Birthday Girl for PDCC141 and Verve Diva Dare

**For the Shaping Up Blog Hop/Giveaway post please scroll down.



I've been playing with squares of paper.

I really love the quilted trend, and I love cutting or punching a bunch of squares and playing with them until I get a design I like. That's what happened here.

It's a pretty simple design. I tacked the squares down with repositionable adhesive, and then stitched across. I'm not particularly picky about my stitching, I think a wonky stitch is often more fun than very neat, straight stitching.



Andrew often says that I get too tied to an idea/design and the sentiment/purpose of the card is an afterthought. It's often kind of true, and I admit that it's the case here. Since the Verve Divas are daring us to make birthday projects this month, I thought I would go with that theme.

Hope that your week is going well. My new CTMH goodies arrive tomorrow (including the new Cricut Cartridge!), so I'm looking forward to some serious crafting this week.

Supplies Used

Paper/Cardstock: Crate Paper - Pretty Party 6x6 Pad; Jillibean Soup - Homemade 6 Bean Soup 6x6 Pad; CTMH - Colonial White and Buttercup cardstock
Stamps - Little Inker Designs - Sentimental Flags Additions Stamp Set
Ink - CTMH - Tulip
Other: LID - Sentiment Flags Additions Dies; Scrapbook Adhesives - Repositionable EZ Dots Mini; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Sewing Machine

Card for CASE Study and Play Date Cafe

I haven't played along over at CASE study in a while. Laura Bassen is this month's muse. I love her work, it's so clean and graphic, modern but whimsical. Here is the inspiration card for this week:



I'm usually pretty literal in my CASE cards, but this one is a bit of a departure. I was really inspired by that large kind of wonky rectangular die - it reminded me of a butterfly, and that was my jumping off point. I also loved the color story from this week's Play Date Cafe challenge, and thought that the two challenges really went well together.



That fun yellow print was in a goodie box that came from Cath at Moxie Fab World. It's from the Hello Sunshine AC collection, and the print is called Brilliance. I love how bright and bold it is, and of course the name of the collection sparked the sentiment. The yellow is layered over Amy Tangerine's Oh Happy Gray paper.

It took me a while to find the right charcoal color for the card. I have a lot of gray papers, but when I think charcoal, I think dark, dark, dark, gray, almost black. This is an old Creative Memories color that I found in my stash.

I pulled out the sewing machine to stitch the layers together using both a straight and zigzag stitch.

The butterfly is from the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge. I cut a solid white butterfly, and then from the charcoal color one of the butterfly accents. It's actually a frame, and those dark pieces are the negative cuts from the image, but I wanted to highlight the white of the die cut. I was a little afraid that it wouldn't stand out enough against the yellow, so I cut the outer edges of the frame and adhered them just on the edge of the underside of the die cut to add a little definition. The letters were cut from the Wild Card cartridge.

I wanted to mimic the ribbon on the original card. I cut two small pieces of 1/2" white cardstock, trimmed one end to create the pennant shape and folded the other end under, securing it with a little brad. They were then adhered to the card with some dimensional foam tape. The butterfly was also popped up with some foam tape.



I had a great time making this card. Something about that yellow paper and the sentiment just makes me happy, and with the coming of spring, and more daylight hours, it just feels like the right card at the right time.

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: American Crafts - Hello Sunshine Brilliance, Amy Tangerine Oh Happy Gray; CTMH - White Daisy cardstock; Creative Memories - Gray cardstock
Other: CTMH - Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, pewter brads, dimensional foam tape, Bonding Memories adhesive; Cricut Wild Card cartridges; sewing machine

Argyle for Play Date Cafe

I loved this week's color combination at Play Date Cafe, and knew I wanted to play along, but wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. So, I cut a bunch of little squares from some scraps, started moving them around into different configurations, and this is what happened.

The squares were tacked down with a tiny bit of Bonding Memories adhesive before I did the sewing. I love how this turned out, and it was surprisingly easy to do. The most tedious part of the process was tying off and hiding all the loose threads, but the actual sewing part was quick and easy.

