Saturday, June 30, 2012

MIM#72 Step it up - Embellishments/Moxie Fab World Birthday Card Challenge

Sorry I haven't been posting. :-( We went away last weekend to see my nephew graduate. It was a great weekend away just for starters - but seeing him graduate (Summa Cum Laude - I'm just sayin - so proud)  was the highlight! When I returned I had to get into birthday mode as both my son and husband's birthdays were this week (son born 5 minutes to his Dad's birthday). We had some nice low key celebrations - which suited us all. I have one of the birthday cards to share today which I made with the MIM challenge in mind. I used Papertrey Ink's Giga Guide Lines stamp set and stamped one of the images in black all over kraft cardstock. This took a bit of time, trying to line up the images - I'm slightly off here and there but overall it went well. Then my little bit of crazy took over because I wanted the pattern orientation to be on an angle (not straight across up and down as I'd stamped it - it was just easier to stamp it that way) - so I had to cut it on on angle (not sure  if that's clear - wish I'd thought to take pics as I cut it but there you go LOL). Then I stamped out my embellisment which is the center piece you see here - from Papertrey's 2012 Birthday Tag set. I stamped it on PTI cardstock colors- Kraft, White and Fine Linen - then cut it apart and reassembled it. I used the PTI Limitless Layers Ovals to cut the main oval and the white pinked edge oval - the rest I fussy cut. I know I'm not alone in enjoying some fussy cutting now and again - kinda like therapy isn't it? Finally I decided I needed a little more white in the card. I decided adding some little white circles to the centers of the elements would do the trick - but what could I use to make those white centers? I thought about using a gelly roll white pen - forget it. Then realized maybe just a hole punch? I pulled out my We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-dile - tried both sizes of the punch - and settled on the smaller of the two and punched out a bunch of wee circles and glue penned them on. If I'd had some of those cute little gems handy I guess I coulda used them - but then again this card was for my husband and I don't think he'd be into little sparkly thangs. ;-) (that's my department!)
Anyway I'm hoping to get some card making in this weekend (no I'm definitely going to!) I'm also going to enter this card in the Moxie Fab World Birthday Card challenge because stamping is definitely the primary technique in this card - I love the Giga Guide Lines set for making big bold backgrounds! Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

MIM: #71 Bordered Sentiments

I've been a little busy and wasn't able to give last week's Make It Monday Challenge a try but this week I was able to give it a go... sorta. I'll explain. The challenge was to mask off your bordered sentiment and then stamp your background. And I did indeed do that - but after some consideration I wasn't liking what I came up with. Here it is before I kinda went off the Make It Monday trail.... and in the photo you can also see I stamped the sentiment again on a piece of white cardstock measured to fit inside my pen borders.
And here's the card when I added that sentiment and then added some stitching. (click on it for a clearer look). Yes, I added some fringe. Paper fringe. The other day I was playing around with my Martha fringe scissors and thought it might be kinda fun to add some paper fringe to a card. I'd earlier been playing with the Background Basics: Medallions set from Papertrey and thought what I came up with looked a little like bandanna fabric - do you agree? Well I thought they'd make a cute combo - and when I saw the MIM I thought why not give that a try. I spose I really should give the challenge another try - but for this particular card I think I needed that sentiment stamped on white. I do like the line I drew in bordering the white. It accentuates the white just right.
Now while I was at it I decided to try another card with some more faux Bandanna fabric :-) I had a sentiment I'd stamped out on kraft cardstock - Happy Birthday. I stamped some more with the BB:Medallions - put those two together on a darker blue background. Then I made a little more paper fringe - but it needed something else. I looked around on my drawing table and I saw a piece of red cardstock that I used to cut out the Superstar Border Die from Papertrey - it was the negative of the stars, if you will. I liked the red with the fringe - stitched it all up and this card was done.
Okay - I need to get some dinner on the table for this family. Have a good one!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day


Here's the card I made for my husband. He is quite wonderful and is the world's greatest Dad to our 2 kids. I kinda hit the jackpot when I married him.
I went to look back on this here blog to see what cards I'd made for him in the past (I've been blogging for over 7 years ...  I had totally forgotten it had been that long.. but I digress).
Here's a favorite Father's Day card from the past (it's got the three most important people in my world right on it)

http://smallsmackerels.blogspot.com/2007/06/fathers-day.html

Have a good one ~




Saturday, June 09, 2012

Make it Monday #69 - Inspiration into Unique Sketches


 
I've had this Bon Appetit Magazine (May 2012) sitting on my kitchen table since...well May ;-) Last weekend I was looking at and was struck by the cover and those gorgeous baguettes. I loved the composition of them on the cover and was thinking - that kinda makes me think of a card I could make.... On Monday afternoon after work I go to check Nichole Heady's blog to see what the new Make it Monday is - I love the videos and have been trying to challenge myself a little in my card making lately. Basically it was about taking an inspiration and turning it into a sketch.  I'm thinking - hey how is she reading my mind about those baguettes? LOL Although there are some absolutely wonderful sketches provided for the challenge I thought why not take the inspiration to make my own and give it a whirl. So back to those baguettes. What intrigued me the most was the composition - particularly the one baguette - on top of the rest or fourth from the left (it is under the S in Paris). I thought I wanted to see what I could do with this little-out-of-order element. I drew a few sketches - my drawing teachers would wonder what has become of my drawing skills... but I digress ;-) I decided on a twist on that little element (instead of it being out of order I'd put it at the top - near the sentiment) and here's my card. I used My Minds Eye Lost & Found paper, the Double-Ended Banner die and Think Big Favorites #12 sentiment from Papertrey Ink. And I did a little stitching around... Okay blogger is not being cooperative so I'm going to stop fooling around with this post. Thanks for stopping by - have a good one!


