JAMSquared

Category Archives: Crafty Goodness

A Texas Thank You

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Welcome to another round of Texas Tuesday (Texas inspired cards on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month). The card I’m sharing today was inspired by the first card Mark shared last Texas Tuesday. I also used yesterday’s Mojo Monday Sketch #174. I’m really really happy with how this card turned out. Thanks for the inspiration Mark and Mojo Julee. I couldn’t decide which ribbon to use, so I made two cards, one with each ribbon choice. Which do you like better?

Thank You Card with Baja Breeze Ribbon

Thank You Card with Pacific Point Ribbon

Stamps: Deadbeat Designs Mini Texas; Stampin’ Up Elegant Greetings (sentiment)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Pacific Point, Baja Breeze, and Basic Gray
Ink: Stampin’ Up Pacific Point, Baja Breeze
Embellishments: boot and hat buttons; Stampin’ Up striped grosgrain 5/8″ ribbon Pacific Point and Baja Breeze

Make sure you stop by and visit the rest of the Texas Tuesday posse. See the links to their blogs in my sidebar —->.

This card also meets the requirements of wee Memories Challenge #38, for the love of ribbon. I found out about this challenge site from our Texas Tuesday posse leader Libby. This card also meets the requirements of  Crazy 4 Challenges #70, to utilize a “thank you” sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by.

Another Thank You Card

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Today, I’m sharing two versions of a thank you card I finished up last night. I’m not completely happy with either one of them. I think I tried too hard to meet multiple challenges. The first challenge is Jen del Muro’s Sketch for You to Try. This year, she switched it to being a monthly challenge. I like this better since her sketches are always super fun, but I didn’t always have time to play along. Now I’ll have a whole month. The second challenge is All That Scraps Weekly Wednesday Challenge #62. The challenge this week is to use snowmen. I think this might be where I tried too hard. I have very few snowmen stamps and none are sold in the ATS store, so I decided I would use DP with snowmen on it. Well, I only found one DP with snowmen, which looked great by itself but when I added it to the card, it looked a little odd, since only a few of the snowmen are visible. There’s actually two rows of snowmen on the DP, but you can only see the snowmen on the second row. Maybe I should have just used the punched out snowman from the DP and used a different DP for behind the C.C. Designs image. Oh well, too late now. The last challenges is A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #134 to make a thank you card.

I do like how I picked the orange and pink colors from the snowman’s scarf to color Party Emma’s outfit. That turned out pretty cute. I also really like how I did the ribbon Party Emma is holding. The glossy accents really makes it shine. The first take utilized green for the ribbon (I had pulled that color from another snowman’s scarf), but I like the blue version better.

Blue Version of Thanks Card

Green Version of Thanks Card

Stamps: C.C. Designs Sugarplums Party Emma; Stampin’ Up Small Sayings (sentiment)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Really Rust, Pacific Blue, Garden Green; textured white cardstock
Designer Paper: DCWV The Christmas Ultimate Stack
Ink: Stazon Jet Black
Embellishments: Inkessentials Glossy Accents; pink glitter on green version of Thanks card
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers (green version only)


Thanks for stopping by.

A Winter’s Tale

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I’m trying to send out thank yous for all the fabulous gifts we received for Christmas. I love thank you cards, so this year I decided not to make the same one for everyone, but instead do a variety. Today, I’m sharing one design used to make two cards. I made this card with three challenges in mind. First up the Sir Stampalot January Challenge. The challenge was “A Winter’s Tale” to take inspiration from the 1995 hit by Queen. I didn’t think I had heard that song before the challenge so I looked up the lyrics. I decided to take inspiration from two specific lines: “Red skies are gleaming” (although I made my sky pink not red) and “Like a landscape painting in the sky.” The song also brought me to this cute image by Phindy’s Place. I decided to make my landscaping by distressing and so meet the requirements of Phindy’s Place Challenge #37. Since I used a digi image the card also meets the requirements of the Stamp Something Challenge for the week.

A Winter's Tale Thank You Card

Stamps: Phindy’s Place A Helping Hand; Stampin’ Up Holiday Tag Team (snowflake), All-Year Cheer II (sentiment)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink; textured white cardstock from scrap bin
Ink: Dell printer; Versamark Dazzle Frost; Stampin’ Up Craft Whisper White, Regal Rose
Embellishments: Stickles Frosted Lace (on distressed edges of snow), Cotton Candy (on toddler’s hats); dimensionals
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers


Thanks for stopping by.

Christmas Ornaments for the Kiddos

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Happy Epiphany Day! Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about it here.

