April Showers Bring May Flowers

Over at the Power Poppy blog, the challenge is to do something with your birth month. My birthday is in April and though I like that the stone is a diamond, it doesn't scream color challenge. And there aren't too many holidays in April, except April Fool's Day and about a hundred birthdays of my family and friends. Seriously...it's the craziest month for birthdays over here.

So instead of that, I just used the little ditty we heard in school, April Showers Bring May Flowers...and what do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims! No, I didn't make a project with pilgrims, rather I used May flowers. I have some heritage roses that bloom in May and they are gorgeous—a beautiful shade of pink and they smell even better!

I used my Prismacolor pencils on this lovely digi. I trimmed off the second cup of roses so I could use a larger image. Hope you'll join in with your birth month here.

Happy Friday!

Chark

Watch It Wednesday

Thought I'd share a card I made with the technique shown in this Jennifer McGuire video. I'm late to the party, as I have never done a word die cut like this with a floral image. The Fall Rose is a digi stamp from LeighSBDesigns here. She has some fun Poe and goth images in her store too.

I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils, then used a Papertrey word die and an Elizabeth Craft Dotted Scallop frame cut. I colored the leaves in browns and golds to help the roses stand out and added clear adhesive drops.

Okay, I actually posted the wrong video below, so here's the correct video showing the eclipse letter card/popped dies technique. I left the other video too, because it's a good one.

Here's a video from Jennifer that uses three different ways to do inlaid die cutting. Honestly, this woman has a million ideas and videos and tips and she totally rocks!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Gold and Pink

I bought this rose die cut from Pretty Little Studio, where they have lots of vintage die cuts for good prices, along with my favorite printed vellums (or is that velli?) ever,  Then my next purchase was some gold printed paper and stickers, and some new Hello Heather journaling cards...put them all together and you get this card.

The only thing that's not PLS is the pink notecard I had. The striped paper strip at the bottom is gold and white and I looovvee it so much!

Just to let you know, PLS is having a Design Team call right now and if you love their stuff like I do, you might want to try out--I'm thinking about it, but they are awesome over there and it's a little intimidating :)

Not sure if you've ever checked out Scrapbook and Cards Today mag, but it's a print and online mag with lots of inspiration and giveaways on the blog. I'm off to check out the free digi issue soon...here's a link if you want to take a peek too. I have a new Kindle Fire so now I can also get more mags out of the library to peruse. I still prefer the paper copies, but this is at least cheaper! :)

Happy Monday!
Chark

Mmmm...Toast

I gotta admit, I'm a bread lover. I like it fresh from the oven and dripping with butter...but my second favorite way is toasted. So, when I finally bought this adorable Lawn Fawn set, I started stamping the toast first. Here's my first card with the stamp.

I used some Distress inks to color the background and Prismacolor pencils for the images. I love how cute they are! So glad I finally bought it, I've been eyeing this set for a long while. Especially since my next favorite way to eat bread is in muffin form, and there's a muffin in this set too. :)

Happy Wednesday!
Chark

Oldie And Goodie

Sorting through pictures the other day and came across this card. It was one of the first cards I ever used a sewing machine on. I've only done stitching a few times but it does add a little extra something to a card. I thought it was appropriate for an old-fashioned silhouette stamp like this one from Hero Arts.

I absolutely love that ribbon and resin rose together. I got it in a class and used it on a different project (this one) than the one intended. I don't know why I never purchased more, but maybe I should! 

I just got some new paints from Jo Ann's ordered (Bo Bunny paints) and am anxious to try those out, but I'm putting ribbon on the list for next time!

Happy Wednesday!
Chark

Geometry Is Fun!

Although Geometry was my least favorite subject in high school (probably thanks to the teacher, but whatever), I did like this challenge over at Winnie & Walter stamps. I found them through Jennifer McGuire's blog when she used one of their products and am so dying to get some of their products. 

For this Gossip Column challenge, you have to use geometric shapes and they provided free amazing digi art for the challenge!

Here's my take. Geometry and Neon together. I used my new chalk markers (that's due to The Daily Marker's influence).

I colored the image with Prismacolors and chalk markers, cut the image in half, mounted on black cardstock and then offset it on white and added the hello die cut—it's from Papertrey Ink—and enamel dots from Jo Ann's. Winnie & Walter have a fun ($5) Hello die too.

Hope you'll join me today for this challenge or at least check out their fab products. My daughter assures me that Geometry rocks, so I guess I'll agree with her in this case—this was so fun to color!

Happy Monday!
Chark

Can't Believe I Missed It

Apparently, the first week in February is Children's Authors and Illustrators Week—who knew? You would think someone who likes to call herself a children's author might know this. I didn't get the memo, so to celebrate, I will do Book Covers of the Week this week to celebrate kids' books.

