Happy St. Patrick's Day

 May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks,

May your heart be as light as a song,

May each day bring you bright, happy hours,

That stay with you all the year long.

I used the old Bold Basics brass template

from Stampin Up! and some lightweight,

white core paper (Die Cuts With A View)

to create this simple shamrock card.

The green paper was lightly sanded

to reveal some white and I hand doodled

lines around the edge of the plaid paper

with a black fine point Sharpie marker.

The white card base is textured.

Thanks for looking ;)

Leprechaun Owl Card

May good luck be with you wherever you go, 

and your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow.

The paper punch leprechaun owl is not my idea,

but one I've wanted to make for quite some time.

Stamp images are oldies from Stampin' Up!

Inks, card stocks, paper punches are also from SU!

Nestabilities dies

Thanks for looking =) 

I'm So Lucky Card

I'm not going to write about the state of the world right now,

too much of that is going on. We all know it is getting scarier by the day.

I will have brief posts daily for the next month 

to share newly created cards. 

A momentary distraction from all of the news 

for those that follow my little ol' crafty blog.

Hoping that all of you and your loved ones 

stay safe and healthy❤ 

Supplies: Paper punched shamrock
Digital image I made for the greeting
Various dies, button, baker's twine, wide craft ribbon, dimensionals

Thanks for looking =)


This card was a weekly favorite at Splitcoaststampers.com

Happy St. Paddys Day

A really old card sample that has never been shared on my blog.

All supplies used were from Stampin' Up!

St Patrick's Day Box

A really old sample that has never been shared on my blog!

I made this for a stamping class years ago. 

All supplies used were from Stampin' Up!

I've not made anything new, crafty for some time.

Spending my free time working on photo albums still!

Leprechaun Kisses digi kit

(word art is from lovesvg.com)

Leprechaun Kisses ,

a new digi kit by JMC Designs

Don't let the name fool you,

there are so many wonderful elements in this kit,

you can create many different digital projects other

than things for St. Patrick's Day. See the designers blog 

for more inspiring ideas by the design team !

I'm entering my Irish Blessing printable in the final challenge at Digitally Sweet.
Edited To Add 3/28/2017:
My page was Top 3 !

BUNDLE CONTENTS:

Accents - Bows, Flowers, Small and Large Hearts, Labels, Metal Shamrocks, Stars and Tags - One in each color

Lowercase Alphabet
9 Cardstock
8 Journal Cards
24 Patterned Papers
78 Unique Elements - Arrow, 4 Buttons, 4 Lucky Charms, 2 Clips, 5 Clovers, 12 Flowers, 4 Frames, 
2 Grunge, Hat, Heart, Horseshoe, 3 Rainbows, 3 Ribbons, 4 RicRac, 2 Scatters, Staple, 3 Stars, 
2 Stitchings, 5 Strings, 2 Swirls, 3 WordArt and 7 WordBits

House of Cards March Challenge

Time for a new challenge at 

House of Cards:

create a scene and/or use the colors.

I used paper punches, a little bit of rubber stamping

and sponging of ink to create a "field of clover"

St. Patrick's Day card.

All supplies used were from Stampin' Up!

Hearts and Clover stamp set

Kiss Me stamp set

Baja Breeze, Certainly Celery, Gumball Green, Whisper White

Soft Sky and Daffodil Delight card stocks and inks

Starburst die

Heart trio punch

dimensional (behind the sun)

hand cut paper cloud stencil

Be sure to visit the rest of the design team blogs

for more inspiring ideas:

Chanya13 | Christi | Cohenna | Donna | Em | Heather | Jane | Judy 

Karen | Katarina | Leslie | Maria | Merethe

Michele | Mynn | Nancy |  Paula | Rocky | Rosi 

Shawna | Shirley | Sue N. | Susan 

Thanks for looking =) 

Our challenge lasts all month,

plenty of time to create a card to share !

St. Patrick's Day



I'm enjoying my once a year lunch of corned beef and cabbage 

with soda bread while the family is at work :)

None of them like the taste - or smell - of corned beef and cabbage so

I always make while they are gone and preferably on a warm

day so I can open up the house.

This year St. Patrick's Day is cold, cloudy and windy,

but it was sunny and 83 yesterday so I cooked it a day early.

I made enough to share with my parents, too.

 

 

 

Crock pot (slow cooker) corned beef and cabbage, so easy !
I toss my corned beef that has been covered with the seasonings that come in the package into the crock pot with a few cups of water (I use a 6 qt slow cooker and buy a 2-3 pound brisket). Some people add carrots and potatoes as well. I cook it on low for 8 hours total, adding the cabbage in 90 minutes before I'm ready to serve it. It always comes out tender and moist !

The Irish Soda Bread I made , a different recipe I tried this year:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/brown-butter-soda-bread-233910

  

 

 

I've updated my leprechaun face card post

to include some how to photos!

http://craftysahmiam.blogspot.com/2015/03/leprechaun-face-card.html

Leprechaun Face Card - tutorial

This card is made similarly to my Santa Face card.

Hand cut beard and moustache that were run through the

Divine Swirls cuttlebug folder.

Paper punched eyes, eyebrows and nose.

Dimensionals and sponged inks for detail.

The finished card has a top fold.

It is 3 3/4" wide and 5 1/2" tall.

The hat brim is 4 1/4" wide.

Here are several step by step photos to help

if you'd like to make your own:

Start with a scrap piece of paper to make patterns.

Trace your patterns onto card stock.

You can cut them out now before running them

through the embossing folder or leave it as once piece

then trim them out afterwards. Just be sure that all pencil

marks are on the back or carefully trim them off

if they end up on the front.

