A Pair of Cards from Talented Readers, a Sparkly Dolphin, and a Happy Stamper

When George and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last week, two kind and talented Simplicity readers sent us cards. Check out the pretty piece of lace tucked into the knot of ribbon on Patti's card, as well as the masking she did on the oval for the sentiment and the rounded bottom corners. Sweet!



Card by Patti M.

While Patti went romantic and sweet with her card, Linda E. decided on taking a more, shall we say, risque approach to our 25th.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I died.

Laughing.

Card by Linda E.

Seriously, this is a pretty card, even if you're a perverted Engish major. Look at Linda's lovely rock-and-roll shading on the pears, and I love how the die cut stamped panel and mat corners mimic the shape of the pear bottoms.

*snort* She said, "Bottoms."

I can't do this. The card just makes me laugh, giggle, and think naughty thoughts, which was entirely Linda's intent. If you are new to Simplicity, and perhaps feeling a tad lost as to why Linda sent me a pear card to make me laugh and think naughty thoughts, please read this post to get in on this ongoing and extremely juvenile, yet oddly intellectual joke. You'll never look at pears the same way again.

Geeks are fun!

They also, occasionally, make punny, sparkly dolphin cards.

The sparkles may be hard to see (click to make it big), but the dolphin has been colored with a gray Bic marker and then colored again with a clear Sakura Stardust pen. The waves were stamped with Brilliance Sky ink, so they also shimmer a bit. Stamps are by A Muse, and the paper is SU bashful blue and PTI white.

My son took the following photo. He doesn't know his mother is a weird English major. He just knows she spends a lot of time sitting at her craft desk playing with paper and pens. He occasionally likes to play along. But mostly, he wants to take pictures of his feet. I kid you not.

Please don't forget to comment on the give-away post for your chance to win a free roll of 1/8" Scor-Tape!

Variations on a Set: Dot Spot

Note: If you are reading this in email, don't miss the two posts below!

Today's two cards with Dot Spot feature the big flower in dramatic settings. On both cards, I combined lines with the design to balance all the great big roundness of the big flower.

First up, a pink and black card. I stamped the small dot circle in pink in the middle of the black and accented it with a bit of pink bling. The lines come from Background Basics: Retro.

Creating a center for this monster-sized flower is important for obsessive stampers. Leaving it empty is like not putting thread on a button. You could do it, but it almost always looks like something is missing.

Note that I said almost. There are exceptions to every rule. But you won't see an exception on this post, and you know why. Because I'm obsessive.

The next card is a 4.25" square card. The lines were drawn with a Memento marker and ruler. Blue and orange are complementary colors, meaning they are opposite each other on the color wheel. Any time you want a peppy, high-energy color combo, pick complementary colors in bright hues. Guaranteed happiness!

And speaking of color wheels, if you don't have one and feel a bit color challenged, I highly recommend getting one. Small ones are available at the big box stores for very reasonable prices. There are all sorts of tried and true color combinations that a color wheel can help you find easily.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Dot spot, Background Basics Retro, and one I don't remember for the friend sentiment; the thanks sentiment is from Hero Arts
ink: Memento
paper: Mark's Finest (top), PTI (bottom)
accessories: rhinestones, marker, ruler, corner chomper

Know When to Say When, and Give It Away...with Enthusiasm

I was messing around and wasting a bunch of washi tape...which bothered me at first until I realized that if I never used it at all, that would be a bigger waste. So it was better to use it and fail than to never use it at all.  And then this card happened. It's not great, but at least it didn't end up in the trash!

Today's post is really about how some products seem like awesome ideas, but in practice, well, they are a LOT harder to use than it seems they should be. There are a few times when I've worked hard and overcome my blocks with products (Bic/Sharpie shading comes to mind), but sometimes it's okay to Just. Say. No.

Washi tape seems like it should be a whole lot easier than it is, at least for me. So I decided I'm going to send six partially used rolls to a) whoever wants to experiment with it without actually laying out money for it, in which case I wish you better luck than I had, or b) whoever has already figured it out and knows s/he can do a better job than I have done.

FOR THE GIVE-AWAY...All you have to do is to share your own experience with trying something new (craft related or otherwise) and deciding to walk away. Just like I walked away from majoring in chemistry in December of 1984 when organic chemistry kicked my brain's butt.

If you've never failed at anything in life, then please stop reading my blog because, seriously, you need to get out and start doing stuff.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." --Sir Winston Churchill

Comments will close for the drawing on Wednesday, June 1, at 10:00 pm EDT. Everyone is welcome to comment. I'll mail this stuff anywhere.

