Oh Canada!

Happy Canada Day everyone!  We will be joining in with our city's Canada Day celebrations a little later but in the meantime I came up with this card:

I obviously got some inspiration from the Canadian flag, but I started with the maple leaves.  You'll never believe where they came from! One of the teams at work was having a bake sale for charity and where selling these cute little Canada Day cupcakes and they were decorated with these felt maple leaves.  As I was admiring how cute it was I realized that it was a felt sticker.  Only a small bit of the stem had touched the icing, so I wiped it off and it was good as new!

When I peeled the felt off of the backing I realized it was just clear acetate, and since it was already in the shape if a maple leaf I decided to use it too and coloured it with a red alcohol marker.  Perfect Canada Day embellishments!

Once I had my embellishments I chose cardstock (went with the easy choice of red and white)  and pulled out my Cuttlebug.  I used some new embossing folders I got from Scrapbook Steals, roughed the edges of both panels with a distressing tool.  I added ribbon to the red panel, and added the maple leaves to the white panel.  As a last minute thought I decided to add the heart button with some more white ribbon.  The button came from a pound bag of buttons I bought years and years ago that I never think to use but since I thought the card needed something I thought a button might work.  Once the white panel was assembled I foam taped it over the ribbon.

I didn't want this card to be completely without sentiment, so I added a simple white panel with distressed edges to the middle of the card and added a simple 'thanks sentiment'.

Making this card was fun to make - patriotic with just a touch of fun.  :).   And now I better go get ready to join in the celebrations.  I can't wait to see my son's reactions to the fireworks this year!

Happy Canada Day everyone!!


I used the following products:

Cardstock::  Stampin' Up! Real Red, Whisper White.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up!  Kindess Matters

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black.

Marker:  Bic Mark Its Rambunctious Red.

Embellishments: Button from stash, white satin ribbon from stash, maple leaf decoration  from a cupcake.

Adhesive:  Scotch ATG, foam tape.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, bone folder, scissors, Cuttlebug, Lifestyle Crafts Embossing folders Bloom set, Tim Holtz distressing tool.


I am entering into the following challenges:

1. Party Time Tuesdays - Anything Goes 
2. Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes
3. Simon Says Stamp - Sporty and/or Patriotic
4. Use it Tuesday - Be a Patriot  (button from stash, ribbon from stash, maple leaf cupcake decoration)
5. Hiding in My Craftroom - Freestyle

Mustaches for Father's Day

Hi All!  Tonight I thought I'd share the card I made for our Dads for father's day. I'm late because I didn't want to post this before I mailed them and me being me I mailed them at the very last second.   I was originally going to make a card specific to each, but since they are all current or former 'mustache men', and I loved this card so much, they each got one.

I started with the stamps.  I was looking at stamps online when I was getting ready to make this card and I was thinking that I wished I had a mustache stamp or some patterned paper.  Then I thought, why don't I carve my own stamps?  Problem solved!

The stamps didn't turn out perfectly, but I think that's part of the charm.  Once I had the stamps, I started by choosing the card stock, some coordinating ink, and some Bazzill Basics newsprint paper that I must admit I've been 'saving' for a special occasion, lol.

On a piece of cream card stock I stamped a series of mustaches with the orange and beige inks, using the smaller stamps.  I cut all of the papers down to the size I wanted and inked the edges of everything with either shade of ink.

I stamped the larger mustache in black and cut it out.  I assembled the background panel, including the newsprint, added twine, and adhered it to the card front.  I assembled the smaller panel, added the handwritten tag and some mini brads, and adhered it to the card front with foam squares.  The big mustache was adhered with more foam squares.

For the center I just added an inked piece of cream matted with orange, and one of the smaller mustaches stamped in black in the corner.  Simple and lots of room for hand written sentiments. :)


I used the following supplies:

Cardstock:  Recollections Kraft, Stampin' Up! Dusty Durango, Very Vanilla, Basic Black.  Bazzill Basics Antique Newsprint.

Stamps:  Hand carved mustaches.

Ink:  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink  Creamy Brown, Tangerine.

Adhesive:  Scotch ATG, foam squares.

Embellishments:  Recollections mini brads, hemp twine from stash.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, bone folder, scissors, sponge, Stampin' Up! Large Tag Punch.


