SCS Sketch Challenge 431

O, Fair New Mexico, 
We love, we love you so,
Our hearts with pride o'reflow,
No matter where we go.

I've been homesick lately, so I've been thinking about a chile card for several weeks, but nothing I tried seemed to work. I was visiting SplitCoastStampers, and found this sketch challenge and suddenly, the card came together in my head. Here is the link to the sketch challenge, check out all the creations!

I don't remember where I got the chile paper, I think a LSS was going out of business :( so I bought all they had. One side is the green chile and the other side is red chile. In NM you will be asked (when ordering Mexican food) if you want Red or Green? I'm a green chile person but my husband is a red chile person, so in our house we make both kinds of enchiladas.

The phrase is from Stamp A Mania, the chile is from SU's Southwest set and is embossed with Stamp A Mania's Red Chile EP.  I used the Cuttlebug Southwest embossing border on the black strip.

I'm Nuts About Johnny

I made a card for Johnny last week (my last week before I started my new job).  The main image is a squirrel with nuts.  I received it in a SCS swap several years ago but hadn't used it until now.  I colored it with my Copics, but lost the list, other than the red heart is LipStick Red.  The card base is brown, the mat is white paper embossed with the Fiskar's tree bark texture plate.  I then used a rainbow pad of browns to give the texture some color. I used one of the Nestie Labels to cut out the image. I think if I were to do this card again, I would fussy cut around the squirrel/nuts to leave more of the "tree" showing.  To highlight the red heart, I used 3 red brads on the top/right corner of the card.

The inside has handwritten "I'm nuts about you!"

Paper:           DCWV card base, generic white
Stamps:        Whipper Snapper's Nutty Squirrel
Inks:             Dee Gruenig's Brown Blending Box ink pad, Copics, colors unknown except for the          
                     LipStick red (R29)
Accessories: Fiskar's Texture plate, Nesties Labels 15, brads

Sympathy Card

The son of a friend and former co-worker died last week. Here is the card I made.  It uses Not Quite Navy and Summer Sun and vellum. The sentiment stamp is from Inky Antics. It is embossed on the vellum using  navy EP.

Stamps:            Inky Antics
Paper:              SU's Not Quite Navy, Summer Sun, vellum
Ink:                  Versamark
Accessories:     Navy EP, SU star punch, navy star button, yellow thread

I made this for my Uncle's birthday. The cool thing about this card is that these cliff dwellings are near Silver City, NM which is not too far from where I grew up in Las Cruces, NM.

The stamp is of the Gila Cliff Dwellings and is from Stamp A Mania. The EP is also from Stamp A Mania and is called Sand Tapestry and it was embossed on Bazzill Tortilla cardstock.

I tore it and put it on a brown from DCWV and added the 3 brads in the corner.

Get Well Frogs

At the Arlington convention last month, I bought some stamps at Stamps by Judith to make some get well cards. I spent $30 on stamps, so I need to make a BUNCH of cards with them. :) Here is the first.

I also bought a Tim Holtz embossing folder of cattails and thought it would be a perfect match for the frog. I chalked the leaves portion of the cattails with SU's Glorious Green (and erased all the extra chalk) and then used brown flocking powder for the cattails themselves. I chalked the sun (using a template I created with the SU punch) with SU's Summer Sun and a bit of Pumpkin Pie. I colored the frog with copics and SU's Old Olive. I cut the frog out and put him over the sun. I stamped a bug over the frog (one of the SbJ stamps I bought).

On the inside I used another of the frog stamps, colored him

with the same markers as the first frog, then cut him out as well. I used Bliss Blue for the water. I used a "Heard you caught a bug" stamp that I already had, it isn't the SbJ stamp and the "Get Well Soon" from SU's Happy Healing.

On the back of the card, I used a third of the frogs above where I put my name.

One card down, bunches left to go! LOL!

Father's Day Cards

I made 3 Father's Day cards this year (like always!).  I'm triply blessed!

