All with the help of my elves!

     Well, we finished the Christmas card on Thurs. and I finally found a moment to post it :- ) I have to give the credit to my DH elf for cutting the scallop from Recollections paper with the large nestabilities die (as well as scoring and folding all 40 cards, following through on the tree decorating when it stalled and signing all the cards.) My DS elf embossed the snowflakes and corner rounded the sentiment, as well as spraying the image with Crafter's Companion Spray & Sparkle Iridescent glitter varnish (gotta love him ;- ) The image and the sentiment are both from Meljen Designs and were colored in Photoshop. The pattern paper is a digital paper from Bits and Bobs and is part of a free sampler. I'm giving you the direct link to the free sampler I used, but here is a warning: I found the sampler from a direct link and when looking for it, for this post I found that this site does have kits that link to adult content (there is a warning), so you might want to be prepared or just go to the direct link, if you are interested in the paper and the matching embellishments. So you've been warned!

  
     I didn't take a photo of all 40, because there was no place to set them all up ;- ) At this point, I decided to diverge from my usual path, and just stamp on the inside with out adding any other paper (need to be quicker and simpler.) The sentiments are from Clear Dollar Stamps's Christmas Blessings and were embossed with holographic embossing powder. Now here are some stamping tips:
1) You will get ink on your fingers every time you touch the stamp block or stamp pad
2) Ink that doesn't wipe off will always come off on white cardstock when you touch it  >.<
3) you should totally wash your hands with soap & water and wipe the stamps every 4-5 cards (not      really moving fast, but very important!
4) A damp cloth to wipe your fingers with after touching the stamp &/or stamp pad will keep down finger smudges on your cards
5) ink smudges are a naturally occurring phenomenon on cards and only add to the beauty and value of your card (just like those tags on clothes)
6) forget perfectionism or you will never finish ;- )

     Yes, of course, I showed you the best one. I'll be entering this in Stamping With the Dragon's challenge which has anything to do with snow. Thanks for coming by. I hope you and your family have the most Blessed of Christmases. Please leave a comment before you go. I really love to hear from you!

I think I'm ahead, only to find I'm behind ;- (

     I started out thinking I was doing so well. I had finished a tag for the Progressive Challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center on Saturday, but it was dark when I took the photo and I never got one taken on Sunday and by the time we got back from taking my son back to college, I was too tired to post, so I just figured I re-take the photo during the day today. Still, it isn't due until the 30th and I was done on the 26th and could have gotten it there if I had to. Such an accomplishment. That along with finishing my Aunt's card, mailing her gift and working like crazy on the house, because we have a huge Christmas party coming up on Sat. and my hubby is still recuperating and can't lift over 15 lbs. (How heavy are your Christmas boxes? Mine are a lot heavier than 15 lbs.) Now, I know my neighbor just had a death in the family and that will be 3 cards to make, but I have a bit of a grace period on that, so I think I'm doing pretty good and then.... I remember, just before writing this, that today is the anniversary of some dear friends of ours, so dear that they are coming all the way from Kansas to the Christmas party (Kansas City to Chicago is a looonnng way for 1 evening's visit.) Not only that, tomorrow is another friend's daughter's birthday. I didn't miss the birthdays of either of her sisters :-0 Wait .... what happened, everything was going so well? Maybe this is why the tag is done early!!! and my house is partial decorated!!! and my family room has been dusted!!!

     The tag uses an image by Tracy from Sugar Creek Hollow and the challenge and info on it can be found here. She reminded me of a partridge. I colored her digitally and printed her twice, cutting off her tail, legs and top feathers for the top image. The top image was edged with Zig Gold Painty marker and  sprayed with Crafter's Companion's Iridescent spray, which of course doesn't photograph well. The tail and top feathers on the bottom layer are actually inked with Distress Inks. I hadn't colored them because I didn't know I was going to cut it out like that until I did ;- ) The pattern papers are both freebie papers from Papercraft Inspirations. They have lots of great freebies. check out there site here. The tree came from issue 91 and is called Crafty Orchard and the music paper is from issue 93 and is All Join In. The golden yellow cardstock is Core'dinations and it was embossed with Birds and Swirls by Cuttlebug. The sentiment is from Clear Dollar Stamps and was sprayed with Yellow Daisy Glimmer Mist. My favorite part is the ribbon, which you can barely see. It's very shimmery and silky. I was inspired to do a tag by Sue at http://scrumplescrunch.blogspot.com/ who was doing the 12 tags of Christmas Challenge. Now she is in a class way beyond me, but that's where inspiration comes from ;- )

     Now on to my Aunt's card. I'll re-fresh your memory with the outside photo, but you can go here for the info on it. I just wanted to show you how I finished off the inside.

