Archive for August, 2009

Paper Cutz Challenge #5 is anything that flys.  I’m going to have to fudge just a little bit since I made this card back in April for my #1 Daughter’s Birthday.

This has been a very busy week for me and time got away before I knew it, I was faced with meeting the challenge and no time left to make the card that I had in my mind.

There are three things on this card that flys… the lady bug, the bee and on the inside of the card there is a dragon fly. 

The card uses the Cricut Expression to cut out the tulips, grass, bee,  lady bug and the dragon fly.  The tulips have been colored using MCPT (magic color pencil technique) and a full blown description can be found in my blog post from May 4 – Tip Toe Through The Tulips.

This is my entry for the August MCPT (Magic Color Pencil Technique) Challenge on the Circut Message Board.  The finish card is 4-1/4 x 5-1/2.

Everything on this card (except the glitter) is MCPT.  I used the technique to even put the “inking” (or should I say pencilling (is that a word)) around the edge of the card and the large heart on the inside.

This card is going to be sent to my Pastors.  Every Sunday we are feed the Word of God and then a bunch of us goes out to eat afterwards. 

It started out with the new QuicKutz A2 embossing folder that I just feel in love with this week.  This one is called “vine label”.  This is a picture of the card it was mounted on. 

The entire challenge card is made out of Bristol Smooth 300 Series 100 lb paper.  Since I was going to use the MCPT on the entire card (not just the stamped image) I wanted to have the smoothness of the paper so it would take the pencils and odorless minerals spirits well.

I took the stamped image and scanned it into my computer and made it a digital stamp.  I scanned the chicks separately from the hedge hog. 

Then I resized the chicks so they would fit inside the label of the embossed card.  Then I inserted some text boxes and put in my captions.

On the second page of my digital stamp, I did a couple of more text boxes and played around with the placement until I got them where I wanted them on the card.  Flipped the card over and ran it through the computer.

Tip: I made a lot of test prints to be sure I had the position of the elements on the paper, aligning with the embossing on the card correctly.  Once I got the placement of the elements on the test prints I taped the card in the exact place on the paper so the words aligned up and printed the words again on the card.  I use repositional tape so the card would not tear when I removed it from the paper. 

Love this MS “THANKS” stamp.  It fit perfectly down the side of the card to create a border that expressed our gratitude.

Tip:  With the stamp you need to make sure you know how many stamped words you can get down the side or else you could run in to an incomplete words.  That’s not a bad thing if you want that look of continuous incomplete words.

So when you look closely you’ll notice a space at the ends and a slightly large space in the middle.  I did it this way so I could have two complete “THANKS” on the side of the card.

The flowers and leaves of the emboss card are colored with MCPT and then the leaves have green Stickles on them to give a little shine.

There is also some yellow Stickles on the grain that is along the path.  You can’t tell in the pictures but the chicks are slightly a different color.

The two “THANKS” are also colored using MCPT.  The hearts on the white space are from Cloud 9 and they echo the gratitude for the time and effort our Pastor, his wife and family gives to our church.

The hedge hog is printed and I used a Spellbinders scalloped heart die cut that has 3-D glue dots to add dimension.  I used yellow Stickles inside the bag the hedge hog is holding and on the fallen grain.  I added additional grain off the heart to show that it is flowing from the left side.  There is also some additional grain in front of the word With to make it look like it is coming from the front of the card.  The inking on the heart is MCPT and there is a charm that says “thank you” one more time.

This was actually my first attempt to take a stamped image and make it into a digital stamp that I could use over and over again.

I like the way the front looks with the wording and the chicks printed exactly in the right place.  What this means is I need to stamp off all of my stamps and covert them to digital stamps.  That way I will always have them, even if I let some friends borrow the actual stamp.

Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!

Did you know that QuicKutz had A2 Embossing Folders?  I have been waiting (what seems like forever) for ProvoCraft to come out with some new Embossing Folders for the Cuddlebug.  The new ones are on pre-order and should ship sometime in October (I think).

Well, to my surprise I visited a HL that I don’t normally go to and they had a display of QuicKutz dies and I happened to notice they had A2 folders too.  They cost about the same as Cuddlebugs A2 folders and they look very similar except the plastic folder is a blue color rather than white.

I felt like it was Christmas with all the different designs QuicKutz had that I had not seen before.  The above frame with the flourish is stunning.

I could easily seeing adding some flowersoft to this embossed flower stems.

This is a very simple background that will work very nicely with various papers and stamps.

This is a great simple Dots and Diamond shape A2 folder.  This again is a type of background embossing that will work with stamps of all kinds.

My personal favorite, I’m going to make this one for a card challenge I’m participating in.

Keep your eyes open and don’t get stuck in just thinking that Provocraft is the only one out there with A2 folders.  I have found them made by Sizzix and now QuicKutz.  They may be releasing and beating Cuddlebug to the punch on A2 folders.

Keep visiting I’m going ot make something with this little jewel very soon.

Aren’t these cute!!!!!!

So here is how it happened….one the things I do either first thing or before I leave is to check the $1 wood stamps at Michael’s.  Phyllis (one of my BFF’s) and I was digging through the piles of stamps saying, “someone needs to buy all these Easter stamps, so they will put out new stuff”!

