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.