Thursday, January 15, 2015

Golden Anniversary Card





















A special card I made for one of my aunt and uncles :)
It did require lots of extra postage,
especially since I mailed it in a bubble wrap envelope
with extra padding around it so it wouldn't get
squished (hopefully!) while going through the mail system.

I printed out a special customized piece for the inside of the card
as well as a photo I took of the two of them during our extended
family Christmas party.


SUPPLIES
Spiral flower and numeral dies, Texturz plate,
card stocks and organdy ribbon were all from Stampin' Up!

Swirl die, Sizzix

Scallop and rectangle dies, Nestabilities

Gold acrylic craft paint

Thanks for looking =)






Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Die Cut Poinsettia Christmas Portrait Card


Photo Christmas card/display piece I made this past Christmas.

The die cut poinsettia was made from a discontinued die
available through cricut.com
I've never seen them before and I think if I had known how thin they are,
I probably would not have bought them. I am not sure how long they will last....
I was quite surprised that they cut through this card stock.
Granted, this is some thinner than the Stampin' Up! card stock I normally use.

Also as a note, it may just be the operator of the quilling tool,
but I could NOT get my flower to look like the completed flower
that came in the kit. I had to do some creative "unquilling" and gluing
to make it work properly. My flower petals kept stacking
up on directly top of each other, looking goofy. Maybe with more practice ?





Doesn't show up too well in this lighting/photo,
but I inked the edges of all the pieces before assembly.





This shows the back of my flower that I had to unroll and
glue together oddly to make the flower look right.
Rolled tightly like the sample flower in the kit,
the petals to my flower were stacked on top of each other
making what looked like just a three petal flower.







Ribbon, metal pieces, Riding Hood Red card stock,
Vary Vanilla card stock, Early Espresso textured card stock,
Texturz plates, scalloped circle die and numbers stamp set
all came from Stampin' Up! (most all are now retired).







This is the die set I bought on clearance through cricut.com
They are chipboard thin dies, I had no idea !





Thanks for looking =)


Monday, January 12, 2015

OWH ODBD Challenge January




 



I created this card for the current Our Daily Bread Designs Challenge at
It is also a sort of
"Thank You"
nod to Our Daily Bread Designs for sponsoring this challenge !

When there are 25 entries to the challenge, ODBD
will sponsor one box of cards from
Operation Write Home to be mailed to our heroes.
If there are 50 entries, two boxes will be sponsored.
As if that isn't enough, this wonderful company also
gives away a $15 gift certificate to a randomly chosen winner.
I was lucky enough to be one of two winners for the November challenge
to make a card with hearts on it (see my card here).

I wasn't sure what stamp set to choose...........
There is a really fun monster truck set I had my eye on
and sentiments are always useful, but this is the one
I ended up choosing in the end as I always loved 
sledding on my old Flexible Flyer as a kid !


I attempted to make it have more of a  "patriotic", 
or any time during the winter feel,
 rather than a Christmas feel since the holiday is now past.

The image was stamped in black ink then water colored in
using ink from my ink pads and an aquapainter.
I layered it on Brilliant Blue card stock.

I used white acrylic craft paint for the snow details.
Leaving the card stock white wasn't white, snowy enough for my liking.
I do have some snow texture medium, but it was too chunky for this image.

The snowflake embossing folder used on the smaller front panel
 was from Stampin' Up! as are the sentiment
and Word Window (trimmed) paper punch. 

The red and white "Baker's twine" wrapped around the snowflake embossed panel
came from the Dollar Spot at Target last year.



Thanks for looking =)

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Circle Punch Christmas Tree Swing Card



The swing card base is a die from Stampin' Up!


The bases to these cards were made last year
as a fun way to give my kids money.
See this post here for the fun idea I came up with.
They didn't keep them, so
this year I added a new stamped circle to the back of the swing part
and the fun circle punch tree to the front.
Below are some photos that show how I made the tree.






The crinkling, separating of the layers is not necessary.
I did it to give the card stock more texture
and to make it thinner, easier to fold.






Fold the circle in half to give yourself a center mark.
Fold the sides in at the center mark.
The top point/fold starts at the mark then you
bring the rounded side in the meet along the center line.


I added a dab of glue at the tops of each section
so the lower "branches" would still be loose,
easy to fiddle with to make them "fluffy".












I didn't take a "how to" photo of painting the branches,
but it is easy. I used white acrylic craft paint and
a small paint brush to dab white onto the tips. Once dry,
I fluffed out the "branches" a bit.

You could take the tree a step farther by decorating it with
teeny, tiny punched pieces of colored paper or
dabs of glitter glue and paint.


Thanks for looking =)



Saturday, January 10, 2015

Nature's Christmas Card


 
Using a really old stamp set from Stampin' Up!
(I think it is called Nature's Christmas)
and copying an idea from an old catalog,
I made this card and matching envelope to send
to a family member last Christmas.
 
It was a nice flat card requiring no extra postage.
 
I stamped the images with Basic Black ink onto
Naturals card stock then water colored them in with
ink from ink pads using an Aquapainter.
 
