CASology: ah-mazing Fireworks!!

I had to play along with CASology's Fireworks challenge - I so love the 4th of July.  We celebrate in a small mountain town in our Colorado Rockies called Frisco.  It is an all-day small-town celebration capped with a spectacular fireworks show.  In the morning, everybody walks to the pancake breakfast, then to the parade (the highlight of which is about 200 children who decorate their bikes for the 4th).  There is music and an arts festival all day. The fireworks are actually still scheduled (rare right now in bone-dry Colorado) because they shoot them off over a big mountain lake.  You can watch them from the marina - one year we did it from our sailboat but never again because fireworks debris falls on you!!  We wander over to the elementary school where people lay out their picnic blankets and you can hear kids' laughter from the play area until the fireworks starts.  It's simple and sweet and a very special part of my family's year!

I started my fireworks card with a different plan.  I figured that I could put a "thank you for your service" type sentiment and use it as an AnyHero card for Operation Write Home.  But glitter is absolutely banned for OWH as it can get on soldiers' clothing and be seen with night vision goggles.  I thought embossing tinsel would be OK but I'm still able to rub off flakes of glitter - so I switched it up to an "ah-mazing" card that I'll tuck away for some amazing moment in my kids' lives!

I'm also playing along with the Patriotic theme at Simon Says Stamp.

• Stamps: CAS-ual Fridays Exclamations, Stampin' Up July 4th
• Paper: white
• Ink: Versamark
• Accessories: misc red, sapphire and gold embossing tinsel

Operation Write Home: A Challenge, A Sketch & Freedom

I have the ultimate thrill of having a card up at Operation Write Home for the Midweek Throwdown Challenge.  They selected this card as part of their clean and simple with a little texture challenge.    I hope you check out this challenge!

Besides being an amazing cause (that you should be sure to check out if you have lots of cards stashed away) they also go out of their way to keep it fun and challenging for all of us cardmakers.  Today's challenge is a CAS challenge.  On Sundays they have sketch challenges.  I used this week's sketch on these cards for a soldier to send home to a little boy and to a little girl.


Isn't this sweet little raccoon face just perfect for a Miss You card?

OWH challenges are nice in that they provide measurements.  It's not required to use exactly the same size, but it certainly makes for a quick and easy card.  Other than the diamond border on the boy's card, I cut everything else based on the dimension of the sketch.

I don't usually tuck multiple cards into one post, but there is another challenge this week that is just perfect for AnyHero cards.  Operation Write Home wants blank cards that they send in bulk to soldiers who then use them to write home to their loved ones (like the cards above) and they want AnyHero cards which are notes directed to the soldiers with personal notes of thanks and gratitude.  This week's challenge at CASology is "free" - a perfect chance for an AnyHero card.  I've made a number of these and will add personal notes before I send them to OWH to distribute.

Miss You Raccoon for a Boy:

• Stamps: The Alley Way Stamps Deep in the Woods, Delicate Doilies (sentiment)
• Paper: Stampin' Up Midnight Muse, More Mustard, Marina Mist, Crushed Curry, My Mind's Eye Lost & Found 3 dsp
• Ink: Memento black, Copics
• Accessories: Stampin' Up woodgrain embossing folder, My Favorite Things Harlequin die

Miss You Raccoon for a Girl:

• Stamps: The Alley Way Stamps Deep in the Woods, Delicate Doilies (sentiment)
• Paper: Stampin' Up Perfect Plum, Lawn Fawn Bright Side 6x6 paper pad
• Ink: Memento black, Copics
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink buttons: Summer Sunrise, Berry Sorbet

Land of the Free, Because of the Brave:

• Stamps: Impression Obsession star and circle star, My Paper Moon Because of the Brave
• Paper: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Real Red
• Ink: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Real Red
• Accessories: Basic Grey star stickers, Divine Twine Airmail, star punch, L'il Inkers stitched rectangles

CAS(E) this Sketch #5: Proud of You

I LOVE this week's sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch!  It is so totally simple but you will be amazed what the design team has done with it.

I made my card last weekend.  It was for my son and the state marching band competition, but it would be absolutely great as a military card - particularly if you have to mass-produce.  It does work well without the gold brads so it can be a fairly flat card too.


One thing that I love so much about card-making is how each card is personalized.  In this case, the marching band wears blue, red and gold and their program was patriotic so this was perfect for him!  Having said that, he's 16 and didn't notice the card colors at all.


My guy is the really big one behind the really short one - literally the tallest and shortest in the the band - you would think they could have lined them up better!!  
Be sure to check out the other design team cards - you'll see Christmas, you'll see neon, you'll see fall leaves - it's amazing how many creative ideas are out there!  Then try your own and link up.  Remember that this is a CAS challenge.  Here's a blurb from the challenge website if you ever wonder if you are CAS enough!!

The acronym CAS stands for Clean and Simple.

