Little Girl

I love making feminine cards, especially for babies or little girls! My daughter also loves when I make these kinds of cards, but she would like it better if I gave them all to her. ;)

For this card, I used some of my new Spellbinder dies. I just love the new Nested Crown dies, aren't they lovely? This is the smallest of the crown dies and I used watercolor paper for all three die cuts because it's thick and embosses very nicely. The other two dies are Beaded Circles and Labels Sixteen. I inked over the embossing on the crown and circle dies and then I embellished the crown with Diamond Dust and Prima Marketing Pearls.

The sentiment is a Melissa Frances rub-on. To create the ruffle, I put down a line of adhesive and folded crepe paper over the top. After I had my first ruffle, I put another layer of adhesive over that and did the same thing again for an even rufflier ruffle, LOL ☺ Then I added a strip of pretty Lacy trim.

And here is the inside.
Thanks for taking a peek!

Stamping Technique: Masking

One fun way to change up the look of your stamping is to use masking. If you're familiar with how masking works with color sprays and paints, you'll notice that masking with stamps is very similar.

First of all, what shape do you want? Do you want stamping around a blank shape? If so, use a die cut of that shape (a mask) and place it on the paper you will be stamping on. Then you can stamp over the shape onto the paper below. When you lift up the shape, the blank area will remain.

Another way of masking is using the negative of a shape, in this case, a square.
To do this:
1. I used my Spellbinders Classic Squares Large and cut a square out of the center of a strip of paper.
2. Using the largest of the new Eyelet Square dies from Spellbinders, I took the square I had cut and traced around it making a frame inside the Eyelet Square. This allowed me to see where the center of the Eyelet Square was when using my mask.
3. I took the mask (the strip with the square cut out) and put the opening where I had traced the outline.
4. Using different colors of ink on a text stamp, I stamped three times. I then stamped a "thank you" sentiment over the top in black.

The text stamp I used was much longer than the square, but by using the mask, I was able to get it only where I wanted it.


Thanks for taking a peek!

Masculine Birthday Wishes

I love heat embossing! I wanted a dramatic and masculine look for this card and I figured black and metallic would be the way to go. This stamp set is quite versatile - if you look back on previous posts, you will see I used it to make some pretty girly/cutesy cards as well.

I used Papertrey Ink's "Up, up and away!" stamp set along with the coordinating cloud dies. For the sentiment label, I used the new Spellbinders Labels Sixteen - definitely a new favorite. I cut off the bottom for a different look. For the gold edging, I used a DecoArt gold paint pen. The embossing powder is "Detail Copper" by Stampendous! and I used Versamark ink.
Thanks for taking a peek!

Hit the Road, Jack!

I have a THING for pumpkins. I think they are just so fun and I look forward to using them on all sorts of fall cards. These fun little guys are made with the brand new Spellbinders Jack 'O Lanterns and they are so fun to make! I also used the new Spellbinder Fanciful Holiday set for the "pumpkin vine" and the new Spellbinder Labels Seventeen for this card. To make the jack 'o lanterns:
1. die cut and emboss them from light orange cardstock.
2. Before taking off the dies, ink over them with dark orange and green ink.
3. Place die cuts on yellow paper and cut around the yellow so you will have the "glowing face" showing through.
4. Adhere the jacks to the yellow paper and using a small tip adhesive applicator or adhesive pen, cover the yellow and add glitter (Or just add Stickles).
5. Make up a whole bunch of these little guys because they're so much fun :)

I used foam adhesive to prop the little guys up on the vines to add some dimension.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Spellbinders

In real life, I'm not overly fond of bats. I've had them in my house, and one even found it's way into my sewing machine cover this month - eeek! I was a big girl though and managed to pick it up with some work gloves and take it outdoors.

THESE bats, on the other hand, I love! These are from the Spellbinders "Nested Bats" set and there are six different bats. It's so easy to die cut these babies and prop them up with their wings bent out just a bit. I used a Spellbinders Large Circle Nestability die for my "moon."
I also love how the bats match the Nikki Sivils paper!

That fun purple sequins trim is just something I picked up one day in the Target $ spot. I used my Martha Steward "Deco Fan" border punch to make the black strip and the letters are American Crafts Thickers "Rainboots."

Thanks for taking a peek!

New Spellbinders!

I got most of my Spellbinders prize and boy have I been having fun! Here is a haunted house card I made with the new Halloween Fence Scene and Shapes. Aren't those cool!? On the inside of the card is the kitty from that set as well. To make the house, I die cut the black and then adhered it to yellow paper (I adhered the center, not the edges). Then I cut around the house, just making sure the yellow didn't show on the outside. I used Stickles on the yellow as well.


That fun orange bat paper is from Nikki Sivils, I love the shades of orange.
I've got more to share later on, so come on back! Thanks for taking a peek :)

Fall Continued

Here is another one of the fall cards I took in to the store. On this one, I embossed the large Nested Maple leaf (Spellbinders) with a Cuttlebug Ornamental Iron embossing folder. I inked over it with Papertrey Ink Terra Cotta ink and also used that ink to stamp and ink the buttery yellow paper. I used an old wood mounted text stamp for the background.

I used the smallest Nested Maple Leaves to accent the folded ribbon border. I simply sewed a straight line through it all to hold it in place on the yellow cardstock.

I made the sentiment with Papertrey Ink's "Mega Mixed Messages" set and a Spellbinder Labels Five die. Thanks for taking a peek!

Waiting on Fall

The kids start school in just over 9 hours, and Micah is still awake. His bed is too hard, his room is too hot, he needs to sleep on the couch...in other words - he's excited to go to school. ☺
I love when the cooler weather comes, and we've gotten just a tiny taste of that these last few days. It's getting down in the 60's at night and the humidity is starting to ebb away. Lovely!

