Monday, Monday

Hello!  Just stopping in quickly to share a card I made for my husband’s grandparent’s 62nd wedding anniversary. 

This card was case’d from a Christmas Card that was made by Nichol Magouirk and can be found here.  For my card I used a Hero Arts/Studio Calico background stamp, which I stamped in versamark ink.  The hearts were cut from cardboard using a Tim Holtz die.  I covered them in purple distress ink (crushed concord, I believe), and scattered straw distress ink.  Then I smeared them with coordinating stickles.  I used a memory box die to cut the pattern in behind the hearts.

Here is another card I made using the same layout but different colours:

Well, thanks for stopping by!  Hope you come back again!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 11

I’m sorry, I lied.  I wasn’t working on SYS Day 10, I was working on Day 11 – silly me.  I can’t work on day 10 right now because I do not own a single border stamp.  At all.  Can’t even pretend.  So on to day 11 it is!  Reverse stamps.  Here it is:

I stamped this Hero Arts image with Versamark and embossed it with gold embossing powder.  I then coloured it all in with copics (V000, V01, V12, V15, V17, G21, G24, G28).  I just noticed I forgot to colour the centre of the bottom flower here… oops.  Will go back and do that.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts, and it’s stamped with Versafine ink on Vellum.  I attempted to stamp it with a purple distress ink, but that turned out horribly.  Does anyone have any tips for stamping on vellum?  Does it have to be a permanent ink?  Please do leave a comment if you have any suggestions.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Steph

Christmas in July… on Boxing Day… in July.

mmmhmm.  Confused yet?  Anyway, I never did post the Christmas card I sent out to family and friends this year, so here it is:

I had taken the Christmas version of the Online Card class, and one of the days focused on using photos on your card – a technique I (obviously) used here.  I created a template that allowed me to punch 4 holes in the green layer of the card, so each corner of the picture tucks into it, holding it in place.  This way, the recipient can just take the picture out and keep it.  The snowflakes were stamped with white craft ink using a Hero Arts stamp, the Merry was cut out with a Papertrey Ink letter die, and the Christmas stamp is from PTI as well.  I used circle punches to create the holly leaves, and some white little irock gems that I coloured red for the berries.

Thanks for stopping in!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 9

Well, I’m getting there!  Only one more day of SYS to go, and I’m only a week late.  Not bad.  The focus for day 9 was using outline stamps.  I decided to take Maile Belles’ inspiration of white embossing over a striped background, but give it a twist.  She had her stripes going horizontally, however I decided to have mine going vertically:

The train stamp set and the houndstooth background is from Papertrey Ink, as is the die I used for the number 2.  The houndstooth pattern was clear embossed, the train, white embossed, and the number 2 was given several coats of ultra thick embossing enamel. 

Well, thanks for checking it out, and I should have day 10 ready for tomorrow!  Have a great day,

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 8

Hello!  Sorry I’ve been away the last couple of days.  A bit of a blog break while I did a massive tidy/reorganization of the craft cabana.  Today is mine and Dan’s 5th anniversary, and he was such a sweetie and bought me the domain name for my blog!  (yes, he is a computer nerd, and I am computer nerd enough to truly appreciate this very thoughtful gift)

We just got back from a very big dinner at the Keg – one of our favourite restaurants, and are now extremely bloated and lazy.  So, I’ve settled in to watch Big Brother (one of my summer guilty pleasures), So You Think You Can Dance, and to continue reading The Hunger Games (I’m a little behind on the times… it’s so good).  I just thought I’d stop in to post my card for Day 8 of Stretch Your Stamps class.   Talk about behind the times… class did end on Friday.  As I told Dan, I had trouble with day 8.  It was all about using label stamps, of which, I own 0.  So I had to get a bit creative…

 

decided to use the Tag You’re It die and stamp set that I own from My Favorite Things.  I combined my “label” with the sultry “Sohpia” from Kraftin’ Kimmie stamps.  She was stamped on Neenah paper with memento tuxedo black ink, and coloured with Copics.  I actually coloured her ages ago – and, well, for lack of a better word, pretty much copied what Melanie Holtz did with her here.  I am a huge fan of Melanie’s work with copics, and often practice colouring images the way she does in order to work on my own colouring ability. What I was working on here was getting the shading on a black dress.  I also added glossy accents over Sophia’s eyes, and on the martini glass to give them a nice sheen. The sentiment is from the Tag You’re It set, and the flourish was cut with a MFT die. 

