Thanks

Hi friends. Just a quick post today to show the card I made for My Time Made Easy’s Pretty Palette Challenge #62.  The colour scheme is turquoise, hot pink and kraft.

I reached for my CTMH Dotty For You paper pack for this card.  It has some really cute papers with these colours.  I cut various sized strips of designer paper and glued them to the kraft background and added a kraft ready border between the blue and ivory layer.  I cut out four butterflies from a Dotty For You designer paper and glued them to the ivory layer. The beautiful Thanks stamp was inked up with Baby Pink ink and then rolled in Lagoon to get just the outside edges.  I then coloured over it with a glitter gel pen, cut it out and popped it up on the card.  Finally a few pink and blue gems were added for extra sparkle.

That’s it from me today.  Have a great day and happy crafting!

Card Workshop

Happy Monday everyone!  Friday night I hosted a card workshop at my house and had 7 lovely ladies over.  We made two cards; a CAS card for father’s day and a distressed floral birthday card.  We did the CAS card first.

The sentiment was stamped first in the bottom right corner of a piece of White Daisy CS.  I used Pear and Lagoon inks for this, which matched the papers used on the card.  Embroidery floss and baker’s twine were used to ‘hang’ the stars on.  I used green, grey and blue to match the striped designer paper and did two of each colour across the front of the card.  I punched six holes at various heights in the white background paper with my paper piercer, and threaded the string through to the back.  It was adhered to the back with my tape runner.  I then pulled the floss up over the top of the white CS and around to the back.  I ran a line of adhesive at the top on the back to adhere that end of the string .

A strip of striped designer paper from the Dotty For You paper pack was used across the top of the card.  This was where I got my colour inspiration from.  The stars were punched out from card stock in Pear, Lagoon and Grey Wool and glued onto the string/background.  The star punch was something I bought from the dollar store quite a while ago and it worked wonderfully for this card.  As the final detail I added a gem to the centre of each star.  I really love the way they make the stars twinkle!  Here’s to you Dad!

The second card was a lovely, distressed floral birthday card.  This card was much more involved but the girls really enjoyed making it.

The background is made up of a few different layers.  I took Sorbet and Pacifica paper and scored it at 1/4 inch intervals using my Martha Stewart score board.  I sanded the raised stripes and since CTMH card stock has a white core it shows through when you sand it.  It’s great for creating a distressed look.  I also ripped the bottom edges and layered the two colours together then glued them to a layer of Vanilla Cream CS. Next I hauled out the sewing machine and sewed the distressed layer to a navy matte which was then glued to the card base.

I cut out the flower layers from Colonial CS using my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge.  I used the Universal Backgrounds stamp set to create my own background on the flower.  First, I used Creme Brulee ink to stamp a small grid pattern on the petals, followed by the handwriting background in Desert Sand ink.  I then painted over the petals with Create-A-Shade Pearl Paint to add a pearly shimmer.  I’m loving this product!  The edges were inked with Outdoor Denim to add depth to the petals.  The flower is held together by a rhinestone brad which was coloured using Copic markers to get that rich orange colour.

The leaves are made up from a flourish I cut out with the Cricut and cut apart.  I once again stamped the small grid pattern in Garden Green ink all over the leaves and then rubbed a layer of Garden Green over it with a sponge dauber.  A bit of Desert Sand was also sponged on to give it a bit more depth.

Happy Birthday from the 4 My Friend stamp set was stamped in the bottom right corner in Outdoor Denim ink and the flower and leaves were glued to the front using Liquid Glass.

So that was my Friday evening.  Great fun for all in attendance.  Have a great day all and happy crafting!

Up, Up & Away

I made this envelope (left) and card (right) a while ago but thought I’d share it because it uses a really cool product called My Originals Sweet Surprises Card Kit.  The kit comes with everything you need to make 10 cards (except the treats) and allows you to whip up beautiful cards in no time.  I’ve used it several times for birthdays with great reactions.  Everyone likes getting a sweet treat and it’s really fun when you get it in your birthday card.

I decided to make a customized boy version of the Sweet Surprises card by using the Super Powers stamp set and the Superhero paper pack.  I first sprayed the blank kraft card and envelope with Spray Pens and Tulip and White Daisy re-inkers to get that splotchy paint look (for some reason this reminds me of the old Spiderman cartoons from the 60’s).  The cityscape was stamped with Outdoor Denim ink onto the card along with the sentiment.  I also stamped a few different stars over the envelope and inside the card to finish off the spacey background.  The ribbon and a scalloped flap hold the card shut, so you have to undo the ribbon to get the card open, but once inside this is what you see…

The spaceship on the front of the card and the superhero were stamped onto white card stock and coloured in with Copic markers.  The stripes on the ribbon were also done with Copics.  I emulated the moon by putting yellow jelly beans in the treat cup and sticking it onto the inside of the card.  These cups contain their own adhesive strip around the rim so all you have to do is peel and stick.  Wouldn’t this be cute as part of a snowman on a Christmas card if you used white candies?  Oh, the possibilities!

