Scrappy Frogs Think Spring Challenge

There is a new challenge up for April over at Scrappy Frogs Challenge Blog. it it Think Spring! Here where I live in Oregon, we had record setting high temperatures this past Easter Weekend, with temperatures in the mid to upper 70's!!! It was awesome. So it was so easy to make a project that just screams Spring!! This is what I came  up with.

For my card, I started with a piece of white card stock, cut and scored to make a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card base. I then cut a bright blue mat at 4" X 5 1/4" and then a piece of Whitewashed Core' Denations card stock cut at 3 3/4" X 5". I then embossed it with a MBossiblities folder called Twigs and Tweets. I lightly sanded the embossed image so the light blue background showed through

I used a Cheery Lynn Die to cut my gate. I added a piece of green floral Washi Tape to anchor the gate as ground. I then added some Green Meadow flower soft on each side of the gate, to  represent a shrub. I also added some little birds die cut with a Memory Box die cut in blue and yellow. The Banner is stamped in Memento Bahama Blue ink on a piece of stripped paper and is from a Dear Lizzie stamp set.

I hope you will join us in the challenge and Think Spring!!!

New Techique for Patterned Paper

So I recently signed up for an online card class that was taught by Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire called Pattern Play. It was a class about how to use patterned paper. I wanted to share with you one of the techniques I learned in the class. For this technique the goal is transform patterned paper to give it an entirely new look. To make my card, I stared with a piece of white card stock cut and scored to make a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card. I added a dark blue mat cut at 4" X 5 1/4". For the orange mat, I stared with a piece of patterned paper cut to 4 1/4" X 5 1/2".  I used a Hero Arts Leaf and Branch background stamp (yes, Kim can get Hero Arts products, just ask) and stamped it on my patterned paper with some Versamark. I added some Clear WOW! embossing powder. Here is a before and after shot of the paper I used. Next I used some Distress Inks in Rusty Hinge, Spiced Marmalade, and Ripe Persimmon and my blending tool to apply some ink to my embossed patterned paper. The embossed areas will resist the ink.  On the left is the paper I started with, on the right is what I ended up with after I embossed it and added the ink. The other step that I did based on what I learned in the class was to take my iron set on dry, medium heat and some printer paper and I laid the printer paper over my embossed patterned paper and ironed it a couple of times, moving the printer paper as I did this to take off the glossy embossing powder.

To finish my card, I cut a fan from the Cricut Pagoda cartridge (yes, Kim can special order this for you, just ask) at 3". I added it to my card front with some foam tape. Then I took a Tim Holtz ticket that said Dream and inked it with some Tea Dye and Vintage Photo distress ink ad added it to my card. Finally I added some dark blue pearls from my stash. Kim has a wide selection of pearls in multiple colors and sizes here in the store. I hope you will give this technique a try. It is a great way to change up a patterned paper that may now be working for you.

Life a Journey...

There is a new Crafty Cardz Challenge over at Cardz TV. The challenge is to make a project that uses your favorite quote. My quote I wanted to use is Life is a Journey not the Destination.

My card base is a 5" X 7" white card stock. I added a dark blue mat cut at 4 3/4" X 6 3/4" and then added some cloud paper which is from My Minds Eye, Lime Twist cut at 4 1/2" X 6 1/2". I cut my hot air balloon at 5" from the Summer In Paris seasonal cartridge. I added some Hero Arts Ultra Fine Prisma Glitter to the white layer. I used my Zig Two Way glue pen to go over all the intricate designs on the white layer and then applied the glitter before adhering to the dark blue background layer. I printed my sentiment out with my printer using a dar blue ink color on white card stock then matted it with more of the dark blue. Finally I attached my hot air balloon with some foam tap and applied the mat with the sentiment directly to my card and added a dark blue rhinestone to each end.

I hope you will join in the challenge over at Cardz TV and let us see what your favorite quote is.

Quick and Easy Easter Basket

Welcome Tutorial Tuesday! Hope your week is off to a great start.  Today I have for you a quick and easy Easter basket. Perfect for a hostess gift, gift for co-workers, friends, just about anyone, or the center of your Easter table. I happened to come across this great tutorial at Scor-Pal on making a box. I knew I wanted to make a simple basket and wanted it 4" across the bottom and I wanted 3" sides. Based on the formula in this tutorial (4+3+3 which is the box size plus two times the height size) I knew I needed to cut a 10" square to make my box and then score each side at 3". I then cut the flaps as indicated in the tutorial.

