Bloom

Bloom. Something we all should do daily! Bloom in life, attitude, with family... No matter what, we can always choose to bloom - love, joy, peace - spread it around!

I made this card for a friend, but it can be used for just about anything since you can add any wording inside for it to fit the occasion you need. Mine just says, "I love the way our friendship has blossomed." I like simple, lol.

What I used for this card:

3 patterned papers (one made by stamping a background design on plain paper.

Designed2Delight bloom digi stamp colored with watercolor pencils and blended with a water blending pen.

A glitter envelope sealer sticker cut into 4 for the corners.

4 colored metallic beads in green, blue, pink and purple.

3 flowers punched out of glitter paper.

2 ribbons of blended purple to blue color.

I chose the colors based on a challenge but since we lost power for a day I didn't get it posted in time but like the card enough to blog it. My daughter who loves purple approved of it highly so that was enough reason to add it to my collection! I hope you like it also :) Thanks for viewing it and giving me any feedback. I am so happy to have a 4th follower now, so maybe you can be #5 and make my week!

Many Blessings to you! Deborah

Challenges this card is entered into are:

CPS #215

Paper Playtime #44 - Friends

Stamp Fairy #20 - A bit of sparkle, 3 DP, 2 dies or punches

MAWTT #96 Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

PIO #17 - 2 or more ribbons

Oh Hoppy Day - Bullfrogs & Butterflies by D2D

Not only is this an adorable Digital Doodle set by Designed2Delight that can be used on a card for almost anything or anyone, it also makes me sing! "Oh Happy Day... when Jesus washed my sins away..." Having just celebrated Easter - Resurrection Sunday - I am again humbled at the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on the cross to take our sins and sickness away. Now relate that to Spring - new birth, new growth, sunshine (Son-shine), flowers and cute critters coming back out of hibernation for an overall feeling of JOY.

I wanted this card to depict the vibrancy of Spring. Though I was tempted to use my favorite color orange, I refrained this time and came up with another purple theme that my daughter Christy would love. The butterflies were the driving force since I do not have any frogs digital or on paper (hint hint to the digital designers!). I colored the butterflies pink and purple since I had the digital paper that I printed out. The secondary paper had purple and blue and the sky in the image is blue, so I added the dual color ribbon to tie in the blue and purple (glittery butterfly) buttons and added a purple ribbon bow. I wanted to add another paper so the card would fit into another challenge but I just could not figure anything into the card layout that would work without making the card way to busy to enjoy. Overall, I'm happy with the card and I printed quite a few of this digi to use on more cards which I will add to this blog post when done.

I want everyone to be able to go get this digi, so I have a few links to the blog. What I love Love LOVE is that you can buy this and use it for the next challenge and get the next weeks digi free just for participation in the challenge! Free digi stamp every week, how could you pass that up? I also just found another blog that gives digis away just for following, commenting on their blog and yours - Digi Stamp Boutique - and there is one day left for the April give away so don't waste any time!

This card would have been entered in a few challenges, but due to the nasty storms and power outtage, I could not post it until now which is too late to enter in D2D and some others. I still hope it can be enjoyed for viewing and that I might find somewhere to enter it.

Many Blessings today!! Deborah

Card Challenges:

Designed2Delight Bullfrogs & Butterflies - too late to enter bc of storms & power outtage :(

Paper Playtime - Challenge #44 - April's Digi Monday - Friends

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes (2nd Anniversary)

Stamp Something - Things With Wings

The Stamping Boutique - Challenge #5 Winged Things

Pile It On challenge#17 - 2 or more ribbons

Just Because

What better reason to let them know they matter to you than no reason at all? On top of that making something more than a basic card says that you took the extra time to make a special embellishment, use real stamps and hand write a sentiment really shows them that they are special. We all like to feel special! Texts and emails are nice, but something you can hold and look at while it's displayed at home fulfills a basic need in a not so basic way. This card was made for a man friend, but can be for anyone.

Blue skies and sunshine brighten our mood, right? That is why I chose these colors: light blue sky, aqua, cream (made from white and yellow because I did not have a cream that would show up on this cardstock) and some complimentary colors in the spotty paper to draw focus inward. Of course the flower centers are orange because by now you probably know that is my favorite color ;o) I double stamped the flowers with good old rubber stamps - the white went down first and then the yellow on top making a creamy color matching the cream in the patterned paper. The surprise outcome is that the flowers look highlighted which looks cool, lol. Since the card was fairly basic after just paper and ink, I offset the sentiment to add an embellishment. Adding more flowers would have made it to girly so I dug through my cabinet and found my wire tote. My husband is a contractor and I have helped him do wiring many times so wire said manly to me. Silver seemed to be the right choice over colored or coated wires because most men are basic and not frilly, but I did add beads at the end to tie the wire into the card colors. I had to staple the wire crafted embellishment to the card to make sure it was secure enough to mail. So much for basic, hehe.

