MIM #68 - pocket cards.

Hi peeps!  When it rains, it pours - literally!  We got so much rain in and around Montreal that in some parts the sewers are backed up - ew, ew, EW!

From something icky to something pretty (I did that so my card would look that much nicer after you've just pictured floods and sewer water - kidding!):

I made this one for the current MIM challenge: pocket cards.  My pocket is made out of vellum, the front panel embossed with the woodgrain impression plate, and with a peek-a-boo cut-out for the sentiment to show through.

Here's the pocket without the card.... and with the flower and leaves from "Rosie Posie"...

The card is a one-layer, folded card.  I first stamped my large greeting where I wanted it, and then layered the roses and leaves all around.  I sponged the edges all around with antique linen distress ink.  I know it makes the red bleed a tiny bit, but I don't mind the softness that gives...

The rest of the sentiment is inside...

Hope you liked it!

ColourQ #130

I whipped up a quick card for this week's colour Q.  (Quick, because I'm in the middle of sewing 7 stuffed, fleece monsters, and making monster party invitations... I can't wait to start sharing all the party stuff!)

If the card looks familiar, it's because I just finished making baptism invites with a similar pattern, but the brighter colors freshen it up a bit...

Here's is the challenge inspiration... so pretty for Easter:

and my card:

I used the colors listed, but the closest thing to tempting turquoise that I have is SU's pool party.  I'm wishing I had that stronger blue to pack in a good punch!

I stamped a floral pattern onto my focal panel, then die-cut a PTI "fillable frame" and stamped the coordinating image onto my card base.  I mounted the floral panel onto the base with foam squares.

Have a great weekend, all!

Using leftovers+PTI princess challenge.

Sometimes, happy things happen.  Like, the baptism invites you were in the middle of creating gave you enough extra pieces to create a(nother) card set by request....  

And, in spring colors too!  So I'm entering it into our latest PTI princess challenge :)  Let's peek inside, shall we?  (ps, today's pics are courtesy of Tanya.... these are the kinds of photos I want to take when I grow up.)

This is what happens when you place a beautiful little rosette onto 10 card-fronts... no box would hold these fatsos, so into a bag they went :)

I love the pitter-patter of rain behind the gift bag.  le sigh.

For this card, I used a hero arts grid-pattern background, and a mix of PTI stamps to create the floral pattern in pinks and peaches.  The little rosettes were cut out of sunny yellow cardstock.  

Thanks for peeking!

Digital+stamped invites.

I have the happy dilemma of having crafted too much this week!  Sooo, I'm just sitting here wondering what to share with you today, and what to keep on the burner 'til Monday... and just  now, in this instant, the samples I made for a baby baptism are winning out :)

The couple asked for something feminine, floral, and with a spring-time feel.  Obviously, besides the little girl's name, all information is incorrect (ok, I think the church is real also, since I thieved it from a previous invitation I'd made for someone else... I seem to have tapped into this particular market...ha!)

I formatted the text, and simply stamped some florals from PTI's "friendship jar: summer fillers" set at the top, and the line strip from Hero Arts' "my happy" at the bottom.  A huge pearl gave it the necessary bling (we greeks, we need some bling on a card!)

This was her favorite :)  The text is a soft grey, with her daughter's name in pink.  I used a few PTI sets to stamp the pink and peach florals: "in bloom," "rosie posie," "YOTF: marigolds," and "turning a new leaf."  

This one was my personal favorite.  I used a peach, pale plum, light blue, light green color combination and lots of different sets.  I even threw in a few snails from "way to go, kiddo!" - I love it *big grin*

Thanks for peeking, and have a great weekend!

ps, I must have taken 100 pictures of these 3 cards, and I am still not impressed with the outcome... sigh.  I should have tried photographing them flat, I think...

MIM #51 + "things my kids said" thursdays.

I so love this look.

If you're on Pinterest, you've seen graphic art with these folded banners, right?  And, now the tutorial on how to rock it, paper-style.  Thank you, Nichole Heady.

I used a few stamp sets: fancy flourishes, grunge me, rosie posie (but look!  a different flower from that set!), love lives here (sentiment), background basics: woodgrain (back of sentiment banner), and text-style II (for the vertical strip on the left side of the card).  Whew!

The ink colors are a little less numerous, but only slightly: memento brown, antique linen distress ink, fresh snow, aqua mist, spring moss, and autumn rose.

I'm telling you, my "craft table" (those are sarcastic quotation marks because I work on a tiny corner of our computer desk) was FULL.  As in, I might have knocked a few ink pads to the floor and felt terribly claustrophobic while creating this card.

I started out by stamping my flourishes, and then adding the flowers, and going back in with the ink splots wherever my eye decided they should go.

I liked the idea of the stamping being concentrated near the bottom of the card, and the banner coming up out of it.  The only thing I wish I could undo is the stitching near the top.  You know when something seems like a good idea, and your sewing machine is right there, and you go for it, and then there's no way to undo it, and you're not so sure about anything anymore?  exactly.

In other news, my card-making blog needs a little je-ne-sais-quoi that has nothing to do with card-making.  I was thinking of starting a "things-my-kids-said" thursdays" (less catchy than "wordless wednesdays" or "five for fridays," I know, but bear with me).  Here's my gem of the week:

You know you're due for another vacation when your 4 year old son holds a burnt-out bulb to his ear and yells "hey mom! I can hear the beach in there!"

Hee hee!  Anyone else have "things-my-kids-said" to share?

Thanks, in advance, for the giggles.  (or nice comments about my card.  either way.)

PDCC116

I haven't played along with a play date cafe challenge in awhile... but when the suggested colors of the week are listed as "plum, pear, and moldy cheese..." hmmm... I'm on it.