Well, that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by!

Steph

Cooking Up a Little Something

Good morning!  I was just checking the stats on my blog, and saw that about 1/4 of my all time visitors visited yesterday from the shout out on Stretch Your Stamps!  Wow, that was cool!  And if you visited, thank you, I appreciate it! 

Now, on to today’s card.  This card was created to thank my mom and dad for all the running around they did to pick up food for Nathan’s birthday party. 

Sweet Agnes (from Kraftin’ Kimmie’s Moonlight Whispers line) was stamped on Neenah with memento ink and coloured with copics.  I absolutely adore this image – love the pear shaped body!   The papers are Echo Park, and I believe it’s from the “Happy Days” pad.  The bottle cap cutout for the sentiment was done with my Silhouette, and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches. 

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Have a great day!

Steph

WHOA!!!

This card got a shout out from Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire on Online Card Classes!  Most exciting bloggy thing that’s happened to me!

*day made*

Steph

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Hello!  Today I’m sharing with you the wrap job I did on a gift for Nathan’s buddy, James, who is turning 1 today!  I can’t believe these little ones are already a year!  It’s been nice being off with my friend Kristen, going for walks, shopping, eating, and just hanging out.  Unfortunately though, all our maternity leave fun will come to an end shortly… sigh…

Kristen let me know a couple of weeks ago that she was planning on doing a bit of a “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle – themed party.  And me, I’m all about creating something to tie in with a theme (although, I guess that’s only when it’s someone else’s theme.  Poor Nathan didn’t really have a theme for his party).  So… I got crafty when wrapping sweet baby James’ gift, and this is what I came up with:

 

Cute, eh?  I just wrapped the gift in Kraft Paper (which I picked up at the post office), and decorated.  To create the “Eric Carle” style of paper, I took coloured cardstock and a whole whack of distress inks and swiped them over the paper.  I then punched out what I needed – I used a circle die for the head, and two sizes of oval Stampin’ Up punches for the body.  To get the more “organic” shape of the pieces, I went around them with scissors, loosely chopping the sides.  I glued it all on piece by piece with Tombow multi glue.  The eyes, nose, antennae, and feet were all free handed as was the apple on the tag. 

I used my Martha Stewart hole punchy tool to cut the circle from the middle of the apple.

And those little splotches you can see on the tag, that was a mistake completely planned   I had “cleaned up” my craft sheet with a baby wipe from all the distress inks, then went ahead and placed my tag face down over it to write the “to and from” on the back of it.  When I turned it over I had this lovely little speckled design, which I love.  Gotta love those stupid mistakes that end up being brilliant!

 

Well, that’s all for now folks, thanks for stopping by!

Steph

More Kraftin’ Kimmie

I am a little behind on my homework for Stretch Your Stamps, and my little man did not nap long enough for me to work on anything today!  Oh well.  I did get an itty bitty block of time to finish off a card I started yesterday.  Here is the super cute Mae:

This gorgeous girl is layered over some sand and surf.  I used the Hero Arts cloud background stamp and some soft pool ink, then added waves cut with a fiskars punch, then ripped some paper to make the sand.  The window was cut with a nestability, and the sun was cut with a My Favorite Things die.  The sentiment is from a Kraftin’ Kimmie set.  Mae was stamped on Neenah with Memento Ink and coloured with copics.

Well, that’s all for now!  Thanks for stopping in!

Steph

Krafty Guest???

I am a huge fan of Kraftin’ Kimmie stamps – especially the Moonlight Whispers line.  I just love the adorable images - so cute and whimsical and so much fun to colour up with Copic markers.  So, when I heard that Kimmie was having a Krafty Guest contest, I figured I would try my hand at it.  I would love to be a Krafty Guest for a month, so, here goes. 

