Christmas Card #3

i'm going to say right upfront, before i forget - inspiration for the card comes from this card by Debbie Olson (whose blog i just love to look at - she does some amazing and wonderful things with cardstock, paper, stamps and pens... whew!) Now you'll note that her card is from a year ago - but when i see something i like i make a mental note (maybe that's what's slowing my brain down?... all those mental post its! lol). The stamp is from a set from Cornish Heritage farms called Winter Vintage Signage. I finally bought it back in September - its got a bunch of cute stamps in the set and I'm determined to use them all. But the one that I decided to try here is the Hot Chocolate & Marshmallow one. I wasn't keen on the price or the pitcher in the stamp so I decided i'd do a little editing - ala Debbie Olson. I inked/stamped the Hot Chocolate portion then went back and did the same with the & Marshmallows part - leaving enough room for the replacement mug - a Quickutz die shape. I cut the oval with a nestabilities die then used my Tim Holtz antique linen and a little Tea Dye to get the look I wanted. The paper is Chatterbox and the eyelets are Making Memories. I'm pleased to say aside from the stamps everything else I had already - use it up and MAKE DO :-) I think it has a Christmas-y look - whaddyathink? That's all for today kids.

Christmas Card #2

I really am happy I bought the coordinating punch for that StampinUp! Delightful Decorations. Isn't that ornament such a pretty shape? Makes me think of all the old fashioned ornaments kwim?

Ok so I was fooling around with ideas and grabbed a piece of cardstock I'd stamped in Versamark with a SU! Canvas stamp - just for the color of the cardstock mind you. I wanted a green background. I pulled out my SU! Peaceful Wishes set and used the stamp - its a piece of evergreen - and stamped with more Versamark but this time I threw on some clear embossing powder. That canvas background had been stamped in Versamark perhaps a week prior - who knew it would still have a little sticking power! I had to play with scraping the EP off a few times and reapply - finally I decided to go for it- and I used the heat gun. Some of the canvas embossed but you know I kinda like it - little more texture and not too distracting. Serendipity! I was feeling a little stupid when I tried to emboss on top of THAT with the sentiment in silver EP- this did not work - don't try it kids :-) But I'm still in that MAKE DO mode so I cut off that portion (at the bottom) and stamped the sentiment on the red background as you see here.

Next - the ornament. I'd already punched out the ornament from a scrap of red cardstock (that had been embossed with the Cuttlebug ep folder - Swiss Dots). I didn't like the top part of the ornament in red - I wanted it to look like the real deal. I found some of that Making Memories sheet metal in my "collection" and used the punch again - voila - metal topper. And I found some wire and made my own hanger. (if you click on the pic you'll see what I'm talking about - little metal section at the top of the ornament with a wire hanger).

I may make a few of these cards. I swear the only hard part was tying that wee bow and getting it on there

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

so I bought some new Christmas stamps a while back - well, perhaps September. and i thought i had better get a move on with the Christmas cards right? I mean it's November. I had grand ideas last year - bought a cute stamp set, worked on those cards for at least a month - but it was such an involved card I never finished making all of them. I did mail out a few to family members but that's it.

Practically against my religion you know what i mean? - to not send out cards.

So i'm going to try my best.

In year's past I've always made one design and mass produced. This year I believe I'll be making whatever suits my fancy. I couldn't decide on one stamp or set. I kept seeing things I liked. Quelle surprise.

so here's a first attempt. i think i'd prefer a skinnier ribbon but i don't have one i can lay my hands on at the moment so i'm going with it! (this will probably be my new years resolution - making do - i think it'll be a good one!)

oh - its a cuttlebug embossing folder, an ornament shaped StampinUp! punch, and the stamp (that's embossed with white ep) is from a StampinUp! set called Delightful Decorations

have a good day kids!