I broke out my Spellbinders Nested Maple Leaves to make up a bunch of fall cards a few days ago. Here is one of them - I love bright fall colors! I used a Martha Stewart Deco Shell CORNER punch to make the border. Yes, you read that right, a corner punch. That's why it looks different than the deco shell border punch, the shells are larger and farther apart. If you take a piece of paper and use the corner punch straight on, you will see one of the shells. Then just keep going across the edge. You can turn the punch over to see when to punch - you will see a tiny bit of punched space. Thanks for taking a peek!

Boo!

OK, here's the deal - we don't really do Halloween. We let the kids trick-or-treat and they have a lot of fun, but we don't really decorate or do any other Halloweeny things. I take that back...we do carve pumpkins. But that's it. So why can't I stop making Halloween cards???????

I guess this is the only time of year that I get to do spooky themed cards and once I start doing them, I realize how fun they are. The colors, the mix of embellies, it's all different for Halloween cards. All I can say is that I hope people want to BUY Halloween cards this year, because I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to take most of these back home!

This card was made with the Nikki Sivils line again. That's where these ghosties came from. The sentiment was just made with The Paper Studio letter stamps. Everything's pretty simple on this card, the paper does most of the work! The bling lines are just from my stash, they're several years old - I had to cut them to fit. Oh, and the label is from Spellbinders Labels Eight ☺
Thanks for taking a peek!

No Tricks, I Promise

I love the colors of Halloween, especially the purple and black combo. I wanted to get a head start on making some holiday cards for this fall, and these are two that I cranked out this afternoon. I cut the sentiments with Spellbinders from Teresa Collins paper, it was her collection a few years back. I layered them on Spellbinders Labels 9, such a cool label!
On the first card, I used paper from Gecko Galz - isn't it pretty? The punched border is from a Martha Stewart Deep Edge punch. The swirly part is a rub-on from Black River Designs and the gems are just from my stash.

On this card I used some Nikki Sivils "Boo-tiful" paper. I love that line, it's so cute! I don't have much black and white ribbon, but I had a yard or so of this thin gingham. I think it looks pretty cute like that, and gave me a really fun idea for a spider card! Just put four of the ribbon strands on each side and put an oval or circle in the middle - I will be doing that shortly ;)

The sucker is left over from Christmas. I always try to raid the mini Christmas ornament section at Hobby Lobby after Christmas for fun little embellies like this! You can't tell, but it's glittery.

Well thanks for taking a peek ☺

Back to School!

It's that time again. A week from now, the kiddos will be starting their new school year and a week after that, I start classes. We have open house for the kids' elementary school this week, and because they just received their teacher assignments, I decided to make cards to give out at open house. Both are THRILLED with their new teachers ☺

For the teacher cards, both of them requested a book on the front. I made a card for their children's' librarians who work at our public library last year featuring a book and they both remembered it! I have to say that these books are fun :) And the best part is that they're so simple.

To make the books, I used Spellbinders Labels 7. I used the second to the largest for the "cover" and the next smallest for the "pages." I stamped some text on both sides of the front pages and curled up the edges a bit. I simply adhered a ribbon behind the pages to act as a bookmark. Easy as pie.

The first one is for Alexis' teacher - a teacher she loves dearly. This teacher was Micah's first grade teacher and Alexis' kindergarten teacher. Just so happens that she switched to second grade this year and has Alexis again!

This card is for Micah's teacher, a very nice man. His wife teaches the other fourth grade class, how neat is that? I used star stickers like teachers use on students' papers for a more masculine embellishment for this card.

I used lined paper from Nikki Sivils' "Henry's Brilliance" collection. The text I used is from a Hot Off the Press background stamp - I just inked the parts I needed. The ruler ribbon is vintage, my mom had it stored away from a long time ago.

The fun thing about these Spellbinders labels is that you can make little books as well. I made little Gospel books for my Sunday School class last fall and they wrote the week's Gospel reading inside. They got to assemble them, I just made everything ahead of time. If you don't want to make a book, these also look great just as a label on a card. Very fun and versatile. Thanks for taking a peek!

Still using up that hand-stamped paper!

And I'm not to the bottom of my stack yet ☺ If you're new, make sure you check out the "Hand Stamped Vintage" post on how I created the patterned papers you see here. I also used a flower I had left over from this layout, if you want to check that out as well. I love hodge-podge cards, they're so quick and easy!

I literally threw this card together in 3 minutes. I already had the papers done and the embellishments were left over from other projects. The kite was left over from a card that just didn't seem to need an extra kite after I looked at it a second time. The vintage image is from Crafty Secrets. I scraped the bottom of my tiny block alpha barrel to spell "happy birthday" and the line of cupcakes is all that is left from a Hambly transparency. Thanks for taking a peek :)

Crepe Paper Revisited

A while back, I had some cards on here that were embellished with crepe paper - you know, like streamers you buy to decorate for a party. Well, here is another one that I made and it is so easy!
If you happen to have a dress stamp or die, you can use that, but I do not. I just free-handed a dress silhouette and cut it out of white cardstock. I embossed the top of the dress with a Cuttlebug Folder.

Next, I took crepe paper and folded it over itself, starting at the bottom edge of the dress. If I started at the top of the dress, the next row would be visible on the dress, so that's why you need to start on the bottom and work your way up. I used my Glue Glider Pro with Perma Tac - I simply made lines and then adhered and folded the crepe paper over top.

I didn't worry about going over the edges of the dress, because after I was finished, I simply cut off the extra. To cover the top seam (waist) I finished it off with pearls and a tiny blue flower.

Easy as pie! Thanks for taking a peek :)