ATC's

Working on a couple ATC's this weekend, just for fun and to use up some stash...using some Sassy sayings that I saw at Ink Stains. More to come!

Vintage and Crackle Paint

Just a little ATC card I made up today.
Playing along at Simon Say Stamp Challenge: 3 papers

Tag it!

Playing along with Simon Says Challenge of the week - Tag It!

What I've been doing

It was a snowy day Friday, so hunkered down and happily crafted away.

I thought I would just post the cards and if anyone wants a "how to" guide, please don't hestitate to ask. Any comments left go straight to my inbox, so, I assume, I can reply to your comment.

Playing along at Simon Says Stamp.... Anything Goes!

The Good, and the Ugly

Wanna see my ugliest card ever? I didn't really have a plan when I started my sweathearts Valentine's card. I just went for it. And altho I love Tim Holtz seasonal papers, it didn't help. Usually if I don't like how a card is coming out, I just keep at it, scrumage thru my stash and usually find something that can save it. But nothing could save this catastrophy. I absolutely hate how this came out. Yuk yuk yuk.

 Actually while working on my ugly card, I had intended to try a new technique of distress crackle painting a deboss. See here. Tammy suggested how awesome it looked using the woodgrain folder.  I was so excitted to try it, I kept forgetting to ink and dry the paper first. I tried 5 different papers. Talk about Duhhhh! The crackle paint becomes a resist and so can't be inked afterwards. Well I ran out of crackle :(   It didn't go so well, and I ditched the idea and made the ugly card.....can't win this one. The whole thing made me wonder if I should just run out and get my DH a card from the store - yes, I actually concidered it!

 Luckily for me I had a brain storm the morning of Valentines Day. My DH's favourite Valentine's joke is : What did the lumberjack say to his sweetheart? Wooood you be my Valentine! So this suggestion to use distress crackle on the woodgrain was a great idea. I could use that with his fav joke.

So in the end, here's the card he received: I made my own ornie, used newspaper to cut individual letters for the sentiment. To be like a ransom note. Also used one of the 5 I had forgotten to ink up, a different embossing folder for the frame, and a Nestibilities die for the heart wreath. Wheeewwww, Finally!

Fan of Tim Holtz and Simon Says Stamp

That's it for today....lots to clean up at the craft table!

Challenge: Studio L3 - Grungy Monday

For the Bride - Dress

Happy Monday...how's you're mojo today?

Well I spent the weekend working on an order for a Bridle Shower Card. I was almost done when I saw this layout on the internet. I was googling sentiments for the front and inside of the card, but just had to make this one, and leave the other one for another time. I just loved the idea of a white dress. I'm a little worried about how slim this one turned out....hopefully it doesn't set of any body image issues for the bride.  The one on the internet was quite wide and flowing. We'll see what the Mother thinks when she receives it. At least I have a backup! :)

So, the top and bottom of the dress are two different sized scalloped oval shaped cutouts (cricut cut). I bet the round shaped one would make it bigger as I had seen. Then cut off the sides to form a shaped dress. As well, there are several layers to both halves. 4 on the bottom 3 at the top. No particular reason for the numbers, it's just how many actually cut nicely enough to use, so that's what I used. Just to give it some depth and mimic an actual bridal dress. I also ran all the pieces thru the cuttlebug with a folder that had some leafy and heart shapes to give them some design. Then ontop of both halves, I cut out some vellum and glued ontop with some Glossy Accents (so the glue doesn't show thru)

Added a pink ribbon, a few half pearls, some rolled roses and a quilled -swirly accent. The sentiment is computer generated using my latest font -Albemerle Swash.

Here's the one I had almost done...sentiment needed. The bride and grooms colors are black and white!

Valentine - Be Mine

Yes, love is in the air and only 2 days away.

Valentine - Distress Crackle Paint

Waaaay back when Tim Holtz was doing his 12 days of Tags, Tammy Tutterow came up with this technique that I just had to try. You can find her instructions here . So I started with masking the cupid and the heart onto beige cardstock. I used a variety of distress inks: Lipstick, festive berries, Olive, and some Millstone. Once dry, I ran it thru the cuttlebug with a heartsy folder. Then tried the new technique from above.

For the flower I tried using several layers of tissue paper with Tim's Mini Rosette die. It was a little challenging getting it into position as it's not sturdy like cardstock. But it worked out. It's centered on some of Tim's precut grungepaper- wings, and inked with DI Olive

The pink heart lace is from Nestabilities all ontop of some designer paper for the  background....already with script and the word 'memories'.

With this card, the paper is loose and frayed at the edges, corners curled.

If you can make it out. you can see how most of the crackle paint is in the de-bossed areas. I love the effect. 

Challenges:

Simon Say Stamp - Recipe  and  Love is in the Air 

 

Studio L3 - A Holtzian ATC

Cupcake Craft Challneges - Pink and Red

Simply Round

Happy Weekend!

Today I'm trying out my new Nestabilities die. It comes with lots of heart circles. Truly a nice die. Unfortunately the package didn't tell me I needed a Tan Embossing mat in order to complete the embossing on these circles, so I can't utilize this die as much as it's capable. Isn't it maddening when the package doesn't tell you on the outside, what other tools you need?

