Happy Father's Day Card Inspired by I Create

I found this fabulous card on the I Create blog.  I just loved the colors, the layout and the whole look.  It was just so wonderful I knew I had to create my own version and it was the perfect time to pull out the Swagger 6x6 paper pad by Fancy Pants I picked up during the National Scrapbooking Day sale at Craft Warehouse.  I love these masculine prints and I haven't had the opportunity to put them to use yet.  So I teamed it up with a Technique Tuesday stamp set I love called Swanky Sentiments and the Four Petal Flower embossing folder from Sizzix then finished it off with a few eyelets from my stash.  It was such a fun card to make even though it sat on pieces on my desk for days while I didn't have time to play in my craft room. 

Wood Grain Fun

I've wanted a wood grain patterned embossing folder for a long time, but no one sold one in town and I never got around to buying one off the Internet.  But I was at Craft Warehouse the other day and was so happy to see that they are carrying a whole line of Darice embossing folders.  I just couldn't help but buy the wood grained pattern I had wanted for so long.  So then when I was trolling Splitcoaststampers where I stumbled across this fabulous masculine valentine using wood grain, I just had to try my own hand at it.  I embossed the card, then cut out a heart using my Cameo.  I then drew in some texture in the opening using my colored pencils and added my "carving."  I finished it off with a metal piece from my stash and some Martha Stewart baker's twine.  Pretty simple to do but I love the masculine feel of it. 

 

Turns out this was hubby's favorite card of them all.

Missing My Friend

So today's Learn Something New Every Day post made think about things that used to be part of my daily life but aren't anymore.  The absolutely first thing that came to mind is my friendship with Val.  We used to talk nearly every day.  Now we're lucky if we talk four or five times a year.  She's busy with school, work, family, church and her other friends. I understand that, but it doesn't mean that it hurts any less that I feel like I don't have a place in her life anymore.  So today's journal entry was about losing that close friendship we used to have and I made a page to go with it. 

I pulled out a collection pack that I bought at the sidewalk sale at Craft Warehouse this summer.  It's Crate Paper's Paper Heart Collection.  It's a pretty lovey-dovey set that I actually bought to scrapbook some of our wedding pictures with, but there's a couple of papers in there that I just love that are a bit more neural, like this background page, which I absolutely adore.

I love, love, love the sayings in the Echo Park collections.  They always just seem to be perfect.  The only problem was that the color of this saying was all wrong for my layout.  So I printed the print and cut design out from my Silhouette Studio, scanned it and opened it in Photoshop.  I then filled the text with colors that went with my layout and cut it out again.  The only problem was the white cardstock I had printed it on was too white.  So I used a little Old Paper Distress Ink to age it a little.  Now it was the absolute perfect embellishment. 

I added some Recollections pearls that were part of my stocking stuffers this year (thanks Mom!), some Prima and Imaginesce flowers and Darice bling.  The little tickets are from a border strip in the Crate Paper collection and the heart is from my new stamp set from Inkadinkado called Hearts.  I finished it off with some Thickers letters (my new obsession) and some rub on letters I found in my stash.  The top flower has an extra little eyelet tucked behind the gem because it's the pull tab for my hidden journalling. 

I had today off and used the day to try the smoker out by myself for the first time to smoke a couple of piece of pork that we had left over from buying meat at Costco.  Pretty dismal failure although Hubby saved the day when he got home.  But my attempt at dinner was much better.  I found a lovely crock pot recipe for Cashew Chicken on Pinterest posted by Six Sisters' Stuff.  I changed it up a little by doubling the sauce.  Then just a little before we were ready to eat, I dumped in a bag of frozen stir-fry veggies.  It was wonderful, although next time I think I'll triple the sauce.

Then we finally sliced the apple pie we made yesterday after canning apple pie filling from the apples we picked in the afternoon.  Yum!

