ODBD Anniversary Kick-Off

Today begins a super fun week as Our Daily Bread designs celebrates its first year in business. Each day for the next week, two design team members will be posting fun projects, tutorials, and loads of blog candy. Then on the 17th, we'll culminate the celebration with the release of a very special anniversary stamp set and a blog hop too. I'm lucky enough today to kick off the celebration with teammate Angel Wilde. Be sure to check out her blog, Angelosity, for a demonstration of Shimmerz and some yummy blog candy!

I'll be showing you how to create a lattice background using a Scor-Pal, but before I get to that, how about a chance to win more great prizes? Play along in the Bread Basket {aka Design Team} Scavenger Hunt! You'll find each of the following items on one of the design team members' blogs. When you have found all of the items, copy the list below into an email, and include which blog you found it on, then send your list to our DT Coordinator, Judy Rozema, at lidaroseroz@yahoo.com. Deadline is Thursday, March 12, midnight CT. All correct entries will be put into a “bread basket” (lol) and three winners will be drawn on Friday, the 13th! It could be your lucky day! Prizes and winners will be announced on the ODBD blog on Friday!

Here's your list of items (and remember the items can all be found on the main blog pages, not in the actual posts, so you only have to check banners, sidebars, and such)

A pink and green tree
A dancing giraffe
A NeoPod
A foggy river
A playlist with “Jesus Take The Wheel”
A snapdragon
A daisy with a ladybug
A duck
A red flower
A lemonade stand
A stamping sponge

And here's the full list of Design Team Members (you can also find the links on the lefthand sidebar of my blog):

Kelley Holland (owner of Our DailyBread Designs)
Angel Wilde
Angella Crockett (guest designer)
Angie Zublionis
Becca Feeken
Betty Wright
Chris Olsen
Dina Kowal
Holly McMillen (guest designer)
Jane Wetzel
Judy Rozema
Laurie Schmidlin
Lorelie Kim
Sandee Shanabrough (guest designer)
Sita Mahadeo

Good luck!!

Now, for a quick how-to on creating the lattice background in three easy steps using a Scor-Pal. This is not my idea -- I'm just showing you how to do it. The Scor-Pal and accessories are available in the Our Daily Bread Designs store. I held out on this gem of a product for a long, long time, but I can honestly tell you, I'm so happy I got it, because I use it every single day! I {heart} my Scor-Pal!

Today I'm working with one of my favorite older ODBD sets, Path of Life. The beautiful main image is large, so I chose to work on a 5 1/2" card base. I love the lattice look on white especially, as it is such a classy way to dress up the plain white background. I also love working with the Prismatics papers because of the nice texture. First you'll want to cut your paper to 5 1/2 x 11.



Step 1: With the texture side up (if you're using textured paper), use your Scor-Pal to score on the 11" side at 5 1/2" so you'll know where to fold to make the card base.





Step 2: Flip the paper over so the texture side is down and place your paper at an angle on the left side of the Scor-Pal bed so that the top right corner fits into the little notch at the 5" mark along the top. For this card size, the other corner should fall at approximately the 2" mark. Use your scoring tool to score every 1/2-inch.






Note: When your get to the middle score lines, you'll need to stop at, or even just a tiny bit past where your line reaches the middle of the card, as shown. Remember - you'll want the scoring to look perfect on the front of the card. If you go past a tiny bit, you won't even see it on the back once the card base is folded.



This is what it looks like after completing Step 2:





Step 3: Rotate your paper and move it to the right side of the Scor-Pal bed, lining up the opposite corner into the notch at the 7" mark along the top. Score at every 1/2-inch.



This is what it looks like after completing step 3:



Your background is done!



How easy is that?! Now you're ready to finish your card as you desire.

My main image was colored with Prismacolor pencils, matted twice and popped up on dimensionals. The Scripture was heat-embossed, cut out with Nestabilities and also popped up. I finished up with a simple ribbon along the bottom tied into a bow, a scallop border punched bottom, some Dew Drops, photo corners, and paper piercing.

Thanks for stopping by!



