Day 31

Wow, I have actually made it a whole month without a miss!  I don't think I've ever blogged for 31 days in a row, no less made and posted a card a day.  I'm patting myself on the back...haha.  So, yesterday both Dave and I came down with the crud, but between bouts of the headache and coughing the aspirins did take affect and I did four cards!  In my "down" time I was blog hopping alot so guess I got a lot of inspiration.  Stamps are T.H. Stampers Anonymous and ctmh (Love).

I am so loving my new dies.  It is nice to look at something other than squares, rectangles and circles.  There is a message on the inside of this one but I forgot to photograph it.  It is T.H. Love stamp and flourish.

Day 30

I didn't get quite enough of this stamped background.  Used my new QK die cuts and a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  I love what you can do with plain cardstock when you have the right tool!

I don't think we have any plans today so I'm hoping to get a few cards done.

Day 29

Here it is10:51 and I am just posting today's card.  Probably because I just did it.  Very busy in the office today and had company this evening, so snuck in to the stamping room before bed.  I really can't miss a day until I really have to while gone on vacation.

This morning first thing I went to Scrapbook Nook because they had Quikutz on sale for 50% off.  Was going to go in the evening but then figured that I might miss out on some good ones.  This is one of the embossing folders.  Also got the square scallop, the small file folder and three embossing folders.  I was a little dissapointed that the embossing wasn't as deeply etched as the Cuttlebug folders are, but I put an extra piece of cardstock under it and ran it through three times and I guess it came out okay.   Oh yeah, while I was waiting for the Nook to open I ran over to Ross and scored on some hot pink converse for $19!

Sentiment stamp is CTMH, background is Technique Tuesday, flowers Oriental Trading, pearls Martha Stewart.

Day 28

I've been wanting to try this side step card, and I really enjoyed doing it.  It isn't nearly as time consuming as the Tri Shutter card but is still somewhat unique.

The floral background is not pattern paper, but a "random" stamped image with CTMH stamps in 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation stamping. I really like the way it turned out.  I put Rock Candy Stickles on the white brad.  The flowers are from Oriental Trading.  Ribbon, ctmh.

The sentiment is Studio G stamp.  Pearls are Martha Stewart, ribbon slide is ctmh.

Day 27

Didn't know if I was going to make it today with Day 27.  We had an all day Manager's training.  I got it started thsi morning and finished it as soon as we got home.  I hand cut the card and all pieces.  The roof is embossed with swiss dots.  It's the only texture envelope I had that wasn't a floral or other design.  The only stamping is the stem and leaves (ctmh) and the sentiment (Club Scrap) inside the card.  I've doen this card before but never used the hinges.  I think they add that extra dimension to it. 

http://taylordconcepts.blogspot.com/

I just found this great blog, check it out.  Beautiful artful creations.

Day 26

Getting close to the tme when I am going to have to take a break from my "card a day" to go on vacation.  I think I have decided that I will make two cards a day, or there-abouts, to get caught up after I get back to catch up.  We have lots of plans in Florida and I don't want to be stressing out about posting cards. 

This card was done with a gal at church in mind who is buying her first home.  Don't know if this will be it or not, going to do another one and see which seems right.  I don't know her too well, so don't know if she likes girly stuff or more basic.

The stamp is a Club Scrap stamp that I bought on Ebay in 2001.  Haven't used it an awful lot, but I do like it.  I have used just the door part before and it looks good.  It didn 't seem to lend itself well this time to ribbon or brads, but I really like the hinge with it. 

Day 25

I just had to try this little pocket card and had the perfect stamp for it.

Stamps are Unity, CS CTMH, flower Sprites 2 Prima

Day 24 and a Little bit More

This is the inside of the border of the die cut on yesterday's, and the outside of the same one.  Does that make sense?  If you read yesterday's post it should.  I cut it exactly in half and mounted it on either side.  The embossing looks silver but it is actually Satin Pearl.  The whole thing reminds me of a corset.  This is also more of the Basic Grey Stack.

