Market Street Stamps Paint theTown Challenge

After all the layouts I've done lately, I'm kind of in a card mood these days (although I still have a few scrapbooking projects that I'm finishing up). I really liked the color story for Market Street Stamps' current Paint the Town Challenge, so I thought I would play along.

This card uses the Faith in You set. I stamped the flowers from that set multiple times on two strips of Gray Flannel cardstock using a mask in order to overlap the stamped images. By just showing a portion of the repeated image on both of the strips, I think you get an art deco feel that I really like. (Hint: for complicated images like this, where it takes a while to cut out the image, I save my masks for future use.)

The rest of the card is pretty simple, layering different strips/thicknesses of the cardstock colors to get the end result.

The sentiment piece is lightly sponged on the edges for a bit of definition and also popped up with some dimensional foam tape.

Hope you like it and are having a great weekend. We're enjoying the great weather here on the east coast.

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: CTMH - Juniper, Colonial White, and Gray Flannel carstock; Creative Memories - Navy Blue cardstock
Ink: CTMH - Outdoor Denim
Stamps: Market Street Stamps - Faith in You
Other: CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape

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

Customizable Card using Pemberley Papers

Just popping in to share one of the cards we made at my card workshop last night.

The Pemberley Paper Pack is another one of my favorites from the current idea book. Some really gorgeous patterns and I love the color combinations. This card is very simple, but the addition of some generational stamping, piecing, and personalization makes it special.

The stamp set used is Card Word Puzzle. There are so many different words on it that you can make your card say just about anything, so while I made my card an anniversary card, the workshop attendees each chose different sentiment. Since the card layout is so basic, you can easily pre-make a stack and then depending on your particular needs later on, add the sentiment to suit.

For the sentiment piece, I stamped the flower image in second generation using Desert Sand ink. The leaves were stamped in first generation, and I used both a first and second generation image of the butterfly. Then I stamped a leaf, flower, and butterfly in first generation on another piece of cardstock, cut them out and layered them over the previously stamped images to add some dimension.



These images are great because you could personalize them further using a marker, blending pen, or watercolor pencil to add some more color, but for this card I prefer the basic lined images.

Hope you have a great rest of your weekend....we're still recovering from that lost hour here....

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: Pemberley Level 2 Paper Pack, Colonial White cardstock
Stamps: Card Word Puzzle
Ink: Outdoor Denim, Desert Sand
Other: Colonial White Card Value Pack

Sending Hope and Love (My Tapes!)

This is not a normal card for me, I don't consider myself and girly girl, and I tend towards the non-frilly/lacy in life. BUT, I received some fabulous goodies from Love My Tapes about a month ago which included both their pink and green lace tapes, and I've been waiting for the perfect project to use them on. When I saw that the Love My Tapes challenge for this month was all about lace, I knew I had to play along.

It was easy as pie to create these flowers since there is already adhesive on the lace. I punched out two circles (1 1/4" and 3/4") and just turned/pinched/stuck, and it was done in a jiffy and my hands weren't covered in glue.



To create the flower centers, I used chocolate twine from the Twinery. I tied a knot in the twine, and then another knot over that, repeating this several times until I got a big enough ball/knot....maybe about 1/8" in diameter. The next part is kind of hard to describe. I should have taken pictures, although I'm not sure how I would have done that since you need two hands for this and everyone else was already in bed, but anyway, it's kind of like making a frosting rose. I used the knot as the base, added some liquid glass to the sides, and twirled the twine around it until I got it the right width. I really like those flower centers....they might be my favorite part of the card, so I'll definitely be doing that again.



For the flower stems and leaves, I used pieces of the green tape. The great thing about lace crochet which already has adesive backing on it, is that you can cut it without a lot of, if any, fraying. I used the thin portion along the straight side of the lace to create the stems, and then cut out some of the curved shapes for the leaves. The green lace tape was used as is for the grass.

The sentiment is from the All Things are Possible Ippity by Unity stamp set.

Like I said, this is a different sort of card for me, but I like how it turned out, and it actually looks a lot better in person than it does in the photo....one of these days I'm going to have to come up with a real photo set up at home.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Supplies Used
Cardstock/Paper: CTMH - White Daisy and Kraft cardstock
Stamps: Ippity by Unity - All Things are Possible
Ink: Chocolate
Other: Love My Tapes - Pink and Green Lace Tape; The Twinery - Chocolate twine; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape, Liquid Glass

Flashback Friday 21.0 - First Paper Pieced Card

This month at Flashback Friday we are sharing our first paper pieced card. This is a technique that I have come to love, much to my surprise. For a non colorer like myself (I would dearly LOVE to be able to color in my images like so many of you, but I just can't quite stomach the investment in those markers right now when there's so much other stuff I want, plus I'm a little intimidated by it, if you want the truth) this is a great way to kind of get that affect without actually having to color or own lots of markers.

Anyway, it was fun to look back over my paper pieced projects since they are some of my favorites, and I'm so excited to share this card with you again because I really love it.