Inspired by Lindsay Amrhein and a Link to a Lattice Tutorial

This adorable kraft-base card by Lindsay Amrhein appears in the latest issue of Card Creations, which is my favorite issue EVER. It's loaded with tons of clean and simple inspiration.

Lindsay paper pieced her sweet bowl of cherries using turquoise and red designer papers, and I loved those colors against the kraft.

I kept the colors (though my turquoise is a lighter aqua) and rather than piecing, I opted for the much easier punching. At first, I was going to punch circles for the flower centers, but then I remembered these giant brads, so I used them instead. The three brads form a visual triangle around the sentiment, and the top large flower and bottom small flower are popped up on dimensionals. Lindsay rounded all four corners, which makes sense given the curves of her focal point, but I felt the pointy flowers on my version needed at least some pointy corners. Rounding the opposite corners gives a nice dynamic feel to an otherwise static design.

Scor-Pal Tutorial: For those of you who asked for a tutorial on yesterday's embossing, please thank blog reader Susan who linked to an awesome Gina K tutorial on the subject. Gina's tutorial shows a much tighter lattice than the one on my baby card, for which the lines were scored at one-inch intervals. I used a Scor-Pal (12") rather than the smaller Scor-Buddy. Also, my card is one layer, so I began with a 4.25" x 11" card base and scored at 3.5 and 5.5 inches...the 5.5" score was the fold for the card, and the 3.5" score, which is covered by ribbon on my card, gave me a guide for scoring the lattice on the lower two-thirds of the card.

For those of you who aren't using your Scor-Pal for more than folding cards, DON'T WORRY. That's what I use it for 99% of the time, too. It's worth every penny even if that's all you ever do with it!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink's Green Thumb
paper: Mark's Finest Kraft, PTI's polka dot paper
ink: Memento
accessories: brads, dimensionals, Corner Chomper

A Friendship Give-Away: Paying It Forward

First of all, I want to thank Beth for naming me the Featured Stamper this week over at Splitcoast. Yippy!!!! I feel so honored and humbled and blown away by all the cards in the FS gallery!

Second, as I mentioned last week, kind reader Marty sent me a Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper, which is a super-fantabulous contraption that rounds corners with 1/4" and 1/2" diameters. She also sent me the sentiment about friendship below.

I paired it with an envelope stamp from Just a Note, a clear set from Hero Arts, and a fun heart-shaped rhinestone I picked up at Michael's. And of course I chomped the corners using the 1/4" side. I placed the envelope at the end of the quotation so that the quotation would remain the focal point, with the envelope as an accent.

Now, for Christmas I bought myself a 1/4" Round-It-All, mainly to round corners on book covers made with mat board. The Crop-A-Dile renders my Round-It-All redundant, so I'd like to give the Round-It-All away as "a little mulch" for our friendship here on Simplicity.

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me A) how cute my card is, and B) an example of something you have done to provide mulch for one of your friendships.

Comments will close at 9:00 PM EDT on Wednesday, May 4. This drawing is open to everyone, regardless of country.

Yellow and I

I have decided that I own entirely too much yellow cardstock. This makes me sad, and I'll tell you why.

It's all sitting there, in my Cropper Hopper vertical paper storage, doing nothing. Nothing. I bought full packs of barely banana, so saffron, summer sun, yo-yo yellow, and marigold morning. In 2006. I've actually used some of the summer sun and marigold morning on fall cards, but the others...as my son would say, "they aren't my favorite." In fact, I pretty much despise barely banana and so saffron, which look almost indistinguishable to me and so very blah.

I'm going to attempt to use up some of these colors so I don't have to look at them anymore, and here's my start.

Do you have a color in overstock that you thought you liked but in retrospect wish you hadn't bought?

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (flower), Papertrey (sentiment)
ink: SU summer sun
paper: white, barely banana, some shade of orange
accessories: orange rhinestones, dimensionals

Farewell, 2010

Farewell, 2010. You are a great friend, and I can't believe you're leaving us already. You weren't long enough, but this card sure is.

Yes, it's a long card with LOTS of white space. But I wanted to see how this fabulous sentiment and little dragonfly would look huddled in one corner of a long card. The long ascender for the d creates a strong vertical border to the sentiment, and I wondered how it would look in a lot of horizontal white space.

I like it. It's bold and graphic and courageously empty. But I wish those adorable Hero Arts brown gemstones came one size smaller. That one is just a bit too big for that poor little dragonfly. Maybe he's a rapper dragonfly with a taste for big bling. Or Lady Gaga.

