Wedding Card for Tony and Heather

 Tony has been a good friend of my husband and I for several years now.  This past Saturday he married the love of his life, Heather.  I have never seen Tony so happy as he is now that she's in his life.  Brian and I regretted that we couldn't make the trip up to Tenn. to see them married but I did things just didn't work out to allow us to go.  This is the card that I made them to celebrate their special day.  I used a pearlized designer paper from DCWV called the Luxury stack.  I took pictures with and without the flash to help you get a better idea of how the paper looked.  I know the picture without the flash didn't turn out too good but it's hard to take pictures in low light and have them turn out clear.  I thought you could better see the design in the paper tho so I included it in this post.  I also used some purple metallic paper that I used on the left side punched out with my Martha Stewart punch and then one the right side where I used the ek success boarder punch on the top and bottom sides.  I stamped the sentiment and then heat embossed it with white embossing powder.  I placed a white dolly in the back and a hand made flower that included a feather and some pearl spray.  I added the black and clear bling from Recollections.

I hope you can see the card clear enough in this picture. I apologize for the blurry ness.  I hope Tony and Heather like their card and I wish them all the happiness in the world on their new life together.  They really seem to be happy together.  

Ok, that's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow to show you my recent Junk Journal swap in a video.  Till then, I hope you all have a wonderful night. ttys, hugs, amyk

Masculine Birthday Card

I made this card for my awesome Father In-law, Frank.  He's my husband's step father but you would never know it.  He's just Pop to all of us and we love him dearly, the whole family.  He seems to really appreciate the craft that I do and always tells me how much he enjoys my cards, him and my Mother in-law, Judy.  I just love it because it gives me such a big head, you know?  To get all that praise. I'm just kidding, but they do make me feel good about the projects I've created for them.

On that note, I always try to put just a little more craftyness into their cards.  For this card I used a Tim Holtz technique, one from his book, where you take white card stock and heat emboss it with clear ink, then you color the card stock with whatever distress ink you like and use some water to really get the ink moving around the paper.  I used watercolor paper for this card, it helps with the warping from all the water.  Then you heat set and dry your inks and then lastly, you take an iron (one just for crafts) and a sheet of newsprint paper or I just used copy paper and it worked fine, and you place the paper over the image and use the hot iron to "remove" the embossing powder.  What happens is when you heat up the image that has been heat embossed the embossing powder will transfer to the copy paper and it leaves the white card stock behind, no more shine from embossing powder and the whole reason for using embossing powder is because it preserves the color of card stock underneath and resist the distress ink. once you are done adding all that distress ink and water and then drying it all you have to do is use a dry towel or baby wipe to wipe away any stray ink.  It's really cool and I really should use the technique more than I do.  I always like the results.  I didn't use any designer paper on this card just stamps and inks.  The background is faux letterpress.  You just take any embossing folder, (I used one from the Paper Studio) and ink up one side using dye based ink and a brayer, then CAREFULLY place your paper inside the folder trying not to move it any once you've closed the folder or the ink will smear. Then run it thru your cutting or embossing machine like usual and when it comes out the ink has transferred to the debossed areas of your paper.  It's totally cool too.  Then to finish off the card I stamped the sentiment and star from a Hero Arts stamp set in black and yellow for the star and cut it into a banner shape.  I let it hang off the right side of the card a little so I had to use an envelope that was slightly larger or you could just cut a little off one side of your card if you were going to do this. That's it for today.  I really hope Frank enjoys this card.  I certainly had fun creating it.  As my friend, Robin says, "You know you've done a good job when you don't want to let your project go".  Sometimes I find I just like a card so much I want to keep it myself. lol.  When I create a card using all these cool techniques I've learned I usually just sit back and think to myself, "I really made this!" It's like I can't believe I made it. lol.  I hope you all have a really great day and I'll see you back here again tomorrow with a wedding card. ttys, Hugs, amyk

Get Well Card for Maddy Justice

  One morning while reading my blogs I came across a post about a young lady whose story just touched my heart.  I regret to say that I do not recall the blog which contained that original post so I can not refer you back to it.  I just jotted down her name and information that day.  The blog post was about this young lady named Maddy Justice. She is battling Acute Myeloid Leukemia at St. Jude's Children's hospital.  At the time of that blog post Maddy was waiting to receive stem cell from her father.  That post was encouraging people to make and send Maddy cards and they include her address and a web site where you can check on Maddy's progress and leave personal messages for her.  I was moved by her story because she is such a brave young lady.  I believe she's 13 and she's been battling this horrible disease for a long time now.  This will be the second time that she's received stem cells from members of her family and she's so positive in her attitude.  She doesn't want anyone to worry about her.  She says things like, "it doesn't hurt that bad" and constantly assures her mother that she's feeling OK. No matter what the hospital has to do or procedures that she has to undergo she never complains and just remains a strong little solder.  I wanted to send her a card and a positive message to encourage her so I made her this card.  If you would like to send Maddy a card you may send it her at:

 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Maddy Justice - Patient
262 Danny Thomas Place
Memphis, Tn 38105

If you would like to check on Maddy's progress daily you can log on to caringbridge.org/maddyjustice and see her daily journal and you can leave her a positive message and send her some encouraging words. I think she's a pretty amazing little girl.

