CASEing...and Carding for a Guy

Laura Fredrickson is an amazing Canadian card artist whose blog I have in my Google Reader. I don't want to miss one thing she shares!

She shared a card that's almost identical to this earlier this week, and I was drawn to it because it used Wonderful You, a set I really liked when I got it--how long ago was that? ANYWAY, I pulled out my set and duplicated her main image exactly, but I had to come up with some other way to incorporate a sentiment, since I don't own Hodgepodge Hardware.

As I played with the matted focal point, I began to think about what it would look like mounted on an angle. I still haven't decided! I'm posting both and I want your feedback. I'm going to put a sentiment in the bottom right corner, and I'm purposely leaving it blank until I know what occasion I'll need it for. I would like you to vote--wonky or not!

BTW, the card stock is Tangerine Tango, which coordinates beautifully with Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, and Very Vanilla. That KK double striped ribbon is great to work with, and I really liked Laura's use of brads, so I did that too! It may be a little difficult to tell from the picture, but there are 1/4" circles underneath each brad.

Although I was a journalist in another life, I was never good at writing catchy headlines. I hope you were intrigued enough to scroll down to see this card, though, because I'm quite happy with it! This card is for this month's Stamp-A-Stack, as is the CASE above, and although I try to expose my guests to new materials every month, this month I seem to be returning to favorites. Urban Garden is my favorite DP, and Baroque Motifs is in my top 5 favorite sets of all time. I was blurfing yesterday afternoon and saw a card using UG, and just had to pull it out and play.

I am very limited in the stamps I have that would be considered "masculine", and this "motif" (for lack of a better word), jumped out at me as I pawed through my sets. I used the stampamajig to get the positioning just the way I wanted it, and pulled out Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, and Not Quite Navy from the DP's color palette. I didn't want to use ribbon, but I knew it was too bland without something, so I chose silver eyelets.

Again, I'm going to let my guests decide if they want this card to be a birthday, thank you, get well, congratulations, or blank card for their stashes. Don't you wish you were coming to this month's event? If you just had an opening in your calendar, or if you've been stranded on a desert island away from all forms of communication and still want to attend, just leave me a comment and I'll fit you in!

Saving, Spending, and Sharing...All Online!

While I was showing you cards featuring Party Hearty in my last post, I neglected to mention that this set is one of 8 selected birthday sets are 20% OFF with a $20 purchase! Follow the link, and you'll see pictures of each of the sets, as well as pricing information. If you like what you see, you can even SHOP right away, and I'll get credit for it. Before you click away, though, read on so that you know everything before you SHOP.

This offer is good until Oct. 31, so you could do a little advance planning for your Christmas cards materials and get a stamp set at a discount as well!

Speaking of Christmas, I also wanted to remind you that the new Holiday Mini Catalog is available. You can view the catalog online by following the imbedded link I created AND shop immediately, choosing ME as your demonstrator. It's EASY PEASY--I get credit for your order, you get the same price you'd pay if you ordered through me, and your order comes directly to your door!

Imagine this...you could list this link in your Christmas list and family members would have the easiest way possible to cross you off their buying list. HO HO HO! How awesome is that?



Let me show you a wonderful gift giving kit that's for sale in this catalog. It's called the Create-A-Calendar Kit, and, for $7.95, this is what you can present to a friend, family member, teacher, or hostess at a holiday party! It comes with stickers, a page for each month, and the back side of each calendar month is Designer Series Paper. It doesn't take too much imagination to come up with some recycling options that involve cards!

If you want to make this gift even more special and practical, you could purchase a chipboard clipboard in either the 4.5" x 9" version, shown here, or in the 9" x 9" version, which would allow the recipient to have two months in view at once. The pictured clipboard (it doesn't come covered with DP; I did that and can show you how) is item number 109191 and costs $6.50. The 9" x 9" version is item number 109190 and is $7.95. You simply input these numbers into the "search the store" box, and you'll be directed to these items. What a great gift for under $20!

Again, if you like what you see, feel free to follow the link for either the Birthday Stamp Set Promotion or the Holiday Mini Catalog, identify me as your demonstrator so that you'll pay the same price for these items as you would if you ordered from me directly, and shop to your heart's content!

When I Said It Would Be Awhile...

I really didn't intend for a week to pass between posts! We've just come off one of the busiest weekends in a long time, and, on top of that, I'm struggling a bit with my creative muse. So, thanks for your patience, and here are few cards!

Sometimes it takes a few tries to get what you want when you're working with new materials. In the case of this card, I was working with a new stamp set called Party Hearty. I used it to make the party hats into Christmas trees in this post, but I hadn't tried putting all the elements to use for a traditional birthday card.

