Sketch Challenge #79 - Operation Write Home

I had been wanting to use this image for awhile and decided on making some backgrounds with a brayer and then stamping over that.  I liked it, so I did 3 more.  The stamp is by Prickley Pear.  The paper is from the DCWV Once Upon A Time small stack.  Sorry for the lousy photography.  I usually take my photos outdoors but today I didn't get done stampin' until after dark!

~ Nancy F.

A Sailor and OWH Sketch 78

She's a Sailor!  Audrey, I'm so proud of you!  And this proud aunt made her newly minted Sailor a card using, of course, the Operation Write Home sketch #78.  Audrey's already been shipped off to Goose Creek, SC for Nuke School, so it'll be quite a while before I get to see her, but just as soon as she calls with a snail mail address, I'll be sending this one to her.  And since she doesn't have any internet yet, it'll still be a surprise... ~Nancy F.

Circles and Fame

Joanne gets published!  Go on over to the Stars and Stamps Blog at Operation Write Home for a sampling of Joanne's circle cards!
http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org/
Then join in the fun of creating a card for Sketch Challenge #77! 

Christmas In July

Today I'll be doing some work on Christmas cards, in the hopes that it helps to cool me off.  It's a bit sticky here in these parts, and I thought with the monsoon of a thunderstorm last night that it might cool off a bit this morning, but..........no dice!  So, without delay, here is my first Christmas card in July.  And believe it or not,
I did have a request for this!  Enjoy.   :-)     ~Nancy F.

Day Three - Happyy 4th of July!!!!

I've got a picnic to go to today, so I'm not sure how far I'll get with all the challenges, but I'm going to give it my best shot.  This is my bear card for Challenge #13, Linda wanted a bear and/or heart.  I've got both!

The next Challenge was called Color Me Crazy.  I whipped out one of my "ugly papers".  I may have cheated a little bit here, I noticed when I went to post that the main idea was to color the image an off color.  Oh well, there's always time to make another card and do it right the next time...................... 

 

Onto #15!  - Play on words!  It's getting hot here in these parts, I needed something to make me think cool....

And for #16, Ciara ordered a dog card.  So did Ozzy, who lives here with me....In fact, he said he'd lick my eyelids in the middle of the night if I went for a cat stamp......

So, that's it for me for awhile.  I find that I'm starting to cut corners because I'm rushing, and that's the time to stop, because then the cards suffer.   I also need to make a peanut butter pie and some snickerdoodles for the picnic today and my car needs washing!  Thanks for looking!  ~Nancy F.

Day Two - OWH 4th of July Cardmaking Party

Starting off the day with Challenge #9 - use two images, one sentiment and a piece of designer paper.

 For Challenge 10, Sandy gave us a doozy.  Two cards.  Like I'm not tired already!  lol  I was planning on going easy on myself and just putting a santa hat and an Easter bonnet on a gargoyle, but then I found this cute little tree stamp and realized it wouldn't be too hard to make a spring and a fall card with it.

Next was #11, a pinwheel card.  This was easy and I'm not really happy with my card, it needs more textures on the blue and the green, but I was started to burn out and I took the easy way out.  I think I might call a do-over on this one at a later time.

Onto the next challenge - food!  And, yes, it was dinnertime too.  This paper is from a DCWV stack called Farmer's Market.   I feel really bad that I'm not getting around to all the other blogs to look at everybody else's hard work, but who has time, with all this card making????

OWH Sketch #76

I had to use a sticker on this week's sketch challenge because my brain is half-fried from the rush of yesterday's cards.  My work space is a total wreck, I'm wondering if I'll have time to spiff it up a little for all of today's card making.   ~Nancy F.

Virtual Cardmaking Party - Operation Write Home

I love this stuff!  Everyone has such great ideas and comes up with such interesting challenges.  The parties and blog hops always make me dredge up some old item or technique that's been buried for a long time.  Today I started with Challenge #1 - use camouflage.  And so I cheated.  I already had both of these cards in pieces, waiting for assembly. And I knew I had used the last of my camouflage paper on them, so I glued them together.   I needed the head start because the local Cardaholics group was meeting this afternoon and I lost some good cardmaking time, putting things together to take to that.

The second challenge was to make a card with a fishbowl.  Well, alas, I have no fishbowl.  BUT - there's always a way around it.  I have a snow globe stamp!  So.......  I decided my fish would just have to be swimming in a snow globe.  I first thought of using some old transparencies to stamp on, then decided to pull out my Twinkling H2O paints.  I bought them years ago, along with some special paper that the same vendor talked me into.  I had a blast with them. I embossed a strip of brown to look like a table, cut the edge off a paper doily and used a background paper that reminded me of wallpaper.  I also tested out some new type of liquid pearls for the bubbles in the water.....wish I would have made two of them right from the start.....but isn't that always the way it goes?  Then it was off to my meeting.

Well, the meeting didn't go as planned, especially since I turned out to be the only one who showed up....  :-(
But this just gives me more time for the rest of the challenges.  :-)
The third card was a color challenge called Tie A Yellow Ribbon.  I used a cute tree stamp by Judith and the first tablet that I grabbed had the peach butterfly paper in it, so I didn't have to look very far to find my materials this time. 

Next time, I'll use a smaller tree, the pretty butterfly paper barely shows.....
Challenge #4 was from my "neighbor," Carol, down Rt. 100, in Gilbertsville.  It's called Freedom.

The next challenge is making me nervous.  Vintage Distressed.   I had a rough time coming up with something for this one.  I don't know if it's really very vintage, but it did get distressed.

