Contests

There are lots of unfinished or sparsely populated areas on the website. One of those is the contest area. I had a bunch of great ideas and started building the section as challenges but that hasn't gotten very far because I don't get to stay at home all day and can't seem to get the winning lottery ticket I need.

So I have come up with a far less ambitious plan for 2010 called Christmas in July. The idea is simple - register as a public follower. The sooner you register the better your chance. Read the blog posts as they come out. I'll throw followers names in a post on occasion and if you notice your name shout out in a comment before the deadline and you can win one of the cards I've made and posted. At Christmas time there will be bigger collections of cards and maybe some other stuff. The sooner you sign up, the better your chance of winning and again, you will have to actually be reading the blog and shout out in a comment to win.

The RSS feeds are enabled so after you follow publicly you can subscribe to a feed and your browser will tell you when there is new stuff to read if you add the feed to your favorites bar. You need to follow publicly though (separate from the RSS feed) so you will be on a list I can use. If you follow privately or just get the RSS feed you aren't on a list the blog will manage for me.

All the details are on the new blog page you can get from the link at the top of every blog page and the follow and RSS links are over there on the right hand side if you want to participate.

Now serving gypsies!

I added the .gypsy file I made while creating this card to the directions for the card. Each cut I did is on a different layer so if you have the Wild Cards cartridge and a Gypsy all you have to do is download it and part of the layout work is done for you.

I also added a .gypsy file to the Father's day card but after going back and looking at it there is only one layer in it so I guess I frog-got to save the others.

The band-aid card was just done with the keypad and auto-fill.

If you make a bunch of any particular card, one tip I have is to vary the starting position when you make the cuts. Instead of always following directions and putting the paper in the corner, if it's smaller than the mayt, start it an inch from the corner and then move the starting position of the blade before you cut. This way you don't start getting image ruts in your mat from cutting the same thing there over and over and you get to use more of the mat's adhesive.

New Rubber!

I have been to two rubber stamping/paper crafting shows so far this summer and have picked up a ton of new stamps and a lot of unmounted rubber images that I had to stick on cling foam and cut out but got for about a third of what I would have had to pay if they were on wood. Ok maybe its gonna end being more like half by time I get more binders and add in the cling sheets for the binders but I could have never afforded this many images if they had been premounted on wood and its going to save me a lot space and they are real rubber. I love the acrylics for the same reason but rubber just seems to work well with any ink and the clear stamps are hit or miss sometimes.
I mainly got stuff that fit three main categories:

• Really cool words
• Images that can be colored
• Images suitable for Flowersoft, usually in combination with coloring.

I'm not expecting to get a lot of cards done this month but using the new stuff is going to be the theme so it will be lots of coloring - Copic mostly but maybe I'll throw in new colored pencil and watercolor pencil techniques I learned at the shows.
I also have 24 older cards I scanned to finish putting online as well. Those might actually get some time this month. We'll have to see what I really feel like doing after putting in long days at work.
Here's a quick index view of the uploads since my last post if you haven't found them on the website already. Click on them to get the directions and larger views:

	This butterfly escaped the last posting and was found in hiding.
	He was not alone either.
	Mostly Stampin' Up!, except the paper
	New rubber and Copics!
	Even the Cricut machine wanted to play with the new rubber!
	More new rubber, sayings and Copics
	New and old rubber, Copics and distressing for an any occasion male card.

More Butterflies, New Bandaids and Blingaids and a Father's Day Card

Just a quick post that there are 7 more cards on the website. The first three use the same butterfly stamp I talked about last time and the same mat stack. They are basically the same pattern, just different papers and sayings.


The next two bandaid cards I actually did a long time ago but am just publishing for the time. They are using done using the Cricut Expression and the Wild Cards cartridge.


Finally, there is my take one and take two of Father's Day card cutouts on the cartridge. As always, click on any of the cards to go to the website and get better pictures and full directions.

Dragonfly and Butterfly Invasion!

First, the contest answer was actually very easy. All you had to do was look in the Amazon Associates Store I have set up. It has all the products I have used that I can find on Amazon. The stamp sets are where you would find an image and until this week there was one that was not used on any of the cards that you can quickly scan in the index - this one. There are three butterflies on the set. By the way they are selling the set for only $6.08 as I write this, which is less than I paid for it. Hopefully they aren't discontinuing it. There is another design I will be posting a few days as well using the same stamp set and the same materials below.

These are the cards I have made so far with the set and my favorite little patterned stack and my favorite cardstock stack for the summer. The ink and markers are there too.

Click on any of the card to get full directions.

These two are new as well but use different stamp sets. Click on any of the card to get full directions.