Category: Papercrafting

In follow up to my post from yesterday…Here is another card I made over the weekend in my crazy quest to enter all these challenges! This one is from Taylored Expressions. Check it out! Enter a card too! This one was good because it is a forum to use lots of different patterned papers…gotta love that! I used a new color combo for me and I love the layout. I may make another one of these…

Here is my card:

Sweet little Penny Black hedgie in a pot! Colored with my Copic markers of course! A bit of glitter on the bee wings to make it sparkle.  The flowers are a new Martha Stewart punch…are you sensing a trend? Hahaha. My Martha Stewart punch addiction is a whole blog post by itself!

If you notice, I put a little glitter glue on top of the brads too!

See how the center of the pot looks faded? You do that by coloring in your entire image and then going back with the blender pen and taking away some of the ink. I used 5-6 colors of brown for the pot and two shades of green for the grass.

Mixing patterns is okay as long as the scale is similar and the colors all go together. As you can see, there are four patterned papers and a patterned ribbon in this card.

Here in the old craft room today it was a crafting, stamping freny! I made cards for FIVE card challenges! I will post two tonight (the other one is in the post below this one) and the rest during the week. I had a great time pushing myself to come up with very specific cards to meet the criteria. The one posted here is for Cards Magazine Blog. This is a great  magazine – so I hope they like this one! The theme is simple – make any card with birds…

I have about a gazillion bird stamps – my favorite – so the only hard part was picking what to use. I decided to go my Memory Box stamps and use soft spring colors. I used my new Martha Stewart Birds on a Wire punch too. OMG. Love it!

Here is the card:

The Inside:

Close up:

This is not related to stamping, but I had to share anyway! I was at my friend Stephanie's paper/stamp store (Paper Garden) Friday night and when I walked outside, this is what I saw!!! It had rained all day and this was the sunset after the clearing storm. AMAZING, don't ya think?  I've never seen a parking lot look so pretty.

I found this cool website called Get Sketchy that has card challenges based on design layouts. The way this works is that the blog gives you a layout, or sketch, and you make it your own. I decided to give this one a go! Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

Thanks for stopping by to see my cards today!  

I'm throwing my hat in the ring for another Tuesday Trigger Card contest over at Moxie Fab World. One of my favorite colors is green so I knew I had to make a card. I immediately remembered I had this old stamp of a toile scene. It took me a while to dig it out of the stamp cupboards…but I found it! I used my nestabilities to make the pretty ovals and I used a cuttlebug folder to impress the white part of the card base. Add a little bling and voila!

The trigger image is so pretty – here it is:

Here is my take on it:

 
Okay, so I have to tell you that I cut out that white oval and then got the scene in there on the first try!! Can you believe it? I don't think I could have planned it better. I might have to use that stamp to make some other stuff. I'm thinking it would look nice in a pretty brick red color. 

On a side note – here is a pretty picture I snapped in the parking lot of the gas station today at lunch! Gotta keep your camera with you at all times! Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend.

Here is a little shout out to my sweet pal S.A. who is working on finishing up her Master's Degree in the next couple of months. Good luck! I miss you!

I got these beautiful Prima flowers at Michael's a while back. I love the muted colors – they are not super bright or pastel – the perfect in between. I made a shabby chic birthday card and a cheery hello card using them. Hope you like them too!

The shabby chic birthday card - made with pretty pink and rose tones. The stamp is from a Stampin' Up set and the border is a Martha Stewart punch. I colored the image with my Copic markers.

 
Here is the cheery hello card. Stamp set is from Stampin' Up and I used Marvy Markers to color directly on the stamp before stamping it onto the paper. 

My lovely photography assistant, NOT helping, by putting his boo-tay directly on top of what I'm trying to take a picture of! He says he is much more gorgeous and photogenic. What do you think?

Okay, so my OBsession with the cute tiny checked paper continues… I made a nice, sweet card using it in red this time. Lovely basket of strawberries image is from Magenta. The saying is from Amuse – another fan favorite! New patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket (I think). I used my Copic markers, of course in three or four shades of brown and gold for the basket and four shades of red and pink for the berries. I had one leftover bee so he could buzz on into the picture.

  
Thanks for stopping by for a looky loo today!

I found a nice challenge on the Embellish Magazine blog – to make a card with some pretty Spring colors - Pink, Peach, Moss Green and Yellow. Here is the idea image:

I really like these colors anyway, so this wasn't a hard card to make. I pulled out some pretty Basic Grey patterned paper, and my trusty Martha Stewart Punches! Bazzill cardstock…Here is my card!

Here is the inside:

I punched out the butterflies and then folded them in half. I used a glue pen to glue just the center of the butterfly onto the paper. Then I folded their wings up to make them pop!