This picture is from the tutorial

I adhered my box using scor-tape. My handle which was just the 2" X 12" strip of patterned card stock I cut off to make my 10" square. I attached my handle to my box behind the outside flap so the bottom of my handle was hidden. Now that the basket was together, it was time to decorate it. I cut my rabbit from the Easter 2010 Cricut cartridge at 2 1/2".  I ran the rabbit through my Xyron sticker maker upside down so the sticky was on the front of my bunny. Okay so now I have a confession to make. I thought that at some time in the past I had purchased the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft. However, if I did, I sure couldn't find it and was not where I store my flower soft. So now I had a dilemma. I wanted to make my rabbit furry, so what to do? I took some of white Ultra Fine Flower Soft and added several drops of  ginger alcohol Ink to it in a plastic sandwich bag and rubbed it around in the bag to get the color I ended up with. However, I also ended up with ginger colored hands and it had a bit of an odor to it from the alcohol ink. So while it worked in a moment of panic I plan to get some of the Earth colored Ultra Fine Flower Soft when Kim has it back in the store. Just much simpler to us.Once I had my bunny sticky and the flower soft the color I wanted I added it to the front of the bunny and pressed down on the flower soft (that's how I got the colored hands) to be sure it stuck to the adhesive. I then added a bow at his neck and a google eye to him and adhered him to my basket.

Next I cut the grass. The grass is also from the Easter 2010 cartridge and was cut at 1 1/4". Each strip is actually 2 of the images that I flipped and welded together on my Gypsy. You could do the same thing with the Cricut Craft Room if you don't have a Gypsy or Design Studio. I cut my grass out of some Core' denations paper and the light green is actually the back side of the card green. I adhere the grass to my box at the bottom and then fluffed up the grass to give it some dimension For my Easter eggs, I cut these from the Doodlecharms cartridge using real dial size and 3/4" and 1". Before cutting the eggs I grabbed some scraps of card stock in pink, yellow and lavender. I used my WOW! Funky Border Strips clear stamps and several colors of distress ink to create some patterned paper to cut my eggs from. If you haven't tried any of these clear stamps you should. WOW! makes them so they work really well with their embossing powders (just a suggestion all you WOW! club members). Kim carries several of their stamps sets. It is worth checking out.

On the lavender paper I used the Peacock Feathers Distress ink and the small dot border stamp. On the Yellow paper I used Shaded Lilac and the small squares border stamp. On my pink paper I used the Squeezed Lemonade and the Pickled Raspberry distress ink and the single row of dots border stamp. I first stamped the Raspberry and left about an 1" between the two rows, then went back and stamped the Lemonade between the Raspberry. Once I had the eggs cut out I used my Spica Pens to add a little glitter to the eggs and then adhered them to the front of my basket. I hope you enjoyed seeing my basket and will check out the awesome products used from Cutters Creek. And remember if something is ever out of stock just contact Kim through the Customer Service link and ask if she can order it for you. She is great about special ordering so never hesitate to ask. I hope you all of a great rest of your week. I would love to know what you think of my basket.

Erin Go Braugh Challenge

It is time once again for a new Crafty Cardz Challenge over at Cardz TV. The Challenge today is to make a St. Patrick's Day card using the colors, green, black and white only. This is what I came up with.

I started with a white card stock base cut and scored to give me a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card base. I added a black mat cut at 4" X 5 1/4" and the my patterned paper cut at 3 3/4" X 5".

My Frog and Sentiment are both from the Silhouette store and cut with my cameo.I added the frog and sentiment to my card with some foam tape. Using my white gel pen I added some doodle dots to the frog's hat, bow tie and shamrock as well as the sentiment. Finally I added a couple of black buttons that I threaded some green and white bakers twine through and tied in knows and attached them to my card front with glue dots.

I hope you will pop over and join us in the challenge at Cardz TV.

Masculine Birthday Card

Today I have for you a masculine birthday card I made for a co-worker. Masculine cards seem really hard for me to make. Awhile back I came across a 6 X 6 paper pad by Authentique called Original and it was all blues and browns and it seemed perfect for masculine cards. I finally had a chance to try it out this weekend. Let me know what you think.

