Do you realize, as of today there are exactly two months left till Christmas?! Are you ready?
I signed up for a shaker card exchange on SplitCoastStampers, and I've been working on some ideas. After a couple of epic fails (like glueing the darned thing closed *before* putting in the shaker bits!!) I finally completed a working prototype. Not sure if I want to make 5 more of these, but I do like the end result. And as it happens, this week is The Cats Pajamas Anything Goes challenge. Since this is from TCP set 'Reindeer Kisses' how perfect did that work out, huh? I haven't played in a TCP challenge for ages, so I think I deserve that part lining up for me... since I spent the weekend working on my failed cards. ;) They were both completely different ideas so maybe this one is meant to be!
I could point out all the glitches, but I won't! It's not like anybody reads my blog to learn stuff so I'm sure I can just keep those things to myself, hehe. I colored in the penguin and reindeer with Copics, and used Tumbled Glass distress ink for the 'sky'. I tried a new-to-me trick for the glitter. I used my clear double sided tape (the tape with the red liner that sticks to your fingers like crazy when you peel it off! lol) and covered it with glitter. Sure enough, once you've shaked and rubbed off the excess glitter, it still looks shiny and glittery but nothing comes off. I love that tape, it's pretty much my favorite adhesive. I just bought two 50 meter rolls for super cheap, I think I'm set for a while now. :)
One of my biggest pet peeves is the photography part. I suck at it. My hands are really shaky so I have a teeny tiny tripod that I use, but it's not very stable so I still need to steady it with my hands. And my camera isn't that great. Honestly, some days I get better pictures with my iPhone! So I'm bummed that you can't see that the sentiment is heat embossed. I used Crimson Red Versafine ink and Judikins clear detail embossing powder. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the light to catch the gleam of the embossing so it just looks flat in the picture.
Both the big and little circles were done with the Simon Says Stamp stitched circles. The stitching really takes it up a notch without any extra effort. Really glad I finally bought that set! I just need me some squares... and some rectangles... and, and, and... :D
I hope you're all having fun working on your Christmas cards. I'm not going to start mass producing till my MISTI arrives this week. Super squeeee!
Alright, I'm done for today.
Yes, two blog posts within little more than 24 hours. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it pours. :)
I'm still not finished working on my brooches, I started making more so that when I get the epoxy out I can do several at a time. I will get around to finishing them soon, especially since two are for long overdue gifts.
It struck me that I hadn't made a card for my husband. Woe is me, I was so caught up with the thought that I couldn't afford to buy him anything, that I completely overlooked the fact that I can MAKE him something. Yup, this whole cardmaking thing is still new to me, lol. So here is a quick post with what I made.
Materials used:
Recollection white A2 card blank
Recollection cardstock
Neenah 110 lb brilliant white for the hearts
An old SU heart stamp, don't know what the set is called
An old Sizzix embossing folder that was given to me, don't know what it's called
Martha Stewart embossing powder in ladybug and carnation
All Night Media embossing powder in silver
Graphic 45 Time to Flourish paper
Wow, it's been 12 days since I last posted. Last week I was working on a mixed media project and intended to blog about that, but I haven't finished the assembly so perhaps next week.
If you haven't noticed yet, I adore The Cat's Pajamas. Their TCP Tuesday challenge was the first challenge I ever participated in; I had a blast and realized I needed to do more of this card making stuff. So I try to make a point of joining in each challenge, which fortunately is only every two weeks. :)
This time it was a sketch challenge:
I really love sketch challenges because I'm still quite new at this whole cardmaking thing, and it gives me a really good jumping off point.
For some reason, I've been wanting to make a card with a kite. And in my mind, kites are bright bold colors. I kept trying to use patterned designer paper, but I don't have much in bright and bold. Fortunately I had a pack of primary colors cardstock to work with.
You know, I didn't even realize till just this moment that I used the same yellow background color as the sketch. Too funny, that was so not deliberate!
I used a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder from the 'Dainty' set. The kite is a retired Sizzix die that was in the package Krista sent to me. It was one die, so I ran it through with red, yellow, and blue cardstock, and then cut out and layered the yellow and blue bows over the red ones.
The buttons were from The Cat's Pajamas Buttons CutUps die. This was my first time using this die and it worked great! Then I dabbed the buttons and the kite with Versamark ink and used Judikins clear embossing powder to heat emboss everything. Then I layered some of the buttons over different colored non-embossed buttons to show a little pop of color in the buttonholes, without the gloss.
