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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

70th Birthday

This is my entry for this week's challenge at www.heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com.  

My FIL celebrates 70 years of life this week!  I created this card for him using the following Close To My Heart products:
Clear Card, Journey Paper Pack  & Stickease (tag), Celebrate Life Stamp Set, True Friends Stamp Set, Brown Bag Ink, Cranberry Ink, Chocolate Ribbon, Mini Medley brads, Liquid Glass for adhesive. 

I used the Cricut Cindy Loo cartridge to cut the numbers (welded with Design Studio) and the A Child's Year cartridge for the scalloped squares.  Thanks for looking!

Friday, September 17, 2010

ATC Swap and H2H challenge

I am in an ATC (artist's trading card) swap with the theme of Home Sweet Home.  I am in 3 groups and so made 3 different designs.  I also felt they qualified for the Heart 2 Heart challenge of making a sentiment a focal point.  You can see the great entries at www.heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com. 

The first card used Close To My Heart cardstock that I used a Tim Holtz Cuttlebug folder to emboss in "bricks".  I sanded it to bring out the texture.  I combined the word and the house in my Cricut Design Studio and cut with my Cricut with White Daisy CTMH cardstock.  I then sponged Topiary and Moonlight inks over the cut out.  It's finished off with a heart crystal.

The center one is my fave.  I grew up in church so it has always felt like home to me.  I again started with CTMH cardstock in Holiday red.  I embossed a line around all four edges and used a nail file to bring out the white lines and distressing.  To mimic stitching, I ran the cards through my mini sewing machine (NO thread) to punch the holes on the white lines.  Enlarge the photo to see the detail.  I used CTMH Cranberry ink to stamp the flourishes from the CTMH Timeless stamp set.  The church was cut with my Cricut and then pressed into a Versamark ink pad and embossed with iridescent embossing powder.  The heart was cut with the Cricut as well and adhered to the church and covered in CTMH Liquid Glass.  The sentiment is from the CTMH Treasures of the Heart stamp set-stamped in our Colonial White pigment ink and embossed with clear emb. powder.

Finally, the 3rd card also is from CTMH cardstock sponged with a little Moonlight ink.The sentiment is actually 2 different stamps from 2 different sets.  I cut the "treasure" off a phrase in the A Tweet set and used "family" from the July Word Puzzle set.  The bird ( I know, I use it ALL the time) was cut with my Cuttlebug and a Tim Holtz die.  I sponged it in Crystal Blue, Heavenly Blue and Moonstruck CTMH inks. The nest was stamped in Brown Bag and embossed with clear embossing powder.  The stamp is from a CTMH stamp set but not sure of the name.  I colored the eggs with a Copic marker and covered in Liquid Glass.  The branches and flowers were stamped using the A Tweet stamp set.  Flowers-Hydrangea, branch in Brown Bag and leaves colored in with Copic marker.  I used a pop dot to adhere the wing and the nest to give it a little depth.

Thanks for looking!  Let me know which is your favorite!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Back Home

Hey everyone-I'm behind on projects and postings because I ended up in the hospital for 6 days starting
Labor Day with an infected cyst which caused my MS to flare.  Not fun but God sustained me throughout and everyone's prayers helped me get better in half the time the doctors were predicting!  In fact, a couple of my nurses and 2 of my doctors are Christians and they were praying for me as well.  God knew just where to place me.  Now it's behind me and I am so very ready to create something.  Give me a few days and I'll try to get something posted!