My original post was about how you can use non-Christmas stamps to make Christmas cards, and this was just one of the cards that I shared in that post. I love this PS stamp set, and have used it many times, but this remains one of my favorite cards. I had a great time putting it together, and hope you enjoy it the second time around too.

Supplies Used
Paper: White Daisy, Topiary and Cranberry Cardstock
Stamps: Paper Smooches Hot Concoctions
Ink: Black

Cute is Cool Layout

Another layout to share today. I'm definitely in a scrapbooking groove these days, and since that doesn't happen that often, I've been letting myself go with the flow because goodness knows sometimes it's hard to sit down and get myself to finish some layouts!

This is kind of a different layout for me. I tend to scrap events, and this is more a moment. Still, I can never choose just one photo, so my simple solution is Flip Flaps. I just love these and in this instance it allows me to keep my page uncluttered.....just two photos, but actually incorporate five of them.

There's a lot going on in this layout, I did some experimenting, so let me walk you through it all.

The background paper was created using the negative image from some flower cuts for this card. I had actually die cut the whole sheet, but didn't want to have the pattern on the full sheet of cardstock, so I used some scrap paper to mask the extra cuts. To make sure that the sheet stayed in place when I was misting it, I just applied Bonding Memories adhesive and let it dry slightly. This makes it kind of tacky and not permanent, so I could put it down and then pull it up. For the mist, I used chocolate reinker and a spray pen.

The little flower embellishments were additional die cuts cut at 1 1/4" and 1". In order to get a more defined stitch image (and cut down on the amount of threads I had to cut, I used my piercing tool to mark the center of the flower. Then I started sewing from that point out to the edge, lifted the presser foot and turned it around, and went back over those stitches.





Since the stitching adds bulk to the embellishments, I ran them through my Xyron. This helps to flatten them a little and ensures even coverage of adhesive.



I also ran the letters through the Xyron. Cute and is were cut with the Art Philosophy cartridge and the cool is the font/shadow combination from Teresa Collins' Sophisticated cartridge.

The first photo of this post shows the base layout. Below are photos of the layout with the Flip Flaps open and closed. Sorry for the glare - it's always hard to get good photos when the page protectors are on.





For the journaling, I misted another piece of 4x6 cardstock and added a decorative element to that and the bottom photo on the 'closed' layout using some additional negative scraps from the flower embellishments and a fancy stitch on the sewing machine to dress them up.

A helpful hint for Flip Flaps: instead of just sliding the pictures/journaling in, add a little adhesive between them so that they are flush and you don't see an inside edge peeking out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: Colonial White, Hollyhock, Chocolate
Ink: Chocolate
Other: Cricut Art Philosophy and Teresa Collins Sophisticated cartridges, Sewing Machine, Xyron 5" Creative Station, Bonding Memories Adhesive, Love My Tapes Adhesive, 4x6 Flip Flaps, Pigma micron pen

Exploring the Solar System Layout

One more layout for Bella Blvd's challenge week. This one was to use circle punches, and as you can see, I went a little punch crazy.

The photos are from a playdate we had with some of Ellie's preschool friends at a nearby park. There's a sprayground there (which wasn't on as we were there in October). It's modeled after the solar system, and there are these big planets sprinkled around the area.

I thought it was a perfect event to scrap for this challenge since some of the photos lent themselves to being 'rounded'.

My punches are Creative Memories shape makers. I have both the large and small ones, so the circles range from 3/4" to 1 1/2". I also used CM's custom cutting system circles on the photos/mats in the bottom corners. The large partial circle shape at the top of the page was made by tracing a plate on the cardstock.

The letters were cut using the Wild Card Cricut cartridge. I really like the script font from that cartridge. The letters were run through my Xyron (in retrospect I should have run all the punched circles through there too).

This layout was a lot of fun to do, and I've been kind of re-energized in my scrapbooking this week, and I'm enjoying these one pagers. I've even got my next one all planned out.

I was thinking about how I don't normally do scrapbook challenges, and was wondering why since I had so much fun with these last two. I think that a lot of it is that most of the scrapbooking challenges out there are sketch challenges, and while I LOVE card sketches, I'm not a huge fan of scrapbook ones. I feel like they're often just so impractical. I don't have the luxury of owning a printer and home and being able to print photos in any size/configuration I want. I work almost exclusively with 4x6 photos which I print every couple of months from Shutterfly in large batches. Plus, I dont' think I've ever scrapped only one photo on a page, I think three is the 'minimum', and I generally like to have at least four.

I think that's why I enjoyed these challenges so much. It was more a technique/product challenge that allows you to scrapbook in the way you normally do, and the two week time limit made it a lot easier to complete some projects. I had a great time, and I hope that Bella does it again. And, I'll be on the lookout for some more scrapbooking challenges of this type.

Looking forward to a weekend with no sick kids!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: Bella Blvd - Winter Wonder Blizzard and Toasty papers; CTMH - Hollyhock and White Daisy cardstock
Other: Cricut Wild Card cartridge; CM - Large and small circle makers; custom cutting system circles, Zig black marker, Xyron 5" creative station