New Home

Hi Everyone!

I hope that you had a nice Labor Day weekend.  Mine was busy and fun.  I am still in the process of unpacking and organizing 35 years of teaching materials, but finally feel as if I am making some progress.  I stopped on my way home from a training today to pick up storage containers for my cds and plastic drawers for my paper.  My goal is to finally have everything organized and put away by the time I go to bed on Thursday night.  I may be reaching for the stars, but maybe I will pull it off.  Maybe.

I mentioned in a previous blog that a friend of mine asked if I had any "new home" cards and I didn't, but said I would create some and give her first choice.  I did order one set of clear stamps to help me create them, but I just ordered them last night so it will be a while before I get them, use them, and tell you about them. 

On Sunday MaryBeth and I went to Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA.  First we had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Four 66 in Danvers.  Toni introduced me to that restaurant and then I introduced it to several of my other friends and now we all go there when visit Topsfield for a papercrafting shopping trip.

After a yummy lunch we went to Absolutely Everything and spent 3 hours there!  3 hours, Janet!  3 hours!!!

There was tons of stuff there for fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas so of course we had to stop and study ALL of it.  3 hours after we had entered the store we each left with big smiles on our faces and a heavy bag full of new things.  If you live in the area I strongly suggest that you visit that store.  In addition to carrying "absolutely everything" that you could ever want for papercrafting, they seriously have the nicest and most helpful staff I have ever met in any store.

I bought some new dies for my Cuttlebug and/or Big Kick.  One of the dies I bought  for my Big Kick is called "Caged Bird" which is from Tim Holtz's Alterations collection for Sizzix.  I love this die.  There's a bird cage, a bird on a stick, and a wing for the bird.  I have several bird "text" stamps that I can see myself using with the die, but I also thought it would be an adorable die to use for my first "new home" card. 

I used a sheet of gold glitter cardstock from the dcwv Amber Autuman small fall stack for the bird cage.  It makes the cage sparkle and reminds me of a cage my sister Jeanne once had for her parakeets.  I paper pierced some holes in the background paper and then used a back stitch to create a chain to hold the bird cage.  After I stitched it I wished I had used a chain stitch instead, but I can do that on another card one of these days.  "New home" was stamped with a Hampton Art wooden stamp.  I used scraps for the bird, stick, and tag.  I am very happy with the card. 

This turkey triangle treat holder is from

Inky Antics.  It's a very easy project and something you may want to think about creating for your Thanksgiving table.  First you use a wooden stamp to stamp out the treat holder.  You cut out your stamped image, score on some of the lines you stamped, and then fold on the scores and you have a small triangle shaped container. The stamped image shows you exactly where to punch the holes that you run the ribbon or cord through to tie the container closed.

The turkey clear stamps are sold separately in a package called Turkey and Crow.  I stamped some feathers onto red, orange, and yellow scraps; stamped the hat on green, and the wattle/beak on orange. There is a stamp for the eyes too, but I just drew mine on with a Sharpie.  Once everything is stamped you just cut it out and glue it to the triangular container.  Now the cool thing is that there are many other clear stamps that you can purchase to make containers for other occasions.  Things like a witch, a polar bear, Santa, a dog, a penguin and more!

That's it for today.  Time to do some more cleaning. 
Carol

Back to School Cards

Hi Everyone!

Although I follow many papercrafting blogs, subscribe to several papercrafting magazines, and have an extensive collection of papercrafting books more often than not the cards I create are originals. However, sometimes when I look at a photograph of someone else's card I wonder which size circle punch they used, what size the squares on their card are, or which border punch they used. I am guessing that if I wonder about things like that other papercrafters must have some of those same questions. It takes time to add that information to a post so I would like to know what information you like to learn when you follow a blog. I would also like to know which types of cards or other paper crafts you'd like to see on my blog and what kind of tips you might like to learn.

A friend of mine asked me to create some back to school cards for her nieces and nephews. I purchased a small dcwv Grade School paper stack, a small dcwv High School paper stack, and some school theme stickers. Some of her nieces and nephews are in college. Happily, some of the paper in the High School stack can also be used for college cards.  Here are the cards I created today.

Have a great night!

