Cards for our Airmen, CC133 and UHU product rating

First, here are the details for those of you in the Del Rio area that would like to attend my Cards for our Airmen event. This time around we're sending Halloween care packages with treats and Halloween cards, PLUS a bundle of assorted blank cards for the Airmen to send back to loved ones and the care packages are going to deployed members of OUR base - thus they're Airmen since we're in the Air Force and we're calling it "Cards for our Airmen". I kind of got a tiny chewing out (more made fun of) for calling it "Cards for Troops" as I always have (I've been doing these for 3 years now), since Troops are technically Army military members. As for the specifics, here they are:

Where: "Su Casa" on Laughlin Air Force Base (call me to be sponsored on if you don't have a military I.D. or if you just need directions to "Su Casa")
When: October 4th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

A lunch will be provided as will all of the supplies to make the cards.

*****If you would like to donate cards to this event, we will take any Thinking of You, Holiday, Thank You, Missing You, Birthday cards, etc. but they would need to arrive in my hands by Tuesday the 9th of October. If you ARE planning on sending me some, e-mail me so that I can give you my address and so that I'll know to expect them if you already have my address.*****

Following are two cards that I made for the Color Challenge on SCS - CC133. The colors were More Mustard, Old Olive and Bashful Blue. The first card was one very similar to the last "Sweet Pea" card I did - I even used the Shimmery White CS again. The second was made from a piece of scrap CS I had leftover and so it's an odd size, and I again made a Christmas card from non-traditional colors (like I did with last week's color challenge - you can the card here). I know that freaked out a few of you ;)

This card was fairly quick to make and I don't have much to say about it :) I am really loving the wide grosgrain ribbon that SU! has now. Some of you were in my last ribbon share and got it and I hope you're loving it too! The card itself was simple to make, without any frills or complicated techniques. I simply colored in the sweet pea with my blender pen and my classic ink pads. What WAS special about this card was that I used my free UHU glue stick that I received in the mail a week or so ago. In order to get it free, I was asked to provide feedback via my blog and link you to the blog where I found out about the free UHU samples. Here is the blog, and next are my comments on the product.

Here is a close-up of the image stamped and colored in on SU!'s Shimmery White card stock. I'm loving this stuff, especially for holiday cards like you'll notice below. It really is pretty when you catch it at the right angle and in the right light. I wish it always looked this shimmery!!!



Stamps: Event Full, Word on Word
Ink: Black StazOn, Old Olive and Bashful Blue classic ink
Paper: Old Olive textured CS, Shimmery White, Bashful Blue and More Mustard CS
Accessories: SU! 5/8" Olive Grosgrain

I got the sample in the mail and must admit that I wasn't super excited because I don't use glue sticks. I don't like them, I prefer glue and am always found with the Scotch 3M brand of Quick-Dry Tacky Adhesive (now found at my local Wal-Mart - the only store in town - yippee!!!). I like the control of glue dispensed from a fine-tip applicator and the fact that it holds REALLY well. So, I tried this UHU glue stick on three different paper-to-paper combinations. I used it on the card above, as I mentioned. I glued the More Mustard card stock to the Old Olive textured card stock and found that it did not work very well in adhering the smoother Mustard CS to the textured Olive. I think the texture is what made this occur - with texture comes less surface area for contact, and it seemed like this glue stick needed a lot of surface area covered with it and in contact with the surface you were adhering it to. The Shimmery White card stock was glued to the More Mustard layer and I found that as long as I got the glue everywhere, especially along corners and edges, it adhered these two layers very well. I didn't like how if you were trying to go along edges it would sometimes actually get on the outside edge of the paper if you weren't super careful, and then you risked smudging it onto the top of you layer, or in this case, on top of my Shimmery layer with my image on it. There's definitely not as much precision possible with a glue stick as with a glue coming out of an applicator. As I said though, it did adhere these two layers just fine. The More Mustard layer I also used the UHU stic on to adhere it to the Bashful Blue layer and I observed the same thing, that it worked fine on this smooth card stock as long as you adequately covered the card stock with it. I did not use it on the Blue Bashful layer, that one is mounted onto the textured card stock with dimensionals. Overall, for the price (under a dollar!) these little sticks would be a good investment for mass producing items (like for swaps) as long as you aren't using any textured papers. I will continue to use mine in such instances. Where I'm really worried about quality (edges not getting glued down) I won't use it, but that's just my personal preference and the things I observed when using the product. Check it out for yourself at Maria's blog listed above!!!

This next little card is the one I mentioned that I made out of a scrap piece of Old Olive textured card stock. I used one of the stamps in the Winter Mini Catalog called Season of Joy. I did not, however, use the images that are ON the stamp with the word "JOY". I used my handy-dandy Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to take one of the flower images on that same stamp and place it in the "o" and I also took the little flower with a circle around it and colored it with my marker and placed it in the spot where a star was over the "j" to "dot" it. I'd love to hear what you think.

Here is a close-up of the pretty shimmery paper and the pretty "Fire" rhinestone brad that I added to the flower in the "o". I'm really having fun with these brads, but the "hoarder" in me doesn't want to actually USE them on any of my cards or projects!!! I tend to do that with embellishments... :P LOL






Stamps: Season of Joy
Ink: Black StazOn, Bashful Blue and More Mustard markers
Paper: Old Olive textured CS, Shimmery White, Bashful Blue and More Mustard CS
Accessories: SU! Bashful Blue Taffeta ribbon, SU! Fire rhinestone brad, Stamp-a-Ma-Jig


I've got to run, I'm supposed to be somewhere by 5:00, so I'll post the recipes to these two cards later. Take care!!!