The Big Move!

This has been such a crazy day that I will be glad to say "goodnight"! Lots of craziness. I decided to post this before calling it a day in case tomorrow is even more crazy.

I made a set of "We've Moved" cards for our niece and her husband. Since they moved to New Hampshire, the "Live Free or Die" state, I decided on a patriotic theme. My crafting pal Antoinette lent me this cute Stampin' Up set which is so perfect. If you haven't seen it you can couple the truck up with lots of different goodies and people. Very cute.

I used some papers and brads from my stash. I am going to enter this into the "Some Odd Girl Presents a Theme Challenge" at Lily Pad Cards. The trick is to make a patriotic card with a twist. What do you think? Probably not my best work, but I made 20 of these! The bar is pretty high over at that webiste. The gals there are something else.

Thanks for looking! I will be back on Wednesday with another card.

A Bird in the hand

Good Monday morning everyone! Hope you had a wonderful summer weekend. We sure did - perhaps the best ever! Lots of great cooler weather and outdoor fun. Calistoga, the sweet town in the Napa wine country where we live part-time, had its 125 Birthday Jubilee! It was such fun. Great music, food and friends. We also played some bocce ball - love it!

Now to today's quick post with a card I made using Stampin' Up products. Sweet, eh? I really love how their papers, ribbons and inks are so color-coordinated.

I am mainly a Hero Arts gal, but I have to say that Stampin' Up products are also very high quality.

I took a wonderful class last week at a nearby scrapbook store, Stampin' On Over  - Thanks, Bibianna! I hope to share those cards with you soon.

One Ringy Dingy!

Hello! One last post for this week and it is for the Summer Card Camp weekly color challenge. Here are the colors – monochromatic with a splash of red. A real challenge!

I immediately thought of one of my favorite Hero Arts stamp sets, “Just Saying Hi (CL502)”. I stamped the phone image in Memories “mink” pigment ink and clear embossed it for the perfect shine. I used an ek border punch along the edge. I decided not to use Distress Inks this time – I wanted to keep the look fresh and clean.

The card back is stamped with my brand new Hero Arts “Flower Dot Pattern (CG330)” background stamp using VersaMark Dazzle Ink. It may be difficult to see because it is so subtle, but I think it adds some richness. I can’t wait to use this stamp again.

The strip is from a real phone book (just hope we don’t need to call anyone with the last name of Lin!). To the corner (for balance, as we learned from Kristina) I added a cute little punched heart with lots of Stickles.

Jennifer taught us how to make this cool stepped sentiment banner in this week’s Camp video. Don’t you love how it pops off the page? I added some vintage buttons from my stash for an extra punch of red.

That is it for this week. Thanks to all the happy campers for the continued support and inspiration! Have a great weekend.

It's Washi Day!

I simply can't help it - when I say "washi" I automatically think of "wash day". My grandma had each day of the week (except Sunday, of course!) dedicated to one household task. I believe that Wednesday was washing, Thursday was definitely baking day and Friday was housecleaning, to get the place ready for the weekend. What a life! I'm sure that she didn't have a crafting day, unless you call mending and ironing "crafting". She did not have it easy. Bless her heart.

Back to the card! This card gets its special look with come colorful washi paper. Beautiful stuff. I used a peel-off from Elizabeth Crafts and added some solid color with glittery gel pens. Can you believe that gold paper?

This makes an elegant and easy card that is easy to mail. Thanks for looking and have a great day. And get that laundry done!

Summer's Best Things

The Best Things, a photo by mkmermaid (Maureen) on Flickr.

Good morning! For this card I used a new watercolor technique that I saw somewhere on the internet. I scribbled a water color crayon (they are such fun!) onto an acrylic block, misted it lightly with water and printed it on watercolor paper. The Hero Arts sentiment CG276 was embossed over the watercolor.

With this sentiment I thought it would be fun to add several embellishments that one might find in a summertime pocket. That is a very vintage pick, by the way. Love those garage sales!

Hope you are enjoying the summer. Have a great day and thanks for looking.

It's Flippin' Summer!

Hope you all had a great weekend! I thought that I would post a card that I made for the on-line Summer Card Camp that I am "attending". Every week there is a new color challenge. This week's was to use these colors in a card. Fun and summery, eh?

I decided to really get my toes wet, so to speak. I used some great patterned paper from Pink Paislee called "Hometown Summer". Perfect. The stamp set is Hero Arts CL512. I embossed the flip-flops (can you believe it - we used to call them thongs?!) in white onto some of the printed paper. The banners are made by cutting some paper that I had punched out with an ek border punch. Easy! Some twine and tiny vellum flowers (K&Company) were added. Finally, for extra fun and texture, I added some Tahaiti Beach "sand" by Muddpuddles. It comes in a little jar and you just spread it on.

Because I used a border punch for the banners I plan to enter this is Moxie Fab World's Beautiful Borders challenge. Thanks for looking and have a great week!

