OWH-Thinking of Jane

Using OWH Sketch 175 inspired by Jane E

Jane E's sketch 175

Recently OWH had a post to honor Jane E who was recently deceased. She sounds like a wonderful, generous woman who enjoyed making cards for Operation Write Home to send to our troops. I wanted to create a card using her sketch. I love her clean and simple design and I followed it closely. Here is the link to her sketch and here is a link about her that showcases more of her beautiful cards.  I was very touched by their post honoring Jane. It was very inspiring to read about Jane and her dedication.

The paper I used is by Little Yellow Bicycle and the sentiment is by Hero Arts from a OWH stamp set.

In case you aren't familiar with them,  Operation Write Home is a great non-profit organization who send handmade cards to our troops overseas.

More Cards for OWH

On my last post I had a link to the  Operation Write Home blog hop this week. You can still join it here. You can post comments through July 7th and still be entered into the drawings. It's been a while since I sent any cards to OWH and the blog hop inspired me to get busy. Here are 2 more cards I designed to send into Operation Write home to send to our troops.

OWH Midweek Throw Down

The first card I made is for the OWH Midweek Throw Down. The theme is Anniversary cards. After searching through all my stamps I found I did not have ANY Anniversary sentiments so I printed a sentiment on velum using a pretty script. By setting my word document to 4 columns and using some column breaks, I worked it out where I could print the sentiment 6 times on one sheet of vellum with the spacing I needed. Once cut into strips, I trimmed the left side with Fiskars Threading Water border punch and cut a dove tail in the right hand side.

The card base is Bazzill Bling cardstock in one of their lovely pinks. I inked up one side of a Tim Holtz texture fade folder with Close To My Heart White Daisy Ink pad. I really like the contrast of the dull white ink on this shimmery paper. The textured Bazzill weave really shows up. I heat set the ink with my heat tool to help it dry.

The rose stamp is one of my favorite flower stamps. It is a Anna Griffin stamp from the Roses Collection by All Night Media. I colored it with Berol Prisma Color pencils. I punched a scallop oval with a McGill punch and colored with Spun Sugar Distress Stain and placed it behind the pink rose to frame it and separate it from the background.

Stars and Stamps Sketch #01

I made the second card using a OWH Stars and Stamps Sketch and another one of the stamp sets Hero Arts designed for OWH. This one is called "All The Time" CL584.  This set has 2 different clock faces, two watch hands and 7 sentiments. I used Distress Inks to stamp the clocks in the background. Some are seasonal colors: Squeezed Lemons, Picked Raspberries and Salty Ocean. I also used Dried Marigold. These colors really go well with the bright pattern paper which is from my paper scraps. I used a water brush and Tumbled Glass Distress Marker to add a little blue wash to the big clock face. The sentiment is embossed with Zing White embossing powder on red cardstock. I only made 2 of these cards because that is all of this pattern paper I have. I think I may go through my scraps and look and see if I have any other papers in these colors. I really like the bright cheerful look. OWH accepts up to 30 multiples of each design. You can find out more about the 3 sets and how they help OWH here. 

Since I used Hero Arts stamps on this one I will also upload this one to the Hero Arts Flickr group as well.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th of July!

Operation Write Home is having a blog hop this week and you can join it here. They have joined forces with Operation Skriv Hjem their sister organization in Denmark. Alternating between the two countries you will see a beautiful selection of Red, White and Blue from OWH and Red and White cards from OSH.

To show my support for the bog hop and spread the word I have made my own Red, White and Blue card to send to OWH for our troops. I have been working on a batch to send in and hope to get it mailed by the end of the week. Once OWH receives them they will add them to the box filled with handmade cards from other card makers and send them to our troops so they card use them to write home to their friends and family. OSH does the same for Danish troops. The OSH blog are bilingual for the hop so you can read right along. I hope you join the hop!

For my card I used some of my favorite products. From Tim Holtz I used the Rays and Retro Circles Texture Fades embossing folder, Styled Labels Alterations dye and Red Barn and Blue Jean Distress Markers and Tumbled Glass and Bundled Sage Distress Stains, from Ranger Archival Jet Black ink and from Hero Arts one of the stamp sets designed especially for Operation Write Home. This one is called Right at Home and you can find out more about the 3 sets and how they help OWH here.