I started with a 4" tall by 3 3/4" wide piece of

card stock for my beard and moustache,

keeping scraps to make eyebrows.

You may want to add more to the height so you have

more scraps to work with for the eyebrows.

Sponge ink onto the nose (3/4" circle punch)

then attach with a dimensional/pop dot.

Add ink for cheeks, too,

and freckles with an ink pen if you'd like.

You can make eyebrows any number of ways.

This is one trick I used.

Cut a 3/8" wide strip of card stock,

thread it through a Word Window punch

with one end sticking out (glue a thin scrap strip of

paper to it to make a handle, easier to work with).

Trim one end then carefully push it back in , keeping it lined up perfectly

and trim off the opposite end. You may want to add a mark where you'd like

to stop the punch at, mine as about 7/8".

The hat is made with a 1" tall by 3 3/4" long piece of card stock.

I trimmed the top two corners off by hand to round them.

The hat brim is made by running a 5/8" tall by approximately 4 1/2" long

 piece of card stock into a 3/4" paper punch to round the corners off

(like the eyebrows were made above). You cold also hand trim these if you prefer.

Make the brim no longer than 4 1/4" so it will fit in a regular invitation (A2) envelope.

Sponge inks along the edges.

Add a strip of black for a hat band if you'd like and

even a small gold square.

The eyes are made with 3/8" black circles and

1/4" white circles.

Thanks for looking =)

Green With Envy at AnythingButACard

Welcome to this months challenge at

Anything But A Card:

Green With Envy.

My project is a hand cut mat that I painted

a Patina finish on to frame an Irish Blessing

that I created on my computer.

There is a paper punch four leaf clover at the top

for a fun dimensional touch.

My Green With Envy project is also a sort of

Go Green project by repurposing old items, too:

matboard , frame and card stock scraps.

First, I found an old piece of matboard

that wasn't really nice enough to be used

as a mat alone. By covering it with layers of paint,

it hid the flaws so it could be useful once  more.

Cutting the rectangle part of the mat with my Alto's mat cutter.

It's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

This was the first time I've added an arch cut

to a mat. It was actually pretty easy and I

surprised myself by having it work successfully the first time !

No wasted matboard from a poor cut, yippee!

The patina finish was created with this really old,

never used, paint set I picked up at a yard sale.

The paints were still good surprisingly!

It's super easy to do:

Basecoat your project with a black green.

Lightly sponge on a minty green.

Lastly add some touches of gold.

I used a sea sponge to apply my paints.

This is after the first two coats of green, before the gold.

The matboard did warp from the moisture in the paint,

but flattened out nicely once dry.

It looks just fine in the frame.

I used a small paintbrush to paint the bevel edge gold.

Punch three or four hearts from green card stock.

Lightly score down the centers.

This score line will help in folding the leaves

up slightly for some dimension.

Cut a stem by hand.

Sponge a darker green ink around the edges of the hearts

before assembling your clover.

I ran a thin line of glue down the fold of each leaf

to attach them to the printed piece.

:

Thanks for looking =)

Be sure to visit the

Anything But A Card blog

to see more inspiring ideas every Sunday -

and link up your Green With Envy project, too !

Punch Art Spring Holidays Card

I took the easy way out this year and made one card to cover three spring events:

St. Patrick's Day, First Day Of Spring and Easter. 

I'm not sure how easy of an out it was though, 

working with those tiny punched pieces of card stock !

Below are photo collages showing the supplies I used

(most all of which were from Stampin' Up!)

to create each of the tiny pieces of punch art.

They are mounted on 1 1/4"  and 1 3/8" squares 

that are glued onto a Whisper White card base.

Each of the card fronts has been run through the Big Shot

with a large polka dot Texturz plate or a Chevron embossing folder. 

Punch out four tiny hearts (I used the smallest on the

Heart To Heart punch)

 Crease each tiny heart down the middle.

Trim out a stem with scissors

Glue onto a small circle.

Punch out one of each of the two smallest flower shapes

from the Boho Blossoms punch.

Lightly bend and roll the smallest flower to break 

the fibers in the card stock so you can separate it into two layers. 

Add color to the center pieces to make them darker if you wish

(or cut from different colored card stock to begin with).

Scrunch them together to form a sort of cup

then glue the bottom to the center of the flower.

It can be smashed down to be mailed.

Punch a 5 petal flower from the Spring Bouquet Flower punch 

and trim with scissors to make leaves,

hand cut out a stem.

Punch a small oval from water color paper.

Lightly dampen the paper.

Color with water based markers 

(I used Pink Passion, Yo Yo Yellow and Tempting Turquoise).

Use a damp water color brush to blend the colors

 together a little bit more to 

resemble a died egg.

Another variation ( a couple of which are in the 

photo above that shows several cards) is to punch

out eggs from already colored card stock then

add details with markers. I used a white Signo

gel pen to add details to mine as well as a bit of 

diluted ink to make the egg resemble the crayon resist

eggs I made as a child. I colored the card stock

with the ink first and allowed it to dry well before

adding the details with the white gel pen. 

I took advantage of the pop in temperatures here yesterday,

since it was nearly 70 degrees I opened a couple of windows in the house.

Because it was nice enough to open the windows to help air out the house,

and knowing it was predicted to be cold and rainy all weekend, 

I decided to make my yearly batch of corned beef and cabbage a bit early.

 I think I'll go reheat some for lunch =)

And if you are wondering, I simply toss a corned beef with two cups of water 

along with the seasoning packet that is included with the meat

into a 6 quart crock pot for 8 hours on low.

I add a head of cabbage during the last 2 hours of cooking.

Thanks for looking =)