I got to play a little bit more yesterday and was able to pick up some more clay to finish my shadow box.  The first post of this is in an older post.  If you click "stamping" in the labels it will be the first one.  This was fun to do as an experiment but I don't think I'll be doing any more.  The idea came from this month's Stampers Sampler, and when I saw that I just had to try it.  I will eventually get some miniatures to put in the cubbies.  The images are stamped with rubber stamps, and one with a cuttlebug embossing folder.  Acrylic stamps do not work for stamping in clay.  The stamping n the cubbies are actually pieces that I had experimented with over time and put into a can with others.  I went through the stash and found some I thought would look good with it.  It took four packs of clay.  For a couple of them I mixed light and dark clay for a variation.  When you bake fimo it comes out kind of dull looking.  But with the inking it gives it a little sheen and feels real nice in your hands.  The dye inks take a little longer to dry.  For actual stamping you have to use archival or stazon ink.  The brown images on this are archival and the black is stazon.  I had to build up the center area so that you don't have to use a ton of clay to bring it up to the frame height.  I sacrificed a corrugated plastic parking sign for the community and it worked perfect, just had to do two layers and glue them together.  But when I was done I realized that I had foam core I could have used.  It would have been much easier to cut!  I didn't need the sign anyway, we got a new towing company....haha.

Day 23

More of the Basic Grey paper Stack.  I can't believe how many patterns are in it, I still have more that I haven't used.  I love the way the die came out.  I was kind of bummed after I bought this die when I realized that it actually cut it in two pieces.  But on this one, I cut two and mixed them up to have the border in a different color.  I'll use the other parts in tomorrows card in a little different way.  What is bad though, is when you go to bed at night and can't sleep because you are thinking about how you are going to make your next card.

Both stamps are Unity, different month's kits.  The buttons are CTMH.

Day 22

I got my new Unity Stamps today and the HSN embossing envelopes.  The envelopes are the Romance set, so they didn't particularly go with this one.  I did emboss it, but with the swiss dots instead.  It's another 5"x7", I figured I better use them up.

I knew that this would be the first stamp that I used out of this set, I just love it.  The own is stamped seperately and attached with pop dots.  I also wanted to try "watercolor" with reinkers.  I stamped the image in archival ink so that it wouldn't run, then put a drop or two (one would have been plenty for this project) in a plastic pallet and used the water brush to add water and apply the ink with.  The center to the flower is gold Stickles.  The owl is stamped seperate and adhered with pop dots.  I wanted the sentiment to look like it was hanging from the image by the ribbon.

Day 21

I didn't seem to get enough of the masking technique yesterday, so thought I'd do it with new stamps and a different theme.  I love these CTMH Childhood Memories stamps.

I stamped the little flowers first but then thought that it needed a little dimension but didn't want to diminish from the scene by putting ribbon etc on it.  I think these little flowers were quite appropriate.  The flower center is done with Distress Stickles.

The scanned image brings out the colors a little bit more.  I used Tim's Distress Inks on this one, where I had used CTMH on the other masked card.  I think the distress gives it a much softer look.  The colors are Scattered Straw, Broken China, and Shabby Shutters, applied with the sponge tool.

Day 20

This is a 5"x7" card and I haven't done any of these in ages, but I needed a little more room to do what I wanted to do with this image.  The inspiration was from Suzanne C of Suzanne's Stamping Spot.  Same idea, different tree.  The tree stamp is Unity.  The background is masked and sponged ink.  The sentiment is CTMH.

If you look real close you can see teeny tiny bling on the branches.  It is on a white card base, but the white was just a little too much of a contrast, so I inked the edge with Black Soot Distressing ink.  Not enough to make it totally black, but just enough so that it isn't shocking.

Day 19

Today is my son's birthday.  I won't give away his secrets, but he's reached a milestone.  Oh my, now I have two that have reached that milestone...yikes!  Can I say I was a young mother?  But the other thing is... will anyone believe it?  Well, anyway, Happy Birthday Skip.  I should have done a birthday card today in honor of Skip, but I did a thanks card and I will say thanks for being my son and loving your mother. xoxo

The base card design is from Godelieve (Stampingmatilda).  It's the first one I've done of this design and I like it because it makes a 4x6 a square.  At least with using this particular embossing folder.

This is the extent of my talent for coloring in stamped images, I'm just not good at it.  Used distress stickles for the flower center.  Again, the paper is Basic Grey Eva.

Day 18

This is my first card for the 2peasinabucket.com Stamping Education Board Year in Cards 2010.  I missed out on it last year, but I am looking forward to it this year. 