 
 Until next time…

Hi everyone! I made some cheery, happy cards for this day. Feels like Spring outside. My hydrangeas are going crazy – there is even one tiny flower already! Love it. After the rain on Friday the air is crisp and clear.

I am in LOVE with this tiny checked paper! It just seems to go with everything and is a nice patterned neutral – if that makes sense. That checked paper is the common element for these three cards. I also tried to keep it simple and sweet.

The first card is made with some cute trees that I colored with my Copics. Each tree has three shades of green ink. One is with the Green color family and the other with the Yellow Green color family. I kind of like the contrast and visual interest that gives. The tiny birdies are colored with two shades of blue and then coated with two coats of diamond glaze to make them pop off the trees.

 
 
The second card is made with this beautiful new stamp I got last week from Stampendous. It reminds me of a California winery with the poppies in the foreground. I also made this my first easel card. I have been admiring others and finally made one! You should try it! Super easy. Directions are on Splitcoast Stampers.

The third card is made with some Martha Stewart bee/hive stickers I got at Michael's a long time ago. I added glitter glue (diamond stickles) to the wings to jazz them up a bit. I always like black and yellow together for cards. Very striking. Another easel card. Maybe I'm hooked…

Thanks for buzzzzzzzing by my blog today! 

I LOVE this new line of paper, stickers and rub-ons from American Crafts…It's called Abode. Hot, fun, bright colors and adorable images of books, vases, cups, etc. I used it to make a housewarming card for a friend who just moved into a new apartment. I had fun playing with these colors, because they are not the norm for me. I am addicted to my nestabilities now that I finally figured out the best way to use them with my Cuttlebug. Hope you likey!

Inside:

  
The finished card is 6×6 square. I wanted to make it a big card to use more of the images from the paper in the background. Toodles…

Spent the day on Saturday with my dear friend Caroline at the Rubber Stamp Show in Vallejo. It was a small show, as those things go, but very fun nonetheless. Ran into a lot of stamping friends there and found a few bargains.

Here is the loot along with the projects I made yesterday:

In the upper left corner is a GIANT clear block to go with the gorgeous new background images from Impression Obsession. Love this! On the upper right are two new Judikins sweet Geisha girls. Lower left is a new funky stamp from Unity. Lower right is a Kodomo stamp from Hanko and a necklace I made using the stamp. So pretty! Also bought the five petal flower punch I've been trying to find for a while.

Here is the Geisha card…colored with Copics and cut out…layered with Nestabilities…some sparkly shimmer in their hair to make it shiny:

Here is the necklace that I made using the bird/branch stamp. I used my crop-o-dile to punch a hole and set a large eyelet for the chain. Stamped with Memento Ink and colored with Copics. Sponge the edges with Distress Inks. The edges are super tape with brown metallic foil folded over! Add some bling… and voila!

I hope your week is off to a great start! Enjoy the day!  

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you are spending the day in the company of people who love you – spouses, friends, family… Also a good day to watch the Olympics. I have lots of Valentine's stuff to share and I'm sending some blog love your way. Hope you eat too much chocolate today!

First off…My Furry Valentine…Mr. Buddy looking quite debonair on the craft room counter:

Some cupcake treats I brought to work on Friday:

 
I made the little doo dads for the tops from the Stampin' Up "Love Bandit" set and some other VD stamps I had around. Scallop circles, and voila! Cupcake toppers!

A cool Vintag-ey Valentine I found at one of my favorite stores. I thought it was so pretty and old fashioned:

And Finally, the last of my Valentine Cards for this year:

2010 is Year of the Tiger! Gung Hay Fat Choy friends! This year the date for Chinese New Year happens to fall on Valentine's Day so I'm posting a day early. The date is set by the moon. Read more about the history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year.

 
Now, I like a celebration of any kind, and since I have many Chinese friends, I always make cards for this special occasion. I absolutely love the vivid red set against black and gold. Gorgeous. This year my creation is made with the popular joy-fold card concept. I hope you enjoy looking at this post.

This is the full card when it is closed:

And partially open:

and further opened:

 
Stamps from Kodomo and Papers:

Copic ink colors:

Close ups of the coloring process:

This chart helps me when I am making/coloring more than one of the same image. I can check the colors until I get exactly what I want.

Using the darkest color sparingly only for the center of his back and brow:

 Four shades of green…oh how I love green…

The year is flying by already and it's February 1st! Whew…almost time for Valentine's Day! And…if you live in Northern California…time for allergies to start. Spent the weekend with a gnarly sinus headache. Start the Claritin I.V. stat!  

I have two Valentine Cards to share today. I will have more as the day approaches. I've also been cooking up some cute cupcake toppers for my work treats.

This first card is for my monthly stamp club swap cards. Our meeting is on Wednesday night:

LOVE the new cuttlebug embossing folders for Valentine's Day! Took my white gel pen and made a little accent on the heart in the middle of the "O". The heart stamps are from an old Stampin' Up set. The black border on the card is a Tim Holtz background stamp.