#6.  Howling at the moon.  Awesome idea.  I thought, how easy is this?  I'll just go into my Halloween stuff and do a spooky house with a moon.  So I did.  And it went into the trash........ This is the second effort.

The final challenge for Saturday was #7.  Subway Summer.  I had never heard of subway style.  But this one was easy.  And it was fun reminiscing too.  I'll end up mailing this one to a friend I grew up with.

Last but not least, challenge #8.  I just bought this stamp, and as soon as you see it, you'll know why I immediately knew that was what I would use the minute I saw the inspiration photo.

Finally!  Done with Saturday's challenges!  Moving on to Sunday!  (I'm really enjoying this, can you tell?) 
~Nancy F.

OWH Sketch #75

When I first saw this sketch, I wasn't so sure I could come up with something because my scraps are pretty scrappy.....lol.   Then I realized I already had lots of ruffles pre-cut for making some red, white and blue ruffle cards, so I made a little adjustment and turned some ruffles into Sketch 75.  I really enjoy the Sunday morning sketch, it helps me think outside of the box.   ~Nancy F.

I'm sure everyone who has been reading our blog regularly (all two of you...) is aware of my niece joining the Navy.  Well, she's going to become a real sailor soon and her gift from her parents is a brand, spanking new laptop.  And I was honored to make her a card to go with it. 

I think she'll be happy with the card, but a million times happier with the laptop!    ~Nancy F.

OWH Sketch #74

I haven't done a sketch lately, so when I saw this one, I thought it was a good time to get back into the groove.  I made this with a K&Co. tablet, Sleepy Tree.  

This weekend was a busy one for cardmaking.  My sister, Linda, came over again and managed to crank out 8 cards.  Her Hero card with the ship is absolutely awesome!!!!      Can you tell she's a musician?  lol            ~ Nancy F.

New Cardmaker - Linda B.

It looks like the Stamp Tramps have enlisted another recruit! Here are Linda B.'s contribution to this month's box of cards shipping to Operation Write Home. We hope to get her to make some more before the end of the month.

Memorial Day

Wear a poppy today.

Memorial Day

Tomorrow is Memorial Day and I plan on remembering all the heroes by making cards for Operation Write Home.  Today I think I found a new recruit - my sister!  And Lord knows, I've got enough "stuff" for fifty new recruits!!!  Here's the samples of this evening's post picnic work.   ~Nancy F.

OWH Sketch 69

As soon as I saw Sketch 69 this week, I knew what I wanted to do.  I've had various types of papers with scenes on them and I have a hard time figuring out what to do with them, because I'm sure they're easier to use if you're scrapbooking.  But this sketch was perfect.  And I have enough of the right color ribbon to make about 6 of these for my next shipment to Operation Write Home.

I also made some ruffled cards this weekend.  The first two went into the trash, I don't know why I was having so much trouble with them, it was mostly my poor taste in papers, because I was more concerned about trying to use up scraps.  When I finally decided to find some nice paper that I liked and wanted to use, things progressed a lot better.  So, the scraps are back in the scrap bin.   ~ Nancy F.

OWH Sketch 68

I like this sketch - it's helping me use up some of those larger sized scraps that are piling up in a drawer.  I also have a lot of cake stickers, which don't really get much use, so maybe it's about time!   ~ Nancy F.

This sketch really got me crackin' and so here's the rest of my contribution to Sketch 68, once my mojo really got in gear.

A special thanks to the person who drew up today's sketch! ~N.

OWH Sketch Challenge 67

April has been pretty crappy in my area, rain, rain, some more rain, a little more rain......  And finally!  May first has brought a beautiful day!  Yeah!  Today's sketch inspired me to use some really cute papers that I've been hoarding for a couple of years.  My niece leaves for the Navy in 2 weeks, and I was thinking of her the whole time I worked on this card.  The dog tag says 'passport to adventure' and I popped the ship and one of the suitcases.  At first I thought it needed the brown bling at the top right, but once I had it on, I thought it was better without it, except that I couldn't peel the blasted things off, so there they will stay..... ~ Nancy F.

Yellow and Black

I had lost my mojo and was looking through the cards posted on Operation Write Home's Facebook page.  These were inspired by Jan Hunnicutt.  She used a lot of vibrant colors, with a lot of black layering.  I'm really happy with the way these turned out!  And I got a little mojo back in the process!  ~ Nancy F.

I really like Nikki's artwork

I'm a big fan of Nikki's Melonheadz Illustrating blog.  I don't do a lot with digi stamps, but her artwork is
just so great.  It's got a special whimsy to it and just makes me smile. 
Check it out here:

http://melonheadzillustrating.blogspot.com/

Normally, I would print out the uncolored version, but I didn't have a lot of time, and so I went with the colored images.  How easy was that!!!  These will go to my shipper for Operation Write Home in May.

~Nancy F.

OWH Blog Skip - Stickers!

I enjoyed skipping around the OWH blogs on Saturday and getting ideas for sticker use.  I'm always apprehensive using them.  I'm a big fan of bunny slippers, and I couldn't resist buying these, but never really could figure out what to do with them.  They were screaming to be used, so here's my "using stickers" attempt.   ~ Nancy F.

Time for Father's Day Cards

This week's challenge at OWH is for Father's Day cards.   I'm still using up all the wonderful images that Jan sent me in exchange for some motorcycling Snoopy's.  Her images are from a retired Stampin' Up set that I love.  I would have liked to use an image that reminded me of my own father, but until I find a stamp of a man sitting in a lawn chair in the garage, lighting fire crackers to scare the starlings, I'll just have to go with trucks!  ~ Nancy F.