Coffee Cozy Inspiration

Some of you may know that Michele Ferguson and I took a trip to Florida to meet with Nancy Leppek and go see Kathy Racoosin at My Favorite Things as part of her Coloring Challenge Road Trip.

This is the only picture I have of the three of us taken the night before we went to Mt. Dora on Friday to be closer to Eustis, home of MFT for the Saturday class.  While at the hotel, Nancy brought us a cup with a coffee cozy on it and challenge us to make a card based on it.  Here is my cozy.

And my card.

Michele and Nancy should be posting their cards today too.  Why not check them out to see what they did with their inspiration.

The Paper Players #381

I haven't played at The Paper Players in a loooong time but when I saw on Kim's blog that the challenge was sewing related I decided to pull out some old neglected stamps and make a card.

The buttons and card they are on are from PTI and the other paper has a pattern image on it.  I die cut the buttons from coaster board, then again from pearl paper that I ran through my Xyron, and put them together.  I don't know why my Xyron (I have two - big and little) has been neglected either.  It made it so easy to stick those little pieces together.  The tiny attacher stapled them to the card just like they used to be.  The difficult part was coming up with a sentiment but I liked this one from CPD.

Now that I've found them again, I hope to enter more of The Paper Players challenges.

Fusion - Port of Call

I made a card for Fusion and then totally forgot to post it.  I'm glad it's not too late.

I did a true fusion this time and the deciding factor was the anchor button I found while cleaning out my button stash.  The bottom portion is Distress Ink through a stencil with a strip also inked with Blueprint Sketch to match. Some Pure Poppy cut with PTI's Polaroid and a sentiment from Penny Black finish every thing off.

Crafting has been slow around here.  I hope you're having better luck finding time to create.

Merry Monday #195, Muse #156, The Card Concept, and Tic Tac Toe #5

It's the start of the weekend and it promises to be a great day here in mid-Michigan.  Before I get involved in other things, I have several cards to share with you.

For Merry Monday:

We were asked to use buttons on our card and for the convenience of mailing, I used paper buttons from PTI with my Neat and Tangled tree.  The buttons are all cut out of foil (which are hard to see in the photo) and to add some interest I used the SSS stitched rectangles.  The sentiment is from SSS.

Up next is a card I made for Muse.  Michele asked for cards with a layered 'thanks' like hers:

I pretty much copied her design with different colors.  I'm not crazy about it but here it is.

A die from MFT and a stencil from HA combined with Melon Berry cs and Abandoned Coral DI and it's done.

For the Tic Tac Toe Challenge I used the first row down - green, friendship, charm.  It was the charm that got me until I remembered this little pair of scissors from long ago.

The sentiment was computer generated before gluing on the quilt die from MFT in a variety of green papers.  I'm also going to send this to The Card Concept where green and patterns are featured.

Anytime you cut out something like this there are lots of pieces left over so here's a second helping.

This sentiment is also computer generated and I used one of the frames from an initial cut for the sashing.  I love making paper quilts almost as much as fabric ones. ;)

Thanks for dropping by and have a great weekend.

MUSE #123

I don't think I have played at MUSE in a while but the card by newest DT member, Joan, spoke to me.  Here is Joan's card.

I took the textured background and central image with underlying sentiment as my inspiration.

Soft Graphite ink on a MFT Burlap stamp form the background for my PTI buttons.  The buttons were cut from coaster paper, layered with red, white and a print paper, then covered with Glossy Accents. I ran some thread through the holes to give them a finishing touch. The inside says "What would a youngster like you know about vintage? Happy Birthday!"  I figure I have a number of "old" friends that would get a kick out of it.

My desk is covered with the makings of a number of cards and it's bugging me so I'm going to spend the day finishing up and cleaning off so I can spend tomorrow putting the border on a quilt.

Have a great weekend every body and thanks for stopping by.

CASE Study #188

Happy beginning of the week!

Something is finally clicking with me and I got four cards made yesterday and this morning.   You may have heard me say that I send cards every month from the church to our homebound people.  That's 13 cards.  I used to just send on holidays and birthdays but since I make so many cards, I decided to do it once a month.   That explains the sentiments you see on many of my cards.  I'm still looking for appropriate ones (besides "thinking of you" or "you're in our thoughts and prayers") and have seen a few that I would like to get.  If you have any suggestions, please pass them on.

Today's card is for CASE Study and uses another good sentiment.

There's a lot going on in this photo to inspire you.  I took the six elements and went with that.  Besides I wanted to use my NBUS Bitty Buttons from PTI.  I now have all three sets.

I couldn't find a good way to put a banner on the card so I just stamped the sentiment in place of an element.  It was a lot of fun playing with the button dies and doing different things with them.  You'll be seeing more of them later.

