A Set of Four

Good morning! A few post back I shared a card that used a sunburst technique and gave the link to where I found the tutorial. Well, I love the technique so much that I have made a few more cards.
They are similar but slightly different.

This one I used a chipboard flower and inked it with blue and green ink then sprinkled clear embossing powder and melted it with the heat gun. While it was still warm I sprinkled more embossing powder and heated it again.

 I put the focal point in the middle of the card and I had a small piece of the twine leftover that was just long enough to make a small bow.

 I put the sentiment in the middle of the scalloped circle instead of on the right bottom corner of the card.

 I again put the focal point in the center and on this card I inked the edges of the inside mat with dark blue ink.

 This last card is my favorite. I love the chipboard butterfly. I inked the butterfly with blue ink and again sprinkled it with clear embossing powder and used a heat gun to melt the powder. I did it one more time so I had two layers of embossing powder. I then added the big pearls to the body.

I like how the chipboard still shows through in some areas of the butterfly. In real life it is really shiny and looks so much prettier.

I also made a wedding card in black and white using the sunburst. I think it turned out so nice in the black and white pattern paper.

Thanks for dropping by and have a wonderful weekend.

Teresa

Cards to Share FINALLY!

I have been missing from blog land for a very, very long time. Our son became very sick last November and was hospitalized for several months. It was a very stressful time for me and not only did I not have the time for anything crafty I just didn't have any desire to create. 

But thanks for the power of prayer from all of our family and friends our son is out of the hospital and is back at work and is much better. 

I now have found a bit of creative mojo  and started making a few cards last month.

The first card is the one I made for my Dad for Father's Day.

 My Dad's birthday was also in June and I forgot to take a photo of it before I mailed it, oops!

I also had a June graduation and when I saw this card I knew I had to make a similar one:

It is such a clever idea don't you think? So I changed the color to blue and added some bling. It was fun and easy to make! I found the card on Pinterest. Go here to Two Paper Divas to find out how to make one for yourself:

  Here is a look at the inside:

 

I thought it was so clever to fold the money so it became 2015. I stamped the hat then hand cut it out to glue onto the owls head.

 This last card I just made today:

I have always admired the sunburst look but never knew how it was done. Well again I was on Pinterest and found a great tutorial video from Dawn Olchefske. I was so eager to try it out that I sat down right away to try it out. With Dawn's directions it was very simple to do and a great way to use up some scraps too.
This is just a close up so you can see the texture of the paper and a little of the shine.

I have also been working on some scrapbook pages so maybe I will have them done in a week or so to share but right now I can smell the whole chicken I put in the crockpot this morning to roast all day. It is really smelling delicious so I think it is time to take it out.

Hope you all are enjoying long summer days!

Teresa

Fall Birthday Wishes

Hello my dear blog friends! I finally have some crafty stuff to share with you today.
First up is a Thanksgiving card:

If those banners look familiar it is because they were leftover from the panel of this card. Waste not want not as the saying goes. I am tired of having bits and pieces left over from cards and then just throwing them in my scrap box where they are long forgotten. So I am challenging myself to try to use up those extra bits and pieces if I can and hopefully reduce my overflowing box of scraps.

This is the sketch I used for this card from  Pals Paper Art:

 

 I was a few hours too late to participate in  the challenge but that's ok. I had fun making the card and tried something a little different. I didn't take a photo of it but if you look at the card the orange strip down the left side is embossed. I used three different dies and laid them all on the strip at the same time and was able to emboss them all at once. Pretty quick and fast. I then inked the raised parts with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and the edges too.

I love that little leaf stamp. I can't  remember if I have ever used it before but it makes a great background. I used Vintage Photo, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint, Crushed Olive, Scattered Straw, Rusty Hinge and Spice Marmalade Distress Inks. I used gold embossing for the acorns and leaf image and black tuxedo for the sentiment. I had three short strips left over from my last project so I just cut fishtails on the ends and inked the edges with Vintage Photo. I also used Antique Linen to tone down the white.

My next card is a fall birthday card:

It also used another leftover piece from the same card as my first card did. Can you spot it?
Here is the sketch I used from Viva La Verve Sketch Challenge for Oct Week 1

At the end of the week they post a new sketch. They have some really great sketches so you might want to go and check it out.

 Here is the leftover piece I was able to use on this card.

 This is what it looked liked after I stamped a few more leaves and rubbed antique Linen Distress ink all over it and inked the edges with Vintage Photo.

And that little tea cup is also a leftover piece that didn't get used on this note card set. I don't know about you all but it really makes me happy when I use these little pieces up. I also used Antique Linen on the cup to tone down the white. The cup sentiment and teabag are all Papertrey Ink. I stamped everything in Vintage Photo and also inked the edges of the kraft die cut circle. I thought it looked a bit bare so I added the red gemstones.

