The Warm Winter Fuzzies

 This little bird reminds me of the warmth we find within the chill of the winter.

I find the picture gives me a sense of hope for spring. 

So get yourself a cup of hot chocolate or warm tea and get inspired for a New Year    ( 2012) of card making.
       I've been exploring beyond the card stamping supplies in our box stores with their generic papers, patterns and "embellies." Some of the trademark papers, Bo-Bunny and Graphic 45 ,may not be new to everyone, but they were new to me.  I was told about  Stampin' Up, their products and their home demonstrators from a friend. The catalogue and their supplies can be down loaded from their website. Click onto their web site and click "USA"--then, to see product--- next, click the page to find their 2011-2012 catalogue (www.stampinup.com) This will get you started. Also, I have explored the Archiver's website (www.archivers.com), they also  have a nice website with ideas and they also sell on-line products. These are just two great "go-to" places to learn some new card making skills.

                  I took some time off during the holidays, although I haven't stopped working on cards. I recently worked with a very young designer in the Sixth grade. Her name is Marie. She has a designer mind. Brilliant! Marie.  She did some outstanding card designs during her Christmas break.
          She helped me see with new eyes. Do you know what I mean... we begin to look at the same old projects in a new way and it gives us a new perspective. As we shared together,  I gave her some tips I've learned and she shared her ideas with me. Ooooh my... what I have learned from all of you is awesome. Working with Marie refreshed my desire to expand my skill level and include new techniques for the coming year.  Marie agreed, "change is good." I hope you like our suggestions for this New Year.

Here are a few variations to an old theme.

One idea we used was the idea of multiples.
#1--If one graphic element will work, why not try it in multiples. ( In this card we were inspired by the hearts in different colors.)

#2---Use different color schemes, in traditional and non-traditional patterns to give you a WOW! factor.It does bring your cards alive.

#3--- Use your scraps. Through a few of those cut pieces of paper, trim a different color, and begin to adhere them onto a card. "What's New?" is a way to use up the scraps and develop new ideas.

I've forgotten where I got this card pattern, but it is excellent to use your scraps of paper, left over embellies, gems, card stock and die-cuts. Use a different color theme ( that is: tans and browns,or black, greys and red). And I'm sure you have enough scraps to make this an awesome card.

#4---The one we all need to embrace everyday---get organized. Whether we organize ideas by the month, by project boxes, by color or in baskets. Get your ideas organized. For other ideas and trends, go to www.handmadebyJulie by the way, Julie has a card on her website that is shown on page 72 in the Stampin Up catalogue.
     For our group of Card Makin' Cuties, this year we've made our own calendar---so we can keep up with our card making ready at hand for Operation Write Home.( www.operationwritehome.org/stars and stripes). We plan our card making with the organized dates for shipping the cards to deployed troops. Our planning dates and projects reflect OWH timing.
             #5---Try a new style in your card making. Some times we get stuck on doing a card a certain way and never change our style. The new steampunk genre is new to me, but not vintage. I understood what it means to do a vintage design.

This is a vintage print called "Mrs. Winter"

The elements of design are fairly straight forward:  use of the vintage figure cut from a pattern or design, a tree stamped background, the use of a frame with the embellishment added to the left-top corner and the vintage figure added to the right-bottom corner of the card. The pop of red on this diagonal plane makes the subject even more dramatic, wouldn't you say? 

So what is "Steampunk?" Is it vintage? Or, a use for  old stuff  on card stock?  (I found these two designs to compare and contrast.) The stamp on the steampunk is the woman's face and the embellishment is the additional interests. Steampunk uses the gears, tones and metal effects in a 1890's idealized machine-run world. Tim Holtz is specializing his line of products to help card makers reproduce a feel for this style. While nothing will ever take the place of the old vintage prints on a hand made card... you can see there is room for all in this medium. If you want to look at more of Tim's products go to his web site. (www.timholtz.com)

                Well, I hope this sounds exciting to you. I enjoy our  visits so much and hope we can visit more often this year.

Please add your name to the follower's listing by clicking on the side bar to the right. If you are new at card making so are we... let us know if you have some  interests, hints or a special web site you follow. Have a Happy New Year and great carding!

                                

Christmas is Here at Last!

