Since the dogs decided to get me up at 3AM this morning, I needed a little project. This card was made by the time my husband got up for work.
I broke out one of the gorgeous Valentine's digis from PaperFacesDesigns and used a piece of embroidery for the color inspiration. Can you tell I got Copic markers for Christmas?! I'm in love.
I made the shapes and frames in SCAL, including the love border. Although I deviated in the shades, I was working with this week's SPCC's combo of artichoke, soft suede & river rock. The red elements arose from how I colored the roses. The card is 4.5x4.5, and has lots of shimmer!
Digi stamp: Roses Valentine by PaperFacesDesigns
Inspiration:
Color: SPCC #80: always artichoke, soft suede, river rock
Theme: The Character Cafe Feature Friday Challenge: Sparkle/Sparkle/Sparkle
Sketch: Cute Card Thursdays Challenge #144 (oops, missed the deadline!)
Supplies:
Best Creations Glitter Paper, Recollections & Staples cardstocks, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Hoefler Text Black Italic, 09 KutUps dingbat font by Clever Someday, ZipDry glue, HP printer & ink, Copic Ciao B markers, Recollections gem brads, Fiskars papercutter & corner rounder
I've been wanting to make a window card, and thanks to the blogosphere I found the inspiration!I designed the card and the window in Scal so that I could get the fold I wanted; but for the pretty lace elements I pulled out my shiny new border punch and used my scraps. The text was made in InDesign and printed on gray paper. I stamped the little green birds on the brown paper, aligned clear acetate over it and stamped the cages in black. The window frame is "aged" with a gray marker. And I couldn't help but decorate the back of the card in brown with the larger version of the bird.
Inspiration: Color: ColourQ Challenge #65: old olive, kraft, basic gray, basic black, vanilla & whiteTheme: Freshly Brewed Challenge #28: Celebrate/New Year'sSketch: Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine Sketch Challenge #5
Supplies:
My Mind's Eye Lost & Found/Market Street "Adore" silicon stamps, Martha Stewart border punch, ColorBox & StazOn inks, Recollections & Staples cardstocks, Graphix clear plastic, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Velcro, ZipDry glue, HP printer & ink, Guinness Extra Stout font, Copic C-5 Cool Gray marker
So here it is, my 100th blog post. Oh! how far we've come from idle cheesemaking, which was the original theme of this blog; Eighty-three of the posts are dedicated to crafting and were created in the past 7 months. In celebration, I'd like to share this:
Thanks everyone!
I was in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday when I first saw the Priscilla Styles Midnight Madness December 2010 Sketches; since there were six sketches in total, I felt like a wanted to make a set of something. We were staying at a hotel, so I sat out on a little patio above the pool, watching family dynamics and letting my imagination go. I'd been thinking of making a "Twelve Days of Christmas" series, but didn't want to embark on such a project without a firm idea. But I started thinking...I have that pretty tree stamp, with the bird that I could pop out...a cow stamp...a pair of swans... and next thing I knew I was home in Baltimore, making a series of 12 cards based on December's MMSC sketches with physical and digi stamps I owned or could Google easily. So much fun!
I made a wall hanging of them and they look pretty nifty as a set. To all my friends at and in the community over at Priscilla Styles, happy holidays and thank you for the support and inspiration!
1 Partridge in a Pear Tree
[Son of G—]:
Tree stamp from Inkadinkado
Pear cut file by My Cricut Scrapbooking
2 Turtle Doves
[Old & New Testaments of the Bible]:
Turtle digi stamp by Therese Travis
Dove cutting file by SvgCuts
3 French Hens
[Faith, Hope & Charity]:
3 Women rubber stamp from Stampin' Up!
4 Calling Birds
[the four Gospels of the Bible]:
silicon Christmas Carolers stamp
5 Golden Rings
[first five books of the Old Testament]:
Silicon circle stamp, MeltArt embossing powder, Marvy heat tool
Incire Ornament cut file by CPeep
6 Geese A-laying
[six days of Creation]:
Eggs by My Cricut Scrapbooking
Geese coloring page by Greattattoo
7 Swans A-swimming
[the seven gifts of The Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, wonder & awe, reverence]:
For the Two of You rubber stamp from Stampin' Up!
