HIMCR #350 fourth Saturday theme of any holiday

Independence Day 7/4/18...is the holiday I chose for my holiday theme using this selected design team offered image from prize sponsor for HIMCR's #350 challenge, My Besties. 

Isn't "Curly Jean" just the cutest American patriot! Ready to celebrate in her red, white, and blue spirit wear!  HIMCR's theme schedule indicates that 4th Saturday of each month is to be "any holiday" theme. So the paper-crafter/blogger can select any holiday including birthdays to create an item to link to the challenge. You can link up to 3 different cards/paper-crafting items that are new and fit the theme of the challenge. So it's up to you if Mother's Day or Father's Day is chosen or work ahead and do 4th of July like I did or any other holiday celebrated in your country.

This is the ID badge for HIMCR. Use the link to get all the details about guidelines and deadlines to participate in the current challenge, link to the prize sponsor, links to the design team creations (this week only 2 other team members are there; mine might be added late), and much more for paper crafting enthusiasts.www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2018/04/himcr-350-any-holiday.html

My Besties ID sponsor badge is shown above. They've got a darling cutesy style that just makes me fall in love with each image I see. I just had a lot of creative fun coordinating Curly Jean to be my little USA cheerleader (or party girl)! Fun!!

My card shown above at the top of the post was loosely based on this sketch. This card sketch layout suggestion was shared in the Facebook group "100 Pattern Papers Challenge". One of the group members shared at least one scrapbook and one card layout ideas each week. The group's purpose is to get members motivated to use their stash of patterned papers and not be hoarders. There are monthly challenges and periodic additional challenges. Everyone encourages each other to try to use at least 100 patterned papers from their stockpile(s) within a year. You can do more than that if you wish. So pull some papers that can be new or old and start using them! 

Here's a link to a part of Page Maps website that focuses on card layout sketches and samples referred to as Card Maps: http://www.pagemaps.com/cardmaps

Hopefully the HIMCR blog owner will add my card photo to the design team section of the post sometime soon but if not it will be shared only from here for my Facebook friends and with Google + friends.

My husband was hospitalized on Friday night at same time as the design team deadline for getting the newest inspirations to the blog to be shared on Saturday afternoon. I completed my card Sunday afternoon with some of it done by his bedside and the rest using a small dining table in a family waiting room area. He walked there with me to sit and watch birds in a small aviary in that room while I completed my card. And now it is Monday night when this blog should have been made and posted on Saturday. Oh, well, sometimes little or big life moments cause us to rearrange our schedules in unexpected ways. 

This is his 5th hospitalization since late October, so please add him to your prayers. He's only got 1 bypass graft open in his heart from surgery back in March 1998 is what we learned in October. He's had 4 mild heart attacks and 1 "episode" as reasons for these hospitalizations. We are so grateful for these extensions of life given my God and modern medicine. I'm praying I'll have him around to aggravate me for some more years! :) Becca 

PPCCB 377 for April 25 with anything goes theme

May God grant the two of you many more years of wedded bliss....

The design team for Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenges blog was divided into 2 groups to use images provided by this week's sponsors: Just Me Digital Stamps and Time 4 Tea (plus a 3rd sponsor, Di's Digi Stamps). I was put on the JMDS crew and selected the Valentine Heart Wreath frame to use. It has an "I love you" scripted sentiment but since I needed some anniversary cards this week I opted not to use that as the message. Here are the 2 cards I created:

PPCC blog's identification badge & blog post link:  http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com/2018/04/welcome-to-pennys-challenge-377.html

JMDS:

Time For Tea Designs:

and surprise...a 3rd prize sponsor:

More views of card one:

don't you love the details!?!!! I added the black squiggly line border around the outside edge then fussy cut out each heart with card one's getting mounted to light blue tone cardstock and card two's getting mounted to light green cardstock. They were both filled-in the same using colored pencils.

card one's inside panel

card two's inside panel

Took time to pause about half way through making card one to take a photo. Notice the images are missing the outer border edging and the centers only had a light pink applied for the heart wreath frames.

Images were printed to fit in a 3" x 5" dimension. Card one's dark blue base card is 4.25" deep and 7" wide. Card two's light lavender base card is 5.5" deep and 8" wide.