Christmas is here at Last

        This was one of those cards that I didn't have time to do and send out. I loved the arrangement and the tones with the highlight of color on the tree. And for all my blog friends, I loved the sentiment.

Another picture I am fond of is this one from our friends at Fort Sills (take a look--->). There is a wonderful slide show on Operation Write Home's web site (www.operationwritehome.com). Go to the Mail room for the slide show... some of the slides are so touching, it has soldiers who are still on deployment having their Christmas in the field. It helps me and our other card makers identify why we are making cards for these heroes.
While we've taken time off from making cards; I have been busy, nevertheless. I was thinking about card patterns and new designs for this coming year.

What if we use this design from OWH and use our Valentine papers to make troop cards. OWH deadline is Jan. 31... so we'll have to get started in order to have some new designs ready. Remember card size is a little smaller than a regular greeting card ( 4.25 X 5.5). No glitter on these cards and use a very quick drying glue or double sided stick tape runner. All the information is on the OWH website.

  I thought..."What if we used some different colors for these valentine cards?" (These colors are great!)
Card Making Mag. features this as a color challenge not long ago. We could use these colors on the card challenge design and block in a background and add them as part of the bottom squares---a heart where the circle is located and our sentiment in the square where the OWH sign is. Why not try a card with these colors? Here a valentine-style card with a heart motif in these colors. What do you think?                  

    One of my goals for next year will be to explore other techniques and try other styles. So far in this first year we have been pretty basic, but I think we are ready to do more designing on our own and have fun with ideas and new challenges.  Take a look at your scrap drawer and see if you have any of those papers and colors left from last year. ( We'll put those scraps to work!)   
In the meanwhile, I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season..... and last-but-not-least, if you are still procrastinating about making your cards, here's two vintage patterns

                                

for some ideas and eye candy.  And HO (x3),
Merry Christmas 
Gloria J. and all the Card Makin' Cuties!                              

Thanksgiving-Our American Holiday

This is one of my favorite picture of the fall scenery. Its beautiful! Another part of its beauty is it pulls our families and friends together in a way that no other holiday does. It brings us together to celebrate our thankfulness. We do have so much to be grateful for, don't we!

We've had a wonderful first year in our non-profit card making project. Our team has grown in size. We've made a progress in learning more about our craft and  what it takes to have this kind of  commitment.
We've had to fun, loads of fun!  Of course, I personally,want to thank our group of "card makin' cuties," with out you, I can do nothing--- with you I can do everything. You are all wonderful. The women of CMC have shown me they are all  a very high distinguished caliber of person indeed---I am so thankful God brought them by our door.  By the end of this year, we will have made and sent to OWH (Operation Write Home) over 526 cards to send off to our troops so they may mail them home to their families. Wow!

This is a great picture of our recent fund raising booth we had at the Hancock  Co. Homemakers Holiday Bazaar. It was a wonderful way for us to connect with people and get our name out there in the public eye. The thing I was so grateful for was the encouragement and the support we were given. Some people really got the whole idea of what we were doing. Every single item in our booth was made of card stock or paper, it was all hand made.That's including Garry's handiwork in building the booth,  doing the lighting and installation on site.
While we were given recognition by the visitors to the booth, one of the participants also wanted to help us.
I want to link you to a lady who has been in the business of giving others a hand up ever since she started--- Jana Bass and the Bass Farm, who are makers of Goat Milk soaps and lotions. Jana has sent their products to cancer patients. Jana  have sent many, many of their lotions out to our troops in the home front care kits. They have some great products for hands who deal with  cracking and dryness in winter months. I'm sorry you can't feel how wonderful and silky it is! Soooo...Take a look at her web site:

www.bass farms.com  ---all their products are on their site. If you order anything for the holidays use our code : CMC on your order and Jana will give you a 10% discount on the total. (And a must try is:  "Baby Butt Butter"!) This is Jana's way of helping you as one of our supporters.
This has been the theme of this year, good tidings and great joy have come to us in many different places, in many people and through  many different sources. To all of you I am extremely grateful.

It is my deepest prayer for all of you that you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday--- that your homes are graced with the meaning found in an attitude of gratitude and that this one day of thankfulness may grow and spread in our hearts and in the hearts of others throughout the whole year.

Most of all, our prayers go out to the troops who serve to keep our freedoms in this land. May we give them honor and praise for their bravery.

