Tuesday Card

Another week plus a few days since my last post.  I've gone through an emotional few days:  the purge in my craft room has been underway.  The first task was to empty some plastic containers that turned out to have hundreds of photos that didn't make it to my sons' life albums or an album I started years ago.  That means some of the photos were older than 30 years!  After that, I started on shelves containing craft supplies that were just collecting dust.  Old stamps were included (there is NO ONE in my area who stamps!), as were some altered art supplies.  Finally, I got to one card:  Chelsea's Tuesday card.  I didn't start until Wednesday, which was the Fourth of July, so it wasn't mailed until Thursday.  I'm still not in the card-making mode, unfortunately.

The Prima flower was the inspiration for this card; once I decided to use it, I searched for complementary papers. The embossing folder of dotted concentric circles led to the pink dotted circle of designer paper.  That little leaf diecut fell out of paper I was handling.  Hopefully, I will soon be back "in the mood" for crafting, but it's rodeo time here, so my photography takes precedence for a week. 

Tuesday Card

I've posted before about my young friend Chelsea being a wife, mother of 3, nurse, a rancher's wife, and a horsewoman who loves to rope. In her spare time, she writes a bi-monthly column about ranch life in an agricultural newspaper.  One of her recent columns told of all the hats she wears, and how she loves that roping "hat."  I used one of the three horse stamps that I own for today's card. It's from Technique Junkies.  I stamped it in SU's Going Gray, cut the image with a "wonky" die, applied it to distressed-look designer paper, and applied some of my very favorite matte Sparkles.  

Tuesday Card

Obviously, I've been slacking in the card-making ... my last post was a week ago, for a Tuesday card.  Today, I had the card made ahead of time and still missed getting it in the mail.  (As I've explained before, our mail is picked up at the post office around noon and is trucked all the way across the state for sorting, and then is trucked back ... in the case of this card, to an address that's just 30 miles from me.)    But I digress:  I love the color of this cardstock and I love tiny polka dots.  It's a piece of cardstock I purchased at a JoAnn's store a few months ago.   Instead of Thursday, Chelsea will receive her card on Friday this week.

Tuesday Card

I was going to deliver this personally on Tuesday, because Chelsea and I were having lunch together.  However, I left it in the car in the parking lot across the street.  So it goes in the mail on Wednesday.  

I'm not terribly fond of this design...the stripes just don't do it for me.  However, it's a completed card, so I'm sending it.   Penny Black image and SU! sentiment.  After I applied the stripes to the card front, I dry embossed everything.  The image was colored with watercolor markers (the color is really more of a cantaloupe shade than the orange).  

Tuesday Card

I've been absent for just about a month, but Chelsea has still received a card each week, except the day we were surprised in Brooklyn with our son's wedding!   When we were in New York for 12 days, I bought a letterpress card with an image of the Statue of Liberty and mailed it to her; when we returned home, I dug in my stash for a card to mail.  Today's card is a new one, but one created from a piece of alcohol ink background.

The flowers are Hero Arts.

Tuesday Card

I have this great My Favorite Things plaid paper pad; today, I decided I wanted to make a plaid card to send to Chelsea.  It's about as simple as can be: cover the card front with the plaid paper, die cut two "wacky" rectangles for the focus piece and sentiment and add some cute embellishments. ( I recently purchased 5 cards of Doodlebug Sprinkles in matte, so I'm going to use them often!) I added a strip of the plaid paper inside and on the back of the card.

Tuesday Card

For this week's card, I chose to make one from designer paper. This is from a Prima pad "Romance Novel" and the sentiment is one of those great Penny Black ones.  I covered the card base with the floral print, and then cut the ledger sheet with a stitched rectangle die and tied a bow with skinny twine.  The yellow dots are those pretty matte adhesive ones.  

Back Home in time for Tuesday's Card

We just spent 3+ days on the west side of Oregon celebrating our granddaughter Ava's first birthday.  What fun!  This morning, I made a very simple card in time to mail to Chelsea.

The base of the card is one of those alcohol ink backgrounds created by Kennedy; I had backed it with black weeks ago, but hadn't decided how to use it yet.  The image and sentiment are a set from Unity.  

Tuesday Card

I bought these "krafty" flower embellishments at Michael's in Hillsboro, Oregon...the only purchase I made in a store where I was overwhelmed by the size and the inventory!  Big cities have big Michael's, and maybe on one of our visits to our grandbaby again, I'll visit the store by myself when there is no time limit.  For Chelsea's card this week, I also inked a new sentiment stamp design by Dina Kowal for Impression Obsession.  Dry embossing and a paper "ribbon" completed the card.

Tuesday Card

There was  this leftover piece of glittery cardstock in my craft room, so I chose to make a "glitzy" card for this Tuesday.  The spiky flower is a Spellbinders die and "shine" is one of a collection of word dies purchased on Blitsy.