Paper is Basic Grey Eva, Stamp is Unity

Day 17 Not a card

Not a card, but it was my project for the day.  I have worked on this for about 4 hours.

 Right now it's a picture frame, but I think I am going to make a small shadow box out of it.  The tiles are made with polymer clay.  I stamped most of the images in the wet clay before baking.  I found out though that acrylic stamps do not work for that, and there were some that I really wanted to use for this project.  After baking I inked all of the tiles with either distress ink or ctmh dye ink.  I accented the stamped image with a second color.  The images that were not pre stamped are done with archival or stazon ink. 

I like the stamping that was done in the wet clay more than the other.

The frame is painted with white acrylic.  I think if the tiles were painted with acrylic they would have been easier to stamp and ink, but I wanted the glossy finish on them without having to use a sealer.  I think next I will put a backing on it, add a stamped image of some kind, and build it up with more tiles on the stamped image to bring it up level with the frame, leaving spaces for little cubby holes.

Day 16

Phew!  Didn't think I was going to make it today.  We spent the day shopping, then had to put stuff away, have dinner and then finally get in to make my card!  Got some cool stuff today though we had to drive all over South King County to do it.  Got my spellbinders Nestabilities which I used on this card, and the Basic Grey Papers.  Haven't actually bought patterned papers for ages, but I needed a little inspiration.

The stamps are Stampers Anonymous and The {Stamps} of Life. 

Day 15 Some Lovely Lace

I've been wanting to do this for a long time.  It is vellum heat embossed with white EP.  It was kind of hard to stamp the little 2" background stamp and have it match up, even though it was acrylic.  I am going to change the title though, to something to do with Romance.  I attached the vellum with glue dots under the heaviest pattern flower. 

Day 14

This design came from Dapple Designs Blog.  I thought it was very fitting for the Relay for Life cards.  Butterfly and ticket stamp are Unity. 

Day 13 A little Glitz

Okay, so I know that I say t his all the time, but this one was really fun.  I can't help but say it, you know?  The paper is a Making Memories 8x8 pack that I picked up a long time ago.  I don't use patterned paper much anymore, so glad I was able to dig into that stash and use some up.  Alpha is the negative of a Heidi Swapp set. 

Flower is Prima. Chipboard, stamp and glitzy ric rac are CTMH.  Flower has Distress Stickles on it, "t" has Marth Stewart glitter. 

I had a link to Caardvarks in my bookmarks and this is one of their sketches that I was going to enter into a contest.  But when I went to submit it, I realized that the link didn't refresh and it was from a contest in September.  Well, it was still fun to do.

Day 12

A little bit more stitching today.  My thread broke four times while doing the zigzag. 

The petals are inlined with straight stitch.

Day 11 Woo Hoo!

Only 354 more to go!  But then, if I make it to the year mark, why quit after that?  Well, we'll see how it all goes.  A few days ago I didn't think I'd make it to a week.

I think the way to keep it alive is to do different techniques and maybe use some stuff I haven't used in a while.  I bought my Pixie sewing machine some time ago, but have only used it a couple times.  I really like to add stitching to my work, but I broke my good Viking by using it on paper so much.  And you know, I consider myself a fairly well accomplished seamstress, but for some reason I haven't mastered this little machine enough to do a straight, straight stitch.  So I decided not to even try when I did the little squares.  But then I found out that I could do not so bad with the other stitch variation, so maybe there's hope for me.

Stamps are probably Inkadinkado, not sure.  Little square are mounted with  pop dots for dimension. I had fun doing this card.

Sunday was a much more "accomplished" day.  Church this morning, made taco salad for late lunch and to Small Group in the evening.  I don't feel quite so much like a loafer now.  Oops, I gave it away, I am posting this (very) early Monday morning, but it is still Day 11 isn't it?

Day 10

I was insired for these little flowers by the new Unity Kit of the Month which I have not received yet (when I actually get the set, I'll do a card so you can see the original).  The embossed circle part of the flowers are Stamps of Life.  The stems and leaves are ctmh.  Sentiment is ctmh. 

