365 Cards Day 141 and ASD July Kit

It's time for 365 Cards Sketchy Sunday again! Where does the time go?! I've been so busy this summer, and more to come, that I've not had much time to just SIT and enjoy it. It's been in the high 70s, even up to 80 here. Which is normal and perfect. No humidity, nice ocean breezes, sunny days. What's not to love? We won't get miserable hot until the middle to late fall, when it's fire season and the Santa Anna winds blow. October is horrible here, usually. That's our "high summer." But let's not count those chickens yet... On to the card!

I really loved the sketch for today. Also, I made this card at my church scrap club, so I was not home where I could fuss and look over all my hoard. I only had a few items with me, so I had to make do with what I had! I was not able to over think!

I used SU cardstock, K&Company pp, and some paper scraps from my scrap bag. I used Spellbinders dies for my ovals.

Check out the center of my flower. I added a flat button, then I cut the shank off a "crystal" button and attached to the top of the flat button. Pretty cool, huh?

Y'all will be disappointed to hear that I cannot play along at 365 Cards all week. I will do tomorrow as it's my normal DT day, but I am at Vacation Bible School all week, plus I've been getting ready to go on two vacations, so I won't be able to make extra cards this week. However, if you still want to visit, I will be posting one of my Apron Strings Designs July Kit reveals every day this week. That means scrapbook pages people!

Here is one: I used a sheet of Little Yellow Bicycle Traveler paper as my background. Then, I ran a Matchbox car in some ink, then "drove" it over the paper to add tire tracks. (I know, so funny!) As you can see, this is a page about my son getting his driver's license. This was from last year, but, at least it's scrapped, finally! The key is from a filing cabinet, and I hope I never need it! I've been wanting to do one of those "MasterCard" pages for a while now, and this was the perfect opportunity.

I have to admit that this month's ASD kit was hard for me. I tend to want to use everything and the kitchen sink when I scrapbook, but for the Design Team I can only use what I'm given. So I have to be creative and think out of the box...or maybe I have to STAY IN the box. But, on the plus side, in no time at all I make about 8 pages! Gotta love that!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

365 Cards Day 140 and Triple the Sketch #65

Last day for 365 Cards ShortCuts Week! The challenge is to use paint on your card. This was a hard one. Not because of the paint, which I use all the time, but because of the ShortCuts plastic. The paint kept rubbing off! I kept making a mess and mistakes! But finally I made a card!

This card was a trial and error production! So I'll walk you through what I did - adding in the mistakes as they became happy accidents! I made a brown card from Bazzill cardstock, then attached a piece of Close to My Heart printed paper. Then I tried to stamp a flower onto the frosted plastic with paint, but it kept chipping off. (The flower is a Making Memories foam stamp.) So I stamped the flower with brown Staz-On ink. Then I tried to cut the flower out with a Spellbinders circle die. But the plastic was too thick. I did get a very cool embossed look on the plastic however!

Then I cut out a scallop circle from pp. To get it to adhere to the plastic, I ran it through my Xyron, and then attached it to the plastic. I decided I still wanted a circle shape, so used my Creative Memories circle cutter to cut the frosted plastic, at the very edge of the scallop paper. The CM tool worked like a charm!

Then I edged the plastic circle with pink acrylic paint. If you mess with it, the paint will chip off. But it does look cool. I punched a hole in the center of the stamped flower with a Fiskars anywhere punch, then added the jumbo brad. I finished off with some ribbon and a tag-shaped sentiment. WHEW! It's very little paint, but it does have paint!

Now for Triple the Sketch #64. I had a June ASD kit sitting on my table, and just loved the Jenni Bowlin "bingo card." It was perfect for this sketch.

The cardstock is Bazzill, Stampin' Up, and DCWV. I embossed the blue DCWV paper with the Cuttlebug Script EF, then sanded off the color. The pp is Jenni Bowlin also. I love the layers on this card.

I used my trusty Fiskars scallop blade to cut the red paper strip. I also decorated the bingo card with a red brad and a red button. The sentiment is a Studio G stamp.

