Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Best Wishes, Veronica


On of my co-workers has taken a new job and will be leaving us this Friday. I made this card for her as a farewell. I'm hoping that she doesn't read my blog; I don't think she does.......

The flower was made for the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge, but I didn't get it photographed and uploaded in time to link it for that challenge.


The flower was cut using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Sizzix die; the largest flower is a page from a old book, glued to grungepaper. The black background piece is Amaco metal which was first embossed using the D'vine swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder, then was die cut using the Tim Holtz Ornamental Sizzix die. The swirl flourishes are grungeboard from Advanatus/Cropper Hopper. The oval was die cut using one of the Nestabilities oval dies. Lots of Ranger product was used as well, including distress ink and Perfect Pearls.

Materials: card (stash); black metal sheet (Amaco); black and kraft cardstock (Bazzill); grungepaper (Advantus/Cropper Hopper) music paper (the Paper Company); ink (Ranger, vintage photo); gold glitter (Ranger Perfect Pearls - both direct to paper and made into a mist applied using Mini Mister); adhesives (Xyron, Pioneer double sided mounting tape, mono-multi, pop-dots); embossing & dies (Sizzix Tattered Florals, Sizzix Ornamentals, Cuttlebug D'vine swirls, Spellbinders Nestabilities); die cut machine (Cuttlebug).

As always, thanks for looking.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

CCC #5 - distress powder

My first time to complete a challenge for the Compendium of Curiosities challenge. The details for #5 can be found here.


I was surprised to find that in my supplies of stamping materials that I only had 2 colors of distress embossing powder -- black soot and antique linen. I might have to do something about that!

I initially embossed only the birds with black soot, but added black soot to the spider as well.

I'm not entirely happy with the bottom right corner of the tag; I had used dried marigold for the orange color in the left hand corner and brushed corduroy in the right hand corner. I over stamped Trick or Treat with the dried marigold again and clear embossed it.


I might have to try a variation of this tag again and see if I can make that sentiment pop more. Linda Ledbetter the sponsor of the CCC blog posted this week that folks either love distress powder or they don't. I have to confess that prior to this tag, I hadn't felt like I knew how to really use distress powder to its best. I'm thinking now that maybe this is something that I can play with and really ENJOY more.

Materials: ink (Ranger distress black soot, clear embossing ink, distress antique linen, distress brushed corduroy, distress dried marigold); embossing powder (Ranger distress black soot; Stamp 'n' Stuff clear); stamps (birds -- Tim Holtz; others -- Inkadinkadoo); adhesives (Pioneer double-sided mounting tape; pop-dots); tools (Inkssentials blending tool with foam pads; Making Memories edge distresser); shipping tag; black sheer ribbon; black cardstock (Bazzill); corrugated card (stash -- maybe Paperbilities???)

As always, thanks for looking.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy 4th

Our Creative Corner posted a fun sketch challenge this week here. Hero Arts posted a red, white & blue challenge at Facebook.

I've had the designer paper for several years and knew that I wanted to use it for a 4th of July card. And here is the result of all this inspiration.......


Materials: cardstock (Stampin Up); designer paper (red--ScrapEase) (blue--BoBunny Press); ink (red--Colorbox cranberry) (blue--Ranger broken china) (light blue--Colorbox French blue chalk ink); stamp (Hero Arts CL054 Clear Design July); die cuts (Grungeboard shapes); adhesives (Xyron; All Night Media pop-dots; Scotch pop-up foam squares).

Thanks for looking.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy Birthday, Cindy

This card was made in late April for the April birthday of my co-worker, Cindy. She only received the card a few days ago. Can you say timely? NOT!!!


The card was inspired by this card sketch. I really liked this sketch and will probably use it again. In keeping with my goal of reducing the amount of stuff that I have in the stash, all of the materials are from the stash. I liked using the matstack because it made "matching the papers" easy; all the spring colors were "related".

Materials used: paper (Die Cuts With a View spring matstack); cardstock (DCWV Spring cardstock matstack & SU white c/s); ink (Colorbox); stamp (Hero Arts); adhesives (pop-dots on ALL the squares and Pioneer double-sided mounting tape for other layers). Tools used: Cuttlebug machine, Nestabilities (square die).

Thanks for looking.

Happy Birthday, Rubi

I've been wanting to purchase the Tim Holtz Birdcage die for quite some time and finally found it this weekend at one of the LSS.

My co-worker, Rubi, likes birds almost as much as I do, so I thought that it would be nice to use the die cuts for her card.

Since I'm still trying to "use it up" with old materials that I have on hand, the die was the only thing new purchased for this card. I'm going to be a little depressed when I finally use up my supply of Amaco Art Emboss metal (which supply I bought with coupons at Michaels in Florida). I think Mike's has discontinued carrying the product and I'm not sure which will be harder: living without the Art Emboss or paying full price at the stamping store.


