Cause and Effect

Good day everyone!

This week I am the guest designer at The Shabby Tea Room.

The Week #37 challenge is "Pick a Cause"...create a card or project in honor of your favorite cause/charity.

Boy did I have a hard time choosing just one as 

I have several that are near and dear to my heart.

Organ Donation (Mom received a kidney after being on dialysis for 3 years), 

The American Heart Association (This year Dad had two open heart surgeries within 3 months of each other),

Diabetes Awareness (runs on both sides of my family and I was diagnosed in May),

and the list goes on.

In the end, I chose to make a card to promote pet adoption.

At work I see many animals that are turned into the city kennels for one reason or another.  Maybe they are lost with no identification tags, the owners found that their pet was more than they could handle or they were abused and removed from their owners.
Whatever the reason, these souls deserve a second chance at finding a loving home.

With so many to choose from, why not consider checking out your

local shelter/kennel for your next pet.

Also, don't forget to have your dog or cat spayed or neutered!

Now, without further ado, here is my creation.

"Second hand animals make first class pets"

As I am new to making cards, I like to try different techniques with each one I create.

This particular one is a frame card.  I really love the dimension that it has but

unfortunately it does not show up well when photographed.

The background is recessed, the dogs were then added with pop dots, as was the banner

at the top and then the roses were adhered to the frame.

In person it actually looks like a mini shadow box.

  It may be hard to see but, the cat has his legs/paws wrapped around the dogs shoulders.

I just loved the picture and thought it was perfect for this card.

Kind of like the cat is saying "We're all in this together".

I adore the soft watercolor look of the papers I used.

They are from Raspberry Road.

The roses are all handmade by me to match the colors of the papers.

I dyed them using Marvy LePlume markers and hairspray.

I really love making the roses and watching them come to "life" with each

layer of petals that are added.

Well, that's all for now!

Until next time, 

Autumn Greetings

Just a short posting as I am running behind today with all that

I have to do before going into work this afternoon.

This week at The Shabby Tea Room this photo was provided as inspiration for our creations.

The colors are just lovely and can imagine the smell of the freshly baked cakes.

I decided to use the colors as I already have my Thanksgiving cards made and mailed.

This card will be sent to a distant relative along with some snapshots

taken at a recent family gathering.

Again, I am having difficulty with my photography.

I made myself a light box but I think I chose the wrong bulbs for my lamps.

I must have taken 20 pictures and they all came out with a yellow hue.

Going to have to do a little more research into the light sources to use.

That's all for now.

Until next time, 

Lavender and Lace

This weeks challenge at the Shabby Tea Room is Lavender and Lace.

We were to make a card using the following photograph as inspiration.

Pretty, pretty, pretty!

I must say I am a little disappointed in my card. 

Well, not so much in the card itself but rather in the way it photographed.

You can bearly see the embossing the white cardstock and it seem really flat.

It is a gloomy, overcast day here and I took my card outside

so I could get enough lighting but I still don't think it was bright enough.

I made the card to give to my daughter.

She is flying the nest today.  As I type, they are unloading the moving

truck at her new place. She is staying in the same town and only moving about

3 miles from our home but it may as well be 3000 as far as I am concerned. :(

I wanted to give her one last "momism" to remember.

I will place it in one of her boxes that she still needs

to transport so she can find it as she is unpacking.

I used some vintage lace that my mother had given me ages ago.

The retro flowers were punch from various papers and given a coating

of some glitter fingernail polish that I found and just love.

It give the paper some body and just the right amount of glimmer.

Gotta run!  Time to go to work!

Until next time!

Craftily Yours,

Becky Jo

85th Birthday Card

Yesterday was my great aunts 85th birthday party. I quickly made this card up and therefore not a lot of embellishments.  It was a little out of the ordinary for me but I had decided I needed to broaden my horizons and use some vivid colors instead of the soft pastels that I normally prefer.  I must say I do quite like the effect.

For dimension, the numbers were adhered with pop dots and I added the metal brad shapes to all four corners. Originally the background behind the numbers was left white as I wanted the numbers to "pop".  It turned out to be very lack-luster to say the least. As I had already adhered the cardstock down and couldn't remove it, I typed up a bunch of birthday related sayings in Inkscape, printed it onto acetate, and tranfered the image to the cardstock. I was happy with the results as the numbers are still predominate. I love using the acetate transfer technique. It saved this card from going into the trash bin and starting over. 

That's it for now.

 Until next time,