Birthday Card I Received

                                            
                                                                     and I love it !!!!!

Two Sympathy Cards

Sadly I needed to send out two sympathy cards this week. All supplies are from Stampin' Up!

This was made from a few scraps I had on hand. I stamped the flower from the Fifth Avenue Florals with Versamark ink onto shimmery paper then used clear embossing powder to heat emboss it. I colored inside the flower with ink, water and  a water color brush. The leaves are from the Wild Rose stamp set, stamped with Certainly Celery and Pear Pizazz inks.

I've had this card made for some time. I stamped the image with Versamark ink then lightly tapped on chalks to add color. Upsy Daisy stamp set .




Thanks for looking =)

Dahlia Fold Christmas Tree - decor piece

While perusing the magazine section at our local library recently, I saw one I had never seen or heard of before: Mary Jane's Farm. It caught my attention because the cover had a simple, cute wreath made from burlap. I decided to flip through it ( a magazine dedicated to organic living) and came across a paper craft project I wanted to make: a cute little tree made from circles of decorative paper ! 


I of course changed it up a little bit, adding more details =) 


The instructions in the magazine called for:
7 circles  =  1 1/4" (yes, it calls for 7 in the magazine, I used 9)
8 circles  =  2"
8 circles  =  2 3/4"
Change the sizes if you wish depending on how big of a tree you'd like. You could make many more layers to the tree, too !

All of the circles were cut from one sheet of 12" x 12" paper.



It is made by "tea bag folding" circles into a dahlia.
Instructions can be found here. http://www.handcraftedgreetings.com/dahlia.php


After I wrote this post and took my awful photos, I discovered that there is also a nice photo tutorial and a gallery at Splitcoaststampers.com for the dahlia fold.



Here are two cards I made with a dahlia fold:

http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2010/09/tea-bag-folding.html  - first one I ever made

http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2011/12/happy-winter-several-cards-to-share.html - I really like this one, it is a removable ornament 


I'm submitting this to the anythingbutacard.com challenge #7. 



Supply list:
double sided  paper
card stocks
inks
rubber stamps
rhinestones
paper punch
chipboard
empty ribbon spool
craft pellets
dowel rod
paint
hot glue
1/4" circle punch
star punch
hole punch
circle punches, die cut machine , circle cutter, scissors - something to cut the circles

fold lines:

purple are the first two folds to make your marks 

to line up the second folds on (black lines)

folding steps, circle sizes and 

how I assembled each layer of the tree:

hot gluing the points on a circle of chipboard covered with 

green card stock. 

The center hole is a 1/4" hole to 

run the dowel rod through. 

I think that a cinnamon stick would make a fun, yummy smelling tree trunk !

TIP: attach the "petals" to the circle with the points touching to make a snug fit then punch the hole out. You will need a sturdy punch to go through the layers. I think my tree looks funny since there are gaps

between each of the "petals" because I didn't go all the way to the center of the circle I was gluing them to. I knew I didn't have anything that would be able to neatly punch through those layers so I decided to punch the center out of the base circle then line the tips up around that hole. This is why I needed nine of the smallest "petals" for the top layer, there were too many large gaps and I thought it looked terrible. 

I have no idea of the manufacturer of this border punch,

there are no markings on it.

Punch one long edge of your card stock, score every 1/4" inch, 

accordion fold/pleat. Make two of these 12" long x 2 1/4" wide .

Glue the short ends together making a circle. 

Once it is dry, smoosh it down to create the medallion.

Hot glue into place in a small circle of card stock or chip board.

Punch a 1/4" hole in the center.
There are many, many web sites with better instructions 

on how to make medallions/lollies.

Empty ribbon spool for the base: cover one hole, 

fill with something to give it weight,

cover the top hole then cover with the 

paper pleated "medallion".

Be sure to punch a 1/4" hole in the center of the top pieces before

gluing it to the spool !

I painted my spool and added a strip of card stock

that I stamped around the center of to resemble ribbon

(do this before attaching the top pieces) . 