May your New Year's Eve celebrations be blingy and festive. Or, you could just celebrate like we do: go out on the 30th and eat Bang Bang Shrimp in relative peace, then on the 31st, stay home, watch a movie, go to bed at 10:00, wake up on New Year's morning, and say, "Happy New Year!" You don't have to worry so much about drunks on the road that way.

Except that last night we went home behind a drunk driving 15 miles below the speed limit who crossed the center line occasionally. At least he was in front of us where we could keep an eye on him.

Please be safe.

Oh, and have a happy New Year!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: VersaMagic
paper: PTI vintage cream
accessories: Hero Arts brown gemstone

Flourished Peacock Just for You

The clear peacock set from Hero Arts made it into my last order, and here's the first card I made with it. The coloring is easy (done here with SU turquoise and green galore markers), And I love this sentiment.

A nasty cold is kicking my butt, so I just can't muster anything clever right now. I'm falling in love with Puffs Plus with Vicks. How sad is that?

I do want to thank those of you who have sent Christmas cards to the Hammetts. I've delivered several already and got another one today. Y'all are so kind to reach out to this family that's hurting for the holidays. Big hugs.

Also, big thanks to everyone who sent cards to the North Dakota State Penitentiary. I received a card from one of the inmates thanking all of us for adding some cheer to their holiday season.

Well, my nose feels like someone scrubbed it with sandpaper, I'm coughing and sneezing, and my throat hurts. But just thinking about how nice you all are is making me feel better. Today's card is for all of you...wishing you all things beautiful. 

Finally...a Use for Washi Tape!

Okay, so I saw JulieHRR use washi tape on a card months ago and immediately bought a bunch of it because I have no self-control. Then, I tried making cards with it. The results were not pretty. After making one decent card with it, I put it aside, you know, for later.

Well, later finally came.

Washi tape, it turns out, makes an awesome table cloth. I cut the long piece with a craft knife, then cut two triangles for the corners. And there you have it. A table cloth.

The lamp shade and base were stamped on scraps and cut out. The base is glued directly onto the table and the lampshade popped for dimension.

I no longer regret that impulse purchase, but man is this one expensive card!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (lamp), Papertrey (sentiment)
ink: Ancient Page
paper: PTI white
accessories: washi tape, dimensionals

CAS82 Delicious

For a long, wordy essay on stamp buying, please scroll down. This is today's second post.

CAS82 this week is inspired by the word Delicious!

Now that's a challenge I can sink my teeth into.

I hear you groaning. Stop that.

Anyway, I went to my stamp drawer labeled Kitchen/Home and saw my giant coffee cup stamp from Hero Arts. Delicious, indeed.


How-To Tips: Originally, I had masked the bottom of the cup and stamped the A Muse large oval to create a table for my cup. This turned out to be a huge mistake. The cup is too low on the card, and the "table" looked squashed. Urg. As I stared at it, it occurred to me that if I cut off the bottom, while cutting around the cup, I could layer a kraft paper strip in place of a table. YES! What a great save.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: Palette Dark Chocolate
paper: kraft, white
accessories: I don't see any.

Pun Ambivalence

First, today's card, using a Hero Arts clear set.

This card is part of my self-imposed challenge to use up some of my scraps and already-cut card bases that have multiplied beyond reason. The layout is the same as this card, which goes to show you can get pretty different looks just by changing up the color. The red with cool caribbean on the Sweet Moments card is so punchy and high energy, while the kraft with cool caribbean is a bit more relaxing, calmer, but still fun. I love it when a Bic Mark-It marker matches SU cardstock so well.

Now, for chatter. Puns, like cliches, have always bothered me. You see, I was an English major and eventually a college English teacher, so I'm conditioned to groan, not laugh, at puns. Shakespeare and Chaucer are allowed to use the occasional pun, but those two can get away with anything. If they both anachronistically stood on stage on their heads, naked and whistling Dixie, I'd enthusiastically applaud their genius.

Pause for a moment and let that image sink in. You're welcome.

But mere humans like myself should not use puns. It's not dignified. (Please note the heavy irony in my last sentence; I'm dignified only in my dreams.)

My complaints about StampinUp from the beginning have been the gratuitous use of puns and the totally unnecessary exclamation point in their company name. Somehow, I ended up with Very Punny. (Was it a "Sale"-Abration set? Good heavens, SU must stop doing this.) When I "mounted" the rubber (please groan), I put the punny sentiments on the sides of the blocks so it would be easier to ignore them. The pun that belonged with the fish, however, offended me so much with its stupidity that I threw it in the trash.

My apologies to anyone who likes that stamp.