     The stamped and embossed image at the top is actually an unmounted stamp. I wanted to give a tip that to use one, that you hadn't gotten around to mounting (I'm not sure that ever has happened to anyone ;- ), but you can use re-possionable adhesive on the mounting block to attach the stamp. That stamp was a gift with purchase and isn't marked so I don't know whose it is. The Happy Birthday is from Scrappy Cat. After I took the picture, I added a gift stamped with blue chalk ink in the huge white space. The gingerbread men were colored over with a glitter gel pen.

     And finally, (I know you thought this would go on forever and it's not over yet) here are a few photos of the gift I sent my Aunt. We found this at a craft fair in Sept.  and this artist had so many lovely pieces in a huge variety of sizes. This is made of clay and the petals are very soft. 

      Thanks for making it through today's post. I'm sure you  have so much to do too ;- ) If you have any time left, please leave a comment. It means so very much to me to know you were here. Have a great week and remember to do something creative that you enjoy!  

We're off the Hook

     Today's card is for my friend's, whose birthday card was posted the post before last, her middle daughter's birthday, who was 27 on Sunday. Due to the Veteran's Day holiday there was no mail and the card was going to be late, rats! I decided to go with the telephone card from the Cricut cartridge, Wild Card called Hello ' cuz phones just seemed appropriate (it's so hard for me to stop thinking of her girls as teens, Yikes! though I know they aren't any more.)   All of the cuts are from the the cartridge. except for the little piece that stops the dial, when you are dialing. I free hand cut that from a metallic scrap. The phone itself was cut twice (I used the gypsy so I could position the second image with the card part of the cut hanging off of the mat, so it would just cut the handset - you could have just placed you paper that way basically.) I popped up the handset of the second cut and also the dial. I used a clear glitter pen to write all of the numbers except for the 2 and 7 which I wrote in red glitter pen, since that is her age. There is a sentiment cut that says "Talk of the Town," so I adapted that by writing it in white gel pen on the handset. There is a hole in the center of the dial when it cuts, that goes through to the inside. I lined up my sentiment to have a stamped heart show through (lining this up  in the sentiment was the hardest part.) I used ribbon wrapped around a pencil and stiffened with Mod Podge for the telephone cord.

     The paper on the inside is fro Paper Studio. The shape of the sentiment had to accommodate the shape of the phone. The fonts are LD Typeset and LD Wedding from Lettering Delights. I have an affiliate link on the side bar of my blog that will take you to their site.

     For those of us who are older and curious, the phrase "off the hook" means fresh, new.  I like to be educational ;- ) I'm not sure how I knew that, but it's some of the trivia that fills up my limited brain capacity and keeps me from knowing important things, like what I did last week and important words that I need when I speak.

I also threw together (and that's pretty literally the truth) a few thank-you, for the people that covered for us, with the teens and brought meals, after my husband came home from the hospital. They're so not works of art, but I will show them because I think they will inspire your creativity, in that, you just need scraps and you can do "quickie" Thank-yous, though, you might want to make them a bit nicer than mine. They are about 3 by 3 1/2 or so, though it depended on the scraps I worked with.

This used a piece of punched border that mis-punched, but I kept and trimmed the good part.

This was for our friend first, Pastor second (it's a second career for him and our sons went to school together.) He covered the last hour of my teens (his twin girls are 2 of them) and of course visited at the hospital.

This was the inside. The stamps are from Clear Dollar stamps, Church Chatter.

Again, just simple with tone on tone background stamps, an accent stamp, sentiment and scraps.

Wonderful sentiments from Clear Dollar Stamps. They are having a sale (40% off until the 19th.) I get nothing for this ad ;- ) And why was I rushing so? because I had to get ready for my 11 hours of cookie baking at a friends. Whew! That's a lot of baking. Here's a few photos to make you hungry.

     Hope your week and your creativity is really off the hook ;- ) Thanks for coming by and please leave a comment. They really do make my day or night.

Quick note for a friend

     Well, my friends have been busy taking care of me. Two lunches out, in two days and a check up phone call from another. I almost didn't get this card done for one of them, who changed jobs, kind of, by switching as the librarian of an associated parochial school, since they closed her school this year (not the same one that I made the birthday card for). Now instead of a 5 min. commute, she has a 45 min. commute for the part-time job. So, this was a big decision and change for her (as well as the school being larger, so she has more classes). I wanted to send her a card of support. In between having lunch with her one day and lunch with a neighbor the next, I quickly put together, today's card.

