Mother's Day cards

When making cards for Operation Write Home, we think well ahead of the upcoming holidays.  Here it is nearly Valentine's Day and I'm making cards for Mother's Day.  The Valentines were mailed to shipper in December.

I bought this stamp by Stampabilities called Mare and Colt, thinking about Mother's Day cards.  This is the first time I've used it in that way.  It's such a nice stamp that I don't need to color it, the stamped image works well.

With this card, I couldn't decide how to use my Mother's Day sentiment, so just said Thinking of you.  After making this card, I worked on some other possibilities of using the Mother's Day sentiment.

Looking for mojo

This has been a tough week for me.  3 flat tires!  I learned more about tires than I ever wanted to know.  Apparently, valve stems can leak and the tires go flat.  In the process of this, I lost all mojo for making cards.  I'm trying to force some this week.

My goal was to make Mother's Day cards for Operation Write Home.  I've been trying to decide how to do that with this stamp of horses.  I found I didn't have a stamp for Mother's Day that would fit on my card.  I decided that Thinking of You could be sent to a mother or someone else, making it more versatile.

 

Next, I decided to participate in the Our Daily Bread Designs challenge for February.  This challenge is to make a card using an image of fruit.  I don't have many stamps of fruit, but found this House Mouse stamp in my collection.

 

These colors look much better in person than they do in the scan.

Roses for Mom

I'm still thinking about making Mother's Day cards for OWH.  Cards are more versatile for our troops without a sentiment, so these could be used for any occasion for a lady.

The stamp is a very old wood mounted rubber stamp by Anita's  I stamped it with black ink and colored it with Prismacolor pencils and blended with mineral spirits.  The image was cut out with long rectangle Nestibilities.

I adhered the pink patterned paper to the darker pink cardstock, the ran the combo through the Big Shot with an embossing folder.  I added the pink ribbon and adhered it to a white card base.

It looked good until I saw it on the computer screen.  I made a second card, using different colored pencil.

One advantage to using colored pencils, I went back and erased a bit of the Mulberry color on the first card and added the Crimson Red that I used here.  Now the first card looks better too.

Framed flowers

I found these frame dies that I've had for many years and not used them in quite a while.  They are Sizzix Originals.  I decided to frame some flowers with them.  This stamp is by Rubber Stampede.  I colored the images with Prismacolor pencils and blended with mineral spirits.  There are little pearls in the center of each flower, but they don't show up in the scan.

Mother's Day card

When making cards for Operation Write Home, you learn to make cards well ahead of holidays to allow shipping time.  Since I've already mailed in my Easter cards, it's time to begin Mother's Day cards.

I used a lot of dies to make this card.  The scalloped frame is a very old Sizzix original die.  The tag was also cut from an old Sizzix original die.  I used a Spellbinders die to cut the flower frame.  I cut 2 colors with the same die, then trim the edge from the top one so the frame shows.  That ribbon is very sheer so doesn't show real well in scan.

Analogous colors - 2nd try

I'm still trying to create a card using analagous colors.  My attempt yesterday was a bit off.  My orange yellow was more in the orange red color.  My yellow greens also didn't work well.  I added the white because these colors wouldn't work on the yellow.  Is this permitted Paula?
These are not my favorite colors, so I may try another combination in the future.

Analogous colors

I'm still attempting to make cards according to the color harmonies that Paula describes in the ABC's of Color Basics.

With this card, I'm attempting an analogous color harmony.  This one was very difficult for me and I'm still not convinced that I got it right.  What do you think?

The ink on the flower stem and leaves looked more like the ribbon in my craft room.  In the scan, they look quite different.

OWH Boot Camp - Complementary colors

I still working on the Operation Write Home Boot Camp on Color Theory.  This challenge was to make a card using complementary colors.  For this challenge, I chose to use blue and orange and make another triple time stamping card.

These dragonfly stamps are very old rubber stamps, some mounted and some unmounted.  I made several attempts at this.  Here is the card I worked on last evening.  My craft room does not have good lighting for evening work, so I prefer to work in daylight next to a window.  Note the color differnce in the evening card.

That paper really did look orange last night!  I also managed to get ink smudges on it.  I'm looking for a dragonfly punch to hide my smudges.

I couldn't find a punch, so I put a gold sticker onto blue cardstock and fussy cut it.  Wings are popped on dimensional foam tape.  Not great, but will work.

Monochromatic Triple Time Stamping.

Operation Write Home is beginning a Design Boot Camp for cardmakers.  This challenge is The ABC's of Color Basics.  It's a good lesson and I suggest you read it understand the theory.  My first attempt was to make a monochromatic card.

I'm not convinced that my ink color choices were the best for this.  The card is from an OWH tutorial on Triple Time Stamping.  All supplies were from my stash of supplies, so I can't name the sources.

Eagle thank you cards

I've been working for several days on these cards.  I cut the red, white and blue chevrons with my PTI dies.  I also used the eagle stickers inner parts of outline stickers, using the Reverse Sticker Technique.

The eagle stickers were transferred to brown cardstock, then trimmed to eagle shape.  The eagles are popped on foam dimensional tape.  Sentiments are also gold stickers.