To celebrate Operation Write Home's birthday last month, Sandy Allnock had asked card-makers all over the country to have OWH card-making parties. I designed a dozen or maybe different cards, and made kits for easy assembly. From 12 to 15 kits per design. That's a lot of bits and pieces! I planned to host a party for a couple of hours at work, using my vacation leave.
However, working in government has it's drawbacks. Management at my work site wasn't supportive. The concept may have been too "political" for the setting. Anyway, since co-workers couldn't be allowed a few minutes to make a card, or write an Any Hero letter, I was left with about 170 cards to assemble. Here are a few of the ones that got completed this week.
This card combines requirements for Day 216 of 365 Cards - a spattered background - with the second Viva la Verve sketch of October. I spent the day with my friend Kelly, in her WONDERFUL studio. She's a fiber artist, but pitched in to make spattered backgrounds for "miss you" cards that I'll give to Operation Write Home. She used some thin ink (can't remember what she called it) and some dye she had handy. Kelly also provided the vertical strip of painted paper, and had the alphabet stamps to make the greeting.
This card combines requirements for the Society of Stampaholics October challenge - color scheme of camel, amethyst, and
charcoal - with the Mojo Monday sketch for the week #261. Not colors I'd have thought to put together, but not bad. The photo washes out the color of the camel paper, but if you look in the lower left you get an idea of the actual color. Not sure why only one corner of the paper didn't wash-out in the lighting!
The sketch called for a wider ribbon than I had, so I put two strips of ribbon side-by-side. The charcoal mat on the sentiment and the vertical strip add some depth. The "circles" are Nestabilities Blossom dies (largest and then two smaller ones). The verticle strip is from Gina K Designs, the Parisian Garden patterned paper pack. I added three small gems at the bottom corner to give a sense of "grounding", otherwise it felt like the whole focal area was about to float off the left side of the card. The gems were clear, but I colored them with Copic markers.
Tonight's card combines three challenges. The sketch is #140 from Operation Write Home. The StampTV Free-for-all-Friday challenge is to use flowers. And the challenge at Joan's Gardens is to use a piece of designer paper for the background, include a dimensional flower, a flourish, and a sentiment.
The paper is from my stash - something I bought at Jo-ann's Fabric & Crafts a few years ago. The narrow striped paper is from a 6x6 pack by Stampin' Up!, and the flourish is from a Stampin' Up! jumbo wheel. The flourish is embossed in a sparkly green powder I've had (and used a lot) for at least a decade. The dimensional flower was hand-made from a satin ribbon and a heat gun. The sentiment I've also had for years, and don't know who made it. The card just didn't look finished yet, so I tried the 'hand-drawn lines' like Darlene DeVries does, but I'm not very good at it. I fixed a goof by covering the outer section of the lined area with a blue Permapaque marker by Sakura.
Today's card is a combination of a few challenges. The layout is the current Viva la Verve sketch. The current challenge at Our Daily Bread is to include some musical element, and over at Cupcake Inspirations the picture has yummy autumn colored cupcakes with leaves decorating them.
The Verve sketch had a large circle behind the vertical piece, but I didn't want to cover too much of the background. Using Nestabilites leaf die cuts instead of the circle worked well, and fit for the Cupcake Inspirations challenge.
For a musical element, the background was done with the "Allegro" Cuttlebug embossing folder. I inked the folder with the "Cappuccino Delight" Kaleidacolor rainbow ink pad, before adding the paper and putting it thru the Big Shot to get an autumn look.
The sentiment also has a musical theme, but to cover the flowers that are part of the stamped image, I added tiny leaves. These leaves are the extra (cut out) bits from the Nestabilities "Leafy Squares" die cut (second to the largest). The papers used were not particularly bright (one batch was white!), so I used a selection of Copic Markers to color each little leaf for bright autumn look.
One last bit of "leafy autumn" is the orange vertical mat. I used "Tea Dye" Distress Ink and the Nestabilities oak leaf die to stencil a barely discernible background.
However, working in government has it's drawbacks. Management at my work site wasn't supportive. The concept may have been too "political" for the setting. Anyway, since co-workers couldn't be allowed a few minutes to make a card, or write an Any Hero letter, I was left with about 170 cards to assemble. Here are a few of the ones that got completed this week.
