Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Tuesday Throwdown Shaped Cards

     Today's Tuesday Throwdown challenge is sponsored by Catherine Pooler, an independent Stampin' Up dealer.  She will be providing the prize for our winner!  The CS, image, and sentiment for my card are all SU products; the card stock is two-sided, patterned and comes from the Europa collection, called Pumpkin Pie.  The image and sentiment are from the Gnomes set, oldies but goodies.  I thought this Gnome was perfect for a Halloween/fall card.  Who wouldn't want to be a cute gnome at Halloween?


     I rarely do shaped cards, for two reasons:  I don't have many dies really large enough to make a card and I like A2 shaped cards since I do so many cards for Operation Write Home.  (Please check out the last paragraph of today's posting for more info about OWH.)  But when I found out that our Tuesday Throwdown challenge was going to be for shaped cards (nothing square or rectangular), I had to figure out what to do!   One Stitch at a Time also has a "Shape Up" challenge theme, and Paper Cutz wants us to do "Stars, Circles, or Diamonds."  Obviously, mine is the circle, and The Stamp Man theme is "Circle It."  Along that same line, Card and Scrap says "Not 4 Sided" and a circle was the first thing that came to mind.

     This one is made from a large (5 1/2" diameter) doily die, with the paper folded at the top and the die positioned just below the fold line.  Once the doily was cut, I stamped the Gnome into the middle of it, and heat embossed the image with black, detail EP.  I loved the black on orange combination so I did nothing else in the way of coloring him.  I did stamp a sentiment on the inside (also heat embossed) and add the orange gingham bow to the front, made from ribbon that came from Really Reasonable Ribbon -- their challenge theme is "Fun 4 Fall".  In addition, Meljen's wants us to use ribbon on our projects this week.  You can see the other side of the Pumpkin Pie CS in the photo below.


     I'm sending this card to a friend of mine who happens to have a Halloween birthday!  I thought the sentiment was perfect without having to say either Happy Birthday or Happy Halloween.  She'll know, since Halloween is her favorite holiday.  :-D

     Time to talk about all the other challenges, made easy again because of all the fall/autumn colors/Halloween themes this week.  I'll start with Pile It On (Fall is for Fun) because, in addition to their theme each week, they want us to make cards which can be used is as many challenges as possible.  I always select my challenges before I start on my cards.  That way, I know the card will fit the particular challenge and, if it doesn't when I'm finished, I can eliminate that challenge from the list.

Hanna and Friends - Autumn/Halloween
Paper Crafting Journey - Black, orange, & white
One Stop Craft Challenge - Halloween
Pals Paper Arts - Inspiration photo; Fall/Thanksgiving
Craft Your Days Away - Halloween colors, orange and black
Crafty Pad - Monochromatic
Through the Craft Room Door - Halloween
Card Cupids - Use Orange
Dream Valley - Halloween
Designed 2 Delight - Cute Halloween

     I promised you some additional information about Operation Write Home.  They are a fantastic, non-profit, organization which gathers up donated, hand-made cards for shipment to our deployed military troops that they use to send greetings home.  All this week, OWH is being supported by card makers just like you and me, helping them to raise funds for postage.  It's going to take more than $13,000 to mail boxes of Christmas and holiday cards to the soldiers overseas just this upcoming season.  One of the fund-raiser, blog hops will be starting here on my blog this next Friday morning, and featuring some cute and clever digi images which you can buy to help OWH in its cause.  All the proceeds (less the Paypal fees) from the digi sales are being donated by the artists to OWH.  (Our fellow DT teamie, Deedee, is one of the artists!  Another is Katlyn of K 'n K Designs.  Thank you, Deedee & Katlyn.  We love you for doing this!)  Please mark your calendar and come by here on Friday.  Thanks.

     That's it for today except that we'd love to see you play in the Tuesday Throwdown challenge this week.  Remember, any shaped card except square or rectangle; even octagons will qualify!  See you over there.  Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie

   

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Tuesday Throwdown Halloween

    Happy Tuesday!  You know that means another fantastic challenge at Tuesday Throwdown and this week our theme is Halloween.  We're sponsored by Robyn's Fetish, where you'll find some of the cutest images around.  Not only that, but in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, their entire inventory is on sale at 35% off.  So, schedule your mammogram and then go shopping!  Robyn's generously provided the images for the DT to use this week, and I think you're going to be impressed with the magnificent creations they all did.  Be sure to visit the Tuesday Throwdown challenge blog and see them all.  It wouldn't hurt to leave a little comment love for each DT member either.  :-)

     I used "Bearly a Pumpkin" and he's so adorably sweet that I had to use spooky papers and embellies to try to balance the 'Cute' with the 'Spooky'.  The sketch came from Clearly Inspired Challenges, and I flipped it on its side.


CIC37

     Bearly a Pumpkin is colored with Copics and fussy cut very carefully.  Fabulous Friday (Frosted Designs) has a challenge theme to do fussy cutting.  I used three different die cuts, layered together, for the matting behind the image and used Pop Dots to adhere the image to the die cuts.  Although it's difficult to see in the photo, the image is almost 1/4 inch above the mat.  Emerald Faerie Garden asks us to uses die cuts or punches.

     The dps are all from my stash but they've been around since last year so I have no idea what company made them.  I added the bone brad as the only embellishment.  I don't think it needed anything more than that.
As simple as this design is, can you believe there are 8 layers on this card, not counting the card base?  Paper Sundaes wants to see lots of layers this week.

     This card will be given to my grandson for Halloween and I know it'll bring a huge smile to his face.  Card Cupids is asking us to do a "Random Act of Cardness" for their challenge by making a card and then giving it away to bring joy to another.  I love that idea!

     I hope you're going to play along with us at Tuesday Throwdown this week for our Halloween challenge.  If you like combining challenges, as I do, there are several other challenges using Halloween as their theme.  Here's a list of additional challenges where I'm going to submit this card:

Clear It Out - Halloween
Art Impressions - Halloween
Moving Along with the Times - Spooky Halloween
Stampin' B's - Halloween
Crafts 4 Eternity - Anything Goes
Paper Cutz - Halloween w/ skeleton or bones and too cute to spook
Stampin' for the Weekend - What a Cutie
Gingerloft - color orange
I Did It - Halloween
The Hybrid Chick - Autumn/fall
Just Some Lines - Autumn colors
Secret Crafter - Halloween
Send a Smile 4 Kids - Fall colors
Pile It On - "Do it for fun" and always, work in as many challenges as possible when making your card!
ABC Challenge - A is for Anything Goes
Stamps R Us - Autumn/Fall
My Grafico - Halloween
Paper Creations Ink - Orange or Black

     Have a fantastic Tuesday and come join us for Tuesday Throwdown's Halloween challenge.  NanaConnie