DCWV November Card Challenge

     I liked the DCWV card stack-a-holic challenge sketch so much that I used it for four cards, three different occasions.  The Linen Closet Stack is full of wonderful patterns and colors, half of them glittered.  I ended up taking the stack apart, so I could spread them out to mix and match all the beautiful combinations.  I added a button and twine from my stash and a fussy-cut flower from a scrap of the same stack.  The card shown uses a stamp by Technique Tuesday.  You can be sure I will be back to play with these papers again soon.

   

Two November Challenges: PCC & DCWV

     PaperCrafter's Corner's Magazine Monday and DCWV Stack-a-holic challenges are my favorites.  Both have wonderful inspiration.  I saw the long thin photo mats on DCWV's sketch and long thin ladies on the Harper's Bazaar magazine cover.  I have just the photos I've been waiting to scrap that fits "long thin!"  But not the cute kids or party themes this time. . . before and after x-rays!
     Let me explain my title.  I do believe in angels, but doubt they are tiny little things that can inhabit our bodies.  Still, when I saw the before x-ray, it sure looked like a little angel holding my deformed spine together, right where I have had (They took it completely out!) the triangular shaped vertebra.  Apparently it was very unstable.  I know the Lord was looking out for me and kept it from slipping all these years, and He gave me a grin when I saw the picture, a probable artifact, I'm sure.

    There was so much story I wanted to record, I decided to put it on paper strips rather than using designer paper.  The words were cut on the Cricut.  The paper is from DCWV's Confetti and Metallic stacks.  I thought those stars were the perfect celestial backdrop for my "angel."  Can you see it?  :o)  

     As much as I'm still hurting 8 months out, I am very thankful to God and for modern medicine that was able to fix this before it gave way and paralyzed me!  I "think" I'd do it again.  

PaperCrafter's Corner and DCWV Challenges

     Stranger things have happened.  When I saw the inspiration piece for PaperCrafter's Corner Week Magazine Monday Week 164 challenge, the DCWV Confetti Stack was open on my desk.  The bright colors in the stack were a match for the ones in the PCC inspiration piece!  Yippee!  Isn't picking the papers the hardest part of a challenge?  Now I could combine two, Magazine Monday and the October Stack-a-Holic Challenge (Scrapbook part)!
  

     I love the paper I used here!  I love this stack!  And I'll tell you more about that in a minute.  All the prints, including the striped vellum were from the Confetti stack.  The solids were from the DCWV Christmas stack.  Instead of stars as embellishments, I obviously went for teddy bears, including cutting teddy bear shaped holes in the one paper.  I did that on the Cricut, as well as cutting the title.  The only other thing I used was the little Sizzix teddy bear die and a piece of ribbon.  Still on the mend, I'm all about "easy," and this was, yet I love it!  Hope you do, too!
     But hold on!  I wasn't through with this stack!  It has little packets of confetti right in the stack.  They leak everywhere, but that's okay.  It gave me an idea!  I checked out the DCWV October-Stack-a-holic card challenge.  Everything I needed was right there in that one stack, even the sentiments.  Easy peasy, and so much fun.  Okay, it took a couple of days, but that's only because I can only sit at the desk for short periods of time.  To think I got all of this done in one week, though, shows it was easy.  So much inspiration in one stack of paper!  Thank you, DCWV!  And thank you, Steph, for choosing just the right magazine cover this week!

Thank you for stopping by.  I'd love for you to leave a comment.  :o)

P.S.  Just read that the PCC entry this week is supposed to include a winter holiday.  Please note the sentiment on some of these cards say, "Cue the Confetti!"  Now isn't that perfect for New Year's?  New Year's Eve is also DGD's birthday, "Happy Day!"  She's a holiday everyday!

PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday #163

     Everything came together nicely this week.  I saw my first z-fold pop-up box card, and fell in love with the new fold.  However, the one I saw was cut and folded mostly from one piece of cardstock, and I didn't feel up to that much measuring and cutting.  I went looking, and with some help from a FiskaFriend, found a template by Lori Whitlock.  She has several, and because they were on sale, I bought several!  Makes sense, right?  She even had one with a pick-up truck.  Perfect in so many ways!  A Christmas card for my oldest grandson who restores old cars!  And a pick-up for PCC's Magazine Monday theme! 
     With Granddaughter by my side pushing buttons and peeling cardstock off the mats, we cut it out on the Cricut.  With a new lock on the inside of my craftroom and two toddler grandsons outside the door, it came together perfectly!  :o)
     I didn't take many liberties with the template, and what I did doesn't show much in the photo.  I cut a window for the pickup out of a scrap of acetate.  Looks so cute!  I used the write feature for the greeting rather than cutting it and inked it with a glittery red gel pen.  Rather than cut snowflakes, I punched them out of glitter paper for more detail.  I used Wink of Stella on the tree in the back of the truck, and embossed the other two.

     This was a totally awesome card to make (maybe because of the help I had outside the craftroom and didn't have inside the craftroom!).  Now that I can see the dimensions of it, I will easily replicate it in an A2 card, but first I will probably have fun just doing the other Lori Whitlock ones I bought. Way fun!

My Bobble-Head Munchkin!

     Last week I had a hard time with PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday.  This week, #152, was much easier.  A pretty girl as the centerpiece!  Ta-da!  Sequoia's mom asked me to make some thank you cards for people who especially helped Sequoia at "The Wizard of Oz" production, so I found my pretty girl!

  With her help, I made bobble-head easel cards of Sequoia in her munchkin costume.  It was fun teaching my DGD to make the yellow brick road with an embossing folder and clouds with a scalloped circle die-cut. We added red flowers because she also played a poppy.  I tried to include my video, but it wasn't playing in the post.  Sorry, it was pretty darn cute!

Thanks for stopping by!

PaperCrafter's Corner's Magazine Monday #161

     Each week I am inspired and/or stretched to come up with a project for the challenge at PaperCrafter's Corner.  This week "stumped" was a better word.  I ended up with a card that has been coming together in my head for awhile, but I'm not happy with it.  The only thing I could take from the magazine cover was the colors and borders, but, frankly, I don't think it fits well with my idea.  I still have more "Dearie Dolls" and more of the sentiment cut out, so I think I will rework this next week.  Not feeling well and trying too hard, I think.                                    

The sentiment is an svg from Apex Cuttables, a freebie that I love.  I used the negative space after cutting it out on my Cricut.  Please check out Free Dearie Dolls Digi Stamps, too, where you will find great fun (and free!) clip art.  

PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday #160

     "A World Away from the Everyday!"  Isn't that where the Land of Oz is?  I have several (many) themes to scrap, but this one instantly came to mind when I saw the PCC magazine cover, and it's very current since the play runs a couple more weeks!  I'm so pleased with the results.  I hope you will like it, too!

     A special shout out to Mary Ellen Smith.  She is the talented and generous artist who offers her fun clipart at Free Dearie Dolls Digi Stamps.  I'm still thinking I should have used those flying monkeys! Thank you, Mary Ellen!

Magazine Monday Inspiration

     And thank you, Steph, for keeping me busy, even when I'd rather go to bed!  :o)  Also, it's because of you that I have a Cricut to use on these projects.  I didn't have to fussy cut the digi stamps.  I did a print-and-cut which does a much better job than I can.  The title took me all of about 10 minutes to layout and send to the Cricut.  Love it!

 

A two-fer

        This week I got the idea for my subject from the inspiration at PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday #159 and the layout from the September Stack-a-holic Sketch Challenge at DCWV.

     Instead of a little girl with a cat, I went with my little girl and her dog, Nigel.  He lives at our house, but is technically her dog.  They just don't have a place to keep him right now, and we are quite happy with that arrangement.  Nigel is one of those dogs with a perfect temperament.  He barks at every stranger who comes to the gate, but lets the grandbabies crawl all over him.  Sequoia would literally ride him when she was tinier!  She still dresses him up and wraps him in blankets, and he never complains.  I need to do more layouts of Nigel.

