Miss You

I fell off the challenge cart a month or so ago, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Today I made a card for a few challenges (some of which may or may not still be open ... you know how that goes), but it was in the spirit of those challenges, anyway.

Here's my card, then I'll explain:

This was inspired by both The Friday Mash-up theme to use Ombre:

and the June Virginia's View challenge to use Ombre or Monochromatic:

My background is (attempted) ombre, but the rest of the card isn't, so I probably don't qualify. Oh, well.

Also influencing my design was the current Paper Players challenge to make a masculine card:

ALSO influencing my design is the current OWH ODBD challenge to make a Missing You card.

Phew. I'll bet you'll be glad when I'm back on track and not piling on so many challenges at once, eh? :)

Oh, an aside: In case you haven't heard, Operation Write Home will cease operation later this year. It's all explained here in their Finish Strong post. This is a good thing! It means so many of our troops will have come home, it's no longer feasible to maintain the non-profit organization (with associated paperwork). All cards sent to OWH must be received by August 1st this year, and no holiday cards!!!! Please see the OWH post for more details, or if you have questions.

So, here's my card story. I thought instead of my usual multi-color ombre backgrounds, I'd go with grey and just vary the intensity of the color. I used my Distress Weathered Wood, which is kind of a smoky grey. Ombre - check.

I messed up the background and had a section with very little ink, so that became the de facto sentiment location. I pulled out my trusty Hero Arts Year Round Sentiments set and stamped the Missing You sentiment - check.

Grey background, simple sentiment. So far this was still masculine. Then I decided to use one of my Crazy Birds. (Did you know the Stampers Anonymous set is actually called Bird Crazy? True.)  I realized the error of my ways when I saw if I stamped it over the grey background, I couldn't color it. Well, I suppose I could have, by adding more water to the background and removing the ink, but that sounded like work. So I stamped it onto a scrap of water color paper instead, colored it, then cut it out.

I stamped the bird onto the background so he'd have legs and hair, then stuck the fussy-cut bird onto it. I think it's still Masculine, so - check.

Oh, and for the record, I finally got my new Distress minis, so I used those to color the bird. Maybe not my best work, but I've now used all four of them, so there's that ...

Thanks for stopping by!

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An OWH Two-fer

Yesterday I was determined to make cards for a few challenges. I've slacked and not made a card for the January OWH ODBD Challenge. Our Daily Bread Designs generously sponsors this challenge each month. If we reach the goal of 50 entries (one per person), ODBD donates up to two boxes of free shipping for our heroes: 1 for 25 cards posted and 2 for 50. Isn't that awesome?

The challenge for January is to make an Any Hero card. These are cards that get a message written inside of them, and are send to our heroes who don't get a lot of mail. I don't make a lot of these because I honestly can't do the writing part. But this is a challenge, right?!

Here's what I made:

This started out with the stamped bird. I had a left-over die-cut circle, so that part was easy.

I thought I'd add a few banners in the upper left to balance out the large circle. I made about seven panels with the banner stamp in this set before I gave up and used washi tape. I'm stamped-banner-impaired, I guess.  The red and blue are washi, and the gold was made by inking a strip of card stock with Delicata Gold ink and clear-embossing it.

After I put it all together and stamped the sentiment, I filled in the space with a few stars stamped in the same Delicata Gold ink and embossed.

As an added bonus, the OWH Mid-Month Throwdown is to make a Thank You card. Check. :)

I'm off for a crafty play day at a friend's house, and I haven't packed yet. Eeep. I hope to make something blog-worthy today!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: red washi tape, blue washi tape, clear embossing powder, SU Poppy Parade card stock, SU Night of Navy card stock, and the following:

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