The last of the graduation cards

I think this year just might be the record breaking year for graduation parties!  Guess that's what happens when your oldest is in high school!  Because of the number of celebrations, I decided to make a few multiples instead of many individual cards (time crunch, anyone?!).  I did manage to personalize them a bit with school colors and changing the background pattern paper to fit the recipient's interests when I could.

Both of the cards shown are the same basic design and I also made a few more that used this same style.  I decided to show two of them to share how to make a unique card without changing the layout.  The first one used book print paper paired with the spiral punch for a general academic feel.  On the second card, I swapped out the words for music note paper.  This made an easy, but personalized touch for the musical graduates.  Even swapping out paper and ink colors can give a more individualized addition.

Of course, I'm sure most of the grads were more pleased with what was on the inside of the cards, but it made me feel a little better about giving something personal to go with the cash and gift cards!

I have been quite busy cleaning and organizing this past week.  My goal is to purge/clean out the entire house by the end of June.  Wish me luck!!  We are hoping to have some solid plans in place very soon to finally dig our basement and prepare for our new home!  I can't really call it 'moving' since our new house will still be on the same property that we are currently living, but the less things I have to relocate, the better!

Well, I better get back to work, but I will be back soon to share some new creations!  Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

  

If you give a cardmaker scraps...

...she will make a birthday card!  I am frequently teased about the scraps of cardstock and pattern paper that  I save. "Oh wait! There's still an eighth of an inch of paper there..." ha...ha...ha...

I'm not quite that bad, but I do save pieces that I think can be used, including strips of white cardstock that are 1/2 an inch wide.  Why? They are the perfect size to use with the word window punch and the bitty banners!  I also save smaller pieces of ribbon that can be folded and tucked to dress up an image or turned into something else.  These scraps also keep me from cutting into a full sheet of paper when I only need a tiny piece, and stretch a spool of ribbon just a bit further!

I was in desperate need of some birthday cards, especially kids and gender neutral.  I came across the dinosaur image that I made ages ago and put in my "Do Something With This" box.  We won't talk about how many things are in there... I made this paper pieced dinosaur shortly after I made this card.  The background paper just looked like dinosaur skin! So I used the scraps (seeing a pattern here?) to stamp and paper piece this awesome guy!

notice the scrap of paper used for the banner!

I also made a gender neutral card because sometimes I forget birthdays (gasp!) and then need to grab a card as I walk out the door.  These are great for those occasions!  I managed to use smaller pieces of cardstock for most of this card, but the best scrap use is the ribbon scrap as the tails of the badge.

Now I have a few more cards in my file and a few less scraps hanging around! Bonus!!

I hope you are having a wonderful week and perhaps you'll spend a day digging through your scraps too! Who knows what you might find?!  Thanks so much for visiting!!

Card #1 Recipe: Paper-crumb cake, garden green, whisper white, Woodland Walk DSP (ret), Ink-garden green, crumb cake, stazon black, Stamp Set-Dinoroar (ret), Accessories-pastels, bitty banners framelit, big shot

Card #2 Recipe: Paper-whisper white, daffodil delight, old olive, Ink-night of navy, old olive, Stamp Set-Blue Ribbon, Accessories-circle framelit, 2 1/2 " scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, perfect polka dot embossing folder, chevron embossing folder, denim ribbon

Anything But a Card Challenge 21-The gift that keeps on giving...

Hello! Today is Father's Day here in the US and I will be spending part of the day with my two favorite guys, my Dad and my husband.  So it's quite fitting that today's project aligns perfectly with the Masculine/Dear ol' Dad challenge at Anything But a Card.  We are in week two of this challenge and it's my turn to share a project.  Be sure to visit the challenge blog and check out the team's inspiring pieces.  I would love to see you link up your projects too! Remember, they can be anything but a card-that leaves a lot of different art forms to play with!

