Tuesday Morning Sketches #380

Good Morning!  Thank you for stopping by.  The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and it's by Debbie - she's sponsoring, too.  She has a lovely embossing folder up for grabs!

My card features a stamp from an old set by There She Goes Stamps.  I do miss Jessica and her stamp shop - she had some fabulous artists creating wonderful images for her.  This is one that I cannot part with.

So a little story - in the Spring my company sponsors a week of community service.  We can volunteer to work in soup kitchens, help at local animal shelters - my group played bingo with the vets at our VA facility that's just outside of Orlando.  There is also another opportunity which hit home... making birthday cards for a Foster Home group.  I decided to make some Christmas cards for them, too.  I made 24 cards.  It was super easy with my MISTI.  See - I found a way to use it so that it helps me in my mission to convince myself I didn't spend my money unwisely.

The stamp set that I used came with dies.  These are solid dies, so it's sort of impossible to stamp first and then line up the die.  It's okay to die cut first and then stamp, but the older I get the more blind I get and I often don't get these centered.  Tip of the day - use your MISTI.  Die cut the image out, using the negative space, line up your stamp, close the door to pick up the stamp and then just place the positive die cut into the negative space and then stamp.  Viola!  Perfect every time.

Well, I guess I got carried away and made one too many stockings, so I used it to create today's card.  I'll tell you - this card literally took 10 minutes max to make.  And I love it!

Please head on over to the TMS blog to join us!

Tuesday Morning Sketches #379

Good Morning friends.  Thank you so much for stopping by.  The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and it's a nice and easy one.  Great for this holiday week.  It's inspired by Jessi and I know you're going to love it and use it again and again.

Our sponsor is DRS Designs.  I'm featuring the Large Filigree Snowflake and the Joy of Christmas Greeting.

So before I get to a lot of details about this card, I want to tell you a background story.  I broke down and bought a MISTI.  I'm still trying to convince myself this wasn't a waste of money.  I'm not sold on it completely but I got one - it's the Mini MISTI and at $44 on Amazon - well lets just say I know what the saying "don't spend your money all on one place" really means.  Ouch!  High price point.  But I got it because I was making 70 Christmas cards for my Mom and the homemade stamping tool I created just wasn't cutting it.

So now I'm on a quest to use this tool often to make it worth it to me.  If you're really interested in what I have I have to say about this, please read on.  If not.... feel free to head on over to the TMS blog now to see some beautiful Christmas cards by the team and join in the fun.

Back to my "article."  With my DIY stamping tool, I spent under $10 and that was with shipping.  Not bad.  Pro - it was cheap... Con - there is no way to hold your card stock in the same place.  No magnets.  With my DIY version for measurements I bought a Little B's Perfect Positioner and cut it up to position my stamps so it was straight.

Now, I'm ready to make my DRS Designs card and their stamps are available in 3 versions:  Wood Mounted Stamps, Trimmed on Cling Cushion and Unmounted, Rubber Only.  Just to do a price comparison on that - the snowflake stamp I used is $13.20 which is pretty good but the rubber only version is only $6.60.  That's even better.  So how do you stamp with them?  Well, I've used acrylic blocks and double sided tape before.  But now I have this Mini MISTI.  I guess you could use double sided tape again and that's fine for a few stampings but what if you're mass producing?  I guess you could use Tack and Peel and honestly I tried it and instantly regretted it.  I was so afraid I was going break this $40 tool taking it off.

Solution!  I had a few strips of the Little B's Perfect Positioner left over from the DIY project, I simply put that on the lid of the MISTI and stuck my rubber only stamps to that and stamped.  Down side - do you see the black panel?  I had to move the card stock itself and left the stamp where it was at.  It worked okay but it's not very precise (if that's what you're going for).  But it worked beautifully on the sentiment.  The stamp didn't move and neither did my card stock. So I think an improvement to the MISTI will be to purchase another Little B's Perfect Positioner and cut that one up to fit the entire door the of MISTI so that I can move the stamps around.  It's less than $4.00 and I think would last a long time.  I don't have a lot of unmounted rubber stamps, but I have enough that it would make this totally worth it.

So that's my 2 cents on a how to get the most out of a $44 tool.  Trust me, I'm not trying to be negative Nancy here, but I am still trying to tell myself this was okay to buy.

Now I'd love to see you over at TMS to play along with us.  And Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones.

Tuesday Morning Sketches #378

Hello! Thank you for stopping by.  I always love it when you visit.  The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and I really love this one.  It's so cute!  And it's a great map for some really cute cards.

Our sponsor is All Dressed Up - such cute images.  I just love Wendy's images.  I am featuring A Star is Born.

A lot of my used this image and although we were thinking somewhat the same color scheme, each of our cards is very different and you're just going to love all the ideas.

My card is white - I promise.  It was very gray yesterday and I just couldn't get good lighting.  The frame is a beautiful blue glitter paper.  I embossed the sentiment using white pearl embossing powder.  It looks almost silvery on the black card stock.  In real life, it's really pretty.

Please join us!  Be sure to visit the design team blogs, too.  You are going to love what you see.

Tuesday Morning Sketches #377

Good Morning! Thank you for stopping by.  The sketch is up at TMS and this one is inspired by Jessi.  She's still on hiatus - I do hope her doctor's can get her mended so she can come back soon.  Sending you happy thoughts Jessi.

I really like her sketch, it's such a great one for scraps and to have some fun with layers.  Here's my card featuring a sweet set by CTMH - I'm sure it's probably retired by now, I've it forever.  Our sponsor this week is Jennifer, an independent CTMH demonstrator.

The stamp set has 3 balls for the snowman build but that would be too big for this layout.  The challenge was to get all the masking done correctly.  This little guy was fun to color, too.  I just used a few Copic markers.

Please head on over to TMS and join us!

Tuesday Morning Sketches #376

Hello! Thank you so much for stopping by.  I'm sure all the glitter and shine from my card is what caught your eye and brought you here.  LOL

The sketch is up at Tuesday Morning Sketches and it's another great go-to sketch by Debbie.  This one is full of possibilities.

Grab your sunglasses....

This card started with the base being from a pack of thank you notes from Big Lots - 20 of them for $1.  They even came with gold matte foil lined envelopes.  I kept the gold frame from the original card and worked inside it.  That set the gold tone.  Before I started this card I had visions in my head of this being a red ornament white snowflakes and big green ribbon.  But as you know, cards take on lives of their own and they decide how they want to dress up.  First, I couldn't find red foil in my stuff.  Second, I used toner paper, so the white opalescent foil wouldn't be white in the end.  So from there the card took on a different look.  I pulled out gold, silver and mint green foils.  I should have glued the hanger part of the ornament up a little higher or made the ornament a little smaller.  But overall, I love this card.

I made the bow from Heidi Swapp gold glitter paper and my 1-2-3 Punch Board.  Does your hands itch after playing in glitter or glitter paper?  Mine sure do!  Anyway, I embossed the black piece with snowflakes embossing folder which you can barely see in the photo.  But what you can see is that I sprayed that panel with silver shimmer spray.

I am loving this card more and more.  I hope it brings you a small measure of inspiration and that you'll join us at the TMS blog.  Oh and don't forget to visit the DT's blogs, too.  Talk about some gorgeous inspiration!  I don't hold a candle to them!

Have a great day.