I used 3 colors for my card: pale plum, kiwi kiss, and not quite navy (all SU inks.)

I know it's "rosie posie" again, and you'd think after making 16 cards, I wouldn't pick up it up again for awhile... but I love it, and it. was. right. there.  hee hee!  Ever just use a set because it's on the desk-top?  Such a lazy crafter :) 

I stamped all the images in full-strength and then again without re-inking.  Made it really fast to fill up the space!  I then stamped the hero arts envelope pattern in the plum color over the whole thing.  The gingham border on the side wraps around to the back of the card, like a book spine.  Love that look.  On the front, I added a scalloped edge, peeking out from under... The gingham border was stitched down on either side.

I then cut out the large flower and some leaves.  The leaves were stuck down to the card, but I played with their edges to give them some dimension.  The flower was mounted on foam squares to give it some more height.  The card-base looks a bit purple in that second photo, but it's really a nice navy blue :)

Hope you like it!  Have a great weekend.

Rosie posie card set.

I'm a little late with my classroom homework *runs to the front of the class and throws card set on teacher's desk*

I stamped a chevron pattern (PTI) on all *16* of my card bases (I actually needed a very large number of cards, it's not that I got carried away and forgot how many I was making...).  Next, I stamped "merci" and the flower from "rosie posie" on my smaller white panel, and proceeded to CUT OUT 16 full flowers, and 16 smaller blooms.  You, know, because I had told myself I didn't need the die.  Haha.  Actually, they were very easy to cut out and I had them all ready to go by the end of a Criminal Minds episode...(if you've ever watched that show, I hope you understand when I give a little *shudder* right now... I really need to quit viewing it, especially right before bed...)

Thanks for peeking!

oh, and ps to anyone who commented yesterday on how great my hubs was to bring me random flowers:  he really is, and he thanks you with great big beaming eyes.

MIM #49

I had a few minutes during the kids naptime (what will I do when they decide to stop napping??) to create a little something for this week's MIM challenge.  The ghost-masking technique is very cool, and I loved Betsy's use of "rosie posie" so much that I didn't stray too far from her tutorial.

I did all of my stamping on a piece of rustic white cardstock (PTI).  I starting by stamping my "mat stack 2" frame, and then punched a vellum circle to act as a mask while I stamped my "rosie posie" and "text style II" images.  Then, I used the rest of my vellum sheet (now with a circle cut out) to mask everything outside so that I could re-stamp everything inside the frame, but lightly (I stamped off on a scrap piece of paper first, so the ink appears lighter).  Hence, the ghost-effect.

I'm also linking this card to the current CAS-fridays challenge: scallops.  I added a jumbo-scallop-houndstooth-border to the side, and stitched it into place.  

Finally, I rounded the top-right corner of my card for a bit of visual balance.

Hope you like it!

hi.

I hate having things lying around,  incomplete.  I was cleaning up my craft area (can't call it a craft room, since it's just a little corner of our basement office/tv room/craft room/exercise room/sewing room) and I found a few greats elements that were begging to be turned into a card.

I had a leftover strip of diy patterned paper (made with PTI's "rosie posie", with a little "grunge me" hummingbird thrown into the mix), a chipboard frame, and a huge button on the table.

I sponged some peach ink onto my chipboard, added another bird-in-flight (from PTI's "happy trails"), threaded the button, and called it a card.

Sometimes my best cards are after-thoughts.  I really love this one!

How do you create?  Do your favorite cards take days to create, or come together more quickly?

all pink party pack!

I know you couldn't wait to see what I was doing with all of those pink papers I made :)

It just so happens, that a pretty little lady will be turning 3, and her parents enlisted my help to make sure she was celebrated in style.

Can you pick out the papers from yesterday's post?  Once I stamped everything, it was all a matter of die-cutting and piecing together my little party pack.  But what I love is that everything is tied together with that beautiful rose (from PTI's "rosie posie"), and *of course* all that pink.

The big signs at the back - "the candy shoppe" and "the ice-cream parlor" are 8x10 prints which will be framed to announce the function of those tables.

To the very left, I created a few signs with the party girl's name, "Maya," on them - those will be adhered to popsicle sticks and plunged into vases full of jelly-beans or other sweeties.

Water-bottle labels, ready for the sticking.

Food labels, for every kind of ice-cream topping and candy imaginable!  Do you see the stack I have going there?  I so wish I was invited to this party!

And, finally, thank you tags.  Instead of the regular "thank you," I stamped "xoxo" from Lawn Fawn's new "love 'n breakfast" set.  The birthday girl will sign her name (or maybe her mommy will, after the first few.)

Thanks for looking!

PTI princess challenge: make your own background paper.

It's finally my turn to host our PTI princess challenge!

My challenge to you is to create your own patterned paper.  Bonus points for creating more than one, and extra bonus points for using them on a project :)

I couldn't find a patterned paper that:
1.  I could get my hands on fast enough
2.  Only had pinks in it

So, in 1 afternoon, I created these (so sorry for the poor picture quality - I sweated over this one!):

and here are close-ups of some of my favorites:

For all of them, I used the same principles:
1.  start with the larger images
2.  add medium and then smaller images to fill in the gaps
3.  add a layer of a background stamp over-top to tie everything together.

ETA: I used PTI white, SU pretty in pink, and melon mambo papers.  The inks I used are all SU: blush blossom, pink pirouette, pretty in pink, melon mambo, and versamark.

I'm also linking this post back to this week's MIM challenge.  I used Nichole's MIM #39 tutorial for my papers.

Tomorrow, I'll show you what I used them all for!