1. Usually only one layer but can include a simple layer or two.

2. A lot of open space sometimes called "white space" can include subtle color, texture or pattern.

4. Usually no embellishments but can include something minimal. (1 or 2 embellishments)

3. Only one focal point. Embellishments should only support not dominate your card.
(Exception to this rule is that you've made the focal point an embellishment and not an image.)

5. Minimal color palette. (up to 3 colors in general)

6. Simple, uncluttered, quick and easy to create.

• Stamps: Simon Says Stamp
• Paper: Stampin' Up Midnight Muse, Real Red CS and dsp
• Ink: Stampin' Up Midnight Muse
• Accessories: Fiskars punch, Recollections gold beads, Simon Says Stamps Absolutely die

colourQ Patriotic Glitter Dots

As much as I love the colourQ Color Challenges, I wasn't going to play along this week as the color scheme was very patriotic and summery and I had done all of my patriotic cards for our church card ministry. 

But then I was wandering the aisles of Michaels yesterday and they had their own line of glitter dots (on sale!) - and one of the packages had the PERFECT colors for this challenge!

The Paper Players challenge that came out today was a sketch - and with the three stripes it was the perfect backdrop to this patriotic card.

• Stamps: Studio G small clear set (in the $1 bin at Michaels but at least a year ago)
• Ink: Stampin' Up Brilliant Blue, copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise, Poppy Parade, Bashful Blue
• Accessories: Star punch, Michaels brand Glitter Shapes, Nestabilities ovals

This is my second post for today...

Crafting with Tweens

SIXTY 6th, 7th and 8th graders making cards.  I don't know whether to be thrilled at how involved they were or to sit back this morning and nurse my headache from the noise levels!!

Once a month in our confirmation program, we have a service and/or social project.  Last night we had two service projects going on - cookie making (to go to local police and firemen) and Valentines for soldiers.  Since I don't even do well with those rolls of refrigerator cookies - I definitely was not in charge of cookie making!!

I tried to put together a very simple card that still included a touch that might be fun for the kids.  In this case, the "fun" was simply a punch and a 3-D flower. (Given that twice the number of hearts that were needed were punched and put together, I think they had fun!!)  Here's the card:

The card uses all Stampin' Up products - a stamping wheel, a stamp from Service and Sacrifice, the heart punch, Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler and Vanilla.

I had four stations set up with instructions (as if tweens read instructions??!!!)  1) the wheel stamp, 2) the 3D heart, 3) writing a note for the inside and 4) putting it all together.  Here's a couple of the stations.

The kids dove right in!

Even though it was utter chaos - here's the final product!!

They made 100 cards that I will now get over to Colorado Supporting Our Troops to tuck into the next box of goodies (and essentials) that they are shipping overseas.



In-Country Christmas

As your

Serve our Country

at Christmas -

A heartfelt thanks to you

as Christmastime draws near,

you're far away from home

at this special time of year.

May the New Year bring us hope

for peace in coming days,

May next Christmas find you

at home for the holidays.

I looked for a very long time for the perfect sentiment for the cards that my card group sends to soldiers.  It didn't even have to be a stamp - we could write it or print it.  So when I stumbled on this stamp and the coordinating outside stamp by DRS Designs, I was absolutely thrilled.  It says EXACTLY what should be said at this time of year.  Let's hope for peace and that each soldier will be home next year.

I won't be sending this card this year - it's a little late to get there, but one of the comments that I got on my series on Church Card Ministries made me realize that I had totally glossed over an important part of making cards for the church - taking care of our own members.  The commenter gave some great advice from her own church card group and talked about making sure that all of those that were hospitalized, or those serving our country, or those that had special needs of other kinds, knew that they were cared for by sending them cards. 

Our church card group does do "special request" cards and we have done such things as working with confirmation age kids to create Christmas cards for soldiers or made cards for Thanksgiving baskets going out to our shut-ins.  But the comment made me realize that we wait to be asked. We weren't asked for cards for soldiers this year, so we didn't make them.  I'm resolving right now to be more proactive.  We are the ones that love making and sending cards - we are going to make sure that we show others how much we care!

(We HAVE recently been asked to work with our pre-teens to make Valentines for soldiers.  If anybody has a great idea for how to say "I Love You"(?!) to a soldier, let me know!)

• Stamps: DRS Designs
• Inks: Stampin' Up Always Artichoke
• Paper: Stampin' Up Always Artichoke, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Hobby Lobby Greetings of the Season paper pad
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Cherry Cobbler seam binding and gold cord, misc star brads (FYI, I didn't have gold brads so I embossed them with gold powder), Quickutz embossing folder, EK Success corner punch
• Challenges: SplitCoast Inspiration Challenge to find inspiration in one of Don Cherry's jackets (I picked a fairly tame one.  Of course, I left out the orca hat!).  The layout comes from Card Patterns.