I used my  Cricut Imagine and the Imagine More cart to print and cut all the images. The bird and it's wing are pop dotted. I used all of the layers on the front and added gel and glitter pens to the images to add some extra texture. I used my Fisker's cutter to trim the edge with the scallop decorative blade going back and forth to get a different edge. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and  is stamped in Chipped Sapphire by Ranger.

   The inside, is the first 2 layers from the same image as the front and I left it basically plain, to write my message. On the bottom, I stamped a bird from Hero Arts and a Bible verse from Clear Dollar Stamps, both in Chipped Sapphire.

     What could I have done differently? I should have made the notes on the front larger. I had meant to, but the first one started out small and tentative and then I was stuck >.< I wanted a bit more glitter and sparkle, but my gel pen colors matched better.  Maybe, some other glittery embellishment added on. On the inside, I thought about coloring the bird and I may still, when I write the note.

Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me. Please, say hi, so that I know you were here. Exercise your creative muscle today!

I'm back and have a card, Huzzah!

     Sorry, I've been MIA. I've gone up to my craft room each day and couldn't figure out the problem. I didn't know if it was that I'd lost my creativity, or I was chasing too many rabbits (I had a confirmation card, a birthday card, a wedding card and graduation cards that I could make) or what. Each day I'd finally pick out papers, for one of the projects, but just couldn't get started, so I'd straiten something up and call it a day. I eventually decided it must be lack a focus, from too many different directions, but today it dawned on me. There is a type of migraine that doesn't cause pain, but causes fuzzy thinking. I recently learned about it. All these years, I just thought it was me. Each night I end up with a migraine, but no pain during the day. When a friend and I went out to lunch yesterday and then stopped for some grocery items, I just couldn't think what I needed. It was my idea to stop and I just couldn't think. Today, the light bulb went off. That's been the problem all week.
     My plans were to get started after today's errands. So, after I got home today, the weather was gorgeous, relatively speaking and I just couldn't start in, indoors, ha ha. What did I find when I went to clean up a bit in my roses?

     That's the end of a disconnected gutter that the baby bunny is thinking about hiding in. I explained to him that bunnies, despite my garden, have a special place in our yard (my DS's special stuffed toy when he was little was a bunny) and he need to watch out for the neighborhood cats. then I backed away and went in to create this card for a young man's confirmation. I used Clear Dollar Stamps's Die Cuts called Cross Messages Set and the Cross Messages Clear Acrylic Stamps. I used gold embossing powder on the on the cross and sentiment, but it didn't show up well in the photo. Looking at the photo, I'm wondering who took these photos? ;- ) The embossing is actually very shiny and elegant looking in person, just as shiny as the gold brads.

     The sentiment on the inside was written by my husband and the font is Lucida Calligraphy, which is standard on Mac's, I'm not sure about PC's . I colored the sticker with copics, because it had been pink. The REJOICE was an item I've had for awhile.

     What would I do differently? I'd glue the sentiment centered, right to left on the inside ;- ) Remember no one is perfect, but God and I'm always proving that. I should have made the type smaller and made the white sentiment piece smaller. I'm happy with the front though.

     Just an update on the puppies, I need to pick one, of the two and they are soooo cute I can't decide. If I take them both, I'm hoping one of you will take us in ;- ) 'Cause I'm sure DH won't let us stay. Here they are.

    
     Thanks for stopping by and reading today's ramblings. Please leave a comment, because your visit means so much to me. Have a blessed weekend.

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!