I would like to enter the following challenges:

1. Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges - Use 3 of something.  (3 mustache stamps, 3 ink colours, and I wrapped the twine 3 times around the card front).
2. Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenges - Boy Attitude
3. Simon Says Stamp and Show - A bit of brown

Royal Celebrations

Welcome to post #50!  When I started this blog 50 posts seemed like an awful big number, lol.  :)  My 50th post deserves a celebration of some sort, don't you think?  Since it is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend I was inspired to make this card:

I started with a lovely paper pad from Authentique - I love these colours!  Totally not something I would have paired on my own but so pretty.  And then i decided to work with a Lost & Found Two stamp set from My Mind's Eye.  Honestly when I got the set I thought to myself that I may never use the crown stamps.  I'm glad I was wrong!

I chose some card stock to go with the paper pad, and since I wanted to make more crumpled flowers I chose several sheet that I liked.  I punched the bird and cage with my tag punch out of one sheet, and cut various sizes of circles out of the remaining of that sheet and the rest of the sheets I had chosen. I had decided already to go with various sizes of circles instead of just one size this time.  I sprayed the circles with water, crumpled them up and set them aside.

I cut and scored my card base, and cut another piece of gray to layer on top that I embossed with my Cuttlebug.  I then cut all of the sizes of paper I wanted and inked them all with either cream or gray ink.  I adhered the embossed piece to the card front with foam squares, and matted the argyle print with yellow and cream.  I added some gray ribbon, some yellow bakers twine to this panel and tied bows.  I had attached the tags to the twine before tying, but secured them down with more foam squares.  The panel was adhered to the embossed piece with more foam squares.

For the sentiment I decided I wanted to layer the stamps, so I first stamped the doily in gray, and sponged a bit of cream ink over the center to help the sentiment stand out.  After using my embossing buddy I embossed the sentiment in black over the doily and embossed the crown images in silver.  I was going to add some glitter at this point, but I decided in the end it wasn't necessary.  I adhered the image panel to a gray mat, added some mini brads and adhered this with foam squares over the ribbon.

At this point I went back to my crumpled circles and carefully opened them up.  Because the paper is thicker than what I usually use for this technique some of the pieces were still damp so I finished the drying with my heat gun.  I've found a tip when doing this - I put all of the pieces in a heat proof ramekin and then point my heat tool in the dish, shielding the top with my hand.  This helps the bits from flying all over my table and the walls of the dish reflect some of the heat so that the pieces dry faster.  Just be careful  because its easy to burn a stray finger, lol.

I assembled the flowers with a white button brad this time, and adhered a rhinestone to the center of each brad.  The flowers were inked with some gray, and I adhered them to the card front.  This card is very layery (the technical term, lol)!

The center was decorated with a matted piece of cream stamped with my favourite birthday sentiment, and a scrap of patterned paper. 

I love this card, the images, the patterns, and the colours.  My favourite part though is the flowers.  I love these flowers so much I think I may do a post just on those. I love making them and I love how they look, not to mention you never have to worry about not having embellishments to specifically match your project.  Stay tuned, such a post may be coming in the future!

I used the following products:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Basic Gray, Very Vanilla,  Crushed Curry.  Authentique 6x6 Collection: Blissful.

Stamps:  Stampin' Up!  On Your Birthday.  My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Two Rosy "everything" stamp set.

Ink:  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Charcoal, Alabaster.  Stampin' Up! Going Gray. Memories Black.  Versamark Watermark Ink.  Stampin' Up! Embossing Powder Black, Silver.

Ribbon:  We R Memory Keepers Bakers Twine Lemonade, gray satin ribbon from stash.

Embellishments:  Recollections brads, Stampin' Up!  Basic Jewels Rhinestones.

Adhesives:  Scotch ATG, Zots, Foam squares.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, Cuttlebug, Spellbinders Nestablities Standard Circles Large and Small, Cuttlebug Scrollwork embossing folder, We R Memory Keeper brad setter, sponge, Stamp a ma jig.


I will enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Deep Ocean - Swirls 
2. Crafty Cardmakers - Distress it 
3. Party Time Tuesday - Anything goes 
4. The Paper Shelter - Vintage or Shabby Chic
5. The Cuttlebug Spot - Fit for a Queen
6. Really Reasonable Ribbon - Flowers and Ribbon
7. Fussy and Fancy Friday - Swirls and Flourishes
8. Charisma Cardz  - Bling
9. Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
10. Lets Ink It Up -  Use your favourite embellishments (handmade paper flowers)

Roses Under Shattered Glass

Last week I went to Micheals and saw some Hampton Arts Ditto stamps that were on sale.  They were so cute I bought two of them, and I am using one of them today. 

