Rock Star card

Through WOYWW, I've found out about two interesting sites worth visiting.

The Daring Cardmaker's site is a good place to go to jump start your creativity. Their most recent blog post involves making cards for a group called Post Pals. It requests cards for children in the UK who are sick and bravely battling their illnesses. One special request was for a 16 year old boy named Ryan who has cystic fibrosis and, among his other interests, collects keychains. So I've come up with a card of encouragement for him and will be sending him several keychains. I feel really good about this. :-) If you'd like to rise to this challenge, DC is offering a prize incentive in the form of a goodie bag from The Ribbon Girl. Check it out.

Card specifics can be found on my SCS gallery.

Stampin Up is a wonderful company that I was introduced to by my dear friend Brenda. I just got the Holiday Mini Catalog in the mail (which goes into effect on Sept 1st) and just had to pass on the news of this really cool new stamp. It's a blank Bingo card!


Frugal tip #29: Make a custom game from your paper and stamp stash! Can you just imagine taking 24 tiny stamps and making your own set of cards for game time? If you want to make a holiday theme set, they've come up with a set of 24 stamps just right for the holidays. If you don't know a demonstrator in the US, you can visit Brenda's online site. Otherwise, I believe the SU company website can direct you to a UK demo. (Just change the top right tag that says "United States" to "United Kingdom.")

Have a wonderful day!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

FWF Unity Blog Hop and FWF39

Be sure to head over to the Unity blog for the weekly Friends With Flair Blog Hop. Lots of great inspiration! And if u find a blinkie that says "You found it!", make a comment on that blog for a chance to win 25 stamps!

I submitted this card to the FWF39 challenge because I was so taken by the beautiful flourish on Carolina's card last week, it inspired me to use the bling flourish on mine.

The images on my card come from the new August Kit of the Month (All You Need...), and the sentiment comes from the Nov KOTM (Simply Magical). I like to find unusual uses for stamps, so I used a label stamp for the wings of my large butterfly (his body is rolled up SU trim) and a smaller heart stamp was used twice to form the wings of the medium butterfly. I love collaged patterned papers so my background comes from K&Co and the label was stamped on a fun travel sheet from MAMBI.

If you'd like to know the supplies used on my card, visit my SCS gallery for the specifics.

Enjoy the hop today and TFL!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

WOYWW 64

Back in NJ after my visit to TX, so what card do I work on next? Why, one with a Texas theme, of course! Lol. I actually just got this cute Greeting Farm image (Wild West Anya) from iCopic.com when I sent off for their new Copic swatch book. I don't have that many Copic markers but I figure it'll help me organize them.

On my desk:


DCWV Blue Jean stack, a great pad for a western theme. I was able to pull out red, blue and white jeans images, plus there was a page of smaller designs that I used for paper piecing her outfit. You can see the cut outs of her clothing, hat and boots on my desk. Let me say right here that I have a long way to go in coloring with Copics! ( I subscribe to a newsletter from a website called I Like Markers that gives tips on using Copics but I don't think I've gotten the hair tip down yet. Hee hee. I think it's also a matter of not having an arsenal of matching shades. I'll just imagine my Anya is a free spirit that likes blonde hair with brown streaks. Lol.)

You can see that I like to use mini glue dots from the long curling strip on the desk. I don't like leaving the gluing to the tape runner alone. I've seen cards come apart so I reinforce with the glue dots. I guess I like scissors cuz I have two on my space---well, one for large cuts and one for trimming. I pulled out several border punches cuz that was the one main element asked for in SC293, the Splitcoast Stampers Challenge that I used for the structure of my card.

This has nothing to do with my card, but the black ribbon sitting on my desk is the subject of today's frugal tip. Frugal tip #28: make your own crinkly ribbon. I bought a handful of this seam binding(?) from a vendor at the CKC I went to last month and she gave me the recipe for crinkling. She said to take one strand and wet it completely. Then scrunch it to remove as much water as possible. Keep it scrunched, put it in a plastic baggie and leave it for a couple of hours. Then remove it, leave it scrunched and let it dry. Once dry it will be nice and crinkly. Adds a great texture on your work. Try it. Oh, and that cute little bag that holds the ribbon is made by a company called Your Pictured Memor-EZ. TFL!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

More simple cards

My visit with my Texas family is coming to a close so I have to start packing up the supplies my mom let's me keep here. (We did lots of stuff together so don't think I ignore my family while I'm here! In fact, we saw Eat.Pray.Love today---loved it.)