Since the wire crafted embellishment was an afterthought, the staples showed on the inside :( To cover them, I cut a couple flowers out but had a hard time attaching them over the staple wires, even with pop dots. They will probably need replaced since they look kinda sad right now. Instead of double stamping the flowers this time, I just tried the yellow and white separately. Not the look I was hoping for with the yellow, but too late so that is a lesson learned - practice on scrap! I decided to hand write the sentiment instead of computer generate it just because, lol. Sandi Genovese was on a Scrapbooking show, and she is big on hand written sentiments and journals for that personal touch, so I did it. Please be kind when you comment!!

Many many blessings, Deborah - JoyfullyOrange

P.S. I now have 3 followers! Woohoo!!

Challenges this card is being entered into are:

CR84FN Color Challenge - CR84FN24 lt. blue, aqua, & cream
Craft Your Passion Challenge - You've been spotted (use dots)

Pile It On Challenge - PIO#16 Smells like rubber

I've Been Thinking Of You

   These days of digital technology are great BUT... Nothing says personal like a handmade card! I'm not OLD, just old-fashioned! Yes, I have a laptop, wifi router, smart phone, fax, etc... but I also have paper crafting supplies galore and I love to make cards to send to the people I care about! And, they love to receive them, heck, I love to receive them!!! I have a special place that I keep handmade cards given to me so I can look at them over and over. Just knowing that person thought enough about you to go out of their way and take the time to make a special creation is enough to make my day no matter what is going on. Tell me you don't feel the same way and I will make a card for you to change your mind! LOL!

   As I have stated before, I am new at blogging, and even newer at digital stamps, but I think they are so wonderful! *I like exclamation points if you can't tell, hehe* I have spent HOURS in the stores looking at rubber or acrylic stamps and trying to choose. They are expensive and take lots of room to store and they come in one size only, and not one size fits all. I have even SAT on the floor in the stores with stamps laying out in front of me trying to choose what I can buy that won't break my budget and will work for the most projects. I thank God for the wonderfully talented people that not only can draw, but can put it in a program to change it to what most of us can use with the programs we have. My husband told me today that I could do that. Well, I probably could, he has seen me do drawings for my stained glass patterns and other stuff, but what he didn't see was the hours of frustration and amount of paper I went through to do them. And, the fact that I can't draw like the people I have seen so far with digis, WOW!!!

   So here is digital stamp card #2 that I made. It is bright - my favorite color is orange, so you will be seeing a lot of it - and cheery, and CUTE with the expression on the ant's face pondering the one being thought of. This digi is from The Doodle Pantry's freebies page. I am using it to enter their challenge Bursting with Buttons and use a Doodle Pantry image. (Both of those are links, but I think I need to change the color on my layout for them to be more noticeable) I got this one done too late to enter the previous challenge of theirs but it just happens to fit the new theme - YAY!

   Of course my ant is orange, you do not need to adjust the color settings of your monitor LOL! Since most ants are red or black, I figured it would be fitting to have an orange and red combo. I wanted Casual and Simple so that it could be for anyone - man, woman, or child. I used watercolor pencils (I don't have copic markers, I am still old-school there too) and a blending brush to color the whole picture then added the glitter crayons like I did on the last card w/digi. What can I say? What woman doesn't like bling?? The ribbon is from my Christmas stash but the sparkle fits with the glitter crayons. The buttons are edged with a metallic marker red/silver combo because I wanted to make sure the red button stood out on the red paper, and it does in this picture but was closer in color looking at it at home. I popped the ant topper with foam tape - the cheap stuff you can get at the hardware store since it didn't have to be acid free to protect a photograph. (My husband is a contractor and I shop at the hardware stores with him a lot. You can find amazing stuff there!)

   Who are you thinking of? Go get the digi (you can't complain about the price!), make a card and send it out! Until I find a recipient of this card it will just be seen in challenges. I hope you like it. And I hope you will click to follow me. I am not sure how that works, as I have not found where to look to find the links to pages I have clicked follow for, but I am sure it does something or it wouldn't be there hehehehe. Someone give me a clue where to find those I am following?

Many blessings! Deborah - JoyfullyOrange

Card challenges this card can be seen in:

Doodle Pantry - Stock the Pantry #1 Theme: Bursting with buttons & use a DP image

Helpful Friends

I have discovered digital stamps. "Really?", you ask, "you JUST NOW discovered them?" Yes, I just now discovered them. Since I am new at blogging, and made my blog because I discovered card challenges that I wanted to enter, I have JUST NOW discovered digi stamps and lots of other blogging things! One of the most important things is the friendly community. I have quickly made some new blogging friends that have helped me by answering newbie questions and I have 2 followers! Woohoo! We all need friends, and I have found that this close community of cardmaking & papercrafting bloggers is going to be a great source of friendship! I believe this because another discovery is the Help For Katie Blog which I would like for you to visit if you have not. I purchased a digital package as part of the fundraiser and working on sizing the art for some upcoming cards.

