Cocoa cards on their way to college ;- )

     Well, the cards have been on their way for a few days now, but my husband believes in sharing and shared his nasty cold virus with me (which may have some home from college in the first place with our son, but he doesn't usually get very sick.) There are 14 cards in total, but only 10 were still here for there photo shoot ;- ) The cards for the guys all use the same pattern paper, while I use a few different pattern papers on the ones for the gals.

     The image is from Bugaboo Digi Stamp and I won it during a blog hop from Cely (Creating in Carolina) back during Christmas in July. I colored it digitally, which sure makes making multiples easy ;- ) and cut them out with the large oval nestability. The pattern papers are all from DCWV Holiday Collection Christmas Stack. The mats are a Bazzil paper from Archiver. The ribbon was scavenged from boxes of Godiva Chocolates over many years ;- ) (Yea! Hubby) I used Viva Decor Pearl Pens, to add the pearl dots, on the sentiment, which is from Hero Arts Big Hugs (stamped with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and clear embossed) and also Sickles on the hearts for the gal cards, but only Stardust pens by Sakura to the hearts on the guy cards. Oh, and of course there is inking! The oval for the sentiment was cut on the Cricut using the Gypsy and Accent Essentials, after making sure the keep proportions was unchecked. A friend came over the first day and helped me cut our all of the images, mats, paper and card bases, so a special shout-out to Diana for her help!!!! Her daughter will get her card this week ;- )

     On the first cards, which went out before I took photos, I used pattern paper on the inside, but realized that the sentiment inside covered so much, that it was a waste, so I then just used more of the Bazzil card stock to mat the sentiment. The fonts in the sentiment are LD Penelope (from Lettering Delights) and Kingthings Christmas (the snowy font, available as a freebie Here or at dafont, but dafont was down for maintenance when I went to link to them.) I had added a post-it to the cocoa, because it required the addition of milk instead of water and I wanted to be sure they noticed that. I embossed a stamp from Inkadinkadoo's Warm Holiday Wishes with silver glitter finish.

     Sorry, about the photo, but the sun came out from behind the clouds and I usually photo after the sun is well past this window, but they needed to get into their envelopes. I created eveloboxes with The Ultimate Crafter's Companion for each of these cards (sorry, I didn't photo them), so there was enough room for them to fit. My son said his college treated his card like a package and sent him an e-mail when it arrived and he had to pick it up from the package person.

     Hope your week is full of inspiration and warm weather. We are expecting great weather here ;- ) Thanks for stopping by and I'd appreciating hearing from you! Your comments mean so much to me. Feel free to ask me any questions too!

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!

The Guys Cocoa Packet Cards a Couple of Baptism Cards

     Well, I had a productive day today. I went to lunch with a friend of mine to celebrate my birthday belatedly (my birthday is in December, but we had family medical things going on and it wasn't a good time). After she left, I started some laundry and headed up to the craft room. I worked on the male counter-part of the cocoa pocket card that a posted a few days ago. For this version I used a patterned paper from the DCWV Holiday Collection Christmas Stack. I used the same Inkadinkado Christmas Characters Stamp and colored it to match the paper, with Steadtler Watercolor pencils, Gelly Roll Clear Star for the snowflakes and trails behind the sled and a black glaze pen for the eyes and nose. I also used the same Copics BG10 on the bears and B00 to accent the snow and ground the image. The white rectangle was cut with a nestability. The sentiment was stamped with ink from Color Box's Petal Point Pinwheel collection. I also used the blue from the same collection to ink the sides of the white rectangle.

     Here are the two designs together.

If you'd like the directions for the cocoa pocket card, you can find it on the second post below this one.

     While ink was drying on this I worked on cards that I still needed to make for a gift for the Youth Director at my Church. If you've been following the saga since the beginning, I was making her some cards as a belated Christmas present (part of the December thing). The cards I've already given her are posted earlier on this blog. I asked her what else she could use, thinking I'd make her about 2 more cards and she said baptism, so today that's what I made. I think I might try to make her a couple of birthday cards, also, sometime soon. 

     The 2 cards I made are basically the same except for paper color and ribbon.  For the first one I choose green paper from Paper Studio's Pastel Cardstock Pack, cut a 5 1/4 x 4 inches and embossed it with Sizzix Divine Swirls. Next I added striped vellum cut at 4 3/4 x 3 /12 inches and added silver metallic dots to the corners. The green ribbon was some I picked up at Joanne's. I cut a scalloped oval with a nestie and stamped the wood mounted Stampabilities Ornate Cross on it with Big and Bossy, then embossed it with silver metallic embossing powder. I then added the oval popping it up. The oval was cut with a nestie also and stamped with Clear Stamps Wedding Congratulations in Dark Chocolate by PaperTrey Ink. It was double popped to go over the image. The inside is very basic for me. I just left if for her to write in. The butterflies were cut from some of the scraps with a Martha Stewart punch. 