Stamps: Path of Life (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Paper: White, Black, and Herbal Garden Prismatics, Georgia Pacific white
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black (for image); Versafine Onyx Black (sentiment)
Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, blending stumps, Gamsol; Scor-Pal, Offray ribbon, Spellbinders circle Nestabilities, SU scallop border punch, photo corner punch, and paper piercer; Robin's Nest Dew Drops

Bunnies, Butterflies, and Flowers - Oh My!

All that yummy new Verve I've been talking about for the last few days has now been officially released! You'll find all eight new sets and five new Plain Jane single images in the Verve store. Be sure to check out the bundle pricing, good through the end of the month (while supplies last).

Here are a few projects I showed at the release party tonight, but haven't posted here:

Practically Perfect:



I used Amber's Viva La Verve March Week 1 sketch with a twist. The twist this time was to use buttons. Think I got that part covered? LOL. I colored this little sweetie with Prismacolors and layered it three times - first the body, second the head and feet, and third the bowtie. Silly me, when I first started coloring I had a baby girl card in mind. When I got to the bow-tie, I said, "Hey, wait a minute, where are her pearls?" I had pulled out the wrong bunny, but you know what, he's just as sweet! This is an awesome set with both the boy and girl bunnies and some great mix-and-match sentiments, too! [Update: I've received a lot of emails asking for more info about the embossed buttons. They were done with a Cuttlebug embossing folder from the Just My Type collection (there are five borders in this collection). I did a quick search and was able to find them at All That Scraps. Here's a direct link: Just My Type Embossing Borders ]


Floral Symphony and Circular Sayings:



Y'all know I can spend for-EVAH on just one card, right? Well, with Mo and Jo (as Amy calls them) up and leaving for a few weeks this month, combined with sick kids this past week, I found myself a little behind on my Verve projects. So I had to speed up a little, and you know what? Making a quick card wasn't so bad! This one was finished in about a half-hour. I had sketched out most of my layouts when the stamps first arrived a month or so ago, so the hard part was already done. I don't know how well you can see it, but there is a very light hint of Soft Sky behind the flowers. I used a trick I learned from Ila at Artfully Ila, which is to mask the image and use a mop brush to apply the ink, kind of like stippling, but the mop brush is so much softer that it gives the sky more of an airbrushed look. I was just looking at the Copic airbrush system ($150) tonight. My mop brush was probably less than $10 :)


Beautiful Kindness:



Still lovin' the yummy colors of the "Chloe's Closet" line by Making Memories. When I used Beautiful Kindness for my Verve Release Sketch sample yesterday, I felt like such a cheater because I used just the sentiment and didn't stamp the beautiful butterfly at all! It's WAY to pretty to leave uninked!


Psalm 51:10 and Everlasting Life



A fun layout and cool papers I'd been wanting to try. The Scripture is a Plain Jane stamp, and the light blue flower behind it comes from Everlasting Life. For the buttom "ruffle," I punched white card stock with Stampin' Up's scallop border punch, then used scissors to make the slits between each scallop. I curled every other one up and the remaining ones under. This very well may fall into the "what was I thinking?" category at some point - LOL. It looked really nice when I tried it out with lightweight copy paper. Not quite the same with cardstock.


Thanks for stopping by! See you on Tuesday as Our Daily Bread Designs kicks off a fabulous week-long celebration leading up to its first anniversary the next Tuesday (March 17).



Practically Perfect:
Stamps: Practically Perfect (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Papertrey White, SU Bashful Blue
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black; Ranger Antique Linen Distress
Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, blending stumps, Gamsol; SU clear button and taffeta ribbon; white button (unknown); burlap string; clear embossing powder; Cuttlebug button embossing folder; foam adhesive

Floral Symphony Thanks:
Stamps: Floral Symphony and Circular Sayings (Verve Stamps)
Paper: SU Basic Black and Soft Sky textured card stock, Basic Grey Urban Prairie, Papertrey White
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, SU Soft Sky
Accessories: Copic markers, mop brush, clear embossing powder, foam tape, paper piercer, Robin's Nest dew drops, Spellbinders Piercabilities

