Haven't Forgotten You

Hi Everyone!
Just stopping by to tell you that I haven't forgotten about writing my blog. I am guessing that I have mentioned the 9" of water that flooded our basement not just once, but 2 weeks in a row. Emptying out the family room side was relatively easy because it is mainly used to store our outdoor furniture. Our "cellar" side, however, was a totally different story.
For the past 3 or 4 days we have been emptying out tons of "stuff" that has accumulated on the "cellar" side over the past who knows how many years. There were boxes and bags on the floor that were soaked with water. There are at least 10 industrial metal shelves down there and the boxes of stuff that were on the bottom shelves were also soaked with water. When we tried to move the boxes they fell apart and the contents of each box landed all over the damp floor. When we moved the shelves there were puddles of water under each of them.
Today was trash day and we had more trash out front than the entire rest of the neighborhood combined. I was amazed and delighted to discover that the trash company took it all!
The floor has yet to be sanitized as this afternoon we finally finished sweeping, shoveling, and raking up the bits and pieces of stuff that had fallen to the floor as we moved the boxes and shelves. For the most part other than the shelving the cellar is finally empty.
Not for long. As soon as everything has been cleaned up we will be moving more than 100 under-the-bed style plastic storage containers to the "cellar" side and storing them on the shelving units that are now empty and soon to be cleaned up. Those containers are filled with the materials I use in my teacher trainings so I must keep them safe from harm.
So although I haven't been thinking "greeting cards" I have been thinking "blog" and promise to post a greeting card blog within the next few days.
Here's to dry spring days!
Carol

Happy Day from SEI

Hi Everyone!
I was so busy creating cards last night that I didn’t have time to post a blog. I will share those cards with you in this blog.

For a very long time I have searched and searched for a pad of birthday paper. When I went to Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA a few weeks ago I finally found exactly what I wanted. The paper pad is called "Happy Day" and it is created by a company called SEI.

I first "fell in love" with SEI when I discovered their Moravia paper pad. I created all sorts of cards, gift bags, tags, and note cards with that pattern. I will share photographs of the few cards I have left that were created with the Moravia pad in another blog.

Today we are going to focus on "Happy Day". Not only is there a 12" x 12" paper pad in the "Happy Day" pattern, there is also a 6" x 6’ one too. But I think that the 12" x 12" is a better deal and it also gives you a lot more paper to use. The graphics on these papers are just the right size for cardmakers.

But wait there’s more! (Hey, I sound like a TV commercial!) There are coordinating brads, elements, borders, stickers, and die-cut accents and I have them all! Could not resist. Just could not resist! For under $30 I got 24 sheets of paper, 24 brads, 5 dimensional elements, 20 strips of border, 7 epoxy stickers, and 34 die cut accents. I am figuring that I can make at least 90 cards with all of that paper and embellishments. I will probably run out of embellishments, but I can easily use other embellishments such as buttons, ribbons, alphabet stickers, and more on my other cards.

Throughout this blog I have posted photographs of the cards I have created so far. I had given myself a little challenge and tried for the most part to work with just SEI products on these cards. In addition to SEI products I have also used 3D dots to make some of the embellishments pop, and Stickles and rhinestones to add glimmer. I ran some of the paper through my crimper to add texture to the cards.

Do you have tools that you forget to use? I know that I do. A few blogs ago I mentioned that I often forget to use my Cuttlebug embossing folders. As I studied these cards, I wished I had thought about using a corner rounder on some of them.

I still have lots of full size pieces of paper, half and quarter sheets of paper, scraps of paper, borders, brads, and die cut accents left for me to create more cards, gift tags, gift bags, etc. with, but I thought that I should get this blog posted and share these fun cards with you.

Please study the cards and see how basic they are. Sometimes I think basic is good because it means you can sit down and complete several cards in a very short time. Remember you can start with one of my basic cards and create a much more elaborate one on your own. Enjoy!

Looking for some comments, questions, tips and more.

Carol

PaperTrey Ink Day 2

Hi Everyone!

I thought I’d spend one more day talking about products from

PaperTrey Ink. I think that "Click Simple" downloads were introduced in January of this year. I have purchased "Rock-A-Bye Baby" and

"Spring Fling", but so far I have only used one download from "Rock-A-Bye Baby". The reaction people have had to this "Onesie" card download was that they LOVED it. One suggestion is that if you use the download instead of cutting out the neck hole with a pair of scissors, use a circle paper punch to create it.

Yesterday I showed you "All Boxed Up" from "My Timeless Templates". I have a few pictures of some of the other templates I have used.

