Catching up

I'm taking an Online Card Class called Clean and Simple Card Making 2 and have been enjoying every minute of it.  It feels very good that I am learning at the comfort of my home and at my own pace.

I am not a fast learner but in cases that I need a little more help I rewind or replay the video and I could even ask questions in the forum.  How nice!

The class started January 28, 2013 and each day we are given a challenge, or if you will, homework.  I think it will be fun to put what I've learned in class into use so I'm trying to catch up here with the first day's homework.

We were given a couple sketches and I've taken one of them to make my card.  The sketch is meant to be for a standard A2 card but I've enlarged it to become my 5" x 7" card and I think it looks just as great:

The circle was cut at 3.5" and the scallop at 4.5".  It was quite a challenge to cut out the circle in the scallop and I could totally relate to what Kristina said in class, "Slow down and enjoy the process.  When we slow down we tend to make fewer mistakes and our cards will look great."  I created this card in "slow motion" but Kristina is right, the end result is worth the extra time I spent on it.

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The New Spring/Summer 2013 idea book is here!

I'm very excited about the new idea book.  There are just many stamp sets I love and I feel I have to hold myself back from buying too much!

Click here to view the idea book!

Fancy Fold?

Heart 2 Heart Challenge asks that we add fancy fold to our project.  I've adopted a sketch from Clean & Simple to facilitate that:

I've accordion-folded the rosette for my card:

Folding the rosette may not be "fancy" but it is in fact quite challenging to hold it together.  I've put a scrap piece of circle on top and bottom of it with a lot of Liquid Glass to hold it in place.  Of course, the scrap circle cannot be shown so I've put a heart to cover it up.

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Doodling?

I rarely doodle.  In fact, when I was in school I hated those uncivilized readers who doodled on every page of a book that does not belong to them.

OLW asks that we add doodling to our project.  Tough.  Let me give it a try:

The doodling is the butterfly trail.  It's just a little, but trust me, this little trail represents a big step to me as I never doodle. Challenge accomplished and perhaps I'll try some more doodling in the future.  Honestly when I see others use gel pen or marker to doodle my eyes are filled with envy as it appears to be something I could never do. 

The butterfly was made in two steps.  First I cut out the butterfly outline and put it on top of the card, sponged it in yellow, then I cut out its layer and put it on top of the sponged butterfly and sponged further in pink.  Lastly I used some markers to outline those areas to define the butterfly.

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Little Card Big Impact

Sometimes I think it is a bit boring to make standard size cards.  Yesterday I made a 6x6 card and today I'm making a small 2.5" x 3.5" card.  The sketch is based on this week's Freshly Made Sketches:

This little card made use of mostly cardstock, with just a strip of the retired Lucy paper:

The images all come from the A Blossom stamp set.  It is a small A size stamp set that costs only $6.95. This little stamp set has got quite a bit of mileage and is still running.  When I need a small card this is always on my mind.

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Yuletide Greetings

Merry Monday asks that we make a Christmas card with a focus on birds. 

I immediately thought of using the stamp set To You and Yours as I have barely used it.  I love that the bird gives me an opportunity to color:

The red panel is just a piece of red cardstock that I added random tone-on-tone stamping on it.  Making my own patterned paper is one of my faves indeed.

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One stamp two ways

I love to look for new ways to use a stamp.  Today I'm using the Pirouette stamp, or part of the stamp!

The card is based on this sketch from The Paper Players:

And I stayed true to the clean and simple sketch:

The card is a standard size card so if I used the entire stamp image it would be too large.  What I did was that I cut out the outer edge and just kept the circle.  The elegance of the image is maintained, nice!

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