The first one is made from some scrapbook paper that I've had forever. I cut out along the bottom around the race cars and then glued it onto a sheet of green paper

that matched (almost too perfectly, since you can't see where the green front wing of the

race car ends and the background paper begins) the color of one of the race cars. The c

ard is 9.5" x 4" to fit in a regular legal sized envelope. Walmart has them in such nice colors! I then cut a mat out of the same green that was wider than the sentiment so that it mimicked the card being wider than the white paper.

Stamp: Thinking of Father from SU!

Cardstock: AC Cardstock, primaries

Paper: ???

Ink: SU's Basic Black

The second card utilizes an image I've had for a couple of years. I really liked the image and so

couldn't bear to use it, but finally found the perfect card to make with it. The image came from a make and take at the Grapevine or Mesquite convention with Judy of B & J's Art Stamps, so all the stamps are theirs. I should have bought the main stamp because I like it so much. Maybe this year! The background was stamped with one of their background stamps, of which I have several. I love the brushed look! Judy has us stamp the whole background with a light color (in this case a yellow color) and then around the edges with a darker color (Indian Rouge and Patina Beauty). Once the background is stamped, we stamped the Indian with black, covered the whole thing with sparkly EP and heat gunned it. Next we stamped in the Patina Beauty two background stamps in the corners. Finally, we used Versamark to emboss the edges of the card with bronze EP. I put this on teal paper.

The last card was an easy card, nice and simple. At the Arlington convention this month, I bought some paper from Scrapbookers Painted Page. One of the papers I bought was of a sea plane on a lake. My step-father likes planes and I thought this would make a great card for him. I used a whole

sheet of 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock and folded it in half to make a larger card. I used a red color from AC (American Crafts). I glued the paper on the cardstock and then punched an oval through the front of the card using the SU medium oval punch. I masked the oval and stamped the word JOY on the inside of the card through the oval. The JOY came from SU's Small Words set.

Ocean Cards

I wanted to make an ocean birthday card for my aunt, but didn't like the first attempt, or the second attempt, or...

I finally came up with 3 variations...which do you like best and why?

The first card has a turtle. In the first, failed, attempts the grass didn't look very good when it was embossed with the bubbles. So with the turtle card, I only embossed part way down, but I'm not sure I like the abrupt stop of the bubbles.

The second card has a seahorse and different grass. The grass held up better to the embossing, so I think I like this one best.

The third card doesn't have the bubbles embossed on it. I will put it on the same orange background as the others once I've decided if I am going to emboss it or not.














Here is the inside.

For all cards:

Paper: SU Bordering Blue, DCWV orange

Ink: Adarondack's Lettuce

Embossing folder: Cuttlebug bubbles

Animals: Spellbinders Shapabilities From the Sea

Chalk: SU Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Olive Green

Stamp: Inspired by Nature by SU for the second and third cards and Potted Grasses from Stamp A Mania.

Musical Card

I wanted a musical themed card for a birthday card and finally came up with this one. The scanner had a bit of a hard time with the silver paper because it is so reflective, but the two main components of the front are matted with the silver paper.

Paper: Black, silver envelope liner paper, white DCWV textured card

Ink: Versamark, SU Black

Stamps: SU Musical Manuscript, sheet music background is Rubber Stampede

Accessories: Stamp A Mania's Silver City EP (the absolute best silver EP I've ever used)

Flowery Cards

UPDATE:  I deleted (somehow) all of my blog pictures.  I'm putting them all back, but can not find this picture.  So you'll have to use your imagination.  :-(



I've made some flowery cards for my MIL, which is unusual since I don't usually go flowery. I used the Stampin Up embossing folder Elegant Bouquet to emboss various flowery colors of DCWV cardstock then added flower embellishments from Michael's. In this case, I used silver brads that I flocked with yellow flocking powder (Martha Stewart) for the centers. I matted the yellow on a matching orange cardstock and voila!