I also have this new Designer Series Paper called Autumn Vine, and I wanted to try to incorporate the two. Wow! This was harder than I thought, and it's because Party Hearty is such a playful, whimsical set, and that's not really my style.

This card, however, shows that it pays to persevere! The color combination in Autumn Vine is Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Really Rust, and More Mustard. As you can see, I pulled out all the stops and used each one. While cutting out the "celebrate you" from Party Hearty (which I colored using each of the colors from the combo), it occurred to me that I could have the SS layer that was mostly hidden underneath the MM and AV DSP layer show more if I cut a hole in it. I love how it turned out, and I also like the SS 1/4" grosgrain ribbon ties on each side. That panel is popped up on dimensionals. This layout was inspired by Wendy Janson's card in the SCS gallery. Isn't that a great card for a guy? You really should take a minute and follow the link to view it.


The next card was a take-off on the one sent to me for my birthday by Connie. I think it was designed by her demonstrator, Laura Barto, who is also my upline, but if I'm wrong about that, Connie, please speak up so I can give you your props! It featured Bold Brights, which is Connie's favorite color family, but I wanted to turn the layout 90 degrees and try it with different colors.

I don't know why I can't leave well enough alone and just CASE something! I have a knack for making things harder than they need to be, and this card is a case in point. I thought the "party hearty" was a bit small, so I wanted to use the "celebrate you" sentiment. THEN I thought about a really cute card I saw where the gal had a comic strip like thing going on where the cupcakes were eaten by a mysterious someone, and I tried to incorporate THAT! The end result is not jazzin' me, but I'm putting it out there for public digestion.

One more thing...A few weeks ago, I posted about my customer and friend Rocky. The reason it has taken me this long to report is because her doctor sent her for the bloodwork and then went on vacation for a week!!! He's entitled, I know, but when you're waiting for news about whether or not you have cancer, being put "on hold" for 10 days was very hard. BUT good news is worth waiting for! While he was thinking what he saw on an MRI looked like cancer, the bloodwork didn't match with his hypothesis! They're going to biopsy the "growth", but the big "C" word has not been mentioned again. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for her. She is very appreciative, even though you'll probably never meet.

Fourth Post of the Day...This Must be a Record

My husband says that sometimes his brain is like a thunderstorm...a flash of brilliance and then sudden darkness! That's probably how you'll feel about this blog in the next few days, since I've exhausted my creativity quotient for the week with all this activity today!

But, while the mojo's flowin'(and you have a deadline for a hostess on Friday) you have to take advantage.

The first card is yet another using Season of Friendship. If you haven't figured out that I meant it when I said that this set is versatile, the THREE cards I made with it and posted TODAY should be sufficient evidence. This one incorporates the new Ski Slope DSP from the Holiday Mini Catalog--it's scrumptious! I used Kraft as my base again, matted three pieces of the DSP on Chocolate Chip, and then created my focal point on Baja Breeze.

The snowflakes were embossed using White Embossing Powder. For some reason the stuff and I don't get along. It left behind some dusty spots in places I didn't want them, so I got out my brayer and the Versamark and covered the entire piece in the sticky ink. Then I doused the whole sheet with Dazzling Diamonds. Problem solved! Except...the stuff began to molt when I handled it. Next time I'm going to douse the whole thing in Heat & Stick Powder and then add the DD. Then it won't go anywhere. Glitter's great, but it makes a MESS! Still, I love the look. The little ribbon accent is done with the white satin ribbon, and I cheated and tacked it around the backs and then tied a separate little knot in the lower corner. So much easier than wrestling with positioning it while trying to keep said glitter from coming off...

The second card is a mighty quickie, and I am thrilled. This sentiment is from the Home for Christmas set, also in the Holiday Mini. The image in the set is best colored with markers, colored pencils, etc., but I don't want to use that at the SAS I'm making this card for...too time consuming when you have 15 cards to make in 3 hours or less.

I was about to give up about an hour ago after several experiments with this weren't going like I wanted. Then I had a lightning strike of creativity and went back to the craft room and pulled out these FANTASTIC felt snowflakes! They come in a pack of umpteen bazillion and they're AWESOME in their three sizes and three colors! Stamp the sentiment from the set, lay down a sweet layer of way cool felt ribbon, adhere said flakes, and it's done! SWEET! I made my deadline with a day to spare, so now I'm going to read a book and fall asleep.

Have a great rest of the week!

Second Try at Season of Friendship

After I posted my first card of the day, I really wasn't feeling I had much creativity. The first one felt, I don't know, flat somehow. I was going to avoid the craft room the rest of the day, but I have 2 cards I need to make, so I went back in and tried again with Season of Friendship. This is not the card I needed to make, but I SOOOOOOOO love it!

