Irene and a birthday card

What is left of Hurricane Irene is now coming through Maine; I'm watching the trees bend in the wind.  I'm surprised we still have power but the worst of it hasn't arrived.  An earthquake and a hurricane in one week - who says Maine is boring?

I wanted to share my grandson Ethan's birthday card.  Hard to believe he is 11; he and his brother seem to be growing up faster than my own kids did.

 The card has lots of texture with flocking borders and glitter on the cupcake brad.  I used die cuts for happy and birtday along with the letters.  I backed the 2 panels with coordinating cardstock to reduce the white space when the card was opened.  I didn't use any other embellishments besides brads so he wouldn't think the card was "girly".  All products are HOTP.

Once I decided what I wanted to do, it was a very quick card to complete and I heard my DIL say she is going to keep this card.  What more can a cardmaker hope for?

 Thanks for stopping by!

PaperCutz Challenge #106, Wish Upon a Star

Happy Friday everyone.  Well, we are preparing for Hurricane Irene up here.  I'm sure the stores are full of folks stocking up.  She is expected late Saturday night.

Well, this week we are going to "Wish Upon a Star" by creating a project using stars and any color or theme you would like.  I created a star shaped card and used a star covered paper.  I wish I could give credit to where I first saw this card idea, but I was blog surfing and can't remember and couldn't find where it came from (sorry!).  It is a fairly simple card to construct.

 As always, my picture taking doesn't do justice to the creation!  I used gold metallic cardstock (DCWV) for the base and a dark gray with foil stars for PP.  I used gold metallic vellum for matting and for the star which I heat-embossed with Gold Stupendous EP.  I outlined all of the outside lines with a gold leafing pen when I finished.  As you can see by the inside, I didn't let the leafing dry enough before I started to handle the card - it left streaks.

The card opens out giving plenty of room for a sentiment, more embellies if wanted and a message.  I stamped the happy birthday sentiment using gold EP and outlined the inner triangle with border stickers from Flower Soft.  I thought of stamping more stars on the white framing sections, but decided that would be too much.  If anyone would be interested in how to make this card, let me know.


This card is headed to Alex, my son who will be turning 23 soon.  It's the end of August which means the kids are heading back to school.  This year, we only have 3 left in college.  Alex will finish his Master's in Chemical Engineering; Toni will finish up her degree in Electrical Engineering and Ben has 3 semesters left for a degree in Economics.  Andy graduated earlier this year and is happily settled in Buffalo, NY working in his field of psychology.  Rocky and Chris have chosen different paths than college; but I secretly hope one or the other will go back to school at some point.  Chances are very good that when the other 3 finish up, they will no longer be calling Maine "home"; I'm trying to look at the bright side - potentially fantastic vacation sites with different LSS to visit!

Please play along with us this week and, as always, I appreciate comments!

PaperCutz Challenge #105, down at the farm

Good morning everyone. It's been a while since I have posted, my apologies, but life got in the way!

This week at Papercutz Challenge, the theme is to make a craft project with the theme "Down on the Farm" using any colors or theme you would like.  Now having grown up in big city, Boston, I don't have a lot of familiarity with fams and I have almost no craft supplies.  However I do have this cute boy stamp from I Brake for Stamps; he's got a straw hat and a rake, certainly that's  a little "farmish" don't you think?

I colored everything but his clothes with Copics and decided to paper-piece his clothes.  I stamped parts of him again on scrap pieces of paper, cut them out and glued them down.  I consider myself to still be a Copic beginner and I really enjoy paper piecing.  In person he is very cute.  I was all done and feeling proud of myself when I realized he was holding a bag of seed corn!  I solved that problem with my Tonic leaf punch and the vibrant leaf  paper from HOTP.  Finished it off with the Autumn rub-on from Scenic Route Paper, the cool fibers and the leaf charm from my stash.   All in all, not too bad.

Join us this week, won't you?

As always, I love to read comments.

PaperCutz Challenge #102, under the sea

Good morning everyone!  This week at PaperCutz Challenge, your mission is to make a project featuring things you would see "under the sea". Since I wasn't a submariner, but a surface sailor, I had a little difficulty with this one - I have about 20 different stamped fishes sitting on my scrap table and I didn't like any of them.  So, patterned paper to the rescue!  I wimped out and found a paper (HOTP) which satisfied the requirement.

I was feeling guilty about taking the easy way out, so I decided to go for a slightly more involved card.  I really enjoy making these tunnel cards - they are actually quick and easy, yet give fantastic results.  The sentiment is part of my fish stamp set from Firecracker Designs by Pamela - unfortunately, she is no longer in business.  The stamping on the card face is Cornish Heritage Farms, another company who closed their doors.  Another card for my Operation Write Home box - which I really  need to mail!

Have a great weekend and be sure to play along!

Smooch, Goosebumps and Halloween

Kind of eclectic title, but describes the cards I have to show you today. 

I used smooch on this card;  I put about an inch of water in a pie plate and dropped a few globs of the smooch colors into the water and used a toothpick to swirl them.  Then I put the paper in the water pushed it under and then took it out.  I love the marbled effect and each piece of paper I did was different.  It is hard to see in the photo, but there is also some light pink Smooch.  I also put the white flowers into the water - the jewels are already attached, I just wiped them off.  The paper flowers come from a punch.  Simple yet beautiful!

This card uses the new Goosebumps spray by Tsukineko.  I stamped the flowers with  Adirondack Watermelon then sprayed on the Goosebumps, when dry I rubbed it all over with more Watermelon and wiped it off - the spray is used like a resist.  The depth it gives to the card is wonderful.  I cut out another flower and popped it on the top left.

