CARDtober 7 and 8

Challenge 7 was to make a shaker card. I couldn't find any talc or baby powder, so mine has a bit of static. I also wish I had used clear micro beads instead of gold, since clear might have looked like snow but by the time I realized that, it was too late to do anything about it.

I used Graphic 45 papers from their St. Nicholas collection. It's a 5x7 card.

You can see the micro beads clustered at the bottom, but they do shake, rattle, and roll as you tilt the card.

Challenge 8 is a monochromatic card. Although it is not obvious, the fern paper actually has a very light green behind the ferns. I used Little Yellow Bicycle (background), BoBunny (stripes), and Colorbok (fern) papers. I used one of the new Heartfelt Creations sentiment stamps in the upper right corner.

CARDtober 6

Challenge 6 involved using hexagons and use of a sketch. I had to adapt it a bit since I wanted a horizontal card instead of the vertical samples shown, but I made it work. The friends stamp is by Art Impressions. I separated the sentiment from the friend group wrapped in the quilt. They were together on one rubber stamp. The hexagon stamps are by Stampin' Up from a few years or so ago.

Cardtober Challenges 3, 4, and 5

Challenge 3 was to use vellum. I was looking for something else at the time, when I came across a printed vellum in my stash that had light green vines on it.  The vine printed vellum was a perfect compliment for a vine printed paper which I had in my stash. The stamped sentiment and flowers were made using Heartfelt Creations stamps. The sentiment is from one of their new Sentiments and Tags collection, and so is the tag. The flower stamp was from their Lush Lilacs collection.

Challenge 4 was to use something old: 2 items that had been in your stash for a long time. I went digging among the Iris bins in my craft closet, and I found some very old die cuts ("Thankful" and the pinwheel, an old paper scrap, and I also used an old button, old twine, and an old brad. Even the card base was from a pack that is more than 2 years old. The grayish border is just the table it was on when I took the photo. I usually crop out unnecessary background, but I did not think the edges of the card would show up when I posted it here.

Challenge 5 was to use black and white, so I made a Halloween card using papers from my stash. The stamped owl is a Stampendous Stamp.

Cardtober Challenges 1 & 2

The RefuPeas site is doing challenges, which is not new, but I joined this month for the first time. One of the challenge opportunities is to make a card based on a different challenge given each day. I made one the first day but did not get it posted. I started the second challenge on the 3rd day. I hope I can catch up rather than fall farther behind. At any rate, here are the two cards I have made for Cardtober so far.

Challenge #1 is based on Yosemite, using the colors blue, gray, green, and brown. I used the Heartfelt Creations Woodsy Wonderland papers for this one:

Challenge #2 was to have something popping out, like out of a frame, shape, window, whatever. I had just come across a bin of stamps a day or two before. Among them was a cute Penny Black stamp that I had bought a few years ago but never used, and it was perfect for this challenge:

It's not as obvious from the photo, but I did literally pop her out. I did this by stamping and cutting out 3 layers, and the top layer has foam tape to pop her out of the window frame. Next time I will pop out the bird, too. That is the one thing I wish I had done differently.

Wreath Cards

Jennifer McGuire has posted videos of wreath cards made using templates by Gina K. It is a clever and fun concept. I have a huge collection of stamps, so I decided to try to make wreath cards with the stamps that I have on hand, but using the wreath card template. It has been a learning experience. These first ones have not really been finished or made into cards yet. I am not sure which ones I will actually use. These are just my first attempts that turned out halfway decent. The ones that bombed (several) got tossed into the trash. I really recommend that you choose your colors for coordination before you begin. Some of my first experiments would have worked if I had chosen my colors more carefully. Stamp the largest image first, then fit in the smaller ones, working your way down in size as you go.  The following wreath card fronts are not necessarily in the order that I made them.

I went diagonal with the next one. Not sure how it will work for an actual card. I may have to cut it out to use.

