A few Christmas cards

Materials:
Magazine freebie stamp (snowflake)
Stampin' Up scallop punch
HOTP paper
silver embossing powder


Materials:
buttons
embossing powders (clear with glitter and gold)
Magazine freebie stamp ('Merry Christmas' and ornament - mostly covered by the buttons)


I used masking and 2nd generation stamping
Materials:
Magazine freebie stamp (tree and 'Merry Christmas')
Sakura gel pens (Tiara range)

Cotton Candy Bird Card

It might be hard to tell but I colored the birdies with Sakura Tiara gel pens, so they're very sparkly. I also stitched along the bottom paper, as well as doodle stitched. I'm really loving making crochet flowers; I've even made a little leaf for this one as well.

I decided to fit this card for Basic Grey Challenges (embossing) and Simon Says Challenge (stitches). It was a pleasure to use this fabulous sketch from Mojo Monday; it's a fabulous sketch.


Materials:
Inkadinkado stamp (Duet 98419-K)
Basic Grey papers (Two Scoops)
Sakura Tiara gel pens
Cuttlebug folder (Swiss Dots)
crochet flower and leaf (made by me)
circle punch (1.5")
ribbon
buttons
***If mixing challenges is not allowed, please let me know; I'm pretty sure it's ok for these challenges.***

Off to Uni - good luck card

I used this sketch from CPS. It was very fun and easy to use. Since this card is about going to Uni, it also fits this weeks Simon Says Stamp challenge of "Back to School." And I added some bling to play along at Whimsy Stamps Challenge; I colored the gems with a sharpie marker. (I love doing that!)

I'm most proud of the "good luck" with the swirl around it.

Materials:
QuicKutz Paige and Paige mini alphabets
Chatterbox papers
Alphabet stamps
Swirl stamp (Elusive Images: Here be Dragons)
Stampin' Up scallop punch
circle punch 1.5"
corner rounder
ivory satin ribbon
Kaiser Craft gems
Sharpie blue marker

One Color Card: Yellow

The challenge over at ABC Challenge blog is to make a yellow card. This is perfect for me to continue with my personal challenge of one-color-cards. So here's a simple yellow card with some cute Penny Black mice.

Happy Birthday, Lou!

Happy Birthday, Lou! I love you! Have a great day!

Ok. I made a card, but haven't mailed it. (The post office is my nemesis. I hate going there.)


Materials:
Penny Black stamp
Stampin' Up celebrate stamp
FancyPants paper
Crate Paper
fuzzy white Dovecraft ribbon
black May Arts ribbon
Whisper markers
brown color pencil

Halloween cards are TRICKY! :)

Halloween cards are not easy. I have one halloween set, so that doesn't help. Does anyone else have this Inque Boutique set? It's great; I got it for the star border really. I made this one for the Halloween challenge at A spoonfull of sugar challenge.

One tip: I used my SU scallop punch to take a notch out of the corners.

Materials:
Inque Boutique stamps - Happy Halloween set
Happy Halloween foam stamp
Stampin' Up scallop punch
Whispers markers

Penny Black Suspension card

Here's another creation I made for World Card Making Day and the challenges over at In Love With Stamping (a UK stamping community). Their challenge was to make a card that moves; I chose to make a suspension card, because the middle part can spin. (And because I only know a few techniques to make a card move.)

I've never made a suspension card before this, so I'm happy about how quickly I was able to put it together. I usually have to mess up a few times with new techniques. Even cutting out the green paper with the decorative scissors, I did it in one go. I did have to color the mouse twice, but that was a quick mistake to fix.


It says 'Thinking of you' on the opposite side.

Materials:
Penny Black 'Bubbly' and 'Salutations' sets
Fiskars circle cutter
SU scallop circle punch
decorative scissors
hole punch (crop-o-dile)
Basic grey patterned paper
coloured pencils
Whispers marker (for the bowl)
Sakura yellow glitter gel pen
embroidery thread
ribbon

Burgundy Birds Card and matching Box

I had a busy World Card Making Day (last Saturday). The first things I made using my new Cuttlebug folder (Birds and Swirls).

