Make Mine Stamps

Just Believe...Multi-Tasking!

Every card I make between now and September 16 must work for my Cards for the Troops Event on September 17.  When I set out to CASE a card to meet the LNS Challenge #134, there are just so many talented stampers in the Late Night Stampers group that I had a hard time choosing.  In fact, I copied and printed several creations because I know I'll be casing many of these cards for the event.  Here is the first one I chose and it is a CASE of the uber-talented Kris McIntosh.

I chose to use Daffodil Delight because I can't recall ever using it yet and I have ribbon to coordinate!  Just Believe was colored with Wild Wasabit and Daffodil Delight markers and stamped on Whisper White (masking the bottom so it wouldn't appear on the panel).  I wrapped the Daffodil Delight ribbon around (it's a cheater and is adhered on the back of the panel) and then cut a piece to knot over the top.  Quick and easy for the event -- many women told me last time that they didn't normally use ribbon because they weren't sure how...now they know!

I used the Crop-A-Dile and punched the smallest hole out of Early Espresso, using Tombow glue to adhere the spots to the card.  Have to use the piercing tool to help with this one!  I used the same sentiment Kris chose because the wavy pattern looks awesome on the card.  The sentiment is stamped in Early Espresso ink just because I thought these colors would work well together.  Adding the center to the flowers makes it work.

Here is the original card:

Why did I change it up?  Well, for starters, I conserve white cardstock as much as possible because I use so much Whisper White and Very Vanilla for my focal points.  I chose to stamp the image on the smaller panel because then I am also conserving ribbon and can use ribbon on more cards.  When I do an "open to the public free card event" where all the cards are being donated, I try to maximize my supplies and this is one way of doing it.  The Early Espresso dots were actually punched from a 1/4" strip of cardstock.  Yep, I keep lots and lotsa scraps!  However, I still believe the card we will be making is very effective, pretty and simple.  In this case, simple is GOOD!

If I can get another card together tomorrow, I'll post it.  However, because I've been away from stamping, I'm creating crap.  Good thing this one is cased.....

Blessings!

 

 

Cards for the Troops - Intermediate Level Card Sample

I am so far behind that I look like I'm in front of the pack!  We've both been under the weather with some type of bug that makes you feel so tired you think you could sleep for days!  The best part?  Since I'm in the phase of menopause where I don't sleep, I've been sleeping four hours at a time and that is just flat glorious...gotta look at the bright side of everything, right?

Here's the intermediate level card I promised you a couple of days ago.

The basecard is Very Vanilla and what makes this an intermediate card is that you have to make your picture line up so that the picture isn't off.  In otherwords, I've clipped the three strips together with a 1, 2 and 3 marked on the backs.  All the stamper will have to do is to place them in order and get them fairly straight (and I'm challenged in that arena!).  Then stamp and mount the sentiment with dimensionals and finish the card off with the dots that have already been punched and glue dotted (just pull them off the strip and place).  My goal is for everyone to have immediate success.

I loved this Designers Series paper when it was current and now I cannot even remember the name of it.  Fickle stamper, aren't I?  But, once again, wouldn't anyone love to receive this card from a soldier overseas? 

Because I've been asked several times, I want to let you know that all of the cards we make will be sent to From Our Hearts.  Please, please, please take a moment to check out their website at www.fromourhearts.info.  Not only can you see samples of cards that are coming from around the country, you can actually read letters that have been sent to them from soldiers blessed to have received some of these hand-crafted cards to use for their loved ones.  The story is remarkable and they are a 501(c)3 organization.  I'm going to make certain we send envelopes with all of the cards, but they send each card out in a clear envelope so they are received in pristine condition when our troops get them.  Such a worthwhile organization and they will be thrilled to receive the cards we send.  Go ahead...you know you want to!  Check them out!

I need to do a CASE of a card from one of the Late Night Stampers and my problem is there are way too many fabulous cards from which to choose.  I'm going to print something off and case today so I can get my challenge accomplished this week, but somehow...I think I may have to case more than one card.

Hope your day has been a blessing thus far....