Two or three years ago, I bought these super cute plain wooden Christmas ornaments. I finally got around to decorating them and giving them as Christmas gifts to all the special kiddos in my life.

This first one is for my friend Jillan’s daughter Lillie. I didn’t have an appropriate photo to place in it, but Jillan was excited when Lillie opened it as she gets Lillie a photo ornament each year and she hadn’t gotten one for 2010 yet.

Lillie's Ornament

The next one is for Jessica.

Jessica's Ornament

This one is for my nephew Cameron. I got a picture of him and Santa from my sister’s blog.

Cameron's Ornament

Trevor’s ornament is like Jessica’s ornament. Even though Trevor didn’t like Santa, I thought it important to commemorate the experience with another picture from Sarah’s blog. You might notice that Cameron and Trevor’s Santas are different and that is because she tried multiple times to get a photo without Trevor crying.

Trevor's Ornament

My niece Aspen’s photo is not with Santa since she, like Trevor, didn’t like Santa, but Julia didn’t get a commemorative picture. Instead I used a holiday photo Julia posted on her blog. You might notice the photo quality is better with these last two ornaments. There’s two reasons. I took these last two photos on a different day when the sun was shining more. And two, I didn’t think about photographing without the plastic “glass” in the frame of the ornament until I had already wrapped the above four ornaments.

Aspen's Ornament

The last ornament is for my nephew Dawson. Even though he is already 10, I hope he doesn’t stop visiting Santa any time soon.

Dawson's Ornament

I initially planned to do the snowmen and Christmas trees with glittered cardstock, but after doing one of the snowmen that way, I decided sanding the edges was too much work. On the remaining ornaments, I applied mod podge and glitter. The gemstones are adhered using glossy accents, because I wanted to make sure they stuck.

Stamps: Stampabilites Fun Alpha Upper & Lower (for names); Hero Arts Cleardesign Numbers Two, Zero, and One (for year)
Paint: Apple Barrel Black & White; Folk Art Holly Leaf and Christmas Red; Elmer’s Painters paint pens
Glitter: Art Glitter Kelly (Christmas tree); Stickles Gold (Christmas tree star); Tree House Studio white ultra fine holographic (snowmen);
Embellishments: Recollections Pearl Stickers Black, Orange, Silver, White
Tools: Mod Podge; Glossy Accents

Thanks for stopping by.

Magnolia Texas Tuesday

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It seems so weird that it is already 2011. As a kid, time always seem to drag (unless I was lost in a novel). It seems like the older I get, the faster time flies. I wonder if when I reach 80 the year will seem like a millisecond. Anyway, you didn’t visit my blog today to listen to my ramblings on time. You came for Texas Tuesday, the first Texas Tuesday of the new year. I decided to start off 2011 Texas Tuesdays by actually putting the rest of the posse’s blogs as links on my sidebar (look to the right —->). I’ve decided that I’m wasting time putting direct links to everyone’s specific Texas Tuesday post. Maybe this will help me to not be the slacker I sometimes turn out to be. Make sure you check out their creations today. I especially enjoyed Mark’s Texas tree and Karen’s Texas Our Texas card.

I think the Cowgirl Tilda is a perfect stamp for a Texas themed card. When my parents hosted an exchange student while I was in college, he was surprised that my family didn’t have horses. I think a lot of the world thinks that way. He also didn’t realize that you really wouldn’t want to drive across the entire state in one day. Texas is bigger than a lot of European countries, Germany included, which is where he was from.

My card meets the requirements of Just Us Girls Challenge #65, which happens to be a sketch this week. I kinda wish I had stuck with the rectangle the sketch called for, but I was trying to hide the fact that I had accidentally bent the cardstock and a rectangle wouldn’t have hidden it, but an oval did.

Magnolia Texas Tuesday Birthday Card

Stamps: Magnolia Cowgirl Tilda; Stampin’ Up On Your Birthday, Canvas (background on Creamy Caramel panel)
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Creamy Caramel
Pattern Paper: Stampin’ Up Paper Patterns Bashful Blue
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Stampin’ Up Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel (edges of oval); VersaMark Dazzle Frost (for canvas stamp)
Embellishments: Stampin’ Up 5/8″ satin ribbon Bashful Blue; Papertrey Ink Holiday Mix vintage button; The Twinery Cappuccino twine; A Muse sheer ribbon French Roast
Tools: Prismacolor colored pencils; Copic markers

As a side note, since today was rainy I took the photo of the card at my craft desk under the natural lighting of my new OttLite that I received for Christmas. I’m pretty impressed. Now I won’t have to wait for daylight to photograph my creations when I finish them up late a night.

Thanks for stopping by.