     All the paper, except for a few scraps, are from DCWV's Summer Dream Stack.  I used a Sizzix alphabet to cut out the letters, and the stamp set is from Stampendous.    

     Thanks for stopping by.  Still lots of time to join the DCWV challenge!

DCWV August 2016 Stack-a-holic Challenge

       With granddaughter in first grade now, I have more time on my hands, and everyone knows that paper crafting is good therapy.  Still in recovery, it takes me longer to finish anything, but with that additional time, I'm getting some fun things done.  

     Usually I try to avoid glare in my photos, but I wanted to show off the foil bling in this beautiful DCWV cardstock from the Fall & Halloween Combined Mat Stack.  Surprisingly the best matching blue I found was in the Christmas Stack.  Don't wait till holidays to look in those stacks!  There is a lot of pretty paper that can be used year-round.  I especially was yearning for plaids this go.  Love this one! 

     I embossed the tag with a Cuttlebug folder of tiny hearts, covering each one with Glossy Accents.

     I used the Poppy Stamps Hello Word Balloon to die cut the hole and then used the coordinating brown cardstock to die cut again for the insert.  

    To add more bling I added a strip of Treveni Craft Diamanti colored with a Bic permanent marker.  This is the DCWV challenge sketch.  Fun!  

     Thanks for stopping by. 

PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday #158

   

      I love clipart.  For several years I belonged to Provocraft's HugClub, a monthly clipart club, so I've accumulated quite a bit.  Because I still haven't learned to color, this is definitely another way to go.  The focal point here is from "A Bird's Life 1."  She's in an office which fits the bill for this week's PCC challenge!  Besides patterned paper, I used #DCWV adhesive cork and a die-cut using one of my favorite Poppy Stamp dies.  Once I decided what to do, I added to my stash:

     Steph at PaperCrafter's Corner comes up with the best magazine covers for inspiration.  Here's this week's:     

Thanks for stopping by.

PaperCrafter's Corner Magazine Monday #157

    Yesterday I decided this wasn't going to get done.  This morning I woke up with a simpler idea that just maybe I was up to completing.  And I did!

     My first thought from PaperCrafter's Corner's inspiration piece was the obvious:  children going off to school.   I only got this one picture of Sequoia's first day this year. . .and I think it's the same view I got last year, her standing by the chalk drawing of the school's puma mascot.  The title piece and slide are svgs from the generous #misskatecuttables.  Where I got discouraged was putting them into Cricut Design Space and finding it was going to take about 20 mats.  I'm physically not up to that this week, especially after taking a fall (in that messy family room I scrapped last week!).  But this morning I came up with the idea of doing a "print and cut."  That took all the work and worry out.
     The background paper, which looks like school paper, is from #DCWV Magnolia stack.  To fill the page, I had to stay simple so I went with the stars in the title, punched a bunch and scattered them around.  It looks better in person.  It actually turned out pretty cute.  :o)
    Edited:  While I was working on the cut-and-print part of this, my 20-month-old grandson turned off my computer.  I gave up for the day.  The next day when I tried again, I somehow switched the cuttable from Miss Kate to the kindergarten one!  This is first grade!  It hit me hard the day after I posted.  It all got fixed before it went into her scrapbook.  :o)

Two Challenges in One

     Amazingly, I was able to bring together DCWV's August Stack-a-holic challenge and Papercrafter's Corner's Magazine Monday.  Without thinking!  If I would have had to think about it, it wouldn't have happened.  I just immediately knew what I wanted.

     PCC made it easy.  This week's inspiration showed a messy house which looked a lot like a picture I took last week when "Los Tres Nietos," the three small grandchildren were here.  The rays of sun in the DCWV sketch reminded me of where I wanted those little ones to play: Outside!  The Kidlet stack had the perfect paper with words describing the day Outside!  