     You see the yellow is basically the same, only embossed with Swiss dots and stamped with Summer Sunrise ink from PaperTrey. The ribbon is Best Occasions Self-adhesive Ribbon. 

     What would I have done different. The yellow one was actually done first and I realized that the vellum needed to be cut smaller, so I fixed that on the green one. On the green one, I had forgotten to add the ribbon and had to sneak it under after it was glued down, but it worked, phew!  I think the ribbon on the yellow is place to high. I like the placement on the green better. Well, we won't talk about how far the laundry got, but there is always tomorrow.

     Thanks for stopping by today and visiting with me. Leave me a note if you've got a moment more.  I may not be able to post on late Friday/Early Sat. because I will be picking my son up from college for his spring break. It doesn't seem like spring, but that's what the school calendar says. Maybe that's why so many of them go south, to find spring ;- ) Until next time then.

Cocoa Pocket Card

     I have nine college students, who live away from home, that I try to send a little love. I planned for the next card to be a pocket card that would hold a packet of cocoa. (Who knew it would warm up in the midwest.) I looked around the internet, but most of  the ones I found were more box size, or just over size. I really wanted to stay with an A2 card, if I could, so I designed one my self. While choosing my papers, I realized I had 2 designs. One for the males and one for the females. Today, I show you the one I made for the females, since that's the only I've done ;- ) I have three to make for them.

     To start I  cut the paper 5 1/2 inches by 11 inches. Then I scored it at the 2 1/2 inch point and the 6 3/4 inch point. I then rounded the corners. The second photo shows how it will look when it is folded up.

     I then choose a pink paper from Paper Studios Pastel Cardstock Pack for the bottom mat and cut it to 5 1/4 x 4 inches. The next mat is a pattern cardstock with glitter and texture, that came from a JoAnn exclusive, they had the Christmas before last called Peppermint Forest. It was cut at 5 x 3 3/4 inches. I used my nestabilities to cut the large scalloped oval and stamped it, with the sledding polar bears from Inkadinkado's Clear Stamps Christmas Characters and also, the sentiment from the same set. The image was stamped with Papertrey's Enchanted Evening Ink and the sentiment with Colorbox's Enchantment Aqua Ink. I colored the snowflakes and the swirls in the image with Gelly Roll Clear Star. The clothing on the bears and sled were colored with Steadtler  Watercolor Pencils and also some highlights on the scarf with the Gelly Roll and the hat with a White Glaze Pen. The black on the bears (nose and eyes) is a Glaze Pen and a used Copic Markers BG10 to shade the bears and B00 to give some definition to the snow and add a base to the image. I also inked it with Broken China Distress Ink.

     On the in inside, I cut a different piece of glitter, embossed cardstock from Peppermint Forest for the front of the cocoa pocket. I planned the cuts to get the images from the paper. I cut a 1 x 2 1/2  inch rectangle of the pink paper, and rounded the corners. I then used my ATG gun to tape the sides of the pocket up. I used Versamark Dazzle and a small snowflake from the Inkadoo stamp set and randomly stamped the paper, then I stamped it with a sentiment from Hero Arts Big Hugs in Tsunkinako Black Ink. Each one of these cards is a bit different inside, due to the different characters on the paper. I didn't pop up the image on the front, due to the fact that the cocoa, already makes it tight in the envelope, however, on the inside I popped up the sentiment, since it's at the bottom and below the the bulge made from the cocoa. Unfortunately, I was out of 1/16 inch pop dots, but I'm thrifty, so I cut up the surrounding paper and used that. Shown below.

     The sentiment label was inked, except for one. That was the first one I put on when I was scrambling around to find my pop dots and so I forgot to ink that one. I get distracted by one thing and forget what I meant to do, hate that.  I decided I should make tags to go in the pockets with a personal note for each one. I stamped a tag with Big and Bossy using a grouping of snowflakes stamp and filling in with the small snowflake stamp and embossed it with White Embossing Powder. My plan was to spritz it using a mini-mister filled with Turquoise Perfect Pearls, water and Broken China Re-Inker. I found that one of my mini-misters is not a mister but a mini-jet sprayer! Well, that was interesting. I dealt with that and the first tag, which is too dark, but I'll live with it . I filled a new mister and did the other 2 tags and also added Worn Lipstick Distress Ink to the tags and wiped off the excess from the embossed areas.

I added Martha Stewart twine and will write a note on the back of this one and creatively on the front of the others.

     So, there you go, 3 card down and 6 more to go. They will probably be basically the same, but with different papers, but who knows. We will see where creativity leads that day. What would I do differently? Well, I am thinking of looking for snowflake buttons for the front yet or buttons in coordinating colors. With a total of 9 cards I didn't want to get too detailed or difficult.  I think I might have papered the inside of the pockets. I also might have embossed 1 or both of the sentiments, again trying to keep it fast. Thanks for coming back and looking. Drop me a word about how you see things.