Magazine Monday!

It's storming in the Ozarks yet again but I did want to grab a quick couple of minutes and show you this week's card before I drop it in the mail.

I've nearly depleted my magazine stash. I find myself going back to the same ones over and over. That's a good thing, right? One area I haven't touched are the Take Ten magazines from Stampington. I love this quarterly publication because it's all about cards created by people who LOVE to play with ink/ stamps/ paper and cardstock. So for the next several weeks, all of the designs will come from my back issues of Take Ten.

This week I'm starting the series from the 2005 Volume 4 issue. Rather than be inspired by a layout, I had an idea in my head and went looking for one to coordinate. I spend a lot of my mornings in a local small-town cafe called Flossie's Apple Barrel. There are your regulars who come in. One gentleman just turned 95 years young last month. Ray Haynes is as sharp as a tack and has grown up around Winona MO all his life.

Until a week ago he's been getting around under his own steam. Still drives his little blue pickup to the cafe several days a week - just to get out of the house. But last week, Ray took a nasty fall and he's looking at several weeks in rehap at Birch Tree Care Facility. So I wanted to send Ray a card to hopefully brighten his day. Now if I can just sneak him in a piece of his favorite pie :-)

So with Ray in mind and a pre-stamped image from a swap in hand, I went through the Take Ten. The closest I could find to an idea I had is from Linda Beeson - check out her blog at PaperCutting Kind of Day. It's a really cool blog!

Linda's creation for this issue was called Giraffe Greeting. She used a image and sentiment from Stampin UP, coloring the giraffe with a yellow crayon (when's the last time we used those!) Her center panel is an animal print layered on a black cs strip. Her giraffe image was layered over a caramel stamped background which she'd mounted on black and it was off-set to the right of the card. She stamped the sentiment on a smaller matted square and overlapped the image a bit. Everything was neat, clean and crisp. Very pretty card.

Well, you know I like texture and before finding this, I'd already torn my paper strip. LOL All my papers were from the DCWV Old World slab and the image is from a retired SU set.

Here's what I came up with for Ray:

I decided not to color the truck. I thought it looked fine just the way it is. I think I am going to add a little color to the flowers. I was so concerned with getting this uploaded before I had to shut down due to storms, I didn't even think about it. LOL So picture those flowers with a bit of color.

Tomorrow I'll show you pics of the CD albums. They are finished and ready to go postal!

Magazine Monday!

What spurs you into making a card? Is it the desire to be creative? Is it because you need one for an occasion?

For me this week, it happens to be both. I love to play... I've done more of it than writing this year. But I also have a very dear friend who's finding himself unable to do the things he's used to doing on a daily basis. It's trying for him and for his wife who has gone from having her daily routine sidetracked. I've been there and I know what she's going through. Maybe I should have sent her a card this week. Hmmm

But I knew Wally could use some cheering up so when I sat down to create the card for Magazine Monday last night, I knew it had to have a masculine flair.

I chose a card from the May 2005 Cardmaker Magazine. When I pulled the magazine off the shelf, it literally fell open on the desk to Butterfly Wishes by Karen Robinson . The card was all soft green and leaf patterned paper with a butterfly and sheer green ribbon. AND it was a Get Well card.

I thought it a bit feminine for Wally's card. So I pulled out the Elegant Soiree paper from SU. Have you seen this? It's beautiful, elegant and goes great with Baja Breeze SU CS. I just got this package and am already planning on ordering more next month.

Okay, back to the card. I followed Karen's basic design layout. Where she stitched around both mats as well as where the two papers met, I chose to only do the latter. She used a gold all-purpose sewing thread and machine stitched. I chose to hand pierce and stitch with a blue-toned crochet thread. I replaced the butterfly with an eagle. Wally likes eagles. I also bypassed on the ribbon and just added a touch of the Baja Breeze CS beneath the sentiment mat.

Mine isn't as elegant as Karen's. It's more basic and simple. But sometimes it's more about letting you someone know you're thinking of them than it is about the decoration.

Creative Blessings!

Kel