adventures in cardmaking

I have several cards to share with you today.  I made the first one last week for the Shopping Our Stash challenge to "sift thru those piles of Un-Finished Objects and pick one complete it!"  The actual "sifting thru" resulted in this:

Way too many pink bits!  There was a scored piece of Pretty in Pink card stock and a strip of designer series paper from an extra 10-for-$10 stamp-a-stack Valentine card, some flowers from the retiring Birds & Blooms sizzlit pack that were left over from a Mother's day 3D swap, and some Pink Pirouette scalloped rectangles cut with the clearlit when I was trying to make a window card.  I tried to use the other pink bits you see, too, and make them all go away, but that would have been two pink cards in one go or one too, too busy card.  Eventually all the sorted stuff should go back in the shoebox, but that would mean un-sorting it; I can't make myself do that yet.  Maybe little sandwich baggies would keep them sorted for a while...

After much adding and subtracting and eye-squinting, this resulted:

Even the little baker's twine bow was leftover from an earlier project.  The stamp set is the new Stampin' Up!® (of course) hostess set, Swirls & Curls Verses.  Except for the overwhelming pinkness, I rather like it.

Then I made this card during my lunch hour today, still on the UFO theme:

I needed to put a check in the mail - I meant to mail it a couple of weeks ago, so I really wanted it to go in today's mail.  The envelope was already stamped with the Vintage Vogue flower - I've forgotten why - but it has been sitting around waiting for a card for a long time.  I also had pre-cut the 6"x6" Crumb Cake card stock from a scrapbook page shoebox swap, so I had a preselected stamp set and the beginning of a color scheme.  I filled out the colors with Not Quite Navy and Daffodil Delight, cut a Top Note shape with my Big Shot and Top Note die for a focal point, punched out the Thoughts & Prayers sentiment with my Decorative Label punch and added some Very Vanilla seam binding.  Done - and I still had time to pick up a sandwich from Subway.

I've been working on more cards all evening, possibly because the basement is such a pleasant place to spend time on a day when the air conditioning in the office quit during the afternoon, while the bright sun shone directly in my window.  Or maybe because I needed a sympathy card for a coworker, and couldn't decide what to do, so I fiddled around doing unrelated things.  Whatever.

A few months ago I received many "swap" card fronts from my Watercooler Llama friends.  Because Stampin' Up!® is retiring stamp sets at the end of June to make room for new designs next month, I sorted out the ones that would become non-current and at the same time, turned all of the card fronts into full cards.  I mounted the full cards that will remain current on my bulletin board:

Aren't they beautiful?

Then, I decided on a framed one-layer card for the new Less is More challenge.  This one went together pretty quickly, even considering planning time.  

If I were doing it again, I'd leave out the squiggly lines on the sides. I thought they might highlight the implied frame shape when I just had the butterfly, background, and top and bottom elements, but it seemed too subtle, so I drew the entire frame, making the extra side lines redundant.  All of the stamps are from the new Stampin' Up!® set Strength & Hope ($2 is donated to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation® for every set purchased).  I used our Naturals Ivory card stock because I love the heftier feel for one-layer cards.  The colors are Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, and River Rock.

I did finally finish the sympathy card by covering the inside of an existing way-too-mushy card with a more appropriate sentiment.  The color scheme was Basic Gray, Bashful Blue and Not Quite Navy, so I'm pretty much un-pinked-out now.