I started with a piece of 8 1/2" X 11" card stock that I cut at  4 1/4", giving me a 4 1/4" X 11" piece of card stock. I scored that a 5 1/2" but rather than making it a portrait style card I mad this one landscape so my width is 5 1/2" . Next I added a piece of blue patterned paper from that paper pad cut at 4" X 5 1/4".. The other thing I loved about this paper pad is it was two sided. So cut a strip of the patterned paper at 1" X 4". The lid blue strip on my card is the reverse side of the blue patterned paper. Then I took another piece of paper from the pad, this one looks like it had metal buttons on it and cut it at 4" X 3/4". I inked the edges of all my papers with some of the Gathered Twigs distress ink. Next I cut a 2 1/2" square from the buttoned patterned paper an used the back side which is a rich chocolate brown fro the mat behind my sentiment. I then cut a 2 1/4" square out of white card stocked that I inked the edges heavily with the Gathered Twigs distress ink. I stamped my sentiment with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink and adhered it to my brown mat. I added some bronze nail heads at the top and bottom of the sentiment mat and adhered all of that to my card from with some foam tape. Because it was a masculine card I did no more.

I hope you liked the card and feel a bit inspired to try your hand at making a masculine card.

Baby Mini Album-For National Crafting Month

We hope you are enjoying our full week of projects in honor of National Crafting Day. Today is my day and I have for you today a Baby Girl Mini Album I made for a friend of my daughter's who is having a baby in May. I cut the album using my Silhouette Cameo at 5".  All of the patterned paper in the book is cut at 4 1/2" and is from Prima. I used the Sweet Fairy collection which is currently sold out in the store. If you are interested in it, let Kim know and she may be able to order it for you. I also use Stickles, Memento Ink, Zip Dry and Scotch Quick Dry Adhesives to adhere my elements to the album along with some stickers from my collection. The book is bound using some Doodlebug Baby Girl twine assortment. Now, I have a video for you that walks you through the book page by page.

I hope you will let me know what you think. Leave us a comment telling us how you have been liking the week and what you are doing during National Crafting Month.

New Scrappy Frogs Challenge

It is time for a new Scrappy Frogs Challenge. In honor of St Patrick's Day the challenge is to make a project using the color green! Easy Peasy.

For my card, I started with white card stock cut and folded to make a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card stock. Added a black mat cut at 4" X 5 1/4" and then the patterned paper mat cut at 3 3/4" X 5". The patterned paper is from a DCWV paper tie dye pad. I thought it looked a bit like rays of green sunshine coming out from behind the pot of gold. I added another piece of multi green and white paper cut at 1 1/4" stamped with my sentiment which says Lucky to be Irish.

My shamrock border and pot of gold were cut with my Silhouette Cameo. For my Shamrock border I painted them with some Private Meadows glimmer glam. I also painted the gold in my pot with some gold glimmer glam. I painted the Shamrock on my pot with some glimmer glaze. The pot is adhered to my card front with some foam tape.

I hope you will join us this month for the Scrappy Frogs Challenge.

It's Raining Happy!!!

So I won a stamp set from the Cutters Creek Virtual Valentine's Day Party and it is just so sticking cute I had to give it a try. I finally had a chance this weekend. This is a Unity Little Bitty Stamp. Isn't just so cute????

My card base is white card stock cut and scored to make a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card base. I added a blue mat cut at 4" X 5 1/4" and then my patterned paper which is from Echo Park Hello Summer 6"X 6" paper pad cut at 3 3/4" X 5". I rounded the outer two corners.

I used the Elegant Edges Cricut Cartridge to cut a mat for my main image. The mat was cut at 3 1/2". I ran the white layer through my eBosser and embossed it with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder.

The umbrella image was the stamp I won along with the sentiment. I stamped the image on white card stock and colored it with some Spectrum Noir markers and cut it out and adhered it to my embossed mat. I then covered it with Glossy Accents so it had that slick glossy  look  to it.

My sentiment was stamped in Bahama Blue Memento Ink. I adhere the umbrella directly to my mat but the mat and sentiment were adhered to my card base with foam tap. Let me know what you think. I am not much of a color-er, so be gentle. Thanks

It's A Girl Card

I found this adorable card kit in the Silhouette store and of course I had to have it. A gal at work recently had a baby and we are going to give this to her.

I cut the card with my Cameo at 5 1/2" and it gave me a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" card base in pink. I ran the white scalloped piece through my eBosser and embossed it with the Swiss Dots folder. The little onesies were cut from different scraps of card stock. I did opt to not cut the clothesline and instead used a piece of twine. I adhere the onesies to the card front with foam tape to give the illusion that they are attached to the line. Finally I stamped the sentiment It's a girl with some Rosebud Memento Tuxedo ink on pink paper and cut it to look like a banner and adhered it to my card.