Today I am sharing two cards that I made using two different KK images.  This first one here is using sweet Julie.  She is off to celebrate her good friend’s birthday in style:

Julie was stamped on Neenah Solar White with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  Then I coloured her up with copics and layered her over some My Mind’s Eye Fine and Dandy Tickled Pink papers (that was a mouthful!).  The sentiment is from a Paper Smooches set.

 

For my second card, I used the lovely Caroline:

She too was stamped on Neenah with Memento ink and coloured with copics.  I used K&Company Sweet Nectar paper from a mat pack.  The sentiment is from a Paper Smooches set. 

 

Well, wish me luck  

Thanks for stopping by!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 7

Hello again!  Here is my card for SYS Day 7:

Today’s theme, florals.  I took out the Dots and Flowers (I think that’s what it’s called) stamp set from Hero Arts and inked it up.  In addition, I stamped a bunch of extra flowers and leaves.  I coloured everything on the base level of the card, then added the leaves with some SU dimensionals and the flowers with some other dimensional adhesive that is a bit thicker than the dimensionals.  That way, the leaves are behind the flowers.  Everything was coloured with copics.  The card base is 4x4.  The sentiment is also from Hero Arts.

 

Well, thank you so much for stopping by!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 6

Happy Wednesday to you!  Today’s focus for card class was on using stamp and die sets.  Of course, I don’t own any, so instead, I simply used a couple of coordinating Memory Box dies to create a beautiful and sparkly butterfly. 

The butterfly was glittered up with Glitter Ritz glitter, an amazing fine glitter that is so beautiful and creates a velvety look when burnished with your finger.  I pretty much case’d the card Jennifer McGuire made for class, just changing a couple of details.  The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set; it was stamped in Evergreen Bough distress ink and embossed with a sparkly embossing powder, which, unfortunately you can’t see all that well in the picture.  The gems are from Imaginisce, stuck on with my irock tool. 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 5

Wow!  2 posts in one day, craziness I tell you – well actually not craziness at all, I was just super lucky in that Nathan took a nice, looooong afternoon nap, so mommy got to craft!  Day 5’s focus was using sentiments.  I basically case’d Kristina Werner’s card for this one since I loved absolutely everything about what she did.  I did of course, use different papers, and sentiments.  I made this card to give to my hubby (who reads this blog, so I guess it won’t be a surprise, eh?) when we celebrate our 5th anniversary on July 25th.

and the inside… wait for it… wait for it…

The patterned papers are from a Recollections stack that is the exact same as a bunch of My Mind’s Eye papers (how is that possible?  I really don’t get it – they are the EXACT same!!!), along with some Basic Grey from SU.  The twine is from the Twinery.  The sentiment comes from the Big Birthday Wishes set from Papertrey Ink and the 5 was cut with their By The Numbers die set.  I coated the 5 in versamark and put A LOT of ultra thick embossing enamel on it to get it super duper glossy, then I adhered it to a piece of vellum.  The only thing I forgot to do before taking the picture was to round the top left and top right corners of the right paper (just at either end when unfolded) – I shall do that before I give away the card.

 

Thanks for stopping in today!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 4

Hello!  This card is inspired by Day 4 of the Stretch Your Stamps online card class.  The focus for Day 4 is using Graphic Stamps.  I don’t own many stamp sets that would be considered “graphic”, but I do have Modern Basics by Papertrey Ink.  Here is what I came up with:

I stamped the strip of leaves on vellum with versamark, covered it with black embossing powder, and heat embossed.  Then I stamped the flower image on coral coloured cardstock with versamark, clear embossed them, and cut them out.  The green vine was cut on my silhouette, and the sentiment (which was embossed in white) is from a Hero Arts set – I made it curvy when I placed it on my block so that it followed the curve of the vine strip. 

 

Thanks for stopping in! 

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 3

Finally!  It took me so many tries to finally get the look I was going for.  I’m glad I persevered as I do really like the results.

