Updated flower cards

I made these cards a few months ago. I didn't really like how they turned out, so I revisited them last week, trying some new stuff to see if I could get them to look better. I had bought these flower stencils and embossed them. They were just too plain all by themselves on the paper.

This one was pretty easy to do. Just emboss the leaves, dot and flower. But it's just missing something.

To update this one, I just put yellow paper on the background diagonally and then mounted the flower, part on and part off the paper. It just gives it a little more pizazz.

The hardest part of this one was making sure the petals lined up like they were supposed to around the center. Again, it just looks funny floating in the middle of nowhere like that.

I tore brown paper and put it on the edge of the card to make it kind of look like a tree trunk. I then cut green paper with my grass edge scissors and mounted that over the bottom of the stem. Now it looks like a flower growing out of the ground instead of out of nowhere : ).

Again, the flowers just look like they are floating in the middle of nowhere.

This one I just added grass cut green paper. It grounds the flowers and makes them look like they aren't floating.

Yet again, the flower pot looks like it's floating in mid air.

I put brown paper behind the flower pot to make it look like the pot is sitting on a table.

Make and Take Scrapbook Pages

I like these pages, but I think I might sell them at the craft fair next week. I've had them for a while and haven't used them yet, so my guess is they just don't mesh that well with my scrapbooking style.

This one was a workshop project from a Stampin' Up workshop. The title says "Snow Play" and it has those pretty snowflakes stamped all over the bottom of the blue and the white cardstock. Like I said, really pretty, just not really my style, since the only 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbooks I do are my boys' ones and these snowflakes just strike me as a little too elegant for a boys' scrapbook.

This one I did as a make and take at a crop I went to a while ago. All the paper is by Ann Griffin, if I remember correctly (it's old enough that I can't find the paper online, sorry). It was definitely fun folding that paper mat so that it looked like that. Tons of scoring and then folding and scoring again. It's really pretty, but I so seldom do one picture pages that I haven't used it yet. Oh well.

Girl's Birthday Card

It's been a busy week that hasn't left much time for paper crafting, unfortunately. We had a party last night for some friends, so the week has been spent tidying the house. Not that it was bad to begin with, but I always want it to be perfect before people come over. Though, the boys' rooms were BAD to begin with : ). I think it comes from them being in the basement where I very rarely go.

I made this girl "Happy Birthday" card the other day. It utilizes the "bloom dots" cuttlebug template I bought last week. The square clips my wonderful husband found at Staples when he was there picking up some transparency markers for himself and thought I'd enjoy them. He also got me a package of red and blue spiral clips that he saw that day. The flower is from the Autumn Leaves "build a flower" set I bought a while ago. I had stamped the leaves and stem, but the green pad was just a little too bright to look good on the rest of the card so I adhered the ribbon over the stamped lines. I think it took a mistake and made the card actually better for it. If you don't like what you've done, just experiment, especially if you're just going to throw the card away or start over if it doesn't look good : ). The "Happy Birthday" is a Basic Gray rub-on I picked up on clearance last week at Roberts. I had tried some other smaller rub-ons there too, but that didn't work out, so I took it off and started over with the strip. This one worked much better! Glad I only paid less than a dollar for those rub-ons or else I might feel guilty : ). After my husband bought me the clips, I was looking through the Splitcoast Stampers gallery for ideas to use them and several people had put ribbon through them and just attached them to random places on the cards. That's where I got the idea for the clips from. The ink on the flower is chalk ink that I bought at Robert's last week. I love the different look the chalk ink gives than normal ink.

A craft fair!

I was talking to my mom on Sunday and asked her if she was participating in any craft fairs soon. I'm glad I asked because she is going to have a booth at one on the 29th and 30th of this month. A little under 2 weeks. Now all I need to do is figure out how to display my cards, how much to charge for them, all that stuff. Maybe make up some new ones, maybe do a few scrapbooks like the birthday one for sale.

Tonight I redid some cards that I didn't like, they were too simple. One of them turned out much better, the rest, well, they're better, but still not great. I figure I've already spent the money to make them, I might as well sell them for relatively inexpensive, it's better than just throwing them away. Tomorrow I'm going to experiment and see if they look better with a butterfly or two in them (they're flower cards). Stamp a butterfly on scrap paper and cut it out, see if adds to it or if it just looks funny.