Real Red and Handsome Hunter card stock layers.
 
 
Thanks for looking =)

Friday, January 9, 2015

Embossed Christmas Card


I made two of these cards to mail out last Christmas,
idea inspired by a Stampin' Up! catalog.

All supplies used were from Stampin' Up!.
though they are now retired.

The raised areas of the embossed card front
were lightly painted with PearlEx paint.


Thanks for looking =)

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Christmas Card I Received

What a beautiful Christmas card I received this past holiday !
I love it !
I'm sure all the supplies used on it were from Stampin' Up!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Birthday Card I Received




What a sweet card I received for my birthday last month.
Such a cute image, happy colors
and great details - I love it !

Monday, January 5, 2015

Christmas Cards - storebought!

 
Now that we have a new desktop computer up and running
(we were without for three weeks in December),
I can finally get back to posting to the blog.
There are several things I made last month I want to share
as well as some cards I received and a couple of photos I took.
 
 
This first card I am sharing was actually from a set of premade cards I bought for half price
after Christmas last year. I picked up 4 packages of them for $4 a package (6 cards per pkg).
They looked like something I could have handmade myself:
real buttons, bakers twine, die cut pieces, pop dots on a kraft card stock base.
 
I did cut and stamp cream pieces of paper for the inside since they were blank.
I used a Stampin' Around holly print wheel and a sentiment stamp with
Handsome Hunter and Real Red inks.
I also stamped the envelope with the same wheel and green ink.
 
I didn't mind that they were bulky cards since I was giving them out in person,
no postage required.
 
Some of the cards I did need to mail so I removed the buttons and pop dots,
trying to make them more mail friendly so as not to require extra postage.
In place of the buttons, I used red glitter glue.
 
These premade cards have a nice design, one I hope to remember and put to use
in the future.
 
 
Thanks for looking =)
 
 

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Anything But A Card - New Beginnings Challenge #43


Welcome to the New Beginnings Challenge at

The prompt "New Beginnings" can be interpreted many ways.

My interpretation:
finding new life in what would otherwise be considered trash. 
This particular project reuses a few pieces of "trash";
read on to see what and how I reused them. 







I started off with empty cookie tins that I have had in my stash the past year.
They were too nice to throw away and with no recycling services where
we live, I decided to keep them in hopes of finding a new use for them.
I did reuse some as utensil holders earlier this year.




I  used double stick tape to attach card stock around the can.
It was faster and easier than trying to paint them,
but you certainly could sand and repaint them.






I sketched out the shapes onto scrap paper, 
trimming them to fit.
Once I was happy with the shapes and sizes, 
I traced them onto card stock and cut them out.

The nose and eyes are paper punches.
The eyebrows are also made from a punch, 
but slightly altered (Word Window from Stampin' Up!).

I inked the cheeks and nose with a sponge and ink pad.

White Signo gel pen for eye highlights.


You can run the beard and moustache pieces through the 
Cuttlebug Divine swirls folder after cutting them out or
as I did, run a piece through before cutting them out.
I traced the shapes onto the  card stock first.
If you do this, be sure to run the card stock through
so that the pencil lines are on the back / debossed side
of the card stock.





I used a pop dot / dimensional
under the nose.
The mustache piece is slightly bent
for extra character.


Yes, my santa is "bald": 
I didn't make a large piece of hair
to wrap around the back of his head.








Notice the extra texture on the beard and moustache ?
This was achieved by using an old dryer sheet.
I adhered it to white card stock before running it through
the Cuttlebug embossing folder. 



Completed Santa treat cans,
minus a pom pom on the hat.
The hat was made from a red fleece blanket
and a scrap of white felt.

Inspired by Santa face cards I made years ago-
and still make !









Completed Snowman cans

Inspired by snowman cards I've made years ago.

I used a rubber stamp from a flower making set
to make the nose. 
It was stamped in a lighter orange then
the lower edge was stamped onto a darker orange
before stamping onto white card stock and cut out with scissors.

Circle paper punches for the eyes and mouth.

White Signo gel pen for the eye highlights. 

Scrap of old fleece blanket cut to make the scarf.








How to make the hat:


Trace, cut, score, 
bend and tape
card stock to form a hat,
using a heavy duty double stick tape to hold in place.









Trace circles and cut with scissors or 
if you have dies that are the right sizes,
cut out circles to make the bat brim.
I used some craft foam leftover from 
craft projects from my kids years ago. 
Carefully hot glue the underside near the
bottom edge of the hat.




Lightweight packaging chipboard was die cut
with snowflake dies then coated with glitter. 

Two step bird punch from Stampin' Up!
with paint/ink details
and Martha Stewart fern punch.

Red and white striped ribbon, unknown.
I remember that I ordered it
(along with several other rolls of ribbon)
from an online retailer many years ago -
and have maybe used it one time !






Thanks for looking !
Take a peek at the Anything But A Card blog for much more inspiration every Sunday from the creative team as well as projects shared through inlinks by blog readers.