Fabulous Birthday

I finally found a few moments to make a card. I've been a bit overwhelmed with other responsibilities lately, it was so nice to be able to make a card for an upcoming friend's birthday.

Some of the inspiration came from a challenge at Scrapbook & Cards Today. I love the look when white is given a bold burst of color. Silke is the master of this sort of elegant simplicity.

The other bit of inspiration came from a conversation I had with friends at church yesterday. I made the comment that my cuttlebug never gets used anymore. It seems pretty useless for die cutting in the day and age of Make-the-Cut and Cricut. So I returned to the machine that got me started, and used it for embossing the background of this card, as well as using my Spellbinder dies to cut out the Birthday Bella.

All in all, I think it's a great simple card. I wish I had done two, one to send and one for my stash!

Love You A Latte...

I'm back with another Valentine's card. This one for my hubby... hard to believe we're working on fifteen years! My how the time passes. The man loves coffee, and I thought the "Love You A Latte" sentiment was perfect for him this year.



This card is so yummy to me! Doesn't it just makes you think of Valentine Chocolates? I can almost taste them! I used this weeks sketch at Card Patterns as my starting point. I don't have any good coffee stamps so I had to make due. I found the image through google image and used my MTC to cut some stamp material with my Cricut. I had been wanting to try that out for a long time. I must confess I'm not to crazy with it's performance. The material doesn't accept ink to well. But I'm determined to use up some of my stash this year!

I embossed the brown background paper with my swirls cuttlebug embossing folder. I used Microsoft Word to print out the sentiment, then stamped my image and colored it in with my Prisma markers. Put it all together with just a few cross stitches added, and I think I have a good card. Not to girly I don't think. Now I'm just thankful that my husband doesn't watch my blog!

PUBLISHED!! Sorta...

I think I shared a while back how excited I was that I was going to be published. (Maybe it was at my personal blog.) I was so very excited. Well, the magazine is out now. Well, sorta. It's the very first issue of Christian Paper Crafts Magazine. As far as I know, there aren't any stores that carry it yet. You can purchase it, or an electronic version of it from their website. I got the electronic version of it, and was quite flattered that they used my card for the Fall Section main page. Wanna peek?


I spent forever on this card back in April!

Honestly, I have mixed emotions about the whole experience. I love, love, LOVE, that the magazine is focused on Jesus. But I feel that since our cards were what gave the magazine it's substance, we should have gotten the electronic version of it free. It boasts over 160 pages, but a lot of them are blank pages which seems to me that they could have done a better job on that.

It is a brand new publication though, so I'm curious to see how God uses it. There are some truly beautifully done cards in it, and I'm not referring to mine! In fact, thanks to some of those cards, and my friend that stayed with me, I'm beginning to learn how to do paper quilling! It's a very time consumin craft, but I think the items made from it are beautiful! Hopefully I'll be using it on cards in the near future. :)

Splash

I tried to create a card today. I especially wanted to participate in High Hopes' most recent challenge. But due to a lack of sleep last night I just stared at my stuff, unable to get an idea in my mind. I rarely know exactly what I'm going for, but still, I didn't even have a starting point! So I headed back to my scrapbooks in progress. Thankfully I was drawn to pictures from a visit to a park in Germany that were waiting to be scrapped.

I found this sketch at Split Coast Stampers that worked perfectly, just I needed to downsize it to an 8x8 layout.



I used three different flourish stamps with a light blue ink on plain white card stock. I matted all the pictures with light blue paper, then inked them and the background paper with darker blue ink. As I positioned the pictures on the paper, it seemed that the layout was really missing something. I decided to draw on the flourishes with a darker blue gel pen. I love how that turned out! That simple action gives them so much more depth! Now they really do remind me of splashing.

As for the title, I used my cuttlebug machine to cut out letters from thin chipboard. Gave them a generous coating of glitter and sealed them. As I laid the letters on the paper, they didn't stand out quite enough, now the flourishes were to strong! So I muted the background a bit by laying a piece of vellum where my title would be. Added borders of the same paper used to mat the pics, and it looks great. And of course, had to add a couple flowers. I wish I had some embellishments a bit more suitable for the theme, but they're all I had, and their colors match fantastically!

Masculine Duo

With Christmas now behind us, I've finally moved out of the mindset of creating Christmas Cards. Although, I'll still have a few of them to share, especially since I'm on the Christmas Cards All Year 'Round Blog. I'm hoping with the small amount of discipline throughout the year, I'll have a whole variety of homemade Christmas Cards next year!

So, as I tried to scratch my creative itch, I decided to take a look at my calendar. My father and one of my father in-laws each have birthdays in January. It's the perfect time to make some masculine Birthday Cards.



Yeah, I definitely do 'cute' better than 'masculine'. I had started this design as a horizontal card, but I decided last minute to try the verticle layout. They're pretty simple cards that don't need much explanation.