The sentiment is from Paper Smooches' Hot Concoctions set and since argyle evokes images of socks and sweaters, I thought it was appropriate (plus after an oddly warm winter, it has been CHILLY here the last couple days).

Hope you are all staying warm and enjoying what remains of your weekend!

Supplies Used
Cardstock: CTMH - Moonstruck, White Daisy; CM - Turquoise, Yellow
Stamps: Paper Smooches - Hot Concoctions
Ink: Pacifica
Other: CTMH - Bonding Memories adhesive, 3-D Foam; Sewing Machine

Here I Am! And a card for Play Date Cafe #113

Been so, so, busy lately, but in a good way. I've been trying to focus on family a little more in the new year. That means a little more snuggling, cuddling, reading, and playing with the girls, and more hanging out with Andrew. We have some new board games at the house. He's a HUGE trivia fan, and one of the games is called Logo, all sorts of random facts about companies (slogans, products, spokespeople, etc.), so we've been playing some of that, I've been trying to help with grading, etc., etc.

Not to say that I haven't been working on all sorts of crafty goodness, because I have, but I can't quite share all that just yet. I have a some goals for this year in the area of cardmaking (just like in scrapbooking). Much of it is similar - learn some new techniques, use things like my sewing machine more often, etc. The one big thing I'd love to be able to achieve this year is to get published. Yesterday night I fired off a couple submissions to Paper Crafts, and hopefully I'll hear some good news back. Either way, I promise to share what I created with you when I'm allowed.

I did, however, squeeze in some time the last couple days to play along with this week's Play Date Cafe challenge. Sweet Stamp Shop is the sponsor this week, and I had a set I hadn't inked up yet, AND it was the perfect opportunity to take the Vagabond for a test drive...

I used the Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folder with a piece of Juniper cardstock then sanded the embossed paper to get the white core to show through. Then I sanded another piece of Juniper cardstock and stamped the gumball machine on it. I used that image to piece onto the gumball machine that I stamped on white cardstock. The gumballs themselves are little circles I punched with a regular hole punch out of Juniper and Mint cardstock. I glued those on the machine and then went over them with Liquid Glass to get that shiny effect.

The twine is buttercream that I used in a semi random fashion, adding some swirls that followed the lines of the embossing. It was fun to be able to get out some of my new stamps/toys and just have some fun trying new things.

My blogging challenge for this year is to post at least 3 times a week. I so admire those folks who have days assigned to different kinds of posts (and who post every day, I'm not quite ready to be that regimented about things, but I'm hoping to be on track to meet this year's goal. Hope you all have a great day!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: CTMH - White Daisy, Juniper; CM - Vanilla, Mint (not sure actual names)
Ink: CTMH 0 Black
Stamps: SSS - Sweet Tooth
Other: Cuttlebug Divine Swirls folder, Sizzix Vagabond, Hole Punch, Twinery Buttercream Twine

My Creations Journal cover for Play Date Cafe

Finally getting around to doing/posting some more artwork! I've been experimenting with the My Creations Journal, which is a 5x7 size with a pocket on the front cover made from our Memory Protector material where you can slide in photos/artwork. It really allows you to customize the cover based on what you want to use the journal for, and at $7.95 is a great gift idea.

Anyway, I saw this week's Play Date Cafe challenge--incorporating a splash of color--and thought it would be perfect for a journal cover. This was really an easy project to do, great for keeping my hands busy while catching up on some TV shows. I used the edge distresser on the black and white stripes that I layered over a scrap of red paper, and ran that whole piece through the paper trimmer afterwards to make sure I got a nice clean edge on both sides.

The letters are from the 'Typewriter Keys' alphabet set, and then I used a Kraft Border sponged with black to finish up the left hand side.

I really like how the border mimics a spiral ring notebook, and the lines/stripes also kind of speak to a notebook in an abstract way.