Archives: Cards #23

Originally published on June 23rd, 2013

Waiting until the last moment, I scrambled to finish my stamp club homework last week.  I got on a roll and made four variations.  My favorite is the first one.  I love the subtle colors and play on pattern. The last one was my second attempt at negative image using a brayer. This one turned out much better than my first attempt.  I love the watermelon colors and the simplicity of the star stamps.

This beauty of a card was made by my Stamp Club friend Sara.  She made each of a us a pretty card.  Of course, I got a new baby card with a nice little message inside.  I love the simplicity of this card.  Although I can't believe that she cut out that kangaroo.  So nice!

At stamp club, we made three awesome cards.  I always love Pam's designs.  I love the ruffled ribbon on the first one, but don't think I would use it enough to justify the cost from Stampin' Up.  The second card makes great use of washi tape to add extra fun to the butterfly.  The third card was sent through Pam's trading program.  The lady cut out each of the inserts.  So time-consuming!  But it does make for a gorgeous card.

Archives: Weekly Crafting

Originally published on June 3rd, 2013

I figured I should finally dedicate posts to my card crafting  and scrapbooking.  Over the past two weeks, I've done a lot of crafting.  My first task was to finish the boys' scrapbooks for last summer.  I am determined to be completely caught up before the baby comes in October.  I've ordered our pictures from last September to now; should get those in a few days.  Then I can get started on that section of pages to catch up.  I'm planning on switched to Project Life for the family album in October.  I want to start with a clean slate.  The baby will also start with a Project Life album.  The boys will stay the same, but I still want them all caught up.

Now on to the card making...

Last month I snapped up the Round Array Bundle (Stampin' Up) with the stamp set and punch.  I couldn't wait to try it out.  I used a pretty dark pink paper as a card base with a light pink paper to stamp onto.  For the white paper, I used my swiss dot embossing folder and the Big Shot to give some dimensions.  I like the randomness to this card.

A card class card.  The original design was different.  I messed up my designer paper piece, so I changed the design to work with what I had.  I like the simpleness of this card.  All supplies are from Stampin' Up.

A new technique I was trying.  We made an awesome card at class using Versa mark and a brayer.  I bought some glossy paper and tried it out.  Unfortunately the color did not adhere evenly.  I want to try it again and see if I get different results.  I do kind of like the tie dye effect I attained by mistake.  (Looks better in person)

Another class card.  I like the simplicity of this card.  The colors work well together to create a masculine multipurpose card.

Class card.  We were focusing on retiring stamps.  I love the play of pattern with the designer paper and the embossed piece.

I love the designer paper on this card.  The colors are bright and very cheery!  Class card.

This card came from me grabbing some random supplies and working with what I got.  I'm not in love with this card, but something about the mix of patterns intrigues me.  After finishing the card, I went back to add the metallic jewels.  Without them, the card just looks plain.

Another random supply card.  I would have loved to see a thicker font for better contrast.  But I do love the flower I constructed.  I layered different sizes and shades to create a better embellishment.

Class card.  I never bought them, but the button stamps really grew on me in the last month or so.  Plus, I love the designer paper.

Class card.  Love the mix of patterns on this one.

Class card. I love the rock n roll technique to create two color stamps.  But overall I'm not a fan of the colors and stamps on this card.

Class card.  Love, love, love this card.  I love the combo of purple, pink, and orange.  I love the simple sentiment.  

The following two cards were part of my homework assignment for stamp club.  We had a general sketch.  I decided to play with the alignment of the card to make two different cards.  Both cards used Stampin' Up paper, stamps, and punches.  I just love the Print Poetry designer paper pack from the spring catalog.  I'm rationing the paper to make it last.

Class card.  I love the 3D tie we created and it really wasn't that hard to do.  

Class card.  I'm not a huge fan of the color/designer paper combo, but I loved work with the Shimmer paint and the coloring techniques.

More random supply cards.  I'm on a mission to use a ton of my paper scraps.  This strips were leftovers from cards made a long time ago.  

Class card.  Love, love, love the color and pattern combinations on this card.  I think this is my favorite card from this entire post.

Class card.  I want to do a replica of this card with different colors.  I have all the stamps to do it!

Very cute little card.  I didn't end up buying this stamp set, but I still like the look.

Class card.  Like the layout, don't like the color combos that much.

Archives: Cards #22

Originally published on April 28th, 2013

A great stamp club meeting on Monday.  I love doing homework every month. It's great to see how everyone else interprets the sketch.  I got some great ideas from the others.  We also made three great cards.  I kept seeing negative cards, but no one had an instruction page.  I learned the secret: versa mark ink, glossy paper, and a brayer!  I can't wait to try it out myself.

I also did a bit more scrapbooking.  Finished summer 2012 for the family album.  Now I need to do summer 2012 for the boys' albums. I already have the pictures printed, I just need to actually scrap them into pages. I've decided to keep with my method until October, when I will switch to Project Life.  I think it will be a time saver.  Plus I really love their simplistic layouts and options for styles.  I put a baby themed one on the Amazon baby registry.  And I plan on buying a general one for the family album.  Can't wait to get started!

