For Sam

Of course, I can't give a gift without a fabulous card so I came up with this to celebrate the show tonight. To make the spotlights, I used some gold cardstock and cut it into a 1-1/8" strip, then used my 1-1/4" circle punch to round the edges. For the beams of light, I cut some of the sparkly vellum I used on the Christmas cup earlier this week into triangular strips, then cut it down to fit inside of the lights and on the card front. I punched out the name with a Big Shot die and punched the stars to cover where my adhesive showed through the vellum. I'm very pleased with the results on this one!

Supply List

Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Basic Black, Metallic Gold

Paper: Non-SU! vellum

Accessories: Big Shot, alphabet die, small star punch, 1-1/4" circle punch

Showstopper

A former student of mine attends our local governor's school for the performing arts. She is a senior and has a starring role in the school's spring musical. This weekend is one of the final times she'll take the stage as a student of this school and we'll be attending the performance tomorrow night. She's like a daughter to me and we're pretty close to the entire family - her mother works with me and my husband, and her uncle is our insurance agent! So I had to do something special for her to give to her at the performance tomorrow night. I wanted to make something with stars or musical notes but, of course, I didn't have any of those in my 8000 tons of beads that are around.

I did have these flower beads though and combined them with the crackled white and clear crystal beads. I like the shimmery overall effect and it's neutral enough that it could be worn with just about anything!

Boxes Boxes

You can never have too many boxes. I'm one of those people who loves to put stuff inside of boxes. I have so many little boxes, caddies, and tins on and in my desk at work and at home to hold all those little odds and ends.

This is a quick and easy box made using the Scallop Envelope die for the Big Shot. I cut out four envelopes and folded them on the score lines. The fancy scalloped edge got folded to the outside for contrast and all the other pieces were folded in. I cut off the side tabs on two of the envelopes, then used the tabs on the other two envelopes to attach the envelopes around the side to make a square. Then I overlapped the big flaps on the bottom. Depending on the paper you use, these could make very quick little Easter baskets. You can attach a strip of paper or some ribbon to make a handle.

Supply List

DSP: Tall Tales (retired)

Accessories: Big Shot, Scallop Envelope die

Flame Flowers

So here's another example of something that started out completely different from how it ended. I wanted to use the flowers and the shadows to evoke a look of flames. It didn't really create the look I wanted, but I still liked the look of the flower punches stacked on top of each other. I used Daffodil Delight for the flowers and Peach Parfait for the shadows. A strip of ribbon, a sentiment, and a quick and easy card.

More Green & Purple

Had to play with this color combo some more. I don't have a lot of Wild Wasabi embellishments in my MDS, so I had to switch to Certainly Celery for this one. The stamp brush set is called Always. For the bird, I stamped it in Perfect Plum, then gave it a drop shadow in Certainly Celery. I upped the opacity to around 75% and set the blur around a 2.

Hello

Purple and green is one of those weird color combos that works much better than it seems like it should! I have a roll of Christmas ribbon that is silver with purple and green trees that I just adore. The colors perfectly match Perfect Plum and Wild Wasabi. The ribbon is almost gone, so I'm pretty much hoarding it at this point, saving it for that perfect card for the perfect person! LOL

Supply List

Stamps: Gently Falling (2011 Holiday mini), Pennant Parade

Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Perfect Plum, Very Vanilla

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Perfect Plum

Christmas Craft is here!

Sometimes things definitely look a lot better in my imagination! I found this plastic wine goblet on clearance a few weeks ago and picked it up, thinking I could do SOMEthing with it. So a couple days ago, I was digging through my vellum when I found this vellum with the white snowbursts in it and decided to use that in my cup for a Christmas craft. I tore it into pieces and used Modge Podge to apply it to the inside of the cup. I guess the vellum was a little darker than I realized, especially when layered. Still, I think this will be pretty with a battery operated tea light inside of it. Hard to see in the picture but the ribbon has silver sparkly snowflakes on it.

Supply List

Plastic cup, Modge Podge, vellum, ribbon

Saturday Night Twofer

Yep, I know I missed last night. For the third Friday in a row, we had free tickets to Arena Racing USA in Richmond. That means we get home for work, change, throw some snacks and juice boxes in a bag for the boy, and head to Richmond. The races last for about 3 hours and we got home at midnight. The last two Fridays, I was able to post stuff I had made in my classroom during the day, but I spent all of my free time yesterday coming up with a new application for my yearbook staff applicants. So technically I did create SOMETHING. :-)

I went ahead and made two goodies for today to make up for yesterday. The first thing I made was the card. I love this stamp set, Trendy Trees. I got the idea for the box around the stamped image from another card I saw online. I drew the lines freehand, using a scrap of cardstock as a "ruler" but I didn't want my lines completely uniform.