I embossed the dark red cardstock with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. This is a favorite folder of mine. It adds a bit of elegance but not too much.
I have been doing some fall cleaning. Yesterday I worked outside and cleaned up our patio furniture so we can put it away for the winter and I washed all the windows inside and out since it was a dry day. So after all that work I was too tired to do anything crafty last night.
Well that's it for me today. Hope you all are having a great week. Come and visit me again soon!
Teresa

The Shabby Tea Room, Cardabilities and Lawnscaping Challenges

Happy Tuesday! It's a great day here in the Pacific Northwest and I hope it is a beautiful day wherever you all are.

After I am done with this post I am headed outside to catch up with the yard work and enjoy the sun. It has been such a glorious summer here so I want to take advantage of it whenever I can and I know winter will be here before we know it. The days are already noticeably shorter and the fireweed is almost done blooming which is a sign that summer is almost over and winter is fast approaching.

 Any way back to the reason of this post which is I have a card to share:

 

I used the inspiration from The Shabby Tea Room , Material Girl for the colors (green and blue) and then they wanted us to use material ( I used canvas for the material) and flowers (flowers are in the pattern paper and I also used teeny green paper flowers)

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Isn't this a gorgeous photo! As I said before I used the colors green and blue and I also used the dress form as my focal image.

For  my cards design I used the sketch from Cardabilities:

 

You really need to stop by their blog and see all the pretty inspiration from their DT. 

I stayed pretty true to the sketch on this one.

After die cutting the dress form out of sticky back canvas I embossed it with a Tim Holtz folder (the die was also a Tim Holtz die). Next I inked the top part with Tumbled Glass distress ink and the bottom portion with Shabby Shutters distress ink.The edges were then inked with Walnut Stain distress ink. To dress the form up a bit more I made a pearl necklace and around the waist I added belt of tiny green paper flowers. To the flower centers I added two green sparkle gemstones and the middle one is blue.
Next I die cut the stand out of pattern paper, inked the edges with distress ink and pieced it together with the dress form and added it to the light green pattern paper with the stitched floral pattern which I thought fit the theme of my card very well. I distressed all the edges of my layers with my distress tool and inked the edges with Walnut Stain distress ink.

On the middle layer I added pen stitching with a black pen. I stamped the round spool top image with a Tim Holtz stamp with black ink on a scrap of white paper that I had swiped with paint and cut it out. The edges were then distressed and inked. I made a lace banner and the other banner is out of white cardstock and edges inked with distress ink. I stamped the Technique Tuesday "Happy Birthday" in black ink.
I love the fact that this card is flat even though it has lots of layers making it so much easier to mail.
And since this card has lots of distress going on I thought I would also play over at Lawnscaping.

 

They have a Distress Maniacs Challenge going on and this card fits the challenge very well don't you think? I used distress ink and paint and distressed the edges of my papers. This is my first time playing over there. You should drop by and take a peek at the inspiring projects of their DT. I'm sure they would love for you to play along too!

Thanks so much for dropping by and have a great day everyone!

Teresa

Nautical Tuesday Trigger and Viva La Verve Sketch Combo

Happy weekend to you all! It has been a busy but fun weekend with friends. It started Friday when we invited a couple over for dinner and I made a fresh peach pie for dessert. It was a big hit. After a long dinner (long because we were having a great conversation) outside on the patio we came inside and played our favorite board game, Sequence. Guys against the gals. Sorry gals the guys eventually ended up with more wins. Now today our friend from Arizona is going to be with us tonight for dinner and stay overnight. It's always great to visit with old friends.
Anyway onto the reason for this post.
Here is my rustic card for today:

 

It really makes me happy not because it is the best card I've ever made. That it is surely not, but I was able to use lots of different stamp sets together and some were really old and some were my most recent stamp 

 purchases and recycled packaging all in one card.

To help jump start this card I used the Viva La Verve Sketch AUG week 1: 

...and I combined the sketch with this weeks Tuesday Trigger, Craving Navy over at the Moxie Fab World.

Now I don't know about you but when I saw the colors and the stripes I immediately thought nautical. So I reached for my new Verve "Strong Anchor" stamp set and die then paired it with a sailboat from a Hero Arts stamp set and an old double rope frame stamp from Posh Impressions (the date on the stamp says 1997) and the sentiment is from another HA set.
I knew I wanted to incorporate the blue and white stripes but didn't have any stripped pattern paper so I used blue cardstock and an old Close to My Hearts Stripe Stencil which was still in it's original packaging unused. Next I got out my molding paste from Golden to use with the stencil to make white stripes on the blue cardstock. I wanted it to be round to add some texture so I used a foam brush to apply the molding paste instead of a credit card.

I love how fast the molding paste dries because I don't have a lot of patience for drying times when I am in a creative mood. I have to admit though once I had the stripes done I was at a loss at what to do next with the two diagonal pieces. It was late so I decided to go to bed and maybe something would come to me. Sure enough before I fell asleep I thought of using twine. First thing in the morning I grabbed my twine but it was too thin and was really lost on the card. Not daunted I remembered my ball of jute that is much thicker. It worked perfectly. I think the jute makes it look a bit rustic don't you think?

