Using the flower bouquet.

     I wasn't sure I was going to get today's card posted. I got a notice from my online photo company that they are going out of business, so I've been busy editing photos, to get some printed before they close. They are going to transfer all of my photos, that are stored on their site,  to Snapfish, but I like the quality of this company better and they were cheaper. I've gotten a large batch done,  and I have until April 4th.

     I made today's card using the flowers I made with flower soft, a number of posts ago. You can see them here. I purchased the lacy mat, the cone for the bouquet and the ribbon from Flowersoft. Custom Crops has them in different colors. I colored the pearls and  rhinestones with copics (E11 Barely Beige & Y17 Golden Yellow and B05 Process Blue & R29 Lipstick Red).  The sentiment is from Cricut's Storybook Cartridge. This is an anniversary card for a friend of mine that I've known since grammar school. She is my son's Godmother.

The inside was done digitally on Photoshop Elements 3, with a free brush called Valentine Clip Art 3 (to make the beautiful heart.) I think it's found here. If not, there a number of other cool free heart brushes at this site, including vol. 4. (I got it a long time ago, sorry.)  The font is from Scrap n Fonts, called  SNF Classy Charm.  They are having Dollar Days right now, too. Lettering Delights is having a contest for the Silhouette, electronic diecut machine, on their site. Their link is on my right sidebar. The 2 small flowers are stickers from Jolee, that a friend gave me for my birthday. 

     What would I do differently? The bouquet could have used 2 more flowers, but I decided this after I had glued them in and made it too difficult to add more. I meant to do more inking, but I always remember after I've glued the piece down. Why is that? What would you have done differently? Well, I have another boy birthday card to do. thanks for stopping by and sharing your time. Please share your thoughts as well. I truly appreciate hearing from you. Have a blessed weekend ;- )

  

Bunny hopping for the guys.

     Well, I finished the card for the male college students on my list.  I basically just changed the colors on the front and used a different paper on the inside.

   Compare to the card for the gals from last post.

     If you hadn't read the earlier post, the pockets are for packets of Fun Dip. I've known these students since at least kindergarten. Most of them went to grammar school with my son.

     I thought I'd show you the background paper I made,  since you can't really see it with the images on the card. It's a great idea when you need paper and plain colored paper just won't do. Info in previous post (the boy's is gold perfect pearls however.)

     I've finished them all, up to the point of the water coloring. I have to mention that these Bugaboo bunnies are very mischievous. My husband cut out the bunnies (I was tired of cutting out black rectangles myself) and by the time he got upstairs to my craft room, 14 of the bunnies had disappeared. I know I had cut and scored all of the card bases ahead of time, so I could just assemble them all and when the time came, 5 bases were missing. I had the 2 1/2 inches of cardstock that was cut off of them, but they were nowhere to be found. <.< Very suspicious. I wonder were the bunnies put the cardstock and what they plan on doing with it?  Here is a photo of all of the finished cards together.

     Again, a special thanks goes to Creating in Carolina for the original idea. Today she has another cute card on her blog and a free jelly bean svg.  I'd also like to mention that Letraset is having a give-away, where you can win all 3 Promarker blending sets. Check out the details at this  Going Buggy post. Enfys always has some great inspiration on her blog too.

     Thanks for stopping by. Please, leave a comment if you have time. They really mean a lot. Have a week filled with joy and creativity!

Casing a Bunny ;- )

     Well this one, owes a special shout out to Carolina Girl, over at Creating in Carolina. She had such a fun card on her blog and I was just stuck on what to make for the college students for Easter. Sooo I cased her idea. You can see her card here. It just put such a smile on my face. I went and a bought the stamps from Bugaboo Stamps. I had found Fun Dip at Walmart last week and thought it would be fun to send the college students, in the pocket card, like I made for them before with a packet of cocoa.   It would bring back memories, from when most of them were in grammar school together. You can find the directions for making the pocket card here.

