Any Hero mail

After a long hot, dry summer in the desert, we finally got a little rain and cooler weather.  This inspired me to spend more time outside.  I found some pretty things.

I so enjoyed these photos, so I decided to share them with our deployed troops.  Here is a sample of the way that I used them.

One advantage to using personal photos on Any Hero mail is that it gives us something to talk about in the letter.  I can just use my computer to copy the photos to my MS Word program and resize them like I do with digi-images.  I can print as many as I feel like writing letters.  Some of these are in the box of cards that I'm sending to OWH.

More cards for men

Since I'm trying to fill a box of cards for Operation Write Home, I made a few more cards for men.

Cards for men

I've been struggling with making cards for our deployed troops to send home to male friends and family.  We decided to post the question on Facebook and got interesting results.  Here's some cards I made this week after this discussion.

I printed this digi image from Stamper's Best onto glossy photo paper, then cut each car out with an oval Spellbinders die.  I also cut black glossy cardstock with one size larger oval die.  I chose black and white for the entire card, using masculine prints from Making Memories.  The sentiments are all stickers.

This card was made with a wider piece of paper, so I placed the image fully on the patterned paper.  These letters were cut from glossy black cardstock with Sizzlet alphabet dies.  I put the scrap of cardstock through my Xyron before cutting letters.

 



Motorcycle cards

I made some masculine cards with another stamp by Stamper's Best.  They make nice deeply etched rubber stamps in a variety of images.

I decided not to color the images on these cards.  The sentiment is a die from Cuttlebug.  I have found that if I run my scraps of cardstock through the Xyron before cutting that the word sentiments are easier to adhere to the cards.

 

The patterned paper is from a Ki Creations 6"X6" paper pad called Argyle - purchased at Wal-Mart.

More masculine cards

I wasn't really pleased with the masculine cards in my last post, so I tried again.

This image stamp is by Stamper's Best.   I had a lot of trouble coloring them, but I'm trying.  I used Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits.

Trying for masculine cards

When I look through my paper stash, I don't find a lot of patterned paper that will work for masculine cards.  My stamps also are not very masculine.  I made an attempt yesterday, and this is what I accomplished.

I'm going to try again today to see if I can do better on the masculine cards.

OWH August Boot Camp - Relationships

In the August Bootcamp on the Stars & Stamps blog, Paula challenged us to find an image of one of our earlier cards & see how we would now make it to improve the Relationships of the card elements.

Fortunately, I lost my really early images in a computer crash.  Remember to backup your files!  This is an earlier card that I made for an Any Hero card early in my time with Operation Write Home.

I can now see so many things wrong with the composition of this card.  The most obvious to me is the stars & stripes ribbon right across the middle of card.  The definitely breaks the Rule of Thirds.  The next obvious thing I notices is that the sticker sentiment disappears on that busy embossed & sanded background.  The star stickers are also just floating up there for no good reason.  This is a card I made today.



I moved the red ribbon higher on the card and used simpler papers.  I also added a gold frame and a larger sentiment.  I added the gold eagle sticker on the star and placed it closer to the sentiment and ribbon.  It doesn't show in the photo, but the blue cardstock is embossed with tiny stars.

OWH Midweek Throwdown - Friendship

Today's Midweek Throwdown on the Stars & Stamps blog is to make friendship cards.

The cardinal stamp is from Our Daily Bread Designs and colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits with a blending stump.  The sentiment is from a clear set, but the label is missing.  This fits the friendship category.

Here's a couple of cards that I made recently, but hadn't posted yet.

This is a House Mouse stamp and the sentiment is computer generated.

I stamped the sentiment onto the pink paper before I put it through the embossing process.  The chain punch is by Martha Stewart and the flower dies are by Papertrey Ink.

House Mouse

I first fell in love with House Mouse in Vermont, while attending a convention in Burlington years ago.  We toured a big barn with craft booths.  One of them was selling House Mouse tee shirts and greeting cards.  I still have the shirt (well worn) and a few of those original cards.  Later, the House Mouse images began showing up as rubber stamps.  These were some of first stamps and I've always loved them.   I have quite a collection.

Recently, the creator of this line of images demonstrated how to color the mice at CHA in Las Vegas.  OWH creator Sandy Allnock filmed Ellen Jareckie's demo and you can see it on the Stars & Stamps blog.

Here is my attempt to color this delightful fall image, called Fall Commuters.  I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils and Odorless Mineral Spirits as a blender.

ODBD August challenge

I'm still trying to use up my scraps.  I used Prismacolor pencils to color the image.  The image and sentiment are from Our Daily Bread Designs.



I made the second card for the Our Daily Bread Designs challenge on the Stars & Stamps blog.  This challenge is a color challenge to make a card using brown, green & pink.  This scrap seemed perfect for the challenge.

Using the scraps

A couple of weeks ago, I used part of my paper from the 6 X 6 paper pads.  I said I would use the scraps later.  I made a lot of these cards and was left with a lot of strips of the patterned paper.  I decided it was time to use up these strips.

New dies

I've been trying to use the supplies I have on hand, but I saw some word dies, made by Memory Box.  I couldn't resist them.  When they arrived they were very narrow die cuts, but are good quality dies and I love them.  I cut a few and couldn't decide how to adhere them to cards.  I decided to run the cardstock through my Xyron to add adhesive before cutting out the words.  Here's my results.

All but the background are made with scraps from my other cards.

Playing with dies

I really liked the die that I used in the previous post, but had too much trouble with it.  You can scroll down or see it HERE.  It is a die by Spellbinders and I usually love their dies.  I used waxed paper between the die and the cardstock to help remove the little pieces from the die.  My problem was that it wouldn't cut all the decorative edge without turning the cut piece and running it through the Big Shot a second time.  When I tried this, the cardstock slipped just enough to tear the pretty edge.  I felt I needed the waxed paper, but couldn't find a way to keep the die in place with waxed paper.  It was just too much effort for me, so I changed to a different die.

I was more pleased with the results with this die and it really highlights the sentiment and the pretty paper.