Carol

More Word Cards

Hi Everyone!

I feel as if I have been playing Scrabble, Upwords, or maybe even Jumble. I have been sitting here playing with some leftover red epoxy alphabet stickers and attempting to transform them into words. I like playing word games and was up for the challenge. I was able to make "happy" and that wiped out the "p's" and "merry" wiped out the "r's." I also made "wish", "fun", and "xmas".
Here are photographs of the cards I created today.

Have a great night!

Carol

Word Cards

Hi Everyone!

I have seen variations of the first card I am going to share with you today in some of my books and magazines. While I was organizing my alphabet stickers last night I came across a couple of packages of Heidi Grace Punchboard Alphas that I purchased eons ago and haven't used and decided it was time to use them. The letters are fairly large so I decided they should be the focal point of the card. Happily the quantity of each letter is listed on the back of the package. In addition to the alphabet there are numbers and punctuation marks included in the package.

Today's first card is 4.5" x 6.25" which is still a standard size, but is a little larger than the cards I create most of the time. I cut a piece of 12" x 12" lime green tag into a 9" x 6.25" piece and scored and flolded the 9" side at 4.5". This size could accommodate 4 of the letters from the package when I arranged them whimsically.

There's a story with the first card. Toni will say there's always a story. I could have gone to bed without making a card. I should have gone to bed with out making a card. But I didn't want to go to bed. I wanted to make just one more card....

The letters are adhesive. I started out by adhering 3 letters and a candle sticker to scraps of paper from the K and Company Citronella 12" x 12" paper stack. I mounted them on a 4.25" x 6" piece of paper that was from the same paper stack and attached the paper to my card. Looked at it and was major disappointed. I peeled the candle sticker off the card, cut off the flame so I could use it and made a candle that coordinated with the background paper on the card. I put glossy accents on my candle to make it look "waxy". I studied the card and still didn't like it at all. The letters were lost on the card and I wanted them to be the focal point of the card.

So I very slowly and very carefully peeled the green paper that the letters were mounted on off the card. I forgot that the glossy accents were still wet. I touched that piece of paper, was startled that it was "wet" and sort of jumped back and my sticky wet finger landed on the upper left hand corner of the card. Tried to peel the paper with the "w" on it and ended up bending the "w" which cracked it and exposed the white core of the paper. So now I had a mess in front of me.

I threw away the "w". I also threw out the candle because you could see my fingerpring on the glossy accents. Happily I had a second "w" because I had 2 packages of the letters. I mounted that "w" on another scrap. Then I layered each of the scraps on some blue tag. That instantly made me happy because that simple act made the letters pop out. I made a new candle, but didn't apply the glossy accents yet. I attached the mounted letters to the card and much happier with the look of it. But, there was a small sticky glob in the left hand corner of the card. So I took out my birthday embellishments and covered the "glob" with a balloon. One balloon looked good but I wondered if 2 would look better. Yes. Then I added a party hat and a gift, and then another gift. I liked my card. A lot! Added glossy accents to the candle and went to bed!

Got up this morning and of course my glossy accents had dried. I am so happy with the card. Last night I made 2 mistakes. I shouldn't have made a card as late as I did. More importantly I should have laid out the card before I glued everything down. Today I laid out 3 more cards.


"It's a boy" is backed on some Debbie Mumm baby boy paper. The embellishments are also from Debbie Mumm and coordinate with the paper.

"Hello" is backed on paper from dcwv's Songbird 12" x 12" paper stack. The silk flowers and brads I used are from my stash.

Happily I planned this last card before I did any cutting and gluing. I wanted to spell out the word "happy". I created a card that fits in a business size envelope. I cut a piece of tag so that it measured 9" x 7.5". I scored and folded the 7.5" side at 3.75". Then I cut a layering paper so that it measured 8.75" x 3.50. I used embellishments from my birthday drawer to decorate the card and small Mrs. Grossman stickers to spell out "birthday".

Have a great night!

Carol

Friday's Cards with Flowers

Hi Everyone!



This morning I decided to create cards with some of my silk flowers. I used one of my Sizzix dies called "Flowers & Vines with Stem" to create the stems and leaves for those flowers. I worked with a sheet of sky paper from K and Company's 12" x 12" Citronella paper stack and a sheet of leaves paper from dcwv's 12" x 12" Songbird paper stack.