The second thing I made was the bookmark. I've seen a lot of demonstrators using their punches in ways I hadn't thought of, by pulling only part of the cardstock through the punch. I used the decorative label punch to make the fancy edges of the bookmark.

Supply List

Stamps: Trendy Trees, Pines and Poinsettias (2011 Holiday Mini)

Cardstock: Pretty In Pink, Wild Wasabi, Very Vanilla

Ink: Pretty In Pink, Wild Wasabi, Soft Suede (I used markers since these were small images)

Accessories: Decorative Label punch, Chocolate Chip scalloped polka dot ribbon, stapler

Folded Flower

This is made from the same folding technique I used last night on the cross, only I used 8 circles, all the same size this time.

Supply List

Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Calypso Coral, Pool Party

DSP: Everyday Elegance (SAB)

Accessories: 1-1/4" circle punch, Scallop Trim border and corner punches

Folded Cross

I love folding techniques. This one is called the tea bag fold (I'm not sure why) and you can use 8 of them to make a flower. But about a year ago, I saw another demonstrator use only four of them, with one larger than the other three, to make a cross and I thought it would be a perfect Easter card. Of course, this could also work as a baptism or First Communion card. Imagine doing this at Christmas in reds and greens?

Supply List

Cardstock: Pool Party, Lucky Limeade, Very Vanilla

DSP: Everyday Elegance (SAB)

Accessories: Big Shot, Top Note die, Cuttlebug border embossing folder, 1-3/4" circle punch, 1-3/8" circle punch, four petal bitty punch, five petal small flower punch, basic jewels - pearls

MDS Flowers

I just noticed my laptop MDS is missing a lot of stuff compared to MDS on my desktop, so I'm going to have to go back and re-install this weekend. Still, even with a limited amount of things to choose from, I was able to create this card using the Summer Home designer kit that was included in my MDS disk. I started off looking at the DSP and I really liked the color combination in this paper (Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red, and Baja Breeze if you're wondering.) The main flower image is a combination of stamps and the flowers included in the Summer home kit. And the sentiment is just too good not to share!

DWTS Inspiration

Sometimes I find inspiration in really weird places. Dancing with the Stars is back tonight, and when I think about DWTS, all I can picture is purple and gold sparkles! So as I was sitting on my couch watching the newest breed of stars who need a career boost, I played around a bit in MDS with some Rich Razzleberry and Daffodil Delight. What a gorgeous color combo!

MDS Sunday

I am thinking of doing an MDS project every Sunday. Actually, more like trying out different MDS techniques every Sunday. I really want to work on colorizing different parts of stamped images instead of having everything look the same. This is an early attempt at that. To get this look, I stamped the image in white, then I used the oval punch to make an oval, got it to the size to cover a pointed oval, then copied it seven times and fit it over the others. Then I made a circle to cover the rest of the interior design. I dropped the circle behind the ovals, then brought the whole stamped image to the top, getting the colorized effect inside. I love this Calypso Coral/Pool Party/Island Indigo color combo.

Tapping Vogue

I've become more and more addicted to square cards lately. I used to be kind of against them - if they didn't fill an envelope, I didn't want to make them. And the larger square cards/envelopes cost extra postage lol! But I'm kinda digging 4-1/4" square cards and they'll fit in a standard envelope.

For this card I used a technique called tapping. I started off by inking my image in Daffodil Delight. Then I took a marker in a darker, coordinating color (Peach Parfait in this case) and just tapped the marker all over the image. Totally random, so no two images will ever be exactly alike.

Supply List

Stamps: Vintage Vogue

Cardstock: Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait, Whisper White

Ink: Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait (marker)

Accessories: Curly Label punch, 5/8" Daffodil Delight grosgrain ribbon

Fire Girl

We painted faces with watercolors in my art I class today. The example I had on the board wasn't a particular favorite of mine so I decided to make another while the kids were working. My other one was all in cool colors so I went the opposite route with this one. I admit, I am thinking about The Hunger Games coming out next week so this is sort of my homage to the Girl on Fire, even though I know Katniss is brunette, not blonde!

Packed for Birthday

This is a set out of the Occasions mini catalog that I need to play with some more. You can actually purchase Packed for Everything which is a set of four a la carte stamps, or you can purchase them individually. This is Packed for Birthday. It's a single stamp composed of several birthday related images. I colored three of them with my Basic Black marker, stamped them on white and punched them out with my 1" circle punch. I then colored them with a combination of Regal Rose, Daffodil Delight, and Tempting Turquoise, all from the Brights collection. This layout could be applied to any of the stamps from the Packed for ... assortment.

