One-Layer Wednesday: Patriotic Cards

This week's one-layer challenge is in honor of Independence Day, a.k.a. the Fourth of July, here in the United States. Your challenge this week is to make a patriotic card honoring your own country's heritage.

My first card makes use of an outline of the lower 48 states and a God Bless America stamp...both of which I picked up at Hobby Lobby over six years ago. They were soooo happy to see ink!


The second card plays up a ribbon accent but still keeps everything very simple.



Rules for OLW10

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single piece of cardstock folded in half.

2. Use patriotic themed images and colors for your card to honor your native country. Embellishments must be kept to a minimum.

3. Remember to share your creations by posting your card online and then using the InLinkz button in the sidebar of Simplicity to link to it.

4. Most important of all...HAVE FUN!

Supplies
stamps:
ink: SU real red and brilliant blue, Memento light blue
paper: PTI white
accessories: ribbon

Art Paper Week: Day Five Winner!

The winner of Day Five is Cassandra, lucky number 1! She wrote,

Firstly Susan, beautiful yet again. I have some of this paper and will give your design a go. I think I most enjoy the 'doing'. Having sorted the design and its components - cutting, pasting and puting together I love.

Thanks, Cassandra! Please send me an email at susanraihala at woh dot rr dot com with your snail mail address so I can mail you the paper!

As for my favorite part of papercrafting...I love it ALL! The buying, the organizing, the sorting, the selecting, the execution, the joy of giving my creation to someone else and knowing I've given them a bit of joy! Also, the papercrafting community is so generous with sharing inspiration and kindness that it gives me a warm fuzzy to be a part of it all!

Cheers to You

My vacation wasn't tropical at all, having taken place in northern Minnesota, but I love the idea of a tropical vacation involving a cute cabana boy bringing me drinks like this one while I lounge on the beach under an umbrella reading a good book.


In fact, this is a fantasy of mine and my friend Erin. Erin and I were pregnancy buddies eleven years ago and plan on a joint vacation in about 16 years, when all of our little ones have flown the nest. Our hubbies can run around sailing and scuba diving and expending whatever energy makes their Y chromosome happy while Erin and I spend two weeks doing nothing but reading and chatting and drinking boat drinks on the beach.

All mothers deserve such a reward for the long hours we put in over the years!

I can't tell you how the gradation of the magenta ink happened. It's VersaColor cube ink, and it just stamped this way. Don't you LOVE it when something perfect like this happens, rather than an imperfectly stamped image (such as when you don't press down on the whole image evenly or when the stamp picks up yucky lint from the ink pad)? I also love it when I can stamp these outline/fill stamps perfectly aligned. Wish that happened every time. Sigh.

FYI: One-Layer Wednesday will be back tomorrow!

Supplies
stamps: A Day at the Beach (PTI)
ink: Palette noir, VersaColor
paper: PTI white, SU black
accessories: dimensionals

Flight of the Butterfly in One Layer

Okie dokie. I'm back from my vacation, which included FOUR long days in the car driving to and from northern Minnesota in a car with two small boys and a man...a MAN who kept yelling at the Garmin GPS HE insisted we buy and who furthermore kept telling me how to drive even though I'm perfectly competent and have been doing quite nicely driving on my own for YEARS.

But I digress.

We spent seven days at an amazing cabin with George's amazing family. It was an awesome vacation on Lake Vermilion full of kayaking and boating and laughing and eating and reading and NOT swimming in the frigid water, but alas, no stamping was done by me.

Somehow, I didn't miss a single day of posting on Simplicity despite pitifully intermittent WiFi access (go, me!) except for that weird thing that happened the first weekend when my post scheduled for Sunday somehow posted on Saturday. I know it was my fault, but I'll be danged if I have a clue what I did wrong.

Welcome to my world. Jimmy Buffett has a song about not having a clue which has the brilliant line "We're just recycled history machines, cave men in faded blue jeans." Actually, he has a bunch songs about not having a clue. It's a theme with his music, which I listened to for long stretches of being told how to drive by my husband. "Nibblin' on spongecake, watching the sun bake, all of those tourists covered with oil...."

Furthermore, I returned to find over 300 posts stacked up in my Google Reader account. Did you know you can mark as read all the posts in a particular file? My papercraft file had 281 posts, and with just two clicks of my mouse, they were ALL MARKED AS READ! It gave me the illusion that I really did something when all I did was avoid doing something.

So my apologies to anyone whose blog I read regularly and usually comment on that got marked as read without being, you know, read. It's my husband's family's fault for showing me such a good time. Blame them. Just know I love you and am getting back on track this week.

I hope.

Anyway, I have a card for you today. Remember when I used all those delightful butterfly die cuts that Angela sent me (if you don't remember, click here, and then come back). Well, once I made them all, I wondered if I could make a true one-layer version. To compensate for the lack of dimension, I used the polka-dot, two-step stamp from StampinUp's Flight of the Butterfly* set.

Not too shabby for one layer, is it?

*I wonder if there's a marketing person at SU who gets upset every time I use the SU name without the egregious exclamation point. It's the sort of thing that would have upset me when I was a marketing editor for a computer memory manufacturer. The computer industry has some stylistic quirks that I was paid to police in every data sheet, advertisement, powerpoint presentation, and brochure the company produced. You don't care about this, but I sure did. Just like some poor AR/OC editor at StampinUp. Whoever she is, I'm sorry.

Art Paper Week: Day Four Winner!

Our winner for Day 4 is lucky number 22, judy, who wrote:

Lovely card! I don't think about the mailing issue, (although I probably should). I have some 1/2
inch clear boxes for 3D cards and I
use crimped card stock to protect
other embellishments. I guess I
just use what suits the card. I love
your blog and all the inspiration that your provide. You gave me the
validation I needed for my CAS style
when all around me I was seeing
layers upon layers.

Thanks, Judy! Send me your snail mail address at susanraihala at woh dot rr dot com so I can get your envelope of fun paper out to you!

Day Four's question was about the mailability of a card. I do consider it, but usually after the fact. Generally, my cards are easily mailed with just a little packing tape to protect the bling and pearls, but if I make something for a specific person that requires a bubble envelope, well, I'll use it and not think twice.

Summer

Here's a card I tried to make for the flourish One-Layer Wednesday challenge but had to layer up because I stamped crooked. See. There are no mistakes, just opportunities for embellishment.



Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (all discontinued)
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: label punch, dimensionals

Art Paper Week: Day Three Winner!

The winner of Day Three is Petra, lucky number 24! She wrote:

I really love the cards you are showing today. It's hard to make cards without words look good sometimes, but you are the master!

I have done some very simple origami. My daughter is really good at it, she knows how to make stunning irises.

Petra

Petra, please send me your snail mail addy at susanraihala at woh dot rr dot com so I can send you your envelope of gorgeousness!

My answer to Wednesday's question about origami...tried it, couldn't get the hang of it, and gave up. Sigh. It's so lovely when in the hands of someone who doesn't have ten thumbs.