A note about the TTS sketches...since I mostly use them for cards, I take a lot of liberties with the sketches. I do try to incorporate one main element from the sketch. For this sketch, I used the center strip and the scallop edge as my main focus.

Also, Triple the Sketch is helping Layers of Color celebrate their birthday! There are fabbie prizes to be won! Go and see!

365 Cards Day 139 - ShortCuts Week

It's Friday! I do not want it to be Friday...because all next week I am at Vacation Bible School at my church and that just wears me out! My husband and both teens are also working there for the week, and my younger son is participating in VBS. We will all be so tired and I will have zero time to scrap or play on the computer! But on the plus side, the kids LOVE coming to VBS and they have such a great time. It makes me very happy to be part of their joy!

Ok, now for the 365 Cards challenge. Today we were to make a card with a paper piercing pattern on it. Now, I read that several times to make sure it said "piercing" and not "piecing" so...if I got it wrong, so be it! This was hard for me. I am piercing challenged! So this is pretty lame!

I used a ShortCuts gift card holder again, and some scraps of paper left over from my July ASD kit. You can see I pierced my tag, but I also pierced the vines and other elements on the printed paper. Told you. It's lame! But I do love those gift card holders. This one was a cream color. It looks white here, but it's the cream one.

Now for the last MacMae card. I got this idea from Split Coast Stampers. I get their newsletter and one day they had an idea for making a holder for a chocolate bar. I made mine to hold a large tag instead.

To decorate the holder, I used Lime Rickey and Sassafras papers, plus a sticker from the Cosmo Cricket sheet that was in the kit.

For the tag I used some stamps I had in my stash. I think they are Autumn Leaves, but I tossed the packaging so am not 100% sure. It turned out cute. And this is just "for show" - I do NOT live at 4888 Party Avenue!

365 Cards Day 138 - ShortCuts Week

The challenge at 365 Cards for today is to use a quote (or poem) on your card. The DT was told to use a poem, and I'd already done my card before we got the news that we could use a quote instead. Quotes are easier, but I was proud of myself that I did a poem!

I thought I remembered an Emily Dickinson poem about a butterfly, so went online and looked. I did find one, so typed it up on the computer. This is the card I made to showcase the poem.

After I printed the poem, I grunged up the paper with Tim Holtz ink and some crumpling. I also swiped some Colorbox chalk ink onto it. Then I used Quick Quotes Powder Puff ink to stamp the butterflies over the text. I matted the poem with black cardstock to make it pop.

The flowers are all from my latest Michael's run. Some are Prima and some are from the bridal department. The velvet flower is Making Memories. I am not sure where that black netting came from. It was in my ribbon bag.

The card base is black Bazzill. I attached a piece of Graphic 45 clock paper to the card. I then stamped butterflies onto a sheet of ShortCuts frosted plastic with Staz-On ink. To glue the plastic to the card, without having the glue show, I dabbed liquid glue to the back of the butterflies. Worked like a charm! I am loving all my vintage cards. It's such fun to create and make a mess.

Here are a few more MacMae cards from the July kit. Again, very simple and just using the product in the kit.

This one is a 3x3 gift tag. The sentiment is a Cosmo Cricket sticker. I got a sheet of those in the kit.

The next card is one of those that I am not too fond of. It's not my normal style.

This card was an accident. I had punched the flowers out of the corner of the green dotted cardstock, then realized it was not a scrap but an actual card! So...I made it into a card by putting a scrap of hot pink behind the punched area, then adding the bling centers. It looked way too plain, so I punched flowers from the same green cardstock and attached them to the card to give it dimension. I think it needs a sentiment too, but stepped out of my Gloria Box and did not put one on the front!

I think I have one more MacMae card to show you tomorrow. This was a great kit to play with!

365 Cards Day 137 - ShortCuts Week

Here it is, Wednesday already and we are half-way through our ShortCuts week at 365 Cards. I have really enjoyed these products. I am finished with the week's challenges (yes, the DT gets the challenges early...) and I have to say, it's been pure fun!