Next I worked on the focal image. I have to tell you how about the background. It is from a tea box I had emptied and was breaking down to put in the recycle bin when I noticed how pretty the inside was. I thought it looked similar to the rug in the Tuesday Trigger so I used it to stamp my images on. Thanks Tazo for making such a pretty design on the inside of your boxes of tea!
The rope circle frame is from Verve and sailboat from HA and both are stamped in Faded Jeans distress ink.

I stamped the sentiment on a blue fishtail banner with VersaMark WaterMark ink and embossed with white embossing powder. The anchor die is also from Verve and I wrapped some twine from The Twinery.

I needed to add something on the right side of the sentiment to balance out the anchor and thought gold gemstones would work with the nautical theme. The outside rope frame is stamped on white cardstock with Faded Jeans and cut it out with a craft knife.

So that is the story behind the card. It's great to have a masculine card on hand. I am always short on those.

Thanks so much for visiting and leaving a comment or two!

Teresa

Celebrate-Viva La Verve Sketch Challenge

Good morning my friends! Hope you day is off to a great start.
Today I am sharing my card that I made using  Viva La Verve Sketch Challenge (Aug Week 2).

It turned out just a teeny bit different than the sketch.

As you can see from the sketch I was suppose to have had a heart that is sandwiched in between the two ovals. It just wouldn't work out no matter what size or shape of heart I tried

I  was able to pull out my Marvy punches that haven't been shown any love for quite a long time. I used the oval scalloped shapes in two different sizes. On the outer oval I paper pierced each scallop and inked the edges of both ovals and the outer edges of the card base with Frayed Burlap distress ink. Now if you know me you know I usually use Walnut Stain or Vintage photo to ink my edges but today I used Frayed Burlap as I wanted a softer look The sentiment is stamped in Tuxedo Black ink and is from Inkadinkado.

I added two lines of pearls along each side of the middle strip. I felt like there was too much space underneath  the layered ovals so I added lace ribbon tails to fill the void.

Like I mentioned before I couldn't find a way to add the heart as in the sketch so I punched a heart with a small scalloped heart punch from Creative Memories from white glitter paper and inked the edges with the Frayed Burlap distress ink before adding it to the bottom of the scallops.
Thanks so much for dropping by my sweet friends! Enjoy your day.
Teresa

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Romance & Classic

 Hello my Creative Friends!
I have two cards for you today. My first card is a classic black and white.

The sketch is from CAS(E) This Sketch #36  It is such a sweet sketch that I just couldn't pass it up.

I decided on black and white because all of my cards of late have been very colorful so I thought I would change it up. It just so happens that Flourishes has a birthday celebration going on to celebrate their sixth birthday and will have several challenges going on this week and the first challenge is to create a black and white project. Perfect for my color scheme!

On white cardstock I stamped the pretty frame in Tuxedo Black Memento ink. The frame is from Inakadinkado: Expressions. I then embossed the white cardstock with the Swiss Dots Embossing folder. I matted it then with a black  mat and adhered it to the card base with pop up dots. The sentiment is from Hero Arts- Heart Flowers. I stamped it on black cardstock with Watermark Versamark ink  and embossed with white embossing powder,

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The little bird is a pillow sticker and is from Studio 112.

I stamped the frame on the inside of the card and stamped "Make a wish" with a Studio G stamp. I used another pillow sticker bird and the "Happy Birthday" is from The Paper Studio- Cupcakes.

I used a black Glaze pen on the candle so it is shiny. I couldn't get it to show up in photos.

I even stamped the frame on the front of the envelope too.

For my second card I did another classic type card. This time I went with white and gold. 

My inspiration for this card came from the romantic inspirational photo from The Shabby Tea Room Week 175. Isn't that a beautiful photo!

You also have to use flowers, pearls and lace.
I used this sketch from Cardabilities #79

I thought this sketch fit the inspiration photo from The Shabby Tea Room so I went with it.

 

I actually started my card with the cluster of elements I know that's kinda working backwards but I just started collecting what I thought I needed or could use.  The white paper flowers I've had forever and never used them because they were a little smashed from being in the package and just weren't that pretty. But After I inked the edges with gold ink and worked with them a bit they really turned out very pretty. Glad I kept them now. I used a big gold button. It had a shank so I had to raid my husbands tool box to find something to cut off the shank so the button would lie flat. I attached the button to a white  lace bow. The butterfly is stamped on vellum paper with gold ink and I embossed it with gold embossing powder then die cut it out. I added some peals for the body. The butterfly stamp and die are from Hero Arts and Sizzix.

I also used vellum for the pine boughs that are from a Martha Stewart punch and the gold leaf was stamped on vellum too and I used gold ink and then embossed using gold embossing powder. I just love how it all turned out.

 The banner I stamped the "Mr. & Mrs." in gold ink on white cardstock and embossed it too with gold embossing powder. The white cardstock was embossed with an embossing folder and then inked lightly with gold ink and then matted on gold shimmer paper. I rounded all the corners too.

Thanks so  much for the visit and I hope you come back again!

Teresa