Card - Watercolor Thank You

I did these for my Card Club incentive. The watercolored image is from Magenta stamped in permanent black ink. I loved doing the images. It's been a long while since I took out my wc palette. A lot of different color options. The greeting is a small clear stamp set. I mostly painted the bird different shades of blue with a pink or red heart.

Simple Cards with Holder

Another set of simple cards. A lot of color options and uses small scraps of paper. I started with buttons in my collection and went from there. I layered 2 contrasting Stampin Up! Five Petal punchies and layered to button in the centre. A Zot holds the button down. The paper piercing are made with a Cutter Bee Bug that pierces a single row of holes. You just push it along and the wheel turns to create a line of nice evenly spaces perforations. I used my Scor Pal to make sure the lines were straight. The cardholder is my sisters design. The holder holds 4 cards and envelopes. I offered these as incentive to my Card Club participants.

Christmas Card Challenge - March - Gingerbread

Gingerbread can be men or women. They can be different colors. I like chocolate, but they could be tan, beige, and many various brown colors. Can they be red? Gingerbread houses work. Check out your stash for gingerbread stamps, die cuts, paper, brads. What types have I missed?

Here's my card for this Challenge.
I started with the striped gift wrap and found the other elements to match. I chose a red cardstock and the silver layer is again a nice heavy textured gift wrap. I die cut the gingerbread out of chocolate brown cardstock with Sizzix die. I layered a small piece of red behind the hearts on his belly. I added the the "icing" to his arms and legs with a Galaxy marker. I touched his eyes and mouth with a black markers as they are quite small. The small tag I cut with a Cuttlebug tag die then layered it onto the same cardstock red and trimmed it by hand. I stamped the snowflake with chocolate brown ink.

I made 6 of these cards to add to my stash.
Total Christmas Cards: 12.

Therese's card for this challenge. http://tmalakart.blogspot.com/2010/03/christmas-card-challenge-gingerbread.html
Send me a link to yours!

Card Club - Feb - Star

The Olympics affected attendance at Card Club this month. We were few in numbers but I was home in time to see Canada win the gold medal in Ice Dance and the presentation of medals.

This card a bit of a nautical feel. I glued the insert into the card first then wrapped the ribbon around the fold and tied the knot and trimmed the ends. The star is a Sizzix die cut from textured card stock. Glued it to a square of great striped paper. The tag is color printed. Added a cotton thread hanger to the tag and wrapped on the ribbon.

Card Club - Feb - Victorian Paper

This card has a layer of really nice giftwrap glued to the front. I added a length of ivory rick rack across the bottom third. I assembled my accent starting with a pink Stampin Up! Scallop punch, a black circle, a pink foil circle topped with an ivory circle greeting which has been raised with a pop dot. The accent then is mounted over the rickrack on the bottom right hand corner.

Card Club - Feb - Acetate Card

The card is a clear piece of acetate cut and folded as regular card. We want to place our elements so that no adhesive shows. Determine where the five petal punch will go based on alignment of the yellow gingham paper. Make a hole in the card front with push pin and attach the silk and cardstock flowers to the card front. Place adhesive on the inside of the card behind the flower accent. Looking through the card place your yellow gingham square. Again, looking through the card align and glue the orange layer to the inside back flap of the card with a bit of adhesive. Turn the card over and glue the yellow gingham flower over the adhesive showing. Tie the ribbon along the folded edge and trim the ends.

Card Club - Feb - Buckle Card

I started with the ribbon which is taped down to the inside of the card. (Turn the ribbon over to navy if you have a red card). I layered a MS medallion punch with a Stampin Up! flower punch then held them in place with a tiny silver brad. I used a tiny brad because the prongs are very narrow and it was easier to insert it through the push pin hole in the ribbon and cardstock. Stamped the greeting in navy with a small clear stamp. I punched the Stampin Up! Horizontal Punch as far as I could toward the centre. I placed the navy strip next to the edge of the card then folded half into the slot space. The next fold is even with the card edge again. That leaves a small tab which gets glued down to the inside back of the card right on the edge. The trick is to make sure it aligns with the slot. Glue the insert into the card. Now press both insert flaps towards the back and pull the navy strap through the slot and back to card edge. Slip the spiral paper clip over the edge to keep in place.

Art - My Craft Space

I bought these letters for my craft space. I found them at Michael's in the $1.50 section. The letter selection was not great but I managed to find what I needed for this great word. I found enough for my sister as well. They are black enamelled metal in a great roman lower case font. They are 5.5" tall and have hangers on the back to mount them on the wall. I love them! Michael's had 20% off everything today so it was a great find.

Cards - Prima Flower

A nice burnt orange card. The accent is created with a white 2.25 square punched with the MS Arches border punch. The Prima flower, a white silk flower is inserted on the brad which holds them all to the white square. A contrasting strip of cardstock is slipped through the slits then glued to the card. This allows the accent to slide on the strip. I made kits with red, yellow, green, pink, orange Prima flowers.

