I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

It's a bit out of focus and in a ways in the distance, but it's THERE! This is my last week of classes and then next weeks is finals week. I got quite a few of my end of the year projects finished up this past weekend (which meant NO scrapping whatsoever). I do have a 10 page paper to do this week and practices for a finals week live performance for my Oral Interp of Lit class, but that's it for now. Later on this week, I'll have a take home final and then a big final on finals week for my Euro Lit class. And then I'm done for the summer :) Wa-hoo!

I really hope to get a lot of papercrafting done after classes are over. I have a couple weeks where the kids are still in school and I'll be out, so that should make it easier.

In the meantime, here's a card that I made for a friend. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder for the flowers and embellished them with pearls and crystals from Prima Marketing. The sentiment was cut with a Cuttlebug die, and the bottom was simply made by layering Martha Stewart floral lace border punched sections over each other.

Thanks for taking a peek, I hope that your week is fab!

SNA Blog post - Jillibean Soup!

Check out the SNA blog today, I have a post on how I made this cute little frowny frog ☺

Pencil shavings flower?

I had to laugh when Levi asked how I made this flower. I asked him why and he told me it looked like it was made with giant pencil shavings! And it does!!! I sure didn't design it with that in mind, but it's kind of funny now. I must do a teacher card with one of these flowers though ☺

I made it by cutting 3 different scalloped circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders. I inked around the edges with soft pink ink and then made several cuts toward the center of the circles - being careful not to cut through the whole way. Then I overlapped some of the cuts and adhered them to make the flower curve outward. I layered the 3 cuts over each other after I had layered each layer like this. I threaded ribbon through a button and adhered it with a Glue Arts "Adhesive Square" to finish it off.

For the leaves, I simply took 2 small scraps of green and twisted one side over itself and adhered them under the flower. Super easy, and a great way to use up small scraps!

I used the Martha Stewart Double Edged punch for the white trim in the middle of the card and an EK Success punch for the bottom. The stamps are by Papertrey Ink (Mother) and Verve Stamps (My life is richly blessed by you). I didn't have any nice Mother's Day sentiments, so I pieced together my own!

All the cardstock is from Couture Cardstock and I used Glue Arts "Adhesive Squares" and Beacon Adhesives "Zip Dry." Thanks for taking a peek!

Hey Baby!

I found out recently that a neighborhood friend of mine is expecting, so I made her this card. I had forgotten I even that this cute Bella stamp, but it was perfect for the card. I stamped the image on white cardstock and shaded it with Copic markers. I also stamped it on pink plaid paper and cut out the shirt to layer over the stamp. I put a foam dot over the belly and adhered it with a "Mini Adhesive Square" from Glue Arts on the top of the shirt. This made it appear as if the belly were growing out of the card! :)

I used my new Martha Stewart double sided edge punch for the white trim and Spellbinders Labels Six and Standard Ovals. Thanks for taking a peek! Have a great weekend ☺

A little Earth Lovin'

I love the "Earth Love" Mini Deck from Cosmo Cricket, but realized that it's mostly been sitting in my paper container - unused. I had to do another butterfly card, and loved how this paper coordinated! I paired it with some Kraft paper, because that just seemed like an earthy thing to do ;)

I usually do a bow on my cards somewhere, but decided to do a simple ribbon this time around and accent it with buttons. I like how it sort of framed the sentiment as well. I didn't actually plan that out, but it's always nice when things work the right way!

I've only got a couple of weeks of classes and then finals week after this week is over. Makes me want to smile and scream at the same time! Smile because break is so close I can TASTE it and scream because I only have a few days left to do a LOT OF WORK!!! So if I just fall off the face of my blog for a while, please know that I will be back in full creative force sometime in May. :) Thanks for taking a peek!

Paper: Couture Cardstock, Cosmo Cricket
Stamps: Papertrey Ink "Mega Mixed Messages"
Ink: Memento "Rich Cocoa"
Embellishments: Prima Marketing Pearls, The Paper Studio buttons, Misc. ribbon
Tools: Cuttlebug machine and Butterflies die

Blog Candy!

head on over to Melissa's for a chance at some candy :)

Beautiful Possibilities with Kraft

I love the look of Kraft paper cards. I especially like the look of white ink on Kraft paper, like on this card. I used a Stamp Zia "Hibiscus" rubber cling stamp for the flower and a Papertrey Ink sentiment stamp from "Mega Mixed Messages." I used "Fresh Snow" ink from Papertrey Ink and heat embossed the sentiment to make sure it stood out. This white ink really is amazing, it shows up so well on medium and dark papers!

I used a new Martha Steward Double Sided border punch - it makes a pretty piece of trim like you see above. I embellished it with flat backed pearls and inked the edges. I embossed the bottom of the card with the "Swiss Dots" Cuttlebug folder and lightly inked over the top of the embossing as well.

To shade in the flowers, I used my Copic markers. After they were done, I accented the flower stamens a bit with a Signo Uniball white pen and smeared on some "Crystal" Stickles.

The sentiment is made with a Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four. Thanks for taking a peek, and have a great weekend!

Oops, I did it again...

