Mickey Birthday wish.

     Still haven't finished all of those college cards, but I'm getting closer, ha ha (another one has gone out the door - see I'm getting there.) However, I do have a card for today and a finishing touch on another. I thought it might help for some inspiration on finishing the inside of cards, which can be a stumper at times ;- )

     First up is everyones favorite Mickey Mouse. This card is for my neighbor's grandson, who is turning 3. I used the Mickey image from the Mickey and Friends cartridge (the fourth key) and all it's layers at 3.5 inches. I set it all up on my Gypsy so I could position my pieces precisely, because my mat is currently only sticky in some spots >.< I need to clean and re-stick a few of them, since I do have more than 1 not-very-sticky mat. The Gypsy however lets me decide where I want each piece to cut and place a few of them in those exact spots. Very helpful. I also used the Gypsy to weld the letters for the sentiment from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge which does have a shadow font for it's main font (nice touch!) The blue card stock was embossed with Sizzix's Texture Plates #2 Square Dancers.

     On the inside I used Lettering Delight's font LD Walt. Using Print Shop, I set up the sentiment first in red and  then in black and laid one over the other to give it a shadow. The signature is in Helvetica, which I thought I'd changed to something else, but evidently not, ha ha on me.  You can find a link to Lettering Delight on my sidebar. I cut out the number 3 from Plantin Schoolbook with the basic font and the shadow at 2 inches and popped it up.

     Over the weekend, it was Parker's grandfather's birthday (he has his pilot's license.) Now I'd made his card back in Nov. for Crafter's Digital Art Center's Challenge at the time, but hadn't totally finished the inside. It is an easel card and here is the card and how it appeared then (this part still looks like this ;- ) You can find the details on this card here.

     Inside, I used LD Chaplin, LD Lively (for Good Times) and LD Wedding (for the signature) from Lettering Delights for the fonts. The plane graphic comes from the Print Shop software. The details for the rest is at the same link as the front, since that was all done in November.

     As always, thanks for dropping by. I love hearing from you so much, so please leave a comment before you go ;- ) have a wonderful week!

Easel card for a challenge.

     Hey, long time no see >.< Sorry about that. I have been working on a card for my college students and three have been mailed, but I forgot to take photos of them (hurrying to get those out the door, my son comes home on Friday, Yippeee!) Should have more of them done soon and then I'll post those (only 11 more to go, hee hee.) They are cocoa cards.

     Today's card is for the Progressive Challenge over at Crafter's Digital Art Center (here.) This is the last leg of this group of the Progressive, so you can get in the next round, if you would like to join. We get they greatest images to work with and the next group is free as long as you use one from the current group in a project within the challenge period (usually 2 weeks.) The first group is free and if you missed the first group you can join in for $1 and as I said we will be starting with a new first group on March 1st.

     From the title, you can tell todays' card is also an easel card ;- ) You are a quick group!  I used the image provided by A Day For Daises which is perfect for a card for my best friend from grammar school's daughter. I colored in in PhotoShop Elements. The only thing fancy was a multi-bristle brush you would find in the Assorted Brushes at the bottom left. It kind of looks like half a squiggly doodled spider, LOL. I used that with hair highlights and lowlights and dabbed or stippled with it on a base colored hair to make the hair look more realistic. I just kind of messed around with it until I got something I liked. You have to love that undo button. Only remember with doing this dabbing you can only undo so far (depending on how many levels of undo you have set) and you might dab a lot of times, if you use a small brush which will look better.

     The solid color papers are from Core'dinatiions and the pattern paper is from Paper Studio's Four Seasons paper pack, which is available at Hobby Lobby and has so many great patterns. I cut the scalloped circle with Quick Kutz Nesting Circle Dies, but I cut the circle with the Martha Stewart Circle Cutter, because I didn't want a circle as large as the one that came with the Quick Kutz set. For the oval sentiment I used Nestabilities Large Oval and Large Scalloped Oval. I inked the card edges and the image with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. The image also has some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink on it. I wanted to know back some of the starkness of the white. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Sweet Wonderful You and is stamped with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. The ballet slippers with the bow is a free SVG from SVG Cuts, which I used Sure Cuts A Lot 2 and my Expression to cut. They have lots of free images and the ballet slippers are still available here.  You can check out SVG Cuts here. There is a link to the Sure Cuts A Lot software on my sidebar. I inked the edges of the ballet slippers and the bow with a Copic to give it more dimension and popped up the bow.

     Thanks for fluttering by today. I'm really glad that you were here. I do love reading your comments. Please leave one before you go ;- ) Have a wonderfully creative week!

Hats off to the graduates!

    Well despite the rain, I did get my last window box potted today and made 2 cards. The puppy and I decided to plant between the raindrops, but of course as soon as we got out, it started drizzling again. It was a good thing that I got that new window box, because as I was scooping the stones out of it, I suddenly saw the top of my table through what should have been the bottom of the old window box, Yikes!

 The first card is the same as the graduation card that I posted earlier. I did like how it turned out and I know the mother of the graduate I was making the 2nd one for liked it too, so I made the same one for her daughter.