It is Fun Raising Time!

 I am so excited!!! It is fund raising time!!! and it has been fun trying some new things.
That's not to say it's been all play,  we have been working our little fingers off, cutting our beautiful paper for cards and making lovely boxes. One of our Cuties,
Judy made these boxes for her Mom's home made cookies. And BTW, Ginny's cookies are delicious, she's been treating us to these scrumptious cookies every Thursday. We are using the boxes to place our cookies in to sell at the Home Maker's Holiday Bazaar.

  AND cards, YES, we will have cards ready to do in a "Make-It, Take-It" format. The cards are simple to make, an easy project of 5 or less steps ( 10 to 15 mins. tops) and you get to take it away with you all complete. Ta Da! There are over 10 designs in all. Some Birthday, some Thanks and others.  AND ...Where is this Home Maker's Holiday Bazaar--- in Greenfield, IN. at the 4-H Fair ground. Nov 5th. Check the paper for the start time.

Are you looking for a pattern? Here is one I liked for a Thanksgiving theme.
We used a 3-D turkey and placed it where the heart is. The sentiment... " Eat More Ham".

It was somewhat like the Chic-Fil-A commercial, but then, we do borrow ideas---beside, my family thought it was funny ( and that was priceless!.)

We found lots of good ideas in this month's Classic "Crafts and things" magazine. The ideas are classic.

Some of the projects are on- line and they are free instructions to help you.

When so many groups are trying to do fund raisers... its nice to have fun---while your doing those projects.

We are looking forward to folks in our area stopping by our booth and  helping us with card making. All the donations will go to help us send cards to our troops through Operation Write Home. I  hope you do pass the word along to others.
Thank you, Gloria

August, gone? On to Fall's Excitment!

 Are you ready to go to work on some new plans for fall cards? I am!
      Have your seen the new fall lines for Bo Bunny and others? I love the fall colors, the new paper lines, some exciting new combo colors for Christmas and  new embellishments. Card Makers Mag. www.CardMakerMagazine.com has a great article with some wonderful border and layering ideas for fall cards. I hope you can get your hands on a copy of their September issue.

 This summer we visited two area shops in Indiana. It was a real "shop hop" traveling from Bloomington, in the southern half of the state and up to Fort Wayne in the northern part of the state, that is, to  PaperTrix www.papertrix.com and Stamping Day and Night www.stampingdayandnight.com respectfully. Each shop has their own classes if you need new ideas.  They are wonderful people who graciously did a little tutoring with  our card makin' cuties. I urge you to go to their web sites and you'll see what talented ladies they are! It was well worth spending our summer traveling and enjoying meeting these new friends.

How do you like simplicity in your life? Isn't this simple yet,
quite a beautiful card.
It's made by Lisa Haynes.
Lisa has been a contributor to OWH, too,
and shares her work there.
Here's design sketch # 83  which she used for her card from OWH.  

   You can go directly to their link from here www.operationwritehome.com for other ideas.


And ... here is another clever inspirational idea for a fall design card and perhaps the sentiment... "Happy Birthday!"
 Just goes to show you, ideas can come from many different places. This one comes from a Flickr  photo. Take a look at this for a re-purposing idea... "fall theme-Birthday". Just use one of your cake design stamps. Give one of these old cake  stamps a new lift by adding a few punched out leaves around your stamp design .
And Ta-Da! A new fall flavored birthday card! I love it.
               Summer may be over, but our card making is never finished! Just clear off some of your summer fun stamps, because summer closing opens a whole new trip of inspiration, more new friends and fresh new projects to use in our card making arts.

                A friend once re-framed this scripture by saying:   Always remember: There is a season for everything. Some times its a new season for moving on in our lives, or a season to learning some thing new. It may be a time of making new memories and a time for letting go of our old regrets. There is a new season for everything.      
Personally speaking, I like that idea.
Have a great day and Happy Fall Carding!
Gloria J.

Getting Your Stuff Organized

Garry and friend at the grill

Whether your off having the summer bar-b-que or you're  on vacation, we all have to get some things organized to really enjoy our time. Right?

