An Earth Day Challenge

Hello everyone!! Happy Tuesday!!

 It is the 20th of the month which means that it is time for another Dirty Dozen/Dirty Dozen Alumni challenge over at SCS!!  And guess what??  Yours truly is the hostess for this month's challenge!!  I was so happy to get the opportunity to decide on this month's theme and I am super happy to have these challenges to participate in.  This is my first month not being an active Dirty Girl, so it is really nice to be able to stay connected with the girls from the Dirt Pile!

Earth Day is on the 22nd of this month.  So for my DD challenge, I decided to ask them to make a card with an earth theme to it, that has an earth on it, or involves nature!

REQUIRED ELEMENT:  Recycled item

RESTRICTED ELEMENT: Buttons  (none allowed!)

Search the Gallery using the keyword DCED410 (for Dirty Challenge Earth Day April 2010) to see the rest of the creations!

I used the Unity Stamp Co stamp set called Grow Yourself Extraordinary for my challenge card.  My recycled element was a piece of cardboard box that I tore the paper off one side and inked up with brown ink on the edges.  All the edges were distressed with the distressing tool  by MM.

This kit is only available from retail stores.  To find a store near you that sells Unity, please click HERE.

Did you know that Archiver's is now carrying Unity?  Yeah!!

I colored the image and highlighted some of the words on the sentiment using Copic Markers to coordinate with the Brook Collection by Crate Paper.  I added some extra leaves with additional colors of green Copics!


I hope that you are doing your part to conserve the resources that we have still in our world!  What are you going to do this year to reduce your footprints on the earth?

Don't you just love this sentiment?  I think it is a great statement to get our kids to understand while they are young.  How important for them to be leaders and not followers and learn how to create their own paths in life!  

Be sure to check out the special cards that some of the other Dirty Dozen and Dirty Dozen Alumni have made for this challenge!!  

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with new ideas to help conserve resources that will save our earth!

Happy Earth Day!

Today I made a card to give to a special someone who inspires me on a daily basis. In honor of Earth Day I wanted to use a stamp with a tree in it. The stamp set that I used is from Unity. It is called "Plant a Tree" and it is available for purchase at their store here.

Here is the outside of the card...

The Fine Print: DP: We R Memory Keepers (Grandma's Kitchen line); Stamp: Unity (Plant a Tree); Ink: Amuse, Copic Markers; Buttons: SEI; Twill tape and twine: Joann's; Machine stitching; Punch: EK Success.

The sketch I used for this card comes from April's 2009 Issue at Sheetload of Cards. This month the sketch is hosted by The Greeting Farm stamps, but I don't have any of their stamps yet. If I am lucky I can possibly win a set of their stamps if my entry gets chosen!

You should check out Sheetload! They have great giveaways going on right now! And their sketches are wonderful and make it possible for you to make a bunch of cards with limited supplies and limited wastage of paper. They provide all the measurements to cut your paper, and you just have to put your card together and embellish it!! Try it... you will love it!!

So, more about the card!!!

I believe that recycling, repurposing, and reusing items is a wonderful thing for our community. I also believe in the benefits of planting trees, conserving paper, and protecting our ozone layer. However, while I believe in those things and LOVE the new stamp I got, I couldn't really see myself giving the stamped image away on a card to celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day just really isn't an occasion that I think of to send a card for.

Here is a closeup of the tree that I colored with my Copics and popped up in layers for added dimension.

Since I didn't want to send a card for Earth Day, I decided to turn the sentiment's meaning into another theme! So this is what I put on the inside of my card to make it appropriate to give to someone who inspires me!

The outside says,

"He who plants a tree plants a hope"

and the inside says,

"He who plants a seed inspires!"

Here is a picture of the inside sentiment and stamped image...





I masked off the tree and other words to just keep the flowers and the grass on the inside of the card. I searched handwriting fonts to find one that I felt most closely matched the sentiment's font on the stamp. I think it is pretty close! The font I used is called "A Little Pot" and can be downloaded for free here.

This card will be going out in the mail asap... I hope the person who gets it learns how much of an inspiration I feel she is to me and to others!!

Have a Happy Earth Day and may your bucket overflow with inspiration to do your part to help improve our earth!