I went to Roberts craft store on Saturday. They had a leather desk set for $5 that I wanted to check out and see if I wanted to buy. It's pretty nice so I picked it up. They were giving away a Father's Day card so we used that for my father-in-law's card yesterday. He really liked it. I also bought a new Cuttlebug embossing folder. It's the bloom dots one. I saw it online when I was looking for the names of the ones I'd used in cards, so I could report to you my supplies : ) and fell in love with it. Was so happy when I saw it at the store.

Also bought some cling vinyl to cut in my craft robo (watch this little video if you wonder what it is). I was glad I found it so I can experiment with making my own window clings like I had read about on a craft robo yahoo group I'm on. I may make a few to sell at the craft fair. We'll see.

Well, it's the middle of the night, so I should probably see if I can get back to sleep. Thanks for reading!

Danielle

PS: Here's the card I picked up at Roberts.

Cards I've made at Workshops

These cards are ones I've made at workshops when my friends have hosted parties.

This first one I made at a Close to My Heart workshop. CTMH sells acrylic, unmounted stamps. It's a winter one. Oops, just noticed that I took a picture of the card upside down.

This Halloween one was made at a Stampin' Up workshop. We used the "word window" punch (I think that's what it's called) to make the fence and cut out the window that the slider goes along. We stamped 2 of the jack-o-lanterns, mounted them on a penny in the slider window with 3d foam tape. As you move the card the jack-o-lantern slides along the window. We then punched a circle for the moon and stamped the bats and spider after assembling it. We distressed the fence by inking it with a black inkpad. This was a fun card to make.

This is the card we made at the Stampin' Up workshop I hosted. We colored the birthday cake with chalk picked up on a blender pen. It allows you to use your chalk colors but gives you more of a marker type finish instead of the usual chalk finish. The purple cardstock strip was stamped with the "Petals" jumbo wheel from the Spring 2007 catalog.

This last one my friend had made before the workshop and handed out to everyone. It was a Stampin' Up workshop.

Friends Cards

I used the Stampin' Up "Mini message" set on this one also. I stamped the background with flowers and stamped a "Friends" foam stamp I had (by Plaid" on part of it. I cut out the square, mounted the tag in the center of it with ribbon. The eyelets I used in the holes are flower shaped.

This one I made with die cuts from Creative Memories that I found in my stash while cleaning it out. I had just bought a Simple Impressions Sizzix's embossing folder I found on clearance that said "Friends" so I decided to try it out on this card. I embossed it on white paper and then colored the paper with chalk. I cut the grass with my "grass" decorative scissors and mounted the "friends" on the grass. I colored the butterfly's body brown and used chalk to highlight the embossed parts on the die cuts. I mounted cardstock behind the cut out part of the butterfly to make it a little more vibrant.

Another one from the Creating Keepsakes kit.

Thank you cards

I've made tons of Thank you cards. Maybe I should actually start sending some of them? : )

I made this one for a craft show my mom and I did. I stamped the flowers, cut them out, arranged them in a bunch (mounting some on 3d foam tape), drew the stems, and then stamped the bow. I used an alphabet template I have to write the words "Thanks a bunch".

This one was made for the craft show also. I stamped "Thank you" on some handmade paper I had, then matted that on a different color of the handmade paper. I stamped the background with the star stamp. On the tag, I stamped the "Thank you" part of the "Mini Messages" Stampin' Up stamp set and then stamped the star over that also. I mounted the tag over the card with the ribbon and some brads, using eyelets in the holes so the ribbon didn't tear the holes.

This set is called "Window Box" and is from Stampendous. My husband and I went to Archiver's scrapbook store when we were in a town with it for a friend's party (we went early so I could go to Archiver's : ). We were wandering around and he found this set and thought I'd like it so pointed it out to me. I truly have a great husband. Anyway, I had owned it for a few weeks and hadn't thought of anything to do with it, so I looked on splitcoaststampers.com to see if there were any ideas in their gallery using it that I liked. I found some cards by "cropmom66" that I liked with the set, so I took her basic idea and changed it a little to fit the products I have on hand. I stamped the sentiment and the 3 butterflies stamp on white cardstock, colored it with my watercolor pencils and blended them. I then cut out the stamped images, mounted them on blue cardstock and then red cardstock. I mounted blue organdy ribbon (from Stampin' Up) on the bottom along with 4 mini brads and then assembled the whole thing. Same basic design as Cropmom66's (her idea), but my own little twist on it.

Same basic card as above, but with different stamps and assembled a little different.

Same basic card as above, but with different stamps and assembled a little different.