I came across several tips from an article written for Creative Keepsake Magazine/March/ 2009 issue. The article had "31 Tips For Organizing" and getting your crafting stuff organized. Among the most effective tips for me was the idea start somewhere! It doesn't make much difference where you begin, if it is a box or a drawer, just start there. Take small steps so you're not overwhelmed in the beginning.  I think this is a tip we all can use, whether we are card makers and stamper or into crafts or not, we begin to reduce stress when we start with small steps and keep moving forward. We will eventually make progress.

I noticed with our Card Makin' Cuties, we have to make a new spaces for all the card making tools. One of the tips addressing this was getting your organizing style established. Are you a visiual organized person? If so, then put all your stuff where you can see it in clear boxes and bags. Maybe you'll want your things out of sight? If so invest some cabnet or closet space for this purpose and buy baskets or decorative boxes. 

                    Another tip was label everything. Label, label, label. ( I must admit, I'm don't do very well at this and I put things away where they don't belong.) The article drew attention to labeling once a "home" or place could be established for like items or tools. Get all your things in order.   Especially, 

begin by having the things you use most frequently close at hand. When these items are placed where they are easily accessible we tend to spend less time running around        trying to find them. (A waste of a crafter's time.)

Where do you go for inspiration and creativity? 

I was on-line looking, when  I found most manufactures want to inspire us with ideas about their new products so go on their websites for a card gallery of ideas. A tip from our article was, " make a date to go to your magazines or on-line and view new ideas."

For our new assignment with Operation Write Home, www.operationwritehome.org (click this web link for summer deadlines and new ideas, too), we are starting our fall designs and a few Christmas ideas. OWH has a some ideas for their fall cards and do take note about their advice for Halloween cards. Look over this information and their instructions on their blog.

         Our July group took another field trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to a small shop called Stamping Day and Night, www.stampingdayandnight.com, just connect to Sarah's link and see the wonderful card samples we were treated too. (We wanted to say thanks so much for the wonderful day with you and Lana.) Sarah Kimber is the owner of SDN. She shared some new coloring techniques with colored pencils that were fabulous! We are so grateful for the "show and tell" with you Sarah. 

She pointed out that everyone can use help along the way, how to use the tools in our tool kits or help learning a new skill or art form. We can all use help in staying organized and inspired to create the new images in our stamps. 

I personally think stampers and card crafters are the nicest, most hospitable people I've ever met in all my years of crafting. You guys are great!!!

Well, until later, I'll be organizing my label's labels.

Gloria J.

Sending Out Encouragement Cards

We found sending cards of encouragement help others so much. I must admit I only think of doing so when I hear someone is ill or in some type of distress. Just recently, I was reminded  there are many people in the service- related industry that would love to have some type of tangible encouraging message, like a card,saying-- " well done," "continue your good work" or even, "You make my day!"  Cards of encouragement are great.

       Just recently I was introduced to a wonderful group who were helping any one with children of Autism. The struggle the family goes through is a "journey" all unto itself and they need our encouragement.

Hands in Autism is one resource center  available in our local area who are part of a whole resource agency-- IRAC located at www. iidc.indiana.edu/irca . This website can answer many questions about autism and it can get you started in the right direction if you think your child has this neurological disorder.

    Soooo--------Why am I talking about this our blog site? Well, it is directly related to military families and our card making for OWH .
Did you know there are approximately 8,800 children of retired military families who are not currently covered under TRICARE, which is the Department of Defense's health care program? Congressmen John Larson and Walter Jones have introduced a bipartisan legislation which is aimed at resolving this issue for children of retired militarywho have children with Autism/  Asperger'sSyndrome.
   The bill was introduced on June 22,2011 by these congressmen as the Caring for Military Kids with Autism Act. You can read more about this legislation by clicking onto:  www.autism-society.org.
I am passing this information along to you not only as awareness in their resources, but also as a way for you to encourage people you know in service-related areas. ( Autism Society/ 4340 East-West Hwy, Suite 350/Bethseda, Maryland, 20814).
     Let me pass along this sketch. Isn't it perfect for  a card of encouragement?... I think it is too.

 I'm looking forward to  other designs and sketches too. Be sure to sign up for the free newsletter to Paper Crafter newsletter. It is a great way to look at new products, give-aways and designs.
It's been great to chat with you all.Last, let me say be an encourager to others,  you have all been an encouragement to me,.... so until later.  Enjoy the summer. Leave a comment.