Ooops, I Lied! Another Cricut Christmas Card

Sorry folks, but I wanted to show you how the card for our church's shut-ins turned out. I used Joys of the Season for the poinsettia. I cut out the base layer once (Old Olive) and the second layer twice, once out of Cherry Cobbler and once out of Real Red. I sponged the edges of the base and top layers and rotated the top layer and popped it up on foam tape for a mor full look. I added gold Stickles to the center. The sentiment is from Our Daily Bread Designs. I made 20 of these and they were a lot of work! And they did turn out just gorgeous, so I'm glad I did it. I started out with a simple plan in mind but I kept thinking of things like the extra layer cut from a different color and sponged that would just add so much! Our church had also given each shut-in a poinsettia plant for Christmas, which I didn't know about when I made these cards. A happy accident!

This card measures 8.5 x 5.5 to accomodate lots of the congregation members' signatures. Base is PTI. Thanks for looking!

Eagle Scout Ceremony

My nephew Tommy had his Eagle Scout Court of Honor on October 9 in Milford KS. He will be graduating this year and aging out of Boy Scouts very shortly. He has been accepted at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, SC, where his father and two of his uncles went to school. I don't know if non-Scouters know what a huge deal becoming an Eagle Scout is. You have to complete many specific merit badges and plan and execute a service project before your 18th birthday in order to get it. It is a very high honor and a great responsibility, and I'm very proud of Tommy for achieving it. Here he is with his mom and dad (my brother Richard and his wife Lori). It's almost as much work (or more) for the parents of an Eagle Scout, and the ceremony is about honoring them as well.

Here are the cousins with Grandma and Grandpa: Bobby, Tommy's brother, Matt, Emily, Dad, Mom, and Tommy.

And here I am with Richard and Thomas, one of my other brothers. Thomas just retired from the army, hence the handlebar mustache and beard!

Here is the card I made for Tommy. I used the double Z-fold technique which may be found HERE.

The patterned paper I used is some Boy Scout paper with all the ranks listed on it. On the inside I printed the Boy Scout Oath on my computer and stamped congratulations (retired SU). The eagle on the front is from Our Daily Bread Designs.

I tied it closed with ribbon and used star brads on the corners.

I wish Tommy all the best in the next several years--he's got a lot of new experiences ahead of him! Thanks for looking!

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

This is the card I made for our church members to sign for our Christian Ed coordinator who is leaving. A while back, I discovered how you can use SCAL and Lettering Delights images together to do a kind of "print and cut" a la the Cricut Imagine. It is a trifle labor intensive, but I did make a few images this way and this image of the kids around the world holding hands really appealed to me. I have saved it all this time with the intention of making this very card, which I finally did. I printed the words to the song in various colors for my BG. I edged around the main image with a marker, which didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it looks okay I guess. I stamped a couple of sentiments from ODBD on the inside.

Thanks for looking! Have a fabulous day!

Front cover of Star Book

This is the front cover of a star book I made for our Christian Education Coordinator, who is leaving us. I've been wanting to try one of these and thought this was a good occasion. All CS, ink, and DP is SU. Main colors are Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy, and Whisper White. Almost all the stamps are from ODBD--I love their stamps so much! Some are SU and I have noted those.

I used my Cricut and the Elegant Edges cart and my gypsy to weld the shapes together to get the bracket shape. The title is cut using the Inspired Heart Cricut Lite cart. The bird is from ODBD's Sing to the Lord set, embossed in gold and colored with inks and blender pens.

The pix of the other pages are in the previous post--just scroll down to see them. I couldn't fit all the pix in one blog post LOL! Thanks for looking!

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime...

The ridiculous being the card in the previous post! I made this card for 2 different challenges: 1) Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Me Monday #38--to use ribbon on a card--easy, since I almost never make a card without ribbon LOL! 2) Cricut Cardz Challenge #52--to make a card using only words on the front--no images.

I couldn't find an all-ready-to-go cut that I wanted to use, though there are tons of cute ones, so I used the font from Winter Woodland to cut the word "rejoice". This is a gorgeous font, but it really doesn't cut well at less than 1.25", which is the size I used. Even so, the O and C are a little raggedy--it's really better at 1.5", but I didn't want to make a bigger card than 3 x 6, so that's what I did. Card base is Always Artichoke, DP is Deck the Halls, and letters are brushed gold on Cherry Cobbler (all SU). Punch and ribbon are SU as well.