Before I found Help for Katie, I found some other blogs with digital art. There is free art and art for purchase, and I now have both. I had never used digi-stamps so I had to learn how to use them. I printed out a few, practiced coloring them with different mediums and am ready to present 2 cards with this as the first. This digi came from Designed2Delight and is the subject of the challenge Ladybug Balancing Act". I was too late for the previous challenge and getting this stamp for free so I purchased it because it is adorable, and I purchased the previous challenge stamp "Garden Party".

This card was made based on the digi. The 3 backgrounds were made with Fiskars Texture Plates - yes, I do it old school, I don't have any of the machinery LOL. The leaves texture goes with the flowers, the spots go with the ladybugs, and the hearts are for the love of friends. The 3 paper flowers are pink, white and lavendar but I added color to the white to try making it match the yellow/orange and maybe I should have put the pink on pink and purple on purple because they do not look like the right colors where they are but Zots are holding them fast so they are stuck there ;) The 3 tiny gems in the flower centers are actually from a kit to add to fingernails which I don't use so why not use them on cards?? I used watercolor pencils for coloring the digi and blended everything but then I wanted some sparkle so I went over a lot of it with glitter crayons (yep, I really used crayons!) and tried to get it to show up but not sure it worked. The ribbon and brads just tied everything together along with the inked edge to make the background whole instead of 3 tiles of handmade textured cardstock.

I am keeping this blog entry because time has snuck up on me and I need to get the next one done to enter the challenges on time! I was browsing through digi stores for way too long!! haha, I just drool over all this stuff to make cards with!

Many blessings, Deborah

Challenges this card is being entered into are:

Designed2Delight Ladybug Balancing Act using this digital stamp

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturdays 3 pattern papers, 3 flowers, 3 sparklys and 1 ribbon

Craft Your Passion Challenges #54 - You've been spotted!

Stamps R Us #19 Bugs & Embossing - Sponsored by Doodle Pantry Digital Doodles

Happy Birthday card and quilled magnet

Debbie and Grandma Rose

   Hi! So glad you came to see the new post! I am enjoying learning about blogging through much trial and error LOL. I added a list of links for card challenges (took 2 tries) and added a couple of the little badges for other blogs but still have other things to figure out. I guess if I learned how to make web sites, I can learn how to make my blog - but this time I have asked for help from a couple ladies and am waiting to hear from them. If I limit my trial and error time, then I have more time to craft and post!! Woot!

   This card was made for my Grandma. She likes pink so I used different shades and coordinating colors in the embellishments. I made it for her birthday in January - and it is the last birthday card I will ever make her because she passed away the last day of January. I miss her terribly so why not showcase the love I translated to paper?

   I embossed the outside inch + and then inked over the raised hearts slightly so some spots would be darker than others. I always used the bottom sentiment somewhere on the cards I made her, even if it were on the back with the Love is Homemade. For the center topper I stamped happy Birthday on white cardstock, cut it out and edged it with ink and adhered it to a larger piece of pink so it left room for the fussy cut flower and leaf out of some scrap floral paper, and double ribbon bow (that I fought to make pretty and flat!). My real work went to the magnet I made for the inside.

   Since most all people only keep cards out to view for a short length of time, I wanted to make something that Grandma could keep in view for a long time, so the inside became a magnet for her to put on her fridge (which I now have on mine). I traced and cut out the cardstock and adhesive sheet magnet from a Fiskars template, then went to work on the quilling. If I can quill then anyone can! There are easy to follow instructions of the net and in kits. Another bow was made out of 2 more ribbons and adhere with a Zots dot on top of the quilling. I went through my stash and found a pink rose (her name is Rose) and pink butterfly button I threaded with pink cross-stitch thread and inked the edges of the to make it stand out more, and adhered them with Zots dots. To add some bling, I added Stickles to the butterfly, rose, quilled hearts and the stamped flower design coming out of the hearts as well as a little on the inked edges of the magnet, and wrote I Love You in a pink glitter pen. She loved it and was very proud to show it off to her friends and neighbors in her building.

   I think I have learned my lesson about where the light source is when taking photos, I didn't notice it at the time I took them and am usually pretty careful about it to get a good image, so I apologize for these photos with the top right corner glare. This picture is here to show that the cardstock was the same color, but the individual photos make it look different. That has happened with most of the photos I have taken and even with editing I have not been able to make them match.

   I hope you enjoyed viewing this double creation that I posted in honor of the memory of my Grandmother, Rose. She was a fabulous woman! I will be looking forward to seeing her again in heaven.