I made these little cards (detailed in last blog post) with a minimum of supplies. I decided that they will go in the next shipment to Operation Write Home. For that reason, I decided to insert a sheet of lined note paper inside each card so that it could be used to write a letter in. Otherwise the space inside is a little too small for that. Frugal tip#27: find a DP sheet of sentiments and cut them out to decorate your cards. I used a celebration sheet and a book print sheet for my cards. I love how they came out!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

WOYWW from the field

So I'm on vacation with my family visiting my Texas family and my mother indulges my fanatic love of paper crafting by letting me keep a couple of boxes of supplies under a bed here. I drag them out when we're inside taking a break from the oppressive heat. I've set up a makeshift workspace on her dining room table. I couldn't wait to make some very simple cards using an idea I found on one of my fav blogs. So here is Frugal tip #26: make 4 small cards with one sheet of cardstock by cutting 4 equal squares and folding each in half). Cut rectangles from a sheet of collage patterned paper (so that all your cards are slightly different from each other), mat and embellish to your heart's desire. These cards conveniently fit in letter sized business envelopes. Perfect! (For those of you curious about the book cover, I bought it at a discount store to use to cut words and/or sentences out of it for my cards. When I flipped through it at the store, I saw the word "contessa" and I was sold! For this batch of cards though, I used a sheet of patterned paper that had some book excerpt on it. I liked the size of the print in this case.)
Enjoy...

Cindy

Etsy Inspired Challenge 100

Welcome to the Unity Blog Hop! Be sure to visit every blog and make a comment on the one where you find the "I found it!" blinkie for a chance to win a stamp prize!

I couldn't help but want to do this Etsy Inspired challenge (go check out all the great submissions). As soon as I saw Cathy Walter's lovely pendants I knew I had to. Especially when I saw the pendant featured on my card. I could just imagine it hanging on a screen door while the woman of the house went for a good brisk walk. Lol. The house was a little more of a challenge. I cut strips of the red blue jean paper, inked the edges and then layered to get the outside wall. The door is a frame stamp from a Melody Ross set by Unity and the wire form worked great as the screen part of the screen door. TFL!

Supplies: Cardstock: Close to Cocoa (SU); Patterned Paper: Brenda Walton Olivia Rose (K&Co), Photo Stack 2 (DCWV); Designer Blue Jeans stack (DCWV); Stamps: door frame from One Precious Life by Melody Ross (Unity); Ink : Rich Cocoa & Tuxedo Black (Memento); Other: Wire Form (Paragona), art hooks (Li'l Davis), staples, twist tie

WOYWW and a home card

Hi! Wednesday again? Almost the end of a Weds for alot of you. :-)

This is an unusual post. On Monday, I posted a card I made for a couple of challenges but something about it bothered me. It needed something. So I added a little embellishing and inserted the edited photo so, the new card is on the old post. But my workspace today reflects the work done to edit yesterday's....well, you see what I mean about unusual. But valid. Hope you like it.

The second shot is a close up that goes along with my two frugal tips today.


Frugal tip #24: Use old keys. I've found old keys floating around in my junk drawer. After making sure they aren't for something we still use, I use them for crafting. Unfortunately I've never found a good old skeleton key in the drawer so if I really want one of those, I may have to go to Mr. Tim Holtz for it! Lol

Frugal tip #25: Find another use for a given punch. I really wanted a certain size of heart for the key chain on my card but didn't have it. So I used a 5 petal flower punch instead and just cut off two petals in the form of a heart (with the word "heart" in the center of course!)

Operation Write Home Challenge

I am so psyched. I have finally finished 52 cards for Operation Write Home. I kinda dug myself into a hole when I decided to see how many times I could stamp a coffee cup on a sheet of white paper. That was my goal--to use them all. It was fun making the cards though because I used lots of scrap paper and an easy template. (If you don't know which card I mean, just go down a few posts and you'll find one of the coffee cup cards.) When I was going to OWH's website to get the address to send them to I found a tab that lead me to a challenge. Another simple template so the card you see above is for that challenge. Hey, it got me to make a card today.

Supplies: 
Stamps: the house was from Happily Ever After (Unity July '10 KOTM) and the landscape scene was from A Little Happy (Unity May '10 KOTM)
Cardstock: Stampin Up
DP: tree (Journey pad by MAMBI), landscape paper piecing (Brenda Walton Olivia Rose for K&Co), pink background (Que Sera Sera by K&Co.)
Ink: Rich Cocoa (Memento); Bordering Blue & Wild Wasabi (SU); Peach R32, Light Pink RV21 & Sand E33 (Copic)
Other: Foam dots (Ranger)

Frugal health tip #23: Dance for 3 minutes every hour that you craft.  Okay, I'll explain. I was working on the OWH cards and I found it easier to stand rather than sit and I had my iPod on and I was listening to salsa music and suddenly I was moving with the beat. Try it! Every hour that you work, take a 3 min break and dance. You'll feel great!