     For the directions for this easel card, click here. The second card is for another girl from the same school, so I've used the same school colors. The pennants were made with the Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake Art cart. I used a lime green Sharpie marker to draw the green line down the center of the yellow middles of the banner to add more interest and the green backgrounds were embossed with Swiss Dots. The 2011 was done on the Gypsy with Plantin Schoolbook. The brads are Painted Brads from Recollections and the ribbon is Class Act (2010) from TPC Studio (I believe the have the same style this year too). The grad cap is an embellishment from Jolee. The background paper is from Paper Studio's Graduation Paper Pack (the same as I used for the other cards).
 

     I haven't done the inside of this card as I usually do, because I haven't decided how I'm going to finish it yet, so I wasn't sure which paper to use on the inside.

     I think the rose card is still my fav, though this is a nice change of pace. I tried a number of different things on the yellow part of the banners, but didn't have stamps small enough to fit on them. Looking at it now, I'm thinking that cap might need some perfect pearls on the edges to give it some bling and more dimension (though it is 3d in person ;- ). 

     Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment so that I know you were here. Your 2 cents means very much to me. Have a great and blessed rest of the week.

Graduation season, too!

     Aaarragh! I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted.  It's been crazy. We've picked up my son from college. He survived his freshman year! Yahooo! I've been lunching and visiting with friends with whom I've needed to catch up. Had to work on photos for the bulletin board honoring the confirmands at our Church (after doing the board totally for Good Friday and then totally over again for Easter, it needed to be re-done with the items I made to honor them). I am responsible for the board with the help of my tall, long-armed husband.

     At the confirmation, (it was split into 2 ceremonies this year- long story) my husband takes the photos and then I am responsible for editing them. I then,  put them onto a disk and each family receives one. So, this has all kept me very busy.
     I started this graduation card and kept working on it in small bits. It's not very detailed, but I would decide what I would do and then get to that one thing the next day. It was so disjointed, but I really like this easel card. There is no sentiment yet, because I haven't decided which graduate is getting this one. I have 6 total to do and I think only 2 may look like this one.  The rose is from the Walk In My Garden cart, done in her school colors. The oval and scalloped oval were done with nesties and I can't remember which cart the graduation cap was from. It was left over from some favor boxes, I made for my son's graduation last year. If you are interested, just leave a note and I will check the file in Design Studio and see which cart it's from.  The paper is from Paper Studio's Graduation Paper pack.

     I used a Perfect medium pen and Perfect Pearls in, (I believe) Sunflower, to accent the rose. I did the same with green Perfect Pearls on the leaves and stem. (Click the photo to see a larger image.) I used a white opaque pen on the word "grad".
     What would I do differently? I've thought about it a lot, since this card was done so helter skelter. I considered outlining the word "grad" with black gel pen, but my hand is not that steady. You could use a different outline method on the flower, such as stickles. I like the clean and uncluttered look of this card though. What do you think?
     Thanks for stopping by and spending some of your precious time on my blog. Please leave a comment. It is very rewarding to me, to know that you were here. Have a Blessed week.

Easel card, multi-views

     We didn't get back from visiting my son at college until very late, so I didn't get these posted until now. Here are the different views of the easel card to help you understand it's construction better.

     The directions for cutting and assembling this card are in the previous post. Thanks for stopping by and for your comments.

Valentine for a friend

     Today's card is my first easel card. I cut the base card stock at 11 x 4 1/4 inches. I then scored and folded it in half making it an A2 (5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches). I then scored the front in half (2 3/4 inches) and folded the opposite way (up and out from the card).  I attached a piece of patterned paper from Paper Studio, to a piece of 5 1/5  x 4 1/4 white card stock, to make it stiff enough. This I then attached to the piece of the base that was folded out, attaching the folded piece to the top of the patterned piece. You might want to try the card closed and easeled before gluing, to be sure you understand the orientation of these pieces. That was the way it worked for me, because just looking at pictures wasn't enough.  I'll try to post a side view of the card tomorrow, so you can get a better view of that.

Here is the card easeled. (by the way I don't think that's a word ;- )

     The top heart was cut on the Expression using the Storybook cart at 2 inches, from pink glitter paper (use multi cut and raise your blade setting for this). The one underneath was suppose to be a shadow, but I used the dot feature key by mistake and it works. The second heart is from the Accent Essentials cart. The main image is cut from the red card stock and the main image with the shift key is cut from the pink glitter paper, also at 2 inches.

This is what the card looks like closed, except when it lies by itself it pops up a bit, so the ends don't seem to line up at the bottom, but they really do.

     On the inside, I used patterned paper from Paper Pizzaz, cut at 3 inches, at the top. I attached a piece of red card stock at the bottom, that I punched with a Martha Stewart punch and then I added pearls. I used pink ink to stamp  a sentiment to a piece of white card stock and then embossed it with clear embossing powder. The stamp was a $1 stamp from JoAnn's. I then added epoxy stickers from EK Success.  I printed my personal sentiment digitally and cut it with a scalloped oval nestability.

     What would I do different? Well, I'd meant to dry emboss the red paper on the inside and I think I'd still like to see that. Also I think I would have cut the inside red piece bigger, so that I could center the way the punches ended up better and the trim it to fit, instead of cutting first and then punching. I am really happy with the paper though. I'might have done the Happy Valentine's digitally, but I was trying to use 1 of only 2 stamps I have and the other didn't fit. Well, there you have it. I hope my friend likes it. thanks for spending your busy time with me. Let me know that you stopped by.