Many Blessings, Deborah

This card is entered in the following challenges:

Crafts and Me Challenges - Challenge #30 - Ribbon

Christy's Sweet 16

Christy is my youngest daughter, now 21 and on her own thus leaving us with an empty nest. She is blonde, blue-eyed, bubbly, and very loving. We are very proud of her and who she has become and is still becoming. I went all out making this card for her 16th birthday in 2005. As you can guess, she likes purple (as much as I like orange) so I used everything purple I could think of. Paper, ink, and ribbons are all purples - and way too various in origin to begin to tell you where they all came from or what brand they are, I have a huge stash that dates back 7 or 8 years.

You can see all the various crafting techniques and types of products on the card front. I quilled the center flower and ahdered it to embossed handmade paper. That topper is layered onto mulberry paper and adhered to the card that is stamped (I know the heart and scroll is CTMH). The top ribbon is threaded through eyelets. The bottom is torn layers of paper, mulberry and caedstock.

The inside top shows the torn paper and ribbon. I enlarged and darkened the handwritten text so you could read it. I used some of the text from a Blue Mountain Arts card I purchased as inspiration and if you like it and want to use some of it for a card of your own, that is fine with me :o)

This photo of Christy was taken on her Myrtle Beach Vacation with family friends. It is blurry because it was actually taken by a 2 year old little girl!

A friend of Christy's who is a fabulous artist decided to draw pictures of some of his facebook friends and so she set it as her profile picture as of March 20th to current April 18, 2011. It just deserved to be here since it is awesome art.

I hope you like this blog of my daughter and 16th birthday card, it is very close to my heart. I would love to see your comments.

Many Blessings, Deborah

For The Man

   Many have a hard time with cards for men. I made this a birthday card, but the inside embossed sentiment can be whatever you need it to be. Father's Day is coming up but our men need to be stroked all year too. If you don't have this stamp, you can print it out on your computer in whatever font you want.

   Seeing brown, green, peach and light blue in the coordinating papers made me feel this worked with the For The Man stamp set I have. It came with a Stamping kit and papers for Father's Day but I needed a birthday card and didn't really want to use the papers with cars and computers on it for this guy. The thick fibers felt more manly than ribbon and, now that I am looking at it, I could have put a trio of buttons or brads on it as well

   I heavily inked the Happy Birthday stamp and since it was clear, I even re-inked and re-stamped it when I decided to emboss it. Unfortunately I smudged it when it was still a bit wet. I tried to fix it with a brown marker and re-emboss it. You can tell that I should have trashed it and started over, but I didn't have the time because the mail was about to run and I needed it to set so I could get it out on time! I am bad about getting cards done on time and desperately trying to change that! LOL!! Please be kind when making remarks, I feel bad enough about it. On the plus side, the guy that received it called and thanked me today. I am sure his wife, my dear friend Jean, will be expecting her card on time this year!

   I hope this helps inspire you to make a card for your Man. If mine had not seen it I would have made another for him as a "just because" card ;)

Blessings, Deborah

This card was entered into a few challenges including:

Digi Doodle Shop's Best Challenge #54 Stripes

The Play Date Cafe Challenge PDCC77

Friendship Bluejay Card

MY FIRST POST!

My first card post and this is not even one of my best cards! LOL This card was made with a new (to me) stamping technique that I had not used before, or even though of, and it took some trial and error before I got a decent outcome.

front

inside

The front panel is an image stamped on tissue paper as instructed. Although it was the right ink, it took days to dry and even still would smudge. I will have to try it again when I have the patience, lol, maybe tracing paper will work better? Let me know if you have any ideas! I colored the back of the tissue paper with colored pencils and then crumpled it up real good. You have to cut the paper bigger than the size you need to compensate for the crumbling. Also use a dry glue stick or double sided stickers to adhere it because glue runners leave a moist imprint through the tissue paper. At least if you are layering it a paper edge like I had to end up doing, it hides the glue and the colored stamp area hid the glue in the middle. To dress up the inside I inked the edge of the sentiment and offset it to add the rhinestones and added some paper scraps. That was still too plain so I added some fiber and got some satisfaction. The next one should look better since I have experience now ;)

I am enjoying learning about blogging and I know I will make mistakes, but I started the blog to enter card challenges. I hope I can learn to link them correctly! I have seen some of the requirements people have on their blogs to enter their challenges and I am dumbfounded and need help!! I have to add their sketch, image, blog candy, or whatever to my page and link back to them and link my card page in a different way, and wow... there should be instructions for this stuff! I don't even have any followers to help me, hehehe, so I will just have to find someone who already has their blogs going full force to ask. Maybe it will be you (considering if I ask you, you might come back to here and see this) and you might be my first follower. If so, thank you in advance!

I better get going and find some answers! Many blessings!!

Deborah