Hope you have a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

OWH Scketch Challenge 104

Sketch 104 along with inside of card

I was inspired by this week's Challenge sketch for OWH  Their mid week throw down was a color challenge to make a black and white card with a splash of color. I decided to combine the two. I've used another one of the OWH set by Hero Arts. CL583 "Right at Home". It's a sweet set with great sentiments, a house, a kite, a cloud and even a little picket fence along with a couple of little hearts. I also used one of the little outline hearts from CL 582 "Year Round Sentiments".

The black and white pattern paper was from the KI Memories value pack I used on last week's cards.

First I colored in the hearts with my red Zig Millennium pen and then I used glossy accents to add shine and dimension to them. On the inside of the card I also stamped another image in the lower left corner. The "You are my Home" adds a nice touch when you open the card. The little heart in the center of the O is part of the stamp. I stamped the image once in black and then once separately just coloring the heart with the red pen and then cut it out and glued it in place.

Now that my card is complete I'll upload a picture to the challenge page. A new sketch is posted each Sunday. Here is a copy of sketch 104. Here's the link to the sketch. If you are really up for a challenge they have a pdf file you can download that has their first 100 sketches. They also have a checklist and you can check off when you complete each sketch. Be forewarned that the list has boxes for 160 checkmarks. It's the OWH
 Sketch 
Challenge 
Checklist
 for 
2012. Here's the link to the sketch collection page.

A quick note. If you've been thinking about sending some cards to OWH now would be a great time. I just saw this message from Sandy on the Stars and Stamps blog:

"Through November and December, there was a small drop in cards, which was expected, and totally fine - but usually things start to pick up up more in January when the holidays wear off. Not so this year! I checked just this morning and we're at 9,633 cards as of today...which is a fraction of what normally would be coming in - to compare, last January saw 39,665 cards!"

You can see the whole message here.

More cards for the box to go out on Monday!

I was excited to received my free little Operation Write Home stamp in the mail today. I'll use it to stamp the back of my cards with the OWH logo. Since I don't work tomorrow I plan on making some more cards. Then I'll be heading to the post office on Monday to send off all my cards. Every card sent in helps!

Operation Write Home and Hero Arts

Sketch Challenge 103 for Operation Write Home

OWH Sketch # 103

Here is my entry for Operation Write Home Sketch Challenge # 103. I wanted to make some more cards for Operation Write Home with one of the stamp sets Hero Arts designed for them. I had actually won the stamps during the Veteran's Day blog hop but Hero Arts couldn't send them to me until they were released.  Now that I have them I hope to put them to good use.

When I saw the two stripes on the OWH sketch for this week, I knew I wanted to try the chevron border technique I had seen on Jennifer McGuire's blog a while back. She made a beautiful card with a chevron border running horizontally across the bottom of her card. She also has a video showing how she made it You can check it out here.

I really enjoy working from the sketches at OWH. They are simple and a great way to use your left over scrap paper. The paper you see here is from a KI Memories scrapbook value kit I have had for some time.  To check out the OWH challenge go here.

The Hero Arts Stamp set is CL582 Year Round Sentiments. Not only does it have "I thank my lucky stars for you" it has other great sentiments like "Hello Handsome" and "You're so Special to me" along with some classics such at "Happy Birthday", "I love you", "I miss you", "Thinking of you" and more along with hearts and of course Stars. It is a great set if you are looking for a good year round sentiment set. Guess that's where they got the title from.

In case you didn't know, Hero Arts has been having a blog hop each day this week. Yes, it started on Monday. If you want to see some beautiful card and leave comments for chances to win go here for the first day. Winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog Monday January 16.

Sending Love

Ranger's Seafoam White Embossing Powder and Hero Arts CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves

This is for the weekly card sketch challenge at Stars and Stamps. I like the simplicity. I put together 7 card  quickly using the sketch and I learned something. Do my stamping before I put my cards together. I thought since they were in panels I could just cut out all my panels and put them together quickly and then do my stamping and coloring. Unfortunately when I started stamping I started running into problems. Only this card is completed and I basically had to take it apart fix the areas that didn't stamp well and put it back together on a new base.

Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge # 97

For this version of the card, I used Ruby Red shimmer paper for the base then cut the panels from shimmer paper in Gold and Silver and stamped them with the Hero Arts CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves background stamp using VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger's Seafoam White embossing powder. I then stamped "sending LOVE your way" and the hearts with the blue ink from the  Archival Brillance Peacock ink pad from Tsukineko on Iced White paper.  The stamps are from Hero Arts. The background stamp is CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves, the message and a heart from Trees, Birds and messages CL 182, more hearts from Share Laughter CL 151 & one tiny heart from Sending Happy CL 305. I love how you can mix and match the Hero Art sets.

More to do!

Three of the other cards are with shimmer paper in the same colors but different combinations and 3 are pink with Yellow, Orange and Pink paper with a dot pattern. I'll probably do the all the shimmer cards like this but may do something different with the pastels. I hope to finish the up tomorrow and ship them off to Operation Write Home. I don't want to miss the Archway Cookies deadline.

Clean and Simple

Clean and Simple

I kept seeing CAS on several blogs. Finally I found a tutorial on OWH that explained what it meant. Clean and Simple. I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. I had this piece of  teal acetate in my stash and it was large enough to fold and trim for a standard card. I picked a ribbon to go with it and went from there. I folded a piece of white card stock and made a liner to go inside the card. It is just tied in with the ribbon. Then I picked out my set of Hero Arts hearts stamps. I stamped them on the white card stock with Archival Jet Black ink. Getting them lined up with the circles on the acetate was not as easy as I thought because they are individual wood blocks stamps. I even used my light box to lightly sketch the circles on the cardstock. I didn't want them to be perfectly centered or even in the exact same location inside the circle but close. I used watercolor pencils and a Dove Blender to color the hearts. I also stamped one Heart on the inside on the upper left hand corner.

I had to pull out my 2006 Hero Arts Catalog to find the info on this stamp set. I had them displayed on a shelf on my wall and didn't realize the blocks were not marked, just the box which I no longer have. They are LL 989 Heart Messages - Stencil Print (reg). The acetate is Mod Circles HO636 from Hambly Studios.

I think it qualifies for Clean and Simple, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

Water Color Finger Paints

Water color finger paints with Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls ~ Still Shimmery once they dry!

Just a quick post to share a link to a cool video from Shari Carroll at the Hero Arts Blog. It is a sneak peak video showing the new Paris Newspaper stamp coming out soon and a really cool technique using Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls in a mister. Her card is gorgeous. If you haven't seen it yet, you don't want to miss it.
Check out the video here.

Ranger makes the Perfect Pearl mist already mixed up but I already had some Perfect Pearl on hand, so I mixed up my own Perfect Pearl mist and played around with it a little bit. I stamped my Hero Arts Big Owl stamp with VersaMark on water color paper and heat embossed with Gold Sand Embossing Powder. The cards are already dry here, but I spritzed a little Distress Ink on my craft mat until it beaded up so you could really see the shimmer.What a fun way to get inky fingers.

Golden Sand

Big Owl Embossed with Golden Sand Embossing Powder

Today I worked on another card using my favorite Hero Arts stamp (Big Owl) along with my favorite inks (Tim Holtz distress inks).

The embossing powder is by Stampendous and is called Golden Sand. It is a creamy color with brown and gold flecks. I had been wanting to try it with this stamp and maybe do a snowy owl, but once I started playing with the distress inks I just had too add more colors! I've used Vintage Photo, Faded Jean, Chipped Sapphire, Shabby Shutters and Worn Lipstick. Big Owl did look a little strange with his white eyes so I took a brown Slick Writer and colored in the pupils and the feet.

I had finished my owl and was going through my paper stash looking for paper I could use to make my card when I ran across an old favorite from SEI called Mini Memories. When I first started scrapbooking I made a small album using this paper line. I loved the colors and the geometric patterns. So many different variations. A collector's dream. I had a small bag with several sheets of paper and the alphabet stickers left.

After a little playing around with different combinations of paper and layout options, I settled on this one. To help the letters stand out, I outlined the stickers with a dotted line using a brown Zig Millennium marker. These are great fiber tip pens and made adding the dotted line simple and quick.