I first embossed the outside with a set of Lifestyle Crafts square dies, then stamped the “Thank You” with some white colourbox dye ink.  I embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder and heat set it.  Then, I created a mask to go over my letters with some Eclipse masking tape.  I stamped the Hero Arts background stamp with the same white dye ink and embossed it too.  All of the colouring was done with memento and distress markers.  I liked using these markers because it was super easy to go back with a baby wipe once I was done colouring and wipe the marker off the embossed parts.

Well, that's all for now.  Thanks for stopping in!

Steph

Paper Smooch-y Thanks

Hello!  Well I had such an amazing Saturday.  Today is actually my hubby’s birthday (happy birthday babe!), and since he was spending his day helping his uncle build a deck, I decided to bring the little man with me and head down to visit my parents and attend the volunteer firefighter’s family picnic.  My dad has been a volunteer fireman for many years (30+)… longer than I’ve been alive, so that’s a lot.   I remember the family picnics from when I was young and how much fun I had, so of course I wanted to carry on the tradition with Nathan.  Here is a sweet little pic of Nathan and my dad:

He really did like the helmet, and I missed a smile by a fraction of a second!  grr..

Anyway, the card I want to share with you today is just a quick one that I whipped up for a friend of mine:

The stamps are from a Paper Smooches set.  I stamped the “thanks” in black ink first, then cleaned my stamp (or so I thought) and stamped it in versamark to create a lighter watermark type of impression.  I guess the stamp wasn’t fully cleaned as you can see.  However, I liked the results so I left it.  The letters were coloured in with copics, and I popped the stamped layer up on the card base with some dimensional adhesive.

 

Update on Stretch Your Stamps – I am currently working on my day 3 course work (only 3 days behind…), and it is the most frustrating, but gorgeous, card.  I hopefully will get it done and share it with you tomorrow – along with days 4, 5, and 6. 

 

Thanks for stopping in!

Steph

First Birthday Invitation

My little man was born on the 4th of July, 2011.  He is the cutest baby toddler ever – if I do say so myself!  I love making cards and using his picture on the front of them.  I’ve made picture cards for Christmas, Easter, and now for the invitation to his first birthday party.  The picture was taken during our family trip to Florida in March, and is just too cute.

See what I mean? 

I used paint.net to format my picture – I decreased the size to 4 inches wide x 3 inches tall so that I could print 2 pictures on one 4x6 print… make sense?  This way, the picture would also fit onto a standard size card without any creative cropping.  I matted it on some white and green cardstock.  The waves are punched with a fiskars punch.   The sentiment on the front was printed off on the computer. 

 

thanks for stopping by!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 2

… and only 2 days behind  

Hello!  Just popping in to share what I made for day 2 of Stretch Your Stamps online card class – using collage stamps.  I don’t really own any collage stamps, so I used a technique that Kristina Werner shared involving distress inks, clear embossing, and more distress inks.  The technique reminded me of that old art class project that teachers used to torture engage us in – where we had to colour as hard as we could in a variety of colours of pencil crayon, then colour over all of that as hard as we could in black crayon, then pick off the black crayon to reveal a design.  This technique is much easier, and far more enjoyable to create. 

I started with laying down some distress inks on my craft mat, then spritzing with water.  I laid my watercolour paper in the ink to pick up the colour then let it dry.  I stamped the paper with versamark using a hero arts tapestry stamp (not sure of the exact name), then clear embossed.  Finally, I went over everything with black soot distress ink.  I wiped what I could off the embossing with a baby wipe when it was dry. 

The butterflies were punched with 2 Martha Stewart punches and sprayed with some pearlized water (they are much more sparkly and pretty in real life).  The sentiment is from Paper Smooches.

 

Thank you for stopping by!

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps Day 1

Hello!  I am so excited to share with you my first ever following along submission to an online card class!  Here it is:

Day 1’s focus was using background stamps.  I used the Hero Arts/Studio Calico lattice background stamp.  I inked it up once and stamped it out on Neenah Solar White cardstock, then stamped it again, moving it up ever so slightly.  The result was this really cool, retro-y type background.  I paired it up with some images from Paper Smooches “Sugar Rush” set and viola! 

Thanks for stopping by, I’m now off to get my Day 2 homework done!