Masculine Birthday Card

Good Morning All, Hope your day is off to a great start. Yesterday I got up feeling like I was coming down with something and as the day wore on I just felt worse and worse.  I was hopeful that a good night's sleep would leave me feeling better in the morning and I did wake up this morning feeling almost normal but now that I've been up for an hour an had breakfast and a little time to get woke up, I can tell that whatever it is it's still with me. I just feel like I have the flu all over my body and I haven't found any medicine to help it yet. Maybe today wont be as bad as yesterday was anyway.  I've got to drive out of town today and will be on the road and in traffic for the larger part of the morning.  I hate to drive knowing I'm feeling under the weather. I don't even think it's flu season, is it? Plus I've had my flu shot. I don't know what's going on but I hope it passes soon.

On with the card for today.  How about I show you something crafty and stop whining  OK. So Here's my card.

 

I made this fun card for a great Uncle of mine, goes by the name of Harvey.  In the early stages, this didn't look like a card at all.  I took a small piece of white watercolor paper and first added some distress inks with the ink blending tool, in shabby shutters and broken china. Then I got out my Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Amethyst and Mint Green and sprayed that in different areas of the water color paper. Now, mind you, at this point I was just having some creative play time and didn't have anything in particular in mind that I wanted my finished product to be.  So, I continued to play.  I used my heat tool to dry the Color Shine.  Then I looked at what I had created and decided that I didn't really like it yet.  I knew the distress inks would activate and move around if I sprayed it with water and I kinda thought I would be playing with water and that's why I used the water color paper.  I didn't know what the color shine would do, if anything, with water so I thought I would try it and find out.  Boy, was I surprised!  You can see how much movement I got out of the Amethyst color and this was me spraying it with water AFTER I had dried it.  It came right back to life and all that beautiful color moved all around the page. I just let it go where it wanted to go and moved and tilted my paper to keep them moving .  I didn't have to use a ton of water either.  It was totally meant to be. lol.  I used a towel to blot up some of the bigger droplets of water and then used the heat tool again and just let it blow the color all around as it dried.  It was like the color shine moved on top of the paper and distress ink.  When you wet an area of distress ink. It reacts with water but it also kinda melts into the paper at the same time. Not the color shine, it just moved around the top of everything.  That's how I got that wonderful swirlish pattern.  When it was dry, I absolutely loved the look it gave.  All that shimmer was still there and you have this wonderful water color effect that you normally don't get from a spray.   I still had a Masculine card that I needed to make so I thought I would pair these colors with black to ground it some.  I used the old car stamp from Prima and I tried for the first time some of my new embossing powder from Recollections called "Aged Black". I had no idea what "Aged" meant or how it would look but it sounded distressed so I embossed the car with it.  When I started to heat it up to melt it alot of the bigger chunks of black in the embossing powder kinda blew all around the page or away all together.  So I was thinking, "Okay, this must be like distress embossing powder from Ranger,. or something similar" But under the black I could also see a finer powder of gold and even finer powder of silver, but the black was really chunky.  I thought before I was done with it it would look awful. Recollections usually makes pretty good products even tho they are the "House Brand" at Micheal's so I didn't know what to expect.  When I was done melting all of it I was very pleasantly surprised.   Well, You can see the final result.  It looks SO COOL! I added a couple more stamps from a Close to My Heart stamp set called, "It's your Day",  for the sentiments in Versa Fine black. Then added a few sequins and bling to match on top. I mounted it on black card stock and then again on a sheet of this metallic green paper I found in my stash.  I thought one of our vintage bags would look great on this card so I cut one up and added strips to the top and bottom before I added the watercolor paper with its layers. The "Happy Birthday" stamp is another from Close to My Heart called, "Casual Expressions" and this stamp set also coordinates with the Circut Artiste cartridge.  So I used it to cut out the oval. Then I wanted to heat emboss the sentiment and I didn't have the right color in green that I wanted to use and I wanted to pull in some of the other colors from the focal piece to tie it all together and not just focus on that purple.  So I took my Pearl Ex in a green I thought would match and mixed a little bit in a small container (that I could put a lid on afterwards) and a little bit of Ultra fine clear embossing powder and mixed them all together and ta da, you have your own, custom made embossing powder! Isn't that great!  I love it.  One thing to note, if you try this technique out, is that when you sprinkle the new embossing mixture on your card stock, the mica powder in the Pearl ex will stick all over your paper.  Not to worry, just flick off as much as you can and all the heaver embossing powder will fall off and just leave the mica powder left behind.  Go ahead and heat emboss like usual and once it's cooled off take a fluffy brush and just dust the mica powder away. Oh, and make sure you use an embossing buddy or powder tool prior to stamping your embossing ink. That way you are sure not to have any stray embossing powder stuck to your project.  Well, I hope you liked today's card. I know it was a long post and I hope you stayed till the end.  I promise one day I will do some process pictures to show you how to do these techniques I keep telling you about lol. Well, I'm off to see the Doctor who lives so far away it may as well be the land of Oz, lol,. I hope you all have a wonderful day and I'll see you back here again tomorrow with another Masculine card.  Till then, Hugs,

