Gifts for My Buddies

Before we get to the gift tags I made, I want to thank you all for your input on the book. You're really helping me gel my ideas into something do-able. Thank you so much!

Now, I volunteer most Fridays in my son's special education class. Over the past year, I've gotten to know 14 kids--4th and 5th graders--who spend part of their day in the Resource Room receiving modified curriculum instruction and part of their day in regular classes with aide access. Basically, these kids have learning disabilities, behavior issues, autism spectrum disorders, or cognitive challenges. For some, I honestly have no idea what their problems are. For others (especially the ones with ASD and ADHD), I can make a good guess.

I love walking into that room and having them fight over who gets to work with me first. I spend 5-10 minutes with each of them, usually in groups of two. They tell me things. Lots of things. Some of those things make me laugh with them or try hard not to laugh at them (because OHMYGOSH kids!).

But some of the things they tell me break my heart. Break it right in two.

I wanted to do something fun for the students, their aides, and their amazing teacher for our last week together, and as none has dietary restrictions, I bought some outstanding sugar cookies from a local gourmet store and made gift tags to attach to each bag.

The stamps are from a discontinued Hero Arts clear set, and I colored them with Sharpies and Bics in three color combos to coordinate with the cookies. Then, I used a Sakura Stardust pen on the clouds to add some sparkle. Note that I used Gina K card stock since I was coloring on these one-layer tags with Bics and Sharpies. Gina K's stock doesn't allow bleed-through!

I made extras to give to the aides and teacher, too.

There really aren't enough cookies in the world to show my appreciation for these kids and the grown-ups who work with them. The little notes on the back of these tags don't say all I really want to say to them.

But I think they'll get the point anyway.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (discontinued)
ink: Memento
paper: Gina K white
accessories: Fiskar's corner punch, hole punch, Sakura Stardust Pen, assorted Sharpies and Bics

Gears, OLW 141, and a Couple of Announcements

My final card--for the time being--using the Uniko Time set...

It's two layers because those are brads on the gears, and brad butts bother me and must be covered up.

I don't really have anything more to say about this card except it would be great for a guy and I love that quotation.

OLW141
Check out the OLW Challenge this week on Karen's blog. It's a good one on repetition, and I hope to participate this weekend!

Announcement #1
In case you haven't heard, Google Reader is going away. After hours of frustration trying to figure out how to migrate my account to a couple of other options, I finally succeeded in switching to Bloglovin. I hate the name, but it works, and all my subscriptions are there. It's taking a little getting used to, but eventually, I'll like it, and then it, too, will disappear. Whatever.

If you use Google Reader, I recommend Bloglovin, if only for the idiot-proof transfer from GR. You may also receive this blog via email if you want. The email subscription box is in the sidebar. Just don't forget to click on the link in the verification email you receive shortly after subscribing. If you don't get the verification email, please check your spam filter or junk mail folder.

Please don't leave me just because Google abandoned us!


Announcement #2
Some of you may have seen this on my other blog, but I've decided to write an e-book about stamping. What would you like me to put in it? I expect there will be words (likely of the funny, encouraging, and occasionally useful kind), cards, and maybe a title, table of contents, and some chapters. But what would you like to see? Just cards? Other paper projects? Handmade books? Jokes? A pop-up card of Channing Tatum? What?



Supplies
stamps: Uniko Time
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: brads, dimensionals

Time on My Hands

I realized that my new set Time from Uniko has several clock images that I've not used yet because I've been so busy using the spirograph flowers, so here are three cards about time.



4.25" square card

The square card uses circle punches to frame a simple clock face. The multiple layers of white are fresh and clean, and the clock face is classic Roman with a fun twist of the spirograph flower.



Here we have a dude card, complete with pocket watch, olive and dark red color scheme, a triangle of dark red brads, and a few abstract gears to fill in the empty spaces. The raised panel is off-center to add interest.

Finally, we have a patriotic thinking of you card. The red metal thingy isn't a brad; it's a nail head. I thought this card would be perfect for Operation Write Home.

And there you have it...what I've done with some time on my hands.

Supplies
stamps: Uniko Time
ink: Memento (Cards 1 and 3); Brilliance (Card 2)
paper: Papertrey
accessories: circle punches, dimensionals, nail head, corner rounder, rhinestone, brads

Riffing on Card Creations: Inspired by Lisa Adessa

Today's inspiration comes from Lisa Adessa's fabulously graphic thanks card on page 112 of Card Creations Vol 11:

My photo distorts her colors a bit...the red
is actually magenta, while the teal and
olive are pretty accurate.

What a fabulous concept!!! Using the negative space of the punched circles in the white panel to frame colorful stamped and punched circles...utterly brilliant! Note how the font of Lisa's sentiment is modern and fresh and very strong...totally appropriate and balanced for the strong colors and contrast of the circles.

On an expert design note, please notice how Lisa oriented the asymmetric circles in a way that emphasizes movement around and toward the sentiment. Those colorful circles were not just slapped down any old way. Lisa planned that beautifully.

My favorite round thing lately has been the spirograph flowers from Uniko's Time set, so I decided to stamp the medium-size flower in the negative space of the punched circles. This simplifies Lisa's design a bit. I also wanted to use Brilliance iridescent inks for these, which meant spring-like colors rather than the bold colors Lisa used. 

Given the lightness of my images, the shimmer of the inks, and the pastel color choices, a strong sentiment like Lisa used was out of the question. Instead, Gina K's Hello Sunshine stamp set provided a softer, lighter sentiment that works well.