Thanks for stopping by.  I love reading your comments so I hope you leave one.

Freshly Made #123

Hey, all.  It's snowing here AGAIN.  When will it ever end.  Notice I didn't end that with a question mark. It's rather rhetorical.  Well, at least there's crafting to keep us sane although I'm beginning to think it's making me a little crazy.  I will say the card I made for this week's Freshly Made went without a hitch - stamping and all.

I thought for quite a while on what to do for the sketch.  I had an idea right away but didn't know if it would work.  I kept coming back to it because it was something I really wanted to do so I took the chance that it fits the sketch.

I was going to take a picture of my button drawers and jars to show you how ironic it is that I'm making paper buttons.  It's because they are easier to mail.  The cute tape measure just happened to be the edge of that floral paper (there's a hole hiding under the button card) and was perfect for the string.  I had a difficult time with a sentiment.  I was going to do birthday or thinking of you but the stamps were really too big to fit and before I thought of turning it on it's side like I ended up doing, I found this NBUS one from My Favorite Things.  Love it.  Like I said, this all just came together like it was meant to be.

Thank you for stopping by to visit.  I appreciate your comments so please leave one if you are so inclined.

TCC #2, MUSE #52 and FM #121

Happy Groundhogs's Day!  Bah humbug!! I don't think many people around here are very happy about six more weeks of winter.  I don't really believe in all the hype but I am realistic.  I just hope it's not quite as bitterly cold as it has been.

On the upside, the cold and snow gave me a chance to spend time in my craft room and I have three cards for you today.  I don't usually show that many in one post but the deadlines are tomorrow.

First up: MUSE and this inspiration by Marion Vagg.

My brother's 65th birthday is next week so I made him this.  I was inspired by the chevron frame and the colorful element in the corner.

Next is The Card Concept.

This one had me stumped so I'm just under the wire with my Clean and Layered card.

The last one is for Freshly Made Sketches.

I know my proportions aren't right for the sketch but I wanted to use this NBUS stamp set.

I may have time to get another card finished before we head off to a Super Bowl party.  If you are a football fan, I hope you enjoy the game and the team you are rooting for wins.  Go Broncos!!

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting.

-----------------------------------
Card 1
Frame: Fabulous Finds Cricut cartridge
Candles: PTI Wishes Come True
Sentiment: PTI Birthday Bash

Card 2
Embossing folders:  Bubble and Distress Stripes
Sentiment: Hero Arts Everyday Sayings

Card 3
Stamp and dies:  PTI Button Boutique
Punch:  EK Success 2" circle
Other:  UTEE embossing powder, embroidery floss

Retro Sketches #69

Retro Sketch this week look's like this.

And my card looks like this.

It's not my best work.   The paper comes from a 6 x 6 stack that has lost it's cover so I can't tell you who makes it.  Even the strip of buttons is part of one of the papers.  The sewing machine and sentiment are from a Jillibean Soup set.  The buttons are dies from Papertrey Ink, covered with Glossy Accents.

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a wonderfully creative day.

Retro Sketch 56

I'm off today to spend some quality time with my daughter over her spring break and await the birth of my first great grandchild.  I've been making cards like crazy so I have all the challenges I want to enter met.  Now I just have to remember what to post when and what I did on each card.  I don't know how some of you keep all the challenges you enter straight.

Today's card is for Retro Sketches.

The paper came from a 6 x 6 pad from We R Memory keepers.  The sewing machine stamp is from Unity and I won it from Tracy at Owl Be Craftin'.  The buttons are from a die from Papertrey Ink.  I put a couple of coats of UTEE on them and used crochet thread through the holes.  I left a sentiment off the front because I want to decide what to use when I'm ready to send the card.

Thanks for stopping by.

Button, button, who has the button?

Birthday Sundaes' challenge this week was to use buttons.  That is not something I usually use on my cards since I think they can make them difficult to mail.  But. . . I have a huge stash of buttons considering I used to be a seamstress and have collected them over the years.  I went through some of the ones that I picked up just because they were unique and found the perfect ones to use on a card.

Aren't these the greatest buttons?  I had a green paper that matched, although the picture doesn't look very green.  I printed the "celebrate" on my computer, then scored on either side of the word.  Using my cuttlebug and the paisley embossing folder, I embossed above and below the score lines.  I rounded the bottom corners, and mounted the green on a black card.  I didn't want to distract from the button design so I just ran some black crochet thread through the holes and tied in the back to keep from having strings.  I stuck them on with glue dots.  I'm loving the simplicity but elegance of this card.  I may have to look through my button stash again.