Finishing in the past and beginning the new.

     Well, I have a couple of things to cover today. Who'd of thought ;- ) First, you'll recognize this card. It was made for my sister-in-law and the progressive challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center. You'll find the info on it here.

     However, at the time I hadn't finished the inside.  I thought you'd like it. I found an image by googling woman screaming and vintage.  If you can't find it and are interested, drop me a line and I'll send it to you. I only used a part of it and I used a black gel pen to make a frame. The font is a freebie called Greenfuz and the line element is from Print Shop.

Kind of a fun surprise ;- )

     The next card is for some friends, who have been trying, unsuccessfully for a number of years, to have a baby. Recently, they were out of town at a family wedding when they got a call that they needed to get to the hospital immediately, there was a baby waiting for them. The attended the wedding and drove through the night and are happily, now a family ;- ) This is the card I made for them. I used my Cricut Imagine and the Nursery Tales cart to make the background paper and the layered images. However, I used my Gypsy to make the shaped card from a shape from the Storybook cart with my Expression. I then cut the same shape using the paper I had made with the Imagine, on the Expression 1/4 smaller, to use as the background paper.  (Got all that ? Good! or are you yelling Equipment Overload!) I used glitter pen on the dragonfly wings and gel pens on the frog and grasses. What are the chances of sticking you hand in wet gel pen? In my case 100% I added Martha Stewart Brown Flockingto the cattail and wiggle eyes to the frog, as well. The sentiment is my own. The font is SNF Classy Charm from Scrap N Fonts cut with oval nestabilities.

You can sort of see the details. Will be getting my camera back soon, thankfully.

     In order to do the sentiment, I printed a coordinating 3 in. by 3 in. square of pattern paper. I attached that to a piece of printer paper. Before running it through, I did a test run, to make sure I knew where my sentiment would print and which way to put the paper in. Now, I accept no liability for your printer, if you try this ;- ) I try not to let my husband know that I'm doing this >.< I set it up so it would print in the upper corner and taped the paper in the upper corner so the tape was on the back (securely.)

      I cut a second shape for the inside and using the same SNF Classy Charm font, on plain printer paper,  I added the inside sentiment. I also used DB Frilly Words from Lettering Delights to add the words near the center and the element in the center is from Print Shop. I embellished it with more layer images from the Imagine Nursery Tales cart. On this card, I've obscured the name to protect the innocent ;- )

    

     I also always sign the back of my cards with a matching ink and on some I also add an embellishment.

     I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at the beginning of the cards I'm making for the college students. Do you know what Cricut cartridge I'm using? I'm working on the Gypsy to move the multiple images around to save paper.

     Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me. It means so much to me ;- ) Hope your week is filled with creative time, new inspirations, and blessings. Please take a moment to leave a comment. Thanks!

Celebration card for an Anniversary!

     Today's card is for my neighbor's anniversary. I had picked up Cricut's Wild Card cart from Menard's when they had them for $4 after a mail-in rebate. Great deal! On this cart they have a tri-fold card and envelope that was meant for New Year's Eve called Celebrate, but I thought it would make a great anniversary card. On the internet I found a few places where people had listed the largest sizes you could cut the envelopes on a 12x12 piece of paper and the corresponding size card to cut. You can find a list here at Obsessed With Scrapbooking. So for this card, I cut it at 5 1/2 inches from black Core'dinations cardstock. I cut the liner items with gold metallic cardstock and the icon (cork) from kraft cardstock and stamped it with Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain stamp then clear embossed it.  I attached the cork with pop dots. The pattern paper is Confetti from Paper Pizzaz. I found a label shape I liked on the Storybook cart (the Thank You image page) and cut it out in red and a slightly smaller  one from printer paper ( I used the Gypsy to get the sizes I wanted) that I had already printed their names on. The font I used is Tango. I attached this with pop dots. In order to keep the card from popping open, I made a band to slip over the card and attached the sentiment on it. I cut the sentiment from Lyrical Letters. Cutting it at this size makes it very delicate and prone to tearing, so it had to be pieced a bit and I used the LetraTac I had mentioned back on this post to attach it. You can find it online at Dick Blicks here. I get nothing for this, I just think it's cool.

     This card wasn't meant to be a gift card holder, but since I was going to cover the front and giving them a gift card, I decided to cut slits in it to hold the gift card. I cut a piece of the pattern paper to cover that at the bottom and used a piece of the same paper as a mat for the sentiment. I created the sentiment digitally and the font is SNF Infinity from Scrap N Fonts. Currently Scrap N Fonts is having a Dollar Sale. You can find their sale here.

     Since I added the band, the envelope won't close right, but I thought I'd show it here anyway.  Cool envelope, huh ; - )Sorry, I hadn't realized it was out of focus or I would have retaken the photo during the day >.<

     Well, thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me today. Please leave a comment, so that I know you were here. They always brighten my day ;- ) Have a wonder-filled week!