About that time they bought out 3-4 boxes of $1 stamps (all new) for Halloween.  Mixed in this Halloween stuff is Autum things too.  Love the trees, the pumpkin, the leaves and the row of apples, and of course the little house.

The guy was so nice when he came back with another box he asked us if we were looking for anything in particular and let us look through the box before he dumped them into the bin.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time, this was sweet!

Now I have to add another shelf in my “Woman Cave” to show off these new finds and it just so happens I have a 72″ shelf from Ikea that is just waiting to be installed.  You know what that means, it will look empty with this little bit of stamps, I must fill it up.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Still working on the project for the Paper Wishes stencil but it is coming along nicely, so keep visiting.

Thought I would give you just a teaser here of something I’m working  on.

Remember the beautiful stencils I got from Paper Wishes and said that I was going to emboss with them?

I worked on this project Friday night and had great success.  This one reminds me of a stain glass window.

I’ll have more photos and more information when I get it completed but this project includes the use of a Cuddlebug and Sakura Glaze pens.

My daughter is at the Wylie Choir Booster Arts & Craft Fair, Saturday, August 15th and I told her I would help a little.  I’ll take some pictures of her cute stuff and then I get to brag how she takes after her Mother in being creative and crafty .  By the way #2 Daughter has great talents also.  All three of us has creative juices flowing in different mediums.  Hmmm, maybe we should open a store!

Stay tune for more fun stuff!

I know what you are thinking….”these are not the right colors”!  You are correct; however, this was the PaperCutz Challenge #4, to make something that was Halloween but not use the usual colors of black and orange.

This is a scraplift from Paper Wishes webisodes on engineered cards.  I used the scroll embossing folder from Cuddlebug (it has skeleton heads mixed in the scroll work).  There is a little bling here and there and I glittered the buckle.  The papers are ones I had in my stash and I used a Sakura glaze pen to doodle around the hat.  I also used the Clear Star gel pen from Sakura to do some line work and doodling.

The saying I made up myself and although you don’t see much of it in this picture, the deboss side of the embossing shows on the left hand side.

A few faux tags (that really does not pull anything) made with the same ribbon on front ties the inside to the outside.

Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you like the card.

Have you ever had that weekend or week that you feel like all you did was run around.  That is the way this last weekend felt.  My weekend was chopped up into several things I had committed to and I felt like I was meeting myself going and coming.

Now, I just have this overwhelming sense of …..I just want to be home (doing what I want to do) for a little while.  I just want to be in my “Woman Cave” creating something.

Hopefully, by the time this particular post hits the internet I will have had some of that time and over the next few days you will get to see some new stuff.

Oh yea, by the way most of my day this coming Saturday is going to be either at a craft fair, a farmers market or in my “Woman Cave” with one of my best girlfriends.   I can’t wait!!!!!!!

Challenge #3 was a 1-2-3 challenge, which means 1 ribbon ; 2 colors; 3 buttons.  I love the classic combination of white and black.  I know, it was an easy choice to make for the two color theme, but hey, I work.

I did step out of the box of making a card and made this box that looks very similar to a Chinese take out box.  The difference is the lid opens up with the little pull tab ribbon.

I think I need to take a lesson in photography because this really doesn’t show what I had hoped it would show.

Behind the buttons are two flowers (used the new Home Decor cart from Cricut).  Then I stamped them with a flourish design (using black ink).  Then I inked the edges (again in black) and pop dotted them to add dimension.

Tied the white with black polka-dotted ribbon on one side then added the button/flower embellishment to the other.

This is a great little box to fill with candy kisses or M&Ms for that one person you are always meaning to give something to but don’t want to spend an arm and a leg.

I don’t have a cut file on this, I just have a very rough template that I made and I use it to draw around and cut out.

I think this turned out cute; however, it was hard to stay with the 1-2-3 challenge part of this.  I’m thinking it needs more…..

When my daughters were little stores didn’t have the shopping carts decked out like cars.  I know if they had we would have used them just like their Mother does for them.

Oh my, these carts are larger than normal to accommodate the extra space needed to dress them up.  This one at Lowe’s is one of my favorites because it has a place for both of my little angels to sit and it also has two steering wheels.  That way each one of them gets their own.

Picture perfect; however, I’m thinking if Gareth doesn’t watch it Rylan may take the lead.  She already rules the roost even if she is little.  Hmmm, I wonder where she gets that little attitude from?   I’m thinking #1 Daughter is getting ready to pay for her raising through this little Nascar Driver.

Don’t you just love how everything is on the same wave length.  We had never heard of HD a few years back and now everything you see is HD.  Even the lights!

Joann’s had their Ottlite’s (some of them) on sale for 1/2 off.  I had bought one of these for my Mother for Christmas last year.  She actually took offense to me getting her the light, until I explained to her that it would help with her crochet work and now making cards.

I decided now was the time for me to pick one of these up.  Of course, there was only a couple of colors to choose from …one was baby blue and this one which is a “hot” pink.

I would have preferred it to be in black, yellow, or even silver but at 1/2 off I wasn’t going to get to bent out of shape.

Nothing to put together (thank goodness), just plug and play.  I have to tell you I was surprise about how much difference this little lamp made in lighting the area I was working.

It was also small enough it was not in my way.  I’m chalking this up to a good investment and by the way it was only $19.99 at 1/2 off and a perfect size for my work space. 

Maybe this light will make my photos look better since this is suppose to mimic natural light.