Birthday - Happy 80th!

Hi Guys!

It's Sunday again and this week I've got a birthday card to share.  In the next two weeks I have two 80th b-day parties to attend so I wanted special cards.  I chose a dark purple card stock as the background and a purple polkadotted mat.  I was surprised when I reviewed my blog to find another card with the same papers.  I guess I really like the combination! 

This time, however, I used a couple of different techniques: one being I colored my gems with a "La Plume" pen.  I had heard that you could use a sharpie to color gems and pearls but hadn't tried it yet.  The pen I used, the ink didn't dry right away so I wasn't sure if it took time or "what cha see is what cha get" so I tried to wipe off the color.  The result was that not all the ink came off and what was left was a very watery color of lavender as opposed to the dark purple I had used.  However, I was thrilled because it was exactly what I wanted.  So now I'm not touching it in case it needs drying time!  

The second new technique I used was to make the bow with a bow-maker tool.  I think the bow came out kinda cool with a double loop. 

Another thing I did was to use removable tape to adhere the white scolloped mat to a piece of regular copy paper to run it thru the printer.  First I printed the sentiment using the computer's center feature.  Then I put the tape on the paper and centered the mat over the words by holding both up to the light.  The I ran it thru the computer again.  I could have made the print a little bigger, but I didn't dislike the way this came out either.

So no more talk.  Here's the supply list:

• Purple card stock from a super value pak
• Purple polkadot stock from Recollections - Pastel
• Scraps in my bucket: white for the middle of the page; run thru the cuttlebug swiss dot; cut with a scolloped punch (no brand on it)
• 2 mats: scraps cut with Elegant Edges page 47 the purple I used the shift and cut at 3 3/4 inches; for the white, I used no shift and cut at 3 1/2 inces
• Darcie self-stick gems

Hope you enjoy and are inspired!

Blessings & Hugs
Linda :)

Sunday's B-day & Get Well

Hi Guys-

I've been busy today.  It started because my neice had surgery and I wanted to make a card for her AND because I got 4 new Cricut cartridges for Christmas and have had no time use any of them yet.  Somewhere along the way, I got this wonderful idea for a card that had nothing to do with getting well!  As I pawed through my papers (and stopped to take time to organize my scrap papers), I found the most beautiful argyle patterned paper and just had to use it.  Then I got this great idea that that there must be an Elegant Edges image that would imitate the diamonds and sure enough, I did find one on page 54, which I cut at 4 inches, oblong.  I also found paper that picked up the thin red line in the argyle paper, so I was off and running.  I dug around in my ribbon box and found a piece of red ribbon that had come off of one of this year's Christmas packages.  It had gone through a brayer and was all crumpled and when I cut the ribbon, it fit perfectly on my mat.  The next challenge was to find an image and I spent quite a while searching.  Nothing 'grabbed' me because this was supposed to be the get-well card but it was looking so masculine, I just couldn't make it work for a young woman.  I was surfing thru some masculine birthday sentiments when it came together for me.  The sentiment was about a fiddler and now I knew which cartridge to use.  I cut the violin at 3 1/2 inches from the Quarter Note from a piece of black scrap paper.  The top layer was cut from a piece of  Once Upon A Time, DCWV mat stack.  The paper was already a little distressed but after I cut the violin, I used dark brown chalk to further distress it.  From the same paper, I made a banner that said Happy Birthday.  I put one end of it into a Fiskars punch so I could get the diamond edge.  Then I added tiny black pearls (the label at the top of the page got thrown away so I can't tell you the brand.  Below the card is a picture of the inside quote that inspired this card.

