pocket. It took a bit of thinking on my part. After all, it was late and I was tired. But I managed to make one without any template. It was easy once I realized I needed to leave extra paper to create the flaps to fold under. The last new thing I tried is on the pocket. I ran it through my Cuddlebug with the same Sizzix folder as the background paper. This time, I didn't ink the folder. I dabbed my ink pad over it after it was embossed. I like how it looks. I'll be trying this one again.

The stamp on the tag is from SU! Too Terrific Tags. The red squares are popped with Scotch dimensional adhesive. I already had all of the papers.

My card for Challenge 5: Falling for You follows the same lines as my last one:

The only reason I can think of doing two love type cards in a row is that I'm anxiously waiting for my hubby to come home from Alaska. He's been gone since May and won't be back for another couple of months. This card will go to OWH, but the first one will be mailed to him. Anyway...it's hard to tell but I scored the red paper so the ribbon fits in the middle of the score lines. I ran the ribbon through my printer and it reads "Falling for You."

The theme didn't have to be exactly Falling for You, but it fit my frame of mind. The stamp is from Savvy Stamps. I originally purchased it to use on our wedding invitations, but we ended up going in a different direction. I love all those Xs and Os used to make a heart. I matted it a few times then used Scotch dimensional adhesive to pop it off the card.

I have a feeling I'll be using a lot of red and black in the upcoming months. I got huge reams of both colors on sale at Paper Zone.

I'm off to the next challenges. Have a wonderful day!

Cherie

VCMP Challenge #3: Unique Christmas

It's time for my take on the VCMP Challenge 3! This one is to make a Christmas card using non-traditional Christmas colors.

Here is card one:

Whew! This took more time than I expected, but I should have known better. All of the circles on both cards were cut out one by one since I used my Cuttlebug and Nestabilities. I don't have any circle punches. I also used by Cuttlebug to emboss the background paper. My first thought when I saw this challenge was to use purple. I just happens to be my favorite color. I used one of those dollar alphabet sets from Studio G. Papers and ribbon are from my stash. I like how the pink of the ribbon blends with the background so the hearts pop better.

And my second one:

I borrowed the red, white and blue idea from Barb over at Paper Therapy Ponderings which is our third stop on the VCMP. I love this star ribbon that I got at Scrapbook Nook. Did I mention I like how Christ fits on one line on both cards? It's so easy to get lost in all of the holiday stuff. This is a gentle reminder of what the season is truly about.

It's time for a dinner break. I missed lunch while I was playing along lol. Thanks for stopping by.

Cherie

VCMP Challenge #2: Celebrating Nature!

Time for challenge two in our VCMP! This one is Celebrating Nature...or Au Natural depending on where you look.

My first thought was to use flowers. I have several of those, not just stamps but paper and embellies as well. But, no, it's the end of summer and time to think fall. It's hard since today it's supposed to be over 80 here. Yet I was determined!

Here is my first card:

I have a set of four leaf stamps from Hero Arts that I've never used. I didn't feel any mojo to use them separately, so I used them together, several times. Yes, that's right, I made my own paper. It was fun and fairly quick. I didn't realize how many fall type colors of ink I had. This is from OWH Sketch #69. The brown paper is from my stash, naturally, and the ribbon is American Crafts.

And I made a second card:

On this one, I inked the edges of the white paper so they blended a little better with the brown paper. As you can see, my bow is all over the place, but I like the look. This ribbon is from Ribbon Trends.

I hope you're enjoying the VCMP!

Cherie

VCMP Challenge #1: Garanimals!

This weekend Operation Write Home is having a virtual card making party! That's VCMP for those who haven't figured it out lol. You can find all of the challenges over on the Stars & Stamps blog. Every couple of hours a new challenge will be posted. You can play along with all of them, or pick and choose. It's entirely up to you!

The first challenge is to make a card for a child with an animal. I've had these Disney Eeyore stickers from Sandylion for awhile now. I originally got them to make a card for my mom, and I still have plenty left for when I get around to her card.

Here's my first card:

The background flower paper is from an old Bitty Pad I've had for ages. The other papers are all from my stash. I used two stickers on this card. The flower on his foot is a separate sticker. The sentiment is from the SU! set So Happy For You. I originally stamped it directly on to the purple paper...upside down! Oops lol. I like the way it turned out, though, with the touch of pink pulling in the color from the bow on his tail.