Supply List

Stamps: Packed for Everything (Occasions mini), Well Scripted (retired)

Cardstock: Whisper White, Regal Rose, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise

Ink: Basic Black, Regal Rose, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise (all Stampin' Write markers)

Accessories: 1", 1-1/4", & 1-3/8" circle punches, 5/8" Daffodil Delight grosgrain ribbon, 1/4" Tempting Turquoise grosgrain ribbon

Birthday Gnomes

This layout is pretty similar to the gnome cards I posted last week, only instead of the crimper, I used my scoring board to make the lines across the bottom of the card. I also colored with markers instead of watercoloring with pastels, so you can see the difference in appearance.

This is for my Mom's birthday, which is coming up in a few days, so the gnomes are representing me and my family. My son is three, so he's not really a baby anymore, but since he's the only grandkid for now, he's still everyone's baby lol!

Supply List

Stamps: Gnome Sweet Gnome (Occasions Mini)

Cardstock: Whisper White

Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: Stampin' Write markers, dimensionals

MDS Quickie

Really fast card tonight because I just plum ran out of time! This is a tried and true layout - if you're ever in a jam and need a fast card, a strip of DSP with a coordinating color of cardstock separated by a piece of ribbon will never be wrong! Add a smaller layer over that with your sentiment/main image and you're good to go!

MDS Bookmark

This is a long vertical postcard that's available in MDS. A horizontal version is what I used to create my blog header. It's been awhile since I played with the brayering technique so I decided to make a postcard using it, but as I worked in the long narrow space, I decided it reminded me of a bookmark. If I get this printed out from MDS print services, I'd probably punch a hole in the top, add a brad or a grommet, and look some pretty ribbon through it.

This is a Peach Parfait base, with Daffodil Delight "brayered" on top.

A Twist

Hooray for crafts that look so much more complicated than they are. I've seen these before and I've looked at the directions for them, but never attempted to make one. Basically, you take a square of paper, fold it into a triangle, and make several cuts in from the fold. Then you open it, and roll each strip opposite from each other and attach. You can make just the one piece a little hanging decoration by itself, but if you make six of them and attach them, you get the star you see here. Fun!

Supply List

6"x6" squares of Pear Pizzazz DSP

MDS in the Fast Lane

Last night, my family ventured to an Arena Racing USA race at the Richmond Coliseum. Basically it's 1/2 scale NASCAR on a small, high banked, indoor track. A car ending up on it's roof is not uncommon!

Before the race begins, the infield area is open and you can walk around, meet the drivers, and see the cars. In this picture, my son is posing with Megan Creech, driver of the #13 car, who would go on to win one of the two qualifying races.

The picture was in color but I decided to convert it to B&W in MDS so I could work with a limited color scheme. Probably the trickiest part of this whole design was lining up the "torn" border with the layer of DSP. Took some time but the overall effect was worth it!

Crayon Color Wheel

I set this up to post on Friday, but my internet was being difficult.

You may remember my previous melted crayon canvas. Well, it suffered some damage so I had to pull out some replacement crayons, glue, and heat to fix it. While I had everything out, I decided to make a variation of it with the crayons in a circle to be a color wheel. I used a regular hairdryer this time and it worked, although I still think the heat gun worked better. The hairdryer actually melted all of the wax in the crayon, causing some of the wrappers to look wet because of the wax on them.

MDS Punch Art

I saw a card a long time ago where someone used the butterfly punch to create the body of someone sitting in a swimsuit on the beach. I've always wanted to try it, but the butterfly punch isn't in my collection. Fortunately, it is available in MDS so I decided to try it in there.

The background is Pacific Point and More Mustard. The girl is made with the butterfly punch for the body, a heart punch and a circle punch for the hair, and two circle punches for the hat. The palm tree is a modern label punch turned on it's side for the trunk, and circles for everything else. To make the palm fronds, I punched a Garden Green circle then overlapped it with a Pacific Point circle to create the crescent shape. The blanket is a square punch stretched out, then filled with DSP. To give it perspective, I made two more square punches, made them rectangles, filled them with the More Mustard to match the beach, then turned them at angles to taper the sides of the blanket.

Another day, another Gnome

I had my monthly stamp club meeting tonight. Last night's card was the design of the evening, although I opted to use the girl gnome instead so I'd have a companion card for the one from last night. All the gals in my stamp club seemed to like that plan so they all took little girl gnome cards home too!

Although the watering can is cut out and popped up on dimensionals, nobody I know is crazy enough to attempt to cut out the sprinkles. Instead, we stamped the entire watering can and sprinkles image on the card, then put the cut out watering can on top of it. These guys are just too cute for words.

