Hambo Hoedown Challenge 38

Greetings Earthlings!

YAY!! This week I sent in my 'fall' box to Operation Write Home.

That's about 145 cards, mostly generic but I beat the Oct.31st deadline for getting Christmas cards in! I always 'tuck & stamp' my cards so the shippers don't have to do those steps. Since I live in the midwest, my cards get sent to Kris in Kansas. She does all the hard work of sorting all the cards and then packs them into boxes for the different military units that have requested our cards. She also has to fill out custom forms for each box and then she takes all these boxes to the post office and ships them overseas! Here is a quick video that tells you all about that process.

Alrighty then, onto this week's Hambo Hoedown challenge #38. This week it was another sketch challenge.

I have a hard time with sketches.. I definitely do NOT plan in advance what my layout is going to be. Sketches force me to 'follow the rules.' Yikes!

O.K. Fine. I'm not going to think about that now.. (Scarlett wasn't stupid) I'm just going to focus on the free image that Hambo sent me this week. It's called Zombie Bunny. I got it free because I entered their challenge last week and emailed them my finished card. Here's the image:

How do you make a cute, cuddly bunny look like a zombie?

It was tough. I still don't think he looks zombie-ish enough.

I used my Copics and Spica markers.

I added red Spica markers to make his eyes look blood-shot. Then more red on his mouth and paws to look like they're bloody..

There is no getting around it now, I have to check out that sketch and conform! Ugh!

I used the Spellbinders Lattice Rectangles to mat him. Some baker's twine and a few Sticko gel stickers with a bow and some candy-corn finish the card off.

I'd like to go back and add darker gray to his fur.. I'm afraid that will look stupid though. Oh well. I better leave him alone before I tinker too much and ruin it! (That NEVER happens..)

Party on, Wayne.

No stamps, No Copics!

Greetings Earthlings!

Scroll down to earlier posts for freebies

YAY! It's finally here!!  The Operation Write Home blog hop for World Card Making Day! I hope you are having a great hop - or if you're starting here I hope you find lots of great inspiration!! If you want to start at the top, you can click on the banner above to get there.

I am supposed to say why I donate my cards and funds to Operation Write Home. To be honest, when I actually think about the men and women (& dogs!) that risk their lives half a world away I get really choked up. These are VOLUNTEERS, folks. VOLUNTEERS!  Please click on the link on the upper right and at least give this fine organization some $ to pay for shipping. The soldiers don't have to pay postage to send these cards home but we do have to

 pay to send these cards to our

HEROES.

I kept this Christmas card simple. I wanted it to have a 'classic' look.

I started by embossing the base of the card using a Sizzix folder. I surfed and found the one I used ON SALE! I like the Sizzix folders for embossing the bases of cards because they seem to be a teeny weeny bit bigger than most of the Cuttlebug folders I have.

Next up I cut out the deer with a Memory Box die. Have you seen these? They are so crisp and detailed. This one is called Deer Trio. I added the style number to this picture in case you go looking for it. I purposely cut it out off center to balance out the sentiment.

The way the die is made you can make the 'ground' they are standing on thicker or thinner.. I kept this thin to leave plenty of room for the

sentiment.

After I had it cut out I used the Cuttlebug folder Swiss Dots only on the 'ground' portion of the die cut.  This made the 'sandwich' very wide so I could not use my Texture Boutique to emboss, instead I used my Big Shot. Even so, the antlers were over the edge but being so thin they just bent a little as it went through the machine.

I made the sentiment with PSE and then cut it out using a Spellbinders Fancy Tags. I also embossed the die cut.

Just to help the sentiment stand out a little bit I used some Memento Summer Sky ink (yeah, I know it's a winter scene..) on a sponge and LIGHTLY applied it to the top 1/4 of the base. It barely shows and you're not really aware of it

until you look for it.

Put it all together with foam tape and voilà!

I still can't believe that I made a card without Copics or stamps!

Now you're off to the next stop on the blog hop! Have fun!

Party on, Wayne

Pushy Guest Designer

Greetings Earthlings!

Tomorrow is the big OPERATION WRITE HOME blog hop. Be sure to stop by then to get a lot of card making inspiration!

I had a pushy guest designer stop by to help me out today. And I have some more digi freebies for you! These are PNG files. I hope you can use them.

I am using an image by Mo Manning. It is called "Who Me?"  To make it look cold, I changed the color using Photo Shop Express. I made the outlines of the snow blue. I also made some of his clothes red. This is called CHEATING! I can't manage to use red without it bleeding - and it is almost impossible to correct red errors with the colorless blender! Having red lines means that I don't have to go quite to the edge with the marker.

Here is what the image looked like when I printed it out:

Well, ok, it didn't have the watermark all over it..

