New Crafting Challenge Blog Coming Soon !

I am thrilled to announce that I am part of the design team for a new all crafts challenge blog debuting August 1st , Love To Craft Challenge Blog !!! Stop by to meet the design team and to sign up to follow us.

Below is some information as posted on the blog home page:

 Love To Craft Challenge Blog is a new all-crafts challenge blog launching on August 1st! We're the sister blog to Love To Scrap Challenge Blog! We're low key and laid-back, and we're playing just for the shear FUN of it! We want to inspire and be inspired! We want everyone to join in and have an opportunity to show off what you're working on, no matter what it is!

We welcome any and all kinds of family friendly handmade creations - from cards, tags, ATCs and scrapbook layouts  - to 3-D projects, mixed media canvases and altered projects - and even knitting, crocheting, quilting and jewelry-making! Whatever you're working on, we want to see it! :)

Our challenges will go live at 6:00 AM EST on the 1st day of every month and run until 6:00 PM EST on the last day of the month. Winners and Top Picks will be chosen by our design team and announced on the 15th of the month following the close of each challenge. 

You may enter our challenges up to five times (as long as each project is different) and you may combine our challenges with as many other challenges as you'd like! The more the merrier! :)

Triangle Santa Christmas Card In July

Seeing all of the holiday movies being played on 

a certain TV channel got me to thinking that I ought to 

check out a couple Christmas card challenge blogs

that I participated in last year. 

Although I don't send out very many,

it's a perfect time to start working on Christmas cards :) 

As soon as I saw this weeks sketch challenge at 

52 Christmas Card Throwdown, I knew what I wanted to make.

I finally got around to making it. 

 I lightly blushed the cheeks with chalks / pastels.

Eyes were made with a marker.

Hat pom pom is a 1/4"circle punch. A tiny pom pom or jingle bell would be fun to use!

Die cut circle has real stitching and the edges are distressed.

Embossing folders from Cuttlebug:

Divine Swirls

Herringbone

Christmas Countdown (I think that's the name)

The edges of the kraft card base are lightly sponged with brown ink.

Pattern I drew on scrap paper to start.

I cut it apart and traced onto card stock scraps.

The pieces were hand cut with scissors then pieced together

onto a larger scrap of card stock. I trimmed around it

 then adhered it to my card front with dimensionals / pop dots. 

I was inspired by this image I saved long ago.

At the time I thought I'd use the idea to make ornaments

out of fabric scraps to give as gifts.

I never got around to it.......

Thanks for looking =)


I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:

Christmas Cards All Year Round - July Anything Goes

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge - vintage or anything goes

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes




EDITED JULY 15, 2016:
My card was chosen as an honorable mention !

Digital Card for a Boy

 Printable all digital card front

 matching printable all digital inside of card

I'm excited to share today's project, 

a 100% printable card I created !

Why I am I excited about sharing it ?

I won the image by participating in a recent challenge!

I then challenged myself to color it in digitally.

A challenge it was since the image was 

just a flat jpg image, ready to print.

I wanted to color it in digitally so I could

enter the card in the newest challenge at

the Digitally Sweet Designs challenge blog.

This months challenge is "travel".

This may not fit the true "travel"theme

the challenge coordinators were thinking, though.

This is the jpg image I won from

The Stamping Boutique,

AJ's Race Car.

(I altered it slightly, not intentionally,

just happened with my trying to color it digitally)

Although I am getting decent enough at making digital 

projects with digital kits and My Memories software,

I want to learn how to use Photoshop Elements.

Using Photoshop Elements 14,

I managed to muddle my way through making a copy of the

jpg into a transparent png to use for my colored image.

Yes. that was time consuming and it is not an exact 

copy of the image, but it worked well enough. 

I used the jpg image as bought as my background layer.

I then colored it in on a couple of other layers 

(this is all new to me, trial and error!!!).

I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out

how to lightly blush his cheeks, too.

Once I was happy enough with the coloring,

I put the transparent png image on top to

get the details back in to the image. 

It was then saved as a jpg and imported into the

My Memories Suite software along with elements

and papers from the Speed Limit digital kit by JMC Designs

to create the card. 

Aharoni font was used for the sentiments,

italicized on the front.

They were then saved as a jpg to share here.

I do have a lot to learn about digital coloring,

but overall am pretty proud of how this turned out :)

In addition to entering this 100% digital card in the 

Travel challenge at Digitally Sweet, 

I'm entering it into the following challenges:

Through The Craft Room Door Anything Goes

Crafting By Designs July Anything Goes

Thanks for looking !

EDITED TO ADD:

July 8, 2016 - my card was featured 

August 1st, 2016 - my card was a Top Three Pick

Happy Fourth of July !

Through The Craft Room Door Magazine July

I've had a secret for a couple of weeks now:

My faux black and white photo technique for rubber stamping

was published as a tutorial in the July/August issue of 

Through The Craft Room Door Magazine !

AND I just received notification that the baby Alice name frame

I shared in the TTCRD gallery is a featured project :) 

The magazine is now available for subscribers:

http://ttcrd.blogspot.com/

Let Freedom Ring digi kit

facebook timeline cover

card front

Three projects I made with the wonderful new

Let Freedom Ring 

 digital kit by JMC Designs .

It is now available at

Scraps-N-Pieces.com. 

and is on sale for a very limited time 

for just $3.00 !