For those of you who follow my blog, you know that my DH loves to give me a hard time about saving everything for my 'someday' projects.  Last year, his Father's day card included some corrugated paper saved from our souvenirs from Disney.  This year, part of his gift includes a lot of 'saved' items. Now you would think this would curb the teasing about digging through the trash, but I know him well enough to know that he will simply direct my eyes to the containers and shelves of things I've yet to use... Oh well!   I also had some assistance from my two girls on this project!

Before you see my altered shadow box, I need to apologize for the horrid photos.  I just couldn't get the shadows off of my shadow box!  I'm also not overly thrilled with the watercolor background, but I'm cutting myself some slack since I'm still in the experimental stage on this, and I had some input from my crafting partners that didn't quite achieve the effect we were going for. So I'm filing this one under the belief that art is in the process not the product.

The wood shadow frame was once the home to a kid's stamping kit.  The pieces, I'm sure, have long been lost, chewed up by Shadow (in his puppy stage), or visiting the socks that always disappear from the dryer.  The thin plywood back was cracked and loose on two sides so it was promptly removed, and the frame was put on the shelf with other 'someday' items.  When I was trying to decide on a project for this challenge, I just wasn't in a scrapbooking mood, which was my obvious choice, so I dug through the treasures on the shelf to see what might spark some creativity.  The frame kept catching my eye like it really wanted to be repurposed, so I decided on a shadow box.  The backing was a piece of watercolor paper cut to fit the frame, and I even managed to squeeze in some fancy chocolate liners behind the girls' pics. You should have seen the manly eyeroll I received for saving them...

I started by painting the frame with fawn acrylic paint.  When it was dry, I added a layer of clear rock candy distress crackle.  Then I set the frame aside to dry while I created the background.  I started painting all of the areas with crumb cake ink, when the girls got all excited about watercoloring.  So we added some wild wasabi and chocolate chip ink as well. Fawn paint was also dabbed on there to tie the background to the frame. When we were finished it reminded me of the camouflage fatigues  DH wears for trainings.  I added some stamping using chocolate chip ink.  See the index finger stamp and the special delivery stamps? They were two of my treasured finds from an antiques and craft fair.  The finger stamp was so caked with old, black ink, and the rubber is really hard, but I love the distressed style it leaves behind! I also used an alphabet set from my wonderful blogging sister, Lisa, to spell out different names for dads. The #1 is from the set Blue Ribbon.

The center space is paper from Woodland Walk.  I added fawn paint to this and the brown candy liners too.  A few retired chocolate chip corduroy buttons from my stash finished off the background.  By this time the frame was dry and I glued the watercolor paper to the back of the frame.  I also added some crumb cake ink to the crackle to make it stand out a little more.  The heart is a stamped sculpey piece that was sitting in a bowl waiting to be used, and the enamel dots are from another wonderful blogging friend, Sherry. They were a little too 'pretty' for this distressed piece, so I added a little brown sharpie ink onto them to distress them a little.  The natural trim ribbon was added to the center wood pieces to cover a groove that once held another divider (who knows where that went...).

So that's it for me!  I hope I've inspired you to make something manly for the special guys in your life too! Have a wonderful week and happy crafting!

Anything But a Card's Manly Challenge and another graduation card

Hello! So glad you stopped in today! Sunday marked the start of the new challenge at Anything But a Card.  Since we will be celebrating Father's Day soon (in the US anyway), our challenge is anything masculine or something for Dear Ol' Dad.  Remember, we accept any type of art-sewing, mixed media,  scrapbooking, altered items, ATCs... anything BUT a card!  I will be sharing my project next week (need to get busy on that...) and I hope that you will join us too!

Now, on to my card... We celebrated another graduation this past weekend.  I decided to change things up a bit from my last graduation card found here.  I also managed to use up a scrap piece of so saffron paper that was laying on my table!!  My niece's school colors are green and gold, but I thought the so saffron and gumball green were a little softer and more girly.  I colored the rhinestones with a pale green sharpie so they would coordinate with my card colors.  

We had a wonderful time at her party and my brother put together an 'old farts' volleyball team to challenge the younger crowd.  We all cheered when they won, but joked that the 'young punks' would easily beat them in a rematch the next day!  I'm sure some of them were a little stiff Sunday morning!

