It’s Wednesday again and I have finally caught up on updating my blog, yay! No packages for this week, but DDs and I are in the process of making 50 cards, which brings our card total to… 730, wooohoo! That’s a lot of cards – thanks to all you wonderful ladies who donated cards and helped bring the total to way more than our target of 500! For those who want to see the cards, just check out the gallery under Cards for a Cause: The Inmates Project. We are getting close to the end of this project, and we can feel the excitement building!

For our featured card this week, I’d like to thank Charlene (scrappygma on the PC Crafter message board) for introducing me to Fun Flock™. I remember that she made a card with a sunflower, and on the brown middle, she made it fuzzy by putting Fun Flock™ on it. Of course, I considered it to be one of those can’t-live-without-it-just-gotta-have-it-for-cardmaking, and before the week was over, I was happily flocking. So, here’s one of my flocked cards – I had to take its photo in a dark room with a flashlight so that the flocking can be seen well:

I just love how it makes the hats and jacket of the two boys fuzzy! And the snow banks, too!  The image is by Gina Jane from Daisie Company and the sentiment is printed using AL Afternoon Delight.

Me, oh my, I guess it’s getting to be a habit to be late in my updates here! Well, let’s just say that it’s taking me longer than I thought to adjust to the schedule of the kids…*sigh*.  And, we (me and my DD’s) are also running behind our usual output of 50 cards for this week – we haven’t even started (one DD came down with a fever of 102 *thankful that it’s not swine flu* , while the other DD is working on a difficult project that is due this Friday).  I’m thinking that a lot of you must be quite busy these past few days, too, because there are no packages this week. For those who are planning to donate cards to the Cards for a Cause: The Inmate Project, you still have a lot of time - we will be delivering the cards by October 17 to the California Institute for Women, so try to have the cards mailed by the first week of October. The card count for this week (this includes the 50 cards that DDs and I will be making this weekend) is… 680 cards! Hurray, hurray, hurray!

The featured card this week involves using things that I have had in my stash forever – and maybe yours, too. I have forgotten when I bought these sequins, but I thought they were pretty and I would use them for making some sequinned ornaments. Well, of course, that takes time, and time is something I don’t have much of with a toddler – now a preschooler -  around. So, yesterday, I challenged myself to come up with a card that uses these sequins and here is what I came up with:  

I used the snowflake pattern below, added the sentiment using AL Afternoon Delight font, and printed it on blue pearlescent cardstock (the picture doesn’t show the shimmer that much). Then, using the sequins,  some blue rhinestones, and glue (rubber cement), I covered the circles in the snowflake pattern. Pretty easy, eh? Note that if you don’t have sequins, you can use a hole puncher (crop-a-dile) and punch out some circles instead, or, you can make the whole snowflake out of rhinestones. Here is the snowflake pattern I used, just right click on the image and save it in your computer. It is in PNG format, so it has a transparent background.

I am late again in updating my blog because of some personal reasons (no, nothing tragic, just a family project that I undertook and finally finished yesterday, then some additional family activities that I didn’t figure in – my DS going to PeeWee soccer, and DD having to use the computer for research/homework). But still, we are continuing steadily  in making cards for the inmates in California Institute for Women. After this week, we only have three more weeks to go, and we have already surpassed our target of 500 cards! This week we received a package from Sandy(stmboat on the PC Crafter Message Board) with 4 wonderful cards.  The embossing that Sandy did on some of her cards is simply eye-candy! You can see her work plus all the other marvelous cards donated to the Cards for a Cause: The Inmates Project  in the gallery. My DDs and I will be completing our 50 cards for the week by this weekend again, which now brings the total number of cards to… 630 cards! Woooot!  ***doing the happy dance***

The featured cards this week are paper-pierced cards. Well, if you checked the gallery, you know who is the inspiration – Nanc! Her cards were so artistically done, and drew raves on the PC Crafter Message Board when she posted her work there. So, here are two cards that I did using the free paper-piercing pattern posted at the end of this post. The precious bird images are by Carolyn Shores Wright’s  Flights of Fancy I and II from PC Crafter. If you are new to paper piercing and would like to try it, here are some tips.   Basically what I did is to print the images on a card that measures 4.25″ x 5.5″, then print the paper-piercing pattern on a sheet of printer paper. Use a light box or window to line up the image and the pattern (if you are doing the piercing from the back, like I did, don’t forget to flip the pattern), then pierce away! The paper-piercing doesn’t take long, it’s super-easy to do with tools that you can find around the house, and it adds so much oooomph to the cards!

