Welcome to my card-loving friends.  I hope you are having a great week.  I had so much fun making Easter cards for my family, I just couldn’t stop.  This card was super easy and quick to make.

This beautiful cross is a digi stamp and called Lily Cross, by Eureka Rubber Stamps.  I colored it with Copic markers, my preferred method of coloring my digis.  I love to color flowers like this, it gives me an opportunity to practice my blending techniques.  I created the sentiment directly in Word – one of the quickest tools for me to create sentiments.

My photography, however, needs some work.  In reality, the blending of the yellow halo is much more subtle than the picture shows.  Someday, perhaps, my photography skills will improve so what you see on screen is what you would see in person.  Anyway, this card was a lot of fun to make.

Thanks again for stopping by today, I hope you have a fantastic Easter.  Don’t forget to check out other Easter cards on the Outlawz Greeting Card Challenge this week, because there are some fantastic cards created by our viewers as well as the Design Team.

Hugz and Creativity,
Linda O

Can you believe it – it’s Palm Sunday already, and next week is Easter.  I know Easter is later than usual this year, but so is Spring weather (at least in my part of the woods).  I wanted to make my Easter card extra colorful to help coax the weather to be more enjoyable.  Alex is hosting this week’s Outlaw Greeting Card challenge and the theme is Easter.  My digi is called Basket Bunny from Rick St Dennis (a.k.a. RSD).

The background and card-stock paper is from my stash – I wanted something colorful and this matched the way I colored my digi.  I wanted to be a little creative with the sentiment, so I created it in Word and just printed a few across the top of a piece of white card-stock.  Taking a piece of scrap paper, I hand drew an egg (pushing my artistic drawing talents to their very limit), and after a few tries, I had the shape that I wanted.  I traced lightly around the hand drawn egg onto my printed white paper and cut it out to shape.  Then I glued my egg onto my background card-stock and trimmed closely.  I’m somewhat of a perfectionist at most things, but this time, I settled for an “OK – it’s close” attempt.

I hope to post a second card this week – so check back later.  In the meantime, thank you for stopping by, and be sure to stop in on the Outlaw Greeting Card challenge to see the great cards my teamies have put together.

Have a creative and great week.

Hugz,
Linda O

Hello again, oh great and crafty peeps!  My challenge for today’s card was to take something ugly and turn it into something more appealing.  I tried and tried, but I couldn’t find anything I really thought was ugly, so I had to settle for some dp that I liked less than other dp.

I loved the digi I had to work with – it’s called Hooty Hoo and came from Creative Bug Digis.  I colored it with my Copics and colored a second copy of the Owl and the large mushroom and popped them up on the page.

This week’s Outlawz Greeting Card challenge is U-G-L-Y You don’t have an alibi – Use ugly (to you) paper and make it beautiful.  Join us to see what my Design Team Teammates have come up with.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fun and creative week.

Hugz and creativity,
Linda Osterwise

Isn’t it fantastic – my Mother-In-Law turns 97 today!  She’s a wonderful woman that has been an inspiration to me since I married her son almost 43 years ago.  She’s self sufficient, takes care of others, and loves to watch birds bathe and splash in the birdbath in her back yard.

I love making cards for Mom to share with others, but this time it’s for her!  Mom, I wish you a very happy birthday and a healthy year.

The digi on this card is from Limited Runs, and is known as Birdhouse #4.  Check out next Monday’s Outlawz Greeting Card Challenge to see this card and several others featuring cards with Texture.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today and have a very creative week.

Hugz and creativity.
Linda

Hi – thanks for stopping by.  My card today is for the Outlawz Greeting Card Challenge.  The theme this week is Coffee and Friends, the Perfect Blend.

My card is a hybrid, the digi in the forefront is called Breakfast and comes from our sponsor, Guylous Inimitability.  I created the background of the card in Photoshop Elements using digi paper I purchased quite some time ago.  (Sorry I cannot remember the name of the vendor – that was back in the day that my digi organization skills hadn’t been properly developed – a skill I’ve been working on ever since).

Thanks again for stopping by.  Please join us at the Outlawz this week to see what my fellow design team members have come up with for inspiration.  Have a great and creative week.

Hugz and creativity,
Linda

Most of the country (and from what I’m hearing, other parts of the world as well), has been going through a very cold and messy winter.  I thought it might be time to think some warm thoughts.  I found the cutest digi from Inky Impressions, called Summer Fun – Owl.  Doesn’t he make you want to run outside and play with a beach ball?  If only we could!

I colored my digi with Copic Markers, and I used Glossy Accents for the sun, the beach ball, his eyes, and the tip of his beak.  I thought those little accents would finish the design.  The sentiment is also from Inky Impressions, and I like the feeling that it portrays, don’t you?

This card is part of Monday’s Greeting Card Challenge with the Outlawz (scheduled for Monday, Feb 4th).  Be sure to check out the other fantastic cards you will see there featuring designs from Inky Impressions and Fred She Said.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a very creative and great week.  If you don’t need to think warm thoughts for yourself, think warm thoughts for others!  lol

Hugs and Creativity,

Linda O

I was so lucky this week to be asked to teach a card-making technique to a great group of women from my mother-in-law’s church.  I knew that several of these gals were experienced card makers, so I wanted to come up with something fun and a tad bit different, but easy enough for the not-so-experienced.  I decided to demonstrate making colorful backgrounds with alcohol inks.  I had an absolute blast!  (And, if any of you are reading my post – I really appreciated your enthusiasm!)

Materials Used:

• Focal point (design) of card; final size 2 ½” wide by 3 ½” tall
• Card-stock to use as matting for design card – final size 2 ¾” wide by 3 ¾”
• Card base – 4 ¼” wide by 5 ½” tall (ours is top-fold made by cutting 8 ½” x 11” in half, vertically, and folded at the 5 ½” mark)
• Glossy Photo Paper 4” by 5 ¼”
• Ribbon
• Alcohol inks (Copic Marker Various Refills or Adirondack Alcohol Inks)
• Felt pieces and applicator (wood block with a piece of “rough” Velcro on one edge) for “daubing” ink.

The focal point of my card came from a rubber stamp this time, but I thought it would be fitting for the occasion. So that I could focus my class on the inking technique itself, and not the intricacies of cutting various sizes of paper, I pre-cut all of the paper pieces for the cards and then stamped and embossed several focal pieces before class. This saved time in class and allowed everyone to make multiple cards in a short period of time.

For the background paper, we inked the pad by adding 3 to 5 drops of each color.  Once inked, we dabbed it, twisted it, and/or smeared it all over our paper to create different effects. Sometimes we had to re-ink the pad to complete our page.  It was absolutely amazing to see how many combinations and designs we created this way – no two were alike!  What fun!

Once our backgrounds were finished, we assembled our cards.

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope this gives you some inspiration to try something new.  This technique is fun to do, and for me, it was more fun because I was able to share it with others and watch them have fun.

Since my card doesn’t match any challenge criteria for the week (that I’m aware of), I won’t be submitting it, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a very creative and fun week.

Hugs and creativity,
Linda