Crop Chocolate Design Team Blog Hop for OWH

Welcome, welcome!  I am so glad to have you visiting my blog!  I have lots to share, so I'll get right to it.  You should have arrived here from Brenna's blog, if you are hopping with cropchocolate.com.  If you are here with Friends With Flair, please enjoy the Unity stamps I used on many of the cards I'm featuring today.  This hop is to motivate you to make cards for an organization I have supported for several years now, and it's a great one.  If you don't know much about Operation Write Home, explore their website here: http://operationwritehome.org/.  If you are looking for specific guidelines on what they need for cards, when they need them by, etc, try this link: http://operationwritehome.org/guidelines/. 

You may have noticed, we, the CC design team, are each issuing you a challenge.  From now until October 8, we want you to make cards for OWH, and we're here to motivate you.  My challenge is quite simple.  I took a very basic sketch (or recipe) that looks like this:

 It's a standard A2 card base (8 1/2 x 5 1/2, folded in 1/2), then 3 pieces of paper.  One is 5 1/2 x 2, another is 3/4 x 4 1/4 and the square is 2 1/2 x 2 1/2.  Easy.  And very adaptable, as you will see.  This is your basic recipe.  From here, the challenge to you is to use those components, but "tweak" them.  Just like any good cook, or in this case, cardmaker, take the recipe and make it your own.

You can rotate it 180 degrees.  Or 90 degrees and have the fold on the side.

I'll show you some cards I made using this sketch, or recipe.

As you can see, the components are there, but I sometimes tweaked them.  I might have substituted ribbon for the 3/4 inch strip of paper, or left out the 2 inch strip.  All the papers for the above cards are Echo Park Everyday Eclectic 6x6 papers, and the stamps are all Unity.  I also did this same thing with some Christmas cards.  Here's what they look like:

Get the idea?  Of course you do!  Easy peasy.  The papers I used on these cards are all from Cropchocolate grab bags.  There were a variety of stamps used.  Some were Close To My Heart, some Unity.  Embellishments are CTMH and MME.

Here's what I want you to do, and there's blog candy involved.  Become a follower of my blog if you're not already and make a comment about the cards you see today and you'll be eligible to win.  Enter a card using the recipe above, and you'll be eligible to win another blog candy.  For each card linked with the linky below, you'll be eligible for that candy.  Make sense?  Make a comment, maybe win.  Enter lots of cards, better your chance of winning.  Two people will win.

And, for some more inspiration, here's some Christmas cards I made for a swap on cropchocolate.  (These are not using the recipe above)

Papers are MME and CC grab bags.  The last two are made with Washi tape.  Did you participate in the washi tape swap?  I thought you might like some inspiration on how to use it when it arrives.  Ticket stamps and penguin are Unity.  The snowman stamp is Hot Off The Press.  Now, off for more inspiration. Hop on, my friends to Brit's blog.

Link your card's using the recipe above here.