Marvy snow marker & heat tool
8 Maids A-milking
[the eight blessings (beatitudes) contained in the Sermon on the Mount]:
Russian Dolls rubber stamp by Hero Arts (LP158)
9 Ladies Dancing
[nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control]:
Dancer Silhouette cutting file by My Cricut Scrapbooking
10 Lords A-leaping
[Ten Commandments]:
Tree Frog rubber stamp
11 Pipers Piping
[the eleven faithful apostles]:
Kokopelli image by canadianbent13
12 Drummers Drumming
[twelve points of the Apostles' Creed]:
Drummer Man Vintage by TLC Creations
Inspiration: Priscilla Styles Midnight Madness December 2010 Sketches (Fancy and CAS)
This week's Aud Sentiments and Allsorts challenges pretty much sum up how my house looks right now: Happy Holidays and Last Minute Christmas!
My creative life was changed forever when I discovered the world of origamic architecture, and it was further changed by my discovery of the pop-out pencil holder at Extreme Cards & Papercrafting. Using her template, I created my own version in SCAL. I had precut 7 yellow houses on my Cricut, so when I realized I needed some special cards for family all I had to do was glue on some pretty paper! The little cards on the front are hand stamped and punched; I also made small yellow message stickers for the inside.
Supplies: DCWV, Martha Stewart and Recollections cardstocks, gStudio silicon stamps, Stash brads, CraftSmart ink, Fiskars scissors & punch, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon
Happy Holidays! You can download the personal use only cutting file for this card here.
If you do, please leave a comment to let me know. And I'd love to see photos!
I've been pretty excited about Christmas gift-giving preparation ever since I discovered the pop-up gift card holder at Whoopsie Daisy. One of my favorite parts of this design is that it's basically just a card on the front, so you can design it any way you want. For this card, I added a bottom flap and tied a present-style ribbon around the card, so that it will pop open merrily with a simple tug. I plan to hand-write the recipients' names onto the tag. I'm entering this particular card in the Anything Goes Craft Your Passion Challenge.
Ah Scrapmaster's Paradise, you never let me down: I found the color inspiration I wanted in their simple, not-quite-traditional combo of bright green, light green & rosey red. I wish I hadn't missed the deadline for this combo, but oh well!
Because I wanted the final card to be a standard 5.5x4.25, I abandoned my original one-piece card design in exchange for two inside pieces and an outside cover. I had big plans to make my own pop-ups in SCAL for Christmas, but when December arrived I went ahead and splurged and bought the pop-up words predesigned from SvgCuts.
Inspiration: Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo #77: wild wasabi, garden green, rose red
Craft Your Passion Challenge #35: Anything Goes
Pop up words cutting file: Premium Pop Up Cards SVG Kit from SvgCuts
Pop-up gift card holder tutorial inspiration: Whoopsie Daisy
Supplies: ColorBox ink, ProvoCraft Texture paper, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstocks, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon, stash eyelet, Crop-O-Dile II, ZipDry glue, Fiskars decorative scissors, rubber wood-block stamp by Great Impressions
I've been whittling down my pile of Christmas-themed paper for cards (which I can't post yet, since the intended recipients should see them before a billion bloggers!), so I haven't been looking outside for inspiration too much this week. Sitting back and admiring my basket full of cards, however, made me want to try something different, so I took on the merry challenge at ColourQ.
Mom had sent me a bunch of stamps she collected, amongst them a whimsical set of Christmas-themed fairies that seemed meant for this particular mix of colors. I was very pleased to find an excuse to use them!
On white I stamped the scene in three colors (green, turquoise, red), and then did my best at shading with colored pencils. I used the snowflake that came with the stamp set to add yellow and green elements to the scene and backing paper. For that little something extra, I added a stripe of yellow and green ribbon.
Upon posting this, I realized that I missed the ColourQ deadline. How did that happen?! Oh well, I do it for the challenge anyway!
Inspiration:
ColourQ Challenge #62: real red, daffodil delight, tempting turquoise, glorious green + white
Dutch Dare Card Challenge #92: Christmas
Supplies: ColorBox inks, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstocks, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Tim Holtz scissors, ZipDry glue, Fiskars decorative scissors, Offray ribbon, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash, Crayola colored pencils
Because I get distracted enough during the holidays, I haven't been doing many card challenges. There are still gifts to make, cards to send, and a house to organize so as to fit my folks and our Christmas decorations. Happily, several months of entering holiday-themed challenges has pretty much taken care of my card list. I had a few very special people I still wanted cards for, and I found the inspiration I needed in this week's Allsorts Challenge: Light Up the Night.