The inside is heat embossed in gold with a Scripture from ODBD. I am so pleased with the way this card turned out--hope you like it too!

Prayer Journal

Good morning! I bought a whole bunch of these little book/mini pen sets at Mike's for $1 apiece a while back. It is so much fun to alter them. For this one I used Peach Parfait Designer Paper and CS by SU. I covered the book with the DP, added a piece of Early Espresso embossed with the Square Lattice folder, and stamped the wheat and sent. on the peach in EE ink. The stamp set is Our Daily Bread by ODBD. I tore the CS and sponged the edges. Quick, simple and pretty (I think so anyway!). I made 4 of these, 2 like this and two different ones, but my DD and her friend confiscated the other two. It's nice to be appreciated LOL! Thanks for stopping by today!

CHRIST-mas Card Swap

My friend Jen, aka cupojafa over on SCS, hosted a swap aiming to keep Christ in Christmas. So of course I gleefully pulled out my ODBD stamps! I wanted to go with a color combo other than red and green. I decided to use purple rather than blue. Colors here are Perfect Plum and Concord Crush. DP is from the In Color Patterned Paper Pack that is an SU hostess gift. This card was made for the fancy fold category. It is a tri-shutter card--you can see a tutorial HERE. I used my SCAL, Cricut, and an SVG file by Penny Duncan to cut the oval on the front. Scripture is embossed in silver on Shimmery White CS. I added rhinestones to the little scallops. I embossed the poinsettia in silver on Shimmery White, misted with water, and added reinkers. Gives a lovely effect, esp. on the shimmery. Then I die cut it with the ODBD matching die. Those things are GREAT! I embossed the words on the DP in silver. It's a little hard to read, but very pretty. Unfortunately, while I was trying to crop the middle pic which shows the cool fold aspect of this card, I somehow managed to delete it. If you look at the tutorial, you can see how it's supposed to look.
Thanks for stopping by today!

Card for our pastor

Hi, everyone! Our pastor announced that he is taking a few weeks of renewal time--no one deserves it more than he does--he's the best. Anyway, I made him a card to let him know how much he is appreciated. Stamp set is Our Daily Bread Designs Flourished Christian Symbols. I stenciled the clouds using a very old SU cloud stencil in Bashful Blue on PTI's Stamper's Select White. I sponged some Not Quite Navy Craft Ink onto my stamp (I just have some of the craft re-inkers, not the pads) and stamped the bird and embossed with iridescent ice EP. The sent. is stamped in NQN classic ink. Silver cord is SU. If you haven't tried ODBD I'd encourage you to--their stamps stamp beautifully. Thanks for looking!

Our Daily Bread Designs Swap

My friend Jen over on SCS is hosting a whole slew of swaps just calculated to suck me in! The first one is an ODBD image, scripture, and card swap. I decided to make a diagonal double pocket card since I have a TON of beautiful DP that needs to be used up. You can see a cool tutorial for this HERE. One tip: when you go to fold your double-sided DP, make sure the side that you want to show the MOST of is facing away from you! This paper is SU, retired for many years. Set is Sing to the Lord, ink colors are Palette Burnt Umber and SU So Saffron. Translucent flower is Maya Road, buttons and jute twine are PTI, all else is SU. I used God Bless America and Keep My Lamp Burning for my image swaps. Thanks for looking--have a great day!

Easter Card

This is the Easter card I made for the shut-in members of our church. It is 8.5 " by 5.5" to make it big enough for the congregation to sign. Card base is Gina K heavy base weight pure white luxury CS. I used a stencil from SU and sponged Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise, and Lavender Lace for the flowers. I used my new Embosslits butterfly die from SU on some retired DP and sanded the raised part. I used a Nestie die (the one that looks like an open book, sorry, can't remember which number it is) as a stencil and sponged inside it, then stamped my ODBD Bible verse, Galatians 2:20, inside the sponged area. On the inside is Happy Easter from retired SU set All Year Cheer 1. Hope you all enjoyed this card--thanks for looking!