A little bling adds the finishing touch. My first instinct was to use large bling (because, BLING!), but when I held them up to the nearly finished card, they looked like too much. The tiny blings (color-matched to the inks using Sharpies and Bics) keep the overall effect light and airy.

Bold and strong, or light and airy...this layout is a knock-down, drag 'em out winner. Thanks so much to Lisa for the inspiration!!!

Supplies
stamps: Uniko Time, Gina K Hello Sunshine
ink: Brilliance (jade, lavender, yellow), Memento black
paper: Papertrey Ink
accessories: dimensionals, rhinestones, Bic and Sharpie markers, circle punches

Riffing on Card Creations: Inspired by Kelly Rasmussen

Kelly Rasmussen made this most excellent card for Card Creations Vol. 11:

There are so many wonderful things about this card. First, it uses washi tape perfectly, something I was never able to pull off. Second, the layout is perfect, the color combination is perfect, and the baker's twine is perfect.

In short, everything about Kelly's card is perfect.

I don't have washi tape and thought long and hard about how to duplicate her layout with stamps. The card below was actually my third attempt...the first two didn't work at all. The big problem was focal point. Kelly's card makes the sentiment the focal point...the bright washi is background. I found using other stamps shifted the focal point to the strips and away from the sentiment.

After staring at my stamps for about twenty minutes trying to think of something for a background, I gave up and decided to make my focal point stamped images rather than the sentiment.

This completely reworks the layout (and not entirely successfully).

Instead of geometric designs, I used three long, tall flower stamps from Gina K's Hello Sunshine set. There was only room for three on the card, and when I squished them together like Kelly did with the washi, it just didn't work. It looked too busy and chaotic. Leaving space between the strips looked better.

I decided to use a very simple, one-line italic font (Papertrey Simple Little Things...an old anniversary set) to keep the focus on the flowers, but the one-liner didn't have enough visual weight to stand up on the card. Bling and a wider strip of white card stock gave it a bit more umph.

To my eye, Kelly's card is definitely more successful and unified than mine, but mine is not bad for a knock-off. I like it, especially the colors.

Shifting focal point is a major alteration of a layout, especially when the original uses a specific product as the basis for the design. Washi is good stuff, and those stripes, chevrons, and dots just work together so very well under her expert design.

My flowers...not as much. Which is just fine by me. It's all a learning process, trial and error. Sometimes it works, sometimes not at all, and sometimes sort of. This is a sort-of circumstance. Doesn't matter. It's all good.

Of course, I'll bet someone who's a master of shabby chic style could make strips of lace trim work for Kelly's layout. Anyone care to take that challenge?

Supplies
stamps: Gina K, Papertrey
ink: VersaMagic Tea Leaves, Ocean Depth, Turquoise Gem
paper: Papertrey
accessories: dimensionals, rhinestones, Bic/Sharpie to color bling

OLW140 Borders

I was able to spend some time stamping today, and made these two cards for Heather's OLW140 Borders challenge!

The above card uses Papertrey's Text Style border with key words highlighted with a light gray marker (Marvy). The Thinking of You sentiment is from Hero Arts Sending Smiles set.

The second card uses a stamp from Faux Ribbon (Papertrey) stamped three times, and a sentiment from a limited edition Clear and Simple Stamps set called Thinking of You. I added random turquoise rhinestones!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend and have time to play along with OLW140!

Riffing on Card Creations: Inspired by Kalyn Kepner

Yet another gorgeous card from Card Creations, Vol 11 inspired me to make a variation. This one was a bit complicated to adapt to my style, so I took a few photos of the process to share with you.

First up, Kalyn Kepner's fabulous card uses K & Company stickers in an amazingly pretty CAS layout that shows off a lot of white space.

The incredible detail and coloring of the stickers would be pretty much impossible for me to duplicate with stamps (plus, I'm not doing that much fussy cutting for all the coffee in South and Central America combined). My original intention was to keep Kalyn's colors of olive, purple, and blue and to stay as true to her layout as possible. Everything else was up for simplification.

I used Gina K's Hello Sunshine set for the flowers and leaves in my first attempt, and Brilliance inks. Instead of fussy cutting, I punched variously sized circles to arrange in roughly the same layout, thinking the stylized block stamps would look great on circles. Here's the first mock-up attempt.

Two things struck me as deeply wrong here. First, and most noticeably, the olive ink is too harsh for the blues and greens on white card stock. The Brilliance olive is a weird color anyway, but the leaves also look too busy and strange punched in circles. Secondly, there needs to be more variation in the size of the circles...these are all too close in size, even though I used three different punches.

So I ditched the olive altogether for a more harmonious analogous color scheme (colors adjacent on the color wheel...blue, lavender, purple). Then I pulled out Beautiful Butterfly from Papertrey and stamped a large and two small butterflies. This gave a bit more variation in the circle sizes, and everything fits into its circle nicely. This keeps the busyness of the design more visually logical.

The numbers are more pleasing, too. Rather than two of everything, we have one dark-blue flower, two purple flowers, and three lavender butterflies. The arrangement is not quite right yet, but it's getting closer.

And here's the finished card.

After I'd stuck everything down, I realized it was just a bit too low on the card...maybe a quarter inch too low. Too late to fix that, but a single rounded corner helped. So did adding bling to the butterflies.

Bling makes everything better.

What I love about both cards is how they show up the value of a good, solid layout. A good layout can be the basis for any kind of style!

Supplies
stamps: Gina K, Papertrey
ink: Brilliance
paper: Papertrey
accessories: assorted circle punches, dimensionals, ribbon, corner rounder, rhinestones