Anniversary milestones! One couple celebrates 18 years and the other has "survived" 55 years! It is a beautiful thing to encourage those who have stayed committed through the ups and downs of life.

My husband and I achieved the 22 year milestone in late January. He was married almost 24 years with his first wife when he became a widower. I met him 3 months later and we married 7 months and 1 week after meeting! And 22 years and a few days shy of 3 months, we are still hanging on to each other. :)  Becca

HIMCR #349 third Saturday of the month surprise theme to be cutesy

Meet Me At The Flower...

that's the name of the focal image from Oddball Art Stamps that is the prize sponsor and provider of images for the design team at HIMCR #349 challenge with a theme of "cutesy"!

I'm not sure if this is cutesy as much as it is cheery...love the colors and mix of patterns and shapes!

The backside of the marble tone cardstock was left white so I just used a scrap section to offset the graph grid index card that has a message I sketched, outlined in markers, and then filled using colored pencils. Some more of the 'cute' decorative tape used on the front was added under the inside message.

This is the badge for HIMCR. Each week of the month is a different theme. Third week has been designated as "surprise" and the blog owner, Laurie, has picked the characteristic "cutesy" to be that surprise theme. To find out how to participate, when the deadline is for the challenge, see what the other design team members created for your inspiration, and about the prize sponsor use this link to take you to the newest post announcing the new challenge= http://www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2018/04/himcr-349-cutesy.html

This image is the sponsor identification badge for Oddball Art Stamps. They provided 3 images for the design team to use this week and they have a great prize gift for the challenge winner.

My thinking of you card was based on this sketch design from Let's Get Sketchy from February 2012. I turned it 90 degrees to the right. I added more zig-zag points, switched direction on the section shown under the 3 dots and then only used about half the shape. Decorative tapes are substituted for some of the papers/sections down the middle. Instead of half of a flower, I hole-punched 2 holes and threaded lots of different colored cording as another way to repeat the cheerful mix of hues.

close up of the image...I used a black gel pen to add upper eyelashes for the ladybug but it looks blurred when snapping photo on cell phone. I used violet colored pencil for the butterflies' eyes to help them contrast with the 2 blue tones and gray used on his wings.

Left side

Right side

Card propped up to show inside message from different viewpoint

And how this all got started with base card and background paper with decorative tapes ready to go. Boxed notecards have been upcycled/recycled as patterned paper and a title for the cover. Only a small section was used of the notecard that has stripes on one end and scattered dots over most of it. And then 'hello' was fussy cut in order to allow the base papers and tapes to not be totally covered up. This also allowed me to glue the 'o' closer to the second "l" to save about 1/4".

I just love this cheery card full of color, patterns, and interesting angles. Maybe it is cute?!?!!!

--Becca

Two challenges in one with Inspired By rainy day fun theme blog and Sketch N Scrap layout for Facebook challenges

Birthdays come along throughout the year and we don't have control over the weather...so I chose to use the rainy day theme challenge at Inspired By as a nod towards the idea that a birthday needs to be celebrated no matter the weather...

From Sketch N Scrap's Facebook page is this layout #28 for a challenge until April 30, 2018:

This is SnS badge button:

Laurel Seabrook's Inspired By current challenge theme is rainy day fun and here is her cute inspiration photo and the link to her blog post about this:
https://theseinspiredchallenges.blogspot.ca/2018/04/inspired-by-rainy-day-fun.html

Some notes about supplies:
a. the little guy image was found online through searching for free clipart (pixshark)
b. the little girl image was found online through searching for free clipart (nlcafe)
c. the rain boot was found online through searching for free clipart (Pinterest)
d. the purple chipboard letters are from K and Company
e. papers are from 2 companies: The Paper Studio and Colorbok
f. markers, colored pencils, pencil, black ink pen, ruler, adhesives, black ink pad, self-inking type stamper with the short border of hearts

Whether it is raining, snowing, hailing, or hot and sultry on your special day, take time to celebrate.

--Becca

PPCCB 376 using Delicious Doodles image

Happy home xoxoxo

Delphiniums are delightful! Quite the analogous range of greens, blues, and violets with light gray, charcoal gray and some browns tones in the stems of the delphiniums are what I selected and also reflect our home's happy interior!!