Archives: Cards #21

Originally published on March 24th, 2013

Monday was stamp club.  We made three cards and a 3d project.  The extra card (on brown cardstock) was my version of our homework.  I particularly loved the whale card.  I don't plan on buying the whale clearlit, but I love the play of circles.  I'm debating about whether or not to get the banner framelits next order.  I didn't like the coordinating stamp set, but the framelits are cute.

On Saturday I acquired a ton of new card supplies.  I had to try them out, so I made 10 cards, 5 color/designs with 2 options.  Some of these are sticking around until April stamp club as they are my interpretation of our homework.  I'm really loved the blue vine embossed cards with the polka dot flowers.  The colors look really nice together.

Shopping Scores: I was hostess this month as stamp club.  I bought my $50 of products to get the Sale-a-bration gift.  With everyone's combined total, I earned $50 of free products. Holy cow!  After searching through the catalog, I finally narrowed it down to a few great finds.  Our order arrived on Friday.  My scores: Four Seasons stamp set (hostess), Sweet Essentials stamp set (hostess), Wacky Wishes stamp set (hostess), Stacks of Wishes stamp set (hostess), 2011-2013 In Color Markers set, Secret Garden Bundle (framelits and stamp set), Glimmer paper (hostess), Vine embossing folder (sale-a-bration), Perfect Plum Ink pad.

A crafting friend clued me into the big clearance sale as a local craft store.  She picked me up early Saturday morning so we could get there before the rush. Tables upon tables of new and used card making and scrapbooking supplies.  People can sell their supplies on consignment.  We dove in, but the crowd was intense and the aisles small.  After about 1/3 of the way through the tables, we decided to call it quits.  But I did find some awesome supplies: 3 stamps sets from Stampin Up, 1 stamp set (manufacturing unknown), 1 double sided circle stamp, 1 square punch, 3 Stampin Up ink pads (basic gray, real red, and tangerine tango), 100 sheets of various paper ($5!), and 1 mini scrap pad ($0.50).  Such a great shopping trip!

Archives: Cards #20

Originally published on March 10th, 2013

I had a fun card class on Monday using some products that I actually own.

At class, I received my February Stampin' Up order.  So lots of fun new toys to play with.  I got inspired...  Lots of butterflies.  Using my new stamps and embossing folders.  And a couple of birthday cards for the boys.

Archives: Cards #19

Originally published on February 24th, 2013

A great crafting class on Tuesday.  All the stamps were from the Sale-a-Bration catalog.  I've got some great new ideas.  I love the new chalkboard technique of the first card.  I changed my order to get the white craft ink so I can replicate!  The last card is actually from Pam as a thank you.  I just love the colors of that card.

Plus I had a free crafting night at Panera where I worked on our scrapbook.  I completed multiple pages and made some great headway.

Archives: Cards #18

Originally published on February 17th, 2013

I had a bit of fun with my new butterfly punch this week.  I love the simplistic look of colored butterflies on a white background.  For the two polka dot cards, I wanted to play with repeating background images.  I stamped the same simple dot flair stamp in a yellow, light pink, and pink to match the designer paper (DSP stack from Stampin' Up).  In real life, the colors work much better.  Plus, I love the repeating colors.  I want to play around with the idea some more.  Lastly, I used another sheet of the DSP for the background of the "Bloom" card.  I tried to bring out the green of the paper with green ink, but it doesn't quite work right.  Maybe layering of stamps is a bit much.

Archives: Cards #17

Originally posted on February 10th, 2013

Somehow I only made one card this week.  Just one!  But I did use some of my new products. I love my new butterfly stamps and punch.  This is the small one, I have yet to play with the larger butterfly stamps.  And I got to use my new Sale-a-Bration stamps ("Oh happy day" and flowers)  I love the simplicity of this card.  I even like the pastels (not usually a fan).  Hopefully next week, I will be more inspired for crafting.

Archives: Cards #16

Originally published on February 3rd, 2013

I went a bit crazy this week and crafted a ton of cards.  Instead of cluttering up this post, I made a separate post yesterday to show off my creations.  As to general crafting, we had our first Stampin' Up Club meeting this past Monday.  It's Sale-a-Bration, so of course I had to spend $50 to get my free product.  Here are my goodies:

• Versamark (for my new embossing heat tool)
• Pewter embossing powder
• Small butterfly punch (coordinates with both stamp sets
• Papillion Potpourri
• Bloomin Marvelous (Sale-a-Bration pick)
• Print Poetry DSP (lots of fun designs)

And of course I had some cute cards to show from Stamp Club and Card Class.

Archives: Crafting Crazy

Originally published on February 2nd, 2013

This past week I went a little crazy.  I intended to sit down and make a card of two, and ended up much more than two cards.  My goal was to use scraps laying around.  Some of the designs just didn't work that well (cut out polka dots) and some were gorgeous (green with poem, flowers, and bird).  It's all about experimentation.

At Christmas, Pam had us make this awesome abstract Christmas tree.

I decided to take the idea and make some variations.  I especially love how the "make a wish" candle comes off the paper.  I colored it in with a bronze marker to add a bit more.

As part of our Stamp Club, Pam gave us homework!  Homework!  Oh my goodness.  We had to make a card based off this sketch.  And here are my attempts.  I like the coffee one the best.