     I made the background papers, using Perfect Medium and a stamp by Studio G, then I added Perfect Pearls Opal, one row at a time. When the whole piece was done,  I spritzed some water into the air with a mini mister and ran the card stock through it. The Bugaboo bunny stamps were sized and colored in PhotoShop Elements 3. I noticed while looking at the picture, that this card has the one square, I missed coloring 2 of the dots. I'll have to fix that <.<

The sentiment is another  Studio G stamp and the sticker is from Sticko. The inside has paper that I had leftover, from covering large Hershey bars, for the daughters of one of my friends at Easter last year. Very handy! The sentiment is a Studio G stamp, embossed and I used my nestibilities. The stamp under the candy is from Craftsmart.

    
     The guy's version will be a bit different and I'll post it, when I get one finished. One done, 8 more to go ;- )  What would I do differently? Well, I wouldn't have used the bunny with the unpainted dots ;- ) My sunrise may look a bit like a sunset.  I did think about glossing there noses, but there are too many of them. Maybe if I was doing one card.  Nothing else, because I'm too close to it and have 9 to do total.
What do you think?

     Thanks again to Carolina Girl. Check out her great work, (the link was above and is also on my right margin.)  I just peeked over there and she's offering a free SVG, that's available for 5 days.  Thanks for stopping by and please comment if you have time. They really mean more than you know.

Rocking the guy card!

     Before I give in to the call of more flowers, I needed to do another masculine card. This one is for a 22 year old. I can't believe how fast they all grow up. From birth to 22 in a blink or two. Anyway, this friend's son, had played in their Church Praise Band. I decided to use the star shaped-card, from Cricut's Birthday Bash. It's from the card function on the image of the fox playing the guitar (4th image). I used the star and a modified version of the words (just a minor trim), from that page and the font from that cart as well. I decided that a cooler guitar was needed though, so I used the guitar from the Indie Art Solutions free upload to the Gypsy. I hid the inside cuts and then used the Cri-Kits metallic green gel pen to draw the details in.

     On the inside, I used a digital sentiment with the Lettering Delights font SNF Jester Fool.  Don't forget, they are still having their Dollar Days at Lettering Delights. There's a link in my right margin. The pattern papers are DCWV's  Generation Tech. I think I'll find a lot of uses for this paper pack. (I'll probably get a 2nd.) The metallic paper is from AC Cardstock.

     What would I do differently? Looking at it, I'm thinking of adding some bling to the pegs (tuning pegs) at the top of the guitar. I wish I'd come up with a different way to do the sentiment. I was kind of going for an inverted triangle, but it didn't fit. (Only in my mind.) Maybe if I'd used a smaller font size. Then maybe cut that with zig zag scissors? Maybe I'll find an embellishment to go to the left of the star, in the blue area. I really like how the front turned out though.  The bit of bling for more dimension would be about it (the star and the guitar and the letters that need it are already popped up.)

     Now, maybe I can play with flowers ;- ) Penny Duncan, added a tutorial and SVG file to her blog here, on  Easter lilies. I also found  one on roses here. So click on the links if you are interested and make some summer inside. Have a great and blessed rest of the week. Your comments are more appreciated than you could know. Thanks for stopping by.

Don't forget the fonts!

     Sorry, no card today, but I did get over to Lettering Delights. I knew they had a few fonts that would match a vacation we have planned to a vacation spot in Florida. ;- ) One has letters with balloons and mouse ears. You know where I'm talking. There is one titled after the most famous character and one after his creator's first name. I figured I could use them to scrapbook our trip and now was the time to buy with the Dollar Days Sale going on. I also picked up a gold metallic version that is actually .png files and really beautiful. So be sure to check them out, they have a lot of great graphics too. I am addicted to fonts, use them all the time inside my cards and they give you a lot of freebies just for signing up, for their free newsletter. You can click on my affiliate button on the right, to go directly there.

Some examples!

Birds are singing and I made a masculine birthday card.

     Have you ever gone into your craft room and thought, I'll use a Cricut cartridge that will make my card easy? Well, that was my plan. Only, I ended up choosing an image that had a number of cuts and it was also a  masculine card ;- ) Well, it wasn't that hard only a bit time consuming. The weather was nice enough to have the window open, so I could hear the robins singing. The Cubs were on TV. I could almost believe it was summer. So, it was a nice time crafting.
    
