Graphic 45 Father's Day Card

The cards are cut outs from some Graphic 45 paper, they're pop dotted for dimension..  I printed the sentiment and used two circle punches for mats.

Spring Card - Cherries - Father's Day

This card uses the pieces left over from the spring cards I posted earlier.  There were enough pieces to do four; it was such a hassle putting glue onto the small strips that I only finished one.

The cherries are clip art, colored with Promarkers.
I embossed the background with my favorite Cuttlebug folder, swiss dots.

Even though it's March, I have to work ahead of the calendar to get cards sent to Operation Write Home in time for them to be delivered overseas.

I made a dozen of these cards using various Tim Holtz papers; the car is a Tim Holtz stamp.  The sentiment was printed on my computer and punched with Stampin' Up's decorative label punch.  I added the shadow using their SVG file that matches the punch.  Using Make The Cut software, it's a snap to create a shadow image that's just the perfect size.

The inside sentiment was printed using Hallmark Card Making software.  I used Banjoman Open Bold font for both the inside and outside wording.

Spring Card

I used Dom Casual BT font and Okieladybug's Seven Petal Flower file.  The flower centers are Pearl Pen dots.

When I woke up this morning, the layout for this card just popped into my head.  I must have been making cards in a dream!

Since I utilized the negative cuts on this card, I have the flowers and letters that I can use to make another one.

After seeing the photo, I decided it was too flat looking and added some white pen work.  Now I like it much better.

Tongue in Cheek Mother's Day Card

The frame is from Elegant Edges; the silhouette if from Forever Young Cricut cartridges.  I cut them on my Cameo with Make The Cut software.

The flowers are from the bridal section at Michael's.

 This sentiment was seen online.  I thought it was cute and decided to make a "tongue in cheek" Mother's Day card with it.

Cooking Kitty Card

Tim Holtz Die

Clock Face Card

Saw this card on Pinterest and totally copied it.  The clock hands were cut on my Cameo.  I printed the sentiment and the numbers using Hallmark Card Maker software and just added some pen work around the outer edge.

Monkey Card

The Dustin Pike image was colored with Promarkers.  I added a border with an EK Success punch and printed the sentiment on my computer.

Smiles Card

Bee Card

Hi, Honey Card

The bees are clip art images.  They're pop dotted for dimension. 

I printed the sentiment with my computer and used the Stampin' Up punch shapes from My Design Studio to cut the shadow for their Modern Label punch.

The background was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.

Sunday Afternoon Cards

Pink Butterflies Card

This week's theme must be butterflies.  They are one of my favorite elements to include on my cards and it just happens that the cards I've been inspired by had butterflies on them too.

The butterflies were done with Stampin' Up and Martha Stewart punches.  The background is embossed with a folder by Darice.



My rant on punches:
 I learned my lesson on buying Martha Stewart punches.  Never, never take one home until you test it on cardstock.  I no longer purchase her punches.  There are too many on my punch racks that don't work worth spit. 

The small butterfly has to be trimmed by hand.  The shape doesn't punch completely out of the paper and often the interior openings don't punch cleanly either. 

Fiskars is another brand that I no longer purchase.  Their hand held punches don't go across the paper far enough so you have to punch too close to the edge.  Their border punches don't stay sharp very long and even punching through sandpaper or tin foil doesn't sharpen them much.

This pretty much leaves EK Success as the brand I'll buy in the future.  Hobby Lobby carries very few of theirs, but they're still making the ones sold by Stampin' Up.  I've also been using some digital punch images and cutting them on my Cameo. 

With the price of materials and shipping getting so high, and Stampin' Up moving more toward metal dies, digital images may be the future for my paper crafting.

Yellow Butterflies Card

Modified clip art was used for the grass.  The butterflies are a Martha Stewart punch shape.  The scalloped edge was done with an old Fiskars punch.

Using My Design Studio Software Shapes

Stampin' Up has a software program, My Design Studio, that includes numerous shapes that match their punches.  For this card, I used my punch for the sentiment and added the shadow piece using their image from the software.  To me, having the punch shapes in the software makes it well worth making the purchase.

