Recycled Christmas cards

My mother is collecting old Christmas cards from her friends, and creating new cards from them, selling them for a buck each.  She brought her stuff with her, and I have been having fun remaking these cards with her.  It is hard making something that is really different and not just pasting the old card front on a new base, but here are a few that I think came out well:

The worst part of the process for me is that all the cards have to have sentiments in them - I usually leave my cards blank inside for a handwritten note.  The other hard part is restraint - my mother insists that a dollar card can't be TOO nice - no metal embellishments, limited layering, stuff like that.  She isn't too happy about my use of ribbon, either.  Sometimes a grouse at her and tell her she can charge more if she wants, but mostly I try to do it her way.

Sparkly flower inchies

What makes a good inchie? Some people hand draw them, which is inherently desirable, and some collage them with many layers. Mine feature backgrounds punched out of old Christmas cards, sequins, bling, and stickles.

They were not hard to compose, but they are very sparkly!

Challenges:
Kenny K Krafty Girlz - flowers
Cupcake inspirations - inspiration
Challenge up your life - recycling
Crafty Catz - pink and green
Fun with Shapes - sparkle

Patriotic

My mother has been visiting me, so I haven't been online like I usually6 am, but I have been crafting.  Yesterday, we went to Michaels because neither of us has enough crafting supplies (that's a joke - ha ha), and we ran into a friend of mine who wants to swap inchies on Tuesday.  Obviously, we have to make inchies in order to swap them!

Here is a set of patriotic inchies that i whipped up from scraps on my desk.  the stripes are red and white paper strips cut and pieced together, and the star is a large gold brad.  These were fun to make!

While I was working, I noticed an image of cowboy boots left over from a project I did yesterday, so I made an ATC to go with.

There is gold embossing between the stripes, and the word is made with my label maker.  I heard a certain song (can you guess it?) on the radio this morning, and it has been stuck in my head all day.  It's that time of year!

Challenges:
Sentimental Sundays - anything but a card
Fairy Knoll - Memorial Day
Just Add Ink - fussy cutting
Little Miss Muffet - metal embellishments
Stamp Insanity - red white and blue
GingerSnap Creations - cowboys

Happy Memorial Day!  Go decorate a grave!

Red Hat birthday

I remembered another birthday for next week (what does it mean, all these older women being born in the same couple of weeks?), and I also remembered that she had seen every RH card that I had made already, so I needed to make her a new one.  She is a woman of color, and I can't bring myself to put white women on cards that are being mailed to black women.  It just isn't right.  Fortunately, I had this image from Digital Two for Tuesday, good for any woman of any color.

Unfortunately, it lags in a lot of other areas.  This is one of those cards that I liked when I was putting it together, but not so much once I scanned it.  

Challenges:

KB Cute - girly

Stamps R Us - digi

Card Cupids - bright and bold

Dream Valley - old (cardstock) and new (painted paper)

Scrappy Frogs - birthday

Sparkles - metal (brads)

Just a hare late

I just realized last night that I had two Red Hat birthdays this week that I forgot to send cards, so I searched and found this coloring book image online.  I knew I could find rabbits in top hats, but this one with an Easter bonnet was perfect.

You may be wondering why the hats are purple if they are going to Red Hatters.  It is part of the Red Hat Tradition that on their birthdays, instead of the usual red hat with a purple outfit, they can wear a purple hat with a red outfit.

The painted paper is something I quickly whipped up with red, violet, and pearl acrylic paints and a squeegee.  It looks less gray and more pearl in real life.  It adds that bit of texture that says "I did art on your card".  I didn't like the aspect ratio that much on the image, so I used the Out Of the Box technique on the second one.

On the inside it says, "Happy Birthday, just a hare late".

Challenges:
2 Sisters - use a digi
Allsorts - birthday
Fairy Knoll - flowers
4 Crafty Chicks - brads
Cards and Things - sketch

chipboard ATC

I decided to try the Chip Art tools to make an ATC.  Since I didn't have a chipboard ATC blank,  I made one.  The sentiment is from a Firecracker Designs by Pamela rubber stamp set.  Since Pamela isn't selling them any more, I hope she doesn't mind.

 It looks pretty simple, but it felt like a lot of work.  I tried drawing lines on my piece to line up the letters, but they are still all over the place.     I don't know if I'm motivated to do this 8 times to make enough for a swap, or even if other people would consider this artsy enough to want it.

I do like the technique, though.  If I can get circles to punch, I might make word tokens for my other projects.

