Finished my cards from the swarm yesterday

I had so much fun yesterday picking on Carrie Elmore and visiting with the other women at the swarm that I came home with the majority of my cards that I took to work on, unfinished.  This afternoon I completed thirty two cards, so the weekend  wasn't a total loss for crafting after all!

The cat stamps are from a set I bought at And Bear Makes Three in Moore.  They were part of our supplies for a card class Shirley and I took a few months ago.  I colored them with Promarkers and distressed the background with Tim Holtz ink to soften the stark white card stock.

The last two are re-makes of cards from my photo files.  I had to come up with something in a hurry to do so I just resurrected these.

The sentiments on these are computer generated.  I used my Expression to cut the "U and R" and a SU punch for the top sentiment.

In addition to these four cards,  I took more of the ones I posted earlier in the week with the twine wrapped around the scalloped circles.

Norman Swarm July 30, 2011

I admit it;  I'm not a photographer!  These are some photos I snapped today at the swarm.  We all had a good time. Thanks again to Renee Wayland for putting it together for us!  She's planning another swarm on October 22nd and will keep us updated about it on the Facebook page she set up.

 This was Renee's project for today.  It's a cute little chest that she covered in paper.  We're still not sure what she's going to store in it though! 

It was great to see everyone again and I got to meet Carrie Elmore (biker chick, LOL!) in person.  We sat together and she actually got some things done, while I, on the other hand, didn't accomplish too much...imagine that!  She tried out my Promarkers and had to show off her giraffe she colored.  I don't think she really believed me when I told her how easy those markers are to use and how well they shade your images until she saw the finished product.

As you can see, we had a good turn out and everyone came prepared with plenty of things to work with.

Carrie grabbed my camera and snapped this.  Now you know what I did most of the day!  I laughed!

Sock Monkey Face

These creatures have always given me the "willies".  My mother used to make the sock monkey dolls for baby gifts and I just never have understood their appeal.  But, I found this tonight online and thought I'd post it here and share a simple way to make a sock monkey face for those of you who like them!

All you need:
      2" circle punch
      heart punch
      3/4" punch
      1 3/8 x 2" oval

If you don't have the punches these shapes would be simple to cut with your Cricut too.

Another Cute Easy Card from Dawn Griffith

When I saw her video this morning I had to make one of these quickly before I forgot about it!  LOL!  She has a good instructional video, with complete instructions on how to do this card.

http://dawnsstampingthoughts.typepad.com/dawns_stampin_studio/2011/07/multi-panel-card-video-.html

I grabbed some white cardstock and some orange paper that I never use for anything since this is my pattern to put in my file.  Orange isn't one of my favorite colors to work with.  The area for the stamped image is pretty narrow so, again, I just grabbed the first stamp I found in my JetMax storage that would fit onto the space.

It's an A2 sized card after it's folded.  There are only two cuts and then you just do some score lines for the folds to make the image stand up.  Super simple, once you make one and can see how it all goes together.

I'm thinking maybe I need to do some of these with Cooper's picture on them for birth announcements for family and friends.

Getting Ready for the Norman Swarm

Renee Wayland has organized a swarm to be held this Saturday in Norman, OK at the LSS.  I spent the afternoon getting images stamped to color and card fronts cut out ready to assemble during the swarm.  If I don't do things ahead of time, I get distracted with talking, eating, etc. and accomplish nothing at a swarm!

So, my kits are in my rolling tote and tomorrow evening I can pack my Promarkers and tools I'll need.  I'm so looking forward to seeing Renee and all the other people who'll be there! 

And this time I'm taking my camera--so there will be some photos posted on here!

Card with Twine

Dawn Griffith has a card photo on her blog of one with twine wrapped around some punched shapes.  This is my version of her card.

I used Elegant Edges to cut the postage stamp shaped squares and wrapped them with baker's twine.  Printed the sentiment and mounted it on a couple of scalloped ovals, added some punched photo corners and was done.

Using my EK success Three Step Punch

 This one has just the second layer of the punch with some Stickles on the body and some dots made with Tulip Slick Paint.

This one has all three layers of the butterfly.

Side view of the three layers.







After using the punch several times, I've decided that this three step butterfly punch isn't for me.

I find that it's difficult to use, especially on the first level that you punch. 
You have to really apply heavy pressure on it to punch the intricate cut outs all the way through. I'd say if you have any problems with arthritis in your hands, to save your money.