And my second card:

I tried to make this one a little more appropriate for a boy, but I'm not sure it worked. Again, as usual, all of the paper is from my stash. The smile stamp is from SU! Wonderful Words II that I embossed in black. I had a little issue with embossing powder speckles, but I think it still passes muster.

I'm a few hours behind on challenges, so I'm off to see about the next one!

Cherie

Yikes!

I found these cute conversation balloon cards at Joanns today. Eight for $1, so I bought two sets! They already had the "Yikes!" on them and I thought it would be perfect with an "I miss you" sentiment. Of course, I couldn't find any of that sentiment in my stamps, even though I KNOW I have a couple somewhere. So I improvised and used one of the alphabet sets I have. 

I did four different colors of embossing powder: silver, red, purple and turquoise. Purple and silver are shown here. Then I added some cute Halloween embellishments I had. I also used some plain bling (if there is such a thing lol) on a few of the cards so they don't have to be used for Halloween. Fourteen of these will be going to OWH.

Enjoy your Labor Day tomorrow!

Cherie

Howdy!

I can't believe it's September already! Where did summer go? Oh, that's right. We only had a few weeks of summer here. I shouldn't complain, though, because when the sun is shining, this is the most beautiful place in the world! I'm hoping we have a nice warm September. We'll see.

I took a beginning Copic coloring class at Impress last Saturday with my mom. I can't say I learned a whole lot since I've been playing with them for awhile now. I did learn about some good papers to use. After the class, I was ready to tackle this stamp set I've had for a few weeks. It's called Howdy by Hero Arts. It only has three stamps in it, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist it.

I've done three different colors so far. I can't decide which one is my favorite. They're all cute in their own way.

I first stamped the cowgirl, then masked her and stamped the cacti. I wanted to do more than simply having her standing next to a single cactus. I used cardstock from my stash and the white is GP. There's no bling or ribbon added. I figured that might overshadow the girl. I decided to put the sentiment on the outside since these will most likely go to Operation Write Home.

Thanks for taking a look,

Cherie

Dahlia Fold

Here's my first attempt at doing the dahlia fold for a card. I didn't realize it would turn out to be quite so big, but I like it. I'm not sure I want to attempt doing this with smaller circles. My fingers felt clumsy enough as it was! I found the tutorial for it on the OWH Stars and Stamps blog. They have such a wide variety of amazing tutorials over there.

The patterned paper is Glimpses by SignifyPink. The pink background paper is from my stash and I ran it through my Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots embossing folder. The sentiment is from the SU! set Wonderful Words rounded with a corner rounder. In the middle is a half round acrylic crystal I found at Craft Warehouse in Yakima a few weeks ago. I got a big bag of about 500 for $4. If you tip your head just right, you can see the black cardstock base.

I'm off to try some smaller circles. Wish me luck!

Cherie

Some Fall Colors

Hello, again!

It's hard for me to think fall when we've only had a few weeks of summer so far. In fact, I actually went to Joanns and bought these design papers specifically for a few fall cards. I got 12 of these made and 10 of them will go to Operation Write Home. The other two are for personal use.

I managed to use all of the leaf paper before I remembered I needed to see who made it. Oops, my bad. The stripe paper is from DCWV. The solid orange, yellow and mulberry papers are from my stash. I used Pearl Pen for the circle accents. The water on the leaf is actually Glossy Accents.  

Thanks for stopping by,

Cherie

Thinking of You

Happy Friday, everyone.

I hope you all had a good week. Mine was pretty good. I've been housesitting for my mom and her hubby and it's so different than where I live. It's so quiet. Dare I say...too quiet! At least I have their dog to keep me company.

My mom has a craft room, compared to my little craft corner. But I'm finding it really hard to be creative in there. Maybe I need my cramped little messy corner with everything within arm's length to feel my mojo lol.

So...I took the digis I had printed out and went back home for a few hours yesterday. These are pretty simple, but I still like them.

The digi is a freebie from Paula or you can find it at Operation Write Home under Free Stuff. All of the paper is from my stash. I don't need to buy paper for years!

The first one has some Baker's Twine wrapped around it and tied in a bow. This was definitely a challenge for my lack of bow tying skills.

The second one has some rhinestones added to it. They were from my stash, too. Some of the squares are shiny. The paper came that way. I didn't even have to add Glossy Accents!