Supply List

See previous post

Gnome CASE

This is a total case of a card by the oh-so-talented Ilina Crouse. Seriously, check her blog. It makes mine look so amateur.

I was looking for a fast, clean card involving those adorable little gnomes from the spring mini catalog. A lot of the examples I've seen with them are so busy with tons of layers, patterned paper and that's just really not my style. This fits the bill perfectly and utilizes both watercoloring with the pastels and using the crimper so it's a great teaching card.

Supply List

Stamps: Gnome Sweet Gnome (Occasions Mini Catalog)

Cardstock: Whisper White

Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: Blender pens, Stampin' Pastels, Crimper, Corner Rounder punch, Dimensionals

Fabric Headband

I promise this will be the last headband for awhile, mainly because I'm out of headbands! :-)

For this one, I used Stampin' Up!'s designer series fabric. This particular fabric is the Spice Cake set from last fall's holiday mini catalog. I'm not big into sewing so I haven't used any of it. I free hand cut the fabric into strips that were about 1/2 an inch wide or so. I actually used the blue fabric to measure - I made each strip two of the circles in the design wide. Then I cut along those for the brown.

The edges of the fabric are raw and unfinished, but I like that look. I did go back and trim all the long threads of the fabric after I was done.

What I like best of all about this one is that it stays in my hair better. The ribbon ones are a bit slippery but this one has a good grip.

Another headband

Yes, I will be the first to admit that when I discover a new technique or project, I totally get stuck on it for awhile. Here's another woven ribbon headband like yesterday's. This one was actually a bit more challenging though thanks to the skinnier band and ribbon. I haven't added a bow or a flower or anything to this yet and I'm trying to decide if I want to. I sort of like the simplicity of just the woven pattern.

Ribbon Headband

This is another one of those projects I've been meaning to do forever. This is a woven ribbon headband using some retired Soft Suede polka dot ribbon. I'm not going to go into all the particulars of the weaving here - you can search for woven headband on YouTube and find plenty of great video tutorials that will take you through the process step by step. When I finished covering the headband, I attached a flower I made by attaching loops of ribbon to one of the giant Spice Cake buttons that were available last fall in the Holiday Mini catalog. See, Stampin' Up! doesn't just have to be paper crafting. I'm getting ready to try the process again using some of the SU! designer fabric instead of ribbon. We'll see how that goes...

Supply List

Plastic headband, about four yards of Soft Suede polka dot ribbon (retired), Spice Cake buttons (retired), Pool Party baker's twine (in center of button), glue gun

Seussiful Birthday

First of all, yes I really do like elephants but it's truly just a coincidence that yesterday's and today's projects both feature them. Yesterday I was just looking for something simple to watercolor and there was Elebration.

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday. We celebrated at my school today and I decided to make a card in honor of it tonight so I decided to go with sweet Horton. I was looking at a book I have titled The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss and there's a painting dating back to around 1925 of an elephant who's eerily similar to Horton. Dr. Seuss drew him a lot.

My Horton is all punches. He is made up of: 1-3/4" circle (body), 1-3/8" circle (head), 3/4" circle (legs), large heart (ears), wide oval (trunk, tail). I didn't have any gray cardstock so I used Bashful Blue and sponged the edges with the matching ink. To make the flower, I took a small piece of Old Olive 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, put SNAIL on one side of it, then twisted it up tight to make the stem. The flower is several itty bitty flowers punched out, crumpled, and glued together.

Supply List

Cardstock: Island Indigo, Calypso Coral, Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink

Ink: Bashful Blue

Accessories: Punches listed above, 1/4" Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Bashful Blue Stampin' Write marker (to make wrinkles on trunk)

Let's "Elebrate!"

This is such a great card for a beginning stamper, but looks so impressive when it's finished! I love this stamp, called Elebrate which is an a la carte stamp in the current Idea Book & Catalog. It's under $10 and this card would be perfect for a birthday or a baby shower or something like that. And the green and yellow makes it very gender neutral.

To color in the elephant, I used my pastels and a blender pen. This is a great technique to share at a workshop because purchasing the pastels and a sent of blender pens is cheaper overall than buying the watercolor crayons and you get all the colors all at once! Like I said, perfect for a beginning stamper - a black ink pad, a pack of cardstock, an a la carte stamp, and the pastels plus blender pens and boom - you have everything you need to make some great looking cards.

Supply List

Stamps: Elebrate

Cardstock: Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White

DSP: Tall Tales (retired)

Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: Whisper White 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, Stampin' Pastels, blender pens