Through constant exposure to stamp puns and the loss of what little dignity I had after birthing two boys and having to say things like "Hands out of pants" daily, however, I'm changing my mind. I'm using puns occasionally now and don't even feel like I have to wash my hands afterward. Life's more fun this way, and I'm totally okay with that.

So today's card is for you, my blog readers. I like you a latte!

(No extra charge for the exclamation point.)

Layering CAN Be Clean and Simple

If you don't cough up the $10 for the Hero Arts catalog every December, you're seriously missing out on some beautiful CAS inspiration. No, Hero doesn't pay me to say that, though I would be more than thrilled if they did. Tap, tap? Are you listening, Hero?

I didn't think so.

This card is totally inspired by cards in the Hero catalog. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this is in a definitive Hero Arts "style" (because I feel like using egregious quotation marks today). The flowers are actually from the Little Paper Shop, but still, the Hero Arts catalogue shows lots of cards with sentiment focal points, random stamping on a large white panel with simple matting, and a colored card base.

I've been challenging myself lately to use colored card bases but don't worry, I've got a major post coming at you tomorrow with ACRES of gloriously bare vintage cream OLCs.

I stamped the black sentiment first, then added the flowers in shades of pink. Then, on a scrap of cardstock, I stamped a flower to fit inside the curve of the sentiment, cut it out, and popped it up. The rhinestone added some bling, and the matte and card frame the panel in--yeah!--more shades of pink. After yesterday's very brown card, it feels good to show off some girly pink.

If you haven't noticed, I mainly purchase only three brands of stamps: Hero Arts, StampinUP!, and Papertrey Ink. Today's flower stamps came to me courtesy of Stampin' Annie (whose blog, BTW, is on my must-read list), who generously sent me blog candy earlier this summer. They are from the Little Paper Shop, and are so very cute...and incredibly versatile. Thanks, Ann!

Supplies
stamps: Little Paper Shop, Hero Arts (sentiment)
cardstock: PTI white, SU pixie pink, pomegranite
ink: various shades of pink from VersaColor, Palette Noir
accessories: dimensionals, rhinestone

CAS DT Layout Challenge

Here's a little card I made for the CAS DT challenge. Jen invited former DT members to participate in the challenge, and I couldn't resist because the three challenges are so, well, COOL. I'll post several more cards that I made later, but let's start with the sketch challenge, which is based on this gorgeous card by Kerri Michaud.

My card started with that circle stamp from Hero Arts, which I have found really hard to work with. The sketch sort of lent itself to using it, though, so I gave it another try. I stamped the circle in Aquatic Splash Versamagic ink on a 4.25-inch square card. Note how the flourish placement meant reversing the sketch. I then added the sentiment from PTI's Friends 'til the End, stamping the word friends in Versacolor turquoise. Then I added the white ribbon because I didn't have turquoise in the right shade and really liked the white-on-white anyway. I punched the butterflies, added the rhinestones, and attached them to the card.

The whole thing looked off to me...too top-heavy. I decided to scallop the bottom edge and back it with some PTI cardstock that matched the circle, but that looked weird, sort of like I underlined the card or something. Awkward! So I cut a white strip, which balanced so much better with the ribbon, and called it good.

When I finished, I realized I'd put more on this card than is usual for me. But the monochromatic scheme and the white-on-white freshness keep it CAS.

If you haven't yet submitted some cards to the CAS Design Team challenge and think you would like to, please GO FOR IT!!!! I really enjoyed my three months on the team and grew as a stamper because of it. Even if you don't make the team this time, it'll be good practice for next time, and the challenges Jen came up with are totally fun. You've got nothing to lose!

A Card that Makes Me Happy!

Oh, my! This card snapped me out of a mojo funk on Tuesday when I was trying to come up with something for the CAS25 challenge. I'd made three or four cards that were very, very forgettable when this one popped out. It's sufficiently different from the challenge sketch that I didn't upload it to that gallery (and besides, my cards that I finally did load to that gallery also made me really happy). But still, this one is worthy of note.

It's a 4.25-inch square card that uses a Hero Arts clear stamp set. Usually, I'm highly bothered by grammar errors on stamps (there should be a comma bewteen "hello" and "friend") but I'll let this one slide. This is such a harmonious card, perfect for sending to a friend who is stressing out.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
cardstock: PTI white
ink: Palette chocolate, SU always artichoke, old olive markers
accessories: dimensionals, "cloud" deco scissors, Hero Arts olive rhinestones, ribbon

Hello, Friend

This card evolved on its own. I had no idea what I was doing and just went with it. First, I stamped the flower in Brilliance lavender ink, so IRL it's a bit shimmery. Then I stamped Friend in the lower right corner to balance the flower. Too plain. So I added the hello in lavender to carry the color to the other side of the card. Then I thought, gee, you need some black on the flower. So I fished the button out of my hoard. It looked fine, but a bit nekkid, so I found some lavender DMC floss. Better.