...and still liked the results! I may hold off on getting new B plates until I exhaust my fun with these 3/4 cut butterflies. Here's another, that didn't quite cut all the way through. The "feelers" were still stuck pretty well to the white paper, but I was able to slip the butterfly dots embossing folder over the part that was cut and emboss it. then I just adhered the very bottom back to where it was with a "Mini Adhesive Square" from Glue Arts.

The yellow is an ancient piece of that crafting raffia that used to be so popular. I bunched it with an Adhesive Square (did you know that Glue Arts Adhesive Squares are paper thin and SUPER stretchy? They're stronger than Glue Dots and way more versatile). I stretched it around the raffia a few times and then adhered buttons over the stretched Adhesive Squares.

Cardstock: Paper Accents, Couture Cardstock
Adhesive: Beacon Adhesives "Zip Dry," Glue Arts "Adhesive Square, Mini Adhesive Squares"
Stamps: Papertrey Ink "Mega Mixed Messages"
Ink: Clearsnap
Tools: Provocraft Cuttlebug machine, Butterflies die, Fiskars border punch "Sunburst"
Misc: The Paper Studio Buttons, raffia

Happy Mistakes

So it's been a while since I replaced my Cuttlebug B Plates...and since I use them all the time, I ran into a problem. While cutting a butterfly out of white cardstock, the middle and antennae did not punch all the way through. There was an outline of the cut, but it wasn't really a cut. For about 7 seconds I was ticked and then I realized that this could make for a cute card! I made another butterfly die cut, this time cutting it 3 times in different places on the worn out B plate so that it actually did cut all the way. I layered it over the original cut in the white cardstock, adhered it down the middle and bent the wings towards me. I finished it off with some aqua gems and I had a pretty little mistake, fluttering on my card!

Of course I had to add some embossing, border punches, stamping, ribbon and buttons as well -I can't leave cards alone - but then I was finished. Thanks for taking a peek :)

Cardstock: Paper Accents "Matte White" (129) 12x12; Adhesive: Beacon Adhesives "Zip Dry"; Glue Arts "Adhesive Squares"; Embellishments: The Paper Studio Buttons, Prima Marketing Gems; Ink: Big and Juicy "Vibrant Primary"; Ribbon: Ribbon FX; Tools: EK Success Border Punch, Provo Craft "Cuttlebug: Butterfly die, Machine, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder"

Tye Dye Damask

I was looking through my inks and realized that I had one of the multicolored "Big and Juicy" ink pads that I hadn't touched in a long time. Inspiration struck, and this is the result! I have to say that I really love how this looks, and I will be using the ink pad more often. :) I used Papertrey Ink "Demask Designs" for the pretty damasks and front sentiment and Verve Stamps "Thankful Blossoms" for the inside sentiment. I used a Fiskars "Sunburst" border punch for the white and layered it on the Kraft card base. I layered the tye dye damask over the white and then layered the strip of Kraft over the top of that. I stamped and then embossed it with white "Sea Foam" embossing powder by Ranger.

I embellished the punched border with "Dew Drops" by The Robin's Nest.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Blessed Pascha!

I hope that you all have a blessed Pascha (Easter, for my Western readers)! ☺

I stamped the egg with a stamp I received from an Orthodox online bookstore. If you want to get it for yourself, let me know and I can point you in the right direction. I used "Detail Copper" embossing powder from Stampendous! and VersaMark ink. I colored it in with a Copic marker and used a DecoArt gold paint pen to outline the Oval Spellbinders Nestability die cut. I layered an embossed piece of pearly bronze paper behind it (Cuttlebug Ornamental Iron) and a metallic gold paper cut with a Standard Scalloped Square Spellbinders Nestability.

I embellished it with Prima Marketing pearls and used Basic Grey letter stickers (old-not sure which collection) to write "Pascha."

Have a wonderful day and thanks for taking a peek!

Spring Fever

Well, I don't really have a great excuse for being MIA; I suppose I should chalk it up to Spring fever and the general business of life. There are only a month's worth of classes left before finals week, and so a lot of projects and big assignments are looming on the horizon. The last few days, we've been preparing for Pascha (Easter) as well, and I'm excited to go to church tonight! The kids always think it's cool to have church when they should be in bed, and then the feast afterward at about 1AM is pretty fun as well.

My family is Orthodox Christian, so that's why we celebrate Pascha - in case you were wondering. ☺ I hope that you all have a wonderful Pascha/Easter as well!

Today, I'd like to share a card that was on the SNA blog a while back. I used a technique that I find myself using more and more - layered edges. You can layer all sorts of edges: torn edges, punched edges, even straight edges. This card is six inches long and so I grabbed scraps that were twelve inches long. That way I could punch along the entire edge and cut it in half for two identical borders. After I punched the borders, I cut them so there was about one inch above the punched portion. I adhered the layers, only using adhesive on the non-punched sections. After the adhesive dried, I fluffed up the punched part of the border and finished off my card. Pretty easy, huh?




Try layering different types of borders and see what you can come up with.

Cardstock: Couture Cardstock ” H2O: Oasis, Seduction: The Other Woman, Silk Road: Nomad”; Adhesive: Beacon Adhesives “Zip Dry”; Paper: Jillibean Soup Talk Soup “Chit Chat”; Embellishments: Blumenthal Lansing Favorite Findings “Garden Gems”; Ribbon: Ribbon FX; Tools: Martha Stewart Crafts edge punch “Lattice Arch”