Beat It!

Greetings Earthlings-

I wanted to enter this week's challenge over at Hambo. They had a great free digi stamp of a goat. BUT, since I did not enter last week I didn't get the freebie.

The requirement this week for the Hambo Hoedown 63 was to use their image and something that you have recycled.

I used a freebie sample image that they have kindly put on their store site. I think that is so cool - you can try 'a digi' before you buy any. This one is called Wee Henry Bongo.

I got to use some texture too! I wanted his hat to look 'tweedy' so I used a piece of denim soaked in colorless blender I also used some terry towel the same way on his pants.

The sentiment is hand printed by me.. normally I would NOT like my own handwriting but I thought the primitive touch worked with this image..

My recycled item is the paint color swatch. I love these. I have a buddy who works in a hardware store - she gives me lots of these that are going to be thrown away.

I used copics to color in the image:

I made up for the lack of bright colors with the RED paint.. I love the color combo of red, white and black!

Until next time-

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

I'm a Hambo Hoedown Guest Designer!

Hambo has given me the great honor of being a guest designer this week! The image they gave me to play with is called House 2.

The challenge was to use something from around the house that you don't usually see on a card... Whoa... I've seen lots of unusual things on cards so this one stumped me for a while..  I was cleaning my desk and letting my mojo simmer... desk, pens, scissors, glasses, rubber bands, paper clips.. PAPER CLIPS!!!!!!!!!

My first idea was to make the house look like it was stucco. I colored the image using Copics but I was pretty sloppy. I kept well within the margins because I knew my 'trick' would make the color bleed.



Then I took a piece of terrycloth towel and soaked it with my bottle of colorless blender.

Once the fabric was soaked I held it to the image for a full second, then moved it to a new place..repeating until the image was covered.

This caused the ink to bleed into the white areas. This is why when want to use this technique you need to do it FIRST. Once you're done with this you can remove most of the bleeding using your Copic coloress blender marker.

Then I used the original stucco color to dot in the places where there was still white showing..

Then I colored the rest of the image as usual with my Copics. I toyed with the idea of adding a different texture to the stones on the pillars using a different fabric but I chickened out. I hadn't left any white space to bleed into...

Here comes the paper clip part..

I decided this little place needed a picket fence. I lined up the image on my cutting pad and then put on a strip of double sided sticky tape. I kept the image on the pad to help me line up the 'fence posts.'

There was ooooodles of sticky stuff still exposed so I used flour on a paintbrush on it to take care of the sticky-ness..

I used some Momento Summer Sky ink on a blender to add a little definition to the sky. I assembled the card as usual. The sentiment is one that I made using Photoshop Express.

Here's the final result:

Here are the Copic colors I used:

For starting out stumped, I think it came out pretty well! This is my first opportunity to be a guest designer and I thank Hambo so much for the opportunity!!

Party on, Wayne!