Anita - This one is for you!

This card was made especially for Anita (from France) who had a birthday last month.  And this month her blogging friends are giving her a party and submitting cards in her honor.

I consider myself a newbie to card blogging and Anita has been there the entire time supporting me and encouraging me to keep going.  When I think of her cards I think of flowers, pastel colors and some bling.  I did put bling on the card after I took the picture so I took two more photos and the first looks the best, so picture three little light green crystals  by the flowers.

I stamped the flowers onto water color paper with Versafine ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  Next I colored with Copics and used 8 shades of pink.  The paper is all SU!, except for the wc paper.  The sentiment stamp is Paper Smooches.

Happy Birthday Anita and many thanks for all your kind words.  Wishing you a wonderful year.

Hugs,

Barbara http://www.djkardkreations.com/2014/03/anita-this-ones-for-you-surprise.html

CASology Week 86: ROOTS

First I want to say that last week and the cue word of carnival was too much for me.  My first attempt of a ferris wheel failed and I actually threw away the stamp.  My thought about carnivals is my boys would always bring home a gold fish, or two, in a baggy from their grade school carnival.  We actually had two that lived for about two years but they passed away when we set off a bug bomb and forgot to move Rockin and Rollin out of the house.  So this second attempt at a card was a fish bowl with a fish and I put together pieces from three different stamp sets and it was a failure too.  Third and last attempt was another ferris wheel and all was okay until the paper slipped when I ran it through the Cuttlebug  and the piece was decapitated.  So no carnival entry from me.  This week is another story.

My first thought about roots is hair, in other words needing a touch up, but I let the thought vanish. This stamp is a cutey from Our Craft Lounge and one of my favorite stamp sets.  Everything was going well with this card, image stamped, colored, die cut and mounted onto a piece of embossed cardstock.  But then the image was off-balance and the mouse's tail was waving in the wind.  The stamp set had a border stamp of small flowers so I amputated one lone flower.  I stamped and colored it and glued it under the tail and now the image looks balanced.

Supplies: Neenah paper, Memento ink, Copic markers, Lil Inkers die cut, Cuttlebug embossing folder "Daisies," Our Craft Lounge stamp set "Mice Friends"

Note:  Our Craft Lounge is no longer in business.  When I first began taking Copic classes the instructor used OCL stamps and I still have several sets. 

The Male Room Challenge 5: Blue, Green and Brown

I chose this cute stamp for my first submission to The Male Room.  I have had this stamp for a couple of years and really love it as it reminds me of son #2 who was a skateboarder through his college years.  The image was stamped onto Neenah and colored with Copic markers and then die cut with Nestabilities.  I selected an earlier card sketch from Freshly Made Sketches #21 for this card layout. The patterened paper was in my scratch paper folder source unknown but the other papers are SU!.  I mounted the skateboarder (I will call him Matt) with mounting tape onto the background papers.  The sentiment is Paper Smooches.

Supplies: Neenah and SU! papers, Copic Markers, Nestabilities die cut, Paper Smooches "Sentiment Sampler" stamp, Stampendous! "Skateboard Kiddo" stamp

ATCAS: Baby Challenge 33

I have made this card for Addicted to Clean and Simple with the theme of Baby.  This Lili of the Valley stamp is so adorable and I thought of this image for this challenge.  Two of my friends are soon to be first time grandmothers and this is the card I will give them.  The image was stamped on Neenah paper and colored with Copic markers and then die cut with Lil Inkers rectangle.  The sun is also Lil Inkers and it was cut out of SU! Daffodil Delight.  The two pieces were mounted onto a second piece of Neenah with mounting tape.  The sentiment is also Lil Inkers.

Supplies: Neenah paper, SU! paper, Memento ink, Copic Markers, Lil Inker die cuts, Lil Inkers sentiment stamp, Lili of the Valley Stamp

ATCAS Challenge 32 - Coffee

Today's second card is for Addicted to Clean and Simple with the cue word coffee.  I stamped the image on Neenah paper and  heat embossed and then used a die cut.  The verbiage was stamped and heat embossed onto kraft paper.  The coffee cup was colored with copics.  Next I cut the cup label and applied it to the cup.  The green designer paper was attached to a piece of Neenah cardstock and then the image was placed using mounting tape.  The enamel embellishments were placed randomly and there is white speckles in the paper.  Note the blue is my mouse pad not paper.

Paper - Neenah, Echo Park, SU! 