This large kit contains:

9 Cardstock
8 Extra Papers
18 Glitter Papers
8 Journal Cards
38 Word Bits
and
62 Unique Elements
2 Arrows
2 Badges
Banner
3 Bows
3 Buttons
Firecracker
5 Fireworks
Wooden Flag
6 Flowers
4 Frames
Greenery
2 Grunge
Hat
4 Leaves
Metal Star
6 Ribbon
2 RicRac
2 Rockets
Staple
2 Stars
Star Clip
Star Frame
3 Strings
4 Tags
Tape
2 USA Flair

Sunshine Everywhere digi kits

facebook timeline cover 

card front

Sunshine Everywhere is a cheery sweet new 

set of Bits N' Pieces kits

by JMC Designs at Scraps-N-Pieces.com.
Each portion of the kit is on sale for $1.00
until July 7th. 

July Challenge at House Of Cards

Wow, this year is just flying by, isn't it ? 

Half over already !

July 1st and it's time for a new challenge at

House of Cards Challenge Blog.

This month is an inspiration photo

using the colors and/or use a fruit image. 

My card posted above uses similar colors.
I used white water color paper, Barely Banana grosgrain ribbon,
Daffodil Delight and Baja Breeze color card stocks. The
Sun Ripened image was stamped with black Stazon ink then
water colored in with Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizazz,
Wild Wasabi and Baja Breeze inks.

The home made background paper isn't an exact match
since I used crayons and I don't have any colors

like those in the palette. Perhaps there are crayons 

nowadays that are similar, but I was using crayons

that are 20 year old leftovers from my kids' coloring days!

Keep reading to see how I made the background as well as see

a sample made with the same technique, 

but on glossy card stock for a different look. 

Closeup of the bottom portion of the card. 

I stamped script over the home made background paper

with black Stazon ink.

Closeup to show the dimension I made on the leaves 

by cutting around portions of them with an Xacto knife

then carefully lifting and bending them.

I also pushed out the pear from the backside of the 

card stock using a stylus. That did not photograph well.

Melted Crayon Background How To:

Supplies:

protected work surface

card stock

smooth bottom iron (I used aluminum foil on mine)

assorted colors of crayons

crafty cat helper, optional, but not recommended when iron is in use ;)

My (Grandmas's) old iron gets plenty warm on the lowest setting

 to easily melt the crayons onto the aluminum foil cover.

Be sure to remove the paper wrappers of the crayons

before you start !

Smear the melted crayons the card stock. 

Depending on the type of card stock you use,

you will see different results. 

Plain matte card stock absorbs the melted crayon

while the wax remains on the top of glossy card stock. 

Sample of each below:

Glossy is on the left and matte is on the right.

Both used the same colors of crayons.

Play around with different types of card stock and colors

of crayons, using more or less melted crayon,

smooshing around more or less, experiment away !

This is a finished card made with the glossy card stock

that I melted crayon onto. The greens really popped

on the glossy card stock ! I used the exact same crayons

as I did on the pear card made with matte card stock. 

Be sure to visit the rest of the House of Cards design team

bloggers to see their wonderful creations ! 

Cohenna | Donna | Em | Heather | Jane | Judy 

Karen | Katarina | Katy | Leslie | Linda | Merethe

Michele | Mynn | Paula | Rocky | Rosi | Ruza

Shawna | Shirley | Steph | Sue N. | Susan | Tina | Toni

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:

Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Crafting By Designs - Anything Goes

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

Masculine Sorry For Your Loss Card

"that bad things happen to good people."

This is a card I made to send to relatives that 

recently had a major fire. 

Why did I use the image of a car on the card ?

Because they lost a few vehicles in the fire. 

I'm entering this card in the current Anything Goes Challenge at Through The Craft Room Door. Also since every time I use this stamp set I can't help but think of the movie American Graffiti , I am entering it in the current Cardz4Guyz Challenge, inspired by movies.

Patriotic Planter Chair

Here is the second of four chairs I reclaimed from a flood

with plans of repurposing them into outdoor decorations / planters.

I listed them for sale, including the beautiful blooming geraniums,

for $25 each. Neither one sold, so I did not finish the other two chairs.

I think I am going to make one for myself though to replace

the one I made years ago. 

This chair uses masking for the lettering.

I used a removable, transparent contact type paper.

I wish I had remembered when doing this that it didn't 

work so well on the painted mailbox project I completed 

last year. Then again, had I remembered, I would have 

thought it didn't work too well due to the grooves on the box.

Anyway, although it was a great idea, the stuff wasn't quite sticky

enough to keep the paint from seeping underneath, making

more work for myself. Also, for some reason the outdoor type

paint I used stuck to the edges of the mask, trying to lift

off as I was removing it. It required hand cutting around each letter 

with an Xacto blade, ever so carefully to only cut the paint layer

and to follow the edges of the mask. Yep, much more work

than I had hoped for. However once it cleaned up,

I'm pretty happy with the effect I made with it ! 

 I carefully scraped away the dry paint with a toothpick.

Below is the mask after I removed it

(I didn't think to take step by step photos).

As you can see it is made up of many pieces.

I had to make it like this since I was using multiple

single Sizzix alphabet dies. I trimmed each piece and

lined them up as best I could to create one single masked word. 

I painted through the letters with a small paint brush,

 using indoor/outdoor craft paint. It required 

multiple layers to cover the dark finish of the chair. 

Thanks for looking =) 

I'm entering my chair planter into the following Anything Goes Challenges:

Through The Craft Room Door June 21-27, 2016

2 Creative Chicks Showcase #11

Crafting By Designs June Anything Goes Challenge

Craft Your Passion Challenge #317

613 Avenue Create Challenge #181