Beautiful Kindness:
Stamps: Beautiful Kindness (Verve Stamps)
Paper: SU Buckaroo Blue, Kiwi Kiss; Prismatics Medium Desert Coral; Making Memories "Chloe's Closet" dp
Ink: SU Not Quite Navy craft, Buckaroo Blue
Accessories: Spellbinders circle and square Nestabilities and tag die, Chloe's Closet button and ribbon, burlap string, clear embossing powder, foam adhesive

Psalm 51:10:
Stamps: Everlasting Life, Psalm 51:10 (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Riding Hood Red and Whisper White (SU); Dutch Girl by Cosmo Cricket
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Soft Sky, Ranger Old Paper Distress Ink
Accessories: Robin's Nest dew drops, Spellbinders Nestabilities, SU scallop border punch and Riding Hood Red ribbon, sewing machine, foam adhesive, sponges

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

I love the Plain Jane stamp line that Verve Stamps introduced last year. Julee wanted to give Verve customers a way to pick up additional stamps at a very affordable price, so she began offering single images for only $3 each. There's nothing "plain Jane" about the stamps - the name simply refers to the fact that the stamps are packaged without the printed index on the acetate carrier sheet, which helps keep the cost low.

The Plain Jane stamps coordinate well with Verve's image stamps, but one of my favorite things is to build a card around just the single stamp. I used a PJ called Little Star, Jen's Sketch For You To Try, and some papers from the Nana's Nursery Baby Boy Collection by Die Cuts With a View to create this baby girl card. I modified Jen's sketch a tiny bit by adding the circle panel for the sentiment, but the basic lines of the sketch are still there.

Little Star will be releasing tomorrow, along with four other Plain Janes and a whopping eight full sets. The Release Party starts at 8 pm EST!

Check out what the rest of the SFYTT team put together this week:

Jen del Muro ... who has the sketch and a WONDERFUL new guest designer to announce!!
Amy Rohl
Carole Burrage
Kelly Lunceford
Susan Liles

A girl can never have too many sketches to work with, especially with so many awesome new Verve sets to play with, so when Julee announced a special weekend sketch challenge, I wanted to put together something for that one, too. Three random participants will receive their choice of a set from tomorrow's big release. You can find the sketch and all the details on the Verve blog!

Here's my quickie:



The sentiment is from a new set called Beautiful Kindness.

So glad you could stop by today!



Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:
Stamps: Little Star (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Papertrey White, SU Perfect Plum, DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Boy
Ink: SU Perfect Plum and Certainly Celery
Accessories: Spellbinders circle and square Nestabilities; SU hardware, ribbon, paper piercer, and dimensionals; Creative Impressions pearlized mini brads; sewing machine

Beautiful Kindness:
Stamps: Beautiful Kindness (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Papertrey White, Bazzill Rain and Blackbird cardstock, Basic Grey Urban Prairie
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories: Martha Stewart butterfly punch and floral border punch, Spellbinders square Nestabilities, American Crafts Boutique ribbon, SU slit punch and clear embossing powder

All the Flowers of Tomorrow

Today is the last day of sneak peeks over on the Verve blog, and the featured Divas for today have done an amazing job with the two sets being previewed today. Be sure to head over there for peeks and a chance to win both sets just by leaving a comment.

I've used Miracles Blossom to create the flowers on today's card. The sentiment is one of the three Plain Janes that are also releasing this month. Love this saying! The patterned papers all come from Basic Grey's Porcelain collection, which I have a feeling you'll be seeing a lot of here on my blog. The three flowers are stamped on white, colored with Copic markers (R11 and R02), coated with Angel Wings Shimmerz, then adhered to the flower stems with foam adhesive dots. I added some white trim (found at Hancock Fabrics) along the left.

The layout is something I sketched out while looking through a scrapbook magazine. I wish I had written down which magazine when I sketched out this idea, so I could credit the scrapbook page designer. I'll keep looking for that info. Even though I'm not scrapbooking much anymore, I still love looking through the magazines for ideas and inspiration. For me, scrapbooking is just different enough from cardmaking to jumpstart some fresh ideas - especially with layouts.