Copics - YG11,63, N3

Stamp - SU! Perfect Blend

Die Cut - Nestabilities Labels Nine

Enamels - My Mind's Eye

Other - Versafine, clear embossing powder, mounting tape

CASology Week 83: JUMP

Howdy!  It has been over a month since I have posted and I sure hope I can submit this card without any hiccups.  I have struggled for some time with Yahoo, Blogger, Goggle yada yada.  Hopefully my visit to the computer lab will have helped me get back to submitting cards.  Making the card should be the difficult part and posting should be pretty easy but it is terribly time consuming and frustrating when it does not come together.

The month of February has flown by and I have kept busy with a new card making group I started here at my Active 55 Community.  We began with three members in August and now we are up to 22 ladies age 56 to 82, and each comes with different skills.  Although some may be new to card making they are skilled quilters and jewelry artists.  I have led the majority of our twice a month classes and it will be great for me to give new members a chance to teach us new techniques.  Fortunately for me the past year of entering card challenges and subscribing to many blogs has given me an abundance of new techniques to teach.  We had the most fun with washi tape and Costco had 20 rolls for $20 and many of us (me included) went and purchased this great product.  I taught a class on ombre and paint patches and used various punches and that was a very fun class.  The last two classes has had ten ladies come and that is a good number to work with although a little bit crazy, fun crazy.

So my card for CASology is JUMP.  I chose another stamp set from the now retired Our Craft Lounge, "The Pond."  I positioned three of the stamps on an acrylic block and stamped with Versafine and then heat embossed.  Heat embossing gives a nice crisp line and if I am using copics I don't have to wait for the ink to dry.  I stamped a second frog and then colored all the images with copics.  Then I die cut the colored image.  A cloud was needed to give some additional pizzaz and first I embossed cardstock and then die cut a cloud shape.  Frog number two was fussy cut and adhered with pop-ups but I placed it off-center with the hopes it looks like Froggy Boy was in motion. Lastly I added the sentiment and rounded the edges.

Stamp - Our Craft Lounge "The Pond"
Copics - G12, 82, YG11, 17, 63, N0, N3, BG10
My Favorite Things Die Namics - Pierced Circle STAX and Cloud Trio
Embossing Folder - Cuttlebug D'Vine Swirl
Other - Neenah paper, corner rounder, pop-ups, Versafine, clear embossing powderhttp://casology.blogspot.com/2014/02/week-83-jump.html

Update: Things were going smoothly and then I forgot to submit the card and when I went to find it, it was hiding.  So with the mister beside me, who knows nothing about blogs or a PC as he is a MAC snob,  the photo was located.  Reviewing my notes (mandatory) I realized I skipped a step and thus could not find the card.  Hopefully this last part of posting will work as often this is my stumbling block.

CASology: Week 78 DOT

Hello and Happy New Year!  It has been about a month and half since I have posted on my blog.  First I wanted a rest from Christmas cards and then I came down with a respiratory infection which lasted about three weeks.  During the course of coughing I came to the conclusion that I was allergic to my new leather chair which I had had for five months.  The chair was returned to Costco and now I am on my way to feeling good and it is time to make some cards.

This first card of the year 2014 almost coincides with my very first card challenge, which was CASology, dated January 13, 2013.  The cue word of dot made me think of this cute stamp set from Our Craft Lounge.  There are dots in the actual stamp image and the bubbles are dots.  The image was stamped on Neenah paper with Versafine and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  The dot/bubbles were stamped off before stamping and I used Memento.  All the images were colored with copics.  The colored image was reduced in size and I rounded the bottom corners and then mounted with mounting tape onto a second piece of Neenah paper.

With crossed fingers I hope this gets posted.  My last two entries last year were totally goofed up and the CASology post I doubt got posted but the one for ATCAS was posted.  I really have struggled with Blogger and Internet Explorer and then switched to Mozilla Firefox and kept getting cookie notices.  Apparently many people have had this problem and if that is not bad enough the dang Yahoo (P.U.) continues to change the format and I don't know how to get around the changes.  Tuesday I am going to my computer lab for some Help!.

Stamp - Our Craft Lounge "Bubbles" - company no longer in business :( 

Paper - Neenah

Casology.blogspot.com/2014/01/week-78-dot.html

Inks - Versafine, Memento

Copics - Y21, 23, V12, 15, 17, YG 25,63, N0, 04, Y12, 14, BG 10, 15

Other - Embossing powder, corner rounder, mounting tape