Father's Day Furry Fun and Disappoinment, too. :(

Well, Father's Day has come and gone. It's not always an easy time of year. My dad died in June of 2002. My husband also passed on, but in 2009. We didn't have kiddos of the human variety, so we made a little bit of a fuss over being parents to our babies in the fur suits. So, that usually meant a card and a special meal, plus getting fussed over for him. However, I am not the type to dwell on the reasons to be sad. I like to look at things in a positive light, so I got myself all excited over a gift that my brother-in-law and I had collaborated on for my father-in-law. Here's my card. Can you guess what we planned to get him, just based on the theme of the card?

I hope you are better at guessing from clues than my poor father-in-law. He just didn't get it, despite the fact that he has been talking about getting another dog for over six months now. So, Squid and I decided we'd do that for him. Since it's important that you find a pet that "meshes" with you and your family, we also decided to let him pick his dog. He was so excited and filled with chatter about it for the rest of the night. We made plans to go out yesterday to find his new best friend. Something happened between Sunday and yesterday, though, that made him change his mind (hence, the Father's Day disappointment alluded to in my title). He decided that now is not the right time, and he'd like to wait. Since adding any pet to your family is a huge commitment and responsibility, I just made him promise to let us know when he's ready. One day, we'll add another adorable furry friend to the family, just not today. On the plus side, I had the day off of work, so I enjoyed some time to myself, relaxing around my house and getting some stuff done. It was a much needed bit of time, that's for sure. I hope you have something fun planned for the weekend. I hope to get some cleaning done and maybe even make a few cards, since my other plans for the weekend fell through. I'm going to make the most of it!

I love creative days

My original plans for yesterday were canceled, so I had some spare time to sit down at my craft desk and create. For once, Mr. Mojo was visiting during one of these times! Hallelujah. I might have chased him off again, though, since I didn't feed him any chocolate, chips, or other delicious snacks. This trying to eat healthier thing sucks sometimes.

Anyway, back to it.

I took a class at Stamp Hideaway with the awesome Sharon. She has boxes of Stampscapes stamps, and taught me how to use them. Thank you, Sharon! I am now addicted. Of course, I had to buy some of my own. The card fronts for the cards below were actually made using her stamps, though. I just had to take a few minutes to mount them on cards.

I love how you can leave them in black and white. I think they look striking that way. Each scene takes several stamps to create, but it's actually quick and easy once you learn how to do it. Makes for fast cards when you need one in a hurry.

Then I had colored some images ages ago and used those to get some more cards made. It's time to send in Mother's Day cards for Operation Write Home, so that they can get to the soldiers in time to write notes and send them back home. I made more cards than those pictured, but I don't want to overload you too much. Here's a sampling of the cards I made with some images I'd precolored:

As usual, I tried to keep them kind of flat for ease of mailing. All images were colored with copics.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope you'll consider taking some time out to make a few cards for Operation Write Home. Enjoy what remains of your weekend!

Supporting our Soldiers

I joined Soldier's Angels a while ago, because I believe that supporting the men and women who sacrifice for us every day is a wonderful cause and something we should all do. It really helps boost the morale of our troops when they are reminded that those of us back home are thinking of them, thankful for all that they do, and will always wish for their continued safety.

I am on my third "adopted" soldier. That's nothing compared to my soldier's "third": Paul is on his third deployment in the last six years. I've been sending him care packages but he only recently revealed that his birthday was back in December. I decided to make him a card and send him an extra-big care package this month. I've been wanting to try a tutorial by Sandy Allnock of Operation Write Home (another awesome cause to help support our troops). She has a great video on her blog showing how to color camo. You can check it out here. It was a lot easier than I expected, although I definitely need practice.

The image is "soldier Ian" by the Greeting Farm. Isn't he precious? He's colored with copics. For exact colors, watch Sandy's video. My memory for that stuff sucks! I did deviate from her tutorial on the skin colors, though. His skin is not as well shaded as I'd like, because my skin tone E's are getting dry and I don't have refills for two of them. Time to place another order with Oozak! The buttons are ones that I was gifted at a recent crop. Papers are the Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby.

Thanks for looking, leaving any comments, and hopefully, for taking a minute to do something for our amazing military. Links in my sidebar to both Soldier's Angels and Operation Write Home (hint, hint, shove, shove).

Shoot. I almost forgot. The card is based on this week's sketch at Mojo Monday. It's sketch 276. It is also for the Farm Fresh Friday challenge to Punch It! I used two spellbinders dies around the image, then a corner punch for the little photo corners.

Fantastic....five?!?

No, this isn't about the movie "The Fantastic Four", which I have never seen. The title just came to me because I managed to complete five cards today, and to me, well, that is fantastic. I went to my first ever crop to benefit Soldier's Angels. I met several wonderful women there, and had a blast crafting with them. It was really fun to sit with Karen, Darlene, and Tara. I met them for the first time today. We were all working on different things and it was so interesting to talk to them about their projects and lives. What a great group of women. Karen was making dolls and she made me one with a cute little strawberry dress. I love her! Pictures to come later for that.

As usual, I spent so much time socializing, shopping, and organizing that I didn't do much else. Well, except make five cards. At first, I was really irritated with my lack of productivity. After all, I used images I had colored ages ago, so it's not like I had to take time to color (which takes me forever). My fellow crafters made me see that I got a lot done. I made new friends, organized some stuff that had been sitting as a mess for ages, and made cards for five soldiers to use when sending notes home. I decided that I'll take that and be happy about it.

Here are the cards I made (sorry if the pics are blurry or a bit dull. I didn't really focus on getting good shots before turning them in):

I deliberately didn't take much with me in the way of embellishments: just some ribbon, lace, twine, pearls and a tiny bit of bling. No flowers or anything that would add too much dimension. I tried to keep in mind that these cards will be shipped multiple times: once to the Soldier's Angels headquarters to be added to care packages, then to the soldier, then from the soldier to his/her family. I figured flat cards would be better for packing as well as durability. It's usually really hard for me to keep my cards so embellishment-free and flat, but today, it seemed to flow. I think being around all of those other crafters who were also there to support the soldiers and enjoy a day together might have turned on my mojo! What do you think? What makes your mojo flow?

What did I do to be so rewarded?

I don't know what in the heck I did to deserve the reward of Mr. Mojo's ongoing visit, but if I can figure it out, I'm going to do it again! Tonight, that Mojo dude didn't feel like coloring. He wanted to play with paper. I'm all about paper, so I yanked out an image that I colored a while ago and prepared to slap her down on a card. I had a lot of fun distressing, inking, rooting through my embellishments for just the perfect thing, and so on. Here's what I came up with:

Ain't she cute? She's from the Greeting Farm. As usual, I colored her with my handy-dandy copics. It was a while ago, so don't ask for colors, k? I gave her little scarf a striped pattern with different shades of pink, rouged up her little cheeks, added some highlights with a signo pen, and added some shine to her buttons with glossy accents. I think she goes really well with this Doodlebug paper called Sweet Cakes, don't you? After all, she's so cute and sweet!

I'm entering her in the challenge at:
Cute Card Thursday - anything goes!

The weekend is almost here. Does anybody have any fun plans? I've got my belly dancing class tomorrow night, then my brother and I plan to go see "The Hunger Games" afterwards. I've got to yank down my warm weather clothes from the attic, put away the winter ones, clean my house, and maybe craft a bit. My nephew's got a soccer game on Sunday, so I'll go cheer him on, too! I can't cheer too loud, though. He's 15. Apparently, cheering aunts are embarrassing. Who knew?