Thursday, June 07, 2012

Queen for a Day - Simon Says Stamp Challenge

I decided to try the challenge over at the Simon Says Stamp Challenge blog (be Patriotic, Celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, add Crowns and/or Gems). I went with a birthday card - Queen for a Day! I poked around in my stash and found a deck of cards and selected the Queen of Diamonds. The celebrate sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Celebrations stamp set. The smaller sentiment is one I printed on my computer onto a diecut (you knew there had to be one didn't you? The Double-Ended Banner die from Papertrey). The background patterned paper is from my stash - it's from Li'l Davis Designs (who apparently are now part of Fiskars). I used some Antique Linen Distress ink on the sentiments to age them a little - using a stippling brush. I'm kinda pleased with the card - sortofa clean and simple vintage card ;-)
Have a good one!

Monday, June 04, 2012

84th Birthday




My father-in-law will be celebrating his 84th birthday this week and I needed to get a card made so I could put it in the mail tomorrow. Fortunately it came together pretty quickly and I think he'll like it :-) That's all for today! Have a good one~

Cardstock: PTI Kraft & Aqua Mist
Stamps: Background Basics: Woodgrain, Movers & Shakers Sentiments; StampinUp! Stippled Shells (retired)
Ink: PTI Kraft and Aqua Mist; Stampin Up! Craft White
Die: PTI Mat Stack 1
Ribbon - from my stash

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Make It Monday #68 Pocket Cards

I've wanted to try this Make it Monday challenge all week and yesterday I finally had a little bit of time to give it a go. The challenge was to create a pocket card. I love pocket cards. So fun! I also really loved Heather Nichol's video - she made a beautiful card using the Rosie Posie stamp set - I didn't think I needed that one but it has now gone on my wish list! Okay so I decided I'd like to stamp my background, as Heather did - one of my favorite things to do and I don't do it enough. And since I'm currently in love with my Strawberry Patch stamp set - that decision was easy. Leah at Paper Blossoms had posted a lovely card using the Strawberry Patch set - stamping on PTI Fine Linen. That color combo had also been on my mind all week- red with Fine Linen. So I was ready to begin. I was going along fine til I got to stamping with white. My old StampinUp! White craft ink pad was just not cutting it. The white was just not white enough. I am still happy with my card but now I've decided I must have PTI's Fresh Snow Ink. If you look at the coverage that ink gives in Heather's card - well it's a no brainer.  Onward. I decided I really wanted a white card to go in the pocket but I needed another source of white on the outer card to balance that out - hence the white scallop border. I created the white card and edged it in some Fine Linen Ink (one of those details you'd only notice if it wasn't there yaknow?). I used the little plaid patch in the set, stamped it on Fine Linen and cut it with the Framed Out #1 die. I stamped a strawberry and die cut it, popped it up with some foam on top of that little patch and adhered it to the white card. I looked around for a sentiment and finally settled on the "Hello you" from Trendy Tree Tops. I made the little tab on the upper right corner using the same little plaid patch and glued it on. Finally, I stitched around the whole thing. That's all for today. A lot to do this afternoon. Why are the weekends so short? Have a good one!

Friday, June 01, 2012

Tag-a-lot

When my daughter and I used to do Girl Scouts we'd also do the summer Day Camp program for a week that they have here in my neck o' the woods :-) It was called Camp Tag-a-long. (The idea was mom's who volunteered could also bring other kids with them and those kids could participate in all the activities too - it was great - course my son is 5 years older than his sister - and he was not gonna tag-a-long LOL but that's another story). Anyhow I was thinking about those days while I was making a bunch of tags this afternoon. I tagged-a-lot. I cracked out Papertrey Ink's Tiny Treats: Birthday set as well as the 2012 Birthday set - I just love these stamps! The first pic shows tags using the 2012 Birthday set. I did a lot of stamping, cutting apart, and gluing - I swear it's better than therapy. I just love doing this kind of shtuff. I used that Tag Sale #3 die again as well as the Limitless Layers Ovals and Circles Collections. 
On the next two tags I used the Tiny Treats: Birthday set. There are so many cute little images to choose from but today that little bee caught my eye. I used a Copic marker as well as a Prismacolor pencil with a little sparkly Gelly Roll pen (for the wings) to color him in. And those polka dots? I had some Smash tape sitting on my desk and I thought it would go very nicely.
Okay that's all from me - have a good one!