The flower came from some that Shirley and I ordered last year from China.  When the order arrived I thought I had enough flowers to last forever.  Now I'm out of so many styles and colors I need another shipment!

Heart and Wings Card

This may just be my favorite card ever!  A mixed media artist from the UK posted a photo on her blog of a frame she made and I adapted her idea for a card.  You can see the original at inkypinkycraft.

I've always thought that white on white layouts were elegant looking.  It took me quite a while to pick papers that fit together for the look I wanted.

Everything was cut in Make The Cut software.  The heart is from Stampin' Up's My Digital Studio.  The wings are from the Cricut cartridge Artiste and the postage stamp frame is from Elegant Edges.  I joined a rectangle inside the stamp shape to create the frame.

The base was embossed with my brocade Cuttlebug folder.  There three pieces of crimped 15.2 m steel wire across the heart.  I pop dotted the frame as well as the wings for dimension. The edges were inked with Chestnut Roan.

Petal Card Punch Card

Stampin' Up petal card punch (retired) was used for the tiny envelope.  The flowers are SU's flower shop bundle.

Petite Petals Cards

The trellis is made with a piece of drywall mesh.  The stem was cut with my Cameo.  Petite Petals stamp/punch from
Stampin' Up was used for the flowers that were stamped with Dandelion color ink by Memento.

The sentiment was printed on my computer and punched with Stampin' Up oval punches.

I saw a card like this on Pinterest and used that layout.  The flowers were stamped using four different inks to coordinate with the cardstock. 

The base for the sentiment is from Stampin' Up's digital software.  I imported it into Make The Cut software, resized it and added two shadows for dimension.

These are cards for Operation Write Home.

Flower Shop Bundle Cards

 Inspired by a card seen online.  I used Stampin' Up Flower Shop stamp/punch bundle for the flowers.
The greenery was cut with my Cameo.

A paper doily is the base for this card.  Again, I used the Flower Shop bundle as well as the Petite Petals bundle.

#1 Mom Card

This was done with file number 10235 from the Silhouette store.  I imported it into MTC to cut though!  Silhouette software and I do not play well together!

Mother's Day Cards

The sentiment was printed on my computer.  The clothespins are clip art images.

A Stampin' Up punch was used for the sentiment that I printed on my computer. 

Subway Style Mother's Day Card

While searching for inspiration today I found this cute subway style art at The Pink Doodle.   The blogger was kind enough to share her subway art for downloading.  Since I'm falling behind on getting all my cards done for Operation Write Home's deadline for Mother's Day cards, I appreciate finding something so cute that could be made quickly.

I printed a nice Mother's Day sentiment on the inside using Hallmark card making software.

The image was resized and printed to fit an A2 card.  I trimmed it down and pop dotted it on the card front.

CASED Mother's Day Cards

Pinterest is a great place to find inspiration for cards.  These two were patterned after ones seen on there.
The pink one is from The Paper Stamper 's blog.  I believe the other one was a commercially done card. 

The flower was embossed onto vellum with a Darice folder.  The butterfly was done with a Stampin Up punch and has Liquid Pearls for the accent.

I printed the sentiment and punched the ovals with a Stampin' Up punch also.

It took quite a while to find fonts that would fit onto the card front so the word "MOTHER" would be on the center front.

The flowers were stamped and punched with Stampin' Up products.  The border punch is from We R Memory Keepers.

Bermuda Bay ink from Stampin' Up was used for the flowers.

Mother's Day Cards

 

Lead Me Not Into Temptation---Reprinted

I posted this back in 2011 and it's still pretty applicable today.  Online shopping is one of the best/worst things I've learned to do since getting the internet 17 years ago!

 
 Last Wednesday evening I purged my patterned paper and donated a stack about five inches high to a high school art program.  There was not a thing wrong with any of the paper; I'd just looked at it so long without using it that it was time for it to go.

Truthfully, I don't miss any of it.  The extra space in my storage cubes is really nice.  Now, when I do need to find a sheet of paper, I can pull out the Cropper Hopper containers and thumb through the sheets easily.