Graduation card

 I made this card for my good friend, Cassidy.  She is my best friend, Wendy's daughter and she just graduated from High school with honors.  We are all so very proud of Cass. I know she worked hard for it and now she has plans to take the summer off from school and then go on to college full force in the fall. I missed her graduation because there was a mishap with my invitation and I didn't know anything about it till very last minute and I will always hate that but I didn't want her to feel like I wasn't thinking of her so I made her this card to acknowledge her accomplishments and to let her know how proud of her that we are.

I made this card using a 6x6 pad of designer paper from My Minds Eye called "Dolled up". I used several of the papers just layering them on for a shabby chic feel. This is the style of creating cards that I enjoy the most. I die cut the frame from a Spellbinders die set using the designer paper and then I embossed it with the die and stenciled the blue in with distress ink in broken china. For the rosette and ribbon I used a Close to My Heart bundle of the cricut Artiste cartridge and the Kudos stamp set. This bundle is really cool because the stamps have coordinating die cuts that are found on that Cricut cartridge. The stamp set even tells you what size to make your die cuts and then you can stamp the image on the cut outs and they fit perfectly. I used a Recollections 51/2x51/2" corrugated card base from Michael's. After adhering all the designer papers to the card base I went around the out side distressing with white paint from Ranger.

This is a peak into the inside of the card.  You know, I used to never decorate the inside of my cards.  I would just add the sentiment, usually matted on a coordinating color of card stock but then I decided the inside was just an extension of the front of the card and more real estate to decorate. Why not? I think the cards look much better this way and much more finished. I just added more of the designer paper.  I cut the edges of the background piece cleanly but tore and distressed the pink patterned paper on top for interest.  I believe that label shape is also from the Artiste cartridge.  I used some pink pigment ink by Martha Stewart for the edges and added my sentiment verse with my printer.  It's so easy to print on these die cut shapes. All you have to do is create your sentiment in Word and print it out on regular copy paper. Then take your die cut or what ever you want to print your final sentiment on and add removable adhesive to the back, now use a lamp to back light your copy paper and use it to line up where you want the sentiment to print on your die cut and stick it down.  Now, put the copy paper right back in the printer just the exact way it was when you printed on it the first time.  Now hit Print and watch the magic happen.  If you don't touch any of your computer settings and you make sure to put the paper back just the way it printed the first time, then your printer will duplicate the print now on your die cut.  Pretty awesome, huh?  I learned that trick along time ago when I first started scrapbooking and I still use it today. you can even use that technique to print on ribbon.  That's right, actual ribbon.  I would go for a lighter color of ribbon, of course.

Well, that's all I've got for today. Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with another card for you. Till then I hope you have a wonderful night. Hugs to you all and thanks for stopping by. Amyk

Happy Anniversary to Judy and Frank

 

I made this card for my Mother in law, Judy and her husband Frank for their 7th wedding anniversary.  I truely believe those two were meant for each other.  They are so good together.  I love them both dearly and that's why I wanted to make them this card,. I wanted it to be extra special to them.

I used designer paper from Die cuts With A View, it's an older line but I still like it and they didn't seem to mind. lol..I die cut the heart shape on the cricut mini machine using GCD'S Paris Nights paper line. I like that paper because it's flocked. I die cut the flourish from black card stock using a Cherry Lynn Design's die and the sentiment die cut is from Sizzix and I colored it with some color shine and stamped it with a sentiment from Autumn Leave. The vellum piece is from the paper line and I addheared it by using my sewing machine to a piece of red that is also from the paper line. I had to glue the bling on one by one but it wasn't too much work and I think it paid off in the end.  The card base is a 5.5 x 5.5'' corrugated card base from Recollections.  Well, that's all from me for today, I've got to get busy working on some things for a wedding and then I will have to get busy working on a baby shower for my SIL. Lots to do, I love it! I'll keep you posted.

