Roses in Winter

I have decided to make some cards for my grandmother's birthday coming up on Thanksgiving Day as a gift to her. This is for my other grandmother! She is a fellow scrapbooker, when she feels like going up to her attic/workroom to work on her books. So, I know that she would appreciate these cards!

I haven't used one of my favorite sets in quite a while, and now that I have a new package of watercolor paper, I decided to try it and see what I could come up with. All I did was stamp in Regal Rose and Mellow Moss, using regular dye ink (classic ink pads), and then using my Aqua Painter and blended it all in to make it run together. The other card is Pale Plum and Mellow Moss. Same technique. They turned out quite good, I think! I'm impressed anyway! Wish I had more Regal Rose paper!!!!!! How annoying to find a great combination and not have enough paper to make more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, that will have to be on my next order!

Happy Stamping!

Black Magic

The other day I was surfing the internet and I found some samples of "black magic" cards. Where you use black cardstock, and stamp your image with White Craft ink. Then you heat the ink and color your image with colored pencils. I'm sure metallic colored pencils would show up better, but I was surprised at how nice my colors came through. I just used my Prisma colored pencils. I tried to stamp with StazOn White, but it was very faint. The White Craft ink showed up so much better.

Here are a couple samples of what I created. I bought a bunch of 2008-2009 planners at Michael's. They were on sale for $1.00 each! Couldn't pass them up!!!!!!!!! I was trying to come up with an idea to decorate them, when I found the black magic info. So, I tried it out, and really liked the end result. So, I just found all my flower stamps that I could color inside of, and stamped the day away! The only bad thing is that you can see the reflection of my camera when I took all these pictures. Oh well!!!!!

Happy stamping!

Christmas at Michael's!

Next month, I have a Christmas card class. I needed to make them simple and easy to make, since we are making 5 in 2 hours and not use a lot of supplies. I think these turned out ok. We'll see!

They are all using the same Christmas Paper Stack, with embellishments like ribbon and tags. I used 1 stamp set from Michael's. So, there are not a lot of things to purchase to make these cards. And, someone could use either the layout, or the card itself as their Christmas card. They are really easy to do in an assembly line....

Happy stamping!

Family Baby Shower

Tomorrow I have a baby shower to go to. Now that I'm really into alternative paper crafting, and really getting away from scrapbooking and boring cards, I want to make all my gifts and do all kinds of cool stuff to my cards!

So, for this gift, which this is for a cousin who could probably care less about this stuff, I made a cute box called the "2-5-7-10 box", which you can find the directions and all the juicy details at splitcoast. I saw quite a few of these and had to try it! So, this is my first box. It turned out better than I anticipated! I put some of Jack's Halloween candy in there!!! What a great way to give away candy! Give it to a pregnant woman!!!! LOL!!!! But, I just thought this was so cute! And the stamp of this pregnant woman really has a book in her hand. Well, why not tie the gift inside to the outside! So, I had some embellishments from my Halloween cards that I didn't get a chance to use, so the candy bar came in handy!

The last card is called a "Magic Card". This was SO hard to make! This is obviously something that will have to be practiced time and time again. Maybe once I'm good at it, this can be a Michael's class. It took me ALL NIGHT to make this! Well, all evening, anyway. It's a really cool idea, and I love the finished product, but JEEZ!!!!!!! I felt like this card would never be finished! There are more than 20 directions to make this sucker! And mine isn't even that good! But it does look better in real life than online! Although, after looking at some actual Stampin' Up Demonstrators' "magic cards" on Splitcoast, I do have to say that mine is nicer than some of theirs! Good God! That's for another post though! But let me just say that there are some really awesome card makers out there, and then there are some that should just not share their work!
Anyway, so, this card is NOT my best work but it's 11:30 and I'm sick of sitting in this chair!

Off to my romance novel!

Happy Stamping!!!!

Oldies but Goodies!