     I decided to use Basic Grey's Granola pack because it's one of my favorite for men. I decided to make the bird on the pennant banner, from Birthday Bash, for the front. To work out the colors, I numbered the cuts on the handbook and numbered the corresponding colors of paper in the paper pack. This made it easy to remember, what I'd decided to cut out in which color. I figured I needed to see it, to decide if I liked it. I'm not good at visualizing colors together. So here it is.

     I wrote on the pennants with a Sargent Liquid Metals marker. It matched the Distress Tumbled Glass Ink, I used with the Hero Arts sentiment, pretty well. I used Judikins  diamond glaze on the birds beak. The legs were so small, I decided to draw them on, but not much shows up well on black. Long ago, I had purchased some puffy fabric markers, that you heat to make them puff up. These worked very well, I will need to use this effect on more cards. Here is the bird detail.

     Someone had mentioned them on a blog, but it was over a year ago and I can't remember whom. I was never able to find them in a store. I finally found these on the internet. Here they are, if you are interested.

     The inside came from the same cart (Birthday Bash), but was the phrase from the image with 2 birds holding a ribbon type banner. The yellow paper was some pattern paper I had in scraps. I believe it's from Hobby Lobby. It's the same as the bird's beak on the front. I popped up this sentiment. All it needs is a signature. This is going to a male in his late teens.

     What would I do differently? I don't know. Right now, I'm pretty happy with it. What do you think? Now I just have to be sure to mail it on time. He has an April 1st birthday and I always miss the birthdays at the beginning of the month. Even when I've got the cards done. The new month just sneak up on me. Kind of like the weekends ;- ) Have a great one. Comments are very appreciated!

Blog Candy

Cafe Expressions has blog candy. Check it out using the link on my bar to the right. Good luck!

Pandamania

     Hi everyone. This is a quick post. No card today. I've been struggling with migraines for a few days, so haven't gotten much crafting done. Today a friend from my Church came over and we made the pandas and bamboo from the Cricut cartridge, Create a Critter. Our Church's Vacation Bible School program this summer is PANDAmania. We are also teaching other Churches in the area, who are using this program, ideas for teaching the program, advertising, crafts, decorating, snacks, etc. So we made the panda, to show some ideas for this class. We made a fit to page one, (ended up 11 inches) and a 5 inch one and two 8 inch pieces of bamboo for examples. Aren't they a cute family ;- ) So, if you belong to a Church using this program, they might like your help.

     The weather was wonderful here today.  We made the 60's!!! Spring may be coming. We might get to 70 tomorrow (fingers crossed), before returning to the 40's. Hope your having warm weather too. Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day. Thanks for stopping by. Comments are deeply appreciated.

More flowers...

     Today, I was able to get a new quilling board at Hobby Lobby and I found this product.

     DH had a 40% off coupon, as well, and this item cost $9 regularly. You get 120 die cuts to make into spiral roses and 80 die cut leaves. I thought for the time and paper savings, this was a good deal for me. I hadn't made the spiral roses yet, though they were on my list of to do flowers. Today was the day. The die cut sheet looks like this and the are 10 of them.

You get 3 sizes of flowers. Here is my result.

I used my quilling tool to form them and my Tweezer Bee to shape the petals.

     Next I got out my Flowersoft and made another flower I'd been meaning to try. I had purchased the supplies for this, sometime around Christmas. I decided to use the Delphinium Flowersoft on wires. Flowersoft TV has a special on Cardtoppers for Neon Flowersoft, which look pretty fun. You can find them here.  After you watch the show, you can click on offers, to see this week's deal. There is a new one every Friday.

I didn't have any styrofoam to stand them in to dry, so I improvised.

Here they are just lying on the craft sheet. I'm sure you'll see them in a card soon.

     I thought, OK, what now. I should make another flower, so I got some cuts I made with my Expression, when I first got it. When practicing on how to use the Expression, I used Accent Essentials and made flowers in different sizes and colors and stored them away for emergency, last minute card making. They have come in handy before. I have a number of sizes. These are 1 1/2  inches, 3/4 inches and 1/2 inches. I inked the edges and  I used a stylus to give them a 3D effect. I have in the past used the handle of a paint brush or the end of a pen cap to do this.  I curled the edges and added an embellishment.