I was inspired by two things, the Shattered Glass technique on Speedy TV which I had never tried before, and the colour scheme was inspired by The Pink Elephant photo inspiration challenge.

This is what I came up with:

I first stamped my image on water colour paper with Staz On ink, then coloured the image using a water brush and Stampin' Up! Markers.  Once dry I applied the Versamark ink pad directly to the paper, edge to edge, then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I repeated this step five more times and placed the image in the freezer.  After several minutes I removed the image from the freezer and bent the paper several times to cause cracks.  I found I had to put it back into the freezer several times until I had the amount of cracking that I wanted.

To make the piece more vintage looking I applied creamy brown ink over the surface of the embossing and then wiped it off with damp paper towel.  I first tried this with a blending tool but found that not enough ink was getting in the cracks, so I found applying th ink pad directly to the paper worked much better.

I chose a red card base, and coordinating paper.  I dry embossed the background with my Cuttlebug, then used the ink blending tool to apply creamy brown ink around the edges, both for a vintage look and to make the embossing stand out.  I used the same colour to ink the edges of the pattern paper.  I matted the image with the pattern, added some burlap and ribbon to the background piece, adhered the background piece to the card base, then foam taped the image over the ribbon.  Adding rhinestones was the last step.

For the inside I inked the edges of a piece of cream and adhered it with some scraps of pattern.  Once I stamped the sentiment my card was finished.

This card was quite time consuming but it was really fun. The creams in the end result turned out darker than I had intended but I really like how vintage it looks.   It reminds me of a tiny old cracked varnished wall hanging that my Great Aunt had in her house when I was a kid.  I can see myself doing this technique more often so I may have to invest in some Ultra Thick Embossing powder.  :)


I used the following products:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Real Red, Very Vanilla, Lily Bee Design harvest Market 6x6  Tiny Tablet.

Stamps:  Hampton Art Ditto stamp, Stampin' Up! On Your Birthday set.

Ink:  Staz On Jet Black, Versamark Watermark ink, Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Creamy Brown, Martha Stewart Gloss Embossing Powder. Stampin' Up! Stampin' Write Markers Real Red and Old Olive.

Embellishments:  Really Reasonable Ribbon Natural Burlap, pink satin ribbon from stash, Stampin' Up! Basic Jewels Rhinestones.

Adhesive: Scotch Advance Tape Glider adhesive, Zots, foam squares.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, bone folder, Cuttlebug, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder A2 Scrollwork, Ranger Craft Sheet, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Stampin' Up! Large Water Brush, Ranger Blending tool, Stampin' Up! heat tool.


I am entering this card into the following challenges:

1. Deep Ocean -  Swirls
2. Creative Card Crew - Dimension 
3. Speedy Fox Challenge - Heat Emboss Your Main Image
4. Allsorts - Birthday to someone special 
5. The Pink Elephant - Photo inspiration 
6. Crafty Cardmakers - Distress it 
7. Party Time Tuesday - Anything Goes 
8. Friends of Speedy TV - Try a new and different technique  

A Summer Wreath

There is a great wreath on the front of this month's Green Craft Magazine.  I bought the magazine simply for the tutorial of how to make one.  Such a great idea, not only because it looks good, but because it uses items you would throw out otherwise.  In this case leftover paper towel rolls, and toilet paper tubes.  While I thought from the instant I saw it that it was a great idea, me being the impatient person I am I didn't want to wait long enough to accumulate paper towel rolls and toilet paper tubes, so I thought I would make my first one with cardstock I already had on hand.

I started with several sheets of white cardstock.  I used both Gina K 120# cardstock, and Stampin' Up! 80#.  My reasoning for this is that the Gina K cardstock would work well to give the center structure, but I knew the project would take quite a few sheets and I have more of the Stampin' Up paper.  Also, I thought the lighter weight cardstock would help keep the finished project from getting so heavy that it might fall apart after a while.  In the end I think I had three sheets of the Gina K, and five or six sheets of the Stampin' Up!.