It won't punch cleanly unless you're using really heavy paper or card stock.  And because you're punching so deeply, the paper gets pushed down around the sharp edges and you have to rip it out of the punch to reposition it to punch additional shapes.

This is the only one of the three step punches I've tried and perhaps the reason I don't like it is because the top butterfly shape has so many tiny openings and that makes it so difficult to punch.  Once you get it punched and assembled, the butterfly looks really good on card fronts.  Lots of dimension, and I like that you can use each of the three shapes individually.

Summer Fun Cards

It's definitely summertime in Oklahoma!  Over 30 days with temperatures over 100°, and it's not even August yet!  So, it seemed appropriate to make some summer themed cards this afternoon.

The ants were computer printed onto white card stock, trimmed, and I used SU border punches on the edges.
I made the watermelon halves using an 1.25" circle punch and an 1.5" scalloped circle punch, inked the edges and added some seeds with a gel pen.

 A little doodling with a Signo pen and adding a bow gave the cards just a little more dimension,

The idea was inspired by a card seen on Splitcoast Stampers.

A better solution to store my Promarkers

Okieladybug introduced me to Promarkers last year.  They're super easy to use and they almost shade images all by themselves, so even I can color stamped images and make them look decent.

The challenge, once I bought them, was how to store them in a way that they'd be easily accessible. I don't like the storage bags available from Letraset, and they're too expensive.  Okie and Enfys have theirs stored in a CD case made for DJ's to use.  I don't own that many markers and don't have the space for a container that large.

I tried standing them up in a recipe box, it was a perfect size but the colors kept getting mixed up.  I spent one whole afternoon at Wal Mart trying to find a container and wound up with this:

It's a wire basket designed to hold suet cakes for feeding the birds.  Obviously, the markers would slide right out the back so Fred built a wooden box for the wire basket to sit inside.  It works great, I can plainly see the colors of the markers and they're within my reach on my work table.  However, when I go to stamp club, the box and rack are too large to fit into my rolling tote.

So, since last March, I've been searching for another affordable solution.  Today, I found one at a Shooting Supply store and I think it's definitely going to work.

It's a 50 caliber bullet storage box, it has 50 slots inside and cost only $3.99! 

Here it is filled with my Promarkers.  Now instead of having a wooden box that's 10.5 x 8.5 inches  all my markers fit into a box that's 6.75 x 4 inches.

Now, of course, the Promarkers are longer than a 50 caliber bullet, so my solution was to just pop the lid off the hinges. 

If I want to load them into my tote, the lid sits right on top of the markers and can be secured with a rubber band, although the markers fit pretty snugly into the slots.

BIC markers will fit in the case too! 

If you're interested in getting any of these cases for your markers or pens, you can order them online at: www.3rdgss.com  It's Third Generation Shooting Supply in Yukon, Oklahoma .  Phone 405-818-3641
and the UPC on the item is 26057227108 and the tag says RSLD-50-10 GREEN,  50 RD RIFLE FLIP TOP.

The owner of the business and his clerk were extremely helpful today.  I doubt if they get too many women dropping in to buy bullet cases to store art markers!  It took them some time to find just the right one for me in their warehouse.  I told him I was posting this information on my blog and to be prepared if they get a phone call about them! 

I've carried a couple of markers in my purse for weeks, trying to find any kind of storage container that would work, with no luck!  Yes, there are marker racks available but they're either too small for the Promarkers or terribly expensive.  Who wants to pay over $50 for a plastic rack?  That's money that would go a long way toward buying more Tim Holtz paper!

Paper Doily Card

Inspired by a card seen on Splitcoast Stampers.  A good way to use up the paper doilies left over from another project.

EK Success newest punches

While in Joanne's today I ran across a display of the newest EK Success punches.  They're the triple punch or layering punch type.  Each one has three different shapes it will punch out and you can layer them for a more dimensional image.

It was hard to decide which one to get.  I didn't have a coupon, and I just never pay full price for things! But, I knew it would be a long time before I was back at a J's so I chose the butterfly.  Then, when it rang up, it was on sale about 40% off!  So, it was a good deal, after all!

Here's what each of the three layers look like:

Then you can layer them to look like this:

Sorry the photo of the assembled butterfly aren't too clear, but you get the idea!  This is going to be a great way to dress up some cards since I seem to be obsessed with butterflies recently.