Here's a look at the inside:



And here's a detail shot of the Shimmerz:



Thanks for stopping by! And remember, Verve's release party is on Sunday at 8 pm EST in THIS THREAD in the Verve Member Company Forum. I'd love to see you there!



Stamps: Miracles Blossom, Flowers of Tomorrow (Verve Stamps)
Paper: SU Basic Black, Barely Banana, Whisper White; Basic Grey Porcelain
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories: clear embossing powder, Copic markers, black brads, Angel Wings Shimmerz, ribbon (source unknown - sorry!), Dew Drops, fabric trim, foam adhesive, SU scalloped border punch (inside)

Everlasting Life - Sneak Peek

Verve's biggest-ever release is coming in only a few more days (Sunday, March 8), so all this week on the Verve Stamps blog we've been showing previews. Be sure to check out all the new images! I'm lucky enough today to preview a beautiful new set called Everlasting Life. Here's what I wrote for the Verve blog:

I love all the cute chicks, bunnies, and colorful Easter egg images we start seeing this time of year, but when it comes to Easter cards specifically, my favorite images tend to be those of a more religious nature. Everlasting Life is a wonderful combination of religious imagery, Scripture, and floral elegance. I could not ask for a more perfect Easter set! I love, too, that many of the stamps in this set will work equally well year-round.

For this card, I used markers to ink the image in two colors. I stamped the flower sections a second time, trimmed them out, and popped them up with foam adhesive. The main image panel is cut with a Labels 1 Nestability die. After cutting, I left the die in place while I did some light sponging in Pink Pirouette and Antique Linen Distress ink. I removed the die to reveal the narrow ivory border. All of the edges are roughed up with a distressing tool, then I machine-stitched around the perimeter with dark brown thread. The patterned papers are all from Basic Grey's lovely new Porcelain collection.

Hope you'll get a chance to pop over to the Verve blog today for even more samples with this beautiful new set. Each day this week, you can leave a comment over there for a chance to win that day's previewed sets, so if you haven't been following along so far, remember to catch up on Monday, Tuesday and yesterday too! Then on Sunday evening, March 8 at 8 pm EST, drop by the Verve Member Company Forum on SCS for our official Release Party.



Stamps: Everlasting Life (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Papertrey Vintage Cream, SU Regal Rose, Basic Grey Porcelain
Ink: SU Always Artichoke, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette; Ranger Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Ink
Accessories: Offray ribbon, K&Co pearl, Spellbinders die, SU oval punch, distressing tool, sponges, sewing machine

MFT March Blog Hop

Here we are on the first Wednesday of the month already! That means it's time for an MFT blog hop!!! Yaaay, I love these things! If you haven't come here from Jessie's blog, backtrack to the very beginning, which is at Kim's blog. Hop on down the line and I'll see you back here in a few.

Tonight at 9pm, My Favorite Things will be hosting a New Release Cocktail Party in the MFT Member Company Forum on Splitcoast. Please join us! You'll see loads of fun MFTeasers of the FIVE new sets and have a chance to win prizes. Plus you find out how you could become MFT's next guest designer. Hope you can make it!

This darling little girl in her pajamas is from a set called Night, Night Ellie. There's lots for me to love about this adorable set. First, the idea for this set came from Jen del Muro and it's named after her adorable daughter, Ellie. Second, it's a charity set, so for the next six months, $2 from each set sold will benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Third, I have a 5-year-old daughter who looks just like this! (Well, sort of ...) She loves having sleepovers, so I thought this set would make a perfect slumber party invitation. It's hard to see, but the celery background is stamped with white stars, and the Cameo Coral strip is stamped repeatedly with "sweet dreams." Her pajamas are paper-pieced and shaded with Prismacolors, and the rest is colored with Copic markers. I hand-wrote the "you're invited" sentiment. I haven't done a "no dp" card in a while - this was fun! [Please pardon my sagging flower "ribbon" ... I've fixed 'er up now, but a new pic will have to wait until daylight. Why didn't I see that before? Grrrr...]