See a couple more projects I created using

empty ribbon spools as bases here:

http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2012/08/fiskars-fuse-contest-entry-1.html

a "memory tree" home decor piece for my pets

http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2010/10/boo-whoo.html

owl and ghost in a pumpkin patch Halloween display piece

I've also used them to make ornaments !

I punched two stars from gold card stock, glued the top edges together then slid the open ended bottom over the top of the dowel rod once dry. The tiny banner was hand cut from scraps. J O Y was stamped with a teeny, tiny alphabet set then punched out with the 1/4" circle punch and glued onto the banner.

I adhered rhinestones to the edges of each "petal": three on each of the largest (bottom row) , two on each of the middle, one on each of the smallest (top row). 

Each of the discs that I glued the "petals" to fit snugly enough on my dowel rod since I used a 1/4" hole punch and a 1/4" dowel rod. If yours don't fit snugly and stay in place, you could glue them in place with a bit of hot glue under each or wrap rubber bands around the dowel rod under each. By using the rubber band method, you could easily disassemble it for storage.

Thanks for looking =) 

Original project from the magazine that uses a pencil a a tree trunk and old greeting cards cut into circles:

And The Winner Is.............

No one.

There were no entries, not a single one which really surprised me, for the chance to win the My Memories Suite Version 4 software that I was offering.
http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2012/11/enter-to-win-copy-of-my-memories-suite.html

Maybe I will try to hold another contest in January if I am still an affiliate for the company. As an affiliate, I am able to give away one copy of this wonderful digital scrapbooking (and more!) software once a quarter by holding some sort of contest/drawing. The December contest was my first attempt at a drawing and would have fulfilled my first quarterly obligation. I guess I need more "followers" ? A better way to accept entries ?  Promote it better ? In the mean time, I'll still share a few projects created with this program .

By the way, for those of you that use another digital scrapbooking program, this is still a nice program to have and a fantastic store to shop from. There are lots of amazing digital items that you can use in another program: complete kits, templates, quick pages and more. There are literally THOUSANDS to choose from in oh so many styles with more being added all the time.

Digital Scrapbook Page - cat

A friends cat passed away recently so I made a quick digital scrapbook page with photos I took from her facebook page.

Super quick to throw together a digital scrapbook page using a premade album from My Memories Suite V4 software ! I simply added photos (I did make the largest photo box taller to accommodate the photo and moved the others around a bit) to a page from the And Many More - Pink album that comes with the software. I can easily change out elements of this page (I liked the layout), move things around, so on. Having the ability to change around the premade albums and templates is a wonderful feature !

I think I'd like to find some digital cat and dog papers, elements then redo this page using them since I do like the way it is designed, it works well with these photos.

I really should have deleted that bow and added something a bit more simple, not so birthday like. That's one of the great things about digital scrapping, I can easily do that at some point and I won't feel bad for wasting any real paper, embellishments, supplies.

Thanks for looking =)

Digital Scrapbook Page - Color Me Beautiful Challenge 14 -

I was sorry to hear that this is the final color challenge at Color Me Beautiful this week. The color combinations were always beautiful and the design team projects stunning. I've also enjoyed seeing the various gorgeous projects submitted, too.  Good luck to everyone involved on their future endeavors !

I whipped up this quick digital scrapbook page to submit to their final challenge. It uses all five of this weeks challenge colors from Stampin' Up!
Sahara Sand
Crumb Cake
Baja Breeze
Primrose Petals
Rose Red

Sahara Sand background paper with Crumb Cake Textured stamp overlay, reduced in opacity.

Crumb Cake textured,  Baja Breeze textured, Rose Red textured card stock to fill square punches.
Primrose Petals has a textured overlay in Rose Red, reduced in opacity to simulate textured card stock since I don't have a digital Primrose textured card stock.

Snowflake punch enlarged , drop shadow is centered on it.

I made tiny rectangles in Sahara Sand to cover the ends of the horizontal arms of the snowflake to hide the drop shadow. I was trying to make it look like the snowflake was die cut from the colored squares so the Sahara Sand background was showing through.