But the card still looked plain. So I got out my plastic L ruler and drew lines to frame the card.

YES!

After I finished, I realized there are three lavender elements and three black elements on this card. Three is a magic number in design. No wonder I was so happy with it!

Simplicity Tip: Don't attach anything or add Stickles to your card until AFTER you have the whole design finished. If I had glued down the button before finishing the design, it would have been nearly impossible to draw the line neatly.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Friends til the End
cardstock: PTI white
ink: Brilliance lavender, Palette noir
accessories: L-shaped ruler, black pen, button, DMC floss

CAS24 Color Challenge

This week's CAS challenge is to use orange, yellow, and turquoise on a card. Whenever I use bright colors, I prefer to make them pop with LOTS of white. Strong colors can carry a design nicely from "okay" to "YEAH" all by themselves. And that's what happened at 11:00 last night when I read the challenge and hit my craft room running.



I thought about matting the white squares on colored cardstock but resisted the temptation. Glad I did because the three spots of glittery color are enough. This layout is a classic one...it's hard to reinvent the wheel at 11:00 pm. I don't try anymore, and it's made me a happier stamper.

Just keepin' it simple.



Here's another example of classic, CAS layout, and again it's the color that makes it look fresh and fun, not some fancy frilly froufee dozen-layer layout with lots of embellishments. Just color. Well, color and bling. Holy moly, I love Stickles.

Not that there's anything wrong with fancy frilly froufee dozen-layer layouts with lots of embellishments. It's just that you don't come to a blog titled Simplicity for that sort of inspiration.

Am I right?

Tea Leaves

I love tea pots, so I had to get PTI's Tea for Two set when it came out. Here are a couple of my first cards with this set. I noticed the leaves on the one tea pot match the leaves in the Beautiful Blooms set, so I used it to accent the pot.



The first card uses a rock-and-roll technique. I inked the whole image with lime versamagic ink, then rolled fresh green on the edges. The sentiment uses a combination of fresh green and bark, and the leafy background in the corner opposite the sentiment is fresh green.



The second card uses just lime ink and bark for the sentiment. No rock and roll here. I stamped the leaves twice at a diagonal to create some movement, and put the sentiment for this one on the same panel as the tea pot.

I like them both equally but would love to hear if you have a favorite between the two...and why.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Tea for Two, Beautiful Blooms
cardstock: PTI white
ink: versamagic lime, fresh green, bark
accessories: dimensionals

A Happy Heart

Here is a simple little card using a soon-to-be-retired StampinUp set called Wild About You and heart stamp from some other company. Hope you like it!

I will be unplugged for the next five days but want you to know that your comments and support of Simplicity are much appreciated. I'll be back next week with a really cool set of cards I'm so excited to share with you!

Supplies
stamps: Wild about You, unknown heart, sentiment from Hero Arts
ink: Brilliance
paper: PTI white
accessories: silver metallic pen, dimensionals, black pen

Card for a Friend

This layout is classic CAS...and a perfect way to showcase a lovely flower. I stamped this one in palette noir ink, colored it with Bic Mark-It markers (the poor girl's Copics, LOL!), and cut it out. The sentiment was stamped on a scrap I had, and I popped the flower on dimensionals and added the gemstone. Done.

Hope you like it!

Supplies
stamps: PTI Friends 'til the End, Green Thumb
paper: PTI white, aqua mist
ink: Palette Noir
accessories: Bic Mark-Its, dimensionals, gemstone

Samples of a New Year's Resolution

One of my New Year's crafting resolutions was to use every image stamp I own on a project. (Note I specified image, not sentiment, stamps, seeing as a lot of the sentiment stamps that come with otherwise great sets are pretty useless.) I don't have to finish this resolution in 2009; it's going to take a while to get through my many, many stamps. But I'm working steadily at using them all.

Here's my procedure, if you're interested. I pull out a set, use all the images on cards, and then mark it on a list as "keeper," "okay until something better comes along," and "get rid of it." It's interesting what sets are really easy to work with, which ones take more effort, and which ones simply aren't worth the effort for me. Very often, the results surprise me.

PTI's Friends 'til the End is a keeper for sure. Here are two cards I made with it. The leaves are not as nice as the flowers to me, and are a bit harder to work with, but I was proud I used that big one on a decently CAS card.



























If you're interested, hop on over to Questioning my Intelligence for my Memorial Day tribute. It's got pictures and everything! (*wink)