Man Card # 1--Birthday

I'm in a swap over on SplitCoast with some of my PTI swapper friends. We are swapping MAN cards. A lot of people have trouble making masculine cards; not me. I think it's because I have so many brothers. I am attracted to "masculine" images like trees, lighthouses, trains, ships, etc. If you truly have difficulty with "man cards", Becky Oehlers has a post about it HERE with some good advice.

On this card I used a stamp from ODBD called Keep My Lamp Burning. You can find it HERE. I love the collagey feel of this stamp. I looked over the gallery at ODBD and there were several cards that utilized the glow of the light. I tried to figure out how they did it and the best I could come up with is LOTS of masking. So that's what I did. First I punched a hole in a piece of notepad type paper. I used that as a reverse mask and sponged So Saffron ink on my CS. Then I stamped the lighthouse image in Palette Noir Ink. Then I made a mask of the light house and used the circle punched out of my original reverse mask and brayered over the whole thing with Elegant Eggplant and Not Quite Navy. Card base is Sahara Sand, stamped in S. S. with the Canvas BG stamp. Image is mounted on NQN. Eyelets are Bordering Blue (ret.) and rope trim is SU (also ret.) I distressed the edges on the focal image. This card is extremely lumpy because of the knot and would require extra postage and hand canceling if you mailed it. I had such a great time making this card--hope whoever gets one likes it. Thanks for stopping by!

Cards for church members

This is the card I made for the members of our church that can't make it to services. I used several sets from ODBD: Sing to the Lord (bird and dogwood blossoms), Amazing Grace Hymn, Scripture Collection 2 (on front) and Flourished Christian Symbols (inside). Card base is PTI vanilla, dogwood blossoms stamped in Soft Sky (SU ret.). Hymn is stamped in Soft Sky on vanilla and distressed with Close to Cocoa, matted with a C to C layer, distressed with Chocolate Chip. Bird is stamped in Versamark on vanilla and embossed in gold, watercolored with SU inks Soft Sky, Pink Pirouette, Cameo Coral, Wild Wasabi, Barely Banana and Close to Cocoa, cut out and popped up on foam tape. Scripture is stamped on vanilla in C to C, dogwood blossom stamped around edges with Soft Sky, punched with ticket corner punch (SU) and matted with C to C cardstock, also popped up.

Here is a detail of the bird, sorry for the blurry pic.

Here is a pic of the inside. Everyone from the church will sign these cards on Sun, so they have to be 1/2 sheet size instead of the typical 1/4 sheet size.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these cards as much as I enjoyed making them! Have a great day.

Brad's Apprentice Journal

On September 13, Brad and I will be beginning a course in the Apprentice program, which is a class designed to help you grow in your relationship with God. It is based on a book by James Bryan Smith, who lives here in Wichita and spoke at our church last Sunday, entitled The Good and Beautiful God, Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows. You read the book, do spiritual exercises, keep a journal, and discuss your experiences in a small group. Everyone who's done it says it is amazing, and Brad and I are really looking forward to it. So I made him a journal. This is one of SU's chipboard covered books, covered with Basic Grey paper from long ago. The image is from ODBD's set Keep My Lamp Burning, and is the coolest lighthouse image I have seen--very collage-y. I inked up the stamp in Buckaroo Blue, then wiped the blue off the edges and corners and inked those up with Mellow Moss. I layered it on Buckaroo Blue and Mellow Moss CS and some Night of Navy and Mellow Moss eyelets and some hemp finished off the journal. I hope he likes it! I had a great time making it. Have a great day!

Our Daily Bread Designs Patriotic Card

I joined Lori's sketch challenge swap over on SCS--you can read about it HERE. I decided to do Sketch # 26, a pocket card. I love these--it's like "Hey, kids, surprise inside!" Since the 4th of July is a little over a month away, I decided to use my new ODBD patriotic stamps. I just couldn't resist them. I am very patriotic--I love my country and think it is the best in the world! All products are SU except for flag, eagle, and Pledge stamps, those are all ODBD. I stamped the flag on confetti tan (SU retired--I am running out, need to find a new source as I like it better than kraft) in Palette Burnt Umber ink and colored with my good ol' Stampin Pastels. They are the first coloring medium I ever bought from SU, and they are so quick and easy to use, they are good for shading. I don't use them much anymore as my ink pads are right in front of me so I just watercolor most of the time. But I should! You can use them with blender pens or Q-tips (as I did here), and I have heard of people using them with Aqua Painters, though I have never tried it. Eagle head is done the same way.