    Steph, do you remember how excited I was that the Cricut allows me to cut any words and just the size I want them?  That's what I did!  The font I used for "Outside" is a freebie called Black Fat.  I like that it doesn't have thin areas that might get messed up in the cutting.
     The sun was a free svg from the talented Juliana Michaels at 17 Turtles.
     With a quieter house once again, I was able to work on this for short periods each day.  Very therapeutic and great fun!  Writing this blog may have been the most difficult part!  :o)

PaperCrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #155

Magazine Monday Inspiration

     It's been so long!  I am making very slow recovery from a complicated back surgery that kept me in the hospital for 36 days.  I have a hard time staying in one place very long.  I can't get comfortable or stay comfortable, but. . . this was my son's first week back from commercial salmon fishing in Naknek, Alaska.  He was home to watch the little ones.  (He had the boys, 1 and 3, with him, too, besides 6 year-old Sequoia.)  I had DH put a latch inside the craftroom, so know one else could get in, and I was able to craft a little bit each day or so.  What fun!  The result was a very simple card, but it met the criteria for PCC's Magazine Monday, a starry background!  The sentiment is from #Apex Cuttable Designs.  It was a free svg file, but I actually used the jpeg that came with it.  I printed it out in gray scale.

My background was a sheet of paper I found in my stash.  Perfect!  It was all about simple, but I am so happy to have been able to craft a wee bit.  Thanks for the inspiration, Steph!

PaperCrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #155

Magazine Monday Inspiration

     It's been so long!  I am making very slow recovery from a complicated back surgery that kept me in the hospital for 36 days.  I have a hard time staying in one place very long.  I can't get comfortable or stay comfortable, but. . . this was my son's first week back from commercial salmon fishing in Naknek, Alaska.  He was home to watch the little ones.  (He had the boys, 1 and 3, with him, too, besides 6 year-old Sequoia.)  I had DH put a latch inside the craftroom, so know one else could get in, and I was able to craft a little bit each day or so.  What fun!  The result was a very simple card, but it met the criteria for PCC's Magazine Monday, a starry background!  The sentiment is from #Apex Cuttable Designs.  It was a free svg file, but I actually used the jpeg that came with it.  I printed it out in gray scale.

My background was a sheet of paper I found in my stash.  Perfect!  It was all about simple, but I am so happy to have been able to craft a wee bit.  Thanks for the inspiration, Steph!

PaperCrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #135

     I got my exercise this weekend, stretching the limits of this challenge!  But Steph at PaperCrafter's Corner always says the only rules are that it must incorporate paper and it must be submitted by the deadline.  This inspiration screamed scrapbook layout, but I was determined that I would make cards this weekend!  The magazine cover showed "variety" and "happy."  Those are what I took from it.  :o) 

     This set of cards was made from My Scrap Chick cutting files.  It turned out to be a lot of work.  Maybe that's because Granddaughter arrived unexpectedly and thought I needed her help!  (I didn't!)  There are three different cards, a gift bag and gift tag, which I forgot to photograph. The cards are slightly smaller than the normal A2, so I made envelopes out of regular colored paper which happened to match surprisingly well.  I usually don't start something this involved when I have a lot of "help."  It was frustrating, but fun! 
     Thanks for stopping by!

The ONLY requirements for entering this week’s
Magazine Mondays papercrafting challenge
are that your entry must be a papercraft project –
it must somehow incorporate paper –
and it must be submitted by the deadline. - See more at: http://papercrafterscorner.com/blog/papercrafting-challenge-magazine-mondays-week-135/#sthash.5WkDtGQZ.dpuf

The ONLY requirements for entering this week’s
Magazine Mondays papercrafting challenge
are that your entry must be a papercraft project –
it must somehow incorporate paper –
and it must be submitted by the deadline. - See more at: http://papercrafterscorner.com/blog/papercrafting-challenge-magazine-mondays-week-135/#sthash.5WkDtGQZ.dpuf