Tuesday Card

I skipped a week of Tuesday cards when I was gone for "grandbaby duty" last week.  Today's card will be delivered in person because Chelsea and I have a date for coffee.  If I mailed the card, it wouldn't arrive until Thursday, although the destination is only 30 miles away.  The USPS "consolidated" its sorting sites more than a year ago, which means all of our mail travels about 350 miles west before coming back east for delivery.  That's rural America for you!  (Seriously...there is a little town 8 miles south of here; a piece of mail from here would go all those 350 miles away and then be trucked back a couple of days later.)

For this week's card, I chose another of Unity's faceless women, "Within Us."  It's stamped on watercolor paper and colored with SU's markers. 

Tuesday Card with Alcohol Inks

For this week's Tuesday Card, I'm using another alcohol ink background created by my young niece. They are just too pretty not to use! 

When I decided to use the piece and the card color, I knew I wanted to accent that vibrant magenta/fuchsia color of ink.  Digging through my endless stash of cardstock, I found two sheets of the perfect color of metallic cardstock.  I don't even recall when I bought it.   The sentiment is from a new sheet of sentiments by Impression Obsession.  (The criss-cross pattern showing on the card is really shadow from the sheer curtain on the window.)

Wintry Love for a Tuesday Card

Since winter has returned...actually, it's behaving like winter for only the second time this season...I decided it was a good time to post this "cold weather" card.  The faceless image with a winter scarf and mittens is  "Hello Love"  from Unity; "joy" is an old Stampin' Up sentiment.  The background was created with Distress Oxide inks.  I chose this for my Tuesday card.  Chelsea and her family are in the middle of calving season--150 cows.  Last weekend, we had heavy snow and wind for two days, and today it was below zero.  (By the way, we actually got together for coffee last week! We spent 90 minutes talking and enjoying each other's company.)

Tuesday Card

Coffee was on my brain when I set out to make my Tuesday card this week. I was inspired by a digital sentiment about coffee, but as I worked on the card, I decided against that sentiment and went with one of my new Verve sets, "Happiness is..."  I chose two sentence endings that I think suit the busy mother of three, wife of a rancher, home visiting nurse, volunteer basketball coach for elementary girls.  Oh, she milks two cows a day, as well.  In the note inside my card, I told her we need to meet soon for coffee.  

A Tuesday Card

As I've explained earlier, I mail one of my cards every Tuesday to a young friend; this is a habit I started years ago for a dear college friend who had been diagnosed with cancer.  I mailed her a card each Tuesday until her death more than a year ago.  About a year earlier, I had started creating and mailing a second card to a new friend who lived on an isolated cattle ranch in NE Oregon.  That friend has since moved to a valley ranch only 30 miles from me, but she still gets a card.  This week's card was created with paper from an old Authentique pad, as well as new stamps and coordinating dies from Verve: Great Friend and Great Kindness.   

A Tuesday Card

About 6 years ago, I began sending a card every Tuesday to my wonderful friend from college years when she was diagnosed with cancer.  Three years ago, I added a young friend to my Tuesday mailing; she was living with her family on an isolated cattle ranch miles of narrow gravel roads from "civilization."  My old friend passed away in July of last year; I continued sending cards to my young friend.  This month, she and her husband moved with their three children, 150 cows and calves, a few horses, and several dogs to a new home in the valley just 35 miles from me.  During the time they were moving, I didn't send a card, but I've resumed the practice.

As I said in the card, the sentiment (from Technique Junkies) seems perfect for their situation. Her husband no longer has a regular paycheck, and she is taking a job as a visiting nurse.  Their children, who were the only students in a tiny one-room school, will be attending a school a few miles from their new home.

Obviously, alcohol inks were used to create the colorful background.  My 8-year-old great-niece organized my two containers of AI colors while I worked on the card.

Tuesday Mailing -- and Sad News

Although I haven't posted my Tuesday cards for awhile, I haven't missed a week.  Today, I mailed these two that feature a much-loved SU! dragonfly image with Scripture from the Book of Ecclesiastes.  "There is a time...for everything under Heaven."  That includes life and death.  Three hours after I mailed the cards, I received word that my college friend of 55 years had succumbed to cancer earlier today.  She had fought "C" for nearly 5 years.  I can say that I'm happy I was faithful about sending her a card every week during that time.

Tuesday Cards

Scrolling through my files of "favorites" and Pinterest cards, I saw one featuring a dictionary page or some other print.  So I dug out my pad of "Dear Jane" patterned paper (text from Jane Austen novels) and the Hero Arts Classic Bloom image.  SU markers provided the color to coordinate with the ribbon and some gold "Dazzling Details" and black Enamel Accents embellished the flower centers. 

Tuesday Cards

This week's cards include a revamped creation from a year or two ago and its similar "partner."  One of my favorite color combinations for cards is kraft and black.  The burlap flower with twine is the perfect embellishment.

Tuesday Cards

These were cards that started with a stamped image I knew I wanted to alter with bleach.  The image is from Memory Box. (Only when I looked at the cards on the monitor did I realize that one of the dry-embossed layers is upside down--at least in relation to the other.)