There are so many beautiful paper lines out now all with wonderful embellishments to make coordinating elements so easy. I really love being able to mix up things I already have on hand and having it come out so well. One more card for Operation Write Home!

HOO-RAY

Who Loves You!

This just posted on the Hero Arts Blog:

"The random winner from all of the cards created for Operation Write Home and submitted to our Flickr Group is RubyLou! RubyLou, you’ll be receiving the new Hero Arts-Operation Write Home stamps just as soon as they’re released."

In celebration I have made a card with my favorite Hero Arts Owl to send with my Operation Write Home Cards!

I decide to add a little speech balloon at the top. Who (heart) You? is stamped with Hero Arts fanciful swirl alphabet CL141 

Brightly Blinged

A few days ago I posted a card with a big shiny red ornament. I had created the ornament using a technique using grungeboard, pewter distress crackle paint and alcohol inks. You can see how Tim does it here. It is a technique I learned from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas. Well, there were 3 other smaller ornaments in the seasonal pack and I painted then colored them all at the same time. Turned out I only need one for the first card. So when I started to work tonight I already had my embellishments. I added some Stampendous Class A Peel  stickers to the ornaments and adhered them to some shimmer white card stock. I silver embossed the stamp "Bright Border" from Hero Arts on some Blackberry shimmer cardstock and added the Sparkly teal fluffy twine.

Share Laughter

This card is for a Sketch Challenge 95 at Stars and Stamps. They are the blog for Operation Write Home. The sketch was designed by Peggy.

I used Iced Spruce and Evergreen Bough Distress Inks, smashing the ink pad side by side on a craft sheet, and misting with water until the ink beads up and swiping white water color paper through the ink. You can let it dry or heat set, then swipe some more until you get the effect you want.

Peggy's Sketch

If you've never watch Tim Holtz's really quick but technique packed video on Distress Inks you can check it out here.

The vellum flowers are pre-cut from Fiskars. Share Laughter is Gold Embossed. The stamp is from a Hero Arts set of the same name, CL151. The ribbon has little specks of gold woven in.

Color Change

This is a twist on another card I posted earlier for the Hero Arts Bling-It challenge. If you want to see the first card it is here. I originally designed this card with silver and gold embossing powder on silver and gold paper. I loved the way it turned out but wondered what it would look like in Red and Green. I did end up making a few changes. I didn't use the holly and berry stamp for the side borders. Instead I used some pattern paper. I did use the same Christmas tree. This time I stamped it with shabby shutters distress ink and colored over it with Berol Prisma color pencils. I like the way I can blend the colors easily. I  used Red Green and White gem stones in various sizes.I used the same Fiskars punches for the edge of the card front. I love these punches.. This card will go in with the ones I send for the Cards that Care drive. All cards need to be sent by November 31st.

Hero Arts

Silver and Gold

 The Hero Arts Blog  has daily posts of beautiful cards along with instructions. They have a great team of artist who take turns hosting the blog each week. Every day is different but my favorite day to check out their blog is Wednesday. Titled "Watch it Wednesday"  you can watch a video showing how they make the card they are featuring that day. These videos load fast and they are loaded with great techniques.

They also have bi-monthly contests. There are 3 categories you can enter each month. Just create a card using at least one Hero Arts stamp and upload it to Flicker. Add it to the Hero Arts  group with the designated tag for that contest. It's that simple.

The categories for  November are: (1) Holiday Tags and Gift Wrap, (2) Bling It Up! and (3) Color Challenge - Pink, Pool, Green, Neutral and White. Entries are due November 10th for the first round and November 27 for the second round.

When I saw the Bling It Up! category I started thinking about my favorite Christmas show when I was growing up. "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".  The forest animals decorate the trees with silver and gold and those decorations "bling" as the snowman sings "Silver and Gold". I still love listening to Burl Ives sing "Silver and Gold".

It sounds like a fun category and I'm sure there will be plenty of entries. I tried my hand at it and this is what I came up with. Silver and Gold with lots of bling. I've used silver and gold embossing powder on silver and gold shimmer paper and of course added 2 different size gem stones for the holly berries and Christmas decorations on the tree, with a larger gemstone for the star on top. I also used a gold leaf pen to fill in the open leaves on the tree. All the stamps are Hero Arts cling stamps from seasons past . Very Blingy!