The last one has two different sets of silver Pearl Pen dots. The bottom ones were big dots...then I dropped it by accident and they completely flattened. I liked the look so I did it to the rest of that set, too.

Enjoy your weekend,
Cherie

Wuff You and a Kiss

There was a request put out by Sandy at Operation Write Home for love and thinking of you cards. My first thought was this cute digi. I'm not sure where I got it, but it was a freebie. If I had to choose, I'd say this is probably my favorite digi out off all the ones I have. I even used it for my hubby's Valentine card this year.

All of the papers and ribbon are from my stash. I colored the image with Copics. There is Glossy Accents on the heart. The embossing folder is Hearts from Sizzix that I purchased on my trip to Yakima last week. I also did a few with a purple heart and purple DP.

This is another free digi and it's from MelJen's. I love how simple, yet expressive her images are, don't you? I'm not quite sure where I found the sentiment, but it was another freebie.

Again, the papers and ribbon are from my stash. The image is colored with Copics and there is a litte bit of Glossy Accents highlights on the lips. The dots around the heart and in the corners are Pearl Pen. I made 21 of these. The lip colors vary from red to pale pink and the DP and ribbon colors vary.

Thanks for stopping by,

Cherie



OWH MWT: Water!

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm so excited for this week. Why? Because it's finally summer here in my corner of the world. It's supposed to be in the 70s all week. Woohoo!

Being so excited for summer, finally, made doing this card yesterday a little hard lol. She reminds me of heading back to school and wanting to stay home. The digi is from Pink Gem and is pre-colored. I don't use the pre-colored ones very often, but I'm learning to appreciate them! The umbrella, rain drops and puddle all have Glossy Accents on them. The rest of the supplies came from my stash.

This is the first official day of my month long vacation. I am SO looking forward to it. I'm meeting a friend for a walk along the waterfront this morning, then running errands for my hubby. I'm not sure how I can have so many errands for him when he's in Alaska! Then tomorrow I'm off to the other side of the mountains to visit a dear friend in Yakima for a few days. 

Happy summer!

Cherie

Cupcakes

Today I have a three cupcakes for you. It was fun coloring the different cupcake papers with Copics. The digi is a freebie from here and the candles are Mark Richards that I picked up from the Michaels dollar bin. The sentiment is from SU!

Like my last post, I enjoyed working with the different colors of paper from my stash.  I also did a green one and a yellow one that would be appropriate for a masculine birthday. I had to make sure to do at least a couple of those because I prefer the purple and pink!

Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Cherie

Miss Ewe!

I had so much fun coloring these yesterday! And it was fun to match the patterned paper to the colors I used, since I wasn't home when I colored them. The digi is by Paula and can be found on the Operation Write Home website. These are only six of the 12 I made. They all have googlie eyes and the heart is covered in Glossy Accents. I used Pearl Pens to make the little dots at the bottom.

Goodness, it was so nice to use such a variety of patterned paper, I can't even begin to describe it. I will definitely be on the lookout for another versatile image like this. I hadn't originally planned to decorate them, but I started out with just a light gray and dark grey. Then, I decided they needed more flair lol. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Simply looking at them makes me smile.

Enjoy your week!

Cherie

Pinwheels!

I finally did it. I broke down and tried one of the pinwheel cards. No idea why I kept putting them off lol. They are very easy to do! I can't say I'm addicted like some people, but I'll definitely be making more. These two cards went to my hubby up in Alaska. You can't tell in the picture, but the second one has subtle patterns on the pinwheel papers. These cards are a great way to use up some of those scraps. Or it's a good way to get rid of some of the ugly paper we all tend to end up with!

Enjoy your day!

Cherie

It's been too long...

It's been too long since I've posted anything, but that will be changing! I am being laid off from my job at the end of July and I've decided to take the month of August off for relaxing and enjoying some summer! That is if summer ever reaches my corner of the world lol. We're lucky if we hit 70. It's been a cool summer, but I'd rather have cool than a heat advisory every day.

As I'm sure you all know, I love to make cards for Operation Write Home. But lately, I've been making cards for my hubby's shipmates! He is working on a fish processing boat up in Alaska and his fellow cabin mates love the handmade cards I send him. So, I've been making some extra cards for him to share with them. I love hearing him tell me how impressed everyone is with my cards lol. I told him he should be selling them if they're that popular!