Such Inspiration

Lately, I've found so much inspiration on the blogs.  For instance, last Friday night when I was simply trolling the blogs for inspiration, I found the cutest card on Jamie Lane's Bits of Paper blog.  I knew I just had to make a card of my own.  Last Friday I picked up this cute little 6x6 paper pad called Vanity Fair from My Mind's Eye at Craft Warehouse.  It's perfect for making cards and I knew it would be perfect for this one.  I had a pale yellow card base all ready so really it was just cutting a few flowers from the Silhouette Design Studio and finished them off with pale yellow gems from Darice using my Irock tool.  Then I added a sentiment stamped using a Fiskars set I had on hand along with a little crochet thread and grosgrain ribbon.

Another Recycled Sketch

For some reason I find myself going back to the same sketches from time to time.  I made this card in a tan and light greenish color and really liked it.  So I thought I would switch it up.  I also find myself reaching for the same 6x6 pad of Stella and Rose from My Mind's Eye.  I really do love that one.  Little did I know when I picked it up during last year's Craft Warehouse "sidewalk" sale that it would become one of my favorites.  It's funny too how papers that I'm just not completely in love with when I pull them out of the pad, I just completely adore when the project is completed.  So here's a fabulous remake of a card I love with a little printing from my Word processor (Vivaldi font) and a stamp from the Paperwork Greetings set from Inkadinkado along with Red Riding Hood ink from Stampin' Up.  The flower is one of my favorites I've downloaded from the Silhouette Design Studio with a little yellow gem from Imaginesce using my Irock and a some random crochet thread.

Another sympathy card

I found out tonight that Matt's Aunt Lorraine passed away this morning.  She was a very nice lady and I enjoyed spending time with her and her husband, Marvin, before he passed.  So tonight I found myself in my craft room with the unbelievably difficult task of creating another sympathy card.  Fortunately, I found a pattern for this card in the Best of Card Creations by PaperCrafts.  I love this book.  I picked it up at CKC several years ago and I find myself pulling it out from time to time when I need a little inspiration.  Tonight was no exception and this particular card just jumped out at me. As usual, the hardest part was finding the right paper.  I had the polka dot paper sitting on my table top from a card I made the other night.  It comes from the Bella Armoire stack by DCWV.  I absolutely love that stack.  The grey paper comes from the Stella and Rose paper pad from My Mind's Eye.  I picked the 6x6 pad when it was on sale at Craft Warehouse and I find it's perfect for card making.  The white, grey and black papers just come from my stash of scraps, but I particularly liked how this wreath turned out.  It was downloaded from the Silhouette store and the simplicity of the wreath was perfect in comparison to some of the more complex ones I found in the store.  With just a few black metal Irock findings and a little sheer ribbon, the card was complete. 

Birthday Card

I needed a masculine birthday card and found this perfect one in the Silhouette Design Studio. This one wasn't a perfect A-2 size, but with a little re-sizing, it fit the bill. It was a snap to cut out and put together. I used Sierra Paper Crafts paper purchased at Craft Warehouse and just one brad per card. Super simple.

Fun little kitty card

During my coupon shopping spree on Saturday, I picked up an Inkadinkado stamp set I didn't have yet called Cats Galore. It has a number of inch square stamps and I immediately saw them laid out in a grid on a card. So, of course, that's what I did.

Unfortunately I didn't have a one-inch punch, which I realized I really needed to cut out the inch squares correctly. So it was off to Craft Warehouse to use my coupon to pick up the new punch, oh, and some new 12 x 12 Cricut mats that they have on sale for only $7.99 a pack. Armed with my new punch and Cherry Limeade from Sonic to beat the heat (honestly had no clue it was that hot out considering I needed socks to warm my toes in my craft room), I had fun coloring the kitties with my colored pencils. A little tape later and my card was complete.