Cards - Five Petal Flower Accent

I started with a white card then added a layer of pink cardstock. The scrapbook paper is wonderful mixture of great colors. I bought this package of paper at a clearance sale but I didn't even remember it. Does that happen to you? I created an oval greeting and printed it in color. I wrapped organza ribbon around and taped it to the back.
The flower accent is created with the Stampin Up! Five Petal punch. The purple is one punch, then the pink is one five petal punch which has been punched again after being rotated to the middle of the petal. The white one is from the Stampin Up! 3 small flower punch. All held together with a flower brad. I mounted the flower accent over the ribbon.

Cards - Cricut Top Note

I selected ivory cardstock. I created this top note shape with my Cricut out of chocolate brown scrapbooking paper. I placed 1/4" ivory gross grain ribbon across the top of the card through a slit in the fold. I cut a tag with the Cuttlebug and then stamped Thinking of You from a small clear stamp set. I attached the small tag onto the ribbon with a small safety pin. I made several different color combinations.

Cards - Owl

On this card I placed an owl cut with my Cricut out of scrapbooking cardstock. I had bought several 12x12 sheets that were not great on the one side but just chocolate on the back. I thought he should be sitting on something but I struggled a bit about what it should be. I tried stamping a bit of wood with a border stamp, I tried a piece of fiber, I thought of something more dimensional but nothing matched very in color. So I settled for a strip of the same paper whose edges were distressed. I used my distress tool but you can use the edge of your scissors or xtacto knife. The background was stamped in brown with Stampin Up! Itty Bitty Background stamp.

Cmas Card Challenge - February - Evergreens

Evergreens at Christmas - They can be decorated Christmas trees, plain pine trees with pointed or rounded boughs, simple triangles. They can be stamped, embossed, die cut, brads, printed paper, glittered, ribbon, paper pieced and more other presentations I've not listed here.

This is my card for February's Christmas Card Challenge.

I picked a dark forest green card. I chose a tan color for the background and ran it through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. The trees are the Sizzix medium Pine Tree die using the same paper as the card. I added a bit of snow to the trees with a white craft stamp pad. The moon is punched with a 1" circle punch. I tore a snowbank then stamped "Merry Christmas" from a small clear stamp set. I made 4 of these cards.
Total Christmas Cards - 6

Therese's card for this challenge.
http://tmalakart.blogspot.com/2010/02/challenges-christmas-cards.html

Send me a link to yours!

Simple Card - Oval Floral

I did a bit of clean up on the weekend. I was sorting through left over card club materials from from at least a year ago. I found these color printed images and decided to use them. This is dogwood, there were tulips, and pansies as well. I cut them with my Creative Memories Oval cutter then cut a larger oval in a complimentary color. I punched the edge of the card front with the MS Arches border leaving the card insert to show through. I stamped a greeting below the oval accent.

Simple Card - Flower Pot

The main element of the card is a watercolor flower pot which was cut from a sheet of gift wrap. The sheet had all these 2.5" squares of iris, tulips and violets. Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that I use gift wrap on a regular basis as I find it to be good value. I chose the card stock to highlight the colors in the pot. I cut the scalloped square with my Cricut Create machine. For the accent on the bottom right side I stamped a butterfly then punched it out with an oval punch, then punched another in the same color as the scallop square and just offset them enough to create a shadow for the oval.

Simple Card - Japanese Paper

The scan does not do justice to the gold metallic in this Japanese paper. I mounted it to some nice textured burnt orange cardstock. I found it only needed a small accent as there quite a bit going on in the paper itself. I layered a gold daisy with an ivory daisy and held them to the card with a large brown brad.

Simple Card - Red Pick Up Truck

Here's another simple card. This one has a Cuttlebug embossing folder that looks like a steel plate done in grey cardstock. The red pickup truck is color printed and cut out. The greeting accent was created with a Cuttlebug slider in black, a 1 1/8" red circle and a stamped greeting punched in 1" circle. This greeting came from a Michael's $1.50 clear stamp set but I've used it quite a bit. The accent is placed onto the ribbon and turned into the inside of the card then stapled into place.

Simple Card - Stamped Birds

I have a friend who requested some simple card kits. I designed kits which needed glue, tape and pushpins as tools. I placed a strip of ivory/chocolate brown script scrapbook paper on the left with a chocolate brown metallic ribbon next to it. Used scotch tape to hold it on the inside. The scan does not do justice to the ribbon. The stamped birds are from Magenta. I stamped my greeting from a small clear set on the Stampin Up! horizontal slot punched shape.

Guys making cards

I have a friend who runs a program for adults. She is going to try card making with men. She requested simple card kits. I made a several card kits which only use glue and a push pin for the brads. It was interesting to work through the process of what subject matter a guy would like to see. What do you think of my choices in the next few posts? I decided that I would not make pink frilly cards but in the end likely the cards they make will be given to gals. I would like to think that card making would appeal to men as well. I hope she has good success with this new endeavor. I checked with my internet group and it seems there are a few guys who are into making cards. Here's one of them.

Scrapbook Layout - Winter 2008

You will see that I was successful in cutting a few things with my Cricut Create. It printed some things I wanted and several I didn't expect. It's another tool I need to learn how to use. It is good.
I had a 4 page layout of winter pics I took in March and April 2008. I enjoy being near the river valley and the white snow is a nice contrast to those evergreen trees! I wanted the pages to be quite neutral so I chose a blue grey cardstock and this one has grey mats for the pics. Each page had it's own accent color.