Well Done & Good Luck

The June Waltzingmouse Blog Hop's theme is "Let's hear it for the boys!". And to accompany this theme I have a story for you ...

My recent trip to Sequoia National Park was filled with many adventures and inspirations to make cards. Among one of the days of exploration, a bunch of friends and I went up Moro Rock. It is a rather distinct granite dome structure that has a well-built stairway for the visitors to climb. At the top there is a beautiful view of the Great Western Divide as well as a 360 degree view over the western park of the Sequoia National Park. After we finished our tour we got back into the car and drove off and while looking back I got a great snapshot of the rock and exclaimed "Look Moro Rock is Olivia the Owl -- sleeping." My friends thought I was nutso, but tell me, don't you see the resemblance?



A distinct 3/4 view of an owl sleeping. I tell you, those boys have no creativity! I immediately noted that upon my return I had to make a card pulling my beloved "Owl Celebration" from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. And here is what I came up with:

Stamps: Owl Celebrations (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps), Owl Occasions (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps), Free Spirit - Sentiments (Waltzingmouse Stamps)

Paper: Lucky Teal Cards & Envelopes (Creative Imaginations), Crinkle Cardstock - Olive (Wausau Paper), Real Wod (Creative Imaginations), Cream (Recollections), Offbeat - Lighthearted (BasicGrey)

Ink: Earth Elements - Close to Cocoa (SU!), Pigment Ink - Black (Colorbox)

Embellishments: Nestabilities - Standard Small Circles, Classic Scallop Circles Small (Spellbinders), Jute Packaging Twine (Westim Crafts), Vintage Button Collection - Brown (Papertrey Ink), Point 88 - Art. No. 88/46 (Stabilo), Softcore Colored Pencils - PC933 Violet Blue, PC946 Dark Brown, PC1002 Yellowed Orange, PC1015 Deco Blue, PC1034 Golden Rod, PC935 Noir (Prismacolor)

Another cousin just graduated high school and thought a sentiment that captured both congratulating him and wishing him off to his next four years of schooling was appropriate.

This card has also been entered to the Scrap Our Stash's June Sketch Challenge because I can always use the added practice to execute a sketch. I find it hard to keep true to the templates and always take creative liberties. Here are mine:

• I flipped the sketch vertically and horizontally to accommodate my stamp restrictions (digis would have more helpful in this case ;), since Olivia the Owl's branch looked better coming from the left.  
• By keeping the branch on the left I could create visual arc lines with the branch and the top half of the circle, as inspired by the dotted arc lines in the sketch
• The three scored lined was an interpretation of the five segments of the sketch. This allowed me to segment my paper and anchor my design more cleanly.
• The button with a bit of man-ly twine substituted for the flower

Other "hacks" included:

• Adding the "&" into the sentiment, by piecing it together from other parts of the Free Spirit Sentiment set
• Cutting along Olivia's hand, to stuff the diploma under her feathery fingers
• Paper-piecing the tree together using wood and other paper

Hope you like it. Have you had any vacation-inspired cards?

Hip Hip Hooray...

Graduating from college is one of those huge milestones that I like looking back on. It seems like yesterday that I was slaving through my assignments in the computer cluster...much less did I think my little brother's graduation was going to come this soon! He graduated last weekend with HONORS (more than I can say ;) and the whole family was there to cheer him on as he walked across that stage to receive his diploma. Between all the "whoop whoop" yells and "don't trip!" thoughts I was very proud of him...

So to celebrate this big milestone I decided to ink my new Waltzingmouse Stamps and enter Steph's generous challenge. In case you're wondering, Steph is one of my Swapping Sisters and I've been enjoying getting to know her through this little fun online get-together. Read her blog entry to know what an inspiring person she is...

Her challenge is to enter the Scrap Our Stash May Challenge and do something "Outta the Box." In my case, since I'm such a newbie card crafter, every little new thing I do seem like stepping out of the box. Perhaps the expert crafters can relate to this feeling. So here I am presenting my 8th card:


Stamps: Free Spirit - Boy (Waltzingmouse Stamps), Free Spirit - Sentiments (Waltzingmouse Stamps)
Paper: Preppie Pack - Oxford (Bazzill Basics Paper), Off-white (Recollections)
Ink: VersaMark - Watermark (Tsukineko), Ruby Red (SU!)
Embellishments: White Embossing Powder (Stampendous!), Jute Packaging Twine (Westim Crafts)

Why is this "out of the box" for me? 

• Non-A2 card format: Since the graduation gift was going to be a cash, it needed to fit in card nicely. 
• Better cardstock: I recently hit a frustration point when making card that my current "Recollection" card stock (at 65 lbs.) is not cutting anymore. So I have upgraded to Bazzill cardstock (80 lbs.) until I can find better. Any recommendations? I am leaning towards GinaK or PTI, but would love to hear your input. 
• VersaMark as inking: I have seen so many lovely examples used, where VersaMark would be used to deepen the shade of the card stock with a stamp image. This actually resulted in a boo-boo. Can you guess what it was? I tried to put a border along the bottom of the card. But since the stamp image was not long enough, I tried to line it up and it resulted in a mess that I decided to cover with the sentiment. After that the card looked like it needed a little something else and I decided to use the individual circle to create a random versa-marked background.
• Keep it simple: I never seem to be able to stay to just two colors. So this time I practiced restraint. Notice that I couldn't resist with the red surf board. But overall I think I kept my intent...

Overall I am pretty happy with this card. Helps that the brother likes it.  What are some "Outta the Box" things that you have tried lately? Were you happy with the results?

And by the way, if you are reading this and haven't entered the challenge, go play Steph's challenge. She's extending it to May 28th and there are fun fun give-aways.