The Copics I used were:

And the finished card:

I cut out the image with a Spellbinders die and mounted it on dark gray card stock.  I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder on the card base and then I used a Memory Box die called 'Retro Border'. I think it looks

snow-flakey..

To help the cut-out show up more, I rubbed London Fog Memento ink along the edges of the card base.

Then I added my sentiment and a few snowflake buttons to finish it off.

I tried to get a picture showing how the border is cut out but my pushy guest designer would not co-operate!

Remember to stop by tomorrow for the big
World Card Making Day
 OWH blog hop!

Party on, Wayne

Hambo's Pig Sub

Greetings Earthlings-

I got a really fun free digi from Hambo this week! Why free? Because I entered their challenge LAST week.  YOU enter this week and you'll get a free image next week! See the pattern here?

This week's challenge is AWESOME! They are going to collect cards for my favorite folks at Operation Write Home!!

Here's what the fine folks at Hambo sent this week..

OK, I'm not sure why he/she has goggles on but maybe he/she is about to go diving?  I find it's best not to analyse a pig in a sub anyway..

I decided to paper piece this. I printed the image in reverse on the back side of my DP. I knew the print would not show up on the front.

I used my Copics to color in the details of the image. Then I went over the red with a red Spica pen. Not a lot of markers used this week!

If I had this to do again, I would use much darker colors on the ham. Since I added Glossy Accents to the window it looks washed out.  I also used a Viva Pearl Pen opaque to add the lines to the sub.

Here's the window detail:

Ohhh! Shiny!!

The background DP is really old but I have recently seen it for sale at my local Joann's. I also used a MS punch on the top edge. It had 3 rows of scallops but I trimmed the top row off because it was too wide. I added a silver heart to the sentiment and 3 clear dots to the bottom left corner to finish it off.

That's it for today. Be sure to come back OCTOBER FIRST for the World Card Making Day OWH blog hop!

Party on, Wayne.

I used a rubber stamp!

Greetings Earthlings-

I made a birthday card for Jerry. I didn't get to it in time though so I knew it'd be late.. :-(

I actually used two RUBBER stamps for this! I use digital stamps for 99% of my projects. These are unmounted RUBBER stamps - they take up way less storage space.

I've had these stamps for a while. They're from Eat Cake Graphics. The image is called Cupcake the Dog. They have a variety of sentiments that would go well with him but I love the "Am I too late for cake?" I think it suits his expression well.

I don't usually use this many colors on a card but I wanted to make this one a party on paper! The swirl stickers and some of the dots are from Sticko. The rest of the dots I made with  Viva Pearl Pens. I used a Nestibility to cut him and his mat out. I fussy cut the sentiment. The glitter on the hat is from a variety of Stickles. The fancy corner is made with a punch from EK Success. As usual, I used Copics to color him.

Since I knew there was NO CHANCE this card would end up in my stack for Operation Write Home, I decided to use some of my glitter on the sentiment.

Glitter is FORBIDDEN on anything that comes anywhere near my OWH cards. The glitter can flake off and be seen in night vision gear. I certainly don't want our heroes spotted because of glitter!!!! I almost never use glitter and if I do I always clean my work area as if I had a hazardous material spill as soon as the card gets in it's envelope. Even if I don't see any glitter anywhere...I don't even use the Stickles on OWH cards because they haven't passed MY 'can I scrape it off?' test.

Before I started making cards for OWH I used glitter on a majority of my projects. I love the bling! So I have lots and lots of it in lots and lots of varieties gathering dust.. But that's a small price to pay for our soldiers!

Party on, Wayne.

Birthday Card

Greetings Earthlings-

I had to wait to post this until my buddy, LJ, got it in the mail. The digi image is from Maurie Manning. If you know LJ, you know the combo of the laptop and coffee epitomizes her existence. Add in a little Dan Fogelberg and some chocolate and you've got it..

This is one of the few cards that I make that don't make their way to Operation Write Home. Check out their link on the sidebar for more information about this great group!

Later Gators!

I'm back!

Greetings Earthlings,

Boy, have I got a lot to learn. There are so many things I want to do with this blog and I am having a hard time finding the time to learn how to do them...

I decided to just go ahead and post this card - just to keep the blog 'fresh'.  It's for the Mo's Digital Pencil Too challenge. This week the challenge is to use only black and white with a splash of one color.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out. It is VERY intimidating to be limited to shades of gray to color an image!  Here's a link (I think) to Mo's challenge

http://mosdigitalchallenge.blogspot.com/

This card will be sent with many others I've made to OPERATION WRITE HOME. I make cards for them whenever I have the time. It's a great excuse to craft and the soldiers really appreciate the love from back home. Go check them out! http://operationwritehome.org/

My next challenge is to keep track of all the challenges out there and what I can make to qualify for more than one at a time! I really don't know how others can keep track of it all!

I'm off to craft...

Party on, Wayne