Midweek Throwdown Cards 4 Kids

This image is courtesy of Dustin Pike.

Our Daily Bread Designs April Challenge

First of all, I want to say that I was thrilled to be chosen as a winner in the "Our Daily Bread March Challenge".  I've been told by Operation Writes Home that I've won a $25 gift certificate to the Our Daily Bread web site.  When the confusion and dust settles on their side, and I receive my certificate, I am looking forward to getting a Scor Buddy.  I've been looking at them at Michael's for quite some time.  They are supposed to be great at not only helping to fold card bases better, but can be used in the actual design of a card.  It will definitely add some new dimension to my card making!  Here's the Our Daily Bread Designs web site. 

The challenge for April 2013 is "Things that Fly".  I immediately thought of butterflies.  Well, maybe not immediately, but the little gnats that have been flying around here this spring would not be as beautiful or exciting.  Neither would the mosquitos, which seem to be out early this year.  

The butterfly was colored with Prismacolor pencils, then blended with baby powder scented baby oil.  The background was made by rubbing pastel colored chalk placed on a hand-scalloped piece of cardstock onto a white piece of cardstock, then set with hairspray.  The butterfly was mounted with my version of dimensional tape, which is tiny pieces of recycled shipping box, with ATG tape on both sides.  The silver accents on the butterfly wings is simply 3D glitter fabric paint, which when dry, releases absolutely no glitter.  It allows me to have a little bit of glitter look without endangering our deployed Heroes.  

I made four of these cards, to be used as Any Hero cards.  There seems to be a shortage of Any Hero cards right now, so I encourage my readers to check out the Operation Write Home web page regarding Any Hero mail, and see if you can send in a letter or two to support those who support us daily.  http://operationwritehome.org/anyhero/ 

Our Daily Bread Challenge for March 2013

Sometimes the challenges are extra challenging for me because of my limited cropping equipment.  I don't have one of those fancy cutters, so when the challenge calls to use a scallop on my card, I either have to think a bit out of the (Cricut) box or pass.  I decided to give it a go with my trusty craft scissors.  Using craft scissors is frowned upon by some people, but I'm not one of them.  :-)

The flag stickers were provided by Trader Joe's market.  If you visit them at the right time they will give the stickers away at the cash register, and if you say what you are going to use them for, they will probably give you extra.  I made the scallops by first cutting out the appropriate sized circles with a circle cutter, then carefully cutting around the edge of the circle with my craft scissors.  The slightly off part of the circle where my cutting started and ended was conveniently covered by a gold ribbon.

Our Daily Bread goes Fruity

The Our Daily Bread Challenge for February 2013 is fruit.  I search through all my digis, and wasn't able to come up with much.  Fruit is just not one of those subjects that ends up on my cards very often.  After my extensive search, I did manage to locate a cupcake with a cherry on top.  The image is by Elizabeth Dulemba.  You can find her wonderful collection of images here  http://dulemba.com/index_ColoringPages.html,  I used Prismacolor pencils with baby oil to color the image, and metallic gel pens to color the sprinkles.

Midweek Throwdown Color Challenge

The December 19th throwdown challenged OWH card makers to make cards using the colors red, white & blue for our heroes to send home to their family and friends.  You can see the challenge here:  http://operationwritehome.org/midweek-throwdown-color-challenge-5/ 

Yesterday the world didn't end, as promised by the Mayans, but my ATG gun did meet its maker, so I decided to post something red, white and blue that was already in my box.  

Solid colored cardstock and a patriotic heart which I pre-colored using Microsoft Paint make this an All American card that I hope a hero will enjoy sending home.

 

 

December 2012 Our Daily Bread Challenge

My participation in Operation Write Home's various challenges has been lacking, but what has been lacking even more is my creative juices since I went back to work at the beginning of November.  It is as if working in special education preschool sucks the life right out of my "MOJO".  I don't know if it is because I use it all up at work or because I come home physically exhausted.  To solve this dilemma, I have set up various challenges for myself which arrive periodically via email, using www.memotome.com.  If you are not familiar with this web site, you're in for a treat.  For FREE they will send you email reminders for anything.  You decide how often they should come, the date and the time, etc.  Anyway, once per month it is now set up to remind me to participate in the Our Daily Bread challenge. This challenge is important because if we reach a certain number of cards, Our Daily Bread will donate the cost of postage to ship one box of Operation Write Home's cards to our deployed heroes, up to two per month.

Anyway, this month's challenge was easy for me.  We were challenged to make a card using flowers.  You can see the challenge here, as well as other entries:  http://operationwritehome.org/odbd-december-challenge/  There is glitter on the card, which is normally forbidden, but the glitter I use is in the form of Tulip Fabric Paint, which does not rub off at all.  I like this particular "believe" stamp.  One could take it as a religious meaning, but my take on it is that it reminds me of the scene in the movie "Polar Express", and is more of an expression of hope.

July "Our Daily Bread" Challenge - Think Cool

Each Month "Our Daily Bread" sponsors Operation Write Home for the shipping costs of up to two priority mail boxes.  These boxes containing blank greeting cards are sent to deployed service members all over the world.  For every 25 cards posted to the challenge site, the organization will cover the cost of one box.  I like to participate in the challenges when I can.

This month, with all of the heat waves and wild fires, the challenge is to think "Cool".  We are supposed to use cool colors and think cool thoughts while creating our entry, which in turn will become part of our donation to Operation Write Home.

A friend of mine from high school, Deena Oshins Newell has a son, Michael Oshins, who loves to create snowman comics. www.snowmencomic.blogspot.com I had admired his work for quite a while before approaching him with the idea of using his work on my Operation Write Home cards.  When I asked for permission, he didn't hesitate to get involved.  His comics on my cards provides some comic relief to  the service members and their families as they keep in touch during their trying times.

Anyway, here's my entry into July's "Our Daily Bread" challenge, using cool colors and Michael's creation.  The tag on top is what I put on the back of each card I create using his work.