A Little Recycling

A couple of the shirts I bought for my daughter for school came with these really cute tags on them. It says "So", the letters are raised and I thought it would be really cute on a card so I saved the tags. I used one on this card that I will be sending in her lunch next week.

The stamps are from The Angel Company, paterned paper is from DCWV, ribbon from Michaels. I colored the chick with my Prismacolor Pencils and used Palette Burnt Umber ink to stamp "sweet" and to ink the edges around the chick.

First Halloween Card of the Season

It's definitely time to start with the Fall projects. Yesterday I pulled out some of my Halloween stamps and made this card. Hopefully the first of many!

The stamp is from The Angel Company, ribbon from Michael's, the brad in the corner is from Around the Block. I cut a circle out of a piece of printer paper with my Coluzzle circle template. Laid it over the cardstock and sponged on Pumpkin Spice VersaMagic ink with a make-up sponge. Then I just stamped over that with my black ink. Such a cool effect! I will definitely be playing with that some more and with different shapes.

Hello!

I just made this card yesterday to send to a friend. So glad to finally do some stamping now that the kids are back in school!

The stamps and ribbon are from The Angel Company, paterned paper is from K & Company. Instead of coloring the body of the bird in, I did paper piecing, then just colored the flowers and grass with my Prismacolor Pencils. Super simple to make!

Let's Do Coffee!

I made this card for a Quick & Easy challenge. The finished size is 4" x 4" so it is a little smaller than the standard card. Paterned paper, punches, the Cuttlebug embossing and bold stamps make this one really quick. No coloring to do!

Here is the supply list for this card. You can click on any of the highlighted products to order them.

Stamps: Mini Occasions, Running Stitches and Circle Sampler

Paper: Pop Rockz

Cardstock: Brights Stack and Neutral Stack

Ink: Palette Burnt Umber and Palette Belle Rose

Other: Scalloped Circle Punch, Circle Punch, and Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.

Emma's Birthday Party Invites

I took Emma to the store the other day to get the stuff for her birthday party invites. Since we couldn't find any Barbie stamps or stickers, she ended up picking a package of Little Mermaid stickers. Since all of the stickers are different images and sizes, I decided that I would just make all of the invitations different. They all share the same colors I just changed the layouts and embellishments on them to suit the size of the image since some are considerably larger than the others. Here are four of the designs . . .

Emma loves them! Especially the ones with the little jewels on them. Because I used stickers there is hardly any stamping on them. The only thing stamped is the bubbles on the last two. I don't use stickers a lot, but they sure come in handy when you can't find the stamps!

It's Officially Fall!

Today is the first day of Fall and it actually feels like it this morning! It's cool and rainy now but they are saying it is supposed to be in the 80's the rest of the week. Not good news for me...i'm ready for the cooler weather. But, even if the weather doesn't quite feel like it I can do some Fall stamping projects.

In doing so, I think I may have a new favorite Halloween stamp set! This haunted house stamp is part of a new set that was just released with the TAC Fall Supplement. All of the images in the set are bold like this house so there is no coloring and they look really good stamped over paterned paper. For this card I used the Cha Cha papers and cardstock which work really well for Halloween.


Stamps: Halloween Town, Happy Haunting, and Running Stitches

Paper/Cardstock: Cha Cha Soar With It Collection, and Cha Cha Cardstock

Embellishments: Cha Cha Hardware

Ink: Palette Noir

First Halloween Card of the Season

It is definitely that time of year! We had some great Fall like weather for a bit, but for the last week we have been hit with 80 degree weather. I'm ready for fall though so i've started on some Halloween stuff! I just got one of the new Halloween stamp sets that TAC just released that I plan on playing with today. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Fall Supplement here to see all of the new releases for Fall!

For this card I used the Distressed Halloween set from Inque Boutique to stamp the background. I used the Orangerie and French Lilac and Noir Palette ink pads. The cat is from the Happy Haunting stamp set which is still one of my favorites!

Finally, some stamping!

Here is a card that I just made for a stamping friend's birthday. After I got everything stamped and was considering extra embellishments I decided to just leave it the way it was. Sometimes when I look at cards in magazines, etc., things tend to get over embellished. It was hard to resist adding more, but I am happy with how simple it is.

For this card I used some DCWV cardstock and paterned paper. Stamps are from Deco Designs and Circle Sampler. The edges are inked with Burnt Umber Palette ink and the circle is stamped with Aegean Blue Brilliance. The punches are the Mega Scalloped Circle and the Super Jumbo Scalloped Circle.