Creating the Mystical Unicorn

     Today's card is for a little girl who is turning 5. Her favorite animal is the unicorn, so I decided to make it a shaped card. I used the unicorn from the  Cricut Paper Dolls Dress-Up cart. It's from the page with the pixi, I believe it's the 13th image. You're saying pixi? I know that's what I said, but I was just glad to have a unicorn. (I, too, thought it would be with the princess.) I used my Gypsy to make it a shaped card welding two unicorns (one flipped) with a small rectangle from Accent Essentials. I used pearlized cardstock  from Crafter's Companion, for the base because they have a nice sturdy cardstock (love this stuff) and I thought the pearlized finish made a nice card. I cut another unicorn  from white cardstock (hiding the eye cut - because I was going to use the gem, and some other cuts - I would have the Cricut draw) and before removing the mat (using the Gypsy) selected return to program, selected the parts I wanted drawn, replaced the blade with the Cri-Kits gel pen and selected cut again and added the lines to the unicorn. I re-cut part of the unicorn again using scrap paper with black Core'dinations where the hooves would be cut and stopped it after it cut the hooves. I was going to do the same for the horn with glitter cardstock, but decided to embossed it instead with an embossing pen and Kaleidoscope embossing powder. The mane and tail were embellished with Sparkly Fluff. I added a gem for the eye and the flower is from Creative Charms. The font is from the Storybook cart and welded on the Gypsy.

 Click photo for close-up, to see details

     I used Martha Stewart's circle cutter, to cut the circle, at 1 1/2 inches and embossed it with Divine Swirls.  I then inked it with Studio G chalk ink. The 5 was cut from the Storybook cart and they were popped up. The sentiment was made digitally and the fonts are Happy Birthday in Storybook and LD Farfetched for the rest, which is available from Lettering Delights (see the link on my sidebar - they also have graphics,  and SVG's .)  The hearts are Rain Dots from Cloud9 Design which is a Fiskers brand. and were a bit too peachy, so I colored them a bit with my Copics. The sentiment and it's mat were cut with nestibilities. This was popped up also, but not as high as the circle with the 5.

Click for a closer look.

     What would I do differently? I thought about putting a gold ribbon around the neck of the unicorn. I looked up photos and none of the unicorns had anything around their necks, except some had flowers. I guess you can't rope a unicorn ;- ) While doing this, (and I had suspected and was checking this also, but had already done the hooves) I noticed that none of the unicorns had black hooves (ok 1 or 2 may had), but white or pink ones. At this point, my son said to me, "Mom, unicorns aren't real. You can make them look any way you want!" These are the type of perfectionist details I'm suppose to be recovering from ;-) 

Later, when I was done I thought a dusting of Perfect Pearls over the body might have been a nice touch too. So these are some ideas for another time. I do think she will really like her card.

     Thanks for stopping by. Hope some of you are getting some cooler weather. We finally are. Who would have thought mid-80's would have been cooler ;- ) The front going through took my migraines with it, so good riddance. Please leave a comment. It just takes a moment and I really appreciate knowing you are out there. Have a wonder-filled weekend.

Star Baby and reception freebies, shown as promised!

     Let's start with the card, because I haven't posted one in awhile. Today's card is for my neighbor's newborn granddaughter. Her, (the baby), name is Stella, hence the theme of the card. I used the Imagine and Nursery Tales again, because I want to get as much use out of such a baby oriented cart, when I can, being the mother of a 20 year old son in college ;- ) All of the paper and images are from this cart, except for the shooting star, which is from Everyday Paper Dolls, accessories 2, shifted. It's the accessory for the astronaut. The paper for the star is from Core'dinations Couture line. I colored the star with a Copic marker and added detail with the Starlight Glitter pen. All the images were popped up with pop dots. The sentiment is from Clear Stamps Greetings and was embossed with gold metallic embossing powder. The rose is Prima.

     The papers on the inside are also from the Imagine Nursery Tales cart. The sentiment was done digitally, however the images were stamped. The star, under the word "star", was with Studio g pigment chalk ink and a stamp from Northwoods  and the ones on the bottom are with Mementos Angel Pink dye ink and an un-named stamp, that I got from a friend. The fonts are LD farfetched, (from Learning Delights)  Wizzard (free on the internet) and Storybook (also free on the internet - try Urban fonts). The blue paper was stamped with a stamp by The Stamping Bug and embossed with Kaleidoscope embossing powder. (The last names have been obscured in iPhoto to protect the innocent - ha, ha!)

     What would I have done differently? Well, there is the usual, stamp straighter, on the inside ;- ) Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. The Imagine, didn't do a very good job cutting the the stripped part on the front and I could have made it do that again. I had re-calibrated it just the other day, so I don't know what it problem was. Maybe the heat and humidity.

