Where is spring?

Someone tell me what happened to spring!?!?  We're finally seeing a little bit of the sun today, but not enough for me!  At least I've got plenty of cards to make, so that will keep me busy.  I'm still attending Design Boot Camp at Operation Write Home.  The latest lesson is the Rule of Thirds.   Even with other embellishments, your eye is still drawn to the hedgie stamp.

The Tuesday tutorial was about making fake wood grains.  I realized that I had a bag of small, old stamp
pads that I thought were pretty dried out, but they actually worked out really well for this technique.  I will try this again!

And to finish, the Midweek Throwdown was to make a card using Ombre.....  My imagination was sparked almost immediately by the first example.  

That's it for today!  I'm hoping to do some stamping with friends tomorrow.  The hardest part of that for me is not being able to drag along everything I own!     :-)

Sketch 164 and a wee bit o the Irish

It was another busy work week and I tried to do all my card catching up this weekend.  Sketch 164 is my tribute to St. Patrick's Day.  I altered the sketch a wee bit.

Next up is the midweek throwdown.  It called for using blue and green and adding a little orange.  I tried to think of something orange for my focal point.  Garfield was the first thing that came to mind.  

Last up are the "inchies".  They were mentioned on OWH TV on Thursday night and I went hog wild with them.  I love inchies!  I also used the ribbon/brad trick that was discussed on the Stars and Stamps blog last Tuesday.

Thanks for checking in!  ~ Nancy F.

Sketch 163

Finally!  I found some stamping time!  Here's Sketch 163 -

And the Midweek Throwdown - I used the bottom row of tic-tac-toe - rhinestones, ovals and embossing.

I also tried Tuesday's tutorial for spirelli, and used the sketch for today.  But I'm not too thrilled with it.

And these are from some of the new stuff that my friend, catwoman gave me last week.  You gotta love playing with new toys!

Thanks for checking in!

OWH Sketch 162

No frills blog post tonight.

ODB and MWTD at OWH

I was busy having a catch up day again.  I made the top card for the Our Daily Bread monthly challenge.
The last card is using the recipe for the Midweek Throwdown.  Now I'm ready for tomorrow's sketch!
But first - laundry!

Sunday Sketch Challenge 161

Happy Sketch Day!  I whipped up a batch of frogs on tricycles today.  The stamp is from Picture Show.  I've been getting some spam comments on the blog lately, nothing bad, mostly just sentences that don't make much sense.  I'm hoping it stops so I don't have to turn on a word verification.  Wish me luck!

~Nancy F.

Catching up on challenges

I had a great weekend with the blog hop, but never got all the challenges finished.  Today I took a few hours of mini vacation from work and got a few more cards done.  Jen asked for cards with a caffeine theme.

The Desert Rose Stamper challenged us to make cards with 3 layers of white.  This one was tough for me!
What a good challenge though.  I made a card that I like, and it's not like anything I normally do, so it was a great exercise in doing something new.

Over at 104cards.blogspot.com, the challenge was to go without glitter but still have some glitz.  I don't know if this fills the bill.  I might make another attempt at something better.

The next cards are my examples of focal points for Boot Camp.

This week's Midweek Throwdown was for a fancy fold card.  There are a lot of great ideas on the OWH website and I'm hoping to have enough time left today to go make some of the other examples.

That's it for now!  I'm off to make a couple cheeseburger and necktie cards!  Thanks for looking!  ~Nancy 

Sketch 160 and some more VCMP

I was too tired last night to continue on with my quest for the proper sandwich for selective embossing and so this morning, I went at it again, with success!  The proper sandwich was NO sandwich.  Who'd a thunk?...  I combined that quest with Things With Wings from Yvonne's Blog.  The griffin stamp is from Renaissance Art Stamps.

For the With Wheels challenge from Linda at Creepin' Along, I already had this Impression Obsession truck stamp colored, so this was a fast card.

To finish up for the moment, here's my take on Sketch 160.  The stamp set is from Unity.  I used mostly chalks on this one.

The caffeine challenge is up next, and for that, I need to go have some of the actual thing!

Virtual Card Making Party!

I finally finished all of last week's challenges and couldn't wait to get started on the Virtual Card Making Party.  I get so inspired by all the blogs and requests for certain types of cards.  I find that I'm so much more creative than if I'm just sitting in my craft area, staring at my stuff.
The first blog on the list is Scrappinintervention.  Chevrons, here we go!

The next stop along the way is Misty's Blog.  She's challenging us to make cards for kids, using animals.
I went with dogs because the dog in this house, has been boofing all morning.  At nothing, I might add.

Next up is a selective embossing project which I've never done before.  I expect my trash can to get a lot of my first attempts....

Well, it seems selective embossing was a bust at my house.  I had a lot of ripped paper and I just couldn't get my sandwich correct with the Sizzix.  Not to let it get the best of me, I finished up with this card.  I cut

a hole out for my stamp instead.  We'll see if my mood improves for another go-round of it tomorrow.

Tuesday's Tutorial and more sketch 159

I'm still playing with Sketch 159......

Tuesday's tutorial was for using spray inks.  I don't have any, but it sparked my memory of my old Blo-Pens.
I was afraid I didn't have them anymore, but I do!  All it took was a few drops of water to get them working again and I had a blast!   I'll be playing with them more, for sure, but I've still got more catching up to do first!

Wednesday's Midweek Throwdown was to make a card using our state flag's colors.  Pennsylvania's flag is mostly navy blue with an emblem in the center, so I used a Navy sticker so I could get the weekly challenges finished and move on to the Virtual Cardmaking Party this weekend.  VCMP's really get me motivated!!!!

OWH Sketch 159 and some catching up

It's been another busy week and I haven't had time to post anything, but I did manage to get caught up with the Our Daily Bread Challenge for February, the Midweek Throwdown and Sketch 159!  The ODBD challenge this month was to make a card with fruit.  I've used this mouse paper before and this is the last piece.  I feel good that I'm using things up!

The Midweek Throwdown was a call for cards for kids.  Those are my very favorite cards to make for OWH, I bet half my monthly box contains them.

And to finish up for today, Sketch 159, slightly tweeked.  I made this card for my nephew's birthday, which is coming up in April.  The glue on the toothpicks/drumsticks isn't quite dry yet.

A Week's Worth

I'm falling behind in my resolution to do all the OWH challenges this year and it's only February.  I've managed to get caught up this weekend.  Tuesday's tutorial was using watercolor markers.  I don't have any, so I used watercolor papers.  They're like the old fashioned watercolors in the metal box, but the pigment is on a piece of paper instead.  I also used the same stamp as in a previous challenge  This time I took Paula's suggestion of putting a sentiment across the lower left.  Good suggestion, Paula!

The midweek throwdown called for a birthday card.  

I enjoyed looking through all the cards from the hop on Saturday.  Here's my critter cards -

And to finish up, or start the new week, depending on how you look at it, here's Sketch 158.  It's a midweek birthday critter!

I hope I don't get this far behind again!

...................I just realized I haven't done the ODBD fruit challenge yet!

Sketch 157 - Operation Write Home

I took a look at the sketch this morning, but didn't print it out.  When I started to make my cards, I was having trouble, because I'm awful at matching 3 different papers.  I ended up with these:  (stamp is Heidi Grace)

I took another look at the sketch and printed it out this time.  That's when I realized I made it harder than it had to be.  That's typical!  For these I used an old SU set - Furnished With Love.

I tried to do something similar with my Cheery Lynn screen door die.  I got this almost a year ago, came right home and cut out a bunch of doors and dogs and then did nothing with them.....sometimes I really annoy myself.....  :-)

Midweek Throwdown and some more Boot Camp

I'm a little late on all of the above.  The Midweek Throwdown was for an Easter card.  I got this stamp from the Outlines booth at the last rubber stamp show in April, 2012.  I've heard they closed up shop.  :-(  

I've been continuing my Boot Camp work and came up with this for analogous.  I guess it could also count for colors based on nature.  I got the stamp at a yard sale.  I have a lot of large stamps that just fill up the whole front of the card and I've become so used to having a lot of "stuff"- mixed patterns of card stock and ribbons and brads etc., that just having one big scene on the card front seems plain.  How sad is that?

For my last trick, I used purple and green as my complimentary colors, and a SU stamp set, from Kim.

OWH Design Boot Camp and some other fun stuff

I snuck a peak at Design Boot Camp and work on Monday and couldn't wait to get home and play in the stamping room.  I had all sorts of ideas in my head, pulled out stamps and stamp pads and cut cardstock.
EVERY STINKING CARD that I started to make got black ink smudges on it.  In fact, EVERYTHING I TOUCHED had black ink on it.  I threw in the towel and made this card with scissors and a fancy piece of paper.   It's my ode to monochromatic.  It's also CAS, which is something I've been trying to work on for some time.  There will be  more odes to the other color schemes once I find where all the black ink is coming from!

Today I was too excited about chalk board art to worry about the rest of boot camp.  Tomorrow is the midweek throwdown, so it looks like I'll have an appointment with analogous on Thursday and complimentary colors on Friday.  Maybe I'll even throw in nature inspired then too. 

But today - chalkboard art was awesome!!!!  You can get smudges all over the place, and IT DOESN'T

MATTER!   I made mine look like an old time hand held chalkboard that someone just did some doodling on.  I cut out the brown paper with my old Coluzzle template and then embossed it with the woodgrain folder.  I didn't have a lot of time this evening, so I'm really anxious for the weekend to come so I can play around with this some more.

Sketch 156 - Operation Write Home

Once again, I'm trying to use the tablet that I got on sale shortly before Christmas.

I don't think these came out quite as well as the first card.

And these started out for the sketch, but didn't end up that way.  I have a lot of cards that turn out like that....