     So there you go, 3 different homemade types of embellishments for you cards. You can, of course cut your own spirals for the roses, but some time savers, are what I need to actually get over some humps. Penny Duncan does have an SVG for the cut on her blog, as well, and that's the next weapon I'd use to get them made. Thanks, Penny!!!!!!!! ;- ) Maybe, quilling next, though I haven't made the paper rose from CHA (the Craft Hobby Association, winter show) yet. Thanks, for your time. Your comments are so very appreciated. Have a wonder-filled week.

Learning Delights Dollar Days Starts March 15th!

     Dollar Days start tomorrow!  All fonts, doodlebats, graphics, clipart, alphabets, and paper packs will only be $1.  All SVG's will be $2.  Mini albums will be $3. 

1) Over $40 in FREE PRODUCT with new account sign up.  They have now added SVG's to the new account product.  If you already have a an account, you will find the new product available in your library. 

2) 9 Free Fonts are available to everyone who signs up for the newsletter

3) $5 off if you refer a friend who signs up for the newsletter.  You'll both receive a $5 coupon good on any purchase of $15 or more.

4) Monthly freebies.  This month's freebies are the Modern Miss Alphabet (available through Try Me Now Tool) and the Fancy That Digital Paper Pack.

I use these fonts all the time on my cards and when I have to make flyers. I love them. The truth is, I often wait for this sale. I haven't tried the SVG's, but this is the first dollar sale since they started having SVG's. It's a great time to buy, so check it out. Just click the link on the bar on the right side of my blog.

Flowers... Sort Of.

      Well, we're finally heading into the weekend. Today I don't have a card, though I did have to make one more of those easy Thank-you cards, that are 2 posts earlier, for the Elders to sign, to be sent to the confirmation teachers at our Church. Evidently, my adding skills aren't what they use to be :P So, after that I finished up the daffodil I started yesterday. I had used the SVG that Penny Duncan had created. Hers turned out beautifully.  To view Penny's tutorial and/or get her SVG click here. Here is a photo of her finished flowers.

     Now I have created the Beginner cards cultivar variety of the daffodil. I did not have the correct color of re-inker to get yellow, so mine are orange. Also, I just did the flower part, because I didn't have the right wire or florist tape, but here you have my first try (my Expression needs a new blade, but I knew this was just a first attempt).

     So, not too bad. I had inked the edges, but the color blended in. I meant to try a brown before taking the photo, but I didn't. There is gold perfect pearls on the flower, but it doesn't show up well. I have some time to practice before Easter. 
  
    The other thing I tried today was Cosmo Cricket's Glubers. Now if you don't know what a Gluber is, it's a giant (in this case 2 inches), glue dot. It enables you to more easily make large fabric, ribbon and even paper flowers.  I had some fabric I won in a quilt hop, so I thought I'd try that. It is cream with a small white pattern, which is hard to see after I rolled it, for the flower. I set embellishments on it for the photo, to show a possibility, but I won't decorate it until I know what project I'm going to use it on. I might also be able to dye it with ink. I have a test piece of fabric drying overnight.

     I had made a trip to a different Michaels today, to look for a new quilling board. I found that Michaels is clearancing out what little quilling supplies they have. No boards, but I did pick up some quilling paper. I can't find my board (looking for it has been a major time eater for a few days now) and haven't quilled in years, but I have taken out some books from the library and would like to use it to make some card embellishments. As soon as I get a 40% coupon for Hobby Lobby and some time, you may be seein some of those creations here. The Michaels I was at had a lot of clearance items. They had a bunch of regular ribbon for $1, and I got my favorite guy paper pad from Basic Grey, Granola for $4.99 (12x12). Picked up some $1 stamps and some clearance embellishments and then had to hurry, because I promised DS I'd only be 5-10 minutes and he was waiting in the car. Got a partial save because DH came in to use the bathroom and then he went to the Office Max, so I knew I had a few more minutes, though I still heard that it took me more than 5 min ;- )


     I had planned on doing more this evening, but then the news came on and well, I wasn't much into crafting after watching the video from Japan. My mind was a bit distracted. So please offer up a prayer for the people there and be sure to hug your loved ones..... again. Thanks for sharing your time with me. Your comments keep me going. Have a blessed weekend.

Happy Anniversary!

