Sassy Rubber Artists

Here’s wishing a happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who read my blog. I spent time with family, enjoying 4 of our 9 grandbabies (although I guess only one could really be considered a ‘baby’ lol). I even managed to send out cards for this momentous occasion. Even better…the cards all arrived on time. Yayyyy. I CASEd a design from fabulously talented Australian SU demonstrator Teneale Williams. I don’t know what it is about Australia, but its people have got artistic talent oozing from their pores. I noticed it first when I was doing cake decorating; the Australian magazines, artists, and creative submissions were consistently top in the field.

Here’s a group shot of the cards - ready for addressing and mailing. The ribbon knot is soft enough to be used for Operation Write Home cards, so I’ve been putting together a set for my May submission.

This shot shows the full front of the card. The kraft-colored ink is a soft enough beige-brown to really blend into a collage style (bonus!) and even on the regal rose cardstock, it shows up as a soft accent. The really cool thing about the regal rose background piece was I used the Palette New Canvas (white) ink to distress the cardstock with direct-to-paper random swipes and then overstamped the line image from SU Simply Soft in Regal Rose ink and added the text and splots from the SU French Foliage set using the kraft ink - everything in the rose and kraft inks stamped off first. All that overstamping on the regal rose background really adds a LOT of visual texture and interest.

(And of course over-achiever me had to make sure the envelope also got its collage treatment.)

DH is helping DS today with offloading paver stones from pallets to their backyard, so in between laundry and floor washing, I am completing my scrapbook page assignments from yesterday. According to the Creative Crop rules on the Big Picture Classes website, all 12 challenges are to be uploaded to the challenge gallery by 9pm PDT tonight and winners (2 for each challenge plus a grand prize winner) will be announced at 4pm PDT on Monday. I did it! Twelve scrapbook pages and I have enough photos to make a second page layout for each. Although because there is no deadline, I probably will take a week to make THOSE twelve pages lol. DH is definitely in favor of me continuing to create pages but I will need more printed photos, especially current photos. I don’t have any printed photos newer than 2009! Hangs her head in shame.

Challenge 9 - using a pocket on your layout (I even made a beer mug pullout tag)

Challenge 10 - upcycle a cast-off onto the page (Kleenex tissue box - I collect the art)

Challenge 11 - scrapbook a favorite childhood memory (drat, I already did that on Challenge 1, so now I have to think about another favorite childhood memory) - Fizzies (but since I have no photos from back then, I made this a 6×12 page and will just insert it as a fun fact page for my All About Me album

Challenge 12 - use kraft cardstock two different ways on the layout -background and tea bag

I’ve been participating in the Big Picture Classes Creative Crop - 24 challenges in 2 days. What was I thinking? I have made maybe 3 scrapbook pages ever. I managed to complete 8 of the 12 today and I’m gearing up to finish the last 4 first thing in the morning so I’ll be ready for the final 12. I’ve been a collector of supplies long enough, it’s time to finally became a scrapbooker. Some of these pages are digital and some were scanned from actual pages. But all were made today.

Challenge 1 - create a fancy frame for one of your photos

Challenge 2 - make comparisons between two similar photos taken years apart

Challenge 3 - showcase a reflection

Challenge 4 - use twine on your page

Challenge 5 - use phone camera photos

Challenge 6 - use the provided sketch

Challenge 7 - use three analogous (neighboring) colors from the color wheel

Challenge 8 - use a flag on your page

Awwww…I was gifted with a Liebster Award from my blogging pal Kathy at My Creative Impulse. She’s a sweetie for sure and someone whose creativity I greatly admire. Thank you Kathy for thinking of me. And here’s a card for you.

You totally deserve it! (Michelle Zindorf has a tutorial for this card here.) Can you believe this was her 499th FREE tutorial? Michelle is truly amazing. She is up to 504 tutorials on her blog and I’m hope she will continue to bless us with many more to come. I modified the size from her original 6 3/4 inch square to my normal A2 size because I send most of my cards to Operation Write Home and 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 is the size of choice there.) I actually made a second card with the same materials. I didn’t have the SU alphabet dies that Michelle used, so I had plugged in my Cricut and cut ’sweet’ at 1 inch from my Classic Cricut Font cartridge. The second card used the negative diecut. Serendipitious for sure. Which is your favorite? I must confess that the second using the negative diecut is my favorite. I can’t figure out if it’s BECAUSE of the negative diecut or because the book page I used for my background as the word ROTC in the bottom line. I was in ROTC in high school. The highest ranking girl and the second highest ranking officer lol.

Oops, almost forgot. Of course there are ‘rules’ for accepting and passing along any blog award. Here’s what Kathy had to say about the award - The origins of the Liebster Blog Award are somewhat unclear, but the general consensus is that it originated in Germany. Liebster, means favorite or dearest, and the Liebster Award is designed to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Upon accepting the award, the recipient must pass it on to five more blogs of note. That must be the hardest rule to follow. How can one choose only five? However, after long and hard consideration, here are my nominated gems. Have fun visiting their blogs.

Carol from Stampin Hot in Arizona
Diane from The Loys
Lorene from A Little Bit of Lorene
Melissa from Our Mad House
Trudy from Trudy’s Treasures

Okay winners, here’s what you need to do.
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve recognition.
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

Sappy, I know, but it’s a little something DH and I say to each other. He’s not a frou-frou kinda guy, so I went with a CAS (clean and simple) design. The card sentiment was computer-generated (matching the font as close as possible to the heart font). After I printed the sentiment onto my cardbase, the heart was stamped once in red on the cardbase and then twice onto scrap cardstock - once in red and once in black. I trimmed out the black sentiment, adhered it over the sentiment on the red scrap heart, and then cut out the red scrap heart and pop-dotted it over the red heart on the cardbase. No bling, no glitter, no shine . . . but plenty of love for my guy.

Stamps: SU! Be My Valentine (single)
Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Super Smooth Solar White
Ink: SU! Classic Real Red; Memories Black (my go-to pure black, when I’m not going to use Copics)

Challenges entered
The Outlawz CAS Challenge - create a CAS valentine for someone special