MoJo Monday (my first)

I kept seeing the MoJo Monday cards on other blogs and didn't know what they were, well now I know and decided to join the fun. here's my first MoJo Monday card. The background is a little fuzzy because the wreath and texted tag are raised above the card and scanning doesn't really do to well on focus.

Scrap & Stamp Arts All Star issue - January 2011

No cards to day, just some bragging. Today I received my advanced copy of the January 2011 "Scrap & Stamp Arts" entitled "The Best of the Best - Industry All Stars". It was no surprise that I was included in the issue as the magazine contacted me back in July to inform me of the honor and also to ask me to submit an article and cards specifically created for the issue. What surprised me was that when I looked through the magazine out of the fifteen people selected I was one of the few that is not a stamp company owner, creator or designer of stamps or associated as a designer for a specific manufacturer or company. I had assumed (yes I know what happens when you assume) that the people selected would all have been home based card making enthusiasts such as myself, not professionals. To be included with these professionals takes the honor of having been selected as an "all star" designer of 2010 one step higher.

Early Thanksgiving.

November already and that means that in the craft stores it's all about Christmas. Whatever happened to Thanksgiving, not that there has ever been much for Thanksgiving on the shelves anyway? We have many reasons to be thankful, no matter what our situations are and I am most thankful for the serenity I find in my life. Last year I found some images that I thought reflected this serenity and that I could use to that end.

The first one is made using 3D stickers (not quite as nice when scanned) from K&Company of various fall colored leaves. I used a metallic copper for the background to coordinate with the metallic copper filigree on each of the stickers and added some oranges gems(Stampendous Dot Sparklers) to add to the fall feel.

The second one is made from a beautiful fall image sticker (Pebbles) mounted on color paper coordinating with colors within the image. The 3D cart and gourds (Jolee's Boutique/E.K. Success) were added to add to the feeling of the bounty and beauty fall provides us with.

I chose not to add text to either card in order to avoid influencing the feel the images provide on their own.

Blog only Cards!

As I said each month I will create a card specifically for this blog and rather than wait till January 2011 I figured why not start now! I also decided to make these cards strictly masculine themed cards. So here goes.

The first card I created was to celebrate my new found unemployed position, something I'm certain many people can relate to at this time. I started with one of my favorite stamps (Make an Impression); which I stamped in black (Ink It-up!) on aged wood grain paper (Karen Foster) and went from there. The card background paper is striped flocked paper (SEI Moravia Sanov #8-3702) which reminded me somewhat of tree bark and I though would go well with the landscape scene. Everything being somewhat rugged I added a self-adhesive suede ribbon (Markings/C.R. Gibson) to soften the feel just a bit. Then I added black mini brads in the corner of the stamped image and adhere the stamped panel with raised adhesive dots to the card. The text is a rub-on (Michael's) which says it all (at least for me).