PATRIOTIC CHALLENGE - Design Team Projects

Hello Fellow Scrapbookers! It's another Monday Challenge with Patriotic inspired projects from our wonderful Design Team! In honor of our Nation's upcoming birthday, our Design Team has created some Patriotic entries.


Shannon's 4th of July Card

Teresa's 4th of July Layout

Kathy's 4th of July Layout

Karen's Patriotic Birthday Card

Anna's Patriotic Shaker Card

Now show us your patriotic spirit! Post your project using the linky tool at the bottom of this post and you will be entered into our drawing for a prize! Deadline for entries is Sunday July 10 at 11:59pm PDT.

Happy Creative Monday!

Anna

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July Card for a Cause - Cards for the Troops

Melissa Rhodes (co-owner of ScrapbookPlace Yahoo Group) is involved with Cards for our Troops when she found Debbi Dresser's blog, Debbi's Dribble. Debbi is a mother of a veteran. She sends out care packages to our troops overseas.
"What caught my eye about Debbi's blog was the line, 'THERE ARE NO HALLMARK STORES IN AFGHANISTAN OR IRAQ (YES...WE STILL HAVE TROOPS THERE)'", said Melissa. Melissa has had numerous family members in the Navy for generations - grandfather in Korea, father in Vietnam and brother in Desert Storm. She has always had a strong respect for those who have served our country and she thought that this would be a great cause to use her creative talents.
"I just couldn't resist. Cards are easy and fun to make and something you can make plenty of," remarked Melissa. Then, of course, she shared this cause with ScrapbookPlace and we all jumped on the band wagon.
Through pifs and snags, Melissa sends out a priority box full of cards and puzzle books to Debbi about once every month or two. She has been doing this since 2007! That's a lot of cards!
So, with that said, July's Card for a Cause is "Cards for the Troops".
Here are the details:
All occasion cards needed - Love You, Thinking of You, Hello, Friend, Missing you, Birthday & kids, Get Well.
In recognition of September 11 anniversary, we are asking every member to send Melissa a Thank you/Appreciation card to a soldier with a personal note inside (thank you for your service, you are in my prayers, hope you come home to your loved ones soon, etc).
Cards must not have glitter, as the glitter may get on soldier's uniform.
Cards should be blank on the inside. If the card base is dark, please include a white piece of cardstock for writing.
Envelopes are appreciated with the cards but not necessary.
Please label them July Cards for a Cause.
Please have all cards to Melissa by July 27 2011.
Send cards to :
Melissa Rhodes
47359 Brittani Ct
Hammond LA 70401

Pop up Cards Are Fun!

Just wanted to pop in with a couple more POP UP cards made by the design team. With the power outages and loss of internet in my neck of the woods, it's been very stressful getting online to update and catch up with news as it's happening, but here are a couple of sweet cards. The first is Debbie's first attempt at a pop-up card, and I love the colored images she used!

The next card is one that I actually did at the mini CHA Scrapbooking COnvention last summer. That was my first pop-up card too, and I loved the idea of pop-ups!
Well, I hope these cards have inspired you to try your hand at pop up cards. There are so many tutorials you can view on YouTube, SCS and PCP. We'd love to see your projects!!

Technique Thursday - SOS! Distressing 101

There are many different styles of card making and scrapbooking.  Some like muted and pastel colors, while others like bold prints and colors; some like lots of white space and others like to doodle all the white space out.  Some like clean lines and a structured look---I like to distress the heck out of my projects.  I love the look of aging, the feeling of texture—it speaks to me in a purely personal language. 

Sanding:   I love to give my cards a faded look.  Using cardstock with a white or colored core is the best paper for this technique.

  Using sandpaper, a sanding block or even an emery board, lightly sand across the edges of your paper.  As you sand the core color will appear.  The more you rub, or the harder you rub, the less base color and the more core color will come out.  You can sand just the tiniest bit of edge on your paper, or sand your entire piece to make it look like it’s been weather.  Use this paper for your card base, a photo frame, a journal block—I’ve even finished  layout page and then sanded the edges for that rougher look.  Another trick with sanding paper with a core is to crumple the paper loosely, then flatten it out and sand across the entire surface of the paper.  You will get an aged, crackled look to the paper.

Ripping:  When I go to a crop with my usual cronies, as soon as they hear the ripping of paper for the first time, they all yell out, “She’s at it again!”

and they know exactly where I’m sitting at the table.  I love the irregular look of ripped paper.  The chaotic patterns intrigue my artistic eye and they give my layouts & cards dimension you can’t get with a paper cutter.  I will tear background pieces of paper to frame journaling or a photo, or tear around a stamped and colored image for my card.  Here, I have not only ripped a page out of a german magazine, but I crumpled it and inked it as well.