These roses where rolled with good old, pink, card stock, cut into strips. Too thick to stuff into an envelope, so I'll have to adjust that for next time. Martha Stewart punch for the black and pinks leaves, and pen embossed to add some detail. Viva Pen for the pearl dots and a beautiful black and white ribbon . And of course some design paper for the background.

This butterfly is from my newest die and stamp set (see previous posts for link). It's heat embossed with black powder, painted using Lipstick Distress inks, and glittered with Diamond Stickles. And Liquid pearls make up the body.

Dotted Wishes

Everything about this card is dotted...embossed background,  flower centers are dotted with liquid pearls, the Butterfly is dotted with a Viva Pearl Pen, and then I used some pink sticky pearls here and there. The 'Wishes for You' sentiment is a trail and error with some brush markers...need to go a little heavier with them, but they're great to use and assortment of colors on your stamp.

Mother Knows Best - Tag

I'm still twirling! :)

This time I used my own acrylic paint to dab onto a background. The tag is a piece of brown cardstock, the paint color - Creamcoats"Cricket Grillon". It's almost a neony type color. The brown paper kind of soaked it up and ate up some of its vibrance. But then I added some Distress Crackle paint here and there, and it brought back all that vibrance. Who knew I'd get a cracked look and the color back too? The rest of the embellishments are the same rolled roses and die rosettes from my previous umpteen posts ;) They're just too easy to make, that I don't think I'll ever run out of them!

3 postcards

These 3 were made on top of some craft paper that I was just playing around with, experimenting with pulling the paper thru puddles of various colors of inks and alcohol inks. The brown one was passed thru so many, many colors in an attempt to save all the efforts into it. The alcohol inks don't flow as nice as the distress inks. I like the way it worked with the blue inks and the metallic silver  alcohol inks, but the brown argggg! But in the end, after using them anyways, they didn't turn out half bad. The photos of them tho....another argggg. Capturing the true colors is a challenge. The metallic gold running thru the brown one really isn't so predominant in person. Maybe it's because it's metallic, the camera highlights it somewhat and drowns out the other techniques.

Anyways, here they are.

Rolled Rose -Pink Birthday

Took some time out from playing to assemble a card today. Here's another rolled rose from an svg cut file adhered to a Rosette die. The pink paper ribbon was punched out with a Martha Stewart dolie punch....punched on both sides. A real paper dolie and a corner die to fill in the blankish corners. Lots of height to this one...you'd never be able to mail it!

Red Letter Day

Well, I'm not finishing playing with all my new toys, but I just had to throw something together with a few of them, and then I'll get back to playing. Besides, Simon Says Stamp challenge is all about Red Letter Day...and I just happened to have some red.

So here's my tag card for today:

I just love, love, love these butterflies. Or rather it's more that's it's from a die and stamp set, Sizzix Hero Arts that I bought from Simon Says Stamp. It's the coolest thing to stamp and cut out your image without getting out the sissors and carefully cutting around the image. Anything that makes a crafters life easier  I say! I lightly painted them with a fine paint brush and Distress Inks of various colors.

The Roses are cut with my Cricut and rolled Quilling style. Martha Stewart Leaf punch and my new Tim Die for the folded Rosette, and Tim masks for the swirls. Hope was stamped with the new seasonal distress ink, Festive Berries and Clear heat embossed.

Sympathy

Unfortunately these cards were needed this week. :(  I haven't needed too many of them, but find I like them to be simple...less is more kind of thing.

New Toys

Well I got my- self bought- Christmas gifts before the weekend got started. So I spent a lot of time playing! I got some dies, lots of distress inks, a corner punch for leather and chipboard etc, binder rings and a die stamp set. But with the gift my Mom got me I was able to use the guilling tool with a svg cut to make these beautiful Roses out of cardstock. I'll likely go back and ink up the edges later on, but for now it's just a factory line of roll, roll, roll! I got a few Tim Holtz mini rosetts made as well and I think the rolled rose actually looks pretty good in the center of one. I'm just having so much fun playing, that card essembly will just have to wait! ;)

Happy 2012

As in every year, on Jan 1st, we celebrate my Mom's birthday. She was in fact the first born in her town. But born at home in 1941, the Dr. hadn't arrived yet as he was busy at another farm delivering another baby there. So that birth was officially recorded as the first of the year, not knowing that Mom had already been born without his assistance. Good thing everything went smoothly, and it was my Grandmother's 3rd child, so experience was on her side.

So today I made her a card from a brand new starters quilling kit that she actually gave me for Christmas. What fun it is really. And who knew there are soooo many things you can make out of rolled paper.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Wreath of many pages.....

I almost forgot about this until I opened my own door and saw it there! The idea to make a wreath out of pages from a book came from a ladies blog that I can't seem to find anymore. But if you google " you made a wreath out of what?"....you'll find some pretty clever ideas. She actually used a dictionary, but I couldn't quite tear up Webster's so I tore up a rather huge 16 short novel book. It had nice white pages, and so did the trick.

It's base is a 8", round ice cream lid, covered in the same white pages. Glued some ribbon to hang it by, onto the back of the lid.

Roll each page so they have a pointy end, staple it at the bottom to hold it together, and hot glue them down onto the lid. Start at the outside and work your way towards the center. The closer tou get to the center, the shorter they are. I found a silk poinsetta laying around all lonely looking, so it got glued into the center along with a large pearl.

Entered in this weeks Simon Says Stamp challenge.