Just right-click on the free paper-piercing pattern below and save in your computer. For more digital paper-piercing patterns, check them out here.

I thought that the date 9/09/09 would be a lucky day (well, somewhat, because I don’t really believe in luck, LOL), but it didn’t turn out that way yesterday. Since it was a Wednesday, I was getting ready to upload pics to the gallery, but then a window suddenly popped out from AVG (anti-virus software), saying it had detected two trojan horse proxy viruses! Arrrgh! I tried calling “technical support” (DH), who was at the office, but as I was about to dial his number, I noticed that our phone (landline) was dead. Okay, back to the computer, tried to deal with the virus myself, but AVG kept saying that it couldn’t heal the damaged files. *Groan, groan* I don’t have a cell phone, but my DDs do, so I had to wait after school to call DH. Well, by 3:00 pm, I was finally able to call “technical support”, but there were several things that needed to be done, and lest I make the problem worse, I told DH, I’ll just have to wait until he gets back home. To make a long story short,  problems (virus and phone line) were fixed, and now, I’m happily back, yay!

Now for the card count: Glenna (Bricklady on the PC Message Board), sent 6 beautiful birthday cards using her own artwork (which you can see here) - Glenna, your handpainted roses are simply lovely! Then, Missy’s package  (Missybess on the PC Message Board) came,  with 20 pretty cards. Missy took after her mom (Nanc), with her artistry and eye for design, but she also has a style of her own. Thank you, Glenna and Missy! The work of both ladies, including the others who have donated so far in the Cards for a Cause: the Inmates Project, can be seen in the gallery.  DDs and I will finish making our 50 cards this weekend, bringing the total to….576 cards! Wooohoo! We’re already over the quota of 500 cards, and there are 4 more weeks to go! We’re going to make a lot of people happy!

The featured card this week is an envelope card:  the envelope is the card itself. Saves  time hunting the whole house for an envelope to fit the card, or the Internet for an envelope template, LOL!

The graphics used came from Chic Caddies – Fruit series , and the font is Albemarle Swash (love that font!).  You can decorate/design the flap, and you may also do the same on the inside of the card. Here is the template that I made and used, just  right click and save on your computer.  Again, for those who want the png format, just ask for it in the “comments” section.

Have you ever become emotional over a card? Well, I remember my Dad (who passed away already) and my sister would send me beautiful birthday cards, and I’d have a lump on my throat and tears in my eyes as I read the sentiments. I just did that again,  while taking pictures of the cards that Annie (Wannacraft on the PC Message Board) and  Nanc (Nanc on the PC Message Board)   sent for the Cards for a Cause: The Inmates Project.  Annie sent 7  elegant cards using the gorgeous artwork of Carolyn Shores Wright, combined with beautiful embossing and punched borders. Nanc, who had always been very vocal in her support of this project, sent 100 cards – yes, you read that right,  a hundred! She did a lot of styles in her card making, each card lovingly and beautifully made, with images from PcCrafter, Daisie Company and Gem’s Cottage, and it’s really mind-boggling to me how she came up with enough different ideas to make one hundred cards!  What a labor of love!  To see the work of both ladies (and also to understand why I got teary-eyed), you can check out the cards in the gallery.  As for me and my DDs, we will finish (we’re not yet done because they went back to school this week, so we intend to by this weekend) 52 cards, for a total  card count of…. 500 cards!!!  We are just so thrilled and grateful!

The featured card this week involves decorating a digital wreath. There are many ways to do this – punch some flowers and leaves, attach to the wreath with pop dots, add a ribbon and voila! you have a card that has the dimensional feel of a real wreath:

Note that depending on the color and  flowers you use, this wreath can easily morph into a Christmas wreath (use poinsettias and holly),  a Halloween wreath (use sunflowers and add punched/die-cut pumpkins, witches, spiders and bats),  a Spring/Easter wreath (use pastel colored flowers)…. there are so many possibilities! Here’s another wreath, this time, decorated digitally with a partridge from Victorian Christmas, with a red ribbon added as an accent:

I hope that this whetted your appetite and you’re raring to create with this digital wreath, just right click on the image and save into your disk. This is in jpeg format, with a size of 3″ x 3″ at a resolution of 150 ppi (you can size it any way you want to, though, just watch out for image distortion). If you prefer a png format, just request for it under “Comments” and I will e-mail it to you.