I have no more cards in reserve, so we'll see now if I can keep up.  I didn't make one card yesterday.  A first for some time.  In fact, I didn't do much of anything useful yesterday.  We went to see Avatar at noon.  Three hours of sitting in front of the big screen just took too big of a hunk out of my day and I felt like I lost the whole thing.  Does that make sense?  I think it's much nicer when it's in th evening and you've actually had a chance to accomplish something.  Well, today is a new day, let's see what I can make of it.

Day 9 Late Night Inspiration

Well, I didn't do a card all day yesterday.  I've been doing my card the day before I am going to post it so that if something happens and I don't have the time to do it, I still have one ready to go.  But so far, I've always done one a day anyway.  But yesterday I just didn't have the "umph" to go in the scrap room and make one.  But I did surf the web on and off through the day looking for inspiration.  Then I went to bed at my usual time, dozed off for about 20 seconds, then was wide awake thinking about the card that I didn't make.  I wanted to do somthing a little different from what I have been doing.  So I got up and started playing with the alcohol inks.  This is what I came up with.

It has terracotta, currant and sunshine yellow alcohol inks dripped on my glass mat with some blender fluid which I smooshed the clear embossed glossy card stock.  It took a lot of playing with the colors to come up with the desired shade.  I was going to put a word or phrase on it, but decided, like many of my other cards lately, to leave it blank.  I kind of like the way the color kind of pooled on the bottom to make it look like a little hill.  Stamps are T.H. Stampers Anonymous.

I am wondering though if making myself do one card a day is going to make it no more fun, but something that I "have" to do?  If it gets to that point I may stop doing this.  I don't want to make somethng that I have a passion for into something that I am dreading because I have to do it just to keep up.

Today we are going to be off to see Avatar.  I have heard that it's hard to get in, so we are starting at noon, and if we don't get in to that one, we'll try for the one o'clock showing, and if not that one, then the three or four.  I figure we will make it somehow that way.  And the mall, Sam's club and Walmart are right next door to entertain us in the meantime.  I'm sure they love it when the theaters have popular movies!

Day 8

Various stamps, I think they are Technique Tuesday.  I have taken all my acrylics, other than the CTMH, Stampers Anonymous, and Stamps for Life out of their original packaging and put them in binders.  It is great for organization, but now all the ones that I have bought at the stores are unidentifiable. 

Chipboard is Bazzill painted with acrylic and CTMH Creat-a-Shade (I love that stuff cause it gives the acrylic a glossy finish very easily).  Dream stamp is CTMH.  Large pink flower is Heidi Swapp.  I really dug into my sash for this card.  I need to do that more often.

Day 7

I love this big eyed owl.  Him and the sentiment are Unity stamps.  The dots are Stamps of Life.

Day 6

This was fun.  I made a card some time ago with this same lace and paper, so thought I would play with the elements and see what I could come up with.  It looks totally different from the original.  I did another that I will be posting later that looks different still from this one.  The stamps are Unity, flowers are from Oriental Trading. 

It's the first time I've used these stamps, aren't they cute?  I love the little birds and ddin't even realize they were there when I bought the set.

All black is heat embossed.  The background stamp for the flower is not Unity, but CTMH,

Day 5

Another tri-shutter card.  I actually took this one apart after the first attempt.  I did the outsides one night and then came back to do the side pieces, and used a stamp from Stampers Anonymous and the style really didn't match the rest of the card.  So I took them off and started over again.  I'll know not to change styles in between.  I left the inking on the sentiment and probably should have changed it too, but I didn't.

I have only used the black embossing powder a couple times but really like it.

I liked the chipboard flower but felt that it needed something to make it pop.

Papers, stamps and chipboard are CTMH.

Day 4

I have a really hard time photographing these tri shutter cards.  They take a long time to make, but are a lot of fun to do.

Paper and quote on right are CTMH.  Bird stamp and center quote are Stampes Anonymous.  White heat embossing on pink.  Chipboard is inked.  Paper strips in the middle are ink masked.  Tutorial for tri shutter card is on Splitcoast Stampers site.

Day 3

I made it three days!  I had the worst time though, kept loosing stuff.  Lost the border punch.  Searched all over and couldn't find it.  Had to clean off my table and still didn't find it.  Dave wondered in and helped.  He said, "look on the floor."  Sure enough, it had fallen on the floor. When all else fails... look on the floor! 

Flower image is Unity.  Buttons CTMH.