Playing with the Butterfly Thinlits

These two cards are TOTALLY CASE'D from Pinterest.  Love Love LOVE them!  They're actually quite quick to put together just as my other two cards from an earlier post this week.

 I discovered a shortcut from the directions I found from the Pinterest link.  Don't go through all the trouble of cutting half the butterfly, and then turning and cutting the other half of the butterfly, leaving the center intact....

 Just cut the butterfly from the center of the card stock in one piece.  After you have all your pieces cut and matted, glue the center body back into its place.  No fussy die cutting.  Why?  1.  It saves a lot of hassle.  2.  It goes much faster.  and the best reason of all:  3.  It's EASIER!  :)

Here are 2 of my samples using the Painted Blooms background DSP, and I added some colored spiky gems from Queen and Co. on the corners that (in person) actually match the colors on the cards!

Supplies I used:
Stampin' Up DSP Painted Blooms
Butterfly Thinlits Dies
Blushing Bride Card Stock
Soft Sky Card Stock
Whisper White Card Stock

Christmas Cards 2015

I had a thought that I would give up the Christmas Cards throughout the year UNTIL I sent out my cards this past December.
I had them all prepared - signed and sealed - ready to go.  All I had to do was address them (didn't use printed labels this year), and stick on the return address labels and stamps.
After all the other work I did, it was a HUGE time saver for me!

 So, on I go, merrily making my Christmas cards all year long.  It's probably not possible that I'll stick with the 5th as I've always done, but I still plan to get 6 cards done, and I DO plan to continue with Christmas in July, and make one (a different design) for each day of the month.

Aren't those bows adorable?  It's the new bow punch available in the Spring Occasion catalog!  I used some of my old favorites, Be Of Good Cheer DSP, and my very favorite Merry Christmas stamp.

January 2015 = 6 Christmas Cards

13 Thank You's

I received some wonderful gifts, and needed to send out some Thank you cards.

I found this idea on Pinterest, and made a few changes.

 Stamp Set:  Work of Art, and Lots of Thanks
Ink colors:  (left)  Pacific Point  (right)  Bermuda Bay

 Ink colors:  (left)  Melon Mambo,  (right) Daffodil Delight
below, on the top left, Blushing Bride.

I really loved this design, and I hope you do as well.

Christmas Trees!

When I saw this stamp set, I HAD to have it!!!
I am crazy for Christmas trees.....  we have a 9 footer for the living room, I have a ceramic tree from my grandmother that my mother made on our sideboard (which stays out all year), and I have a collection of them that either stay out year-round, or come out after Thanksgiving until near Valentine's Day.

This stamp set is called Festival of Trees - it's also a clear stamp set, and so easy to use and line up the images!!!  This also comes as a bundle with the tree punch.  So easy to make beautiful cards quickly and easily!

After stamping the trees in Garden Green, I used the dots accent in Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, and Pacific Point for the lights on the trees.

The snow is a Cuttlebug folder, inked with Soft Sky and the entire card is sprayed with Tattered Angels glitter mist. 

Christmas Cards 2014

No, I haven't forgotten about making Christmas Cards!

As I said, this teaching full time really cuts into my crafting time!  I finally feel like I'm getting my head above water... so I've taken some time to get back to it (a little).  I still don't like it one little bit.

 This wreath was the first WOW I saw in the fall/Christmas Holiday catalog.  It's right at the beginning when you open up the catalog (p. 9), and I could see lots of possibilities with this. 

The wreath stamp set is bundled with the die cuts  (don't skip that!) and is a clear stamp set so you can see very clearly where to place the stamps.  I used Pear Pizzazz for the base,  Garden Green for the darker leaves, and Real Red for the berries.  I added Christmas Red Stickles to give the card a little sparkle on the berries.  Cherry Cobbler Seam binding bow, and the Decorative label punch for the Merry Christmas.
The wood grain background is stamped in Crumb Cake.

This card has some of my very favorite things...  the Merry Christmas stamp, and the double seam binding bow.  Yes, I've come around to the seam binding side!  :) 

Baby Card in a Box

My aunt and uncle were coming to visit one night on their way to visit my cousin (review the baby shower invitations)...

I'd seen lots of examples of the "new" stamp set Something for Baby, and wanted to make a card I could send along with them instead of sending it in the mail.  I also sent along some things my husband and I got from our local Babies R Us store.  We don't have children, but I LOVE going there!  So much fun just filling the cart with baby stuff you know the new baby and mommy and daddy will need!

 When I got this stamp set, I took a picture of the stack-able toy when we saw it at WM so I'd have a color reference, and I'm glad I did!    Instead of stamping the onsie and duckie, I just used some patterned paper and the die to cut out the shapes.