First a story. When my sister, Jeanne, and I were young we loved to play with Barbie dolls. Our mother wouldn’t buy us a Barbie dream house so we made our own using recycled materials. When I saw the template for "Bun in the Oven" I knew that I HAD to make it for Jeanne for Christmas because it totally reminded me of the stoves we had made for our dolls. I used buttons for the burners and couldn’t believe that when I looked in my button collection I had the PERFECT buttons for the dials on the stove. Study the picture and you will see what I mean. I made a tiny box and put it in the oven with a gift certificate in it. I attached the oven handles to the door with tiny black brads to that the door could be pulled open easily. We played with the oven door a little too much before I took the photograph so the edges of the door are a little roughed up, but you can still see how adorable the stove really is. Isn’t it a perfect gift card holder for Mother’s Day?

I love "Milk Made" too. I have made several sets of the cartons and given them away filled with tea bags and an assortment of candies. They are adorable as a set of 2 or a set of 4. Again I think they make adorable packaging for a Mother’s Day gift.

My good friend, Toni, has told me more than once that the "All Around Tote" is her favorite "My Timeless Template". The tote comes in 2 sizes. You can easily fit a set of four A2 cards in the larger tote. A gift card fits in the small tote. I gave Jeanne a gift card in the small tote for Christmas along with her stove. It worked perfectly with the Barbie theme that I had chosen for her gifts this year.

I don’t have any photographs for the "Rounded Wrap Up" that I created, but I can tell you that the box holds 2 votive candles and a small box of matches perfectly.

Template #1 from "Cash or Carry" makes the most adorable gift card holder you have ever seen.

Put a monogram on "Desk Top Organizer" and you’ll have a personal gift that looks store bought, but is much nicer because you made it.

Oh, I just thought of some other tips I wanted to share with you. When I use any of the "My Timeless Templates" I always use double sided decorative tag for my projects. I use ScorPal tape to adhere the pieces together.

Okay, that’s it for tonight! Will be back tomorrow with other ideas to share with you.

Carol

PaperTrey Ink

Hi Everyone!
Hope that you had a great Easter. We had a very nice day. I’ve gotten food preparation timing down and we no longer have mashed potatoes for dessert and all of the dishes that are supposed to be hot are actually hot when we sit down.

Today I’d like to share some thoughts about www.papertreyink.com with you. When you are on their home page, click on "tools" and then look in the "Must Have It" column for "My Timeless Templates". "My Timeless Templates" are downloads that you purchase online and can use over and over again. Most of them are relatively easy to create and all of them look amazing when you finish creating them.

"All Boxed Up" is one of my favorite "Timeless Templates." This template can be used to create packaging for up to 8 cards. I often make a coordinating set of 4 cards and give them to some of my friends as a hostess gift, thank you gift, or whatever the occasion warrants.

These 4 cards were all created from just one piece of 12" x 12" paper. I cut some of the flowers from the scraps that were left when I created the packaging and pockets from "All Boxed Up" and used them to embellish my cards.

Janet asked me which PaperTrey stamps I own. My immediate response is not as many as I plan to own! Let me share my "PaperTrey" story with you. I learned about PaperTrey when I was reading an issue of PaperCrafts magazine. I visited their web site and was a little anxious about spending $25 on a set of stamps as I hadn’t done much stamping at that time. But I had seen images of cards that were created with the "Take a Bough" stamps and really wanted them...so I took the chance. I was absolutely thrilled with the stamps from the moment they arrived in my mailbox. The other day I told you that PaperTrey stamps arrive in shrink wrapped packaging along with a cd case to store them in, labels for the cd case, and instructions on how to use, care for, and store the stamps. "Take a Bough" are Christmas stamps, but I have used the branch throughout the year.

Then I purchased "Turning a New Leaf", "Quilter’s Sample" and "Quilter’s Sample Additions". Marie bought me "Egg Hunt" for my birthday and Robbie bought me "Blooming Buttons." When you stamp an image from "Blooming Buttons" there’s a space left for you to place a button.

I can only find this one image of a card that I created with "Quilter's Sampler.


Here are some cards I created with stamps from "Turning a New Leaf".


Here are some of the cards I have created with "Blooming Buttons".

I am still hoping for some responses to my first question, "How do you store your papercrafting ribbon?"
Talk to you tomorrow!

Carol

Birthday cards

Hi Everyone!
I can see the SUN(!!!) setting as I look out my dining room window. What a gorgeous day it was. Marie and I spent a good part of the day hauling things out of our family room so that the floors which were flooded not once, but twice in a two week time period could be scrubbed. We still have to do the main part of the cellar and the workroom. The cellar will be a monumental task as it is filled with all sorts of who knows what.

