3 Cards from a Sketch

Sometimes, often actually, I like to use a sketch to create a card or scrapbook page. However, less often I come across a sketch that really attracts my attention and sparks the desire to create using it.

This recently happened to me. The sketch challenge posted on Splitcoaststampers.com this past Wednesday was one of those sketches.

Being the perfect opportunity to dig into my scrap paper bin I sorted through and grouped 3 sets from which to make cards. Each are unique, even from the same sketch.

Happy Birthday

To make this background I stamped the flowers and leaves on white card stock with embossing ink, then applied clear embossing powder and heat set it. Using Ranger Oxide inks I sponged on some color. The images were touched up with markers. My scrap pieces were border punched and pasted down. The heart was punched and popped up. The tag was embossed, sponged and added with a piece of floss.

Thank You

This one took less time but I’m pleased with it. After stamping the bird directly to the cream card base I added water color with pencils and die cut a frame to pop up over it. A little “Thank You” stamp seemed just right on the right. The individual pieces and the card were inked. My new challenge for myself this year is to finish the insides and I’m pleased to say I am.

Encouragement

My final card to share with you, and hopefully inspire you to make some cards, too, is also for a challenge on “A Cherry on Top” – January Encouragement Challenge. We should be aware of our ‘neighbor’ and be ready to offer encouragement when needed. I certainly plan to make more such cards to have on hand. This is by no means a free pass to not be there for someone in person, to say the least!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope something here has sparked some creative joy for you to try.

Blessings to you, and hugs!

JA

Advertisements

Birthday Gifts

I’d like to share a layout I did with some shots from my daughter’s birthday morning.

When I found the “Sketches in Thyme Blog post” with their latest sketch offering I had just printed the perfect photos!

Here is the sketch:

I used Craft Smith paper and not sure what else as it came from my scrap bin.  I used punches, dies and heat embossing powders. The title was cut with Cricut Explore Air.

Instead of the faux stitching around the outside border I did some heat embossing. The banner is heat embossed with a rubber stamp and white embossing powder then punched out and adhered to the twine.  I even used some of the ribbon from her gift.

Birthdays are always special.  Doing something special for someone  is nice any time of the year, but it’s also nice on that one special day that celebrates the day they were born.  I remember the day she was born very well!  Being her mother that statement isn’t hard to understand.  As I get older, I find my long term memory is still intact but the short term, not so much.  It is important to me to document these events with photos and layouts, not just because I love this hobby of mine, but, what a beautiful way to recall the days gone by.

A little story behind these shots I will tell you.  I think she is hard to buy for.  If she wants something, she goes and gets it!  When I mentioned that thought of mine to her she said, “Not true!”

“Okay”, I said, “tell me three things you want that you haven’t already gotten!”

The pure gold earrings were one.

As soon as I bought them, I went to Starbucks.  To buy a mug.  True, I bought myself a caramel macchiato with almond milk, too.

One of our fondest gift memories was from the year I had disguised a gift to her in an empty plastic bottle.  I had cut the bottom out, tucked in the tissue wrapped gift, and wrapped up the bottle.  She was totally perplexed and her opening it made for the best facial expression photos ever.

And, so, I decided to tuck the jewelry box inside the mug.  Sure enough, she thought she had just gotten the Starbucks mug, which she loves collecting.  Surprise!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a fabulous rest of this year!  Make beautiful memories!

Hugs,

Joyce Ann

 

Layout Sketch Challenge in Gray

For these photos I was with my granddaughter and little Jovy to go to Leia’s school to pick her up.  Being with this one and a half year old is always a new adventure of discovery.  On every turn so much to see.  Mommy is ever ready for a sudden flight of fancy from her explorer.

Sketches in Thyme sketch #353 fit these photos well. 

There was no need to get too fancy with the great, basic flow of this design, so I went with it.  Scrappin’ Peeps offered a December color challenge earlier this month to use gray.  I was looking forward to finding gray in with my stash of pretty papers but came up short.  I did find the base print in a very old pack of Stampin’ Up! paper. Then, one scrap of this pretty print from Fun Stampers Journey to which I added a coordinating solid gray.  Because of the aqua in the pattern I used some Nuvo Embellishment Mousse over a Tim Holtz stencil for my cross flow on the base.  A title just didn’t seem important to me, so I used stickers from my very ageing supply.

What is really important is the taking of random photos of our loved ones.  Time is fleeting and even the tiny moments prove to make my heart happy.  That’s what is great about scrappbooking those photos.  It makes my heart happy to play and create with paper and other media, and all the while I am establishing a lock on a moment in time to be revisited again another day.

I really like this sketch.  I’ll likely find myself using it again.  Also, the gray.  Nice cool neutral that allows the photos to be noticed.

Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your valuable on-line time to stop in and read about my scrapping.  I wish you time to find your happy place with what ever art or creative play lifts your spirit.

Hugs,

Joyce Ann

Happy – Until the Mess

Jovy gets to paint the letter A.  His mommy gives him fun ways to visually recognize the letters.  It is all good!  For a while.  Then our baby boy discovers his hands have too much paint and nothing he does to remove it is helping.  He has always been adverse to messes all his walking-around life, short as it is. 

So, these are the photos I was inspired to scrap when Sketches in Thyme posted this sketch #351.  It impressed me from the beginning, the circle, the multi-media feel, and the basic design of it.

I used the Cricut Explore Air to cut the big blue circle.  Later cut the work “mess” to use as part of the title.

Using some Viva Decor Inka-Gold, the color gold, around the edge of the blue card stock.  With a rubber stamp from Fun Stampers Journey I stamped dots with some 3D-Stempel-Farbe from Viva Decor, color copper, around the white background.  The ring was created with a tiny brush and Dylusions paint. Finally, the smear of blue was done with the color Steelblue from Viva Decor Inka-Gold with added water.  The letter stickers are from Bo Bunny and Jilly Bee Design.  I added eyelets to a green strip that I punched with a EK border punch.

Also for a challenge at A Cherry on Top that challenged us to use our tools, my tools are the Cricut, border punch and eyelet setting tool kit.

With activity centered around our Christmas celebration, it took me a good while to finally finish this layout.

Thanks for stopping by! I wish you all the joy you can enjoy as we celebrate this day remembering the birth of the Savior – our Lord from whom all good comes.

First Color T.V. – 1959

My grandparents bought their first color television set for Christmas in 1959.  There were only 3 channels on which we could view a show, and not all of them were in color yet either.  I had insisted they give each other a kiss over the TV so I could take a photo.

A challenge came up on “Lasting Memories Layout Challenges” blog.  The December line up is going to be about Holiday Traditions and the first challenge is “Old Time Photo”.  We are asked to scrap a photo from our youth.  Well, for me, that goes way back!

Although color TVs were becoming more wide spread by 1956, we didn’t buy until 1959.  Even back then I was a avid photographer.  Most of my first years of photos did not survive, but I’m grateful for the ones I do have.

To make this softer and more vintage for the time, I painted the base patterned paper with acrylic paint before pasting down the kraft piece.  The photos are mounted and cut with some old scissors that remind me of some prints from the past.  The title letters are cut on my Cricut Explore Air, the ampersand is a die. The title sticker “Tis the Season” is from G45.  The other stickers are from some old Tim Holtz idea-ology sticker pads.  I used rubber stamps for the date.  My poinsettias were cut with a die, sprayed and shaped with a tool and brushed with some paints.

I hope you like my layout.  Perhaps you will be inspired to play along with your own childhood photo.

Getting Down to the Wire

It’s time to get my Christmas cards finished.  Such a procrastinator I am.  I got two in the mail today, another ready to mail tomorrow.  These 3 are the ones that travel the farthest.

Now for a look at cards I’ve recently finished up:

The first two were for a challenge to use 3 flowers that was not part of a patterned paper, bonus if the flowers were poinsettias.  I heat embossed the left ones with gold powder onto glossy magazine page and cut out.  The next was stamped and die cut with added embellishments on the wreath.  The center was “Winter Motivation” –  lots of snow.  It’s a simple card made more fun with a wobble I made for the critter.  The bottom 3 were made with the same image in different styles.  I love using Nuvo Drops.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope these cards will motivate you crafty card makers to get any more card made that you may need.

Hope your preparation for the coming of the Christ Child is beautiful for you!

Busy Bee Scrapbook Layout

Our little man is always on the go.  He is working at something all the time.  See how blurry his tiny feet are?  He is always moving – unless he is hungry then he runs and finds Mommy for more fuel.

This layout represents the Lasting Memories challenge #423 where we are challenged to use two forms of mixed media.  On my orange piece I used acrylic paint over a stencil.  I used a rubber stamp to edge the square with some Memento Rich Cocoa ink that looks like some zig zag stitching.  I wrapped some layers of twine and made a bow under the photos for added texture.  With a Sakura Gelly Roll pen I ran two outlines around the bottom layer of the page, which is from the PhotoPlay Paprika pack.

In addition, this sketch is from Sketches in Thyme #350 which is perfect for my two little shots of this busy baby boy.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you like my simple page.

Show Gratitude

How do I show my gratitude?  It’s rare at best, I’m sad to say.

For a while I have been feeling that the people of the world are a mess.  The debate in my head is whether our human race can get any worse.  I can’t help but believe there is a great deterioration in humankind.