 I told you I was busy today.  Once I got started the birthday card going, suddenly I knew what I wanted to do with the get well card.  Again i liked Elegant Edges and I had already cut the image in lavender and the shadow in pink.  These were cut a while ago and saved in a photo album I keep of prior "mistakes" for future use.  I do remember that these were cut from the shadow function of the "loops" image on page 35  I usually cut 1/4 inch apart, so I'm guessing that's what I've done here.  The mat paper is from K&Comany Specialy Paper "Sparkly Sweet".  The butterfly was also in my photo album, cut a long time ago.  The jeweled ribbon is from a spool that I got in one of the discount baskets at the check-out line at Joanne's.  There's no label on the spool other than to say it's polyester.  I stamped the sentiment with an Inkadinkado rubber stamp.  The quote inside is the truth.  I DO feel better having made both cards.

Well, that's it for today.

Blessings,
Linda :)

Sympathy Card

Hi Everyone:

Over the holidays, I had need to make a sympathy card.  I thought I'd share it since I don't see too many on other blogs.

My sister gave me Elegant Edges cartridge for Christmas so that's what I started with, see page 35.  I made this card from scraps, so I can't tell you where the paper came from.  The card is of purple card stock. cut to fit a 4 1/2 x 5 3/4 envelope. The bottom layer of loops is a lavender card stock as is the top layer. I wanted to see how tedious all those loops were to dig out and surprisingly, they cut very nicely. I used the "Oblong"  for the loops cut at 4 inches.  The bright pink shiny paper is from the "Shadow" with the shift on at 3 1/2 inches while the top lavender layer is cut from the same "Shadow" only at 3/4 inches.  I cut the sentiment from Jasmin on page 127 at 2 1/2 inches.  I had some left-over sparkly ribbon from the holidays that I added to the top two layers.  And there is a small flowered shape gem near the end of the ribbon on the left side of the card.  What you don't see here, is the inside.  There I typed my sentiment and left space for me to hand-write a personal message and then I glued the page inside. 

Hugs,
Linda :)

Happy New Year's Eve!

Hi Guys-

It's New Year's Eve.  Hope you all have wonderful and safe plans for tonight.  I will be picking up the Chinese food in a little while and later on, heading to be with friends.  But I'll probably come home early so I don't have to drive after midnight.  I know, I'm a whimp!

This season has been busy and I've made a lot of holiday cards.  But the one I'm going to show you today is a little unusual.  I had to make an apology as I forgot one gift and the person's feelings were hurt.  I felt terrible so I made a holiday themed card and wrote my apology and included the gift.

The card is red card stock cut to fit a 4 1/4x 5 1/2 envelope.  I eyeball my cuts instead of measuring.  The border is a new Martha Stewart punch I got for Christmas.  The striped paper is from this year's gcd Studios "sacdia jul" card stack.  The silver paper (the picture doesn't do it justice) is from last year's DCWV Christmas & Winter Combo card stack.  The ribbon is generic red grosgrain, and the button is a specialty that I had left over.  The sentiment is on Cricut's "Stamping" cartridge.  I cut the words at 3/4 inch in white and cut the shadow in green.  The cute deer was cut from Cricut's "Create a Critter" on page 69 cut at 2 1/2 inches.

Have fun creating!
Linda :)

Pin-weave Snowman

Hi Everyone!

I'm afraid I'm not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog.  However, I keep thinking that I'm going to do better, and maybe I will.  In the meantime, I was really busy with card making for the holidays and below is an example.

First, I ran a piece of glitter paper (from DCWV's Christmas Winter papers) through my Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots folder.  Then I traced a snowman in the center of the back of the paper and used my craft knife to cut it out.  From scraps, I put the cut-out aside to use in a second card.  Then I chose 3 different ribbons from my scraps.  I laid a piece of scrap card stock down and using common pins, pinned one end of several strips of ribbon directly beside each other.  Then I took one ribbon and wove it thru the pinned ribbons, going under one ribbon and over the next.  Once it was woven across all pinned ribbons, I pinned it in place.  I continued in this manner until there was enough weaving to fill-in the cut snowman when laid on top of the weaving.  When the weaving was completed, I secured it to the bottom card stock with scotch tape, one ribbon at a time. I also made sure the ribbon ends midway to the margin of the top layer. I put lots of AVG gun tape on the glitter paper and laid it over the pin-weaving with all four edges able to be glued directly to the bottom layer..  There are now three layers:  scrap card stock, weaving, top glitter card stock.  On the computer I typed the sentiment and finally, I added the pointsetta button, cutting the shank off before I attached with a glue-dot.

