Here at the Retreat

I'm in Southern Indiana at a Quilters/Scrapbookers Retreat. I have gotten some cards done and some photos taken. The Quilters are very talented women, who are just sewing up a storm. The walls of the little building we are in are covered with their finished quilt tops and wall hangings.

I have gotten a stack of cards done but I also took time to have lunch with my dad. He had an errand or 2 to do so I was the driver for a bit.

Here's my take on the latest OWH sketch #125. It got a bit frilly and pink but I like it. I have been using bits and pieces from the scrap files. The little squares are a tad bigger than the sketch's 4 items. They are shiny as is the live, laugh, love so it was hard to photograph the card. Maybe OWH needs a tutorial for taking better pictures for the uploads.

Later.

Here's another Sketch

OK, I have been having a lot of fun, making new cards using the OWH Sketches. Here's another card, using Sketch #124 - the latest one on the OWH blog. I was cleaning out the crop bag and found these stickers. My girlfriend had purchased the sticker set (though I don't know the manufacturer) and couldn't use these. I used my cloud punch by Fiskars for the clouds. I had a leftover piece of shimmer paper for the long element (from my anniversary card in another post), tying a piece of navy/white baker's twine. I purchased the twine from Really Reasonable Ribbon at http://www.reasonableribbon.com/item.php?item_id=5043&category_id=425, (where I also got a big spool of the airmail twine for my Mailman Riley, an upcoming post.)  The big square is a scrap that I cut free-handed wavy edges on it. 

Later for now. I'm trying to get stuff ready for a Friday night crop and then a retreat.

We R Memory Keepers' Operation We R Grateful

Check out We R Memory Keepers at http://www.weronthenet.com/Operation_Write_Home. They sponsored a card drive for OWH last summer and they are doing it again this year. They are giving weekly prizes, getting stores to collect cards, and doing Facebook updates.  Operation We R Grateful, The Contest, runs June 1, 2012 through July 31, 2012. So, get your own craft supplies out and make a few cards. See the site above for mailing address and entry forms. 

Here's some info as posted on their site.

Join us in supporting Operation Write Home! Create handmade greeting cards for deployed troops to write home on. Your card could be worth up to $1,000 in We R Memory Keepers product. Here's how:

• Create handmade greeting cards in the following categories: Love (Thinking of you, Missing you, Anniversary), Any Hero, Thank You, Birthday, Holiday, Get Well.


• Fill out the card entry form


• Send your card(s) to a We R Memory Keepers or find a Drop Zone near you.


• Check out our Facebook Page for weekly prizes

http://www.weronthenet.com/Operation_Write_Home

Another sketch

Another sketch done. 

This is OWH Sketch #40

I used a blue, a purple, and a silver shimmer paper from DCWV

 and a Disney paper with Lady and the Tramp. 

I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the shimmer paper with the dotted Swiss folder.

The Disney paper was on clearance at Joann.

 I was thinking of using it as a birthday card but changed my mind and

went with an anniversary card. Lady and the Tramp were so cute in the 

Italian restaurant, eating spaghetti.

 I used the paw prints as ribbon, although I ran out of the paws 

so some cards have purple ribbon on them.

 I had this sentiment stamp from Micheal's a long time ago. 

I made a few for the OWH box I have started and a few for my card stash.

More sketches later. Time to clean up my "temporary" crafting space in the living room and 

pack my supplies for the weekend retreat.

Making sketches from the OWH List

           Operation Write Home had a big blog hop on Memorial Day Weekend and all the entries used the OWH sketches. There are 120+ sketches on the OWH blog. Some of the participating blogs used the same sketches but all of the cards looked so differently. I generally just make my cards as I go and I haven't used many sketches. But my personal challenge for the summer break is to see how many sketches I can use to make a boxful of cards for OWH.

To see the OWH sketches, go here. http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org/p/owh-sketch-collection.html

Now, here's my first cards, using the sketches.

 I used Sketch #1 first. I had this paper with the letters in my school collection .

A bit of orange ribbon from Joann's hid the seam of the 2 papers.

 I had a jar of orange Got Flowers and 

put little gold pearls on the flowers for a bit of bling. 

I love the freebie sentiment I picked up from Create with TLC

 ( http://createwithtlc-createwithtlc.blogspot.com/. ) a bit ago.

I had purchased a new teddy bear stamp from Stamper's Best 

(  https://www.stampersbest.com/  ) and had to use it. 

I punched the scalloped circles and then stamped the image (bear & flower). 

I used colored pencils on the image. The sentiment and tiny flower are from 2 word sets of

 Riley & Co. ( http://www.rileyandcompanyonline.com/word_sets ).

 The paper was in my paper stash. 

I cut the two design papers in 3 3/4" by 5" then cut them diagonally in half. 

When I put the two triangles on the card base,

 I could leave a bit of room between the triangles and it looks like a ribbon.

 Two sketches down. And 120 more to go.

Time to go pick another sketch or 2 from the OWH site. Later.

Better with wine!

I really like Art Impressions Stamps and I added a bit more to this page. The Girlfriends are at it again. This stamp is the Girlfriend Blend Set, which is the girlfriends stamp and  3 sentiments. I purchased my set at Archiver's with a coupon there. I stamped the Girlfriends on cream paper, using the black gold ink by Memento Dew Drop, and then I colored it with colored pencils. I added the sentiment from another set.about getting better with wine. There are actually 6 of us in Table 7 but the Girlfriends stamps do a good representation of us collectively.

Scrapbook Journaling Made Easy

image from Amazon.com

Review of Scrapbook Journaling Made Easy

 
    I checked this oldie but goodie book out from the public library. It is an older book, published Sept. 2002, so the layouts were simpler and plainer than many layouts seen in 2012's current magazines and books. The book was written by the Editors of Memory Makers, whose magazine ceased years ago. The book presents many ways to journal such as by ink or computer, simple paragraphs and sentences to comic book style or newspaper columns.

      I usually journal on my layouts, even if it is just date, location, and names. Some of my journaling is too big for my layouts so I attach it to the back of the layouts. I try to leave some space for journaling as I make the layouts and then add the journaling  later before I slide the layout in the album. Many times, my journal blocks are not quite big enough for all the journaling I want to add. In this case, I print the journaling on my computer, using a text box and the smallest font size as is readable. I try to handwrite journals but I do use a lot of computer-written ones too.  My scrapbook buddies hate to journal but they like to add titles to their layouts and I may or may not use a title.

OWH box

Finally, I have a box to send to OWH this year. The box had been collecting cards for a while but I finally finished the tucking, the stamping, and the counting. I had to take out the

Christmas cards to get all the other cards in the box,

which has a little bit of everything in it. Birthday, Missing you, Love, Thanks, Disney, florals. The box is quite stuffed.

Off to the Post Office now to get this box of 330 cards on its way to the OWH shipper.