Being on a "let's get organized and pare down to just the supplies I like/will use" binge meant that I made the promise to myself again to "use what I have before I buy any new stuff."   My resolve was strong enough that I walked through the LSS with Shirley, saw multiple papers and stacks that I drooled over and walked out empty handed!

Then, in my email this morning was a message from an online craft supply offering free shipping on an order of $25 or more!  This company has great prices on some of my favorite cardstock and they carry the elusive Glue Dot adhesive I've searched high and low for too! 

Before I realized what I'd done, my shopping cart had 10 packs of cardstock and several boxes of Glue Dots in it!  My eyes had glazed over from searching their online inventory trying to decide just how many punches I could add to my punch drawer without breaking the drawer runner!

That craft supplier knew what they were doing when they sent out that email!  Put the temptation of free shipping in front of a crafter who lives in an area with no craft store nearby, and we'll jump at the opportunity!

As I reached the point of checking out, credit card number ready to go, my little "craft conscience" whispered in my ear "Where are you going to store all that cardstock?  And do you really think you'll use ten different shades of lilac?"  and I snapped out of my shopping trance.

I didn't delete the items in my cart at that point, but I did stop and really consider the wisdom of making the purchase (while resting my cursor on the "check out now" button).  Taking a deep breath and having just a few seconds to reconsider, I did not make the purchase. As my cursor slowly moved to the red "X" in the corner of the screen to close the page, I felt a little lighter for not having given in.

Besides, I don't need anyone else to lead me into temptation......with a high speed internet connection, I can find it all by myself!

Kawaii Taco Card

The cute taco is from SVG Cutting Files.  This is my first SVG file purchase.  It was simple to resize and cut on my Cameo.  I did modify it a little by eliminating two cut outs.

I could have done my own cutting file of the taco, but this file only cost $1!  Very inexpensive versus the time it would take to make my own file.  Kawaii has some other cute files that I'll be buying in the near future.

Elegant Butterfly Punch Card

The papers I used are from a 4.5" x 6.5" Paper Adventures stack that I got at the last swarm I attended.  We all took items that we no longer wanted and put them on a table for whoever wanted them.  I don't remember who brought the stack, but I've made a lot of cards with it and still have most of it left.

The stack has several sheets of different patterned papers all within one color group, making it super easy for me to use.  No guessing or searching for coordinating papers!

The butterflies were done with a Stampin' Up Elegant Butterfly punch.  The shapes underneath them are from the Cricut cartridge, Essentials.  They were resized and cut using Make The Cut software and a Cameo.

The braided border was done with an EK Success punch.

Petite Petals "Cheater" Card

When you have an idea in your head and don't have exactly what you need to make it, it gets frustrating!  I knew that I wanted leaves in the upper and lower corners of the card front and that they needed to be the correct size to go with the Petite Petals SU stamp.  Searching my stamp catalog and punches for some leaves proved that, like Goldilocks, nothing was quite right.  One was too big, one too small, one had too many branches, etc.

The leaves I used are in Hallmark card making software.  I resized, flipped and rotated them to get them just like I planned.  This is the "cheater" element on the card.  They look just as if they'd been stamped and shaded rather than clip art.

The flowers were stamped with Memento Bahama Blue ink and punched with the Petite Petals punch.  I added a blue brad for the center and pop dotted them.  The white background was too stark so I lightly stamped the flowers to fill up that space.

The sentiment is ForgetMeNot HMK font and was also printed in Hallmark software. 

OWH Cards

The apple sign may have been colored by Shirley while at stamp club a few months ago.  I found a sheet of them and decided they'd work up into some quick cards to help fill my box for OWH.

Since DH's accident in December, I haven't made nearly as many cards as usual to send so I'm playing catch-up.

A couple of years ago Provocraft had a clip art
website.  The elephant and sentiment were from a set called Born to be Wild.

Whenever I get totally stumped for card inspiration, I print off some of the comical animals and make some quick cards.

The card base is a premade card from Paper Studio.  I printed and hand cut the leaves and added some Prima flowers with Pearl Pen centers.

I cut and shadowed the stem on my Cameo.  The flowers were done with my latest SU punch. 

The sentiment was printed on my computer and then I added some black pen stitching around the edges.