Saturday, February 15, 2014

My Valentines


This is going to be a long post, because I have a lot to share with you. This year I got things in gear early enough to not only send out valentines cards to my parents and sister (and they arrived on time!!) but I also made gifts for the girls. One thing that helped was that I used the same basic design for each of the cards. I am also pleased to tell you that I used up the paper with circles cut out that I had left over from the cards I made for Cards for Hospitalized Kids (the guitar-playing dog). The card above was for my father. The white hearts are by Posh Impressions (a border stamp). The cat is by Eat Cake  Graphics. I stamped him twice, once on plain white paper, and once on patterned paper, to which I added some more dots and some hearts, using a ZIG pen. I think the ladybug sticker is by Stickopotamus, but I might be wrong. The hearts on the red cardstock in all of the cards were inked with VersaMark ink and embossed with white embossing powder. All sentiments were done on the computer. All coloring of images was done with Prismacolor pencils.


My sister's card used a heart stamp by Close to My Heart. The bunny is by Darcie's country Folk.


My mother's card uses a heart by Pacific Stamp Exchange (now sadly out of business) and a bear stamp from Darcie's.


The card on the left was for Liat, and uses a heart stamp by CTMH. The lion stamp is from Stampin Up! and the crown sticker is by Mrs. Grossmans. The hearts on Meital's card (on right) are by Darcie's and the elephant is from the same SU set as the lion.


I would never use "sticker sneeze" (doesn't it just look like that, lol?) on a card, but I figure anything goes on an envelope. I made the pillow gift boxes using a template I found on the Internet. I printed it onto cardstock, then coated the back of the cardstock with glue from a gluestick. I adhered CTMH paper to the back, then scored and cut out the template. The flower stamp is also by CTMH, and was stamped onto watercolor paper that had been colored with Distress Inks and then spritzed with water. The purple embossing powder is by Stampendous. 


I made fingerless mitts for the girls using the leftover yarn from their favorite socks. Meital's was Regia Silk, and as you can see I even had a tiny bit left from each 50 gram skein, after making one sock and one mitt from each skein. I think this will be a great way to use up all of the leftover yarn from making standard ladies' size socks. The mitt pattern is based on a free pattern on Ravelry called Mitt Envy, though I left out the cable decoration. If you are on Ravelry, you can find my detailed notes on my project page.


And last but not least, here are Liat's mitts. I was worried (as it turns out, possibly for no good reason) that I wouldn't have enough yarn, so I added some blue of the same yarn as a design element. The yarn (both colors) is Piedmont Yarn's Oakland Wildsocks, a very nice yarn. While Meital got her Valentine's Day card and gift when she came down for breakfast, Liat didn't get hers until late afternoon. Good thing because I didn't finish these until late morning on Friday!

If you stuck it out all the way until the end, thank you! I hope all of you had a great Valentine's Day and a lovely weekend.






Wednesday, February 12, 2014

My Kind of Cooking


I'm doing my favorite kind of cooking...cooking up a surprise for my girls! After printing out the pillow box template at Homemade Gifts Made Easy onto light cardstock, I covered the back with glue (good old UHU glue stick) and added some patterned paper. I am using the medium size template, and one piece of 12" x 12" paper was enough for both boxes. I used a piece of cork for a mat and traced around the dotted lines with a bone folder (not sure why it's called that, it can't actually fold bones and it is probably made of plastic. Hmmm...). The cork is cushier than that green cutting mat and made it easier to score the template. Then I cut out the box along the solid lines.


Working on something to go in the boxes. Can't make a gift box and not put anything inside! Using leftover sock yarn, of which I have a ton and a half. I need to make a lot more of these.


And of course, cards to go with the gifts. Gotta make sure everything is ready by Friday! What are you cooking up today?