This card has a totally different color scheme and feel to it. It's based on an Amuse card I saw in my local paper store. The awning is made by folding the paper and then putting pop dots underneath!

The little birdies and the glass are colored with Copic Markers. The whip cream is filled in with fine prisma glitter. I use Copic BG000, BG10 and G0000 whenever I want to make something look like glass.

 
More Valentine's to come. Stay tuned.

I have to mention that my favorite band - Green Day – won a Grammy last night! Wahooo! The song they performed was from their musical version of American Idiot, which we saw at The Berkeley Rep Theater late last fall. We recognized a lot of the cast – and now they're Broadway bound! 

Evidently I love a challenge! Today I'm posting my entry to the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger Challenge: Turqoise and Gold. I have an idea rolling around in my head for my own Tuesday Trigger…I need to create the card and send it in. Keep an eye out for it. 🙂

Here is the Tuesday Trigger image:

And here is my card:

 
I wanted to pick up the small amount of black in the photo as an accent. Also, I used the circular mirror for inspiration for my little frame. The Turquoise and white print paper actually has a slight shimmer to it that you can't see. The Gold paper is kind of a matte/burnished shimmery gold. The picture inside the frame is a sticker! This card has a nice old fashioned vintage-y feel to it.

Yesterday the DH and I went out and bought all the supplies to build a 'white box' for taking photos of cards. Just need to find the time to put it all together. Hopefully that will be a success. Until next time, Happy Monday and best wishes for a crafty week ahead! 

Does anyone remember the Phil Collins song "Inside Out?" That is one of my favorite songs of all time. I used to sing that at the top of my lungs back in the day.

Inside out is also the name of this Moxie Fab card challenge for January. I decided to have a go at it. The objective is to make the inside of the card just as wonderful (fab) as the outside! What a great idea!

 
I must say that I really like this card! It was made especially for my sweet friend JRR. She loves butterflies. When I saw this paper I knew I had to make her a card with it.

Here's the inside:

I'm still trying to get the picture thing mastered. This is the best I could do. Not crazy about all the shadows. Here are some detail shots:

 
No coloring on this card! I used brown Memento Ink for the images. Lots of layering… And, of course, Martha Stewart punches. As always, best wishes for a great day and happy stamping!

Okay, so is it acceptable to stay in your pajamas all day? Or do you have to take a shower and put on clean pajamas? This is just one of the dilemmas facing me today. It is pouring rain here and we are having a quiet day at home. Football is on in the family room and I am holed up in my crafty cave with Mr. Buddy.

However, as you can see, Mr. Buddy has different ideas as to what he would like me to do today…

This is my desk/work space and is doubling as a nap area.

He must have fallen asleep while reading…That can wear a man out, you know.

Seriously, you are NOT stamping today until my bowl is full and my head is scratched. Do I look like I'm kidding?

One cat out of the way and over to his blankie. I did manage to make a sweet little card to send to a far away friend. Here's the front:

Here's the inside:

 
 
Some close in shots:

    
   
Thanks for dropping by to see what I made today. I hope you are safe and warm and dry wherever you are. Back to the craft room to see what else I can cook up today. 

I found another color challenge online tonight and thought I would give this one a try as well.   You had to use Red, Pink and Black and also use hearts. Here are the details:  http://embellishmagazine.com/blog/2010/01/embellish-hearts-color-challenge-sponsored-by-the-cutting-cafe/

I thought this would be easy… and immediately got out all my Valentine's stuff. The red and black looked good, but I had a hard time getting the pink to work. I decided to do a collage/funky look for this card. I hope you like it!

And a close up:

 
I absolutely LOVE that red/white flocked paper from Stampin' Up! (Thanks Janice). It is so much prettier in person and reminds me of beautiful old wallpaper. 

I hope your week is off to a good start!

The card I made today was made for entry into Dawn McVey's Color Challenge #21. You can find her post about it here:  http://dawnmcvey.typepad.com/these_are_a_few_of_my_fav/2010/01/raspberry-suite-color-challenge-21.html

I really enjoy reading her blog and decided to do my first contest entry here. As I'm getting ready to post mine, there are already over 100 entries! The deal is – someone posts a challenge in which you must make a project using certain specific colors. I just happen to really like these colors. See below:

Here is my card!

And a close up:

 
One thing I am stuggling with is photographing the cards to get the right color and tint. It seems like that would be easy – but it's not! I need to study up on that a bit and may need to invest in a "white box" for the photos. We shall see…

Materials: Papertrey Ink 'On My Couch' stamp set, Memento Ink Pads, Bazzill Papers, and Basic Grey 'Urban Prairie' patterned paper.