There is not much of an open center to this one. The bulk of the wreath was one floral stamp that I used in each corner, then filled in with a little green using smaller stamps.

This next card uses circle borders by ArtGoneWild. The pumpkin in the center is not part of the set. I just liked it better. It looks kind of like a wreath card, but it was done with 3 circle stamps made to go together. I could and probably should have popped out each of the smaller circles and the pumpkin, but I was tired, so I went for easy. If I used just the outside circle, I could adapt it to an actual wreath card, maybe filling it out a bit. I may try that eventually.

This last one is my favorite, and it is the most recent. The small pumpkin that I used in the center of the Halloween card above and in the wreath of the one below was by Impression Obsession.  The leaf/acorn/stick swag was a single stamp by Stampin' Up, so the wreath itself was made using only 2 stamps. The scarecrow is also a Stampin' Up stamp. These stamps, and most of the ones used in all of these card fronts were older stamps. There are a few stamps from newer sets, but very few.

Simple Card

After seeing several examples on Pinterest of a beautiful embossing folder, I wanted to find and buy it. Apparently it is by Apple Blossom, is sold in the U.K. through CraftStash, and the original one came in a Papercraft magazine. The original is referred to as "THAT embossing folder" and someone on the Refupeas message board very kindly sent one to me as a RAK, along with the magazine. When I saw the company had others, too, I had to buy a few, in spite of their shipping costs from there to the States. The above card was made with one of THAT embossing folder's family. I love roses. I love basketweave. I love the curved middle.

I needed a quick card, so I just added a couple of cut outs from Heartfelt Creations' Wildwood Cottage paper collection.

Just FYI, these folders are thicker than the normal ones. I had to get creative to get it to emboss with my Big Shot. I used the platform, one plate, and one or two pieces of chipboard as my sandwich. The second plate seemed too thick to go through.

Disney Album, First 4 Layouts and a few Disney Shirts

In December of 2017, each of our children, spouses, grandchildren, and additional family members came from different states to gather for a reunion and celebration at Disney World. This is going to be a rather lengthy project. We all took a ton of photos. I considered doing digital photos, but I went traditional. I just like playing with paper.

This first, introductory page used the cutting file that I cut from vinyl and put on the back of one of my Disney T-shirts.  I actually made about 27 different t-shirts for 6 of us. Everyone else made their own or wore shirts they already had. Most decided to have matching shirts. My group was rebellious and chose different designs.

 Above is the introductory page. Below is the back of my t-shirt, made with blue glitter vinyl.

A lot of journaling went on this layout, which has been whited out, since it is being posted online. We never did manage to get a photo of our entire group all at the same time. There were some lack of communication issues. The pages shown below were taken on Christmas Eve after church. The Mickey die cut is a Cricut cutting file. I decided to mix Disney and Christmas papers and embellishments for this album, whatever seemed to fit the photos on the page.

After lunch, several of us went to Disney Springs, where we had our first experience with Disney photographers. The title was by Paper Wizard. The Naughty and Nice cutting files were adapted from Silhouette Design Store files. The Mickey on the right is a stamp that I have had for years.

 Below is a close up of my shirt. This is another Cricut design that I cut from various colors and types of vinyl and applied with my heat transfer machine. Since I made nearly everyone else's shirts before I made mine, I kept getting better at doing multi-layer heat transfer. This is not one I would recommend that a beginner try to make. It was very time consuming, and I had trouble getting the colors and types of HTV that I wanted.

We had all made matching pajama pants from material that a family member found at Hobby Lobby. Of course we had to take pajama pictures on Christmas Eve. The paper that I used for this layout was a simple diagonal plaid. Our pajamas were a similar plaid, just not diagonal, and since our PJ fabric had Mickey characters, I stamped and cut Mickeys and Mickey heads, then glued them to the page to resemble our pajama pants.  The font that I used for the title is a commercial font that I loved enough to buy. The font family is called Desire.