Monday, February 3, 2014

Let's Chill


A good friend of Meital's has a birthday coming...she really wants a chinchilla for a pet (not going to happen, from what I hear) so I made this card for her, with suggestions from Meital, who hand wrote the message. It says Mazel Tov, which is what Israelis wish one another on their birthdays. I found the image online, and if it's not really a chinchilla, please don't tell me! Hopefully it is, or at least looks enough like one that Yasmin will like it.

I used OWH sketch #160 for the layout. Stickers are Mrs. Grossman, speech bubble stamp by Art Impressions. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the pink cardstock. The pink patterned paper is discontinued Close to My Heart. 

One fine day I will finally use up all of my old paper and be able to get something that was printed in this century!

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Card Bowl Third Challenge


Alrighty, last post of the day, I promise! For the third and final challenge of the Operation Write Home Card Bowl, we needed to use the newest sketch, released just this morning, #210 and make, once again, a masculine card suitable for sending to men or boys. I was very excited about dusting off my Posh Impressions stamps, which haven't seen much action in recent years (long story, a problem with fading ink not with the stamps). The stamps I used: tiger, sentiment, and animal print, are part of the Playful Posh Circus set. The fern backfround paper had a white background, but it competed for attention with the animal print, which I really wanted to use. Thanks to one of the many very helpful videos on the OWH YouTube channel, I got the idea to mute the background and make it more of a tone on tone look by sponging over with Peeled Paint Distress Ink. I think it works. I used Memento Tuxedo Blank ink and a multi-colored Kaleidacolor ink pad for the animal print. I stamped the tiger on pale orange cardstock, then boosted the color with a little Wild Honey Distress Ink. After fussy cutting him, I popped the tiger up with 3M foam tape, also known as "the Precious."

I hope you're having a great day! Enjoy the Super Bowl (or not). I would enjoy watching, but it will be broadcast live here, which means about 1:30 a.m. So someone out there have some yummy munchies for me, okay? 

Card Bowl Second Challenge


The second Card Bowl challenge is tied to this month's Our Daily Bread Designs challenge on the OWH Stars and Stamps blog, to use brown as a main color. I hope this qualifies! I embossed the image (Art Impressions) in white embossing powder and then painted the barn with bleach. I have no idea who made the wood grain paper, but it is as ancient as most of the rest of my paper stash. I imagine someone out there makes something similar, if not better.

Not Quite Valentines


As always, I have trouble making deadlines when it comes to cards...since these only just went in the mail today to Cards for Hospitalized Kids, I made them look Valentine-ish without actually using the V word. So hopefully they will be fun to get even after the holiday has come and gone. I used some metallic corrugated paper picked up at my local art store, and for the cards with the bear, some very old mini doilies. The bear stamp is by Penny Black. I used leftover scraps from my Christmas cards (I sponged the white cardstock that had been dry embossed with pale pink to change it up a bit) for the panel on the side of the card.

For the cards on the right, with the dog, I used a digital stamp by Birdie Brown that is no longer available. The sentiment is also one of hers. Now I have lots of red and black cardstock with circles cut out, so you can expect to see them featured in another card design soon. I fussy cut the dog, and while I love the way it turned out, it was a heck of a lot of work! As was trying to mount the little guy on foam tape (those paws are teeny tiny!).

The images on both cards were colored in with Prismacolor pencils, and both cards use OWH sketch #206.

Are you making Valentines? I need to get busy on some cards for my family!

Card Bowl First Challenge


In honor ot the 2014 Superbowl, OWH is having a Card Bowl, with three challenges. The first is to make a masculine card (for men or boys) that in some way reflects one of the two teams playing in the big game, the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos. While the Seahawks did eliminate my San Francisco Forty-Niners in the semi-final, I just can't bring myself to root for the Broncos. So here is my Seattle-inspired card. The orca is a sticker from a set of Seattle-related stickers that someone gave me years ago. I think the water paper is by Hot Off The Press, but I'm not sure. Sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. At first I wanted to make a card depicting the Seattle skyline, with a computer-generated sentiment that said, Long Time No... But then I decided that might be weird. What do you think?