Twisted Easel Card for Barb

As you may have read on an earlier post, I was lucky enough to win some fantastic Blog Candy from my online pal, Barb. I told you all about her and the special friendship that we share. I wanted to send her a special thank you and I was determined to figure out how to make an A2 size "Twisted Easel" style card.  Now that she has received it, I can post it here.

There are several instructional videos out there, but I found this one most helpful. I still didn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I modified what I saw and kind of made up my own design. After several measuring errors, I am really happy with the results.

The fun is when it is opened and displayed!  You open the card, give it a slight twist and the main design element stands right up! Cool! The easel portion is held in place by the sentiment element, which is elevated with dimensionals. I wanted to use a flower theme since Barb is a big flower fan. In addition, the flower image is one that can be viewed from any direction, so when it turns it still looks correct. I wanted to use orange, sine that is the color Barb used for my special gift package.

The shapes were cut with my Cuttlebug using Spellbinders dies. The flower was stamped, colored and cut with good old-fashioned scissors.

The stamps are Hero Arts, CL046 Clear Design Friendship Messages and CL375 Big Flowers. That flower set is one of my favorites. I used water colors and some bling and ribbon from my stash.

I sure hope that I can make another card of this style someday - I should have made two of them after I figured it out!

Here is one final photo to show the detail. I hope that I can add this style of card to the next card class I teach. There are so many possibilities! 

Thanks for looking and thanks again, Barb.

Inspired by Lin!

I have "gotten to know" the most wonderful crafter over the Hero Arts flickr group. Her name is Lin, aka quilterlin. Her cards are simply stunning! Here is the link to her lovely photo stream. And here is her beautiful blog. And not only is she super-talented, but she is so very knid. She is always giving us lots of words of encouragement and inspiration. Thanks so very much, Lin!

At one of my favorite hangouts, Lily Pad Cards, there is a challenge to make a card inspired by anything that we have seen this month on the website. I was so inspired by this card made by Lin. Isn't it the best? Lin is in a whole different league, but is so very inspiring. What is it that caught my eye with this adorable card? First of all, the vintage image - love it! And the stitching, the patterns, the scallops, the double bow in the seam binding, the cute button......WOW! So many rich details. So, I got busy.......

 My card is much more muted and funky. I had this great vintage photo - doesn't she look so proud of her outfit? I bet she was sewing for days! I know there is a real story here.

The photo is a garage sale find. I teamed it up with some great papers from October Afternoon's 5 & Dime Collection, which is just packed with vintage charm. I added some stitching with my new We R Memory Keepers "Sew Easy" tool. It reminds me of the sewing cards that I had as a child. I haven't had good luck with stitching cards on a machine - I have broken two sewing machines already and I will not try it with my good old trusty Singer.

The ribbon and vintage button - it even still has a piece of old fabric attached to it - are from my stash. I cut the card shape in my Cuttlebug with "Labels 8" from Nestibilities. I just learned about doing this and l like it for a change.

Thanks to Lin for the sweet inspiration, thanks to Lily Pad Cards for motivating me and thanks to you for looking!

Monkey for Mary!

I hope that everyone in the USA had a great holiday weekend! Ours was really nice - we had lots of fun and got some chores done, too.

About a month ago I shred with you a cute birdie card I made with a new product by Inky Antics called Honey Pops. At that time I told you that I had also made a monkey card with a pop-up inside and Mary commented that she couldn't wait to see it. Okay, my friend, this one is for you! Isn't that smile a total knock-out? How can you not love him? Great tropical colors, too. I made this card with my friend Kathleen on one of our crafting get-together days.

And, as you have learned, with these cards the big surprise is on the inside. Check it out! Too much fun, eh?

There is not much else to say other than these are really fun to make and I can't say enough about the quality of the product and the customer service of this great company. There will be more of these types of cards to come. I can't help but keep monkeying around!

Have a great week and thanks for looking!

Yankee Doodle Dandy!

My friend Sylvia was born on the 4th of July!  She is really good to me - she is a cashier at my local Michael's store. When I have forgotten my coupon or need to find something (they move stuff around all the time in there!), she looks out for me.

My husband doesn't understand how all the staff in Michael's know my name and what projects I am working on.......if he only knew the hours (and money!) I spend there. Shhhhhhh.........

I made Sylvia this combo Birthday and 4th of July card. I used my new Tim Holtz Mini Rosette die to make the miniature bunting. What a fun die - you just accordion-fold the pieces, glue them together and you have a cute 3-D element. Not too good for mailing, however. I used some paper from my stash, punched (Fiskars, the easy-on-your-hand punches) stars and some bling. I made the little flag out of a piece of flag ribbon and a hat pin!

I see that this picture is a little out of focus. Maybe because it is so hot?! Stay safe and same out there! Thanks for "popping" by!