I'll write more soon! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

Thanks for stopping by,
Cherie

Long weekends and Brother's birthday

Wow! What a long weekend it was. I'm actually relieved it's over. I took Friday off so I would have a four day weekend. We found out a few days before that my hubby was headed to work in Alaska for six months on Tuesday (today), so I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. It was a crazy, busy weekend! We had so much to buy to get him ready to leave. Add in everyone that wanted to see him before he left and we were exhausted by the time Tuesday rolled around. We had fun together, though. We even saw a local landmark that neither of us have seen before. That's right...I've lived here 42 years and have never visited the Fremont Troll!

Isn't that troll cute in an ugly kind of way? No, I didn't think so, either lol. But it was fun getting to see it in person after all the news blips I've seen over the years. He's just hidden under the bridge, patiently waiting for who knows what!

This weekend was also my brother's birthday. I love teasing him about getting old since he's older than me. Unfortunately, I'm starting to get as much grey hair as he is. Yikes! He has always been a fan of soccer and both of us played it for years, so his birthday card needed to be soccer-themed.

The image is from The Greeting Farm, Soccer Ian. I colored him with Copics and layered him on some brown papers. I finally have some brown paper after hitting the closing sale at Paper Zone in Tacoma. I snatched up some other cool stuff, too, that I'm sure will make an appearance later. The small square studs at the bottom are from Michael's and added some fun googlie eyes. On the inside, I stamped Happy Birthday with a DeNami stamp. The ball is covered in glossy accents. It was fun to make my big brother his birthday card.

Thanks for looking!

Cherie

Summer Fun and OWH

G'morning! It's not even 5:30 here, but I couldn't sleep. So I decided I would log on and post a card I made on Saturday at my stamp group. This is for the Summer Fun challenge at Operation Write Home.

Isn't he cute? The stamp is from Rubbernecker and is a recent purchase from the Heirloom show at the Puyallup fairgrounds. The papers I've had forever. He was colored with Copics and the sentiment one I've had for awhile.

Enjoy your Wednesday, everyone!
Cherie

Playing some catch up

Yet again, I've fallen behind in posting. One of these days I'll get into the habit of posting when I take a picture of a card, instead of just leaving them in the camera. So...let's get on with it!

Here's a "ruffle" card I did for my favorite 5 year old's birthday. Her party theme was princesses. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived and she was dressed in a pink Disney princess dress.

This is the first time in a long time that I've used a sticker. Thank goodness for the sticker blog hop awhile back from Operation Write Home. It gave me some great ideas. The main one was to treat your sticker like it's a stamp or your main embellishment. This was fun to make but it took awhile. I'm not sure I'll make many "ruffle" cards.

That being said, lol, here's another one I made a few of for OWH. Yes, it's another "ruffle" card. Although, I was told it can't be ruffles if it's a masculine card. Sometimes men can be SO picky.

It was fun to work with some more masculine papers. I certainly have a lot of it, but always seem to end up with girly cards.

Have you heard?! OWH hit the MILLION card mark! That's right, we have sent one million cards to our deployed troops to send back home to loved ones. It's amazing! I'm so proud to be a part of this wonderful organization that allows me to be creative and give back something to our troops. Here's a card to celebrate.

Of course it had to be red, white and blue! The penguin is from DeNami colored with Copics and the sentiment is from Gina K. You can't really tell, but the balloon has some Stickles on it to make it shiny and glittery. Congratulations, Operation Write Home!

Last, but not least, here's a card using some of the stamps I picked up at the Heirloom show on Saturday. I love going to the show, but I always go way over my budget!

I've had the water paper forever and thought it would be perfect for these fish and bubbles from Rubbernecker Stamp Company that I colored with Copics. It turned out to be a little too busy to showcase the fish, so I added a square of blue vellum to tone it down. I also added googlie eyes to one fish and Glossy Accents to all the bubbles. The sentiment is another new stamp I got on Saturday from Magenta.

Whew! I think that catches me up.

Thanks for stopping by!
Cherie

Father's Day Card for Operation Write Home

It's time for Father's Day! Well, not quite, but it is in the world of OWH. They're headed to the millionth card marker and really need Father's Day cards. All three of their shippers are short for their boxes. With that said, the Stars and Stamps blog posted a great tutorial on how to make a great masculine card.

Here's my version. I had some input from my hubby on colors. The sentiment is popped for a little dimension. I think it's still missing something, though. What do you think?

Thanks for peeking in!
Cherie