Card base is Riding Hood Red, wheeled with a retired SU wheel in Night of Navy ink. Focal point is Spellbinders (Label 2 I think), layered on Night of Navy. Flag and Eagle are popped up on foam tape. For the inside piece I took a quarter sheet of confetti tan and put my die on one end, just cut the end, then moved it down to the other end and cut that, then freehand cut down the sides to connect the top and bottom. I made a mask with the next size down die and sponged a navy frame around the Pledge, added a punched star and a piece of Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware (retired).

This is a side view to show how I made the pocket. I didn't do it the way Sketch # 26 suggests but rather just scored a piece of 4.25" x 11" CS at 5.5" and 1", folded over the 1" flap and tied it with a Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon. It is open at the sides but you could use adhesive if you wanted. By the way that's ink on my thumbnail, NOT dirt!

I am really pleased with the way this turned out. I've got lots of ideas for these sets! Hope you enjoyed looking!

Another ODBD Easter card

Hi, everyone, sorry for the crooked pic. This is a card I made with one of my new ODBD sets, He is Risen. I wanted a very rustic, antique feel. I have a hard time with this particular image--it is so hard to think about the torture Christ went through for our sins. I stamped Confetti Cream CS with the Linen BG stamp (SU retired) in Creamy Caramel, then overstamped the cross in Really Rust. I sponged over the image and around the edges with More Mustard, then followed around the edges of the piece with Chocolate Chip. Then I used the cracked glass technique--tutorial found HERE. In hindsight I should have used one more layer of UTEE, but oh well. After I cracked it I rubbed Choc. Chip ink into the cracks. I used the same stamping technique, minus the cracked glass, on the sentiment. I used some retired SU DP for the background. The corner looked a little bare, so I added some flourishes from and Inque Boutique set I have, again in hindsight I wish I'd done something else. I used an Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware label holder, brads, and oval clip, and stained a piece of twill tape with ink and tied it to the oval clip.

I put up the cards I posted here the other day on the sign up posters for my stamp class at church, now there is ONE person signed up LOL! DH said, maybe when it is closer to the date more people will sign up. I hope you all enjoyed this card, and that you're having a great week so far!

Easter Cards

Morning everyone! Yesterday I had a chance to play with my new Our Daily Bread Designs stamps. They are so pretty. I am going to be teaching a stamp class at my church, so I have been playing around with ideas. This first card uses the sets The Cross of Christ and He Is Risen. CS and ink are SU Whisper White, Pale Plum and Perfect Plum. The Perfect Plum layer is embossed with the Birds and Swirls Cuttlebug Embossing Folder. Ribbon and eyelets are SU retired. I have to tell you, Perfect Plum is probably my least fave color, but it looks nice with Pale Plum and both are good for Easter cards.














This card uses Flourished Christian Symbols and He Is Risen. and the Doodle jumbo wheel from SU. I wheeled the Almost Amethyst CS with Versark and embossed with a mix of clear and hologram highlights embossing powder. Very pretty and sparkly in real life. Stamped the cross in Almost Amethyst and dotted flower centers with Stickles. Layered on Barely Banana, card base is Lavender Lace. All supplies except stamps and Stickles by SU.




On this card I decided to add some color to the vines on the cross. I colored the vines coming off the cross with markers, stamped on Whisper White. Stamped the cross in Bashful Blue on another sheet, colored the flowers and vines on the cross and cut out, popped up on the first panel, layered on Barely Banana. Used punches for the flowers and punched the corners out of Cuttlebug Birds and Swirls. Colors are Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, and Bashful Blue. All supplies except Cuttlebut by SU.

Tonight is my son's Arrow of Light awards ceremony. It is the last award he will get as a Webelo; next month he will cross over to Boy Scouts. He is growing up too fast! I have to finish decorating his arrow today. I will upload a pic here tomorrow. Have a great day!