     With the Prima flower on the front, I used my Ultimate Crafter's Companion to make and envelobox for the card. That's an envelope that has some depth to it. It still isn't quite deep enough but it's better.

     Here are the gifts in the goodie bags that  50 people received at the Splitcoaststampers "Cupcakes and Cocktails" at CHA.

Susan and I both got the same color of Flower Soft, but we got different stamps from Taylored Expressions.

Our stamps were different from Unity Stamps.

These were the same for both of us.

This was also the same.

This was the same.

This was a special stamp from Splitcoast themselves ;- ) Who dusts?

     I thought these were wonderful, generous gifts. Thanks so much to the sponsors! The cupcakes were great too. There were door prizes, but we were not the lucky ones. Now I said I'd share our return home story. Since we left from the hotel, instead of the convention center, we entered the parking garage a different way. In the morning we'd taken the pedestrian walkway to the convention center which was on the floor where we parked our car - color green. We got to the elevators, level G color red, get on and there is no color green. I said let's go up 1 floor, because we weren't up very high. We go up and there isn't a green there either. We walk to the edge to look for the walkway and see it below us, huh? Fortunately, I said we should walk down, instead of taking the elevator. There is a floor in-between, where the elevator doesn't go. Then we start to look for our car - D1. we can find Ramp D and Ramp C but no just D. God must have been guiding me, because I get another idea to go up and around and Ramp D is part of the interleave that makes parking garages work, which I've never understood, but knew must be cool. Once on the road we had no more troubles. She and I do go and pick up my son from college with no trouble, handling all of the mess of the downtown Chicago expressways. Somedays you have it and somedays you don't ;- )

     Thanks for dropping by a spending some time with me. Please, take a moment more, if you have it and leave a comment, so I have something to read from you. I'd love to know that you were here. Have a blessed Sunday!

Last of the 3 altered items.

     I'm afraid I don't have a picture of the other 2 items that were part of this set. (You can see the designs of the other 2 sets in the posts Here and Here. The final junior legal pad was made with Summer Song paper, by My Mind's Eye. I love the bright colors of this paper and the glitter and embossing that is on this paper. My friend's oldest daughter is married and went to Hawaii for her honeymoon, so I choose the hibiscus flower from the Storybook cartridge, for her embellishment, along with it's shadow. On this item I added a ribbon, because I didn't like the way the swirl paper would look with the dot paper, I had used with the rest of the set, if I used it here as a border. I also added a  long border, that is from the page with the Hibiscus section of the Storybook cart. I inked and embossed it with clear embossing powder. The embossing darkened it so much, I didn't need to bother with inking.

     On the inside, I just covered the top of the paper pad to make it look nice. In this case, the hibiscus element  when cut at 3/4 of an inch didn't look as nice as I would have liked. The recipient loves Hershey's chocolate (you wouldn't know it by looking at her.) So I added a stamped sentiment from a dollar stamp set I picked up at JoAnn's. It just seemed fitting and I knew it would make her smile.

     What would I do differently? Not sure. I struggled with the flower for awhile. I worked at it so it wouldn't look flat, but not too artificial either. I was, finally, pretty happy with it. Let me know what you think.

     I'm working on.... you'll never guess, no not in a million years.... another guy card. Otherwise, I might have had 2 things to show. I finally figured out, what I would do and planned on making a shaped card on the Gypsy when I went downstairs, but then life got in the way and that part didn't get done. Well, tomorrow is another day and I'll start working on it then, so that is what I should be posting next.
Thanks, as always for spending some of your precious time with me, especially with Easter so close. Leave a comment if you have a moment. I truly  appreciate hearing from you and knowing you stopped by. Have a Blessed Easter, if I don't talk to you before then. Enjoy your family!

2nd of 3 designs of altered items.

     Today's post, as you can tell from the title, isn't a card, but the next of 3 designs of of altered items. I made 2 items for my friend's daughters for Christmas and promised the final item for Easter. I showed the first design on my post here. This one is the same item, a junior legal pad, only I used paper from DCWV's Linen Closet's 8x8 pad and also, Bazzil's Swimming Pool.  I really like Linen Closet. The font is from Cricut's Storybook Cartridge.

     Below are the other items in the set, that I made for Christmas. Sorry, that the photo isn't very good, but I forgot to take a photo (well, I finished them just before we left to go there) and my DH took one there after the gifts were opened, with his cell phone.