Since this would be a summer wreath I decided to spray the white sheets with some shimmer mists.  I used purple and yellow.  The brand I have is fairly transparent, and as I only used a few sprays on both sides of the sheets of cardstock, the sprays gave the perfect hint of colour I was looking for.    First I cut about four strips from one of the Gina K sheets measuring 0.5" by 8.5".  The remainder of the sheet, along with the rest of the sheets of cardstock were cut in half lengthwise, then cut in 1" strips so that I had multiple strips measuring 1" by 4.25".  I made a rings out of these small strips with my glue gun, and once cool I 'smooshed' the rings a bit so that they made an almond shape.

In the magazine the original designer used coat hanger wire to make the center of the wreath.  I don't really like working with heavy wire since I am a bit accident prone, so decided to make a form using the heavier cardstock.  I used the longer strips to form a big ring, making the ring several paper layers thick, adhered together with generous amounts of hot glue. The ring measured about  4.75" wide and formed the base of my wreath.

The next part is the fun part, but it is tricky because I burned myself a couple of times so be careful if you decide to try it.  Using more hot glue, I glued a couple of rows of the almond shapes to the base ring, then continued to add more and more shapes until the wreath was the size I wanted it. I kept most of the shapes running in the same direction to mimic the way leaves might appear on wreath made of branches, but changed the direction of a few for interest.  This part is the easiest but took the longest.  When finished the wreath measured about 14" wide.

I decided I wanted to add flowers so I made some out of ribbon with Glubers.  You can read about the first time I did this here.  For the centers I used some vintage style brads and sniped off the prongs with my Tim Holtz scissors since the flower was too thick to poke them through, and adhered the embellishments with Glue Dots.  Before adhering the flowers to the wreath I decided I wanted to add some leaves, so I used my hand carved leaf stamp (you can read about here) with green ink on white cardstock, and cut out the images.  I adhered the leaves with a generous amount of hot glue first, and this gave a base for me to adhere the Gluber flowers too.

Overall the wreath was a bit time consuming but once all of the parts are ready the wreath can easily be assembled while watching TV.  Also, if you are using actual paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls the assembly will be quicker since you won't have to make your own loops, you can just snip them.  I am saving up my leftover rolls so that I can make more wreaths in the future, my plan is to make one for every season -- or just whenever I feel like it.  :)

I used the following products:

Cardstock: Gina K Designs Pure Luxury 120# Pure White, Stampin' Up!  Whisper White.

Shimmer Sprays:  Shimmerz Paints Spritz Chick-a-dee, Plum Pudding.

Adhesives:  Hot glue sticks from my stash, Glubers, Glue Dots.

Brads: Creative Charms Vintage Brads.

Ribbon:  Yellow American Crafts Satin ribbon, Pink and Purple satin ribbons from stash.

Ink: Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink Olive Pastel.

Happy New Home

I love stamping and card making magazines.  They are of course great for inspiration, and unlike other types of magazines they don't outlive their usefulness since you can look at them over and over and still get new ideas.  There are some magazines I prefer over others, but sometimes when looking for the ones I like I come across ones that I've not read before.  Sometimes if they come with something free I am more apt to pick it up and try it out.  That is what happened when I found Craft Stamper Magazine.  It comes with a free stamp, and with it I made the following card:

Since Craft Stamper is a UK magazine the most current issue they had was the March issue.  I was quite inspired by the examples they had for the stamp.  As a result I decided to make a 'Happy New Home' card.

Once I decided what to make I had a pretty clear idea of what to do.  I chose the patterned paper and cardstock I wanted to work with, and cut everything down the way I wanted.

My original plan was to stamp the castle I would colour in black and the remaining castles in gray, but after sponging the text pattern I realized the text was more of a brownish tone than a grayish tone so I decided to stamp the rest of the castle images in a light brown.  I like the contrast much better.

I coloured the main castle with red and gray markers, and added some glitter pen to the door and windows.

I adhered the background patterns together, added some ribbon with a good size bow, and foam taped the main image panel over the ribbon.  Once completed the whole thing was attached to the card base.

For the inside, I didn't have a 'new home' sentiment stamp so I decided to hand write the sentiment on a piece of cream cardstock.  I sponged the cardstock with more gray, and adhered it to the inside with other bits of patterned paper.

I like how this card turned out!


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
2. Pile it On - All about 's'

I used the following supplies:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up!  Basic Gray, Very Vanilla.  Lily Bee Design Memorandum 6x6 Tiny Tablet.

Stamp:  Free stamp from March 2012 Craft Stamper Magazine by The Octopode Factory.

Ink:  Memories Black.  Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink Charcoal, Creamy Brown.