Another card from the Creating Keepsakes kit. The part that says "Your kindness was very much appreciated" goes in the pocket on the card.

Miss You

I was just playing around with my "Divine Swirl" cuttlebug embossing folder and I set of chipboard embellishments I had. I stamped "I miss you" from the "tag tidbits" set from The Angel Company on one of the chipboard tags and then mounted it with ribbon on the purple strip of paper over the divine swirl embossed paper. Usually I would probably have centered it, but I'm learning that it is more visually dynamic if things aren't exactly centered on the cards.

Congratulations cards

I'm trying to finish posting the finished cards I have today, can you tell? : ) However, as I was trying to publish this post last night, blogger kept giving me error messages, so I gave up. Thankfully, blogger now autosaves every once in a while, so I didn't lose the whole thing like I thought I did, which is why I gave up : )

I bought this champagne stamp at Shopko because I just fell in love with it. I colored it a light tan color with my watercolor pencils and then blended them. I stamped the "Congratulations" with the "Multi Retro" alphabet stamp set I have by "My Sentiments Exactly" stamp company. I then mounted both of them on stitched handmade paper I bought at Robert's craft store and mounted all that on the card body.

This one is from the Creating Keepsakes card kit

This one is from the card kit I bought at Micheal's before the last craft show I did.

This one is from the card kit I bought at Micheal's before the last craft show I did.

Cheers cards

I bought these drink stamps at Micheal's in their $1 wood stamp bins. I used some handmade paper I had bought from Robert's craft store a while before to mount the images on.

I colored the martini liquid with a very light grey color wash made with my watercolor pencils. I then colored the glass with a slightly darker grey color wash. I stamped "cheers" on a tag I had laying around (the cheers is from The Angel Company "Tag tidbits" set) and attached it with string to the martini glass. I mounted the image on the handmade paper and then mounted that whole thing on a card base that is versamark stamped with the martini glass stamp.

I made the same basic card as above (same "cheers" stamp, handmade paper, versamark on the card body), except I used a cocktail stamp instead of the martini stamp. I colored the stamped image with my watercolor pencils and again did a grey color wash to color the glass itself.

Butterfly cards

These 2 cards are basically the same, just one has torn edges on the embossed circle strip and the orientation is different. I embossed the butterfly using a brass stencil. I then embossed the white strip using a plastic circle stencil. I colored the strip with purple chalk and colored the underside of the vellum butterfly with chalk to give it more muted colors. Pretty simple card but I think it's very pretty.

For you and fun cards

These cards I basically made just to play around with my different dot images.

This one I embossed the red paper with my "Spots and Dots" cuttlebug embossing folder. I then mounted the cool gradated blue ribbon on the red paper. I stamped the 7 gypsies circle stamp on red paper, stamped "For You" (from the $1 Micheal's acrylic sets) in the middle, and cut it out using my "Whale of a punch" circle punch. I mounted the red circle to the card using foam 3d mounting tape.

I stamped the 7 Gypsies circle stamp all over the background and then stamped either "giggle", "smile" or "laugh" in the circle (from The Angel Company "Tag tidbits" set). I then added the ribbon over the background, stapling it on with Fastenator staples. I then stamped the 7 Gypsies stamp on a slightly lighter shade of purple, stamped {FUN} (from a Micheal's $1 stamp set) in the middle, and punched the circle out. I again mounted the circle with foam 3d squares.

Same basic card as above, just with blue paper instead of purple.

Just a Note

I was looking through one of my Papercraft magazines (someone on scrapbookaddict.com had given me a gift subscription to it) and came across a $10 off coupon to addictedtorubberstamps.com (or addictedtoscrapbooking.com) on any order of $10 or more. I went and looked around and feel in love with the Mini Music set from Stampendous (see all their mini sets here). I bought it, the mini party set and a set of snowflakes stamps. I bought the Mini music set because I loved the "Just a note" saying and the musical note stamp (well, and the rose and . . . but you get the idea : ). That saying was the basis of these cards.

This card uses the "Just a note" stamp on the tag. I embossed the musical note strip with a brass stencil I have, and then colored the notes with black chalk. I then attached a black eyelet to both the strip and the tag and hung the tag with some black and silver fiber I had.

I found this huge treble clef die cut in my Paper Sticker binder and the musical note stickers also (they are made by Creative Memories). I attached the treble clef and then spaced the musical notes around the clef. I hung the tag with the "just a note" stamped on it off the clef.