 

 I love the look of layered punches!  For the front piece, I layered 4!  From back to front, you have the Decorative Label, the Artisan Label, the Modern Label, and 'bundle of boy' is stamped and cut with the Word Window punch.  Whew! 

 Two of the other stamps come from the stamp set "Bundled Baby".  I water-colored and hand-cut those to add as accents.

I love the bear image at the right panel - it's one of the retired Build-a-Bear stamps I use on baby cards.  He's also water-colored.

The main cardstock color I used is Pacific Point from Stampin' Up.  The patterned paper is from a DCWV stack called All Boy.

Thank You Card

Mom requested a Thank You card for a friend...


After two reminders (It's been VERY busy here...) I made a card, but hated it.  It's been a long time since I've done any crafting it seems.


So, I dug out my favorite fall stamp set "Gently Falling", and my new favorite  "Work of Art', and merged the two. 

 I like the watercolor look from the Work of Art stamp set.

I used Cajun Craze,  Garden Green, and Smoky Slate as the main colors with a touch of copper Stickles to add some sparkle.

Stampin' Up Club Meeting - July

We have two really beautiful cards from July's Stamp Club!

 This card reminds me so much of a Chinese screen.  It folds to fit easily into a regular A2 envelope.
We stamped the red panels with Versamark ink, then embossed with white, and added Dazzling Diamonds as accents to the center of the flowers.  Black butterflies with either rhinestone or pearl bodies added a very elegant accent to the screen.

We discussed how this could be a really beautiful wedding card, and as I write this, I thought how awesome this would be as a baby card!

This card features the Wetlands stamp set.  We've now used it twice, and I really like it.  There are lots of options for masculine cards, and the sentiments are very pretty with lots of uses on other cards as well.

This card features the new In-Color Lost Lagoon, lots of framelits, the oval punch, and blender pen coloring on the Canada Goose.

I learned something tonight.  As a child we used to go to the Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin (where I grew up) to see the Canadian Geese on their migration flight.  Ms. Vicky at club tonight told me it's actually a Canada Goose!  I understand from her that Canadians get upset when you call them the 'wrong' thing.  SO  it's a Canada Goose - I guess the plural would be Canada Geese.  We see them flying around our neighborhood often, actually!

Christmas in July - July 30, 2014

This card features a card form I've used many times - the Stampin up Card Framelits.  LOVE LOVE LOVE them!

You can make them 'short' cut at 4 1/4", or 'tall' cut at 5 7/16"... and decorate so many ways...  limitless!

 The only new piece I cut for this card was the Merry from the framelits.  I had the gingerbread men from the earlier stair-step card (made way too many!), and the Merry Christmas from a scrap I stamped and hadn't used yet.

Here you can see the card opened up to view the inside details.

Christmas in July - July 26, 2014

 Here again I'm using the Watercolor Winter stamp set.

The only thing I can think of saying about this card is that I'm going to add a layer of black between the stamped image, and the red/green striped DSP.  I looks great in person, but having that layer of black, even on a Christmas card helps the image show better.

Christmas in July - July 25, 2014

There's a stamp technique 'out there' called Triple-Time Stamping.  I put a tutorial here with measurements of the layers.  I'll give you the link a bit later in this post.

I call this Triple-Double stamping.  It's the Triple-Time Stamping technique along with 2 step stamping which is a two layered stamp to make a single image.

I used the Watercolor Winter stamp set, and the Merry Christmas from my very favorite Bells and Boughs set.

The Triple-Time stamping takes a little courage, as it doesn't look like much when you're in the middle of it, but it always comes together beautifully!  Remember, you're stamping on layers, so some of the areas will not stamp along the edges.... BUT that area is covered with the mats.  

Click HERE for the post including all the measurements and instructions you'll need to make these amazing cards.

Christmas in July - July 23, 2014

 OOPS!  I meant to get this card up for yesterday, but I've been very busy getting ready for this coming school year - starting out with a full classroom and all after years working peripherally - it's been a hectic summer!  That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!!  :)

 Today's card is a tri-fold card.  Not difficult to make, just a little time consuming, but SO worth it!

This card does fit into a regular A2 envelope, even though it doesn't look like it will.

I punched and die cut a lot more gingerbread men than I needed for this card, so you're going to see them pop up in the next few days! :)

I used the Gumball Green Coordinations cardstock  as a base, and embossed the front and back panels and sanded them to take advantage of the effect of this paper.  I didn't emboss the center panel so I could use it for the greeting, and it would be hidden when the card was closed.

Click HERE for a tutorial on how to make the cuts for this very cute, relatively simple card.