Birthday card for a very special young man

I made this card last month for my Nephew who just turned 9 this year.  His name is Dylan and he's quite a cool little dude.  I thought a card with the Robots cartridge for the cricut would be suiting for him.  I just loved this little robot character for the front of this card.  To be honest, I must admit that I've had the Robots cartridge for quite a while and this was my first time breaking it out to use on a project. teehee. I do that sometimes.  I find a product on sale or at a good deal and I already have projects in mind for that product so I go ahead and buy it because I already know that I'm going to use it even tho it might not be right away.  I bought that cartridge with Dylan in particular in mind. It will also be good to use for my cousin's baby boy when he gets a little older.

To make this card I broke into the hoard vault and broke out my metallic/ mirror card stock. I used a piece of green metallic for the card base and then the designer paper comes from Basic Grey, it's an older line but I still use it alot for little boys especially.  It's called Lime Rickey. I also used a piece of green designer paper for the robot and some silver metallic card for his hands and feet. I added some gears to the card front and the sentiment shape is an ek success punch. I used a rub on for the "Make a Wish", from American Traditional Designs.  I distressed the edges of it with one of the red distress inks from Ranger.  I used the letter stickers that comes with the designer paper pack to spell out Dylan's name.

 This is the inside of the card. I used another sheet of that metallic/ mirror card stock, this time in light blue.  I used a Martha Stewart boarder punch to punch out each side.  I cut the label shape in the middle with the cricut, not sure which cartridge tho.  Most likely the Artiste cartridge. I colored it that red with the distress inks and stamped the "Happy Birthday" with versa mark ink and heat embossed with a metallic blue embossing powder. Added a gear cluster and that was that. I decided to go ahead and show you the inside even tho I had already signed it. Hope you all don't mind. lol

That's all I've got for now, I'll be back shortly with another anniversary card. Thanks for stopping by, Hugs

Anniversary card for good friend Robin and Denny

 This is the card I made for Robin and Denny's anniversary this year. I'm not sure how long they have been married but I know it's well over 20 years and that's something to be proud of.  What a great way to spend your life, living it out with someone you love. I'm so happy for them and look forward to spending that many years with my own dear hubby.

To make this card I used paper from GCD studios Paris Nights designer line. I layered the background piece on top of a sheet of black card stock then cut the label and it's layer out on the cricut. I believe I used Lacy Labels for that shape. The flowers are by Recollections and the flourish is a Sizzix die cut from Tim Holtz called Elagant Flourishes.  The sentiment die cut is also from Tim Holtz, it's called Styled Labels. I stamped it with a beautiful stamp set from Close To My Heart called Jardin Flair. I stamped it in Versa color ink in Raspberry. I also used that color to soften the edges of the die cut and add a little distress to it. I stamped the Jetime in versa fine black. I used the cricut once again for the little label and it's layer. I believe its from Fabulous Finds. The sentiment stamp is from Hero arts and I heat embossed it in black.

This is a shot of the inside of the card.  As you can see, I used more of the designer paper here and the label is from Spellbinders. I used second generation stamping for the butterfly image which also came from that wonderful CTMH stamp set. I also used the raspberry ink for that image and the distressing around the edges. 

Well, that's it for now, Look for several more blog post to come in the next few days. I've gotten a little behind in posting and some of the cards are waiting to be delivered before I post them so some of my post may be a little out of order.  Talk to you all again soon, have a wonderful Memorial Day Holiday!

My Mother's Day cards with video

This first card was made for my Mother-in law. I used the same corrugated card bases by Recollections for Micheal's stores and the same basic layout for both cards. I started with a sheet from the Divine designer paper by Prima for each card, then I used my Heidi Swap glimmer shines along with some Tattered Angels Glimmer mist to color a white sheet of card stock and then used my gypsy design tool to size up the label for the background of each card and cut it out on my cricut electronic die cutting machine. I cut these two labels out of the card stock that I had colored with the glimmer sprays.  I also used the gypsy to size two more of those labels for the insides of the cards and cut them out with the cricut. I used several more die cuts for this first card. I used the notebook paper die (not sure what they call it) by Papertry Ink and stamped it with an American Art Stamp in a vintage label image. I then die cut the doily piece and that's from Memory box dies and I believe it's called dizzy doily and lastly, I cut out the flourish in black card stock with a MFT (My Favorite Things) die and I'm not sure of the name they give that flourish die cut.  For the sentiment in the center on this first card I went back to my glimmer mist and color shines and colored this little rectangle of white card then distressed it with my Prima distressing tool and edged it Victorian velvet distress ink from Ranger. I stamped the sentiment with an Hero arts stamp in versa fine black ink. I used this sentiment stamp for both cards.  I then tied a double bow with my bow easy with black seam binding and then gathered up the ends to make them curl like that.