Reindeer Joy

Here is the card that I made for this week's sketch over on the 2P's board. If you want to see the sketch that Dawn posted, just click here. I'm always keeping all of those little scraps of paper and I hardly ever use them. This particular sketch provided a great way to use them.
I embossed the front of the card with the Snowflakes Cuttlebug embossing folder. The Reindeer and the "Joy to the World" stamps are from the Tis The Season stamp set. The reindeer was colored with Prismacolor Pencils.

Swap Card & Blog Candy Winner!

Here is a little card that I made for a Snowman swap that I got into. This one was just for a single card, so it was nice and easy...which is about all i'm up for right now so this was perfect!

The snowman on this one is from the Tis The Season stamp set, I used the Snowflakes Cuttlebug folder for the snowflake background.

And, random.org picked the #20 as my winner for the Blog Candy! The 20th post was from linda ss, so please send me your address so I can send out your prize.

Winter Flakes

I made another card this afternoon using my sketch as a template for it. On this one I rounded all of the edges, and used circles for the main image just to change it up a bit. The white and light blue papers were both embossed using the Snowflakes embossing folder for the Cuttlebug. Plus I added a little gem to the snowflake to give it a little sparkle!

My First Card Sketch

I volunteered to do this weeks card sketch over on 2P's. I've never made card sketches before, so this is a first for me. My hubby was good enough to recommend using PowerPoint to make the sketch, and that made it a breeze - thanks honey! Being my first sketch and all, I wanted to keep it simple. Here is what I came up with...

And here is the card that I made based on the sketch...

Give the sketch a try, they are always so fun to use and are great to get the creative juices flowing. If you do make something with it let me know, I would love to see it! You can also check out the Stamping Board over on 2P's for more sketch challenges every week.

Jingle, Jingle, Jingle!

Here is another Christmas card that I made. I've done a lot of snowman cards lately, so I was trying to stay away from those guys a little bit so I went with this ornament. The background paper is embossed with the Snowflakes Cuttlebug folder, and the sentiment stamp is one of the $1 stamps from Michael's that I picked up. The ornament is a TAC stamp from the Tis The Season stamp set.

More Square Christmas Cards

I made two more Christmas cards with my leftover Simply Square Notecards last night. They really don't get more simple than this. On both of these cards I used the Cheers stamp set. If you don't have this one in your collection yet, you want to get it now! It has been one of my favorites for the last 2 years and it is about to retire in December.

In this first card I just stamped the "Joy" stamp from the Cheers set in black ink. Stamped it again on paterned paper and cut out the ornament to piece over the image on my card.


In this one, I stamped the tree stamp from the Cheers stamp set with black ink. I used Green and Red Stickles to color the tree and Icicle Stickles on the star.

Using Up My Stash

I have been cleaning up my table today and I came across a bag of Simply Square Notecards that I have had sitting around for a very long time. Time to use them up! Here is the first one that I have done...
I'm pretty sure that the Simply Square notecards have been discontinued by DCWV. I used the snowman stamp from the Hello Seasons stamp set and colored him in with my Prismacolor Pencils. Super quick and easy!

From Our House To Yours

This is a card that I made for a challenge over on 2Peas that I forgot to post. I love this set of stamps that I got from Papertrey Ink. It is called Holiday Treats. I used Hint Of Pesto and Red Magic VersaMagic Ink to do the background. These two colors go together beautifully and they are a nice change from the traditional Christmas red and green; I really like it!

Had A Great Weekend Stamping!

I got to spend the whole weekend stamping! I packed up some papers, stamps and goodies and headed to my sister's house for the weekend. She lives about an hour from me so it's just easier to stay a couple of days. So while the kids all played together, we spent the weekend playing! She had invited some friends over on Saturday to have a TAC workshop, which was a ton of fun!

Here are a few of the cards that I made over the weekend...

These first three cards are all made with stamps from the Tis The Season stamp set. I'm really loving this stamp set. I just got it last month and it's one of those great stamp sets that has everything you need all in one. I could easily make all of my christmas cards, tags, & bags with just this one set!



In this last one, the 'Joy to the World' stamp in the background is also from Tis The Season. The little tree stamp is from the Cheers stamp set. I colored in the tree with Christmas Red and Green Stickles. Around the bottom I tied some Red and Green Scrapper's Floss. If you haven't heard me say it already, Scrapper's Floss is one of my favorite embellishments. And talk about bang for your buck...you get 30 yards of it for $2.95. It just doesn't get much better than that! I really like how this card turned out; so sparkly and fun!

Double Stuff Embossing Part II

Well, I have done some more playing around with this double embossing with the Cuttlebug. Maggieliz over on GW posted some pictures of some backgrounds that she made with Alcohol Inks and the Cuttlebug embossing folders on her picture trail site: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=18149906&uid=750005 . They are gorgeous! She wrote me and asked if I would play around with what she had done and do a tutorial. So, here goes.