Quick Card using Smiley Cards

      Finally, a card that went together quickly. This one gave me no problems and I was able to make 2 at a time, with a few design changes.  The only difficulty with Smily Cards, which is a free download to the Gypsy if you register it before Feb. 28th, (there are 4 other free downloads and it comes with 2 pre-installed carts) is there is no handbook since it is a download. You can find a cheat sheet online, but I'm afraid I can't remember where I found it. If anyone knows let me know. As I was looking for it, I found that Joy at Obsessed With Scrapbooking has a handbook on her blog Here. That would have been helpful earlier today, because the cheat sheet showed them put together, and on the Gypsy, it was hard to tell what the layers were meant to be, at least for me. So I'll go over it in case anyone else in interested. Skip down if not. The first layer of the Emoticons is the black background the makes up the eyes and mouth and goes behind the yellow circle. The shift of the key is the top layer and I cut it using Yellow from DCWV Premium Cardstock Pack in Brights. Both were cut at 2 1/2 inches. Next is the Emoticons Layers. The unshifted one gives you the cheeks, (mine were cut from peach scraps), and the shifted one is the highlight at the top of the smiley (white cardstock from Walmart). Finally, the next element of this image is the Phrase. The Thx is unshifted and I cut it from grey scraps on 1 3/4 inches. The shifted Phrase is the speech ballon and it was white cardstock cut at 2 inches. For some reason they didn't look like the Thx fit inside the balloon on the Gypsy screen when both were at 2 inches, so I cut it smaller.
     The first mat is yellow from DCWV Premium Cardstock Pack in Brights, cut at 5 1/4 x 4. The aqua piece was cut from Core'dinations paper at 5 x 3 3/4 and I ran it through my Big Shot, using Sizzix Texture plate Petite Daisies, from the Texturez Starter Kit. I didn't think the embossing was very deep so I sandpapered it lightly to bring it out more. On the inside I used the same yellow paper and made a black circle using the base emoticon at 1 inch and then the same one in yellow at 1.95 to go over (so that you could see it on the yellow background) and drew the face on it.  Actually, as I was cutting all of the pieces out, I cut out 2 of everything, because I knew I wanted to make 2 cards. I was able to use the power of the Gypsy to set up the cuts so that I could cut it all out at one time, since I could see where everything would cut-out and position the paper colors in the correct spots. I stamped and embossed the inside with a sentiment from Clear Dollar Stamps sentiments called, Church Chatter using Memento black ink.
     The second card appears below. The only differences are that I ran the aqua background through the Big Shot using the Square Patio Texture plate from Sizzix Texturez Plate Kit 2. This time I put a shim (a couple of pieces of scrap cardstock in the embossing "sandwich" to try and get a deeper emboss. It worked except for the fact that the pieces were smaller then 5 x 3 3x4 so the deeper embossing is only in the center, but I didn't mind the distressed look. I sanded this one as well. I also used aqua cardstock on the inside of this one, so I skipped the black shadow on the inside smiley face.
     These can easily be used by our Youth Director for teen volunteers or just to catch a teen doing something nice. I think either can be used for male or female, but the second is more masculine if you had to choose. At our Church or 3rd though 5th graders are making cards for military personnel, stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan to send back home to their loved ones. Everyone loves to get a card!

Another Card, Link to Free Fonts and Photos

 
     Here is the card I made today for my Youth Director's use. This one was made to be more general. She could still use it as a Thank-you card or she could use it for a teen for encouragement or even graduation or anytime for encouragement of a volunteer. I used the Imagine for this card with the Imagine More cart. Keeping it quick and easy, I cut it with without layers at 2 1/2 inches, also cutting 3 butterflies from the layer option on relative size at the same time. The background papers on the outside and inside were both made with the same cart using the background patterns and the built-in shapes on the Imagine. I used the square, because unfortunately the Imagine doesn't have a rectangle  with an A2 aspect ratio ;- ( This makes absolutely no sense to me. It seems like one of the most logical shapes to include for matting. So I use the square and over-cut picking in this case, 5 1/2 inches since that is the longer side that I needed. I cut it to fit the A2 card which would be 5 1/2 by 4 1/2. I curled the wing of one of the butterflies and attached it to the front to give dimension. I added a bit of bling by going over the butterfly with Gelly Roll  Clear Star marker. This so one of may favorite ways to add sparkle without the mess of glitter or trying to match glitter marker colors. It's a clear glitter maker that just adds a bit a sparkle. It's not easy to see it the photo though. I just did the dots and traced around the details on the butterfly. I also used a White Signo pen to go over the stitching on the oval to make it stand out. I almost hate to say that I used Viva Decor Pearl Pearl Pen to add the dots below the butterfly, because I didn't do a very neat job and this is a very good product, which makes great pearl dots. I need to practice more and not rush, like I did here. I had a strip of coordinating paper from another pattern from the Imagine More cart, left from another project, that I added to the top of the inside. I stamped this with a sentiment from Clear Dollar Stamps, Church Chatter sentiments. Next I added the other two butterflies to finish it off. What I would have changed? I probably would have made the image on the front larger, maybe 3 inches to better fill the front of the card. 4 cards down. Next I should work on some masculine ones because we do have male volunteers.