Circle punch filled with photo and added a thin Soft Suede mat and a drop shadow.

I created two text boxes, tilting one 90 degrees, to make the words wrap around the photo.

and here is a bonus digital card !

It is a white background with tags made of 

the challenge colors, white font and white brads

Difficult to tell that it is supposed to be a card with

the white background on the blog page, sorry.

The idea is totally taken from so many samples I've seen

similar to this over the years. In fact, there is currently 

one in Paper Crafts magazine. 

It would be cute to make one with little ornaments that spell 

MERRY !

Thanks for looking =)

3D Paper Star - Hybrid Project

This is a 3D star decoration wreath I made from card stock. It started as a digital craftable project from My Memories (FREE file available right now) . 

I am entering this project in the Anything But A Card Challenge #7. Take a look at all of the lovely design team projects and entries. 

Start with the free Winter Magic Paper Star download from My Memories. It includes the star pattern, digital papers and embellishments. Install it in your My Memories Suite V4 software (you don't have it yet ? use my code STMMMS23251 to save $10 and to receive a coupon for $10 worth of digital content from their store). 

Make it the size you want. I started by creating a portrait 8.5 x 11 album project, inserted the page with four stars twice since I needed 5 points to the star. Now you could export to jpg (Share The Project) and print both pages then cut each point out with scissors. I made a little more work for myself to save ink and card stock: I opened the pages up in Photoshop Elements 10 and combined the two with some editing so I had 5 points on one page. 

I made a third page that had a circle on it and resized it to 1.80" (double click the shape you add, a little box pops up for you to change the size if you want to make it a certain size, in inches or pixels). I filled that circle with paper from the same kit, Winter Magic 3D Star craftable kit. I double clicked on the circle again then used the zoom tool to resize the design of the paper in the circle. To find the digital decorative papers in this kit, click on Background Papers > Purchased > Craftable > Winter Magic.

Joy To The World is a word art embellishment from the Holiday Simplicity kit (designer kit included in the software purchase). I added a slight drop shadow after resizing the image. To find the word art, click on Embellishments > Purchased > Christmas > Holiday Simplicity > Word Art. 

Print and cut out, insert in a metal edge tag. 

Now  as for assembling the star itself,  I once again made more work for myself, but I like how it turned out so much better. There are instructions here to assemble the star the way the designers intended, but I wanted mine to look a bit different, more like the "tin barn star" home decor pieces you see. Scoring down the center of the point and then folding along the score line helped make it look more dimensional, tin star like. 

To do this, I first made a template, guessing at the placement of the fold lines. I made 4 more of these pieces from scratch paper and glued them together with heavy duty double stick tape to see how they were going to look before I did it to the printed pieces. 

back of star once it is all glued together

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit ! Before I started handling the printed pieces, I lightly sprayed them with  a protectant to help keep the ink from smearing. 


I drew the lines on the back sides where I wanted to fold them then scored along them with a stylus. Gently fold along the score lines.

attaching the pieces with double stick tape

see the white glitter on some of the stripes ?

Although it was going to be cute enough as is, I decided it needed a little something more. I added glitter to the white stripes on each piece. I used a paintbrush to apply clear drying white glue then quickly sprinkled on the glitter. Set aside to dry.

While the glue was drying, I started trying to decide on what to make for other components to the star. In the end, I made a medallion/lolly/whatever you want to call it out of heavyweight white paper. I punched along one edge with a snowflake border punch first (I don't know who the manufacturer is). I scored it with a stylus and scoring board then folded along each score line, accordion style, to make the medallion. Glue the ends together then adhere to a circle cut from a scrap of card stock. I lightly spritzed it with home made shimmer spray. 

trying to show off the shimmer and glitter

The new My Memories Suite software V4 has the ability to export SVG files to certain electronic cutters. This feature would make it really easy to make the scalloped edge circle I used behind the star. I do not have a cutter that I could use this feature on, but I do have a manual cutter with a scalloped edge circle die. I cut out card stock and lightweight chipboard. I glued the card stock to the top of the chipboard. I attached rhinestone gems to the scallops. 