I've always liked the look of the 1.75" squares on these cards. I used my corner rounder on 2 of the opposite corners on each square. "Thanks" and "hello" were created with Maya Road rubons.

Have a great night!

Carol

More Birthday Cards

Hi Everyone!

I love everything about Christmas especially our family traditions, but for some reason I keep putting off working on Christmas cards. It may be because I know once I get started I won't want to work on anything else. It may be because I dislike snow and ice so much that I don't want to think about the winter holidays. My friend Susan suggested that I create more birthday and thank you cards for her co-workers so that is what I am doing.

I used paper from Martha Stewart's Classic Woodland and Classic Botanical 12" x 12" paper pads to create these first 2 cards. The papers are layered onto blank A2 cards which measure 4.25" x 5.5". I cut some white tag so that it measured 4" x 5.25", placed it in a dotted embossing folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug. I cut the red and aqua papers to that they measured 4" x 2" and adhered them to the white paper.

I used Jeanette's, the owner of Stamped Designs in Dover, NH, bow making technique to create a bow for each card and then used Scor-pal tape to adhere the ribbon to the layering paper. Then I attached the layering paper to the A2 card.

The scalloped and plain circles on both cards were cut with circle Nestabililties. I put the white circles in the dotted embossing folder and ran them through my Cuttlebug before I attached them to the scalloped circles. "Happy Birthday" was stamped with a Northwoods Wooden Stamp. The cupcakes are K and Company embellishments.




I tend to use A2 cards for most of my cards, but I created the blank card for this next card. I cut some brown tag from the SEI Moravia collection so that it measures 4" x 11" and scored and folded it at 5.5". This means I was able to create 3 blank cards from just one sheet of 12" x 12" paper.




Hint: when you are cutting paper that you plan to fold be sure to cut it so that you will be folding parallel to the grain of paper. To determine the grain of a 12" x 12" paper hold the edges of the paper and gently bend it in the middle. You will feel the paper resisting when you bend it in one direction and will find the other direction bends more easily. That is the direction you will want to use when you are creasing and folding your paper. Your crease and fold will be neater when you do it that way and your paper will not crack. Try it both ways so that you will understand me.

I cut some white tag so that it measured 3.75" x 5.25" and adhered it to the card. I cut some brown tag so that it measured 3.5" x 5" and centered it on the white tag.

I am guessing that many of you are like me and cannot throw away your paper scraps. I cut the 9 rectangles that you see on the card from scraps from the SEI Happy Days paper collection. Each rectangle is 1" x 1.5". I used my Northwoods wooden "Happy Birthday" stamp to stamp the message onto a scrap of white tag and then I adhered the message to my card.

You can use your scraps to create a similar card and add any sentiment you want to the card.

Have a great day!
Carol

Birthday Cards

Hi Everyone!


On Monday I wrote about using sketches to help plan a card. Today I looked at just one sketch and used it to create several cards. Simply by changing the embellishment on each card, I gave the card a different look. I used PiggyTales paper on all of the cards. The paper I used is two sided and what's nice is the the back coordinates with the front so I used the front for the top of each card and the back for the bottom of each card. I adhered some twill ribbon between the top and bottom papers.




The first 3 cards were created with "Haystack" paper from PiggyTale's Little Boy Blue collection. I don't think this paper is still available, but remember you can use any paper on your cards.











Hint: Attach the ribbon to your papers before you attach them to your blank card so that you don't see the ends of the ribbons.












The top section of each card measures 2" high by 5.25" wide. The botom section of each card has the same measurements, but the ribbon going across it covers about 1/2 inch of it.











These 3 cards were created with "Big Teeth" paper from PiggyTale's Little Red Riding Hood collection. This paper is still available from PiggyTales. Notice how the red twill ribbon pulls out the red in the stripes. I like the look of the red ribbon better than the look of the cream colored ribbon on the next card.

The flowers and chipboard embellishments are from my stash.

I am hoping that they quick-to-create cards showed you how easily you can change the way a card looks.

Talk to you soon.

Carol