     I also picked up some free fonts from scrapnfonts.com today. They had 15 new free fonts available, if you had signed up for a free account. If you sign up no, you also get 3 free fonts for signing up. That's a total of 18 free fonts for newcomers. They have lots of great fonts that work for both Windows and Mac. Many of the fonts would be great with the Cricut if you have SCAL Sure Cuts A Lot, which is a third party program that lets you cut any font on your Cricut (it will cut it, but all fonts aren't practical based on the thickness of cuts and details of the cuts).  Even if you don't have SCAL, these fonts are great for use in cards and on scrapbook pages. Scrapnfonts puts out a newsletter with ideas, add new fonts often and regularly has great sales, so check them out. I use their fonts inside my cards and on flyers that I make for the Youth Bulletin board all of the time.

     Today, I'm going to leave with a few photos. I was out the other day getting the mail and I took my camera. Sharyn Sowell, check out her blog here, has helped me see more things in the little details. Though when I checked out her blog today she was noticing the big picture ;- ) So I try to catch details as well as patterns and textures in my photos, not just the usual photos I use to get. So, let me share some with you and maybe you will find some inspiration in them too.

 This is the snow on my back deck. I know jealous aren't you. Here in the midwest and my deck isn't covered enough to keep the boards from making a pattern. Can't say I'm complaining. I just liked the pattern it made.

 This is the birch by my house. Love the texture both in the summer and winter. Below is a close-up.

And lastly, I love the texture and depth of this photo. Also the greys in the background. Don't miss the beauty all around you as you rush through your day.

First card of the New Year

     Ok, here is the card from yesterday. I had decided I wanted to do a shaped card and liked this postage stamp one from Cricut's Birthday Bash cart. It was one that I had chosen on my Gypsy when we took my son back to school. I had decided to make it 5x5. First problem, no 5x5 envelope. There was no square envelope on the cart, so I figured I'd use my Ultimate Crafter's Companion. Find info Here. DH insisted I get one at CHA in Chicago after he saw it demonstrated. Isn't he supportive ;- ) Second problem, there are directions for a 6x6 and a 4x4 envelope. Did I mention these were suppose to be quick cards? There is I line between those to make the 6x6 and the 4x4 envelopes so I decide to see if it will make the right size envelope. Through a bit of trial and error, I find that if you use a square of cardstock 8 1/16ths you will get an envelope 5 1/8. Perfect for a 5in square card. Easy peasy!
     As I mentioned yesterday, these cards I'm making are for our Church Youth Director to give to volunteers and teens as she needs them. I decided to go with the snail image that Birthday Bash uses with the stamp card base (snail mail) and to make it a thank-you card. I cut the snail and all it's layers at 2 inches. I then decided that although his face cut out well, I'd draw it on, rather than glue my fingers, or run it through the Zyron. The snail was made with misc. scraps from my scrap box and the background paper was from the Imagine More cart from the Cricut Imagine that I left over from another project. My snail is a snail and does leave a trail, ewww, with Viva Decor glitter liner. The "Thanks" is from Gypsy Wanderings on the Gypsy (also pre-compiled on the college trip) cut at 2 3/4 inches. The flower gems are from Kaiser scrapbook. The sentiment on the inside is from Church Chatter by Clear Dollar Stamps. I love these stamps for this type of cards and use them often.
     Now, there are some things I would have done differently about this easy card. I wouldn't have colored in the antenna on the snail (Statlightz Glitter Gel Pen). I just dont like the look, but sometimes what's done is done, move on. I also should have inked everything, esp. the card base. I thought of this after everything was put together, but I've learned from experience that if I do it at the end, I probably won't like it or will mess it up and then I've ruined the whole card. So I left it. I also question the color of those gems,  but I like them, so not sure. The snail should be placed farther to the right.

     So, today I was going to make it easier (wasn't that what I said about yesterdays' card)? I picked the Bird on the Branch image from the Imagine More cart on the Cricut Imagine. I cut in layers to glue it on an A2 blank. However, (were you ready for a however), the rectangle isn't A2. I trimmed off  the right and left sides to make it mat on the A2 blank (we're just going brut force today - EASY). Then layered the rest of the pieces and pop-dot the bird. The "Thanks" came from Cricut's Lyrical Letters cart filled with a pattern from Imagine More on the Imagine. On the inside, I printed just the bottom layer of the same image as the front and cut it down and also printed the bird on real dial size of 1 inch (bird only). The sentiment is also from Church Chatter by Clear Dollar Stamps. I placed the bird on an oval cut by the Imagine from it's installed shapes because otherwise the bird blended in.
     I also started another card, which I will finish and show next time. These aren't great cards, but my goal with these are to be relatively fast. See I've added a modifier now. But I do want them to have some level of detail or texture.  Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading my babbling.