An old wreath and some paper ribbon were finally put to use as a base for the paper star after sitting neglected in my crafts stash for years  ! I lightly sprayed the paper ribbon with home made shimmer mist. I also tried to spray paint some twigs white (old paint didn't work very well plus I was outside in the cold air) to tuck behind the bow and added a few pieces of greenery. 

I used a hot glue gun to attach all the parts to each other to complete the wreath. TIP: You could use an empty cardboard tube to hot glue to the back of it so it can be used as a Christmas Tree topper. 

Now to find a place to hang it ! I love to make crafty projects, but don't make too many things anymore because I am out of room from all of the projects I made years ago. I've still lots of project kits waiting to be completed as well as racks of idea books and dog eared magazines.............

Thanks for looking =)

Three Masculine Birthday Cards

Three masculine birthday cards I sent out this week, all supplies are from Stampin' Up!

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REMINDER - YOU COULD WIN A COPY OF MY MEMORIES SUITE V4 !

To enter for a chance to win the award winning My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking (and so much more!) program, I ask that you go to MyMemories.com to look around at all of the amazing, reasonably priced digital kits they offer (many of which are FREE!). Pick out TWO favorites and share the names of them here under my comments. They can be entire kits, quick pages, paper packs, whatever you like - just pick two items available in the MyMemories store and share the names of them. One entry per person, please. Open to residents of the United States only. Email address will be required to notify the winner. The winner will be chosen randomly at 10PM CST December 7th.  Be sure to share this opportunity with your friends ! 

Entry example:

Oh my goodness, there are too many items to choose from in the store. I chose The Perfect Tree by Scraps N Pieces because it was a HUGE kit full of items perfect for Christmas creations. I also chose the Cats and Dogs kit by Connie Prince - exactly what I need to scrap photos of my pets. Thank you for the chance to win this awesome sounding software !

You can get a $10 discount AND a coupon for $10 worth of free items in the store if you use my affiliate code in the store at MyMemories.com. Simply insert STMMMS23251 in the space provided at checkout to get the discount and coupon - the everyday price is already a great value at $39.97, but using my code makes it an awesome deal ! They also offer discounted multi packs if you have several people on your Christmas list that may like to receive it as a gift.

Be sure to "like" the My Memories Fans page on facebook for more inspiration and a weekly Friday freebie. They also have twitter and pinterest accounts as well as a blog full of inspiring ideas !

Look at the My Memories Suite label here on my blog sidebar for ideas, too (there aren't a lot of them at the moment since I am just getting started with this fun and easy to use program). 

Facebook Timeline Cover - Happy Holidays

I think this turned out pretty cute ! I made it totally from scratch using My Memories Suite Version 4 software.

It's fun - and easy ! - to make your own custom facebook covers using this software.

This is how to make your own facebook timeline digital project:

Open the software.

Choose FILE;  NEW ALBUM ; Design Your Own.

On the next screen click on the CUSTOM SIZE tab about half way down the screen.
Make sure it is set to PIXELS and type in Width 851 and Height 315. This will create the exact size of canvas to work on and save to be used for a facebook timeline cover photo.

Now have fun designing your own mini work of art for all of your facebook friends to see ! There are lots of great things that come in the software you can use, there are thousands and thousands of items in the online store or use content you've found elsewhere. There is no limit to the design possibilities !

TIP: I found that all of the elements were HUGE, every single one of them needed to be reduced in size for this project. I figurds out that if you double click the item, a little box pop ups. I typed in INCHES on the boxes, using around 2" for the height of the object then adjusted it from there by dragging the little gray squares around the image. It's not foolproof because sometimes the item was off the canvas and I couldn't find it so I had to undo that reduction step to make it bigger again, then start over with the size reduction but making it bigger, say around 4" so I could still see it on the canvas then reduced from there. I'm still learning, there is probably a better way to do this that I haven't found yet.