 

Cards for the Troops Card Kits

If you are in the Zanesville area or somewhere nearby, check your calendar for Saturday, September 17.  I'll be at the John McIntire Library hosting a Cards for the Troops Event.  We'll be making cards that will be sent to the troops for them to send home to their loved ones.  As you can imagine, there will be lots of birthday cards, anniversary cards, Thinking of You and Christmas cards.  It's that time of year that if we are going to get Christmas cards to the furthest of the troops, they have got to be mailed quickly. 

The event is open to the public (Sorry -- 16 years and older only please!), this is totally free with all supplies provided, including adhesive.  Card kits will be provided and will look something like this:

Everything needed to make the sample card will be enclosed in the kit, with the possible exception of a block for an unmounted stamp.  Otherwise, the kit will be complete.  As you can see, I've used retired paper and accessories for this kit.  If anything is missing, you'll be instructed where to find it as the blocks for unmounted stamps will have to be shared.  No problem though -- have done it before and it will all work out!

The basecard is Bordering Blue and I can't tell you what DSP this is from, only that I had enough to make 24 cards.  These are 4 x 4 cards (I can get more made and cut them quickly from a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock).  The retired stamp set is included in the package, as well as the inkpad and everything will be scored and cut, ready to assemble.  Stamping will need to be done and if you haven't stamped before, no fear!  We'll teach you and you'll have beginning-level stamper card kits to use, such as the one pictured above.  Here's a close up of the card.

Tell me what wife wouldn't love to receive this card in the mail from a husband who has been overseas for a long time?  Simple and easy, the card kits will be arranged by level and will be clearly marked with the appropriate stamping level. 

The event will run from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and you do not need to be present the entire time.  Just come when you can and leave when you need -- any help will be greatly appreciated.  I will also be awarding door prizes so you might even leave with a gift!

If you will be able to attend, please call the library at 740-453-0391 and register so I can be certain to have enough card kits available.

Spread the word!  If you know others who love to craft, come help us and know that you're helping a very worthy cause.

Tune in tomorrow and you'll see a card for the intermediate stampers who want to help.  And thanks for checking in!  God Bless!

 

Blog Sabbatical

I am happy to report that our concert featuring the Voices of Lee and Gordon Mote to benefit the Muskingum County Hunger Network was a rousing success!  The cost was $15 per ticket and the total cost was donated to the Hunger Network (made up of 18 member food pantries).  This concert was 3.5 hours long (talk about getting your money's worth!) and people laughed, cried and had goosebumps all night long.  The Spirit of God was present in the auditorium during the entire concert and it couldn't have been any more incredible than it was.  Both Thom and I were overjoyed and have been receiving emails and phone calls from people who attended who loved the entire evening.  I do believe there is more awareness now of the number of food pantries in our county, as well as the numbers of people who need this assistance.  For that, I am most humbled and grateful.  We couldn't have asked for a more successful event.

Although we did not raise $18,000, we came so very close and it is gratifying to note that the people who attended this year will be back next year...WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY so they can experience what happens when God's people gather together to praise and worship HIM.

For the remainder of July, I'm taking a sabbatical.  I am totally exhausted and this is our busiest month for me at the office.  In addition, we have fairs to attend, farm animals to purchase from 4-H kids and other obligations that will keep me from stamping.  BUT, I am so looking forward to creating with new toys which will include items from the new Holiday Mini which will debut for customers in September.  The stuff in that mini is what I dream of so I'm excited that in August I'll have the opportunity to purchase and play.

Enjoy July and know that I'll be back in August!  God Bless! 

Posting will be spotty....

I've got a serious family emergency and my posting will be spotty at best while we get through this.  I'm hopeful I'll know more and get some encouraging news tomorrow, but until I know what we are up against, I doubt seriously I'll be doing much stamping.  Please say a prayer for Mary -- pray for a complete and total recovery with good outcomes and prognosis!  Thank you!

 

Taking a Sabbatical....

Happy Friday!  I didn't get a chance to stamp anything for Blogger's Challenge and I'm writing to let you know that I'm taking a sabbatical.  I need a week off to do some Public Relations work for the Benefit Concert "Feed My Sheep" to benefit the Muskingum County Hunger Network.