The sentiment stars on the inside of the card and on the front of the envelope were cut out using my Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge.  I also made a sleeve for the envelope with this cute comic inspired designer paper.  Remember watching Batman and seeing all those Kerpows and Whams flash up on the screen?  Ah, the memories!

Hopefully this project brought back some childhood memories of your own and inspire you to try something a little different.  Have a fantastic day.  Happy crafting!

Full of Class

Hi everyone!  Today I am playing along with the MTME pretty pattern sketch with this card I made this afternoon.  I had this cute image of a girl holding an apple and decided to use her on a teacher card.  As you can see I got to practice my Copic colouring again.

I rummaged through my scrap paper bin for this one and pulled out this fun, red and pink gingham designer paper, which I used for the background.  The apple and ruler paper came from a Me & My Big Ideas designer paper book and black card stock was used to matte all my paper pieces.

The ovals were cut out using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge and the sentiment was stamped with Tulip ink.  The stars were stamped with Sunflower and Grey Wool ink and then coloured over with gold and silver gel pens to add sparkle.  I also added sparkle to the apple using a red glitter gel pen.  I now have a card ready to go for the end of the school year.

Have a great day and happy crafting!

You Are Sweet

Hello crafty friends!  Last night my good friend Kelly and I took a Copic colouring class at Tina’s Scrapbooking Creations in Winchester, Ontario, Canada.  What fun!  A great big thank you to Tina for hosting the class at her store.  We learned how to colour hair and skin and thanks to our fabulous, talented teacher Lorena, colouring people is now a little less daunting than it used to be.  You can check out Lorena’s blog here.

I was so jazzed when I got home last night that I went straight to my craft room (even though it was 10:45pm) and finished a card I was working on using one of the girls I coloured in my class.  Here she is…

Isn’t she sweet?  I thought so and so I decided to use that as the sentiment for the card.  My colour inspiration came from My Time Made Easy’s Pretty Palette Challenge #60, which is aqua, orange and kraft.

The background designer paper is from my new Gina K Poppy Prints paper pack I received in the mail the other day.  The other papers came from my Close To My Heart stash.  As you can see this is really a very simple card other than the colouring and didn’t take long to put together.  To add a bit of sparkle and bling I added gems to the flowers in my girl’s hair.  These were also coloured with my orange Copic marker.

Here is a list of markers I used to colour…

Hair Y21, YR23, E31, E17, BV000

Skin E000, E00, E01, R20 (cheeks)

Dress B00, B02, N4

Flowers Y21, YR23, YR04, R24

Hopefully I will have more Copic projects for your perusal as I continue to practice my colouring.  Have a fun day everyone.  Happy crafting!

But The Greatest Of These…

Hello there!  Thanks for stopping by and checking out today’s card creation.  I mentioned yesterday that I received a Gina K package in the mail the other day so I got busy with my new box full of treasures and came up with this…

The gorgeous designer paper is from the Gina K Poppy Prints paper pack.  So pretty!  I also bought the Lacy Borders stamp set which I used on the bottom of the card.  That is actually a stamp!  I love it.  I can imagine doing a wedding card along the “Something old, something new…” lines with this stamp set.  Here’s a closeup…

I used Grey Wool ink to stamp the lacy border and then trimmed the edge of the card to follow the shape of the lace.  I think I might have to try heat embossing with this stamp on another project.

I tried to keep the focal image simple and just let the designer paper and lace be the star of the show.  I cut two tags with the Cricut and stamped the sentiment.  The fancy ‘Love’ is actually from a different stamp set but I thought it was very elegant and matched the theme of the card nicely.  Once it was stamped in Tulip ink I went over it with a clear glitter gel pen to add some shimmer.

The final touch is the addition of the pearls.  What goes better with lace than pearls?  I would’ve liked to use smaller pearls on the tag but I didn’t have any and decided to just go with the flow and work from my stash.  So there it is.  A lovely anniversary card for some lovely couple!  Hope you’re having a great day.  Happy crafting!