I liked the treble clef card above so much that I decided to find a treble clef clip art to cut out on my craft robo. I cut out the treble clef and attached the tag with "Just a note" stamped on it (this one is a different just a note stamp from The Angel Company's "tag tidbits" set) to the clef. I also stamped the musical note from the mini music set on the tag. I embossed the blue paper with my "Script" cuttlebug embossing folder and mounted the treble clef on that piece of paper.

Masculine card

I won the base of this card and 3 others for purchasing a certain dollar amount at a Stampin' Up workshop I had gone to. I decided the brown coloring would make a good masculine card, so I used the "Power Up" stamp set on it that I had just bought to do a scrapbook of the pictures I was taking of the house we built last year (so glad we're living there now instead of still building : ). When I bought the "builder bits" Stampin' Up wheel last month that goes with this stamp set, I went back and modified the card a little, adding the strip with the washers, nuts and stamping the rectangle with the wheel also. I made 4 of these cards, this one with the pliers on it, one with a drill on it, and 2 with hammers on them.

An invitation

I made this card for a scrapbook birthday party I threw myself this year. I embossed the flowers with a cuttlebug embossing folder. I stamped the "Let's Party" (a dollar wood mounted stamp from Micheal's) and then heat embossed it. After that I colored it with a pink watercolor pencil and blended it. I love circle paper clips so decided to hang the tags with them.

Sympathy and get well cards

Only one of each of these.

This one is made with a stamp I picked up at Walmart. It has the bandaids versamarked on the card background and then they are heat embossed on the tags and so is the saying on the word square.

This one is another one from the Creating Keepsakes card kit. It says "Sorry for your loss."

Valerie's sketch challenge

Valerie Salmon is one of the ladies that participates at scrapbookaddict.com. She's incredibly talented. She has a sketch site (click here) and recently on scrapbookaddict issued a challenge for layouts based on her sketches that I decided to participate in. I used Sketch 5 and changed it to a 2 page layout by doing a mirror image on the second page. Since I don't have a small circle stamp, I used ribbon on the sides. I used my "Whale of a punch" circle punch to cut the circles from Die Cuts with a view patterned paper. These pictures are from my senior year in high school.

Noel's Challenge

Noel Mignon posted a challenge on her blog to use a pronoun on a layout (see the challenge here). I had originally thought to do a "Me" layout using pictures of myself from my childhood and teenage years that I had around here ready to go. However, as I flipped through my pictures, I didn't have hardly any and those I did have make more sense in the context of remaining with all the rest of the pictures from that subject. I did stumble across this picture of my husband and myself about a year before we got married (we dated for 2 1/2 years before we got married). I decided to do a layout using this picture and the title "We!" I used my new flower stamps also. This layout is so totally beyond what I normally do. Normally I fill most of the space with pictures and journal a lot, but this picture pretty much speaks for itself and since there is only one, I made the big flowers to fill the rest of the space. But I think it turned out great! My husband thinks so too, except that he hates this picture : ).

Wish me luck on the challenge!

Danielle

A flower Card

This morning my sons and I went to Shopko and then to the library. While at Shopko I picked up a new stamp set, named "Build-a-flower" by the Autumn Leaves company. It has 34 different stamps, each one a different flower part.

Later this afternoon while reading through the scrapbookaddict blog ring, I came across a post from Michelle entitled "Well, at least I tried" (Michelle's blog) that featured two very cute flower cards. I decided to try my new stamp set out making something similar to Michelle's card. It was fun to do, though the card is a lot bigger than what I normally make, a full sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper folded into (my normal cards are half a sheet of paper folded in half).

The center of the flower is one stamp, the petals another one, the stem another, and the leaf a final one. I stamped the petals in orange and then colored them with a yellow watercolor pencil, blending it with a brush and water. I added a little rhinestone in the center for a little bling and tied some orange rick-rack around the stem in a bow.

A little closer look at the flower.

Thinking of You Cards

These cards are ones with the sentiment of "Thinking of You."

Another one from the Creating Keepsakes card kit. It was fun experimenting with different types of cards than what I usually make.

Please see the "Hello Cards" post to see my inspiration for these next three cards. This is a set of stamps called "Window Box" by Stampendous. I colored the sentiments with my watercolor pencils. I really like the vase stamp on this card.

Another one from the Window Box set. The lady bug is really cute. The top 3 mini brads are red and the bottom 3 are blue.

I love this butterfly stamp from the Window Box set.