A second post, the baby must be sleeping Actrully I made this bitrhday card for the current challenge at caardvarks.blogspot.com and I wanted to post it seperate. For this months challenge Caarvark’s sponsor My Favorite Things is celebrating their birthday. So, you have to make a birthday card. Like always I used all scraps and some of those random embellishments I keep finding.  I really like how this card turned out and hope you like it too. Have a great day!

Well, I am officially half way to my goal with an extra to spare. Though my scrap box isn’t getting any smaller, it is getting harder to find color combinations that work. I have been trying to come up with new ways to alter paper that is not quite what I am looking for.

Also, since I got a new desk and have been reorganizing my room, I have been finding a lot of random left over embellishments. Each time I come across an embellishment that is a left over or is a random piece I have been putting it in its own box. Yes, I said it I have started another box. So, now I have a box of scrap paper and a box of left over embellishments. In this box I have things like brads, scraps of ribbon, tags and flower.

For this batch of cards I have a  thank you cards and then some Father’s Day cards that I made. Since I have gotten my new desk I feel like the creative juice have been flowing. I have been making cards and working on Ari’s baby book. For now I have the pictures of the cards and soon I will put up pictures of my desk. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Total Card count 51!

Well I am still working on my scrap box and I have managed to get 15 more cards done. All of which I used as thanks you cards.  Hope every one is having a great February! More cards to come soon, I am still working towards my goal of 100 cards.

Total Card Count: 36

Happy New Year and I hope this year is bringing everyone good luck and happiness. It has been a while since my last post but that does not mean I have not been up to my usual shenanigans.  Lately, I have been working on my scrap pile once again. I tackled it last year during a weeklong caardvarks contest; I used only scraps to make all my cards. Well, I have done a lot of layouts and invitations lately and my scrap pile has yet again gotten out of control. One of my goals I have been working on is to become a true master of the scraps and make all my cards from scraps. It has been very hard and trying sometimes, especially if I want a particular color and I know I have a full sheet of it in my drawer. I have not given in to temptation but I have found a few strategies to help the process.

When I sit down to make some cards I will first pull out all the biggest pieces and see if I can make the card base out of them. Once I have a few cards folded, I will then pull out pieces that are about 3×3 or bigger and cut out a hand full of different shapes using my sizzixs or cricut. I found this very help full for example, the other day I cut out a small pile of flowers in whatever scraps I had. Not only can I use them on my cards but I also have them on hand for other projects. I like this idea of just taking scraps and cutting out shapes so much that I started a small box of die cuts. If I am not in the mood to make a card I will go threw my scrap box and cut out die cuts for my box. Once I have a small pile of cards and die cuts I will then collect scraps of what ever else I have in my room such as ribbon and miscellaneous embellishments, like rhinestones that you only have one left of a particular color.  When I have all my scrap, leftovers and random embellishments collected I lay them all out on my table and start arranging elements together that coordinate or match, then from there I start making cards.

I have found this process to very effective and I have come up with some great cards. In a little less than week, I made 21 cards.  When I first made them I left off any sayings so I could then add a stamp or sticker to match the occasion I need a card for. You just don’t want to make a million birthday cards and need a get well card. I am very glad I did this because I have been needing many thank you cards lately with the anticipated arrival of a new baby soon.

Little by little my scrap pile is getting smaller and smaller. My advice would be to save all your scraps that are about 2×2 inches or bigger, start a box and throw in paper, ribbon, borders and that last colored rhinestone that just wont fit on your lay out. Then every once in a while sit down with that box sort it and see how many cards you can get out of it. My goal for my out of control box is 100 cards and I am almost 1/4 of the way there.

So, I think I am going to make it, day 4 and my scrap pile is getting smaller each day. After yesterdays fiasco I deiced to dump out my scraps and sort them a bit. This way I was able to see exactly what I had and how much there really was. I piled coordinating patterns and colors with each other. In this battle of Kap vs scrap, I think my strategy will help me win this war in the end.

Plus, I was able to find some paper at the bottom of the pile that I forgot I had.  I just love this snowflake paper and after some digging around. I also found I had some matching accessories left as well.  I love how this card turned out and it is part wishful thinking as well. It is fall and I am tired of this California heat.So, if your suffering from hot weather as well I hope my card bring you a winters chill.

