My Crafting Buddy

Cooper stayed with us this week.  We did a lot of fun things, like going to the fire station, seeing the newest Planes movie, and setting off sparklers.

He was fascinated by my paper trimmer so I gave him a piece of cardstock and some safety scissors to cut it up.  He made some cards too using stamps and stickers. He's so smart you only have to show him one time how something works and he's got it down pat.

Black and White Note Card

Red Swirl Card

I embossed a piece of white cardstock then used a Martha Stewart border punch on the edge.  The swirl was cut on my Cameo.  The sentiment was punched with a Word Window punch.

Oh My Goodies Card #3

I've had help today while finishing up eight of these cards.  Cooper's learning to use scissors, stamps and the paper trimmer too.

Taking Cooper Fishing

Our granddaughter, Edie, used this same fishing pole when she was Cooper's age.  When he comes to our house, he plays with quite a few toys that we bought for Edie--and as hard as it is for me to believe, she will be 21 years old in December!

We have fond memories of taking Edie fishing at Wewoka Lake.  We had a trailer there for over 20 years.  She and Grandpa would walk down to the dock and fish for hours.  Now we're carrying this tradition forward with Cooper.

This Mickey Mouse fishing pole is the one we bought for Edie.

Western Themed Cards

I stamped the pocket and hand cut some paisley paper for the handkerchief.


The other elements are from a printed sheet from a western themed stack from Hobby Lobby.

Roller Skate Card

Inspired by a card seen in a magazine, I searched online and found a clip art image of a shoe skate for this card.

The image was colored with Promarkers, punched out with a 2" circle punch and mounted on a 2 3/8" scallop circle punched shape.

The sentiment is Bethscutehmbold font, printed with Hallmark Card Studio software.

I used an EK Success  binding edge punch on the edge of the lined paper as well as the red background paper.

Swallowtail Butterfly Card

The butterfly is a clip art image traced and cut with Make The Cut.  The edges of the card front were distressed with a Heidi Grace tool.

Oh My Goodies Card #2

The pink, white and black color combo turned out pretty.  The sentiment is from the stamp set Oh My Goodies. 

A Stamp-a-ma-jig comes in handy to get the image placed properly on the cut out shape.  I do not have the  Deco Label Framelit that goes with this stamp set so I traced it and cut it out using Make The Cut.

Oh My Goodies Card

The stamp is from the Oh My Goodies set by Stampin' Up.

Almost Sourdough Bread

Almost Sourdough Bread


Makes 2 (9X5) loaves
2 and 1/2 cups warm water, divided use
3 tablespoons instant mashed potato flakes
3/4 cup sugar
1 envelope active dry yeast (2 and 1/4 teaspoons)
1/2 cup oil
1 tablespoon salt
6 to 7 cups bread flour

1. The day before: heat one cup water until warm, about 110-115
degrees. Mix it with potato flakes, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl. It should start foaming a little within a few minutes.  Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight.

2. The next morning, heat remaining 1 and 1/2 cups water until warm, about 110-115 degrees. Mix it with the oil and salt and stir into the yeast mixture. Stir the flour into this mixture until smooth and well combined (I did this with a stand mixer, using the dough hook, and used all 7 cups of flour).

3. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85 degrees), free from drafts, about one hour or until double in size. Stir or punch dough down and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in half. Lightly knead each half 6 to 8 times, shape into loaves, and place in two 9X5 loaf pans that have been lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

4. During the last few minutes of rise time, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Uncover loaves and place in preheated oven. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown, rotating loves about half way through baking. Place pans on wire cooling rack for 15 minutes, then carefully turn loaves out of pans onto wire rack to finish cooling. Let cool completely before slicing or wrapping to store.


Recipe by Gooseberry Patch

Kissing Mickey and Minnie

We have our 2 year old grandson for a few days so there hasn't been any card making happening around here.  When we have Cooper, it's Cooper time!  He lives so far away that we don't get to see him nearly as often as we'd like so when he's here I spend every minute I can with him.

After putting him to bed this evening, I found this cute image online, traced it and made some quick, cute cards.

Flamingos

I'm not even sure that flamingos come out at night! 

Birthday Wishes

The images are from an Art Impressions set by Hampton Art.  Art Impressions has some of the cutest stamp sets with wonderful characters on them.

The images were colored with Promarkers and I pop dotted the clouds and banner.
'

Camper Crazy Stamps Card

This is the second set of stamps that arrived today from Close to My Heart.  It's called Camper Crazy.  The image was colored with Promarkers.

Maxium Power Stamps Card

Two new sets of stamps by Close to My Heart arrived today.   I needed something to make masculine cards with and the vehicles, tire tracks and sentiments in the Maximum Power set work well.

The image was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Promarkers. The background was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.

Heartwarming Card

I traced, resized and cut the hearts using Make The Cut.  The red heart is metallic cardstock; the white heart is embossed.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up Filled With Love set.

Starfish Kid's Card

It's rare that I make a card intended for kids.  For some reason, I don't find many layouts that inspire me.  Today I saw one on Pinterest with a smiling starfish and did this one.  The image is clip art, traced and cut out in Make The Cut software.

The face is a Peachy Keen stamp; the sentiment was printed on my computer.

Fussy Cut butterfly Card

Fussy Cut Card

Most paper stacks have sheets that are printed with designs too large for an A2 card.  So, in order to utilize them, I do a "fussy cut" and fit the elements onto a card front. 

Graphic 45 Collage Cards

 

 I combined elements cut out from sheets of Graphic 45 Curtain Call papers for these.

A Moment In Time

Two of my favorite paper companies are Graphic 45 and Tim Holtz.  Whenever I find a new stack I'm tempted to add it to my supplies.

The vintage photographs and tissue paper background are from Tim Holtz.  I cut the flower using Make The Cut and a digital punch image from Stampin' Up.

Denim Birthday Card

Wizard of Oz Frame

With some help from a Facebook friend, I located and traced the image of the ruby slippers.  The frame is only 5 x 7 so the cut outs are pretty small. The frame is for a friend who likes the Wizard of Oz movie and invited us to a cookout on July 4th.

Hope she likes it!

You can see the clips holding the glass in place.  I'll be bending them back and applying a bead of hot glue along the inside edge to hold the glass.

***EDITED TO ADD***         I added a piece of blue gingham printed cardstock behind the glass since Dorothy's dress was blue gingham.  It made the design stand out better.

My Version of a Partial Cut Flower Die

Last night I saw a card done with a partial cut flower die.  The petals were cut, the center was left intact on the background.  It's designed so that you can lift the petals for dimension.

Being the basically cheap person that I am, I decided I'd just make my own file to cut the flower and not spend the $20 on the die.  Having a file in Make the Cut allows me to resize the image whereas the die would be just a single size.

Doing the file took longer than I anticipated.  After wrestling with it for about 30 minutes, I gave up and went to bed.  Some of my best thinking goes on while I sleep!  As I woke up this morning, I knew exactly what I'd done wrong last night and finished the file in just a few minutes.

The first card was done with 1 1/2" squares of paper and a punch.  I punched the image from the striped square and then punched it again from a lighter shade of coordinating cardstock.  Then I glued just the center of the flower down and lifted the petals so the white background would show through.

 This one was done with the MTC file I made.  I like both cards.  The second one will be much faster to do multiples for Operation Write Home, but I like the contrasting flower in the first one.

Two good options for cards....now, I need to do a partially cut butterfly too!