No camping, but big fun anyhow

So camping didn't happen after all. Despite leaving early for the weekend, it apparently wasn't early enough and every single camping spot in the 'non-reserved, first-come, first-served" portions of all three parks we went to were full. Well after getting over my disappointment (and unpacking the RV and truck), we "camped" at home. Now we've had wine, frozen lemonade, margaritas, more wine, smores and truckload of camping snacks, ate dinner out with the family on Friday night, watched 8 hours of Real Housewives, two hours of Intervention, four hours of Hell's Kitchen, two hours of Master Chef and three hours of Glee, shopped at Michael's, Craft Warehouse and Jo-Ann's, picked up gorgeous flower baskets at the nursery, saw Cowboys and Aliens, oh, and made a new cork board for my sister (something we couldn't have done camping since the one thing I didn't pack was my Cricut). It turned out so adorable that I just had to post photos even though she's concerned that someone will copy it so it won't be one of kind. Personally, I know it will be one of kind because even if someone else tries to make it, they won't pick the same paper, cut it at exactly the same dimensions or place the houses in exactly the same way. So we found an image on Google image that she liked, traced it in SCAL, then moved the window to a place that she liked better, then cut them out of two colors of glitter card stock, then found a font she liked and welded the words and cut them in SCAL on the Cricut. So then it was just a process of taking out the backing and glass from the frame, inserting the cork board and putting the backing back on the frame, then gluing down the cuts we made. So here's a shot of it all put together (we left the corner protectors on so that it will transport safely back to her house): She bought the paper at Craft Warehouse. She carefully picked out cute glitter paper and found some coordinating card stock for the words. What she didn't know was the card stock she carefully picked out for the bluish gray color on the back was Black Magic card stock by Coordinations. So when she pulled it out today, I explained to her what she had bought and that changed the title all around. Instead of being the solid blueish gray, we ran it through the Sizzix with Script Texture embossing folder then sanded over the raised texture to bring out the blue text. You can see some of that dimension in this close-up:

So I had forgotten to turn off the layer with the house in it when I cut the words and ended up with this extra house. We used it as a test for the texture. The house turned out so cute that I had to use it somewhere, so I made this simple little card using some scraps from my scrap bin of Orbit paper from the Cosmic paper line I got from the Paper Loft. I have no idea what the striped paper is called, but I'm pretty sure it's from the same line at the Paper Loft. I just used some plain paper I bought in a ream at Paper Zone called Nekoosa Linen to make the card base and also to cut with my Sizzix Bigz Top Note die. I used a little bit of Offray gros grain ribbon and some pop dots to finish it off. A simple little card, but it was loads of fun to make.

Anyhow, now I'm going to finish watching this last episode of Glee with her. She had never seen it before and now I have her totally hooked on it with just the first episode. I knew she would love it. I'll make a Gleek out of her yet.

Happy Father's Day

Today this post is going up as we drive to the restaurant to share a meal with both my father and father-in-law. It's wonderful that I still have them both in my life and that they live close enough that we can spend time together all the time (like on Friday night when we called my mom and dad on the spur of the moment to see if they could have dinner with us). I know that I'm very lucky in that regard.

So today I want to share with you the father's day cards I made. I was trolling the blogs on Friday night when I came across a video posted on My Creative Time about using punches on a card. Well, of course, I didn't have the right size of punch, sheer ribbon, a cute little charm or anything like that, but I did have my imagination. I cut the squares, the used my Sure Cuts a Lot program to cut a scalloped mat that I found on the DoodleLicious blog, then cut the charm out of the Fabulous Finds cartridge and stamped it with this stamp from the "It's All Good" set from Stampin' Up. The charm wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it gets the job done. I used regular ribbon instead of sheer. The best part about it is the whole thing is the paper. I had this little 6x6 Mini Deck from the Cosmo Cricket called Wanted that I won at a Cricut class at Craft Warehouse some time ago. The paper has these little cowboys on it. Since my father-in-law worked on a dairy, I thought it was perfect. The sentiment on the inside says "Happy Father's Day to a true cow-boy."