     Sorry, I've been a bit awol, but I've been working on cheat sheets for my SVG files. That can be very time consuming. Today I did the updates to my Gypsy and my Imagine. I didn't have the problems some people reported, except the time I did the Imagine, it stayed on the "Restarting Imagine" screen forever without doing anything. For awhile, I even worked on the card for today with the Imagine and finally at one point, it told me it was done with the upgrade. Go figure.  The card today, I'm sure you guessed is an anniversary card. I used the Imagine cartridge, Better Together. I was inspired by a number of images and put them together for this card and came up with the inside sentiment. All cuts and paper are from the cart.

     The stamp on the front is from Inkadinkadoo and the sentiment inside was added digitally after printing the paper on the Imagine. This was a new accomplishment for me, since I only printed the pattern, the size I needed it. I got it placed right on the spot, the second try. Woo Hooo! There is glitter and gel pen on the front, but it didn't show up well, in the photos and I used layers and pop-dots.

     What would I do different? I think a frame, around the tan patterned mat, on the front would look nice. Maybe in a darker brown. I'd inked it with a light color, but maybe a darker color would look better. Otherwise, I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out.

     I was able to purchase Cosmo Cricket Glubers at Archivers today, but haven't had time to play with them, as usual. Hopefully, soon. I want to try to make the daffodils, that Penny Duncan showed on her blog first. Click here to see her tutorial. They say spring, to me and I need spring!

     Thanks for stopping by today and sharing a few moments with me. I love to get your comments, and to know you were here. Have a wonder-filled day!

Thank You Note Cards

     Hi everyone. Hope your weather is getting spring-like. Ours was warm today, but they are saying snow again. I guess that is early spring around here. The robins were checking our our birdbath and squirrels were climbing the bird feeder pole. I've got to get a new way to stop them from doing that ;- )

     Today's cards are made for the Elders at our Church to give to the volunteers who teach the confirmation classes, as well as the 2 teachers who teach a teen Bible class at the same time and the 2 people who provide the meals during those evenings. That make a total of 16 cards, 8 male and 8 female. I decided to make something quick and easy. On cards I made, for the same purpose, for the volunteers who teach Sunday School, I varied the paper colors (for the men and women) and used the same stamps. On these, I decided to basically, make my own paper with stamps, so these motifs would have to be varied for the men and women.  That was much easier for the women then men. I had seen a card on the Hero Arts blog a while ago that had sparked an idea. I've always liked making my own background paper anyway and that's what Dwita did, using a flower stamp and a multi color stamp pad. Instead I used 2 different Hero Arts  flower stamps and 2 colors, stamping them randomly around a Hero Arts Thank You sentiment. I lined the inside with cardstock which I embossed with a Sizzix flower border and stamped with  stamp from Clear Dollar Stamps Church Chatter set. Easy Peasy!

    As usual, men not so easy to come up with. I finally decided to use the Hero Arts wood grain stamp. I really like the realism of this stamp, but it can be hard to work with. I decided it was best to put the paper on the stamp rather than the other way around, to get it to line up. The paper was smaller than the stamp, so I had to be careful, because if my fingers touched it, I would get the ink on the back of the card. This really becomes a problem when you are doing so many in a row, so I would put a 81/2 x 11 piece of scrap piece of paper over the card before pushing it against it, so I wouldn't transfer any ink from my hands to the card back. I also found that my wedding rings were living funny ink marks on the front after I smoothed over the card back to transfer the ink from the stamp to the card. I'd never noticed having this problem before. I added a popped-up Thanks sentiment from Hero Arts, because I thought the front was boring. Inside I stamped the same sentiment and a Church.

     What would I do different. Well, actually the cards are a bit different. I moved the sentiments around a bit. If I was making this more elaborate, I would probably add a 3-d flower to the front of the female card and bling it up a bit with glitter, as well as add at least some stamping to the inside. In this case, 13 people have to write notes or at least sign the inside, so no room. The men's, I'm not sure, maybe some heavy twine. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a wonder-filled weekend. I love to see your comments!

Friends are turning 65?!