Next is a teaser of Hooga Booga, a collection of the most adorable little characters! Take a look at just one of them:



Her outstretched arms looked just perfect for holding a string of hearts. All I did was stamp and trim the hearts, adhere them with foam dots, and then hand-draw the black string. I gave her some sleeves and shoes, too! Again, I paper-pieced the outfit and colored everything else with either Copic markers or a blender pen and SU re-inkers.

Hope you're enjoying the blog hop. Next stop is Carole!




You're Invited
Stamps: Night Night Ellie (My Favorite Things Presents)
Paper: SU Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral, Barely Banana, Basic Grey; Neenah Solar White
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, white pigment ink, SU Cameo Coral
Accessories: yellow flower ribbon and yellow elastic cord (Making Memories); gray taffeta ribbon, paper piercer, distressing tool, dimensionals, hardware (SU), tag die (Spellbinders), Prismacolors, Gamsol, blending stumps, Copic markers

I Love You This Much
Stamps: Hooga Booga (My Favorite Things Presents)
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Neenah Solar White, Basic Grey dp
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Kiwi Kiss and Pink Passion
Accessories: Martha Stewart border punch, SU ribbon and flower punches, Spellbinders circle nestabilities, foam adhesive, white brads

You Are the Potter

Today, two new sets are being released by Our Daily Bread Designs. The one I've been working with is called You Are the Potter. I love this gorgeous trio of pots, and the accompanying Scriptures are some of my all-time favorites. In the interest of full disclosure, I want you to know that I absolutely cannot color well enough to make the pots look this realistic - LOL! So here's how I faked it, and how you can too: I first stamped the pots in black onto a piece of designer paper that already had a textured, terra cotta look to it. (Mine came from the First Blush collection by Prima.) Next, I used various Prismacolor pencils to create highlights and shadows and to to add the blues and greens. It was relatively quick and easy - try it!

I chose to go with a super clean and simple layout so the pots would really stand out in contrast against the card base of white textured watercolor paper. The only embellishments are the linen thread with beads that I added to the left pot and the burlap-style mat the pots are sitting on. I also added a little interest to the background by embossing a frame using a rectangle Nestability.



I posted a slightly different version of this card on SCS for Thursday's Ways To Use It Challenge, which was to be frugal and use a recycled item on your project. The burlap fabric strip is something I salvaged from some packaging a while back. You can see that the original version didn't have the embossed rectangle frame. I just kept looking at it and looking at it, thinking it wasn't quite done. For me, the frame adds just the right touch without compromising the clean-and-simple feel.



This second card shows some super cool pottery-themed paper that is in the Our Daily Bread Designs store. It's called God Is the Potter and it's by Masterpiece Studios. It's so perfect for this set! I trimmed out one of the pots, colored it with Copic markers, then added some shadows with Prismacolor pencils, and glazed it with Crystal Effects. Throwing pottery is some messy business, so I really grunged up the background paper to reflect that. First I distressed the edges, tearing small slits in several places. I sponged Walnut Stain distress ink to the edges. Then I crumpled up the whole panel, spread it out, and lightly sponged on some distress inks (Antique Linen and Walnut Stain) to bring out the creases. The antique brass brads, zigzag stitching and fringe all add to the southwest flavor of the pottery images.

A second single-image stamp is also releasing today - Serenity Prayer. Here's a look at that one:



Be sure to have a look at all the design team samples with these images in the Our Daily Bread gallery. Here are some quick links right to the two new sets: You Are the Potter and Serenity Prayer.

Thanks for visiting,



Isaiah 64:8
Stamps: You Are the Potter (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Paper: Canson watercolor paper; First Blush dp by Prima
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol, blending stumps; burlap fabric strip; SU linen thread, Earth Elements beads, clear embossing powder; Spellbinders rectangle Nestability
Size: 4 1/4" square

Psalm 139:14
Stamps: You Are the Potter (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Paper: SU Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke; pottery dp; light brown and rust dp (unknown)
Ink: Walnut Stain and Antique Linen Distress inks (Ranger)
Accessories: BossKut flourish die; SU photo corner punch, vintage brads, distressing tool, Crystal Effects, dimensionals; Offray brown twill; sewing machine
Size: 5 1/2" square