The bird cage was die cut from Art Emboss. The bird and wing from scrapbook paper. The background paper is an ancient piece of scrapbook paper that had very faint images of postage stamps on it. With the embossing and distressing done to it, you can barely make out the already faint images. The cage was distressed with Tim Holtz alcohol inks; the bird and wing were distressed with Tim Holtz distress inks. All the details are below.

Materials used: card/envelope (Canson All Purpose Greeting cards); cardstock (white, SU; brown, Bazzill); paper (background - stash & Provo Craft - bird); metal (Art Emboss medium pewter); inks: alcohol (slate, meadow), stamping inks (TH antique linen, walnut stain & Colorbox black); flowers (primas); brads & tag (Making Memories); ribbon (1/8-inch black satin from stash); stamp (Hero Arts); adhesives (Diamond Glaze & Pioneer double sided mounting tape & pop-dots under the wing). Tools used: Cuttlebug machine & Script texture folder, Tim holtz inking handles, Making Memories Tag Maker.

Thanks for looking.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Kamakura 2010

I guess it's time for me to come out of lurk mode. I've been back from my adventure to Japan for more than 6 weeks. I've just stayed busy with some health issues and haven't really done much/any cardmaking -- so nothing to show on the blog.

I did start a digital scrapbooking class online and thought I'd start showing off some of my photos from Japan.

For my cardmaking friends I'll start posting again. soon. I hope.......



Thanks for looking.


Saturday, March 27, 2010

February birthday card

One of my co-workers LOVES everything Japanese (especially Geishas). Using the Kanji symbols from the Cricut cartridge, Pagoda seemed like a no-brainer for this February birthday card.

The red and black card stocks are Bazzill; the gold beneath the Kanji symbol is some old stash from the 90's. The pink floral paper was sent as part of a set of lovely Japanese papers. My daughter (who gifted me the paper at Christmas) knows the name of the paper, but it escapes me now. I used my favorite Pioneer double-sided mounting tape to adhere the various layers together. The flowers are primas with a gold brad (maybe Making Memories?) to hold it together.


I'm going to Japan later in the year and I think I should be able to make more good use of the Cricut Pagoda cartridge.

Thanks for looking.

Happy Birthday cards, complete

I finally finished the last of the three needed birthday cards and got better photos of all the cards together. My DSLR was being wonky with the pop-up flash and the photos of the previous cards were taken with my point and shoot. Not so good.


The third card is another variation using the same ole Pebbles in my Pocket card stock from decades ago. :)

It also has some die cuts from the Cricut, Old West cartridge. The marks on the die cuts were highlighted with a Marvy Uchida pen and the edges on the cacti were darkened to make them stand out. The same Hero Arts Happy Birthday greeting was stamped with the same Sepia Archival ink. Same adhesives. Same, but different!


I'm looking forward to playing with this Cricut cartridge more in the future. Living in Arizona will hopefully make it a useful purchase.

Thanks as always for taking the time to visit at my blog.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Happy Birthday parade continues

Card Patterns Sketch 56 caught my fancy when I was blurfing and I thought that I'd like to use this sketch for one of the March coworker birthday cards.


I didn't use the square design (because I wanted to keep all 3 cards that I'm making the same size for all 3 coworkers), but I think the design translated well enough to the 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 format.

Pretty much the same materials as last night's posting: old Pebbles in my Pocket cardstock, Hero Arts stamp with Ranger Sepia ink. Same Nestabilities dies (just bigger circles); same Cricut Old West coyote but this time with a cactus. Once again I used Marvy Uchida pens to accent the die cuts to give them a little contrast from the background paper.

It's been awhile since I'd posted any card, so I forgot last night to mention the adhesives used. My favorite Pioneer double-sided tape and some pop-dots.

2 cards down, now just 1 to go. Thanks as always for taking the time to visit.


Monday, March 22, 2010

birthday cards on parade

After a rather long hiatus from this blog (and I'm sorry to say mostly from crafting as well), I'm in need of birthday cards and so old habits are being awakened.

March has 4 birthdays at work (including my own) and all 3 of the other March birthdays are big southwestern fans. So today's card was made with the design inspiration from Our Creative Corner's current sketch challenge.


I was intrigued with the designs that Provo Craft included on their new Cricut cartridge, Old West, so I chose that cartridge for the die cuts. A Marvy Uchida pen was used to highlight the marks cut into the die cuts as well as to highlight the edges. The greeting is from Hero Arts, CL139, stamped with Ranger's Sepia archival ink. The circles were die cut with Nestabilities circles. All the card stock is from my stash; it's an ancient collection that I purchased sometime in the late 90's?? Maybe?? From the Pebbles in my Pocket store that was in Las Vegas.

One down; 2 to go. Plus in the next couple of days I'll upload the birthday card that was made for February. Thanks for looking.