No longer here....

In case you've stumbled across this blog that I have no idea to delete, I just thought I would let you know that it has moved:

I'm now blogging at my website:

www.carolyneaarsen.com

Please go over there to find out the latest about my books. For a chance to win a signed book, sign up for my newsletter. I promise I won't give your name out to anyone else or spam you. So check out:

www.carolyneaarsen.com

Anniversary cards

Had a couple of anniversaries to celebrate so I made two cards - one for each. Apologies to my cousin and my sister-in-law if they are both reading this and are appalled that I didn't make them an individual card. My creativity can only stretch so far! 

Papertrey Blog Hop

This is my very first kick at the Blog Hop can. I loved the colours we were given to work with and I loved the inspiration photo. I want these dishes!

 I was also a bit intimidated by what the other people already made but thought, hey, someone has to come up the middle. I don't reach for black very often when I'm making a card. Always in the back of my mind is Archie Bunker's wife, Edith screeching out, "Black is for funerals". But I had fun with it which is kind of the point of card-making. Furrowed brows and expressions of anger do not belong in a card room. Usually. Until I drop my Memento black ink cube on my already stamped Mat Stack and have to cut and stamp all over again. Thankfully the garbage is within tossing distance and with one flick of my decisive wrist, said corrupted Mat Stack was destined for the garbage heap. Except we live out on the intersection of No and Where, so in our case - the burning barrel.

Long story short - here's the card. Hope you enjoy. And I still want those dishes!

Thank you Card

I wanted to make a thank you card, but I wanted to make it small. This was a bit of a challenge because I'm from the school - One is Good, Two is Better, Three is best of all. And if I can get Four, I'm in heaven. But with a small card I had limited space to pile the accent pieces on. I pulled out some of my smaller dies and stamps - these are from Poppy Stamps and I've been itching to use them. I bought the tendril die to use on Poppy Stamps window box that goes with their Window Frame and the shutters that belong to the window frame. They also have two doors that I've been holding off on. With me one thing kind of leads to another and suddenly my credit card is crying for mercy. Anyhow, this was kind of fun to do. And fun to use dies that I'd been itching to use since I got them.

Lets try one more

I mean, why not? I'm done writing for the day and I need to fill the creative well and stay away from the cream puffs that are calling out to me from the freezer. They're all the way downstairs, but they have this persistent whiny voice - eat me, eat me. So I figured I'd stay up here and make yet another butterfly card and hope the cream puffs go to sleep. I know I've done butterflies but I love this set and I love the font of the sentiments. I wanted to make a card for a special someone and since I am severely colour challenged, I figured I would do yet another take on the colour challenge. I managed to weasel the Kraft into the sentiment, but I really think these colours would have worked better with leaves and grass, but that's just me. Anyhow, here it is. 

Two challenges in one

I'm tackling two challenges in one go with this card. Jury is still out for me whether or not I succeeded in taking other concepts and making them mine. I was a bit stuck using the colours for the first challenge. I used Fine Linen but it just didn't speak to me. Now mind you, it's paper, so of course it doesn't talk. It's the whole lack of lips thing I think. 

So I thought, Carolyne, don't be such an oldest child stickler for the rules and toss that Fine Linen out the window. But the window was closed and I can't throw out paper larger than one inch square, so I just put Fine Linen back in my paper file, pulled out my Vintage Cream and went with it. Then there was the whole adventure with Hawaiian Shores. I cut butterflies, flowers, leaves out of that colour, and again, couldn't get it to come together.

Instead I pulled out a button, shut my mind off to the whole Nichole Heady rule of three (though I did follow that one with the other colours so I felt justified in breaking it for HS) and put one measly HS button on the tag. Anyhow, here it is. Color Challenge Mojo Monday.

Card Doctors II

I was having trouble with a card and posted that yesterday. Thankfully I got some really good advice from Leah and that was to change the orientation of the card. I did that and then I also tried to apply some of Nichole Heady's advice of the Rule of Three from the last Make It Monday video. I think this card is better. I like it better anyway. I balanced the sentiment label and pushed it closer to the flowers, made the leaves smaller and added another smaller flower to create some balance. I put the Canyon Clay buttons (made out of paper because I don't have those buttons yet) on the flowers to bring three versions of the colour onto the card and spread the leaves out as well. I think it works much better. Still not completely there, but I'm happier. What do you think? Just in case you didn't see it, here's the first version.