This is the inside of the first card. I just cut a piece of the designer paper just a little bit smaller than my card base so the kraft color would show and then layered the label I told you I made for the inside with another die cut from the cricut. I edged the outside of this die cut with broken china distress ink.  That little acrylic piece you see there at the left top is a Fragment from Tim Holtz and I used glossy accents to glue a piece of the designer paper to the back of it. It probably seems strange to glue the paper to the back of the acrylic block but it actually gives a great look and adds lots of depth.  Its an easy technique with a big payoff. 

This second card is the one that I made for my Mother. I used alot of the same or similar materials and die cuts for both cards. I used a different sheet of the designer paper from that Divine stack from Prima for the background and then layered one of the labels that I had colored with my spray mist. The banner was fussy cut from another sheet from that stack and I added little paper flowers between each banner shape then tied little tiny bows from yellow twine from We R Memory Keepers. I used alot of the embellishments that went along with the Divine stack. I used the journaling tag with the dancing lady under the Mom sentiment, I got those wood letter squares from the children's craft dept. of Wal Mart and just colored them with my Copic markers then added glossy accents to the top to finish them off. The flowers were also from the Divine collection. The pearl flourishes were gifted to me at Christmas time from a swap partner. I wet then crumpled up the sentiment piece then flattened it back out somewhat and dried it with my heat gun. I stamped it with that same Hero Arts stamp with versa fine black ink and edged it with broken china distress ink from Ranger.

This is a shot of the inside of that second card. It's not much different from the first one. I used different papers but still the same die cuts and spray mist and distress ink. I added another one of those fragment acrylic squares to the top of the label die cut with a different image from the design paper on it.  Sorry for the poor lighting in the picture but I like to take my pictures outside in the natural light but the sun was going down on this day thus the dark picture lol.

I've added the video here that shows the cards in more detail and there is another card in the video too so if you don't want to watch it you can just stop the video after you've seen all you want to see. I do hope you stay till the end.:) 

That's it for my post today, hope it wasn't too long for you :) I hope you enjoyed the cards and the video. I'm trying to get into making more videos but it takes up a good chunk of time to film and edit and post a video plus I don't make alot of extra projects just to have some thing to film. Maybe one day I can do that but for now I don't have the space to store all those extra projects.:) I'll be back in a day or so with another anniversary card for my friend, Robin and her husband, Denny.

A Birthday card for my Good friend, Robin

In general, you will hardly ever find me scrap-lifting and idea be it for scrapbooking or card making, but every once in a while I will come across a project that I absolutely love. Love so much that I feel I must recreate something at least similar to it. I get a lot of inspiration from magazines and pintrest and all the crafty gals on You Tube but I usually like to use my own original ideas when it comes to my creations. That's part of the fun of it to me, to come up with an idea in your head and watch it transform to reality on whatever your canvas might be.  In the instance of this card, I proudly say I scrap-lifted the idea of the card.  A couple weeks ago I was watching a video by Kristen Warner on you tube and she did a card similar to this and I just want to make sure to give her the credit that she deserves here on my blog as I would never intentionally take credit for another's ideas.  I used different stamps and different papers but the idea of the dark brown ink on kraft and colored with the white gel pen and the flowers. That was all her.   I knew I wanted to recreate this card the second I saw her video and I almost never get that inspired by a video.  Not to the point that I run to immediately recreate what I saw. Don't get me wrong; I get plenty of inspiration from videos. No doubting that.

I made this card for my Good friend Robin's birthday. I used Authentic paper layered with kraft on top of a cardboard card base from Micheals. I used some of Rangers paint daubers in Pearl to go around the edges of the kraft card. The stamps I used are all from one set by Tim Holtz. I stamped in dark brown chalk ink from clearsnap and then used my white gel pen to color inside the flowers.  I stamped the butterfly onto a sheet of patterned paper and fussy cut  it out then just added a line of glue down the center of the butterfly to keep the wings popped up. It was a very quick card. I guess it went together in something like 5 min. but I love it. I love the way it turned out and I was so happy to get to send it off to Robin.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a great rest of your day. I'll be back tomorrow with another crafty creation. Hugs, amyk