thank yous and the women

Got a lovely new stampinup wheel and had to use it right away on a thank you card. I made several subsequent thank yous i'll post soon but this here was my first attempt. I am in love with this wheel. lovely typography. graphic appeal. i know i'll be using it to death. And being as it's the season of thanks - heck maybe i'll even make napkin rings for the thanksgiving table.
on a side note - dh and i have been watching a number of movies of late on hbo (we don't subscribe normally but there was some deal .... it came with some configuration of our FIOS.. but i digress). One day i saw "The Women" was on - i'd wanted see if this version did justice to the original movie - one of my old movie favorites. Have you seen the original? With Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and the amazing Rosalind Russell? If not - you really must. There is no one like Rosalind Russell (another RR favorite - Auntie Mame... a must see). Anyway - the new version - well I enjoyed it. But sometimes, with all the updates - well it loses something in the translation. But it was certainly entertaining. Another movie we decided to try - "The Changeling" with Angelina Jolie - if you haven't seen that one - please do. Really wonderful. Gotta run!

sparkly halloween

so i said i was glittering things.

so here are a few examples. I used some Martha glitter and a glue pad (which definitely seems to work better than the stampinup heat and stick powder... just my opinion of course)

the last picture gives you a close up of the glitter on ribbon. I stamped on the ribbon using Purple Onion Designs Halloween Border Tapes

I think they came out pretty cute. No great art just cute cards :-) Now I just gotta get them in the mail....

have a good one!

quick check in

nothing to post yet and i'm on my way out to work.
but... i was wondering... is there something in glitter that's... addictive?
i've been a glittering fool lately.
hoping to post something later.
have a great day!

beautiful fall

The title of this post could mean I fell down (in a very gracious way -oh but of course....) and went boom... but no. I am truly referring to the beauty that is taking place outdoors.

Fall is my favorite season. Hands down. When I was out running some errands today - I was thinking how lucky I was to have off on this spectacular day. The temperature was in the low 70's (particularly welcome after a run of rainy days last week that felt like winter -temps in the 40's!) and the sun was shining. But what struck me were the fall colors. The trees are just gorgeous. The most amazing reds, golds, oranges.

Oddly enough my good friend June had a post on her blog this morning called Create something beautiful for fall (it's a challenge on another blog). And as I was driving along past some beautiful trees, I thought about the card she created and the sentiment on the card. When I got home I decided I wanted to try and use that sentiment and also try a technique recently shown on Splitcoaststampers called acrylic smash. I don't know about smash but i definitely used a transparency and painted on some acrylics! I found a leaf stamp in an old Stampin Up! set called Botanicals. I stamped that leaf in two rows of three (knowing I'd probably like to make 2 cards while I was at it) in StazOn Black. I painted the acrylic paint on the back of the transparency then glued it onto some kraft cardstock. I printed out that beautiful sentiment onto some cardstock and then aged it with some Tim Holtz antique linen. I added the cardstock button (cut from a sizzix die from StampinUp!) and tied it with some twine. Then I pulled out my sewing machine (which hasn't seen any action in forever - which is obvious - I could not get the tension right to save my life but I'm over that!) I decided to fool around with a little Bronze pearl ex here there and everywhere on the 2nd version you see here. It looks much better in real life, trust me.

Anyway I enjoyed making something a little different. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday - go out and enjoy the beautiful Fall!

a little thank you a little halloween a little birthday = Big Post :-)

i'm sorta jumpin around these days with the card making. It's not like I don't have a bunch of cards in my stash - but dontcha know it - for the particular people I'm sending these cards to I wanted to make a card just for them.