Inking:  This is my fave method for distressing a project.  If I cut myself, I swear I would bleed ink, I love to use it so much. 

By edging your layout page with brown ink, you are swearing off the clean, fresh new look of a project and imbuing it with age, grace and character.  You can use cotton balls, a sponge, a cosmetic sponge, a piece of tissue paper, an inking tool or the ink pad itself.   Each method gives its own special touch of distress to a project.  I have even softly applied brown ink onto the edges and into my photographs for an aged look, without having to play in photo editing software. Another method of distressing an entire piece of paper is to apply ink to glossy paper, about three colors next to each other.  Spritz with water and take your piece of paper or tag and press against the wet ink. Remove and heat emboss dry.  Press against the wet ink and heat emboss dry as many times as you want to get the look needed.  This makes a gorgeous presentation!!

Curling:  You can make a project look well-worn by curling the edges with your fingers.  Just take a small section of your project’s edge and brush it up and in lightly.  Making small tears as you curl gives it the look of being handled and loved through the ages.

Embellishments:  Where would we be without our stash of embellishments?  There are so many companies who offer vintage embellishments!  Tarnished brass metal embellies, crackled diecut stickers, vintage patterned papers and images, tea stained lace, Army-surplus buttons and vintage fonts from your computer---there’s a whole wide world of distressingly distressed materials for you to try out.

So if you are looking to climb out of your comfort zone, try your hand at a little distressing.  It may just bring a smile to your face!

Flowers Are Popping Up All Over

Which brings us to our next challenge. On the right is a photo of a POP-UP card. There are all kinds of pop-ups, from the simple design of mine to a surprise pop-up with a pull-tab. YouTube and Blogger abound with tutorials and instructions, so no excuses, it's time to play!

Make your own pop up card and post it with a link in the comments section, or post it on your blog and link up directly.

Okay, now for my card deets:
Copics: E00,13; Y11,15,17;YR61; R02; YG03; G94; B63 (bINGO!) & V04.
Stamped images: Crafter's Companion "Busy Doing Nothing" and "Thanks a Bunch"
Papers: patterned and cardsock are leftovers from my stash.
Embellishments: Applique butterfly from HobbyLobby (omg, that's it, just one item!!!)
Now before you start tearing your hair out, here are more inspiration cards from the designers. You'll find links to tutorials and instructions below their cards.

Donna's lacy Fairy card, closed and......open

Links to more pop-ups:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pop+up+cards&qpvt=pop+up+cards&FORM=IGRE
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pop-Up-Card
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=pop+up+projects&qpvt=pop+up+projects&FORM=VDRE#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7uDfqtADA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcpd1bObklQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9g7bC8PxJI&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lFudM7nOlg&feature=related
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/pop_up_accordion_card
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/slidingpopupcard/
http://patacakespages.blogspot.com/2011/06/flowers-are-popping-up-all-over.html

Have fun!

Technique Thursday - Paper Piecing 101

Paper Piecing 101 -
Give your images a New Look by Paper-piecing instead of coloring them! For this project, I used Squigglefly’s Moon Fairy. Since it is a digi-image, I printed out several images onto full-sized papers.

When you use rubber or cling stamps you can stamp onto leftover pieces of patterned paper. I used PaperTrey’s Raspberry Fizz and Hibiscus Buzz cardstocks, as well as 2 sheets of patterned paper leftover from my rummage sale stash.

Building up from your base layer (I’m using a sheet of white paper), cut out pieces from your colored papers and adhere to your base.

I always make at least two copies of my base image, so that I can color if needed and add layers from it (and for mistakes, which everyone makes!).

I cut out the full image from the lace patterned paper and attached it to the white base first. I then cut out the lighter pink cardstock, just the fairy image, and attached it. I then cut out the darker pink cardstock and placed it on my image.

I colored her face, arms and legs from the second white image, cut it out (keeping it one piece) and attached it. Finally, I cut out her hair from the second image on the lace paper and added some color to it before attaching it to my image. I added some Yellow and some Icicle Stickles to help her outshine the moon.




Once everything that’s wet is dry, you can cut out your paper-pieced image and apply it to your background paper!

It’s not as hard as it looks, and the finished product is a nice change from coloring. Even if all you did was print or stamp your image onto one extra piece of patterned paper and used it with your base of cardstock, you will have tried something new! So, what are you waiting for? Let’s see your projects!!