I had so much fun making the Santa Stocking pull-card with Therese Travis's freebie that I was super excited at the possibilities when I saw her whole stocking series. The "Lights" worked perfectly for this challenge, as did the easel card shape.
Inspiration: Allsorts Challenge #81
Digi stamp: Stockings series by Therese Travis
Supplies: K&Company, DCWV & Core-dinations cardstocks, Offray ribbon, Smirk, Elmer's and Sakura gel pens, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign, Crop-O-Dile II, Marvy Snow marker & heat tool, Fiskars papercutter & scissors, decorative papertrimmer, ZipDry glue
When I first saw the Hanukkah or Holiday card challenge at Tuesday Trio I thought, Finally an excuse to make a Hanukkah card! Honestly, I usually just miss Hanukkah because my family doesn't celebrate it...but I have several friends who do. Heck, half the time I don't even know what day today is! I decided to make matching Hanukkah and Christmas cards for a family who celebrates both. I had a lot of fun making them. My main concept was based on the tradition in both religions to have candles in the windows.
Inspiration: Tuesday Trio Sketch #43: Hanukkah
Supplies: Martha Stewart silicon stamps, Recollections & DCWV cardstocks, Graphix clear plastic, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, StazOn ink, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon, Michaels eyelet, Crop-O-Dile II, Sakura gel pens, stickers by Phrase Cafe, gold holographic paper (colors in photo a result of scanning)
Update 12/16/10: This card made the top three for Tuesday Trio Sketch #43.
Inspiration: Tuesday Trio Sketch #43: Holiday
Aud Sentiments Challenge #16: Ho Ho Ho!
Supplies: Martha Stewart silicon stamps & glittered paper, Recollections cardstock, Graphix clear plastic, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, StazOn ink, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Offray ribbon, Michaels eyelet, Crop-O-Dile II, Sakura gel pens, gold holographic paper (colors in photo a result of scanning)
Original inspiration for magic picture cards: Naked Mole Rat magic picture card by CPeep at Extreme Cards & Papercrafting
Magic Card tutorial: SplitcoastStampers
Magic card template for SCAL2 by cg-says
So I was away from my crafting for a week, which was very relaxing and resulted in a renewed passion for it. Not that the passion had waned...it's just back exponentially! I have about a ton of various-holiday cards to make, but I wanted to make something just for fun. Oh, and I just had to use the tiny robot stamps I picked up on Idle Shopping Saturday.
For color inspiration I used the lovely subtles of ColourQ Challenge #61. When I hand-colored the "Hello" stamp, I neglected to completely clean it so the colors were changed by the old inks already on the stamp...but I liked the result so much that I kept it. For the background I printed 1s and 0s in 100% cyan at 75% tint on Recollections metallic paper. And yes, this post's title is "Hello" in binary.
To be honest, I'm pretty sure I've seen these little robots for sale before, but on that day they really spoke to me (Beep Beep Your Eyes Probably Have Another Year Of Tiny Handwork In Them Beep Beep), and I was very pleased with how well they came out.
Inspiration: ColourQ Challenge #61: soft suede, wild wasabi, tempting turquoise, pacific point + white
Rubber stamps: Robots by Hot Fudge Studio; Hello by Idea House
Supplies: Recollections cardstocks, Offray ribbon, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter, Adobe InDesign, Gotham Black, HP printer & ink, Marvy & American Craft stamp pens
I realized recently that I have almost no scrapbooking examples on my blog. It was only recently that I focused so completely on cardmaking; for the longest time, I mostly made memory books. Of course, most of those got sent off to family, so I have few examples in my home either. So I decided to make a memory book of our garden this year. As inspiration I used the If It's Groovy Birds challenge.
I used a paisley for the birds, my new favorite trick. I also incorporated the info stakes that came with our plants.
Inspiration: If It's Groovy November challenge: Birds
Cutting files: Design Elements and A2 Cards for All Occasions from SVGCuts.com
Supplies: Recollections & Core'dinations cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Fiskars papercutter, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign & PhotoShop, Michaels brads & ribbon, Grumbacher pastels, Pebbles Inc. pom poms, Pergamano reverse-action tweezers, AquaNet hairspray, Xyron sticker machine (sticker machine!)
I had so much fun making, and received such a lovely response to, my black diamond card that I decided to make a few more. I concentrated on colors, as chosen by this week's Scrapmaster's Paradise and ColourQ challenges.