With this layout, the entire tree image is utilized. Again, I chose the seasons theme, and I kept adding to it because I was really digging how it was coming together. Don't think I'm marvelous because I have a tire swing hanging from my tree; someone else came up with that and I remembered seeing it and CASE'd it. As I was crafting away, I began to think about the size envelope I'd need for this card, and that determined where the final panel went. This card is 8.5" x 5.25" and scored at 4.25", so that left very few options. Thus, it became a sort of square card in order to fit into the largest square envelope SU! sells.

I really like that the final panel is on the inside of the card. It saved any time I might have wasted thinking about where to put the sentiment on the front. It completes the interior so nicely, I think.

The question now is, "Who will receive this card?" I'm meeting on Friday morning with the manager of a Pak Mail store to see if she'd be interested in selling my cards at her location. I think I'll save it to show her and then begin to ponder whose mailbox it should end up in. Speaking of selling my cards, I think I could charge $6/piece for this kind of detail, don't you? I'm not good at determining things like that, but if I'm going to make more of these, I need it to be worth the time it's going to take.

Hey, I hope more of you participate in yesterday's post by sharing something random about yourself. Thanks, Kathleen, for coming out of hiding! What about the rest of you?

One more thing...I neglected to mention that I sponged in the sky with Baja Breeze, stamped off once, that the mat for each panel is Mellow Moss, and that the base is Kraft. Also, each panel is 1.5" x 4".

Do You Have Gas?

That's a frequent question everyone's asking each other these days. I don't mean the intestinal kind; Southerners would never be so impolite! Georgia is among several states in the Southeast that is struggling to have sufficient supply of gasoline. I'm not sure if it's because of Hurricane Ike, although a certain friend of mine in Austin has plenty of gas and it only costs $3.38/gal, or because Georgia is required by federal law to have a specific formula of gas to combat its smog problem, but WHATEVER the reason, it's a major preoccupation (translation: pain in the heiny!) for everyone living around here.

We've been told several times now that supply would be back to normal in 10 days, but we're still seeing what these photos show happening all over the place. Gas stations are without fuel for days at a time, and then there's a run on it when they do get a tanker in and in less than 8 hours they're out again for several days.

Here's how it went for Bob yesterday. I worked an early shift at Starbucks, which is across the street from a BP and a Shell station. I began to see cars lining up at the BP around 8am, so I called Bob and told him there was gas. He traveled the 10 miles from our house to that exit, waited 30 min. in line TO GET IN THE PARKING LOT of the station, then waited another 20 min. before he got to the pump. The pump shut off 3 or 4 times while he was trying to fill my 28-gallon tank. Thankfully, this station didn't impose a $25 or 10 gallon limit, like some have. The cost per gallon was $4.29.

This afternoon as I headed home, I saw his experience repeating itself at the QuikTrip (QT), so I decided to photograph it for posterity. In the first photo you'll notice that there are no listed prices for any of the grades of gas. This has become the way the stations let the public know they do not have product. As you can see, this station didn't have time to post its prices before word got out, and frankly folks don't care. They have to have it, so they'll pay whatever it costs.

The second, third, and fourth pictures are to show you how long the line stretched from the station. The traffic light is at least 1/4 mile, if not farther, and these were just the cars of folks on this road. There was another line at the other entrance to the station that would've stretched past the intersection if allowed!

It's nuts down here, and it's effecting everything we do. We wanted to go out for dinner last weekend, but limited ourselves to what we could find within a 2 mile radius of our house. We didn't take the boat out on the lake because we weren't sure about our ability to get gas for it again, and didn't want to spend the gas it would take to pull the boat to and from the launch. In short, we aren't going anywhere but where we have to go--work, the grocery, and school. It's making everyone a little cranky.

Seasons May Change, But Friendship Remains

This morning it was crisp as I walked to the car to take Michael to school. I LOVE FALL! The cooler air is one of the sure signs of changing times, but the debut of the new Holiday Mini Catalog is another! This card was made using a very versatile set from the catalog called Season of Friendship.

As you can tell, there are stamps that are elements of the seasons--snowflakes, flowers, leaves, and a little bird--as well as a full size tree. The sentiment is the best: "The season of friendship lasts forever." I feel that way.

I wanted to capture all the seasons in this layout, but I'm already looking forward to making other cards that only feature one at a time. The squares are 1 5/8" and that's the perfect size to create small focal points. I used almost every one of my Earth Elements Stampin' Write Markers for this, and silver embossing powder for the snowflakes. Each square is mounted on Baja Breeze and then onto the Garden Green base.

I struggled a bit with this layout, and I think I might try it as a larger card with all the boxes on one side of the card. How fun to have more options to experiment with!

Leave me a comment requesting the new catalog and I'll put one in the mail to you today!