Hope you enjoy this one!

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!

Hi Everyone!

I owe you all a HUGE apology for not keeping up with this blog.  I haven't written since August!  Ugh!!  First it was vacation, then the camera broke, etc.,etc.  Hopefully I'm back on track and it's time to catch up.

I've continued making cards and I have a several to share with you.  I'll do two per post.  Because I made them over several months, I'm not sure I can tell you where the papers came from but I do know the Cricut cuts.  Many of the cards I've made use my scraps, a good thing.

This card was fun because I've had the sunflower paper for YEARS.  It was a single sheet.  There's a black mat, a brown mat, and a printed bottom mat all on a white card.  The bee was cut at 2 inches and is in the Birthday Bash cartridge on page 46.  The pail and wings are from scraps of silver glitter paper.  The first cut was the yellow and the black was the shift.  Except for the mats, all paper was scrap paper.

The next card was also fun.  I was on vacation at the shore and I went into a "catch-all" store.  They had a few jars of star fish, each jar with a different size.  I just had to have these little star fish and came home to figure out how to use them.

The card stock is ivory colored card stock cut 11x4.5 and scored to fold with the back side at 6 inches and the front at 5 inches. On the front I cut a mat from K&C Company's Designer Mat Pat. I used Create a Critter for the 2.5 inch sea horse using Green scraps for the first cut, yellow scraps for layer 2, almond color scrap of layer 3, and a chocolate brown scrap for the shadow cut. I used lime green for a cut with the accessories for the second layer of grass. On page 44 I used the Accessory and shift to cut the tall grass in a darker green scrap. I used a fancy sissor to cut the right edge of the front of the card and used a dark green marker to color the edge.I had a piece of cork paper that I cut for a mat as well a to represent the bobbers on the fishing net. The fishing net is really the soccer net on page 52 of Every Day Paper Dolls. I cut the sides off the net and repositioned them to create folds. And finally the inside sentiment is below.

That's it for today. Hope you all have a great time creating.  Hope you get inspired!

Love,

Linda :)

Get Well!

Hi Everyone-

It is Wednesday evening.  Has been a busy day with lots of running around. Mom's doctor appt produced 4 more appts.  I don't mean to complain but I can't figure out people who do the part of mom care that I do as well as the daily chores, etc.  I'm lucky in that my sister does the day to day stuff and my other sister does much of the big stuff.  So it's shared and still I'm worn out! I'm blessed that I teach private piano and voice lessons and that I have wonderful students.  I can get lost in their growth and the music.  So after the lessons, I felt some relief from the mom stuff.

I hadn't noticed it before, but the cards that I've made to display here have been a real reflection of my feelings.  I want to simply life...and I posted "a simple wish".  Then it was the fishing card at a time I was feeling overloaded and sinking.  This is the first time I've recognized the old saying that "art is a reflection of life" in MY life.  I've been doing some kind of art/crafts for years.  Probably everyone else could see me in the projects.  But now I see it too.  Kinda neat.

So here is my next card.  Today was about doctors so the card is about getting well.  Fitting.

Again, I used up scraps.  The butterfly on the cover is cut from Cricut's Create a Critter cartridge, page 64, shift plus shift layers 2 and 3 at 2 1/2 inches.  The inside butterfly is from Cricut's Cricut Sampler cartridge, page 44, Bonus/Shift at 1 1/2 inch.  The ribbon is a glitter ribbon left over from a flower arrangement.  The scolloped edge on the get well sentiment, is a punch.  Since the card stock was the deep purple, I put the inside sentiment on a full piece of copy paper so I could add a personal note when I'm ready to send the note.

Hope you enjoy the card and I look forward to hearing your comments.

Til Saturday, blessings to you.

Linda :)