Markers/ Pens:  Bic Mark Its Rambunctious Red, Cloud Nine Gray.  Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Star.  Black ink uni-ball pen.

Ribbon:  Gray satin ribbon from stash.

Adhesive:  Tombo Mono Permanent Adhesive Runner, foam squares.

Tools:  Paper Trimmer, scissors, bone folder.

Easter

Remember the St. Patrick's day card I made a couple of weeks ago?  If not you can see the post here, but at the time I mentioned I had several additional ideas for the technique I used.  When I saw the this sketch:

 at Freshly Made Sketches, I thought it was perfect because it was similar to one of the ideas that I had.  This is what I came up with:

 

Unfortunately I didn't finish my card in time to enter the challenge, but I still really like how this card turned out.

I started out with the cute bunny stamp that I got from one of the $1.50 bins at Michaels, and figured out which of my circle dies would fit it.  I chose to make the circles on the side the next size circle down, and I chose to use Jillibean Soup's Blossom soup collection for the lower layer. I used some SU Certainly Celery for the card base.

 I love the pink sheet with the type on it, so when I placed the die in order to cut I made sure that the bolded statement showing was one that I liked.  I then chose several other springy sheets and coloured the bunny to coordinate.   I added the top layer with some foam tape so the cirles look like windows.

Me being me I couldn't leave things alone, so I added some Sakura glitter pen, and as an afterthought I cut out a couple of butterflies from one of the sheets and added it with foam squares so the butterflies looked like they had just landed on the card.  Once I added some bakers twine the card was finished!

Since I didn't have an Easter sentiment stamp I decided to write "Happy Easter" on the inside, and I added some circles die cut from the papers used on the front.  I like how it turned out, but I'm not completely happy with my writing so I really think I need to practice on some calligraphy. :)

Although I missed the Freshly Made Sketches challenge, I was still able to join in on the following challenges:

1. Creative Stamp Friends - Spring
2. Stampin' For the Weekend - Anything Goes
3. Papertake Weekly - BINGO:  Die Cuts, Free (Twine), Glitter
4. Moving Along With the Times - Easter Wishes
5. The Pink Elephant - Butterflies
6. The Pretty Little Ribbon - Spring Colours

Here are the supplies I used this time:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up Certainly Celery, Whisper White.  Jillibean Soup Blossom Soup 6x6 pad.

Stamp:  Craft Smart from Micheals (no name).

Ink:   Memories Black.

Markers:  Bic Mark It Oceanview Blue, Yellow Blaze, Margarita Green, Pink Flamingo, Tuxedo Black.  Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Stardust. Copic W3.  Prismacolour Colourless Blender.

Twine:  We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Bakers Twine Primary Lemonade.

Adhesives:  Tombow Mono Adhesive Runner Permanent, Scotch Quick Dry, foam squares.

Tools:  Paper trimmer, scissors, Cuttlebug, Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper.

Creating a card sketch book

I don't know about you, but when I'm looking for inspiration, or for tips on how to do things I go to You Tube a lot.  One of the people I follow on You Tube is Kristina Werner.  I love her cards and when she posted her video on making a card sketch book, I knew I had to make one too.

I didn't copy hers exactly, but if you compare mine to hers you can definitely see how I used her layout.  I started by choosing the patterned paper.  Since I may use this book regularly I wanted to choose a pattern that I like to look at, and I've been saving these two sheets from American Craft's "Hello Sunshine" collection for a special occasion.   I then chose letter stickers and embellishments to match, and of course added some ink to almost everything.  The pop-up flower originally had a button in the middle that I pulled off in order to stick some of the letters on, I like how it turned out. 

To bind the whole thing I had to be a bit creative as I don't have the stapler that Kristina uses in her video, and I couldn't find my regular stapler.  Instead I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch holes through the center of the booklet (the same way it would have been stapled) and threaded some bakers twine through. 

Below is Kristina's original video.  You can find her blog post where she includes the page templates here.

The supplies I used are as follows:

Cardstock:  American Crafts "Hello Sunshine".

Ink:  Color Box fluid chalk ink Chestnut Roan.

Letter Stickers:  American Crafts Thickers Sunset.  Ki Memories epoxy stickers Good Tidings.

Other Embellishments:  American Crafts Daybreak Details.  Ki Memories brushed flowers. We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Bakers Twine.

Tools:  Paper Trimmer, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile.

Adhesive: Skor Tape.