All of the components I used (other than the text) came from the new designer kit included in the software, Stocking Stuffers by Snicker. Country cuteness =)

The HAPPY font is Honey Script that I color matched using the color picker/color match option.
The HOLIDAYS is in a separate text box, font is Pupcat that I color matched. The size is around 250 I think ? Both fonts had to be increased larger than the default sizes. Also, both colors could have been chosen from the included 63 color color palette, but I wanted to match them.

I had to use a square shape, paper filled to match the background and lined up, to cover the extra long tail on the ribbon. I didn't like it running into my text box.

Thanks for looking =)

REMINDER - YOU COULD WIN A COPY OF THIS SOFTWARE !

To enter for a chance to win the award winning My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking (and so much more!) program, I ask that you go to MyMemories.com to look around at all of the amazing, reasonably priced digital kits they offer (many of which are FREE!). I know it will be difficult to choose, but pick out TWO favorites and share the names of them>here< under my comments. They can be entire kits, quick pages, paper packs, whatever you like - just pick two items available in the MyMemories store and share the names of them on this post. One entry per person, please. Open to residents of the United States only. Email address will be required to notify the winner. The winner will be chosen randomly at 10PM CST December 7th.  Be sure to share this opportunity with your friends ! 

Entry example:

Oh my goodness, there are too many items to choose from in the store. I chose The Perfect Tree by Scraps N Pieces because it was a HUGE kit full of items perfect for Christmas creations. I also chose the Cats and Dogs kit by Connie Prince - exactly what I need to scrap photos of my pets. Thank you for the chance to win this awesome sounding software !

You can get a $10 discount AND a coupon for $10 worth of free items in the store if you use my affiliate code in the store at MyMemories.com. Simply insert STMMMS23251 in the space provided at checkout to get the discount and coupon - the everyday price is already a great value at $39.97, but using my code makes it an awesome deal ! They also offer discounted multi packs if you have several people on your Christmas list that may like to receive it as a gift.

Be sure to "like" the My Memories Fans page on facebook for more inspiration and a weekly Friday freebie. They also have twitter and pinterest accounts as well as a blog full of inspiring ideas !

Look at the My Memories Suite label here on my blog sidebar for ideas, too (there aren't a lot of them at the moment since I am just getting started with this fun and easy to use program). 

My Memories Suite Tutorial - Faux Dry Embossing

I love doing this digital technique, so easy and creates such a neat look !

Choose a background color for your project, mine is white. This works best on solid backgrounds.

Add an item in the same color as the background. I chose various snowflake images that are included in the My Memories Suite V4 software.

Add a drop shadow, you choose how much of a drop shadow you'd like: choose the color, opacity, blur, offset. I center my drop shadows and play around with the blur and opacity to get the look I want. 

You can create an entire background like this to mimic dry embossed card stock made with an embossing folder or just a portion as I did here.

I added satin ribbon and a satin bow in the Cranberry color ( there are 63 colors in the included palette of the My Memories Suite V4 software, but you can create custom colors for backgrounds, too).

Merry Christmas was written in two different text boxes, using two different colors and fonts.


This would also make a great hybrid project: print out the snowflakes and greeting onto card stock then add a real ribbon !



ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF MY MEMORIES SUITE V4 !!!!

To enter for a chance to win the software, I ask that you go to MyMemories.com to look around at all of the amazing kits they offer (many of which are FREE!). I know it will be difficult to choose, but pick out TWO favorites and share the names of them here under my comments. They can be entire kits, quick pages, paper packs - just pick two items available in the MyMemories store and share the names of them here. One entry per person, please. Open to residents of the United States only. A winner will be chosen randomly December 7th .

You can get a $10 discount AND a coupon for $10 worth of free items in the store everyday if you use my affiliate code in the store at MyMemories.com plus a coupon code for a free 6x6 photo book (you pay shipping). Simply insert STMMMS23251 in the space provided at checkout to get the discount and coupons - the everyday price is already a great value at $39.97, but using my code makes it an awesome deal ! They also offer discounted multi packs if you have several people on your Christmas list that may like to receive it as a gift.

Thanks for looking =)