My mom just sent me a bunch of wooden stamps that she picked up at a crafters' yard sale. Three are large medallions of the sort I've been coveting but couldn't quite afford yet. After these two cards, I think Mom got her dollar's worth!
I have so much respect for people who do a lot of hand-cutting for their crafts, but I try not to do it too much because it makes my hand cramp something terrible, plus I would never have time to do anything else! That being said, I couldn't resist layering the medallion for this card. I embossed pink on red and burgundy, and red on pink.
Inspiration: SP Color Combo #74: bravo burgundy, real red, regal rose
Rubber stamp: Holly Berry House
Decorative paper: Pink Spattered by Paper Pizazz
Supplies: Recollections cardstock, ZipDry glue, Fiskars papercutter, Tim Holtz scissors, ColorBox pigment ink, heat embossing tool, Martha Stewart embossing powder, Elmer's & Sakura gel pens
I just had to try another clay medallion. There was still white ink on my stamp, so it embossed and colored the clay, which added a nice effect. I hand-colored it after baking. For the mustard-colored elements, I stamped the medallion with white ink and embossed it with clear powder.
Inspiration: colourQ challenge #59: pumpkin pie, more mustard, old olive, rich razzleberry + white
Rubber stamp: Holly Berry House
Supplies: ColorBox pigment ink, Sculpey polymer clay, Recollections & Core'dinations cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Fiskars papercutter, Tim Holtz scissors, heat embossing tool, MeltArt clear embossing powder, Elmer's & Sakura gel pens, Sharpie white paint pen
Here's a little sneak-peek at the new digis from Paperfaces Designs. Don't forget to follow Therese's blog, as she'll be putting out a call for a design team and offering challenges soon.
Inspiration: Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #80
Digi stamp: Hats Trio by Therese Travis for paperfacesdesign
Supplies: Stemma by Masterpiece Studios paper, Recollections cardstock, brads & pop-dots, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign & PhotoShop, Elmer's, Marvy & Sakura pens, Offray ribbon, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter, AnAkronism typeface by Nick Curtis
Sentiment inspired by "Classic Girl", Jane's Addiction
I love fancy folds for cards, so I loved the diamond fold challenge at Craft Your Passion. They have a fantastic tutorial to help you get started, plus incredible inspiration by the DT. I decided to try this week's Tellen's Place challenge as well, which is to use a black background.
For the card base I used Recollections gold paper. I used a texturing plate to emboss black Core'dinations cardstock (because its tough and can really take some punishment) and was pleased with the leathery result. For the medallion, I used a lovely new rubber stamp on translucent polymer clay. After baking it, I "aged" it with gold ink. Mom's been bugging me to try clay on cards for some time now, but it seemed like one thing too many. Now I think I'm hooked!
Inspiration: Craft Your Passion Challenge #32 Technique: Diamond fold
Tellen's Place Black Background Challenge
Supplies: Recollections & Core'dinations cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Fiskars papercutter & corner punch, embossing texture plate & texturing tool, ColorBox pigment ink, Sculpey polymer clay, Rubber stamp by Inkadinkado
Update 12/3/10: This card made the top 3 for Tellen's Place Black Background Challenge.
I was kinda excited try this week's Michaels' Craft Some Holiday Magic challenge, but one of the mystery items is Chargers. Come on, chargers? As in decorative plates you put under your normal plates? Hmm, sounds like a giant chainstore is trying to empty out its backrooms. Too fancy for me.
So I was very happy to see the fun challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers: card & matching gift. Oh boy, you should check out their DT projects. Incredible! But I just had to try my hand at the challenge.
I used a house box template I found months ago at Amy's SVGs and made a matching card by tracing it in SCAL. And of course I had to make windows and a doorway for the card. The "sentiment" is a stamp I've been saving for the holidays. I cut the lightbulbs on the box from the cardstock I used for the box and the card, and attached a bow to the top to make it easy to open.
I've been looking for a cute way to give friends and neighbors some marshmallows, and I think I found it!
Gift Box template: Amitup
Inspiration: Crafty Cardmaker's Challenge #34: card & matching gift
Supplies: DCWV and Core'dinations cardstock, Offray ribbon, Michaels variegated craft cord & needle, ZipDry glue, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, stamp from gStudio
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Since the dogs decided to get me up at 3AM this morning, I needed a little project. This card was made by the time my husband got up for work.
Digi stamp: Roses Valentine by PaperFacesDesigns