I've put the framed art on my home computer printer for now. And the light lavender walls and cute little metal pail are complemented by this beauty:

The delphinium image is from Delicious Doodles and half the team uses their images:

They are also sponsoring a prize so be sure to go to the PPCC post using the link to get all the details on what the prize(s) is and how to participate: http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com/2018/04/welcome-to-pennys-challenge-376.html

Visit the blog post to see the other wonderful creations made by the design team. Both sponsors provided floral images so the paper crafting is beautiful.

And the 2nd prize sponsor and provider of images to half the design team this week is Fred She Said Designs. This is their badge:

With so much within the 5" x 7" frame, it's hard to tell but I did follow a sketch for shapes and their placement: 

This Serendipity Sketch that was posted in January 2018 has come in handy. I scaled the size, ratios, eliminated a rectangle and a flag-tail rectangle and then moved the left circle over to the right side behind that circle. Title got moved onto the full circle. Plus the little varied hearts border type stamp got inked onto 3 different locations to add to the happy/love theme.

So beautiful!!!

Makes my heart happy!

Paper are ready and inked (but still had to make some sizing adjustments and re-inking when arranging everything)

Frame got switched later because I broke the glass! It got shifted when putting in the art and when I pressed down not realizing this and heard the crack. Ugh! Luckily I had another frame nearby. The layered flower embellishment was too thick to have on/inside the frame plus too many items fighting for space in the 5 x 7. I had tried sticking the flower embellishment on the outside frame but that was still too much. I'm trying so hard to edit!!!! Granted a 8 x 11 would have been better scale wise but I only had the smaller in my work area that was ready to use.

The important thing is I love the results. As I'm typing this post I look to my right and I see the beautiful delphiniums and their multi-hued petals and it makes my heart smile! --Becca

HIMCR 348 super scraps Saturday for 2nd week of April

Hello spring! :)

Have to meet the caterpillars in order to say hello to the butterflies.

My inspiration was to have a mixed media junk journal vibe for this card. So lots of papers, angles, textures, and inking!  #1 card cover and inside panel=

HIMCR's badge and link for #348 post to get all the details on how and when to participate as a crafter and to learn the prize from this week's sponsor "A Day For Daisies": http://www.hidinginmycraftroom.com/2018/04/himcr-348-super-scraps-saturday.html

This week's prize sponsor for HIMCR's #348 (Super Scraps Saturday theme):

My sketch interpretation is based on this layout design rotated 90 degrees to left:

(Serendipity Sketch January 2018 by Miyuki K)

left half of the card:

right half of the card:

upper left corner for close up on stenciling of  "hi":

lower left corner for close up featuring the quote sentiment:

lower right corner shows gems added to butterfly bodies on the cover and the inking for cardstock backgrounds for the butterfly images (glitter crayons were used to fill-in the butterfly images as they laid over rows of faceted gems in order to get a neat texture):

inside panel close-up:

base dimensions are 5.5" x 8.25" shown with background papers (Colorbok) and 2 layers of decorative tapes:

and how this crafting process got started:

In person, the junk journal vibe is much more evident and the mix of squash and mint teal colors anchored with neutrals of light gray, light beige, sienna brown, and chocolate brown looks more interesting.

Note: Laurie was early in posting (or I was late!) so this 2nd card did not get on the HIMCR blog:

And I did a 2nd card in under an hour this morning because I love butterflies so much and really wanted to use the ADFD image again but in more of a CAS style:

This turned out so very beautiful! The freehand butterfly image from ADFD has about 7 different colored pencils used with the same texture rub technique as the 1st card shown above.

getting started for card 2: designer pattern papers are from The Paper Studio, the light blue cardstock is Neenah Papers' Creative Collection mid-tones and is 5.75" square, the 'adult' coloring page scrap is 5.25" x 5.5"

Sketchy Saturday sketches by laurel seabrook

The HIMCR #348 theme is scraps so both sketch suggestions helped to use up sections of various sizes.

Hope you enjoy this post as much as I had crafting, creating, and engineering! Becca