Celebrate

Here is a fun card that I made to have on hand for an upcoming occasion like a birthday or anniversary.  I really want to start making a stash of cards for various occasions, because I consistenly and notoriously send out late cards.  It usually gets to the point where I end up running out to a store to buy a last minute card.  How bad is that?  My hobby is making cards and I send out more store bought cards than homemade ones! 

I made this card to be unisex.  At least I think it could be used for a man.  I have never been great at making masculine cards.  For this card, I used one of my favorite color schemes, which is red (Pure Poppy) and black (Smokey Shadow).  I threw in some blue (Spring Rain) and white (Rustic White) for some added interest.  I used a lot of PTI stamps and accessories on this card, as well as my old Sizzix Star #2 die.

This is my first card utilizing one of the big card making trends going on right now.  I am usually late to the game when it comes to trends.  Well, I am finally jumping in and joining the baker's twine trend.  I just received a sampler pack I ordered from the Twinery.  It contains 15 yards each of 11 different colors.  Check this out:

I went with the sampler pack because I didn't want to invest in a large spool of twine in one color.  For me, the sampler pack is perfect.  I get to try a lot of colors for a small price.  The colors are so pretty. I couldn't help myself.  I had to find a way to use some on this card.  Don't be surpised to see twine on a lot of upcoming cards.  It only took using it one time to fall in love with the stuff.  Now I see why it is so popular.   

Now that you endured my ramblings, here is my card:

I hope you enjoyed this project.  Thanks for looking!


Ingredients:

• Stamps:  All Stamps PTI: Mat Stack 1, BB-Gingham and Newsprint
• Paper:  Pure Poppy, Smokey Shadow, Spring Rain, Rustic White, DP from DCWV
• Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Clearsnap Colorbox Fluid Chalk in Lipstick Red
• Accessories:  Sizzix Stars #2 die,  PTI 1 3/4" Limitless Layers Die, Mat Stack 1 Die, Spellbinders Label Die, PTI Canvas Impression Plate, Mark Richards Crystals, Charcoal Bakers Twine from the Twinery.

*Twine picture from the Twinery website*     

Egg Hunt

Wow!  It is really amazing these days when I am able to get more than one card completed in a week, let alone a month.  I managed to make another card this week because I really liked the sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges this week.  I thought I would make some kind of Easter card for this challenge.  I really love the stamp I used from Serendipity Stamps.  They have the cutest Easter stamps!  This card definitely gets me excited for Easter and taking my daughter on her first Easter egg hunt where she will actually understand and look for the eggs.  I can't wait for that!  I hope everyone reading this has a Happy Easter.  Thanks for looking.

Here is the sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges:
 

Here is my card:

Ingredients:

• Stamps:  Serendipity (Main image); PTI (Sentiment and Sentiment Frame)
• Paper:  PTI Cardstock, Imaginisce DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Rich Cocoa, Cantaloupe, and Copics
• Accessories:  Stickles, Crystals, Spellbinder's Nestabilities



PTI March Blog Hop a little too late!

Well I had intended to use this card for the PTI March Blog Hop, but didn't finish with the card, pic, and blog entry until too late.  Two minutes too late to be exact.  That is what happens when you have an unexpected vehicle problem and then have to deal with a baby and toddler!  I also made this card based on this week's SCS Card Sketch Challenge #325.  For the blog hop, we were challenged to use embroidery floss in a fun and inventive way on our project. This could include stitching, wrapping it around and tying it like ribbon, braiding, accenting tags, embroidered patterns or anything else we could come up with.  I don't think I did anything very inventive.  I just embroidered the stem of my center flower.  Sorry for the photo quality.  My digital camera broke and my husband took this picture on his Blackberry.  I am not very good with photo editing programs, so I couldn't make any adjustments.  Thanks for looking!

Ingredients:

• Stamps: PTI Flower Fusion 1 & 2; BB Gingham
• Paper:   PTI White, Spring Rain, and Plum Pudding CS; HOTP Paper Pizzaz DP
• Ink: Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink in Lime Pastel, Lavender, Wisteria, and French Blue
• Accessories:  PTI Wood grain Impression Plate, PTI FF 1&2 Dies, Beautiful Blooms II #1 Die,  PTI Button, DMC Embroidery Floss, Felt from Michael's, Jolee's crystals, corner rounder and Spellbinders Nestabilities.  

It has been a while!

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted anything.  When I started this blog, I intended to make regular entries showing my paper crafts.  However, I got side tracked with several things and have not made any projects for a while.  My biggest obstacle to making anything has to do with the fact that I have a very active 2 year old girl and I just had a baby boy in December.  My kids keep me very busy, to say the least.  I always want to work on my crafts after they are in bed, but I am usually too exhausted. 

Secondly, during the past summer, I decided to start on the massive undertaking of unmounting all my stamps.  For those that have gone through the process, I am sure you know my pain!  I intended to unmount all my stamps, remount on EZ Mount, stamp an index file, and finally store them in binders separated by category.  I planned to complete all this before the baby arrived!  I would say that I am approximately 95% done with the unmounting.  However, I have not remounted on the EZ Mount.  So right now, the majority of my stamp collection is stored in envelopes inside a very large storage tub.  Since I have not sorted into categories and have not stamped an index file, I really don't know what I have and where to find it.  I got burnt out during the unmounting process and stepped away for a while.  The problem was that I didn't get back to it before the baby arrived.  Now I don't seem to have the time.

