Saturday, May 22, 2010

More Challenge fun

I tell you, what a blast! Between the games and the camaraderie, who knew that playing with online friends could be such fun! If you haven't yet, come on over to the Cardmaker Swap forum, and join in the fun!

Yesterday was a bonanza cardmaking day for me, four cards! All with different techniques...what a blast.

First was the 'keep it zesty' challenge...use citrus colors as your main colors...how summery!

keep it zesty challenge

I used papers from a Miss Elizabeth pack for this one...what used to be sold at Dollar Tree...and I was going for a 'shop front' look with the border punch I chose (Martha Stewart). The flower is a Bazzil paper flower, inked up, and the sentiment was cut with the cricut.

Next came the 'make something marvelous' challenge...use purple as your main color and include some lace. Let me tell you, finding purple in my craft room was not as easy as it should have been! And lace...where's the lace???

make something marvelous challenge

But I managed! The lace is actually a paper sticker on a roll...the packaging is gone, same with the papers...but they turned out fairly well!

Next in line was the challenge called 'card say moo...'....say what??? It was a great challenge, a real stretch for me, but one I'm not sorry I decided to try. Are you ready for this? The challenge is to use sweetened condensed milk to stamp an image...then you heat emboss it...sweet!!!

card say moo

It really gives an elegant, old-time look to the stamp...and the detail of the stamp comes through surprisingly well! I'm not sure I'll be using this style regularly...but it was neat to try!

Last card of the day was very different from my normal...but what a cute idea! The challenge was titled 'can I water your garden', and we used this watering can template to print out a watering can to then decorate as we wished! That simple!

Photobucket

I loved how simple it was, and love the idea of using this as a teacher gift from my youngest son to his teachers this year!

I hope to squeeze more cardmaking around the chores today...

Enjoy,

Meredith


Friday, May 21, 2010

Make it Marvelous in May Crop

So over at the Cardmaker message board we are having a four day crop filled with games and challenges...this is the third one since I've joined the board, but the first one that I have participated in....fun!

Yesterday I managed to get a bit of time in the craft room and joined in my first challenge, "Dress your hat". We each took a flapper hat template and dressed it up...they are all so cute!

This is my first version, obviously, I'm not quite over my black and white kick...

dress up your hat challenge

But after looking at it for a bit I thought it needed just something a bit more...

hat take two

Better, no?

The next challenge I participated in was the 'birds and the bees' challenge...just include either a bird or a bee on your card...easy and fun.

For this one, I brought out my cricut machine, using the Home Decor cartridge I cut the bird and branch, then popped them on a card...so simple!

birds and bees challenge

I'll try to make some more today!

Enjoy,

Meredith

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sketch Challenge on Cardswap board

Over on the Cardswap message board they have weekly challenges, and for this week's sketch challenge I made up this birthday card...

birthday card stamps for life

The pp is from Miss Elizabeth (DollarTree) I sure wish that they sold the scrapbooking papers still...they usually had some great patterns...

The stamps are from a new company for me, The Stamps of Life. Frankly, I love this lady's style! I have been watching the releases since last September, and have finally taken the plunge and subscribed to the monthly releases...now I'll have to play catch up on the earlier ones! Anyway, the stamps I used on this card are the balloon and birthday circle from the HappyBday2You and the messages inside the balloons from the banners4all set. I think that the interchangability (is that a word?) of the elements of each set is what has me hooked on this designer!

Enjoy,

Meredith