I'm really excited to have this blog, just to have a place to post my pictures of the cards that I make! There are a bunch of pictures that I'm posting today. I have been quite the busy little bee! I had to make two regular cards, and then a card and a box for a baby shower tomorrow. More on that later....

Anyway, the first picture is a sympathy card. I hate making sympathy cards. I usually don't make them. I make excuses, "I don't have any sympathy word stamps", "I waited too long", blah, blah, blah. I just hate making them! Plus, I never know what to say!!!! So, for this card, I took the background from a Christmas card that I saw on Splitcoast, and then adapted it to what I was trying to get. I really didn't have a picture in my head of the finished product. I just was kind of letting my stamps lead me! It turned out ok. I love it when I can dress things up with ribbon and metal!

The second card which is like 5 pictures long!!!, is a waterfall card that I was taught a few years ago. Nothing like bringing out the oldies but goodies! This is for a family who has moved and the sentiment that I wrote underneath all those trees is "May you enjoy many wonderful seasons in your new home!" I thought it turned out nice.....

Next post will be the rest of my stuff.....

Thank you cards

Last night I worked on these thank you cards for a baby shower. I think they turned out really well! Considering I don't have any dog stamps! And the person who these are going to is not an immediate relative, who I highly doubt knows a lot about stamps and paper crafting, so, it works! I made them so they matched the onesie that I am adding to the gift.

Every time I surf the internet, I find new and interesting things! Today I added a playlist! These are some of my favorite songs from when I was little to now.

Enjoy the music and thanks for visiting!

Happy Halloween continued!

I forgot to mention that I also made a fall pin. Jaime, hint to you, we can make these for our craft shows!!!! I love working with dominos and seeing what can be created on them! They are really small, so you really have to work with your imagination! But, the finished product is always interesting!

This is what I put in Jack's teacher's treat box. Hope she likes it!

Happy Stamping!

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Halloween! The kids are really looking forward to Trick or Treat night! Kevin and I are even dressing up! Can't wait to see those pictures!

Here's one picture of some Halloween cards I made. I was ahead of myself and had them done by the beginning of September. Here it is, the end of October, and I haven't started my Christmas cards!

And here's a couple pictures of a treat for Jack's teacher for Halloween. Since this is all new to me, I don't know if I need to make a treat or gift for every holiday or just Christmas and the end of the year?! Oh well, it's done and cute and I enjoyed making it! Let me just say Thank God for Embossing Powder and Craft ink!!!!!! I finally got it right the third time around! And as the Queen of Cliche's, "The third try's a charm!"

Happy Halloween!

The Mills Michaels

Well, yesterday, I quit at the Butler Michaels. It's like a HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders! I no longer have to drive all the way up there for NO reason! Now I can focus on ONE Michael's! I really hope to get a lot of people to come to my classes! I hope that I can create some awesome projects! What a task! I'm really looking forward to it! I just have a feeling that I'll be better off at the Mills. I have more creative freedom, and since it's a new store, I'll be able to daw people in. Come back often to look at my blog, because all these new projects will be on here! Hope they'll be appetizing enough to want to make on your own!

Wish me LOTS of luck!!!!

Happy Stamping!

Different techniques

Here are a couple pictures of cards that I have made for birthdays. Boy are there a lot of birthdays in October! I'm trying to keep up! I have one more to make, and then I should be ok.
The first picture is one that I stole the idea from Splitcoaststampers and modified it. I made it for my Grandmother who turned 88!!!! The technique on this card is paper piercing aroun the white paper.





The second picture is my cousin's card. He's turning 12, but I just love the Loads of Love stamp set! And the technique in this one is kool-aid mixed clear embossing powder which makes: scratch and sniff!!!! Thanks to Heather Casey for giving me that idea!





The third card I made is for my other cousin's birthday who is turning 14. The only stamping I did was the eraser on the end of a pencil to do the polka dots. I know it has ribbon, I'm just hoping that it's "manly" enough for a 14 year old! I love using chipboard. I made the letters myself, because I don't have letter stencils that large. That was fun, let me tell you.....





Happy stamping!