Friends With Flair #36

Welcome to the Unity Blog Hop! This was a fun card to make. As soon as I saw Unity's Destination:Happiness stamp, I knew I wanted to make the quote into a billboard and have the trailer sitting below it. Inspired by the banner on the last Friday's card sample, I decided to add a clothesline under the billboard. The trailer is parked and happy. I was able to draw from 4 other Unity sets to complete the scene.

Supplies:
Stamps: The clothesline -A Little Happy (May '10 KOTM). The posts are tree trunks - Delightful Moments (Dec '09 KOTM). The dresses on the line - Simply Magical (Nov '09 KOTM) and the girl and billboard frame - One Precious Life by Melody Ross for Unity.
Inks: Memento Rich Cocoa ink pad and Stampin Up's Tempting Turquoise, Real Red, Sahara Sand, Creamy Caramel and Close to Cocoa markers. Additional coloring on the trailer came from Copic markers E33 (Sand) and B02 (Robin's Egg Blue).
DP: K&Co Cut n Paste stack (blue dot) and DCWV The Green Stack (grass).

I hope this card made you smile!

Although I didn't use tiny alpha stamps on today's card, I wanted to pass on Frugal tip #22: Bullet cases make great storage containers for tiny stamps. Prior to using them, I use to get so frustrated trying to store my stamps in their original packaging.

Enjoy your weekend and TFL!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr57) :-)

Another WOYWW

It's that time again and, while I wish I could show you my desk later today when I finally start my cousin's baby books for her twins, I know that many of you are in the UK and it's almost bedtime for you! So I'll just show you a quick little thing I'm putting together today. As you know, I use this little blog to share frugal tidbits (did you see yesterday's post about my iced coffee? Yum.) Well, I realized that I can just blather on and not remember what I suggested so I went back to the beginning of my posts and noted all the tips so far. I believe I'm up to number 20. I'm going to keep track of them in a cute little ring binder that I got at Michael's for $2.50. I took pics for you to see. It was designed by Paula Deen (the Southern chef extraordinaire) to hold recipes . It has 6 pretty dividers and 20 plastic "two-up" sleeve pages. I want to use this as an inspiration binder of sorts. I was inspired by an adorable one I saw by Brenda Walton for $25. (So Frugal tip #20: Create your own inspiration binder with things from your stash.) I'm ripping out pages from a 2004 bound calendar from Somerset Studio to use in my book. Really, by itself this calendar is an inspiration. (I think I have an extra one, if anyone is interested. And I'd be happy to track down another ring binder. Michael's seemed to have a few.)

I was able to go to a Creating Keepsakes Convention in Valley Forge, PA last Friday and had a blast walking up and down the aisles in the vendor fair. A couple of vendors I stumbled upon gave me the idea for the next tip. Frugal tip #21: Check out web stores that sell dollar items. I found out about Scrapbuck com and DollarScrapbooking. Both booths had quality items for $1 and up. I'm especially thrilled with a K&Co. 36 page double-sided designer paper pad I got for $4.

'Til next time, have a wonderful week!

Halloween card and some frugal brew...

I posted this card on SCS for an Amuse Stamps challenge. I've been fine tuning this template and came up with this Halloween appropriate "What's Brewing?" card. And as much as I love giving frugal crafting advice, I thought I'd change things up a bit with some frugal beverage advice to go along with your crafting. It's my favorite. I've saved my Starbucks cup and lid (frugal, hee hee) and use it to cart my beverage around with me. My iced coffee works out to be only pennies.

Here's Frugal tip #19: Put a heaping tbsp of instant coffee in your tall glass/plastic cup, stir in the tiniest bit of water and your sweetner (artificial or otherwise) just to liquify the coffee. Fill the cup with ice then add milk, stir and enjoy. If you prefer less milk, subsitute water to your liking. I like the full milk version because it tastes like a milkshake. 

You can use the same steps for a delicious hot cafe latte. Dilute the same amount of coffee and sweetner with tiny bit of water as before and add boiling hot milk. Yummy. Hope you try this out sometime. Just think what you can spend your savings on! Lol