They had other punches that do shapes that link together to make borders.  I'm kind of wishing now that I'd gone back and picked up at least one of those to play with too!

Pink Tim Holtz Cards

These were inspired by a birthday card seen online.  The papers are all Tim Holtz and I copied the butterflies onto the scrap left over of the solid pink paper.  Added some twine and a simple word stamp.

Network Blog test

Checking to see if I got my blog set up so the posts will appear on FB.

Simple Cards

The mat under the sentiment is metallic paper.

Vintage Book Page Card

Accent Essentials was used to cut the frames to surround the inchie stamps.  The background paper is another page from the old encyclopedia I found in a stack of free books at the library.

Design Studio software was used to manipulate the frames so that they'd fit perfectly over the inch sized images.

Although it looks more square in the photo, this is an A2 sized card.

Enlarging images in blog posts

To enlarge any of the images in my blog posts, just double click on them and they'll open up in a new window in a size large enough that you can see the details in the photos.

I'll bet 99.9% of people who visit blogs know this, but you never know!

Zucchini Fries Recipe Page

Making recipe pages is fun for me!  I get to showcase recipes that we like and it's a nice break from making cards all the time. 

The pages don't have to be elaborately decorated since I tend to use kitchen themed papers and they look good in my Cricut Cooking album too!

The images I used were found online and printed out in my card making software.

Found another "keeper" recipe tonight!

These oven baked zucchini fries remind me of the ones we used to get at a restaurant that went out of business a few years ago.  It was always a treat to get a big basket of Bandana's fried zucchini strips and a dish of their Ranch dressing for dipping them.

This recipe is based on one that appeared in a Weight Watchers handout from last Monday night's meeting.  I had to try it since we have had a continuous supply of wonderful grey zucchini squash from the local farmer's market.   Unfortunately, we're having an extreme drought as well as temperatures well above normal so the local produce season is ending about two months early this year!

If you've never tried the grey zucchini, you should!  It's a lot better than the dark green variety. 

Zucchini Fries

2 medium zucchini

Mix together:
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 ½ T. flour
1 tsp. Salt

2 large egg whites, beaten to a froth
¾ cup dry Italian bread crumbs



Preheat oven to 425°.  Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with Pam.

Cut zucchini into strips about the size of French fries.

Dredge them in the flour mixture.

Dip strips into the egg whites and then coat with the Italian bread crumbs.

Place on cookie sheet and bake about 12 minutes or until browned, turning once
during baking.

Serve with Ranch dressing.

Flower Card

The background on this is a page torn from an old encyclopedia that I found in a stack of free books at the library.

The flowers are made using an 1.75" and 1.5" scalloped punch. I used a Brocade Cuttlebug folder for some added texture on these. The centers are buttons stamped from SU's Button, Button stamp set and then punched using a Boho Blossom punch.

I printed the sentiment in my card making software and punched it with an 1.25" circle punch.  Added some inking to the edges for shading.

The grass is done with a SU scalloped border punch and I just cut some .25" strips to use for the stems.

The leaves were made with my Preserves cartridge.  They're a lemon that's cut at .714 x .615.  I sized it using Design Studio to fit.

This card was inspired by one I saw in an old issue of Cards Magazine.

Definitely Nothin' Fancy!

There were several sentiments left over from the cards I made yesterday.  So, I just tossed these together to use them up!

My Thursday Challenge

There are some bizarre papers in one of the Tim Holtz stacks that I bought at Hobby Lobby.  The colors are good in them, but, honestly, a bullseye design?  

My Thursday challenge to myself was to use these weirdly patterned papers.  I'm quite pleased with the way these cards turned out! 

 The sentiment on the mat was computer generated.  The other is a Tim Holtz stamp.

The first two (cards) would be good masculine cards.

Butterflies and a bullseye.  What a combination!  But, it works!

Most of the time I just use my Corner Chomper and have rounded corners.  I found a different corner punch and thought I'd like it.  The shape it punches doesn't really match what's shown on the back of the punch.  But I used it on the computer printed sentiment and its mat.

The butterflies are color copies of some wall stickers that I found at the Dollar Tree.  By making a photocopy onto white cardstock, you eliminate the shiny surface on the stickers, which, in my opinion looks better on a card.