The ONLY requirements for entering this week’s
Magazine Mondays papercrafting challenge
are that your entry must be a papercraft project –
it must somehow incorporate paper –
and it must be submitted by the deadline. - See more at: http://papercrafterscorner.com/blog/papercrafting-challenge-magazine-mondays-week-135/#sthash.5WkDtGQZ.dpuf

PaperCrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #134

Here's PCC's inspiration photo:  The background was the most striking to me, bunches of something relating to the subject.  But my mind went here:

     This is my son amid his salmon catch in Alaska last year.  Wouldn't you like to have those in your freezer?  Me, too!  But the price dropped so low last year and the cannery wouldn't take all the catch, so much of it was given to charity, and my son and most others lost money.  Anybody want to buy a salmon boat?  :o)

     Fortunately while I was looking for the salmon picture, I came across one of Sequoia surround by sequoia.  One is my granddaughter; the other is a giant redwood tree.   I decided to go that way.  :o)  I used my sequoia tree stamp to make up the background.  I know that some are slanting.  I think they were growing on a hill.  :o)  I let the Cricut do the writing.  That's a super fun feature!  After I got it all photographed, cropped, etc., I see I put 2015.  It was 2014.  That will be a quick fix before it goes in the album.  Thanks for stopping by.

PaperCrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #133

     So happy to find some time this weekend for crafting.  I didn't think it was going to happen, but it sure feels good when it does.
     My son-in-law's birthday is coming up soon.  I knew which card I wanted to make and decided to use the colors from PCC's inspiration piece to make it happen.  The svg file is from My Scrap Chick, definitely one of my favorite places for finding goodies.  Great sales and a freebie every week!

      I plan to gift him with a Costco bundle of steaks.  He's definitely a meat-eater!  Maybe he'll invite me to dinner!  I'm sure I'm expected to make him his annual cheese cake, too.
     Thanks for coming by.  :o)

Papercrafting For Others: A RAK Day Challenge!

     PaperCrafter's Corner is such a special place to play.  Lots of inspiration and fun! Today Steph has challenged us to do a RAK, a "Random Act of Kindness."  I usually don't even try to do any of my crafts during the week with my granddaughter here.  We craft, but it's fun things for a 6-year-old.  Today Sequoia gave me a RAK and stayed on her side of the desk.  We both got things done!

Some of you may know that we raised our son Donnie from age four and kept him with us until he was 38 and got to be very difficult.  It was a hard decision to move him to a group home, but he has loved it and done so very well there.  That said, he called Valentine's Day to say he made a Valentine that said M-O-M and D-A-D!  He's not far away, but we haven't seen him since Christmas Day.   So we made cards for Donnie.  He will be tickled to get one from Sequoia, too. 

Thanks for spurring us on, PCC!  Wish I could see his face when he opens this RAK!

Magazine Monday #132

After 47 Valentine Days together, he still sweeps me off my feet!  I took a break, came to the kitchen and found these roses on the table.  I decided that was the perfect backdrop for the card I made him.     

 

    For the PaperCrafter's Corner challenge this week, I used all the same colors and polka dots, too.  I made my background by inking up the Cuttlebug Dotted Swiss embossing folder, putting my cardstock inside and running it through the Fiskars Fuse.  The netting is an upcycled flesh-colored produce bag.  I had a little trouble cutting my sentiment, but hubby would never notice.  He wouldn't dare!  :o)  I'd keep him around even if he did.  He's the best Valentine ever! 

Papercrafter's Corner, Magazine Monday #131

     My January pictures of Granddaughter are mostly of her trip to the snow, which made PCC's magazine cover the perfect inspiration for another monthly page.  I put together a snowy scene using both die cuts and stamps for trees.  The tall tree is a Sequoia, as is our girl!  I labeled them in small print.  I also did some tiny journaling around the edge of one picture.
     I'm not very good with white space, even if it's supposed to be snow, so I scattered tiny snowflakes that were the fiddly bits from the Fiskars border punch I used on the photo mats.  I couldn't just toss them out!  :o)  Thanks for stopping by.