Hello my friends and Happy Easter! Today I bring you another one of creations, to help with my idea i use sketch #23 from www.2sketches4you.blogspot.com and caardvarks.blogspot.com card challenge theme of fantasy. 

I have been trying to get a good collection of various cards themes together and one card I haven’t made for this collections is a “Get Well” card. I thought is would be cute to have a sick dragon on my card. After searching all the clip art my computer has to offer I decided to ask my husband for help. He is a graphic designer and is really good at drawing cartoon type stuff. So,he drew the dragon for me and then scanned into the computer, colored it, readjusted the size and then printed him off for me.

Then for the final touches I once again used scraps of paper, let me tell you about my scraps. They are out of control. I usually through all my scraps that I feel are still usable into a drawer. My drawer is full and I can barley close it, so I am making an effort to use up my scraps. I hope you like my card and have a wonderful weekend.

So, I am in the car with my mom and my sister heading back form Napa Valley on Wednesday and I am telling my mom about this contest I want to enter. The only two rules the contest had were you had to use at least one stamp and you had to stamp something that wasn’t paper. Well my mom says as she comes to a screeching halt on the side of the road, you should stamp some bark off these eucalyptus trees. Brilliant, I thought, so the three of us got out of the car and proceeded to look for the best pieces of eucalyptus bark. Not only did we get some great bark pieces we also found these acorn top type things. 

When I got home I decided I wanted to do a box and I had this great box my husband use to put some Valentines candy in. I have been on a recycling kick so I though I would reuse the box, plus for the smaller cuts of paper I used all scraps. The flower background is from a K and Company paper pack my brother got me, man he has good taste he is alway finding me the best scrap booking stuff.

 It took some effort to get the eucalyptus bark to flatten out but once I got a good flat piece I decided to see if it would work in my die cut machine and it did. I cut out a nice circle for my stamp and then used a natural pice for an accent. I also used a smaller circle punch to make the yellow bell flowers. Those great acorn things make great embellishments when turned up side down. I grab handfuls of those things so you might see them again in future projects. Lastly, I embossed the pick square to add some dimension to the background.

Thanks mom for the great idea, Matt for the box, Jesse for the great paper and Jenny for collecting smelly bark on the side of the road. I hope you like my box!

I am off to a great start this week, it is only Tuesday and I have already met my goal to make one card this week. This particular card I made is to fit two challenges, I know it might be cheating a little bit but it all came together so well. The first contest I am entering is  for i thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.com, their challenge this week was to make something using a button. I thought a button would make a great center for a flower. Then using some of my 1/4 inch quilling paper I pulled it threw the center holes to make the flower center and then hand cut out pedals to match. To give color to my edges I used various shades of red and pink chalk with a touch of yellow for a highlight.  

The second challenge that I am going to use my card for caardvarks.blogspot.com. This is the first time I have entered a card on their site. I am very excited to join the challenge this week. They have a great site full of wonderful ideas and a very skilled design team. Their challenge was to use critters on your card. I know my critters are small but I feel they give the card that great finishing touch. Using my butterfly hole punch I punched out a few using the paper from the flower and the card background. Then using my chalk I gave them some highlights to help them pop.  To view the pictures in a larger size just click on them.

Hello it is me again your friendly neighborhood scraper. I also have a bag to show you today, I made it for the http://thepinkelephantchallenge.blogspot.com design challenge, which was to create something using the color brown. pink and green. I was going to make a card but after viewing the Design Team’s ideas, I was really inspired by the box Trudi made. So, I thought I would try something new and make a bag. When I was younger my mom and I would always make bags for every occasion and then we would decorate the bag to match the present or the personality of the person. One time we made tiny bags and put a truffle in them and then passed them out for fathers day. I hope you like my bag.

Hello my fellow friends here is my card of the week. So, I like to look around the internet at other scrapers blogs and see what they are doing and to see what the trends are. Lately everyone has been using buttons and I have been wanting to use buttons too, but I have not been able to find any that I like. Then  I remembered I had this dilemma a while ago and I solved it by getting button die cuts. So, with the help of my Sizzix Sixxlets Button Die Set #1 I made the following card for cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com card contest. I hope you like!

To see a large version of the picture just click on it, then to see it full screen click on it again.