I really wanted to reorganize my stamp system because I had way too many wood mounted stamps and no where to store them.  I had outgrown my previous stamp storage a while ago and just had bags and boxes of stamps everywhere.  I couldn't find a stamp without rummaging through tons of stuff.  My husband and I also did a massive overhaul of our bonus room/office.  Our craft area was previously in our bonus room.  We decided to turn the bonus room into a play room for our daughter.  We then turned the office into our craft room.  We totally splurged and purchased a ton of pieces from Scrap N Cube to organize our new craft room.  We couldn't be happier with the products!  Once I get rid of the clutter of my unmounted stamps, I will take and post some pictures of our craft room.

So now that you know why I haven't posted any projects for a while, let me get to the point.  I finally got a card done.  It only took me three days of trying to work at night after the kids went to sleep.  I needed a thank you card for a baby gift.  This is what I came up with.  I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks!
 

I stamped the leaf background with Papertrey Ink's (PTI) Turning a New Leaf set in brown ink.  I then stamped more leaves in green ink, cut them out, and adhered them with Pop Dots.  I made the accordian flower from patterned paper.  The center of the flower is a punch from an old book and sprayed with Smooch Spritz. The button is tied with twine. 

Ingredients:

• Stamps: PTI, Sentiment stamp unknown
• Paper: PTI,Kraft CS; Prism, Brown CS; DP, Bo Bunny
• Ink: Clearsnap Colorbox Chalk ink in Dark Brown, Colorbox Pigment ink in moss Green
• Accessories: McGill, Flower and tag punch; SU scallop border punch; Clearsnap Smooch Spritz; twine; PTI button.

MOJO133~Daffodils

There is another great sketch this week at Mojo Monday.  I haven't had time to participate in the challenges recently, but I really like this week's sketch.  So I burned the midnight oil last night and made a card.  I hope you enjoy!

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My stamped image is from Serendipity stamps.  I colored the image with Copic markers and cut it out with an oval nestability.  While the image was still in the die, I sponged on Sand Memento Ink.  I layered the main image on larger scalloped ovals and added some crystals.  The decorative border was done with my new Martha Stewart border punch.  Oh how I love those punches!  I also lighly sponged on some silver Colorbox metallic ink to the border design to bring out the soft grey in the background designer paper.  However, I don't think it really shows up in the picture.  The ribbon was originally white and then colored with a Copic marker since I didn't have any ribbon to match.

 

Copics used: Y21, Y23, Y26, YG95, YG97

 

Ingredients:

• Stamps: Serendipity
• Paper: Prism, GKD, Cosmo Cricket DP, SEI DP
• Ink:  Memento, Copics, Clearsnap Colorbox Metallic Ink
• Accessories:  Jolee's hotfix crystals; Recollections pearls; Martha Stewart punch; Corner rounder; Celebrate It ribbon from Michael's; Bow Easy

 

Thanks for looking!

 

C4C31~Herd it's your birthday!

This is a variation of a card I made for a class I taught at my LSS, Loving Hands Creations. I was about to post the card when I realized that it fit in with this week’s challenge over at Crazy 4 Challenges. The challenge was to make a card using kraft cardstock as the base. I started with the kraft base and used a Cuttlebug embossing folder to give it extra texture. Unfortunately, I don’t recall the manufacturer of the sunflower designer paper. This was paper I found in my stash from a couple years ago. The paper was not marked, and it was before I realized I should label my papers with the manufacturer. The black designer paper is from Die Cuts with a View. I colored the cow stamp with Copic Markers. For the background, I sponged on blue and green distressed ink, and then added some blades of grass with the markers. I used Pop Dots to adhere the cow to the background. The sentiment was computer generated and printed onto the kraft cardstock. I sponged the edges of the sentiment tag with Sand Memento Ink.

Copic Markers used: N5, N7, N9, C0, R20, YR01, E40, E31, E33, E35, Y21, Y26, Y28, BV31

Ingredients:
-Stamps: High Hopes; Computer generated sentiment
-Paper: PTI Kraft; GKD; DCWV
-Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Copics; Tim Holtz Distress Inks
-Accessories: Copics; Nestabilities; Ribbon, American Crafts; Buttons, Joann’s; Inkksentials Pen, Ranger; Brads, Spare Parts; Embroidery Floss, AC Moore; Pop Dots; Cuttlebug Embossing Folder; Bow Easy.

Thinking Winter!?!

Since I am sitting here at the lodge at Peak n Peak ski resort, I have snow and winter on the brain.  Well, there isn't really any snow on the ground, except for the slopes.  Only half of the slopes are open, but it made for a good day of skiing.  The temperature hoovered around 50 degrees and there were no more than about 50 total people skiing the 20 open slopes.  It made for a nice, relaxing day of skiing.  Anyway, this got me thinking about winter and Christmas cards to make for next season.  Then I realize that I never got around to posting one of my cards from this past season.  It happened to be one of my favorite because it was the first card I made using the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses line of papers I had just purchased at the time.  I love Basic Grey papers in general, but I especially love the Eskimo Kisses papers.

Here is that card:

Ingredients:

• 
  
  Stamps: Artful Stamper, Sentiment PTI
• 
  
  Paper: Basic Grey, Prism, GKD
• 
  
  Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics
• 
  
  Accessories: Ribbon, American Crafts; Buttons, PTI; Glitter, Art Institute; Label Punch, McGill

Enjoy!