Masculine Challenge - DESIGN TEAM PROJECTS

Last week we posted a Masculine Challenge in honor of Father's Day. The challenge was to create a masculine card, layout or project with a masculine theme. Here are some of the projects from our talented Design Team members.

PAT M - Card 1

PAT M - Card 2

TERESA R - Layout

CINDY H - Card

KAREN G - Card (View 1)

KAREN G - Card (View 2)

SHANNON L - Layout

SHANNON L - Card

We hope these lovely pieces inspire you to create your own Masculine Project! Link your project through the linky tool at the bottom of this post and you will be entered into a drawing for a prize!

ANNA

Craft Storage 101

I am always on the lookout for new storage tips. Because I don’t have family support for my “little hobby” I have to resort to rummage sale finds and alternative uses for odd items. I want to share some of my ideas that have succeeded, in hopes to learn even more ways to save money but most importantly TIME when looking for items!

Cling stamps: After attaching EZ Mount to these types of stamps, I try to keep them in sets, if not in themes, in clear CD boxes. I tried the cling sheets in a binder but that just didn’t work for me. So now most of my stamps are stored, labeled and neatly put up for easy access.

Stickles: Someone mentioned that Stickles were best stored upside down, so that the nozzles don’t clog up. Well, some of the bottles leak when stored upside down. No matter. I just applied a strip of Velcro onto my file cabinet, and small pieces of its matching Velcro to the bottles, and have my bottles lined up and easy to reach.

Photo Boxes: Nothing is better than a shelf that’s out of the way, yet easy to access. Hubby did help me out by putting up two shelves (1’x8”) across two sides of the room, along the ceiling. They fit photo boxes perfectly, and as you can see, store other, less-frequently used items out of the way.

Adhesives: I found a HUGE fish bowl/tilted candy jar at a thrift store for 50 cents (that’s right, you read it correctly). I like to have all my different kinds of adhesives all in one place close on my work space, so I just pile them into the jar. Refills are stored elsewhere.

Wood-mounted stamps: I have a file cabinet in my closet for storing this type of stamp. They are mostly stored by theme, while some of them are still stored as sets. In each drawer I used clear acrylic frames in which to put my stamps, so that if, by chance, I need to stamp flowers, I can open a drawer and pull out just the frame holding the flower stamps.

SCRAPBOOK PLACE BLOG HOP WINNERS - MAY 2011

Our May Blog hop brought us some gorgeous projects and lots of lovely comments from hoppers. Here are the winners of the various random hop posts:

On Shannon's blog:  http://shannonleffew.blogspot.com/
CONGRATULATIONS CINDY H.

On Linda's blog: http://scrappingheaven.blogspot.com/
CONGRATULATIONS RHONDA!

On Pat's Blog: http://patacakespages.blogspot.com/
CONGRATULATIONS ANNA!

On Teresa's Blog: http://teresasscrappinspot.blogspot.com/
CONGRATULATIONS LINDA W.!

JUNE CARDS FOR A CAUSE

Cindy Horsley, blogsite owner of QUEEN OF THE CROP and wonderful member of SBP, has suggested a dear to my heart (and hers!) project. Please read on:

The Autism Project of Southern Ohio is and will continue to fill the area’s needs when it comes to serving those who are autistic. Recently the group awarded two $2,000 grants to establish Sensory rooms in area schools.

According to Wendy Potts, Autism Project Of Southern Ohio President, Sensory rooms help children with autism develop and further expand their cognitive stills.

The group installed its first Sensory room at Waverly Preschool.

The two most recent Sensory rooms established are at the Carousel Center and the Shawnee State University Dr. Miller & Genevieve Toombs Children's Learning Center.

"Sensory rooms are where kids with autism and anyone with a sensory processing disorder can get sensory input or get into a calm area to bring themselves back together," Potts said.

She explained this is a big project for the group to take on but it is not impossible. She said it's something that makes sense.

"By watching each one of them (autistic children) they are all different. Maybe the lights bother them or maybe there is too much noise. Each one is unique and each one needs different things," Potts said. "The sensory rooms will give us a better understanding and it will allow us to help them learn to cope with life as they get older."

This is the second school the group has helped in the establishment of sensory rooms.

Potts said, "the kids need this. It will help them at an early age learn how to be able to cope with the world they have to grow up in and live in."

Cards will be sold at all benefits and bazaars to help raise needed funds. Please consider contributing whatever you can make and send to them. Send to:

Autism Project of Southern Ohio
PO Box 888
Portsmouth, OH 45662

Notify a moderator or owner of this group of how many you send and be entered into a wonderful drawing for a prize.