My dad's card was inspired by a post I found on the Paper Zone blog. It wasn't so much the twisted easel format, but the argyle design. I immediately thought back to this whole pack of paper I bought at CKC this year. I just LOVE argyle, especially this argyle paper from Fancy Pants called Recess in the All Fall line. I immediately thought of that paper for my card. So while I wasn't up to trying a twisted easel, I did get my inspiration from their project. I made a little square ribbon slide on Sure Cuts a Lot, used my Cri-Kit gel pens to write the sentiment (although it does look a little fuzzier than I would like. Then just matted the paper with some card stock from DCWV and made the card body with kraft paper from The Paper Company. At first the ribbon slide seemed a little too stark. It was a much brighter white than the argyle paper. So I used a waded up tissue with little Stampin' Up Old Olive ink to give it a little more color to match the bit of color in the argyle paper. You just can't really see that detail in this picture.

Then I still had to make a card for my mother-in-law's birthday tomorrow. I had just watched a video on a shutter card on You Tube and decided to give it a try. I turned out okay but I did learn that you need to use STIFF card stock for your base. I chose a textured card stock that wasn't very stiff after all that cutting and folding, so it makes the card a little difficult to close back up. I'm pretty sure this was a very old piece of DCWV because I found it loose in my paper cupboard when I was looking for patterned paper, but I don't know for certain. The [patterned paper was also a loose piece in with some others that I found when looking for a coordinating color for the original paper I had chosen, which I abandoned for this one. I liked the butterfly pattern on the other paper, but I couldn't find a coordinating paper that I liked. This one is a double sided paper and I thought both sides were perfect. I also learned that laying out the pieces with the card open doesn't work. I had them all arranged in a way I liked, glued them down and then closed the card and, eeeekkkkk, it looked terrible. I had all the same papers on the front of the card. So I did a double layer of patterned paper on a box on the front to give it a little mix. So if you try the card, don't glue down the paper until you've seen what it looks like closed too. So then I just stamped my front sentiment from the "Lots of Thoughts" stamp set from Stampin' Up and added my inside sentiment stamped from the Stampin' Up "Congrats" set.

I'm thinking that if I try this card again, I might try using pictures where all the yellow paper with the soft blue mats are (the ones you can't hardly see in this picture). These are all hidden when the card is closed but would be something that would be really nice to display for a while for the recipient.

Tickled Pink?

I'm still working on some of the challenges from Craft Warehouse's blog party this weekend. Tonight I finished a sketch challenge (you can still play along until Midnight on Tuesday) in which we had to interpret a sketch in our own way. I loved the sketch but for this layout it was going to work better rotated for what I had in mind.

The original sketch has the title running vertically along the right side of the page. I used cardstock from DCWV's Brights stack for the base, layering strips of paper from DCWV's Nana's Kids stack and a small piece of cardstock from a DCWV Pastel stack for my journalling tag. The journalling tag was cut out with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, then layered with a fabric flower and small button. The title and two edge strips were cut from a page of white glitter paper from Creative Imaginations. I used two EK Success edge punches to make the half-flower and bracket glittered strips. The flamingo brads are from the Eyelet Outlet (love them) and the fabric flowers are from the Bazzill Collection from Imaginisce. I finished the title off with small Irock gems.

Scraplifted: Craft Warehouse's Scrapbooking Blog Party

I was trolling through the blogs I follow looking for inspiration to continue working on our Southern California trip from 2009 when I came across the Scrapbooking Blog Party on Craft Warehouse's blog. The challenge was to scraplift from their design. Well that was right up my alley. So I dug through my stash of paper to find the background page from Sandylion called U Gimme Butterflies, the red paper from Creative Imaginations called Magic Stars, and the Mickey grid paper from the Mickey Paper Pad by EK Success. I added a hand brad and a rub on from Creative Imaginations along with my journalling. Because the paper combo was so busy, I decided to stop there.