It never fails to amaze me, even after all these years, how answers come to me at church.  It was a double for me today.  The first wasn’t really a current question or concern, just an ongoing sense of dread and sadness for the state of the human condition.  Amazingly, this lack of gratitude has been around for a long, long time.

Check this passage from Luke 17:11-19.  (I have copied it over from this website: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/112218-thanksgivingday.cfm)

[As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”]

Ninety percent showed no gratitude what so ever!  They got what they asked for and kept on walking.  Wow.  Two centuries ago.  And I wonder if we will ever change.

This year my “One Little Word” is TURN.  I have been focusing on tuning back, mostly.

There is a list of “Turn back to” ideas.

To the Bible – be more faithful in my studies and daily readings.  Our priest started a challenging and in-depth study of the Book of John this September which has been so rich and informative.

To my faith – really understanding what my relationship with God is and learning how to enrich my understanding and grow a stronger faith.  I have started a Faith Journal where I can explore certain areas as I wish.  It has been fun to add some art to it as well.

To prayer – not just saying a quick recite of a prayer and moving on, but truly talking with God often during the day.  I have found a couple of rich books on praying and it has opened my eyes to the true meaning of our praying. “Pray without seizing” I Thess 5:17.  Our memorized prayers are a beautiful help, a starting point from which we continue with our prayer to God.  I still have to remind myself to share my gratitude with God as well and bringing requests for help.

I still struggle to not criticize or judge when I come across people doing what I believe to be in error.  My daughter reminds me “they are not my weed” and so I must move on and pray they will come to know and accept the love God has for them, while I work on my task to ‘love my neighbor’.

If you are still following along with my wandering train of thought, you may have noted that I indicated there was another question on my brain this morning.  Last night I had trouble sleeping, and when that happens lots of thoughts, mostly unwelcomed ones, popped into my head.

When you love someone, especially a brand new baby, you might worry about their well-being.  My newest great grand is about 2 and a half months old.  With the news yesterday of a condition going on with her mother that the doctors don’t seem to understand, my thoughts drifted to this helpless baby.  What is something is wrong with her?  She is too little to express much more than pain or discomfort with her cries.  It seems so many babies have debilitating issues these days.  What is she is one of them?  The Priest spoke something about this; I’m sure it was for my benefit.  So, bottom line is that she is child of God, she is loved, she is and always will be a blessing to my life and that of all her family.

Next year I believe I will choose the word Gratitude.

The Best Place to Be

Here are pics of Jovy on his grandmother’s shoulder. Perfectly content. Grandma is content also, to hold her new baby boy.

This is another page for an album I am working on for him.  I’m using photos of him, but trying to do the earlier ones for him to flip through in his own 8 x 8 album.

For the stamping challenge at “Lasting Memories” layout challenge blog I chose to stamp a tiny Polaroid stamp randomly on the base, with a few embossed with white powder.  The camera is stamped on white, cut out and popped up on the red tag that I lined with gel pens and stapled a ribbon onto.

A Cherry on Top site has a challenge to use a Polaroid on a layout.  There are always such inspiring challenges over there – please check out their community.

The patterned paper is from Crate Paper.  The little rubber stamp is from Hampton Arts.  The red Polaroid die is from Stampin’ Up!.   The strip of washi tape is from Park Lane.  The small letters are stickers from Lilybee Designs. The clear hearts are from Queen & Co., and blue heart is from Fun Stampers Journey.

All supplies are quite old stash.  So old, in fact, this is the last year (2018) that I will be able to date my pages.  I will have use for it as there are still lots of older photos for me yet to scrap.

Thanks for popping in, hope your day is blessed with love and happy moments to cherish.

See Goodness in Others

Watercolor backgrounds are so amazing to me.  I have always admired the true scrapbook artists who make such stunning pages.  I’m not there yet, but I sure had fun.

I feel like I couldn’t get it, so I kept adding.   After each session of play I let it dry, then packed it under some 12 x 12 pads and weight to flatten.  Then, tried something else.  I actually gave myself a bruise on my index finger banging a brush of watercolor over the page to make spatters.  Finally used something else to bang on and it worked great and wasn’t painful.  I used a few stencils but they didn’t give the watercolor effect I wanted, however using some Inka Gold over a stencil was okay.  I still need work on that technique, my placement isn’t very artistic.

So, this is for the challenge at Lasting Memories #421.

My title work was done with my Cricut Explore Air.  What got me to do this title and find this photo of my dear son was a prompt challenge at A Cherry On Top.  Their challenges are fun and have gotten me motivated to scrap more.  Do visit!

Thanks for stopping by, and keep making those precious memories!