I love children's books and ya books, along with historical fiction, biographies, and anything I can get my hands on. I just finished Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little and looovved the narrator. She was imprisoned for her mother's murder and doesn't know if she did it. It's not the plot that caught me (although a good mystery is a great find) but rather, the main character and her observations. Not a kid's book, but I highly recommend it anyway.

Some fabulous kid's books (imo) are:

Lilly is just the best and I will read anything by Kevin Henkes. He rocks.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. I first found Pooh Bear on tv as a child and didn't even know there were books until I had my child...seriously. Both kids got copies of the adventures of Pooh. It's a fabulous story and adorable illustrations and just so wise. Read it if you haven't, even if you don't have little kids.

Nancy Drew is the penultimate female character who wasn't like other girls. The Mystery at the Ski Jump was the first Nancy Drew book I read and I didn't stop reading them. Nancy was a great role model for me at the time. She is plucky and fierce and she saves herself on lots of occasions. Brave and inquisitive and so flipping smart, Nancy always gets the bad guy. You can get the original stories, manga comics, first-person mysteries, little kid Nancy books and movie novelizations. All I know is that I want to be Nancy Drew someday.

Red Scarf Girl is absolutely riveting. If you know nothing of China's cultural revolution, this is a great read for learning more. It's about society in general and how we are products of our culture but we can also grow beyond our culture to connect with the greater world. I honestly thought this was fiction as I was reading it and realized it was memoir later. It reads like a compelling novel and I think everyone should read it. Everyone.

And, lastly, I thought I'd better throw in one last card I made for the nursing home. I used a Project Life kind of card, although I don't scrap with pocket pages. I love the little cards though! You can put together a birthday card or hello card in minutes with them.

I added a Doodlebug enamel heart to one of the hears and alphabet stickers and twine to finish it off.

That's it for President's Day! Happy Monday!
Chark

p.s. If you have a military family, you might want to check out the publisher, Elva Resa, who specialize in books for military families. I love the illustrations for my story and how easy they made the process of my first publication...see the cover on my sidebar here.

p.p.s. There's a newsletter that one of the editors runs that is worth signing up for, as well, called Books Make a Difference. The newsletter isn't just for military families and not just for writers, it's just about books...and how they make a difference. Weird, huh? :)

Friday the 13th!

Eeeekk! It's Friday the 13th, which means bad luck and scary stuff. Except when it doesn't. Today was a fine day (not scary at all)! I got to visit my mom and take my bunch of cards to the nursing home so the residents will have Valentines. 

My mom is at home now, but spent a bunch of weeks in the nursing facility after a fall and it was one of those bummer places. It's good that they exist, just they aren't the most uplifting places. The people there were kinda great, though, since they got my mom back on her feet. So, I took the staff some candy and a thank you card.

 

They said they needed 96 cards when I was expecting them to say 80, so I made 50 cards last night! This is what 96 cards looks like in a box. 

My hubby and son helped me write notes in the cards and it was so helpful! I made a lot of Hello cards, because I wanted to get them all finished for Valentine's Day, but I wasn't sure I'd pull it off. This one uses Doodlebug stickers and papers and I love them!

 

This one uses watercolors and a hello die and a flower sticker by Maggie Holmes. The stamp is Hero Arts and it's my newest stamp...I'm loving it. The lines are so elegant, don't you think? If you want one of your own, you can head over to a2z Scrapbooking Supplies to order Hero Arts/Basic Grey Waves Stamp.   p.s. I have it on good authority that the new Spring Collection from Hero Arts is in at a2z...I'm going to get one of the new Stamp and Cut sets...and some other cool stuff!

Hope your Friday the 13th was good and that Valentine's Day is fantastic!
Chark

Out Of My Comfort Zone

So, the teenaged boy of mine is growing by inches daily, it seems. I bought him some new jeans in the fall, and he's already growing too tall for them. And the leather jacket he had to have last year? The sleeves are too short. Sigh. I'm not buying another coat right now (and definitely not a leather coat), so I started thinking of solutions.

When my daughter was young and growing like a weed, I could add ribbon to the bottoms of her cuffs on pants and shirts to make them last a little longer. I was pretty sure the boy wouldn't take to that idea. So, I remembered seeing a leather coat with flannel cuffs and lining. I thought maybe I could do that, even though I am perhaps the worst seamstress in the history of sewing. Sewing is SO not my thing. I'm more of a "hot glue it and call it good" person.

Once I got online, I found that some people use sweater sleeves to make a jacket sleeve longer. And then—Eureka! I found someone who made cuffs for a jacket from socks! Now, I loved this idea because we had black socks aplenty and I wouldn't have to go find a black sweater to cut up.

So, I did it. I actually got out the sewing machine and sewing kit and made cuffs for the jacket. They turned out all right and it was free!


 1. Cut socks like this. Machine stitch the cut edge to prevent unraveling.

2. Turn the sleeve of the jacket inside out, slide the sock around the sleeve and hand stitch the sock (cut and sewed end) to the lining of the jacket.

3. It'll look like this when you've finished.

4. Turn it inside right. and it looks like this.

5. Have your taller-than-you son try on the jacket, and fold back the sock cuff and it'll look like this. Whew! We might make it through the season without buying another coat. Maybe. And he's even thinking I'm clever and helpful and that it looks good. That's a win right there! Now if I can keep him from just pulling them off in the day-to-day wear and tear of his clothes, I'll be happy.

Here's another card I'm adding to my stack for the nursing home residents. It uses a Papertrey Ink stamp and Hero Arts bg paper. I think I should've gone with silver for the hello with these blues...hmmm...yep, I'm going to need to change that. Off to fix it!

Happy Friday, my friends!
Chark

Blueberry Pancakes For Everyone!

Today is National Blueberry Pancake Day and I feel that should include some kind of freebie pancakes for me...I don't think I'm going to get that, so I may have to make my own. If you're looking for a good recipe, here's one from All Recipes that are called My-Hop Pancakes. 

Just add a few room temperature blueberries to the batter right before frying. I like to use some berries from a box of blueberry muffin mix, cuz they're little and tasty and they don't have to be in season at the grocery.

Maybe I should just go to Bob Evans. I love their pancakes...and crepes. Okay, I'm finished drooling for now.

Here's another card I made for the nursing home residents in my home town. I used a Hero Arts rose stamp, colored them with Distress Inks and Copics and then trimmed them. I also used Perfect Pearls and water to spray and give them a shimmer. If I left off the shimmer and rhinestones, it might be a good masculine card too, since some men like gardening and the color palette is darker.

It's also my last entry in the challenge at Craft Stamper Magazine. If you haven't joined you still have a few hours! Hope you'll join me! 

Happy Wednesday...off to Bob Evans for pancakes!
Chark

Craft Stamper Magazine Entry

So I stumbled onto this challenge over at Craft Stamper Magazine and the prize was so amazing, I had to jump in. The challenge is an easy one too—use a non-digi stamp to created something. Love how open this one is. And since I've set a goal to make a boatload of cards in the next few weeks for the nursing home, stamping was right up my alley this week.

Here's the card I'm entering and planning to give to a nursing home resident. I used the Flower Burst cling stamp from Hero Arts on patterned paper, added a premade sentiment that I jazzed up with Stickles and then added gray pearls for the flowers. Hope this cheery palette makes someone happy.

Just in case you're looking for some good stamps, a2z Scrapbooking Supplies has some on sale right now. If you like Hero Arts, this is a great place to shop. This little beauty is just $5.50. It's perfect for Valentine cards or tags.

And this one is a cool background stamp that I'm thinking I need. I'd love to try this in a tone-on-tone aqua card. I love how background stamps give you interest without the bulk of layers—especially when you're mailing cards. It's a great deal at $6.00. Better get over to a2z and get mine before they're gone!

Join me in the challenge, you have some days left! And get to stamping!
Chark

Hiya, Valentine!

I decided to make some Valentine cards for the nursing home my mom spent some time in this summer. The Caring Hearts Card Drive inspired me. I've been contributing to the card drive for a couple of years because I love the idea, and after seeing Mom's nursing home in person, I understood how much of a difference a card could make in a person's life, if only to break the monotony of the days.

So I picked Valentine's Day as my date to get about 80 cards finished. But I'm going with more generic cards than Valentines just in case I don't make the deadline. Here's a card I tried to make suitable for a man or woman.

I started with an embossed card base, stamped an older Hero Arts silhouette stamp (you can find it at Jo Ann here.) on Hero Arts patterned paper, added a ribbon behind a preprinted sentiment—fast and easy and hopefully good. I added more black to the ground with a marker, mostly to cover up the messed up stamping :) I like to think I'm the Queen of Coverups, since I make a lot of mistakes and have a lot of experience "fixing" them.

I'm entering this card over at Craft Stamper Magazine's January Challenge. They have a great prize pack this month, check it out!

Happy Monday!
Chark

Hello, Friday!

Here's another card I created using the Hello Die from Papertrey Ink, along with their matching Hello Stamps and a Hero Arts stencil called Arrows. It's a great stencil for a lot of different styles. I like it in clear embossing powder on black cardstock for masculine cards. I thought this one might be a good "missing you" card.

I used gold paper and regular white and black cardstock for the layers and then stamped the hello in Versamark and embossed in gold embossing powder. Then I die cut with the matching die and added heart epoxy stickers from Doodlebug Design. The stamp is textured, which makes the word very cool-looking imo.

Hope you're having a great day and checking out the Black Friday sale over at a2z Scrapbooking Supplies! There's a cyber deal of 20% your order of $25 or more. Woot! 

And there's a fun Scavenger Hunt for this weekend too! Check out the post at a2z and enter to win! If I weren't on the Design Team, you know I'd be there entering for the $25 gift certificate! 

Happy Friday,

Chark