Just some of the stats we are working with:  Almost 19% of the people in our county are at or below the poverty level.  That doesn't count those families who are skimming just above and who are hurting with the economy being what it is, rising gas prices which will result in price increases on everything else as well.  There are eighteen food pantries in Muskingum County.  These pantries have already seen an increase JUST THIS YEAR TO DATE of 28% over last year, same time period.  Read that again and know that this number is just going to keep rising.  Twenty-eight percent of the people served by these food pantries are seniors, aged 60+.  Twenty-three percent of the people served by these food pantries are children aged 0 to 17.  This is appalling to me and it hurts me as well. 

My very generous hubs is underwriting this concert and 100% of the ticket proceeds are going to the food pantries.  Our goal is to raise at least $18,000 so that each pantry gets $1,000.  It's a lofty goal, but we can do it!  The headliner is Gordon Mote who is the premier studio pianist for the Gaither Vocal Band, as well as being the Academy of Country Music's Pianist of the year the past two years.  He does the majority of the studio accompaniment for many of Nashville's finest including Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney, Darius Rucker, Mark Lowry and many others.  However, if you don't know anything about Gordon Mote, you need to Google him -- he's one of the best musicians I've ever heard in his own right and he's been blind since birth.  If you want to see someone coax some beautiful music from a piano, you need to see this concert!

And the Voices of Lee from Lee University will be here as well.  I love these kids and their director, Danny Murray.  If you are a fan of a cappella music, you may have heard them on the Sing Off in 2009 where they were second runner's up.  These voices make the most fabulous harmonies and you'll be missing out if you miss this concert.  You get the Voices of Lee, Gordon Mote and then both of them will perform together. 

So, if you are reading this and you live within 90 miles of Zanesville, mark you calendars for Saturday, July 16, 7 p.m. Secrest Auditorium.  Tickets are $15 (all seats reserved) and are available by calling Secrest Auditorium at 740-454-6851 or online at www.secrestonline.com  Remember that $15 of that ticket price is going to the pantries to feed the people who are in need in Muskingum County.

By the way, here was my auction package for the Carr Center Cake Auction and I am happy to report that it sold!  I thought I might have to buy it myself but I didn't -- Praise God!

I included a Decor Elements "Follow The Lord" picture frame; an eight-page accordion Christmas Scrapbook Album; a twelve-page Happy Birthday Paper Bag Album and eight custom-designed cards with coordinating envelopes.  I do hope the buyer enjoys these expressions of my heart!

I won't be blogging or stamping at all the upcoming week.  Too much to work out and I don't want to drive myself nuts but I will hope to be back with something fabulous on May 9!

May God richly bless you in the upcoming week!

 

It's the Lap of Luxury!

Hope your weekend was fabulous!  I had time to stamp on Saturday and had the opportunity to use many new sketch challenges I found.  But best of all, last week, I received a notice that I have been chosen to participate on the Late Night Stampers Design Team and I am stoked!  I actually got chosen and was certain I didn't have a chance so I am really excited.  Better yet, I've already received the challenges through May and I've gotten started on my designs -- ya gotta love that!

Today, I'm sharing a card I did using Mary Jo Price-Williams Technostamper Lunchtime Challenge.  That's a mouthful, isn't it?  Here is the sketch as it was presented.    

  I fell in love with the sketch and started looking through my Designer Series Papers hanging in my closet.  I love that closet.....warm fuzzies just go all through me when I think of all that paper just hanging there, patiently waiting for me to choose it for one of my designs.    MMMMMMM!

I chose paper I haven't touched and used Concord Crush for the first time.  I think I am going to have to add this to my favorites...

The basecard is Pretty In Pink.  I used the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder thorugh the Big Shot as step 1.  Choosing a stamp set was a bit of a decision, but I finally settled on Friends 24/7.  I stamped the image in Concord Crush on Very Vanilla, stood back and said, "Oooohhhhhh!"  Very pretty -- rich and just very elegant (to me!).  I matted this image on Concord Crush and put it aside. 