     Having my son home is making  it hard to get a card done, every other day. I am soooo glad he is home. I'm just not getting as much done ;- )  I have to have this card done for a party, so I thought I'd better do it today. I used my Expression and Create a Critter. The background paper is from Basic Grey's Granola 12 x 12 paper pad. The bear is cut at 2 1/14 inches and popped up on the card. I used a bunch of scraps for the layers. I used a white gel pen to highlight his eyes. The pinwheel and hat are from the page with the cat from the same cartridge. I used Blueberry Pie paper from Archivers and some scrap yellow pattern paper with white swirls in it. They didn't show up well  in the picture and I was too tired to re-do them, sorry. I went over the swirls with the clear glitter gel pen and added a button with Martha Stewart twine. I also added yellow Viva Decor Pearl Pen to the ball at the top of the hat. The hat and pinwheel were popped up twice as high as the bear. The words were cut from the Phrase on the page with the cat at 2 inches with paper from Basic Grey's Granola and the Blueberry Pie. The top layer was run through the Big Shot with Swiss Dots and popped up. The dots have glitter added by the clear glitter pen as well.

     On the inside, I used the Blueberry Pie paper and a striped pattern from the Basic Grey Granola pad to form a mat for the computer generated sentiment. The fonts I used are SNF Jester Fool (from Scrap n Fonts), Rasp (for the word "age") and Tabitha. The embellishment at the center top, is from JoAnn Craft Essentials Birthday adhesive bubble icons. The candles on either side of it were give to me by a friend as part of a present with a number of other mixed embellishments.

     What would I do different? Maybe add some inking. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by and sharing some of your precious time with me. If you have a moment more, I'd really love to hear from you, so please leave a comment. Thanks!

Imagine card for 2 year old boy

     Well, I thought I wouldn't get today's card finished, phew ;- ) Right in the middle of it, DH and I had to finish up the taxes, in order to finish the forms for next years college financial aid. At least this time DH, started out in my guest chair and I was able to do two things at once, but about 1/2 way through, he took over my desk and that caused card making to grind to a halt. We eventually finished the taxes, but then the cranky printer needed some coaxing to print out the inside sentiment, before I could call the card finished and take it's lovely photo.
     Here are the directions for today's card. I used the Imagine and Nursery Tales. The background is one of the patterns from the cart, cut in a 5 1/4 inch square, that I then  cut to to 5 1/4 X 4 on the paper cutter (I sure wish Provo Craft had realized that this was an important ratio and included it).  I used the bunny on the mushroom image cut in layers at 4 1/2 inches.  I cut a Nursery Tales pattern circle at 1 inch and one at .8 inches, as well as a number "2" from the Birthday Blast cart that I filled with the pattern from Nursery Tales that I used in the background paper, cutting it at .8 inches.  I added 1/16 in. high dimensionals to the second layer of mushrooms and the number "2." I used 1/8 in. high dimensionals to the bunny and the flower.  I added the butterfly from the layer of the bunny image and attached to the number "2." I also cut out a sentiment from Birthday Bash, which was on page 25, (the main image is a birthday cake) and was the shifted sentiment on that page. I filled it with a light green color from Nursery Tales. I used glitter pens to add accents, as well as adding Judi Kins Diamond Glaze, on the large mushroom and Perfect Pearls on most of the images to give them some sparkle (hard to see in the photos, but very nice in person). I used Martha Stewart brown flocking on the cattail.

 This photo kind of shows the Perfect Pearls. Click on photos for a larger view.

This photo shows a close-up of some of the details.

     The inside, is matted with the dark patten, cut on the Imagine at 5 1/4 square inches and recut to 5/14 X 4 inches and a light green pattern cut on the Imagine at 5 inches square and recut to 5 x 3 3/4 inches (both from Nursery Tales). I made a digital sentiment in PrintShop, using the font SNF Jester Curls and cut it to 4 3/4 x 3 1/2 inches, adding images of the bunny, flower and butterfly all cut at 4 inches relative.

     What would I do different? I should have rounded the corners, at least the two, right ones. I don't like how the pens looked on the flower and I should have just added the Perfect Pearls and used a Viva Decor Pearl Pen for the center or a gem. Well, I'm glad you were able to stop by and am always excited when you leave comments. Thanks for sharing your valuable time with me. Have a great week!