Last but not least, I used the 'Life is Good' sentiment from The Cat's Pajamas 'Spring Fling' set. I really waffled back and forth over the sentiment. I originally planned on using the 'Happy Spring' stamp from the same set, but I really liked the font of 'Life is Good'. Realistically, 'Life is Good' is more versatile. :)
And there you have it. My contribution to TCPTues282. I really like how this card turned out, and I'm actually thinking of replicating it for a card swap I'm in. What do you think... if you were one of the swappers, would you want to receive this card? What kind of sentiment would you prefer? I might put the sentiment on a little banner and send a bunch of them so they can use the one they like. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments. :)
I had so much fun designing this card, I just let my mind flow. I only used a very loose interpretation of the Cure for the Monday Blues Challenge #39; primarily the colors, the circular and square shapes.
I love black, white and gold, I love shiny, I love metallic, and I love glitter. One of the challenges I face is limited supplies, so I really have to stretch myself to create what I need. Not that it's difficult, just more time consuming. So I used a gold glitter embossing powder to create some of the gold paper, and Ranger sticky powder to create the shimmery white and the other gold paper I used. I have to mention a caveat though, that since I started cardmaking last November, I've been very blessed to join a community of wonderful people, and in particular two very kind ladies both whom I met through SplitCoastStampers: Jan, and Krista. Both of them, completely of their own volition, saw my posts and comments and realized that I was just starting out with very little. They both (unbeknownst to each other, this wasn't a collaboration, or a board challenge, or anything like that) put together very large packages of stamping goodies for me. I can never thank them enough, and I look forward to the day that I am in a position to Pay It Forward. And that's not to mention the other kind people who have befriended me, offered moral support, constructive comments, praise, and all other forms of friendship.
So, on to this week's challenge. I'm down to my chinny chin chin hair with this one, the deadline is in less than 6 hours, and my pictures still aren't taken. I gave up, and had to solicit my husband's help. He's better at the photography thing than me, but it's also the middle of the night so there is no natural light to use. And let me tell you, for all that I love working with metallic and glitter, it is a son of a gun to photograph! Any suggestions or pointers, or links to tutorials would be very appreciated!!!
I knew I wanted to try out the Paper Smooches 'congratulations' die that Krista gifted me. I love script sentiment dies!! This is my only one, and I didn't know how I was going to use it until I was at the dentist last week, and the office administrator who I love to bits and pieces set my next appointment. She said she would make sure whoever is working at the time sends me an email reminder, as she might not be back from her honeymoon to Hawaii yet. This triggered thoughts of a wedding card, and wouldn't that be perfect for white, black and gold with a congratulations sentiment? Yes!
I somehow cut a square card, out of 110 lb Neenah cardstock. I don't think I intended to cut a square. I'm numerically challenged, and when it comes to measurements things don't always turn out the way I planned. I wanted to go with a big black circle in the middle, and I had just the perfect black shimmery cardstock to use. For Christmas, I treated myself to some a Lifestyle Crafts circle die set. I still desperately want squares and rectangles, not to mention all the lovely ones with faux stitching and piercing, etc. Anyhow, one thing at a time!
I die cut 'congratulations' into the circle so that I could use the negative space. I made some gold glitter paper and glued it behind the circle. I then proceeded to pop in all the centers of the letters (the 'o's, the 'a's, ect) so that the word was complete. Oh joy, that was fun. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!
Then I started working on the butterflies. I used another die Krista sent me, a SU! Sizzix Embosslit of five different little butterflies. I thought that a more bold gold than the one I used for the sentiment might be good, so I heat embossed some cardstock with a glitter gold embossing powder by Stampendous that I had. I had to give it two coats because it looked really watered down to me. Then, I made a white shimmery paper and cut out some more butterflies. I positioned everything on the card, and it just fell flat. I knew the stark white cardstock background wasn't going to cut it. So I put everything on hold till I could get to Michaels and find something suitable.
I don't have any foam tape, and I didn't want to use a million foam dots under the circle, so I used an idea I saw in a Jennifer McGuire video: I used some fun foam (which funnily enough I do have, don't ask!) I didn't want the fun foam to be visible from the sides, so I die cut a slightly smaller circle out of it. Glued the fun foam to the black circle, then attached it to the new white cardstock which I had cut out to fit on top of the Neenah cardstock.
