First Cards -- EVER

My aunt passed away a year ago and we are now seriously cleaning out her house so we can rent it out. It was on the market for months but the market for even a great house is bad in her small town.

ANY WHO
I was going through boxes of stuff and came across a couple of cards I just had to share. They are the first cards I made myself. What a hoot. So nice that my relatives saved stuff like this. Some people I know toss cards they get immediately after reading them. This seems so cruel when the card is handmade special for you. One friend has even sent cards back to me so I could reuse the brads and other embellishments I had put on her cards.

ANY WHO
Here are the cards:

My aunt's birthday card from 1972 - it was still in the envelope so I had the postmark to go by. I was 7 years old.

This card had no envelope and no date so I have to guess at the date by the signatures in it. My cousin Janet's name is there but not her younger brother's so I have narrowed it down to 1974. Plus it's in cursive, 9 year old's cursive.

I am a Robot

Halloween 2007 - I am a Robot
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

I am not much of a scrapbooker. My son is 6 and a half and I haven't finished his baby book. [I may never get it done.]

I am going scrapbooking with a friend this coming weekend and so I am gearing up for that day-long event. Social scrapbooking keeps me on task. We are slightly competitive about how many pages we can get done in 12 hours. I never get a ton done, too busy chatting and cheering other scrappers most likely.

This is a page I did on the last scrapping trip. I LOVE the Cosmo Cricket paper and was so happy when it was made into fabric. Why I don't know - I don't sew and have no real use for the fabric but the thought of some robot-loving boy sleeping in robot jammies in a room with gears window coverings just makes me happy.

This page celebrates Halloween 2007 when we built a robot costume out of a Stampin' Up! packing box, a Bulk Buy Cheerios box, tin foil and aluminum tape. We added a jumbo calculator on the chest and small battery operated lights in the head piece. He walked around the house like a mummy, arms outstretched saying in an ominous monotone, "I AM A ROBOT."

The pictures would have covered too much of the beautiful paper so i cut the boy robot out . I had a lot of the metal tape used to make the costume left so cut the letters out of that.

This trip I am hoping to get a lot of Disney pages done. Be on the look out for that. If you wan to see pictures of night parade of other not too family specific images you can check out my flickr site.

1 tree three looks

RedBirdhouseDots
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

More in the Use It Up series.

This was the first card I made with the Branch Out stamp set.
I love this set.

Here are a couple more looks .

Grey Thanks - Use It Up

Yet another card from the Use It Up session a few days ago.

There are some details you may only be able to see in the close up, like the slight texture on the grey base from the SU Sanded background stamp or the leaf that is popped up.

I like this card. It's simple, slightly elegant and can be used for men or women. Man cards can be so difficult.


Stamps: A Little Bit of Happiness, Hostess set from the Spring/Summer 2008 catalog & Sanded background
Paper: Going Grey, Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, bordering blue, certainly celery, sage shadow, and mellow moss.
Embellishments: Black Brads

For You Deer - Use it up

For You Deer
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

The images are stamped with regular craft ink on a piece of acetate that has been painted with white acrylic paint. So easy, so quick, so cool that you an see the card stock through it.
Tiny scratch through tree courtesy of son checking to see if it really was paint. "Yes kid it comes off if you force it."

To see more Use It Up cards check out my flickr site.

Oddly Orange Mood - Use It Up Mode

I am in Use It Up Mode. Been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the drawer full of pre-stamped/pre-punched goodies and decided it was time to put them to use. Not all the cards created with scraps like these are gems, but not all cards I create when cutting on a mission are wonderful either.

I am also in an Oddly Orange Mood. Shades of orange are popping up all over the place in my work lately and that's probably a good thing. Everyone needs of bit if bright and cheery now and then. This first card is made with the now retired In-Color, Tangerine Tango, a strip of yellow and white plaid paper I never thought I would ever use, and a bit of old olive. I use the Upsy Daisy stamp set as a starting point for the watercolored image. I love the image and am happy enough with the card to post it.



The second card is my new favorite combination of colors. The now retired In-Color Kiwi Kiss, Only Orange, Summer Sun and Whisper White. I’ve been working with Very Vanilla so long (because I has SO much of it) that I forgot how wonderful white can be. I had this strip of lotus I had stamped months ago and finally put it on a card. Not thrilled with the text, but again happy enough with the card to post it.



I have several more cards from this late night Use It Up session, I finished 12, but they will have to wait to be posted. If they ever make it to the interweb at all.

845 views - huh?

tags
Originally uploaded by Kalyber

I was looking at my stats on Flickr and found that this is my most popular post by far. I has had 845 views to date and I'm not sure why. There are other tags, cards and photos that I think would rate higher on the Flickr "interesting" scale. Can anyone give me some insight? What has made these more popular than other items I have posted on Flickr. To see the rest go to my flickr site.

The things you find in old books

Here are more treasures from within the covers of old books I inherited. These were just shoved into the books for safe keeping.



I'm on vacation starting NOW and will not be posting for a week or more. Enjoy these until I get back and can post more.

Free Images!!

The aroma of the old homestead is a combination of musty cellar, dusty old books, sweet cedar and other real woods with maybe a hint of Jean Nate. It is the scent of memory, a parting gift from my relatives.

Last weekend we brought furniture and other items infused with that memory to my house. Bibles, prayer books, and schoolbooks filled with tattered newspaper clippings, cards and receipts, photos, and correspondence plus the bookcase that housed them all now live in my bedroom. A hi-fi center sits in the living room and my kitchen has “new to me” table and chairs that are decades old. Once we clean out the new, prefabricated, furniture in my son’s room his toys will be housed in a toy box my grandfather made for my dad. Over a hundred years of family history fills a house that was built 8 years after I was born.

I am in the process of gleaning. I must determine which items should be sent to the county historical society, which should go to other family members, which should be dumped and which should be posted for all you crafty types to use. There are some books and illustrations that may be fun to work with. I will be scanning them and posting them here.

If you look back through the posts you will see that I am erratic at best. Subscribing directly or through a blog reader service like Google Reader is the best way to insure you don’t miss a post or freebie by lazy posters like me.

The following images are from The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English; or Medicine Simplified. By R. V. Pierce © 1895 published by The World's Dispensary Printing Office and Bindery, Buffalo, NY

These are hi-res images, scanned full size. The Penmanship Sample was tucked into the medical book. There was never any rhyme or reason I could find as to why certain clippings were in certain books.

Enjoy.

Remember when...

Remember the day you graduated from High School or College? 

Remember the night you partied after graduation?

Remember the morning after the night you partied after graduation?

Look familiar?

This picture is of my 6-year-old son the morning after his kindergarten graduation. We're off to a good start.