The little cake is cut from a Cuttlebug Die. I cut out four total to double up so they would be sturdier to handle being propped up on thick adhesive. They're colored with my Prima's and Baby Oil, naturally. :)

High Hopes Challenge 10 - Metal Madness

Well... hubby's plane broke down, so I had spare time today, and what better way to spend it than trying for a chance to win some cute stamps? Today's challenge over at the High Hopes Blog is to use metal in your layout.

And while I could have taken the easy way out with just using brads or eyelets of sorts... when have I ever been one to take the easy way out? lol I decided to use actual metal... tinfoil that is.



I read recently about running tinfoil through the cuttlebug, and I saw this as the perfect chance to try it out. I had no idea where I was going with it, no vision in my head. I even told my daughter, "Sometimes the best way to create, is simply to play." So that's what I did.

I attached tinfoil to a piece of cardstock (shiny side down), and ran it through my cuttle bug with an embossing folder. I swiped the top of it with white embossing ink and loaded it up with holographic embossing powder. The effect is subtle, but I think quite striking.

I eventually settled on a traditional red and green color scheme. Embossed some dots in my Christmas green background paper, and used water color pencils to color in my Daper Dan Snowman. I cut the slider tag from my cricut and glittered the edges. I wanted a red flower to balance out my card, but unfortunately I don't have any, and I'm not allowed to buy any more goodies till after Christmas. So I took a white flower and pressed it against an ink pad several times. I added the glitter snowflake brad, and it actually looks nice. Add three small red brads to the top of the ribbon and put it all together!

All in all, I'm not sure I pulled off the metal to the best of it's ability. But I think the card is cute. It beats boxed cards anyway, as it is original. :)

Colored Christmas Challenge

I managed to sneak one card in this evening. It took me a while to get this challenge done, I feel like the card is a little empty on the bottom. Maybe once I get my nestabilities in the mail I'll be able to find the right thing to put there.



The inspiration for the card came when I saw this post at Make a Card Monday. Then I recalled my very first Christmas as a married woman and out of my parents house. Target had a line of purple and blue that I loved and bought those as my first Christmas tree decorations. So that's why I chose blue and purple. :)

Now we're talking!

I am feeling rather satisfied this evening! Those who know me, know that I don't have the most organized house. Heck, my basement is half living area (my two oldest kids rooms are down there), half storage area. Half the basement is half way organized and put together, the other... well, lets just say it's a nightmare. I headed out to Hobby Lobby today, have I ever mentioned I L-O-V-E that store? They're a bit expensive for my taste, (well actually for the family funds), but the only other craft store in town is a Ben Franklin's that is a quarter the size, therefore has a fraction of the selection. But when Hobby Lobby has it's 50% off sale I am one happy camper!

I've been eying this 12x12 paper storage thing for a looooooooooooong while. But with a $50 price tag there was no way I was ever gonna get it. Till today! They were actually included in the 50% off sale of all scrapbooking organizers.

I swear, it's not actually crooked, my picture taking abilities are rather questionable! Anyhow, I love it. I'm very glad I didn't pay the full $50 for it, as I do not think it is worth that amount. One of my shelves came out of the package cracked, but it is so nice to have my paper somewhat organized! No more digging through a whole drawer of papers trying to find what I want!

With the paper finally organized, I was on a roll. I got a whole corner cleaned up!

Well, almost all the way cleaned up. I hadn't even thought about those shelves on the bottom till I saw this picture right now. I guess I have more work to do. But it's nice to have some resemblance of a work space available. Anyone want to make a wager on how soon it'll be a mess again? I'm guessing it'll be less than a month! The only thing I don't like is that there's no electrical outlet there. So my Cricket doesn't work over there. I have it at another table for now, we'll see if I decide to change that.

With all that space open, it was asking to be used. So my oldest daughter and I worked on her Birthday Invitation. Thankfully she only needed one done, other wise I would have never gotten quite so fancy. It's fun working with my girl, it's nice to have a little crafter in the house.


It turned out really well in my opinion. Too bad things don't always come to me quite so easily.

Good news is that stamps were half off at Hobby Lobby today too. :) (<-- That's an ear to ear grin right there.) I decided I want to give my hand a go at the old fashioned embossing, and I can't wait to play around with the sparklies!

Getting Crafty...

I've spent a lot of today downstairs trying to force my creative flow. I know I have one, I used to use it all the time. But lots of stress and little spare time has drained my creative pool. I have a scrappin' party to host tomorrow, and I am sadly not as prepared as I should be. I do have a project for the ladies to work on, but I'm not 100% happy with it. While I was working on my own project, to have an example, I got side tracked. My creativeness decided to start flowing, but NOT on the project I was supposed to be working on! Doesn't it figure?

Anyhow, I thought I'd post a pic of the best thing I squeezed out today. I love making cards. :)



The picture is ever so slightly blurry. I really need to learn how to take great pictures of these things. The trick is natural sunlight, but unfortunately I'm all out of that right now!

Tomorrow is going to be packed, along with Sunday. I'm so far behind on things, I'm just trying to not panic. I'm seriously thinking some responsibility in my life needs to go, but I just don't see how I can trim anything out. *sigh* Here's hoping I'll get some good sleep tonight!