Last but not least, I started positioning the butterflies on the circle with glue dots. I decided the corners looked empty, so I made some more gold glitter paper out of the same glitter I used for the sentiment. I thought they should be a bit lighter than the bigger ones. Got those cut out, finished gluing everything together, and voila. All I had to do was enlist hubby while I started writing my blog post. I'm a little verbose, in case you hadn't noticed. ;)
p.s. See the itty bitty butterfly above the 's'? Yeah that's because I spilled some glue in that spot and it left a matte smudge. Thank goodness for itty bitty butterflies :D
p.p.s. No supplies list today, I might come back and edit later, but I'm tired and haven't slept yet. Yes it's 7:30 am on the west-coast. Hubby works a night shift, and since I'm not working right now I tend to follow his schedule. For the record, I only put a supplies list because I'm a very visual person, and I love visiting blogs where I can see what they used at a glance.
I was really excited that my Christmas purchase from The Cat's Pajamas arrived yesterday. I was the very fortunate winner of the Winter Blog Hop giveaway, and it didn't take me long to spend my gift certificate and then some. At some point yesterday, when I got up to let the dogs out, checked the front door and yay! There was a pizza delivery! I love that my goodies came in a pizza box!!! The mail person sandwiched it between the two doors. I somehow managed to safely wield a knife and slice into my box (haha pun intended). I quickly glimpsed at the goodies then crawled back into bed. You see, I was still letting the morphine wear off from my late Friday night visit to the hospital emergency room. I was the lucky recipient of a 4 mm kidney stone. Which is really not very big in the grand scheme of things. Don't make me get my collection out... I will take pictures and inflict them on you! I've had kidney stones for about 21 years now. It's pretty run of the mill for me, and in fact this is the first one in 18 months. So yeah, lots of grogginess over the past few days. At last check (CT scan Saturday morning) the stone was kicking around in my bladder. It should pass without too much trouble now. Knock on wood. I was in a fair amount of pain at the time though (before it migrated to my bladder) and was pretty loaded up on morphine. A whole 20 mg before I even got to the hospital, and it wasn't even making a dent in the pain so that's when I need it by IV. Anyhow, I'm sure you're not here to read about kidney stones or pain medication.
So I finally woke up after two and a half days of sleeping off and on, and decided to play with my goodies last night. Of course the first thing I wanted to do was to make a card for TCP Tuesday. This week is an inspiration challenge:
I thought it fortuitous that one of the sets I purchased and that just arrived was Simple Blooms. I knew right away when I saw the challenge posted last week that I wanted to use that set. I had somewhat of an imagine in my mind of what I wanted... the obvious flowers, blue sky, clouds... This is what I ended up with:
Where are the clouds you say? They didn't make it. In fact, this wasn't quite what I was going for, and I was going to start over (don't I say that every time?) Then I chose the sentiment "Find Beauty in Life" also from the Simple Blooms set. I chose to see a message therein to myself. Find the beauty, and don't be so hard on yourself. I've always been a perfectionist. If it's not perfect right out of the gate, then it's not good enough. And I usually quit. That's why I don't play sports. ;) I've tried a few things in my life, and I have a hard time sticking with them when I don't do so great. I tried pottery a few years ago. I loved the organic feel of playing with the clay. But I really sucked at the actual pottery part. No really. I wouldn't even let my mom keep that thing as an ashtray, even if she'd paid me a million dollars. Well maybe for a million...
So there you have it. I used Tumbled Glass distress ink for the sky, Evergreen Boughs distress ink for the grass. I inked up the flower stamp with Versafine Smokey Gray and stamped it on scratch paper, then 'shadow' stamped it on the cardstock. Then, I inked up the blooms in Worn Lipstick distress ink, and the stems/leaves in Evergreen Bough. And whammy. It was supposed to be closer to the shadow, but hey whatever. I'm practicing not being so hard on myself. I stamped the sentiment in Versafine Smokey Gray as well, and heat embossed with Judikins clear detail embossing powder.
And there you have it. Quick and simple. Easy peasy. Lemon squeazy. Yup.
Supplies used:
(All these links are from Amazon, except the stamp set is directly on The Cat's Pajamas website. I got all my supplies from TCP though, and I highly recommend that you purchase from there. Because I like Alma, the owner and designer, and I don't like Amazon near as much!)