     These are a Post-it note holder and a calendar that I found at Michael's for a $1 and recovered, as well as I pen that I matched to the set. The calendar was actually very attractive inside. It was nicer, than some more expensive ones, I found at office supply stores. The lighter blue papers are the same color as the paper in the accent on the "C", that's how bad the photo is ;- )

     Hope you had a great Palm Sunday. We had some snow and ice balls yesterday, YUK! And some areas are going to see snow tonight >.< , but it won't last. It was 50 and sunny today. I am tired of it though and wish the real spring would please stand up! Thanks for stopping by and sharing a few moments with me. As always, your comments are greatly appreciated. Have a wonderful week. 

Little girl card with Imagine

     Well, here is the card I promised. Finally, I get to do a card for a girl, with pink and everything ;- ) I decided to go with Nursery Tales. It came with my Imagine and has very cute images. I don't have a lot of use for them because, I don't make many cards for little ones, so I wanted to take advantage of this chance. (Wow, that was a long sentence.) I realize with some creativity, I can come up with things for others from this cartridge, but sometimes, it's just nice to get to use things without too much switching around.

     The font is from Storybook and uses the pattern from the Nursery Tales Imagine cart. The Imagine did a nice job cutting such a thin font. The number 4 is from Birthday Bash, because I wanted a boxier font there. I split the Imagine image into layers and popped things up and added  glitter gel pen to add sparkle. The scalloped circle shape is one of the pre-loaded shapes that comes on the Imagine. I used Judi-kins Diamond Glaze on the mushroom caps, unfortunately one cracked :- (

Click on photos to see them larger.

     I tried something new on the inside. I did the message digitally using Imprint MT Shadow. To get it to print on the mat that the Imagine printed, I printed it first on regular printer paper and had the Imagine just cut the mat without printing to make sure the printing would fit. Then, I used a repositionable tape runner to attach the Imagine printed and cut piece to a piece of printer paper in the place where it printed the sentiment the last time. Knowing which way to put the paper in your printer is essential. Put the paper in the printer and print it again and it should print on the card stock. I made some extra layers from the image I used on the front to embellish the inside and sparkled them as well.

     What would I do differently? Well, I had meant to round the corners, but forgot until after I had put the layers on the front. I think that would be a much nicer look. I should have placed the word turning straight >.<  I was thinking that a rosette might look nice under the 4, but then I really would have had to get the word turning straight >.<  Good things 4 y.o. aren't that critical. What do you think?

     Thanks for stopping by today. Please leave a comment if you have time. It's wonderful knowing you were here. Have a blessed rest of the week and may your days be inspired!

     

Altered Easter Gift

     Today I worked on an altered project. For Christmas, I had made my friend's 3 daughters, altered items, because I'm not allowed to buy them Christmas gifts anymore. I was suppose to stop when each one reached 21. Well, that's just no fun. I don't have much family and they are like family to me, so at first I bought the oldest giant Hershey bars, because they were her favorite and didn't cost much. Then, after 2 of them were 21 and the 3rd seemed to think those Hershey bars looked awfully good, I started making them all gifts and giving them all Hershey bars and the youngest also got bought gifts, for Christmas, birthday and Easter. Now, all 3 are over 21, so I try to think of something to make, if I have time. I may start making a special gift for 1 and rotating, but this past Christmas I had a plan for 3 altered items, but time got in the way and I realized I'd only finish 2 per, so I figured I could give them the 3rd for Easter. For Christmas, each got a post-it note holder with a mini-sharpie and a purse-sized calendar (I found them at Michael's for $1 and they were extremely nice inside) with a pen to match. Each set is different. Here is the one for the middle girl, whose Easter gift I worked on today.

Sorry, the photos are so bad, but I had finished them so close to delivery time, 

I'd forgotten to take pictures and DH took these there,

 after they were opened with his camera phone.

     Today's item is a jr. legal pad. The heart is from the Storybook cartridge, as is the corner flourish. Today's pictures are a bit better, but you can't see that I added perfect pearls to the heart to give it some shimmer. I didn't want to add glitter, because I didn't want it coming off on her. I can't remember what the paper was, because I put the leftovers aside, so I would be sure to have them to make the final project. If you are interested, just leave me a note and I will look harder. I used a white cardstock cover, because the patterned card stock for this set was too thin and I didn't have enough of the fuchsia (it is Core'dinations) to make a cover. I'm not sure I would have wanted that anyway, but that's water under the bridge.

The top paper is more of a lightish sandy-yellow than the very yellow

it appears in the photo above this one.

Inside

Back

     What would I do differently? well, I might have heat embossed the heart. I had done that on the other parts of the set. Also, I would have used the lighter color for the heart on the inside. I glued it before trying it on for size and really didn't like it, but it was too late. I had made sets like these for the secretarial staff at our Church, as a secret gift, only using composition notebooks instead of the jr. legal pads. They were also made with 4 different themes (we have 4 secretaries) and 4 different paper color collections. I may post them at the end, when I finish all 3 jr. legal pads. Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment, they mean so much to me. Have a blessed week.

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 ;- )

  

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.