I chose two of the patterns in the packet for my card and matted both of those on Concord Crush as well.  I stamped my sentiment in Concord Crush on Pretty In Pink and then punched it out with the 1 1/4" circle.  I matted this on 1 3/8" circle of Concord Crush and set about putting the card together.

The smallest patterned piece is adhered directly to the card and the striped DSP is adhered directly to the card over the smaller square.  Next, I applied dimensionals to the focal image and added it to the basecard.  The final step was to add a dimensional to the bottom of the circle, adhesive at the top of the circle and apply this to my card. 

When I surveyed the results, I thought the card was a bit low -- I should have started a bit higher.  In order to fix the look, I punched five 1/4" circles in Concord Crush and added three to the left hand side of the card and two to the right of the focal image.  In my mind, this kind of worked out the balance.

Truthfully, I had not even looked at this paper since I purchased it.  However, Thom told me that this was his favorite of the six I made on Saturday.  Go figure!  I am giving it a second look though and am hopeful I can come up with some great designs.  I do love the stripe...but I'm a sucker for a good stripe anyway!

I haven't offered Blog Candy in a good long time so from now through Friday, leave a comment with your email address and you could win this:

I'll be adding some 6x6 papers to this as well, but didn't take the time to put my collection together.  And if I find some things I need to move to a good home, I'll toss them in too!

This collection includes some hand-crafted cards in an acrylic case, an unmounted clear mount stamp set, and some of the treat boxes that Stampin' Up! offered last year.  I loved those and was very disappointed to find out they were being discontinued.  These are my last three and I'm passing them on.

Have a terrific Monday!  See you on Tuesday!

 

ONE THOUSAND CARDS PLUS!

Well, we started at 10:30 a.m. and we finished at about 2:30 p.m. but WE DID IT!  We made over 1,000 cards for the Central Ohio Ronald McDonald House!  Thanks go to all the ladies who showed up to help and I am so appreciative that they were willing to share their time and talent.

Here are some pictures from the event.  You can click on them to enlarge the photos.

   

 

 

A huge thank you to Becky Clawson and Pat Palmer for helping new stampers learn and successfully make LOTS OF CARDS!  It truly is gratifying to see people realize that they can stamp, they can make pretty cards, and that they can do it all by themselves with just a bit of instruction.

One of the groups I was in over the summer had lots of email flying back and forth.  In replying to someone, she noticed I was in Zanesville and wrote to me off list.  We started emailing a bit and I told her about the event after she told me she had a son who was a Minister here at the First Church of the Nazarene.  Her name is Patricia Gessner and she just became a hobby demo -- she has now officially crossed over to the right side!  At any rate, not only did she come to stamp and made some fabulous cards, she donated some GOJUS cards -- I would really like to steal a couple of them.

Isn't this beautiful!  There were many different sentiments and I'm sure these will be some of the first cards chosen at the house.

I met some wonderful people and am hopeful we can do more of this same type of event in the future.  Everyone was helpful, happy and it made the time fly!  Thanks ladies!  I'll let you know when we can get together to make cards for the Troops and some more cards for the Central Ohio Ronald McDonald House.

If you are local, look for the newspaper account of the event on Friday, August 13.  Patricia West-Volland attended the event for the Times Recorder and took lots of pictures.  She interviewed several of the gals who came to stamp -- I'm looking forward to her take on our efforts.

Back tomorrow.  I've got several workshops scheduled this month and am looking forward to meeting some new people who love to stamp or scrapbook.  Plus, I've got projects to prepare for the college and for my September 13 class at the library on embossing.  If you are a closet crafter and have supplies you don't know how to use, let me know and we'll get some classes out there to help you!

Thanks again to everyone who helped, especially the folks on staff at the library.  A very nice gentleman came to the door to let me in early and loaded all my supplies on a cart, taking me to the room we were using. Then, they continued to check with us to make certain all of our needs were met.  There is no finer facility in Muskingum County than the John McIntyre Library and Blair Tom, the Manager of Community and Public Relations, is about the easiest person to work with that I've ever had the privilege of meeting.  This library is truly a first class community resource!