 

Steph

Stretch Your Stamps

Hello!  I am a junkie for learning new things.  I am forever buying and reading professional resources for teaching, reading blog posts, and taking beading and card making classes.  So of course when I found out about this Online Card Class being offered last summer, I signed up right away.  It was fun to follow along with the class and learn a whole whack of new things, but unfortunately, with a newborn, I didn’t have the opportunity to create along with the class.  Fast forward a year and with every other Online Class under my belt (none of which I followed along with to create as they went), I am now signed up for Stretch Your Stamps and I vow, yes, I VOW to follow along with this class and participate in each and every day of it!  So, here is my contribution to the before class gallery (even though the gallery is now closed - doing well already :)).  Wish me luck for staying on top of the rest of my homework!

The papers are all from Basic Grey’s Max and Whiskers collection.  I used Walnut Stain distress ink on the edges and for all of my stamping.   Stamps used are Hero Arts birthday definition and Happy Birthday from a Paper Smooches set.  The present is a free Paper Smooches digi stamp that I printed and coloured with copics.

Thanks for stopping in!
Steph

Do It Yourself Photo Light Box

I always hated how the pictures I took of my cards turned out.  So I decided to look into a photo light box.  In the interest of spending little to no money, I turned to google and found this set of instructions.  Done.  I grabbed a diaper box from the basement and whipped up this bad boy in no time…



I’ll share some more cards with you tomorrow. 
Steph

Find Joy in the Simple Things…

…and todays simple joy shall be Channing Tatum.  I’ve got a slight crush on the guy – such a hottie!  I’m going to see “Magic Mike” tonight – can’t wait.  In the meantime, I intend to spend a lovely day relaxing with my hubby and our little man.  Perhaps a little swim, and if I’m lucky, maybe a bit of crafty time. 

Over the last little bit, I’ve become a fan of creating simple cards.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spending a couple of hours colouring up an awesome image with my copics, and fiddling around with layouts and the such, but lately I can’t be bothered.  I want a finished card, and I want it fast.  I think this is why I’ve become such a fan of Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire (besides their just pure and simple awesomeness); they create cards that are simple and stunning. 

So…. channelling my inner simple goddess, I came up with a whack of cards that took practically no time at all:

Stamp: Hero Arts

Stamp: Paper Smooches

Stamp: Paper Smooches

… which leads me to my new obsession – Paper Smooches stamps!  But more on that later…

 

For each of the cards, I used my circle punches to create the flowers and the leaves.  I actually just punched out a whack of circles in various sizes, then just went about creating the flowers from the stacks of circles I punched.  It took no time at all to create about 20 of these cards.  The centres of the flowers were glossy-d up with some Glossy Accents.  I embossed each card with a Cuttlebug folder, and I even embossed some of the flowers with a Stampin Up folder.

 

I am still so excited about my new photography skills!  Love the images!  Love the backgrounds!  (as you can see, it doesn’t take much to get me excited)

 

Well, that’s about all for now!  Thanks for stopping by,

Steph

Phew!

Boy oh boy was the last part of June a whirlwind!  I went back to work from my maternity leave for the last 2 weeks of June and am now happily on summer vacation!  We celebrated the little man’s birthday on Canada Day with 40 of our closest family and friends (yes, I’m nuts).  With al the crazy business going on lately, I haven’t had much time to craft.  I do have a few cards I’m going to share with you over the next little bit, and I’m also super excited about the photo light box that I made to take some better pictures with! 

Here is a photo of a card taken the old fashioned way (in all it’s shadowy goodness):

And here is the same similar card photographed in my new photo box:

 

Oh I’m so giddy!  Isn’t it pretty!  I love how bright I can get my picture to be, and I love that I can put a background in behind it!  I will work on getting some pics of the box itself, and try to find the link to the instructions I used to make it.

 

For these cards, I used some My Mind’s Eye Away We Go paper.  The hexagons were cut using my Silhouette.  The “happy” and the “birthday” were cut using Papertrey Ink dies.  The layout itself is inspired by a card that Kristina Werner created for one of the Online Card Classes.  I am obsessed with her work, she is amazing.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great weekend!

Steph