Thanks, Angela H. and Nicole!

Kind stamper Angela sent me a card and some die cuts for All Booked Up, among other things, because she knows I don't have a die cut machine. What a sweetie!

This card uses one of the book plate die cuts she sent me.


Design Discussion: Oddly, this book plate looks too big on a standard 5.5" x 4.25" white card. Not sure why the proportions looked so off on white cardstock because when you see tomorrow's card, you'll see this same book plate on Almost Amethyst and it look quite smashing on the standard card size. But for white-on-white, it needed more room to breathe. This card is 6.25" x 4.5" and fits in a standard envelope I bought at Marco's in Dayton. I just love how it looks in rose bud and pear tart (both Memento inks).

Sets like All Booked Up have fairly detailed, large images like this book plate and the open book. For CAS purposes, I find these need very little added embellishment and work just fine all by their lonesomes. Of course, you could create a more elaborate base for the book plate, but then it wouldn't be clean and simple, would it?

The second thank-you on this post is to Nicole at I Think...Therefore I Blog, one of my favorites. She took time out of her busy life on Friday to drive to Madison and meet me for coffee. I really appreciate it and had such a lovely time meeting her face-to-face. The internet is awesome for bringing people into community, but it can't replace face-to-face for satisfying girl talk.

Today, we're driving home to Ohio from Madison. Check my Questioning blog for details, but race day ended with an interrupted marathon and time spent at the medical tent for severe dehydration. Disappointing but he will be fine.

Madison and Books and Curves Needing Lines

First of all, I want to apologize to anyone who's tried to email me and expected a response these past two weeks. I know I've dropped the ball on several of you who asked questions or needed some sort of response, and I'm so sorry!

Things have been insane around our house with preparations for our trip to Madison, Wisconsin, for the Ironman race here that my crazy husband is doing for the fifth time tomorrow. My mom is watching our boys back in Ohio, so I had to get everything ready for her (like, you know, cleaning my house, which had really reached quite an embarrassing state of neglect!) and getting packed and everything else.

Well, we drove to Madison Thursday and have a wonderful hotel room just a few blocks from the finish line (so convenient!) and a Starbuck's (heaven on earth...well, in Madison, I suppose). If you are at all curious or interested in our Ironman experience--mine as support crew and my hubby's as a participant--please check out my other blog Questioning my Intelligence. Tomorrow is race day, and I'll post several times during the day. I'll also post a link to Ironman Live, where you can watch streaming video of the finish line. It's incredibly moving to watch crazy person after crazy person cross that line while announcer Mike Reilly calls out each name and says, "You are an Ironman!"

Oh, I'm getting teary just thinking about it!

For today's card, I'm sharing another effort with All Booked Up, Papertrey's recent set for book-lovers. This card is yet another example of different sets from one manufacturer working perfectly together. See the flourish of steam rising from the cup in the circle silhouette? Well, it reminded me of of the flourish from Silent Night, a PTI Christmas set. So I put them together with a soft color combination. Love how the big flourish seems to hug the circle!


The solid line is a stamp from Faux Ribbon, also by PTI. I added that because all the curves and flourishes and the circle seemed to need something straight to ground them.

The sentiment, by C.S. Lewis, makes me so happy. I have to agree with Professor Lewis on this one.

Supplies
stamps: PTI
paper: PTI white
ink: VersaMagic
accessories: dimensionals, circle punch

One-Layer Wednesday 19: B&W with a Spot of Color

As soon as I made this card, I knew exactly what the OLW19 challenge would be!


Make a black and white card with just a single spot of color. It can be just a bit of an outline image as I have done or a single little embellishment (button, brad, gem, ribbon tab, punched shape, etc.). Just keep the spot of color rather smallish, so it stands out all the more!

Rules for OLW19

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

2. Make a card that is mostly black and white with just a spot of color. Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Please share your creation 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: Papertrey Ink All Booked Up and Text Style
ink: Palette Noir
paper: PTI white
accessories: SU real red marker

All Booked Up

My recent PTI order included All Booked Up. Purchasing this set is a no-brainer for a bibliophile like me. I've already used all the image stamps on cards and will be showing you some of the results in the next few weeks. Really, though, I can't wait to make some book marks for Christmas gifts. How totally cool since so many of my friends and relatives also love books immoderately.