As promised I have some other birthday cards to show you today. First up is one of the cards I mentioned last night. It was created with Martha Stewart’s ice cream cone, balloon, sunburst, cupcake, bow, and party hat paper punches. I own and love many of Martha Stewart’s paper punches and edger punches, but take caution...not all of her punches are created equal. The ones that are just one piece like the balloon and bow for example always give a clean cut. However, I have had some troubles with the ones that have more than one piece because the metal images do not always line up properly and then the punchout may not be a clean one and sometimes won’t punch at all. When that has happened I have taken the punch back to the store and exchanged it for another one. I have finally learned to ask to test the punch while I am still in the store. They are CUTE and FUN so I continue to add them to my collection.

When I took these next photographs I probably should have used a flash, but didn’t. One day when I was "being good" which translates to using the materials I had on hand instead of shopping for more things, I created a series of cards using a flourish stamp and some flowers. Click on the images and you can see that I used my ScorPal to create the backgrounds on the cards. I know that 2 of these cards aren’t birthday cards, but I figure you won’t mind seeing other cards. I have a couple of flourish stamps and sometimes I use them as stems on flowers and sometimes I use them as balloon strings and sometimes I use them as a flourish!

Now this is the last birthday card that I will be showing you for a while and there’s a story behind it. One day I was looking through some of the 12" x 12" blocks of paper that I have in my collection and I found some papers that I truly loved. I decided to cut some of the paper up into 3.75" x 5" pieces and mount them onto A2 cards. A2 cards are 4.25" x 5.5" so that means I left a 1/4" border around the paper. Then I just tied some twine through some buttons, put glue dots on the back of the buttons, and added the buttons to the centers of some flowers and I had what I think are some very nice cards that took very little effort to create. For tonight I am just posting the birthday card, but tomorrow I will post the other cards and the cardholder I created for them.

Okay, I would like to get some discussions going here so here’s a question for you, "How do you organize your papercrafting ribbon?" I will post everyone’s response so that we can get a variety of ideas on ways to organize ribbon.
Talk to you tomorrow.

Carol

Birthday Cards Day 3

Hi Everyone!
Well, I am squeaking in just before midnight with a couple of birthday card photographs. A few days ago Pattye asked if I have ever used the Martha Stewart cupcake punch. My answer to Pattye is "Yes", but I only have this one picture to show you tonight. I like to use Martha’s standard size punches to create what I call "Inchie" cards, but the squares on my cards aren’t really an inch, they are 1 3/8". I am guessing you have seen true Inchie cards in blogs and in the specialty stores. But like I said the squares on my cards are slightly larger than an inch and the Martha Stewart punchouts fit on them. Sometimes I mount punchouts from Martha’s punches onto squares I have punched from the Marvy Uchida blue punch. Other times I use my Nestabilities. If you click on the image of the card you can see that I used two square Nestabilities for the background of each cupcake. In honor of Pattye, I added a rhinestone cherry to the top of each cupcake. (Pattye loves sparkly things!)

Martha Stewart has a nice variety of paper punches that you could use to create a birthday "Inchie" card. She has an ice cream cone, a party hat, a cupcake, and a balloon that would be perfect . You could also stamp "Happy Birthday" on one of the squares. If you just use cupcakes you could decorate the frosting part of the cupcake with Flower Soft or Doodlebug Design Sugar Coating glitter. I don’t have any cards with those products on them right now, but I know that you for one Pattye would love the effect of the Sugar Coating glitter. You could add tiny red pompoms for cherries or use rhinestones as I did. Instead of adding glitter I often just use scraps of paper that have tiny dots on them because they remind me of sprinkles.

This "Birthday Balloons" card was an easy one to create. I put a piece of sky scrapbook paper inside of a Cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug. I used one of my Sizzix balloon dies to create the balloons and stamped Happy Birthday onto them. The balloon strings are made from fine jewelry wire. A Martha Stewart bow paper punch binds the strings together.
Okay, that’s it for today. I will show you a few more birthday cards tomorrow.

Carol

A Discovery

Hi Everyone!
I just made a discovery that some of you may already know. If you click on the image of one of my cards it will open in a new window and then you can see the card's details more easily. Obviously that will work in other blogs too.

I am still learning about blogging. Until a few days ago I didn't know how to insert pictures between paragraphs, but as you know now I have been doing that all week.

Some of you have e-mailed me to say that you don't know how to post a comment. When you try to post a comment it will ask you for your google or gmail name and password. If you don't have one there will be a link where you can set one up for free. Then once you have a name and password you can post comments. Your comment won't post right away. It is e-mailed to me first and I am asked if I want to post it or not. It's a security thing...so that no "bad guys" can slip in a post.

I am hoping that anyone who has taken the time to read a post will leave a comment especially if I ask you a question because then we can all learn from each other. Please remember you can leave a question too and you'll get some answers too.

I am hoping that these blogs will be fun and a learning experience for all of us. TTYL....will try to post some more cards later. Carol