On to the Halloween part!  Making cards for Operation Write Home requires you to look at the calendar a little differently.  Halloween is due to the shipper's mid September; Thanksgiving the end of September and Christmas by Halloween.  In December I'll work on my Valentine's cards due by 12/31.  So, last week we topped out the weather at 100 degrees and the humidity made it very difficult to breathe due to asthma, so I stayed inside with my air conditioners!  I haven't started on the Christmas cards yet, but that's next after I get this box shipped out.

These last 2 cards have nothing to do with any of the above except I was using up more scraps.  I used a new 2 me embossing powder, Judikins Diamond Sparkles, on the butterfly and it is gorgeous.

So, I'll see you Friday with the next PaperCutz Challenge, until then keep cool and be creative!

PaperCutz Challenge #101 and new 2 me products

Happy Friday everyone.  Nugget, my dog, got me up at 7 this morning - I do believe she is worse than any of my kids.  However, since she is a 16 year old lab and doesn't talk back, we let her slide and even spoil her a bit!

This week at PaperCutz Challenge the challenge is a pretty easy one - anything goes!  Can't get any easier than that...I've been playing with some new products and my sample this week uses "build a blossom" from LaPashe that are available here.  I used a chrysanthemum on my card:

I played with it for quite a bit before I was happy with the look.  I started by spraying with a homemade yellow shimmer spray (polished pigments and simple solution) for some shine.  Then I decided to ink the back on each piece yellow in case it showed.  I spent some time shaping each piece and layered them.  The smallest piece I gathered up into a cone shape, glued it together to stay in this shape and filled the cone with butterscotch dimensional pearls.  I then thought it needed something else, so I used one of my top-secret "highly technical tools" (a bent paperclip) to add bits of glue in random places all over the flower and used PK Glitz Crystal glitter.  Then I decided it was finished.  Cheryl, the owner of my LSS gave me the highest praise, "I thought is was a regular silk flower".  For the card base I squeezed out butterscotch and terra cotta dimensional pearls (Ranger) onto wax paper, folder the paper over and swooshed the pearls around, I then added 2 white cs pieces inside the wax paper and ran it through my Big Shot using the Tim Holtz wood embossing folder.  When it was completely dry I patted Versamark on the raised portions and heat embossed with clear EP.  You can't tell in the picture, but it has a really nice finish.  The small horizontal strip was also colored with the dimensional pearls.  Of course, everything was going too smoothly...when I went to add the completed piece to a card base, I realized it was a 1/2" shorter than needed.  Now, I could have cut the card base down, but that would be too easy, so I glued a strip of ribbon top and bottom under the front panel.  I used a Clear Snap rub-on adhesive thanks and finished it off with brown glitter.
Cheryl also got in another LaPashe product "Nice and Easel which create 3D scenes for easel cards.  There is also a smaller 3D image for a second card.  I chose to make my easel cards 6" x 6" to allow me to mat the image.

I'm hoping you can see some of the dimension better in this picture.  The images had to be hand cut, which can be tedious, but this way I didn't have to worry about the leftover "nibs" from punch out pieces.  Each of the roses has at least one layer.  The bottom left rose has 3 layers so I used 1/16th foam dots for lift.  The saying on the bottom of the card is also part of the package.


This last card is made from the smaller pieces of a different Nice and Easel sheet.

I still had some alcohol inked vellum left from my previous post and thought it went well with these flowers.  I ran each piece through my Xyron so I didn't need to worry about adhesive showing through.  The bird embellishment is from a 12" border set from K and Co.  Most of my supplies are actually for scrapbooks, but it is fun to see how to "downsize" these pieces for cards as I did here.  More bang for my buck; if you've been reading previous posts, you know I hate to waste anything, even the packaging sometimes.

All of these cards are samples on display at Cheryl's store, Inspired Designs.  When they come down from display and if they are still in good condition, they go into my Operation Write Home box. 

As always, please leave a comment, good or bad, I learn from them all!  Why don't you play along this week at PCC?  Remember, anything goes!

Have a great week! 

PaperCutz Challenge #100 and resist technique

Happy Friday everyone!  Hard to believe but PaperCutz Challenge is up to its 100th challenge.  Every so often the DT will get to pick the challenge and this week, Lisa, wanted us to look up with "the sky's the limit".  Anything you may see when you look up, from butterflies to UFOs to the moon and the stars.  I love butterflies and I just got a new background stamp from Hero Arts which is beautiful and fits the bill.  Yesterday I saw a demo of resist papers, the papers you add color to and then wipe with a paper towel and the original design shows through.  I love the look and decided to experiment with my new stamp.

I also bought the Fiskar's anywhere punch, but that's another sItory.  So, anyway, I stamped the image on white paper with Versamark and embossed with Zing black EP.  I then used    
Adirondack's Cranberry ink and a dauber to layer on the color.  It has an ombre look to it - or at least that's what I was going for.  I laid heavy color on the top and lightened it as I went down to the bottom.  I then used a paper towel to lightly wipe off excess ink and this is what I got.  I punched the window and lightly inked the inside of the card and popped the flower (which I've had forever), added velvet ribbon and a sentiment and I was done!  This card is off to Operation Write Home and their challenge this week of miss you cards.

I then decided to experiment with alcohol inks on various surfaces and this is what I got.  I used glossy cardstock and Judikins opaque white EP.  I use Copic marker refills as my alcohol inks; her the combination is V04 (lilac), BG15 (aqua) and G21 (lime green).  It is a very soft pastel effect.  I left the cards very simple as I wanted the background and stamp to take center stage.

The next two cards aren't using the resist technique.  I embossed the image on SU vellum, which is much sturdier than standard.  I then alcohol inked the back of the vellum for a softer, muted effect.  The black panel I haven't made into a card yet.  I think I like the one with the white EP better (below), it just seems to fit the colors better.

That's it for this challenge.  Have fun creating and make sure to play along!