We have been having some minor mishaps at our house this week.  Half of our house was without electricity this weekend and DH has been using all of his construction expertise to fix it.  He ended up running some new wiring for a few of our outlets and lights.  Hopefully this will fix our issues.  We are planning on building  in a year and hate to do too much to fix our old mobile home, but wiring isn't one of those things we can bypass!  For some reason we seem to think we need air conditioning and lights...

On a happier note, I did find a little time to play this weekend and have some cards to post for Flashback Friday and I'm working on a few other things too.  I hope you have a wonderful day and find some time to be crafty too! Happy crafting!

Card Recipe: Paper-whisper white, so saffron, Ink-gumball green, Stamp Set-Blue Ribbon, Accessories-gumball green ribbon, rhinestones, 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch

A Blue Ribbon in Paper Diving

Hello! I'm so glad you came by for a visit today! I am so excited that I actually found time this past week to make stuff!  Now I don't have to feel guilty about the things I ordered from the NEW Stampin' UP! catalog that started June 1st!  If you would like to view the catalog, click here...

And if you find something(s) you just cannot live without, 

feel free to visit my online store located here.

Now, you would think that with the launch of the new catalog, I would be sharing some of my new goodies, right? Sorry...  But the stamp set I used for today's card is available!  The DSP is a completely different story. It is part of the 'old stash' that I organized while spring summer cleaning.       I haven't used this paper in ages and decided that I would dive in and pull it out to make a few cards for Operation Write Home.  I have always thought this was such a wonderful organization, and I finally have the time to contribute! They also have some wonderful sketches; I used bonus sketch B-1 for these cards.

I made a few other cards with this paper, but you'll have to wait until Friday to see those. I'm trying to get back into posting Flashback Fridays, using my older, retired goodies.  It's a good way to ensure that all of my supplies get used!

Well, it's a rainy, gloomy day here, so I'm off to enjoy my coffee and a book! Happy crafting!

Card Recipe: Cardstock-Rainbow Sherbet (ret), tempting turquoise, whisper white, Stamp Set-Blue Ribbon, Ink-tempting turquoise, green galore (ret), Accessories-1 3/8" circle punch

Congrats, Grad!

Do not adjust your computer monitor! Yes, you really are seeing a midweek post from me!  My poor neglected supplies got dusted off this past weekend to make a graduation card for a very special young man, my nephew! I have plans to clean up my crafting table this week so I can actually find everything again and be productive.  Wish me luck!  I would have done this already, but the weather has been beautiful here and I've been working in our little garden and planting some flowering bushes while I can.

My nephew also graduated this past weekend so it's been a little hectic here.  He is such a kindred spirit and we are often partners in crime in driving his mother, my sister, crazy!  She is a little concerned about him going off to college in the fall, but I know he will be amazing and can't wait to see what he accomplishes in his life.  He is very intelligent, loves to read, and has a wonderful sense of humor.  Did I mention I think he's very special?!  But enough of that, here is his card...

Apologies in advance for the picture! It was very overcast when I took the picture and I couldn't get a good shot.  I had the hardest time putting this together!  Every patterned paper, ribbon, and embellishment that fit the color scheme seemed too girly to me.  I wasn't crazy about the dotty paper, but it was the least girly I had in real red.  I actually took the star buttons from DD#1's stash and colored some white bakers twine with my basic black marker. I think I'll have an easier time with my niece's card next week.

I want to take a minute and send a message to any blogging friends who were affected by the  recent tornados and storms.  My heart goes out to the families dealing with such loss and devastation.  I can not begin to imagine what that feels like.  My family is keeping all of you in our prayers.  Hugs!

I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and that you find some time to be crafty too!

Card Recipe: Cardstock-whisper white, real red, real red DSP, Ink-black stazon, Stamp Set-Blue Ribbon, Accessories-chevron folder, 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, basic black grosgrain ribbon, bakers twine, star buttons (from DD#1 stash)