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Saturday, May 23, 2015

2015 Operation Write Home Memorial Day Bloghop


Welcome to the 2015 Operation Write Home Memorial Day Bloghop!  This is the final campaign with the crafty world: Finishing Strong. Operation Write Home is nearing the finish line of our mission, and all cards must be received by us before August 1st 2015. We want to spread the word to everyone who’s got cards they’ve been meaning to send in!  Operation Write Home will be closing after August 1, so if you have always wanted to help our service members, it’s now the time to send in cards.



I made this card to fit the red, white and blue theme.  I had wanted to try the bokeh technique and it worked perfectly with this card.  Find out how I tweaked the bokeh technique to decrease the drying time.  You can get more details and see the tutorial for this card too.  If you look carefully at the photo, you can also see the glitter that I added to some of the stars.

Many thanks to the Operation Write Home folks who have dedicated so much time to help support our heroes overseas and their families.  While I am sad that this is the last OWH campaign, it is wonderful that so many of our heroes will no longer be oceans away from their loved ones.

Enjoy the rest of the bloghop!

Creatively yours,

Sharon Cheng
Richland Hills, TX
My Online Store

Easy Bokeh Tutorial



When I first tried the Bokeh technique for stamping, there were 2 things that I wanted to "fix".  This tutorial shows what I did to "cheng up" the original technique to decrease the drying time and to make sure the sentiments popped against the bokeh background.  "Cheng it up" is a term that one of my crafting friends came up with years ago.  Because I typically like tweaking techniques and projects, she called it "chenging it up".  Sad, but true.  I find it difficult to make an exact copy of anything.  Inspiration (or lack of ability) usually means I end up with a slightly different version of any crafting project or technique that I try.  Do you find that happens to you too?  


The first thing I wanted to "fix" when trying the bokeh technique with paper was getting things to dry faster.  When you use ink, water and watercolor paper, you have a long drying time.  Especially when humidity is high as it has been in Fort Worth this spring.  The drying time meant that a quick and easy card could take over an hour to make because of waiting for the paper to dry.  While I could use Stampin' Up!'s heat tool to speed things up, I wanted to teach this technique to my stamp club.  The thought of 8 people waiting to use a heat tool inspired me to come up with something else. 

Secondly, when you use black ink or embossing powder in the earlier steps for this technique, it ends up with a grayish color in the areas where you add the white craft ink.  I wanted my sentiments to pop against the background and felt like the black/grey colors didn't work.  I found two ways to fix the problem.


With this card, I used the die cut "thanks" from Stampin' Up!'s Hello You Thinlits (137363  $25.00).

I also found that if you use a dark background, you can use white embossing powder to make your sentiment stand out.  The white craft ink didn't show up on the white embossed image.  You will want to be careful to keep the background around the sentiment mostly dark colors.


Bokeh is quick and easy if you don't count the drying time.  My stamp club loved the technique.  If you are making several cards at once, do step 1 on each card, then step 2, etc.  It goes quickly since each card will be dry by the time you get back to it.
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Creatively yours,

Sharon Cheng
Richland Hills, TX
My Online Store