Today's challenge is to "bind two pieces of something together to make a card." As soon as I read that I started to brainstorm. Most ideas were not "card worthy" but then I remembered a trend about 4-5 years ago (very popular with Close to My Heart, I think) where you made a pocket card by "binding" the edges of the card with eyelets. So, I took that idea and ran with it!

I used one of the ShortCuts frosted sheets and made a triangle out of it. After making my card base, I attached the triangle to the base with mini brads, forming a pocket for my card.

Here is another view of the pocket. I love the frosted plastic!

The card pocket is Bazzill and DCWV cardstock, and I think the striped paper is Paper Loft, but I'm not positive. It came in my LSS club kit for June. The card pocket is 6x6 inches. I made my card from Bazzill and Graphic 45 paper. Graphic 45 is my FAVORITE paper EVER. The card is smaller than the base, so that it can slide in and out of the pocket.

The back of the card is plain cardstock so that a message can be written on it.

I used a SU stamp for the greeting and then attached a ribbon "tag" to make it easy to pull the card out of the pocket. The flowers are out of my bin so no clue who makes them. The brad is K&Company and has been in my stash for a long time.

Now, for some more cards from the MacMae July Card Kit. These are all VERY simple cards. I just used what was in the kit, plus some stamps and ink, and some punches. I tried very hard not to dig into my hoard for these! All the cards use the Basic Grey Lime Rickey paper.

The sentiment for the card below was printed off the computer. I think I saw it in a catalog and just recreated it with my fonts. The card is gray, but here it seems sort of purplish.

This last card also has a computer generated sentiment. I am not sure where I saw this one, but I liked it so recreated it with fonts.

I have a few more MacMae cards to show you later this week. You can make quite a lot from the kit. I did not go crazy and use all my supplies on one or two cards, but tried to stretch the kit pretty far to show what a value they are.

365 Cards Day 136 - ShortCuts Week

The challenge for today at 365 Cards is...black, white, and red all over. Which means you can ONLY use black, white, and red on your card. I had the added challenge of using ShortCuts product. I used a gift card holder. The holders come in kraft, cream, white, and black! Lucky me!

I found some bits and pieces of black, white, and red paper in my scrap bin that all had sort of an elegant, Victorian feel. I think these are all Little Yellow Bicycle. The ribbon was from my scrap bin too. The gift card holders are only about 4.25x3 inches, so are great for using scraps.

The ribbon has some lace on the edges...yummy! I also used some pearls and a sentiment that I made on the computer.

Here is a shot of the holder with the ribbon untied.

Here is the inside. The gift card I had was NOT black/white/red...but I wanted to show how the holder worked, so I had to use it!

I cut the hearts with a Spellbinders die, and the flowers were made with a Stampin' Up punch.

I added a strip of white paper so I could sign the card.

Here is another view of it. These gift card holders are wonderful to make! You can make them plain or fancy, for any theme, for men and kids! And they are so easy to put together! Hope you liked my black and white and red all over challenge.

Now here is another card from the MacMae July Card Kit!

I used more of the Jungle Bungle paper. Everything is from the kit except the sentiment. I printed that off my computer then cut it out with Spellbinders dies.

Tune in tomorrow for MORE ShortCuts and MacMae cards! I'll be here all week!

365 Cards Day 135 - ShortCuts Week

ShortCuts week continues at 365 Cards. I played with the clear sheets again today. The challenge for today is to create a window on your card. I used the Label Nestabilities dies to cut my hole, then to cut out my sentiment. You will also notice I used more of the Girl Friday paper I got during the Cosmo Cricket week.

I used a Unity stamp for the sentiment. This card can be used for many different things: thinking of you, sympathy, prayer, etc.

The felt flowers are Stampin' Up and I am not sure about the sparkly flower brad. I found it in my brad stash.

Here is a view of the sentiment, with the card open.

The card below is another from the July MacMae Card Kit. Love that Basic Grey Lime Rickey paper!

This is such a bright and fun card. Every time I look at these birds I giggle!

Everything on the card came from the kit except the sentiment (SU), inks (Staz-On and Colorbox Chalk), and the punch for the flowers (SU).