Thinking of You 2

Howdy everyone!  It’s been a busy week but I managed to spend a bit of time in my craft room last night and make something.  This card was inspired by a lovely card I saw over at Papertrey Ink.  They stamped a background for a birthday card using words and I loved the look of it.  So I pulled out every stamp set I owned and picked out the appropriate sentiments for a thinking of you card.

This turned out to be very time consuming but it was kind of fun too.  Everything was stamped with Pansy Purple ink except the Thinking of You sentiment which was stamped in Grey Wool and then traced over with a silver glitter gel pen.

I cut a rectangle of Olive green paper and ran it through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder.  I then used my corner ticket punch to cut the corners.  The tag was cut out with my Cricut and the Art Philosophy cartridge and mounted on top of the Olive rectangle.  I also stamped the sentiment on white cs, cut it out and popped it up on top of the tag.  The embellishments are a couple of Shimmer Designer Brads and some grey baker’s twine.

So that’s it for today but I should be back soon with a lovely feminine card.  I just got a Gina K package in the mail and am really looking forward to making something with that.  Enjoy your day folks and happy crafting!

Welcome!

Hi all!  On one of my Michaels excursions I found this cute star sign that had an unfinished wooden plaque hanging from it.  I loved it and wanted to try my hand at creating a welcome sign for my front porch and since this didn’t seem like too big an undertaking I decided to go for it!

Like I said the star was already distressed and all I needed to do was finish the wooden plaque beneath.  I’ve never really tried to do anything like this before so I made it up as I went.   Here are the supplies I used…

I started by cutting a piece of designer paper in a bright floral pattern that was the same size as the sign.  I then rubbed the Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink over it to tone it down a bit and add a weathered look.  I also added a dry brushed layer with a bit of white acrylic paint.  Around the edges of the sign I coloured it with the Marvy Mocha marker and smudged it in with my fingers.

My next step was to cut out the welcome letters with my Cricut.  I decided black would stand out the best and would be easily seen from a distance.  The letters were glued onto the sign with Mod Podge.  If you want to know ANYTHING about Mod Podge check out the Mod Podge Rocks blog.  I never knew there were so many different kinds of Mod Podge!

I wanted to add a little bit of sparkle to match the star so when my first Mod Podge layer was dry I dabbed gold acrylic paint over the surface.  The back of the sign was painted with brown acrylic paint and then I added a few more layers of Mod Podge.  I learned Mod Podge is not completely waterproof but pretty close so I thought this little sign might be ok outside on my partially covered front porch.

Once I get my flowers planted this season (hopefully this weekend if the weather cooperates) I’ll post another picture of the sign in my big planter of flowers so you can check out the finished effect.

Hope you enjoyed today’s project.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.  Happy crafting!

Floral Fence Birthday Card

Happy Monday!  Today I am sharing a feminine birthday card with you that is based on the sketch layout from My Time Made Easy‘s Pretty Palette Sketch Challenge #59.

It would have been easy and elegant to put ribbon under the focal image but I wanted to do something a little different, so I went for a wood fence with wild flowers kind of look.

The background designer paper is from a K&Co book and I pulled the colours for the rest of the card from that.  3 different stamp sets were used for this particular card – A Garden for the focal image, Universal Backgrounds for the wood grain on the fence, and Card Word Puzzle for the sentiment.

After stamping the focal image I coloured the flowers with Copics,  the butterflies with glitter gel pens and added rhinestones to the centre of each flower for a bit of bling.  I glued the focal image onto a piece of Topiary card stock and popped it up with foam dimensionals over the wood fence.  As a last addition I cut out the little bird and popped him onto the fence post.

Enjoy your day everyone.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you come back again soon.  Happy crafting!

Incredible You

Hello and thanks for stopping by!  Yesterday I made this card which was inspired by the Paper Crafter’s Library Makeover Monday Challenge.

I started off by choosing a floral background DP from Gina K Designs.  This is from the Parisian Garden Collection.  So feminine and pretty.  I paired it with Moonlit Fog and Cotton Candy card stock.  The floral background was distressed by sponging on Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I just added enough to get a bit of a yellowed look on some of the lighter flowers.

The woman is stamped in Grey Wool and Amethyst ink and is from the CTMH Fashionista stamp set.  This is a great set for the girls in your life who love fashion and shopping.  The flower in her hair was cut out of a scrap of patterned paper from my scrap paper stash.

I stamped the sentiment using Blush ink and then heat embossed it using clear embossing powder.  The words in the sentiment are from 2 different stamp sets – Pure Adventure and Fashionista.

After assembling the different layers of the card I popped up the fashionista on top of everything using foam dimensionals.  Voila!  Une belle carte pour une belle jeune fille!

Hope you have a great day everyone.  Happy crafting!