Dad inchies

I'm still playing with my Melody Ross Chip Art tools - today I thought I would try inchies.  I didn't have square inch chipboard, so I used the next best thing - a double thickness of cereal box cardboard.  Just glue the coated sides together, and it will pass for chipboard in almost every way except edge on.

I used a slightly different coloring technique with these.  I painted them with espresso paint thinned a little with pink to lighten it and add texture.  I then inked in the embossed letters with an ink pen, then washed over it with an aquabrush to soften the ink and make it look more like tarnish.  It looks a lot like old metal in real life.

I still can't seem to get my letters straight, but I think it adds to the charm.  These are for a mingle, but I would do this again to make embellishments.

Two quick cards

My mother sent me a gift - the Melody Ross ChipArt starter set that is for sale at HSN. If you want the set, the price is amazing. I decided that I would make my mom a thank you card with some of the chipboard and tools in the set.
Stamping into the chipboard was pretty easy, but I was at a loss as to how to color it.  The Melody Ross site suggested that I paint it, then glaze it with a contrasting color, and wipe away the glaze leaving the darker glaze color in the embossed areas.  I have paint, so I gave it a try.  I didn't have regular glaze, so I mixed my paint with sparkle varnish instead.  The results were not that great, so I took glitter pens and filled in the embossed areas that way.

The paper is my very last sheet of my favorite CTMH paper, Discovery.  This is not my best card ever, but my mom will understand.  My mom is like that.  It sparkles, but you can't see it.  That is the downside of scanners.
I had a lot of the glaze left, so I spread it on the base of the second one layer card that I had printed out but hadn't colored yet.  I started with just the Bandanna technique, but my glitter pens were right there, so I threw in some color, too.

Now, I know this looks like the blue color is grainy, but those grains are actually glitter.  Here is a closeup with the light hitting it at an angle.  It's really very sparkly.

I'm liking the one layer card.  I may make more.

Challenges:
Timeless Tuesday - Spring
CupCake Craft - in the garden
Stamp with Fun - green and pink (first card)
Magic in the air - embossing
Creative Inspirations - glitter

Single Layer Card

When was the last time that you made a card with only one layer?  I downloaded this image from dover, and decided that I didn't want to do anything but use my watercolor pencils on it.  After that, I thought a little gold leafing pen would frame it nicely.  That's it.  One layer.

Challenges:
Incy Wincy - clean and simple
Squigglefly - anything but the usual
Stamps R Us - use a digi
There She Goes - photo inspiration
Card Cupids - no patterned paper
Cheerful Stamp Pad - color my world
Fresh Brewed - inspiration

Panic!

My computer died.  Some stuff I saved in time, other stuff is gone forever.   If you sent me an email over the weekend, that is gone forever.  Please write me again!






(yeay!  I was able to rescue my sigtag!)

not quite a honeycomb

Jeanie was nice enough to show me her beading blog, which was absolutely intoxicating with its eye candy.  I was particularly intrigued by her honeycomb weave bracelets, which I had never seen before.  I supposed that I could figure out how to do it - it looked a lot like a right angle weave, except with a honeycomb, it would have to be a 60 degree weave (don't you hate math geeks?).  I had some green E beads I had been wanting to use for a while, and some copper 11/0 beads, and started playing.

I noticed something right away when I started developing the honeycomb pattern - it liked twisting very much.  I also didn't like the waviness as much as I thought I would, so after I completed the length, I put a row of green on each side.  I like it a bit better this way.  I made my own closure from copper wire.

Red wrap bracelet

This bracelet took me a lot longer to finish than I thought it would, but it is over 30 inches long, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

This was inspired by the wrap bracelets of Chan Luu, which are made with leather sides and not beaded ones, but I like the beaded sides.  What I didn't like was the behavior of the red beads in the middle.  They are flat rectangles, but instead of lying flat against my arm, they are determined to stand on their edge.  I guess I should have known better - Chan Luu makes hers with round beads.  Mine closes with a red button that matches surprisingly well - I don't know how Chan Luu closes her bracelets, but I suspect that they have to be tied, which is not as good.

The length allows it to be worn as a necklace, too, which is a good thing.  I have some heavy cord, I will try this again.

Maybe

Osama Bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals who flew in from Afghanistan.  My son is a Navy Seal in Afghanistan.  I don't really know anything, and my son wouldn't be allowed to tell me even if he wanted to (my boys know better than to tell me when bad people are shooting at them), but there is a little tiny warm fuzzy in my heart.

Of course, I would think my son is heroic just for being a Navy Seal in Afghanistan, even if he never kills anybody.  Actually, that would be nice if he never has to kill anyone, but if he did have to kill someone, Bin Laden is a good target.

I'm just sayin'...