Contented sigh.

So here's the first card I'm going to share.


Design Tips: Since Nicole Heady used the text from Text Style for the background of some of the images, it really made using it on this card pretty obvious. Remember when I said how nice it is to buy lots of stamps from one company you love? This is why! Things can just coordinate so perfectly. The ribbon is cut to mimic a ribbon marker in a book. The pumpkin text provides a color complement to the dark blue of the stamped circle and ribbon. Using complementary colors gives added pop and interest to a very simple two-color scheme.

Have a great Labor Day. Tomorrow starts this month's Blog Hop for Mark's Finest Papers. I am so excited about this release, and I sure hope you enjoy my cards and projects. Frankly, I'm a bit giddy about them!

Scale Matters--Edited

I got a little punch crazy recently and made this card:


Oh how I love the colors, the layout, everything...except the scale of the sentiment. I thought the small sentiment (from PTI's Sign Language) would be perfectly understated, but instead, it's perfectly TOO LOST AND SMALL AND WIMPY!

So (after photographing it) I carefully removed the green strip (which I'd glued down) and replaced it with a larger sentiment from Simple Little Things (also by PTI). So much better!



Please note how I slightly rounded the four corners of the grid with scallop scissors. Oh, yeah. Deco scissors ARE cool.

Edited to Add: Lining everything up wasn't as hard as it looks. I just put the little squares on the big squares, glued the long strip down, then arranged the big squares on the card where I wanted them and started gluing them down using tweezers. No rulers involved.

Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: Palette Noir
paper: SU cool caribbean, tempting turquoise, taken with teal, gable green
accessories: square punches, scallop scissors

Take a Bough Makes Me Happy...Still

Take a Bough is an older Christmas set from Papertrey. It's a truly fabulous set, and here's a card using just the little branch and pine needles, the berries from Out on a Limb, and a sentiment from Signature Christmas. Three sets on one very simple card!



How-To Tips: The stamped panel is punched with an EK Success label punch. I tried using SU's ticket punch on the red panel, but it cut too far into the strip and looked awkward. So I took a new strip of red, turned the EK Success punch upside down, slipped a corner into one corner of the label punch, and punched. Repeat three more times. This gives cuts that are the same scale as the stamped panel and looked much more balanced. Cool, eh?

Personal News! Next Thursday, George and I will be driving all the way to Madison, Wisconsin, for the Ironman race on September 12. If you live in the area, I highly recommend coming out for the race, which is a huge and exciting event. I'll be trolling around all day cheering race participants on, taking pictures, and reporting on the race all day on my other blog. Let me know if you're going to be there, and we can meet!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: garden green, close to cocoa, real red
paper: PTI white, SU real red
accessories: EK Success label punch, dimensionals

One-Layer Wednesday 18: Trees

After taking that picture of my Tree Stamp drawer, I figured we needed a Tree challenge for the OLW.


This card uses my new Hero Arts flourished tree. Oh how I love this stamp. The flourish stamp is from a clear Hero Arts set. The sentiment is from an upcoming Mark's Finest Paper's set. Doesn't the font really match the tree perfectly?!?!

I made this card with soft, soothing colors and feminine flourishes. It's for my friend Liz, whose mother entered hospice on Sunday. Her mother has been the center of her family for so long, and I wanted to use the tree to symbolize the eternal life that her mother has in Christ. Liz has a strong faith, but saying goodbye is so hard.

I have another card to add to this post later that uses the tree from Mark's Finest Paper's upcoming Halloween set...a card that is anything but Halloween. I added an unfortunate bit of ribbon to it and must take it off and photograph the card again. Sometimes, I go a step too far. This was one of those times.

Rules for OLW18

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

2. Use a tree stamp (or, if you don't have a tree stamp, a branch or leaves will do). Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Please share your creation 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!