God Bless!

Clean and Simple 10 Minute Card

I'm frantically looking for my new In Color Pads.  They have disappeared and I didn't realize it until I reached for them today.  So....I'll have to pray about this and see if God can find them for me -- just color me frustrated and clueless at this point!

I had an idea in my mind and wanted to create it in Cherry Cobbler but when I went looking for paper, Melon Mambo and Regal Rose were together -- very pretty combination.  I wasn't certain what Regal Rose would bleach down to and here's the result.

The basecard is Melon Mambo.  I cut the Regal Rose layer and stamped it in Melon Mambo ink with En Francais.  Nothing says love like the French, right? 

Next, I used an aqua painter that I keep filled with bleach to color the image from Water Color Trio.  I stamped the panel, repeating the process three times.  Now I am wondering how it would look to try just second and third generation bleach stamping, but I didn't think of it while sitting at my table.  Something new to try....  It bleached down to Very Vanilla so I stamped my sentiment on a textured Very Vanila panel in Melon Mambo Ink and punched it out with the Large Heart Punch.  This sentiment is from Well Scripted.  Once my heart was punched, I added it to the basecard with dimensionals.  Simple and it took about 7 minutes!  I like those every now and then.

Still working on the cards for the Ronald McDonald House event on August 7.  I am very fortunate that I have stampers who are helping as well.  A HUGE SHOUT OUT to Pat Palmer and Francie Holdren for helping to put the kits together, and for their donation of some fabulous cards.  I'll be showcasing some of them later this week.

If you love Designer Series Papers like I love Designer Series Papers, read on.  I'm doing a Paper Share!  How's that work?  I'm ordering all of the Designer Series Papers that Stampin' Up! is offering in the new Idea Book and Catalog and am offering them in 6x6 shares.  You'll get 96 pieces of 6x6 paper, along with a template that will show you how to create six cards using only one piece of DSP, but you will have to add solid color cardstock as well.  The cost is $25 and I've only got two shares left.  This does not include the Printed Pattern Packs, but I'm doing a share with them as well for larger pieces and the cost is the same.  If you are interested in the details of either share, please email me and I'll give you the details.  I've ordered the paper, am anxiously awaiting delivery, and once I receive it, I'll turn the shares around and get them sent within 5 days, if not sooner.  That's a lot of paper to cut!  But, you'll have a piece of every designer series paper and that includes the specials too -- it's a fabulous deal if you like DSP and don't want to buy it all yourself.  Shipping, if you aren't local, will be via priority mail and is $4.90.

If you haven't committed your calendar date of August 7, consider joining us at the John McIntire Library in Muskingum County.  Our goal is 1,000 cards for the Central Ohio Ronald McDonald House and we are already well on our way with the donations we've received to date.  No stamping experience is necessary...all supplies provided...door prizes...ages 16 and up only please.  Card kits will provide everything you need and if you need to learn, we'll be happy to show you how to stamp and make some great cards for a fabulous cause!  Come when you can, leave when you must -- we'll be working from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and we'd love for you to share your talent with us for this very worthy cause!

Have a blessed day!  See you tomorrow!

Good Intentions....Don't Always Happen!

Last week, on Thursday, I started feeling kind of yucky.  Then on Friday, it was a full blown stomach flu complete with body aches.  No purging of the body, just intense tummy cramps that kept me down and bowled over all weekend.  It was Tuesday before I really started feeling good. 

During that down time, I didn't check email, I didn't eat, I didn't do laundry -- I just vegged and tried to stay alive.   Trust me when I say I just got behind the eight ball.  Today, I've decided to give myself the remainder of the week for a BlogCation and I'll be back with a vengeance on Monday.  I apologize -- I've got tons of ideas to try, but the domestic goddess in me, the one who is Thom's wife, feels that the laundry and housework has to come first.  However, next Monday, The Angel Whom Is Called Desi graces my home and my afternoon will be my own.

Have a fabulous weekend and a glorious Father's Day!  See you Monday!  God Bless!