For this one, you will use white glossy cardstock. I do not have any Alcohol Inks, so instead I used my Palette Hybrid Inks. Here are the general supplies for the card I ended up making: Snowflakes Cuttlebug embossing folder, Brayer, Embossing Stamp Pad, White Embossing Powder, Prussian Blue Palette Ink Pad.


Start off by applying the ink directly from the ink pad to the glossy cardstock. Just keep working the pad across the entire surface until you have the look that you want. When the ink is completely dry, place it in the embossing folder and run it through the Cuttlebug. Letting the ink dry is very important to keep the embossing powder from sticking to it later.

Note: You can speed up the drying process with your heat gun!

Next, ink up your brayer with the Embossing ink. I have used a regular embossing pad, but you can also use a VersaMark pad to do this. Roll the ink over the entire surface, until you have all of the raised design inked.

Sprinkle on your white embossing powder. After you have completely covered the area, dump off the excess. You can clean off any excess embossing powder with a small paint brush.

Heat the embossing powder with your heat tool until all of the powder is melted.

When you are done embossing, your paper will look like this. Not only do you have those beautiful, bright white snowflakes, but if you look at the blue in the background, you can see all of the swirling color. In real life you can see all the gloss of the cardstock and it is gorgeous!

Here is the card that I went on to make with my paper. I put it on a white card so that the blue would really pop out. Because the background is so pretty I tried to keep what I was adding on top of it very simple and small so that I didn't end up covering too much of it up.

Things to try: Definitely try the alcohol inks like Maggieliz did, if you have them. On this one I just used a single color. Play around with more ink colors to create different looks.

~Michelle

Double Stuff Embossing!

Well, I have been playing more with the Cuttlebug embossing folders. These things really are a lot of fun to use! This one I have decided to call Double Stuff Embossing, as it involves embossing twice, in two different ways. Dry embossing with the Cuttlebug, and heat embossing with regular embossing powder.

Here are the general supplies that I used for this project: Cuttlebug Snowflakes embossing folder, Scrapper's Floss, Sparkle Embossing Powder, Embossing Stamp Pad, Noir Palette Pad, Prismacolor Pencils, Snowflake Brads, For All Seasons stamp set, Anti-Static bag, small paint brush, Heat Embossing Tool. In this particular card I used white, dark blue and light blue cardstock, but you use whatever you want!



The first thing I did was run my blue cardstock through the Cuttlebug using the Snowflakes embossing folder. Rub the anti-static bag across the paper. Give it a good coat so that you will have minimal excess embossing powder sticking to the paper.


Next, I used the Embossing Stamp Pad and ran it across the top of the embossed design. Be careful not to press down too hard, so that you do not ink the areas inbetween the design. You will be able to see when you have a good coat of ink because it will look wet.

Sprinkle the Sparkle Embossing Powder over all areas that you want embossed. Shake off the excess and use a small paint brush to clear any areas that have unwanted embossing powder. I did find that a lot of excess stays inbetween the designs. Most of it was easily gotten rid of with the paint brush, but some will inevidibly stay.

Heat the embossing powder with a heat gun until all of the powder is melted. This picture shows you the end result. If you look closely you can see the stray embossing powder between the designs. Since the Sparkle Embossing Powder is just clear powder with glitter in it, the strays just add a little extra sparkle! I am going to play with some colored powders as well, to see how they turn out.

Now that it is done you can trim it down to the size you want and use in on a card or other project. Here is a card that I made with mine. Glitter doesn't show up all that well in pictures, so this is much more sparkly in real life. It is really beautiful!

This is my first real attempt that this double embossing, and I really like the way it turned out. Those sparkly blue snowflakes are gorgeous and really add a lot of "wow" to the card! I can't wait to try different powders and different embossing folders to see how they will turn out.

~Michelle

Not Your Traditional Christmas Card

Spoiler Alert: If you are in the Non-traditional Christmas Color card swap over on MWS, then you probably don't want to be peeking at this card!

For everyone else, this is the card that I made for a Non-traditional Christmas Color card swap that I joined. The rules of the swap are that you are to make a Christmas card where you do not use the typical red and green. I tried to stay away from the blue and pink snowflake themes because I figured next to red and green, those would be the next most common. So I went with brown...

Now that it is done, it looks like a cowboy/western Christmas to me. Something about the browns and the inked edges; it just has a really rustic look to it. I used copper brads, which really adds to the effect. I'm going to pull out some gingerbread stamps and use this same color scheme, that should be cute!

For this card I used the new Ornamental Joy stamp from the fall supplement and the background is stamped with a flourish stamp from Curls & Swirls. The card base is basic Brown, and the Joy is stamped on Kraft cardstock. Everything is stamped and the edges are inked with the Burnt Umber Palette pad and I used the corner rounder to round all of the edges.