Just for fun

As a member of splitcoaststampers I sometimes participate in papercraft trades. If you don't know about this great website, check it out!

This week I did a couple of cards for a swap about foresty stuff. It could be anything you might find in a forest. I thought of Halloween ghosties and bugs!
Herewith, the cards I made. It was lots of fun!

Today was an exciting day! The crate of rubber stamps arrived from our stamp manufacturer containing the eight lighthouse designs which many have been waiting patiently to get.

I just had to throw together a couple of cards stat! Yaquina Head Light in Oregon was my first try, and it came to me that this design, while intended for a card, could also make a nice mini-album or journal cover. What do you think?

Wasn't real sure about the Cape Hatteras card. It didn't come out quite the way I intended - it's too busy or lopsided or something! But it's a very hot night, late too, and I'll probably run at it again some other time when conditions are more favorable. Everything we do needn't be perfect anyway, right?

Hope you enjoy the look-see!

Coming soon!

We are counting down the days until october pumpkin's latest shipment of rubber stamps arrives from our stamp manufacturer, Picture My Stamps. This will be the set of eight lighthouse stamps. Five are a larger stamp and three are smaller stamps. I posted two samples below, featuring two of the small stamps, and am now working on samples showing the remaining half dozen. Be sure and watch for them!

If you haven't visited our etsy shop recently, click on the link to the right.

New lighthouse stamps

I've started working with october pumpkin's new set of lighthouse designs, making two casual cards using two of the smaller designs.

The cards are each very simple and fast to make. Sometimes a simple card is restful and pleasant, I think. As my mother used to say,"Less is more."

The stamped-on october pumpkin lighthouses were colored with watercolor paints.

I hope you enjoy seeing these! There will be more to come by and by.

Old and new

While going through some old photos I came across one of my favorite guy taken quite a few years ago. It's a long while til Valentine's Day but I wanted to make a card that said, "I love you."

Using a photo program I enhanced the age of the picture by transforming it into sepia. I chose brown and black papers/cardstock just because I like those colors together. A single word below the photo expressed my thought, and a copper clip adds a little sparkle to the presentation.

Isn't it fun to do something spontaneous when inspiration strikes? And by the way, my husband really liked the card.

Shades of pink

Yesterday I felt like making a monotone card. No, I didn't say a monotonous card!

Sometimes there is a restful kind of look to a card without high contrast. Too many of them would, in fact, be monotonous. But once in awhile, they're fun!

I wanted to share this card with you all, but I am disappointed in the color reproduction. You'll just have to believe me when I say the shades of pink are
truly coordinated - but for reasons unknown to me, when I scanned the card into my computer different papers and cardstock came out as slightly different colors than they actually are. How can this be? I don't know. Maybe it has to do with textures or some invisible factor relating to color dyes from different paper companies. It's a mystery to me, like so many technological things are!

Oh well, it's nicer in person but try to readjust the colors to be harmonious when you see it on the machine!

Shell and sentiment stamps are by october pumpkin.

Came in the mail today...

Several weeks ago I joined a "card candy swap" on Splitcoaststampers.com. If you're a follower, you may remember some photos I posted here, of some "card candy" I made to trade. That part was alot of fun to do.

In case you aren't a cardmaker, "candy" means the embellishments that help decorate a greeting card. Some are die-cut, some are stamped, some are original designs, etc. The idea is to make a bunch or a few and exchange them with other cardmakers or scrapbookers across the country.

It was a first time for me to do this, and after the fun of making my "candy" to swap, it was great fun in the waiting, and even more fun in getting my first pack of swapped goodies. I'm showing some of them in the photo above.