Okay. who am I kidding. This is my whole problem. I can't just make a bunch of cards and then send them to people on my list randomly. I have to make a card for that particular person for that particular occasion. And seriously... I'm not that particular LOL It's sorta like my shopping habits for birthdays and Christmas - gotta buy just the right gift for that particular person (and if I don't do that then I have to get a gift card for them from the store they would most likely wanna shop at.... are you following my crazy?... sigh)

I needed a birthday card for my sister - she likes purple and green. So I used the Wisteria Basic Grey papers. Stamped my favorite little cupcake stamp on some of that wonderful white cardstock by Papertrey Ink - it takes ink so nicely - and it's wonderful to use with Copics (which is how i colored it in) and it really works well with Nestabilities (i used labels 2). You'll notice i threw some glitter on those cupcake flowers... made them look like those edible candy flowers. I used a rubon from Quickutz for the sentiment ( i wanted something tiny so it didn't detract from the pretty cuppy-cake) and I used a Martha punch for the border at the top. Finally i found a ribbon that would go nicely. All in all I am quite happy with this card and I think she will love it too.

Next up...

I needed a thank you card - it's not a flowery time of year (we're not including mums ok?) but I was feeling flowery - truth be told i spied scraps of this paper and that i had some flowers that would match nicely - done. I think the stamp is Hero Arts and that's a Nestability (labels 8) and a scrap of rick-rack and a white gel pen.

Then I got an itch to make a Halloween card - having seen so many already in my blog travelling. The witch stamp is Purple Onion Designs as are the bats (clear embossed), the buttons and spider web paper are Making Memories and there's some satin black ribbon on there as well as black embroidery floss. I cut the circle with Nestabilities and sponged around the edge with a combo of Tim Holtz tea stain and antique linen as well as an Opalite Golden Mist stamp pad (it looks better IRL). For this particular card - I'll admit I wanted to make a Halloween card more than I had a particular recipient in mind (but I've got a few people who would like it :-))

Ok... that's all for now. I really need to get moving. A day off, my college girl home (she's still sleeping... ah youth) and a ton of errands to run... ttyl

Cake Time

ok.. so not the best picture but what can i say.. i'd rather make stuff than take pictures of the same.

It's a card for my friend Annie who may remember this picture of the girl eating cake :-)

We had a lot of fun making cards using this picture. For example the card below :

She is a cute little girl and who can't relate to that cake?

So for her birthday card I decided to use that image again. I also used a new Quickutz embossing folder, a felt flower with a button and one of my favorite Purple Onion Designs Noteblock stamps (stamped in Versamark and clear embossed).

ok... i gotta get to work. Have a great day!

birthday cupcake

I mentioned previously I'd picked up a few things since my birthday

One was this cupcake stamp from Lockhart Stamps. Another thing was a Scor-Pal (hence the scoring in the background of this card). I'd gotten a Scor-it and initially I liked it alright. But the adjustable feature with the Scor-it - I think it just bugged me having to move it back and forth, and it didn't seem quite accurate. I don't know. (maybe operator error? quite possibly). I just never was quite in love with the thing - and it was heavy.

I kept seeing things made with the Scor-Pal and I resisted for almost 2 years - feeling it was almost like another die cut system. (I've got Quickutz, Zipemate and the Cuttlebug ok?) In otherwords, there is always something better, cooler, whatever on the horizon. Ugh. I thought I don't need another thing to score with do I? Obviously I decided I did. And honestly I really am loving this Scor-Pal. It's accurate, allows me to just score without thinking about the measurement and it's light (weighs very little). So all in all it was a good purchase.

This card - colored with Copics (I'm going slow with my collection of these. I like them but I still think I love my prismacolor pencils more.) I stamped the image i believe it was three times - colored and cut them out and layered them with foam dots. The tag and shape behind the cupcake are both nestabilities. I printed out the sentiment - I'm finding I never have quite the sentiment I want. (the words or how it fits in my scheme.) This has been an ongoing thing for me. I have looked over my collection of stamps and I have a ton of images and alphabets but my sentiments are woefully lacking. I've got some good ones but in general it seems I pick images over sentiments when I buy.

Does anyone have some good recommendations for sentiment sets? or should I continue to print out stuff from my computer?

(I'm posting this on Thursday while I'm at work. Hopefully I'll post something else before the weekend)