Tuesday Throwdown Shaped Cards

     Today's Tuesday Throwdown challenge is sponsored by Catherine Pooler, an independent Stampin' Up dealer.  She will be providing the prize for our winner!  The CS, image, and sentiment for my card are all SU products; the card stock is two-sided, patterned and comes from the Europa collection, called Pumpkin Pie.  The image and sentiment are from the Gnomes set, oldies but goodies.  I thought this Gnome was perfect for a Halloween/fall card.  Who wouldn't want to be a cute gnome at Halloween?

     I rarely do shaped cards, for two reasons:  I don't have many dies really large enough to make a card and I like A2 shaped cards since I do so many cards for Operation Write Home.  (Please check out the last paragraph of today's posting for more info about OWH.)  But when I found out that our Tuesday Throwdown challenge was going to be for shaped cards (nothing square or rectangular), I had to figure out what to do!   One Stitch at a Time also has a "Shape Up" challenge theme, and Paper Cutz wants us to do "Stars, Circles, or Diamonds."  Obviously, mine is the circle, and The Stamp Man theme is "Circle It."  Along that same line, Card and Scrap says "Not 4 Sided" and a circle was the first thing that came to mind.

     This one is made from a large (5 1/2" diameter) doily die, with the paper folded at the top and the die positioned just below the fold line.  Once the doily was cut, I stamped the Gnome into the middle of it, and heat embossed the image with black, detail EP.  I loved the black on orange combination so I did nothing else in the way of coloring him.  I did stamp a sentiment on the inside (also heat embossed) and add the orange gingham bow to the front, made from ribbon that came from Really Reasonable Ribbon -- their challenge theme is "Fun 4 Fall".  In addition, Meljen's wants us to use ribbon on our projects this week.  You can see the other side of the Pumpkin Pie CS in the photo below.

     I'm sending this card to a friend of mine who happens to have a Halloween birthday!  I thought the sentiment was perfect without having to say either Happy Birthday or Happy Halloween.  She'll know, since Halloween is her favorite holiday.  :-D

     Time to talk about all the other challenges, made easy again because of all the fall/autumn colors/Halloween themes this week.  I'll start with Pile It On (Fall is for Fun) because, in addition to their theme each week, they want us to make cards which can be used is as many challenges as possible.  I always select my challenges before I start on my cards.  That way, I know the card will fit the particular challenge and, if it doesn't when I'm finished, I can eliminate that challenge from the list.

Hanna and Friends - Autumn/Halloween
Paper Crafting Journey - Black, orange, & white
One Stop Craft Challenge - Halloween
Pals Paper Arts - Inspiration photo; Fall/Thanksgiving
Craft Your Days Away - Halloween colors, orange and black
Crafty Pad - Monochromatic
Through the Craft Room Door - Halloween
Card Cupids - Use Orange
Dream Valley - Halloween
Designed 2 Delight - Cute Halloween

     I promised you some additional information about Operation Write Home.  They are a fantastic, non-profit, organization which gathers up donated, hand-made cards for shipment to our deployed military troops that they use to send greetings home.  All this week, OWH is being supported by card makers just like you and me, helping them to raise funds for postage.  It's going to take more than $13,000 to mail boxes of Christmas and holiday cards to the soldiers overseas just this upcoming season.  One of the fund-raiser, blog hops will be starting here on my blog this next Friday morning, and featuring some cute and clever digi images which you can buy to help OWH in its cause.  All the proceeds (less the Paypal fees) from the digi sales are being donated by the artists to OWH.  (Our fellow DT teamie, Deedee, is one of the artists!  Another is Katlyn of K 'n K Designs.  Thank you, Deedee & Katlyn.  We love you for doing this!)  Please mark your calendar and come by here on Friday.  Thanks.

     That's it for today except that we'd love to see you play in the Tuesday Throwdown challenge this week.  Remember, any shaped card except square or rectangle; even octagons will qualify!  See you over there.  Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie