Where Do I Start?

The OWH Memorial Day Blog Hop was so over the top I've a stack of notes, digi's, tips, and ideas. I think I could lock myself in a room for at least a week and not run out of ideas! Many thanks to everyone who participated. There was so much great work that I know I for one will be going back through the posts for days to come.

Among the cards I've made so far are these two that use the adorable digi's Sandy created for the hop. Not only is she truly dedicated to OWH, she's a fantastic illustrator. Thanks Sandy for all your hard work and these adorable images.

I tend to make a lot of general cards with Miss You, Thinking of You or Just A Note sentiments so I am quite sure I'll be putting these two images to good use for  along time to come.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

A Patriotic Chick

Welcome to my stop on the OWH Memorial Day bloghop. I am excited to be able to participate and honored to make cards for our heroes. I know you have many more stops to make so...

First and Foremost, let us not forget that Memorial Day is a sacred day. It is truly disrespectful to simply treat it as just another vacation day or an opportunity to shop 'til you drop. Far too often, Americans take for granted the freedoms we enjoy. Those freedoms were paid for, with the lives of others, few of us ever knew. They came from large cities, small towns and all walks of life with one thing in common—LOVE OF and LOYALTY TO country. This special bond brought them, and us, through many difficult times.

Wherever you find yourself this weekend I challenge you to remember the meaning of Memorial Day. Explain it to the kids, encourage  family and friends to discuss it. Attend a parade, visit a national cemetery, watch a military documentary. Since 1776, more than 1.5 million Americans have lost their lives while in uniform. Freedom is not free and sacrifice is meaningless without remembrance. By honoring our nation’s war dead, we preserve their memory, their service and their sacrifice in the memories of future generations. It's the least we can do to honor all they have done for us.

I created the Patriotic Chick I used in my card specially for the OWH blog hop. You can download it HERE. Feel free to share it with your friends. The only thing I ask is that you do not sell it in any form.

Creating a card for this blog hop was an absolute pleasure. Red, White & Blue has always been my very favorite color combination and I am a total pushover for anything with an American Flag theme. To help satisfy my obsession I create patriotic card designs on a regular basis and use them to write a few "Any Hero" cards to include in each box of cards I send into OWH.

For those who may be new to OWH, or if you don't already, I urge you to consider stamping the backs of your cards. Details on how and why this is done is HERE at the OWH site. Our dedicated shippers spend a lot of time stamping, fixing, sorting and shipping. I know that they'd love to have the extra time saved by having cards arrive already stamped or labeled, to do some creating of their own.

Before I send you off to your next stop. I am offering the blog candy pictured below as a thank you for stopping by. All you need to do to be included is to click on the EMAIL icon under my pic, type BLOG CANDY  in the subject line and CLICK SEND.  (No need to even write anything in the mail because...hey you have a lot of blogs to see!) I'll draw a random winner on June 2, 2010 and email you back for your address if you're the winner.

If you need to, you can go back to the start of the hop at www.owhstarsandstamps.org

Your next stop on the hop is Sheri at
stampinsher.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the hop and May God Bless America!

OWH Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge #17

Today was not a "crafting day" for me, but I did sneak out a minimum of supplies to create this card for Sketch Challenge #17. Here is the great & versatile sketch from Lora B. along with the card I made using a few scraps, my heart punch, chalks to edge the papers and a simple sentiment.

By the way, the string on this card is an inexpensive twine. If it's something you've never considered I encourage you to be open to looking for crafting supplies in not so obvious places... like the garden department. Lots of twine & cords, AND you get a huge roll for a very reasonable price!

Since I lack a dedicated  "crafting area" creating cards requires enough motivation to actually unpack supplies, as well as put them all back when I'm done, so I usually plan ahead when I know I will have at least several hours to dedicate to it. Often in between those craft days I do a lot of what I refer to as "bits-n-pieces".  I color images, layer them, embossing Cuttlebug backgrounds, punch out shapes and tags. Then when a crafting day arrives I can coordinate these bits and pieces into cards. It's not always an ideal way to work but because so much of the work is essentially done it means I end up feeling very accomplished when I manage to put together a whole stack of cards in just a few hours.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Using Scrapbook Papers

If you're anything like me you have a paper addiction that often finds you buying the latest DCWV paper stack. They are always chock full of nice papers but invariably (and understandably too) they all contain pages that are better suited to scrapbooking than cards. The papers I used in these cards were exactly that. They contained imagery in the bottom corners of the page. But with some creative cropping and a minimum of work I managed to at least get some use out of these papers.

In the palm tree card I stamped over the pre-printed image with a "script" stamp, added the Thinking of You sentiment stamp, the ribbon and embellishment. All the distressed colors in the background were part of the paper. On the Ferris Wheel, I simply inked the edges, added the eyelets, ribbon and tag with sentiment. 

It can take some effort to make these "scrapbook papers" work on a small A2 card, but the challenge can be a lot of fun and the results are often better then I imagine they will be at the start. With all the amazing and exciting paper crafting products on the market today I often have to stop and remind myself that a lot of times... LESS really can be more!

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Memorial Day Blog Hop

I've signed up to participate and can only say if you have never joined in the fun of  an OWH Bog Hop you're missing out! I know that I skipped the early hops because I didn't want to make a commitment to blogging. I had a LOT of good excuses, I didn't have the time or inclination to be making regular posts, it would be complicated to get started, it wouldn't make any difference if I did or didn't participate. Let me just say: First — there are NO rules about blogging, you can blog only for the OWH hop and never blog again. Second — You don't need to be a computer genius to get a nice, simple layout set up, the template system built in to Blogger.com is easy. If you really can't or don't want to do it yourself ... Got nieces, nephews, grandkids? I bet they'd be thrilled to act as your "Official Blog Master". Third — It does make a difference, I can guarantee you that everyone in the OWH community would love to see samples of your creativity and get to know more about you and what motivates you to make cards for our heroes.

Ready to sign up for the Memorial Day BlogHop? Just Do It!

Happy Crafting Everyone!

OWH Stars & Stamps Sketch Challenge #15

Here is the sketch for Challenge #15  submitted by Bev E. Thanks Bev!

I was able to spend some time creating cards this past weekend and since I had been working on Dad themed cards I decided I'd use it as basis for this design. I will confess that even though I have the sketch right there in front of me as I work I often find the end result has strayed just a bit by the time I'm done.

I was very excited to have found a pad of paper in the bargain bins at Michael's just last week. A short stack of maybe 36 sheets of fishing, hunting and camping patterns along with some coordinated die-cuts. Though I typically find it difficult to make use of die-cuts at $3.00 I figured I couldn't possibly go wrong. I embossed the fish in a navy and then used some watercolors, the type that glimmer (like H2Os, to add some depth and interest.


Happy Crafting Everyone!

More Baseball Designs...

As promised here are a couple more variations on the baseball themed cards, using the same elements and stamps as the previous designs. 

The baseballs are actually self-stick "felt" pieces I found at Michael's in the kids crafts section as opposed to the scrapbook papercraft aisles. They add interest without adding a lot of bulk. Whenever I find myself shopping at a craft store I always like to check out all the departments for unexpected things that might be used as embellishments and add some interest to the design.

Happy Crafting Everyone!

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