January 2013 Secret Pen Pal Card

This month's card was quick to make even though I had to cut out the 24 'monster's by hand after printing them. I then mounted them on 'woggles' to give them some action and added a googly eye to each one.

Secret Pen Pal Card for December

This is the December Secret Pen Pal card I made for the kids in the local hospital. Thankfully I only have to make about 24 cards each month as some of my supplies didn't arrive until yesterday! The white snowflakes took almost 24 hours to dry because I used the only white I have, Stampin' Up Craft Whisper White which is really thick/dense. The inside of the cards say, " 'cause snowbuddy loves you like I do!"

The Fix

This is the best I could figure to do for my smeared card: I ordered three different "Merry Christmas" stamps from Hobby Lobby then when they arrived I stamped each in the only red I have (must get more!) on white cardstock and carefully cut it out so it would fit in the space I had left for it. Adding bling also helped .

Ooops! It smeared!

Oh, no!! I just noticed that the card with the embossed snowflakes and red embossed tree with the words of "Silent Night" is smeared at the bottom! The heat didn't make it to that lower right-hand corner!!! Can I 'fix' it??? Here's what I tried: I very, very carefully removed the white cardstock, wet it diagonally, then using a ruler especially designed to help 'tear' paper and/or cardstock, I disposed of the tree. I then punched out some snowflakes and glued them on. So far, it's ok but it still needs something! Maybe a small "Merry Christmas" stamped in white and embossed?

2012 Last Chance Christmas Card Class

These are the cards we made today at the last chance Christmas card making event for this year with Emily (Donna has moved to north Georgia). We did embossing on four of the cards. The prettiest card, I think, is the "Sending Christmas Wishes" red and white card. The cutest is the gingerbread boys. the quickest was the three trees card. The very hardest, even with written instructions, was the three postage stamp with the star, tree, and ornament, inside the punched out circle trimmed with a contrasting color and tied with the jute twine.

Smiling Pumpkin Card

For November, the children in the Pediatric Ward in the local hospital will each get one of these "smiling pumpkin" cards. I found the pumpkin through Google's image search, printed them out as 3"x5", then cut them out to place on homemade woggles. The cards say, "You make me smile...all over my face".

Reverse Iris Folding Cards

The instructions for making these cards are found under the "Operation Write Home" web site. You will also find over 100 card templates with the measurements for the A2 size cards they prefer. Unfortunately, I misread the instructions so the first card was a little wonky.

Hooo Loves You???

For October, I found this baby owl which was at www.uprintables.blogspot.com and created by Rebecca B. Rebecca has a lot of free printables which she has designed on this blog. What I really like is that she makes maximum use of the 8.5 x 11 inch cardstock/paper for printing the images.

I printed, cut them out, and mounted them on woggles which I made, and added googly eyes before placing them on the card fronts. Hope the kids in the local hospital like them!

Donna's Last Open House

Alas, Donna is moving out of Florida to become a Georgia girl!! Today was her last event. She couldn't leave without giving us one last technique class on how to make ribbon roses. NOT easy! First I rolled and twisted the ribbon from the left, then I rolled and twisted it from the right and made a mess of them both (the examples below are Donna's rose). This is a 5.5 inch by 8.5 inch card. The ribbon was 1/2 inch grosgrain.

New Catalog Card Gallery

These are the cards made in June (the event I missed as we were out of state)

September 2012 Secret Pen Pal Cards

Found this little guy by Googling 'monkey' images. The cards were quick to finish once I figured out how to feed the cardstock into the new printer.

I-Phone Pocket Pouches

Using designs by Cindy Cseh (e-PatternsCentral.com), I slightly altered the width and height of the animal pouches in order to make a dark brown puppy with tan stripes for Sammi, the pink pig for Hope, and the sock monkey for Hannah to put their I-Phones in to always have them handy. The straps are 40/42 inches long so they can be worn across the chest.

2012 Christmas in July Card Gallery

Turbo Thomas' New Afghan

The pattern for this granny square afghan is probably a hundred years old. I began by making 120 eight-inch squares, then joining them in ten rows of twelve. The finished size is 80 inches by 96 inches which he can use on his twin-size bed. The whole project took about two months as I worked some of the squares while on the last road trip with the two oldest granddaughters.

This card was in a free brochure I found at Hobby Lobby, called "Creating Cards with Punches". On the back of the brochure were these links: www.hobbylobby.com and www.gettinspiredbyhl.com and this 'product #' Scrapbooking - 266106 I'll probably be copying some of the other fifteen card ideas shown.

I found this card online some months ago and thought it would be a great card for children in the hospital. I found the image of the paper plane online as free clip art which would download to my computer but I couldn't use it as I don't run Microsoft Word. I was able to print it so I used the Microsoft Photo program to make 24 photos which I then cut out. I then traced one on a separate piece of paper so the image was 'flipped' and it printed out slightly smaller. The white cardstock is dabbed with a piece of sponge on a medium blue ink pad to create the background 'sky'. I then mounted the planes on Pop Dots to give the card some dimension; the 'flight trail' is made using a black gel pen.

New DMC Color Infusions Products

While in Michael's yesterday, I ran across a new product from DMC called "Color Infusions".  The only items from this new product line, unfortunately, carried by Michael's is the "Memory Thread".  Picking up the free craft brochure, which was also the only one available, showed several cards using the Memory Thread and Cotton Cord (which Michael's doesn't carry) so I substituted #5 DMC Perle Cotton.  The instructions are clear and easy to follow.  Handling the perle cotton was a little tricky as the one-inch circle with the punched holes was so small.  Hopefully, some day I'll run across the "Sparklers" from DMC.

Stampin' Up Large Card Gallery for 2012

Today's Stampin' Up card gallery created by Donna and Emily featured large 5"x7" cards.

Wonder who the lucky little guy is who will get this card on his next birthday???

The big guy who will be celebrating his 71st birthday in two weeks will get this card!