I have a Quickutz Revolution so it's not designed to be compatible with other companies; I used thin bits of plastic instead of the embossing mat (which is too thick) and had to run it through the machine twice, embossing the top first and then the bottom the second time through. (If I had the new 12" platform, I would only need to run it through once.) It's no problem, however; it just takes 2 minutes instead of 1 to emboss.

So here's what I made:

1- I embossed cream paper with the Cuttlebug folder and then I used the Brilliance inkpad and a sponge to highlight the embossed parts.
2- I used a black pen for adding shadows and white uniball Signo pen for highlights. Then I rounded the corners and matted the paper.
3- I stitched the left and right sides with burgundy coloured embroidery thread. Then I glued the papers down and added a bow (which is easier to say than do).
4- For the message, I used SU scallop punch once with black and twice with the burgundy paper. Then I added rub-on letters and drew a small swirl and dots.

I used the same techniques to make this mini box out of a card blank.

The box holds ribbons and buttons for my friend.

Materials:
Black, cream, and burgundy papers
Pink card blank
Cuttlebug embossing folder 'Birds and Swirls'
Brilliance Inkpad 'Crimson Copper'
Black pen
White pen (uniball Signo)
corner rounder
embroidery thread
black ribbon (sheer)
SU scallop circle punch
Doodlebug rub-ons
Foam dots

More projects coming soon.

This week...

I've been making scrapbook layouts!
For the rest of September, my favorite scrapbook site (www.myscrapbooknook.com) is having a really fun challenge called "Nook University." All the challenges are school related. You'll see what I mean when I show the three layouts I made for this week.
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This one was for "Math" class. The challenge was to have lots of multiples of three.
Doing threes was easy but having 6,9, or more was difficult. So I have:

9 materials:
Fiskars Kimberly Poloson Patterned paper
Prima ivory felt ribbon
Quickutz Paige and Paige mini alphabets
Stampin' Up Scallop Circle Punch
Making Memories Journaling Pages
Antique brads by Buttons Galore
Tim Holtz distress ink - antique linen
Corner Rounder
Misc. Ribbon

3 photos, 3 patterned paper, 6 brads, 3 scallop circles, 6 scallop edges total, 9 inches felt ribbon, 33 cm brown ribbon, 9 cm teal ribbon, 3 ribbons total, and 15 QK die-cut letters

This is my brother. He's in Australia right now, if you can't guess.
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The next LO I did for "Intro to Art." The challenge was to choose a choose a piece of artwork and use it to inspire a LO.

I LOVE art nouveau.
I chose Alphonse Mucha's 'Moon.'

I just want to show these other two, because they show the curved lines and circles typical to art nouveau.

So here's my attempt at an art nouveau layout:

Materials:
Tinkering Ink patterned papers
Inque boutique chipboard - 'Bee' and swirls
American Crafts thickers - 'bumble'
blue/purple cardstock
SU Scallop punch (punched twice to make the smaller scallops/spikey circles)
1.5" circle punch
Purple and dark blue inkpads
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And my last LO for this week was for "English" class. The challenge was to make a LO about reading, including a photo of myself reading a book and at least 50 words of journaling.

Please forgive the night-time photo. (It makes the photo have glare - it looks like scratches.)

Journaling reads:
"I love reading. As I was growing up there were always books in our house.
When my sister, Leah, was in first grade, she loved reading so much she tried to teach me at age 2! I didn't take to it then, but her love of reading has definitely influenced mine.
I was a big reader in school and even now I'm always on the lookout for a new author or series.
Here I'm reading one recommended by Leah: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.
September 2008"

Materials:
Prima papers, and flowers ('Tea & Silk')
Prima journaling sheets ('whisper')
Imaginisce Crystals (inked black with Sta-On)
crystal brads
May Arts black ribbon
twined thread ribbon
Studio g alphabet stamps

Goofing off

I've been goofing off at my craft desk instead of actually getting around to making something. One reason for this is because I WON A BLOG CANDY from Jenny over at Stamping Moments! I was so excited to get it in the mail. I played around with it straight away, but I haven't created anything yet. However, I did have to reorganise most of my work space to accommodate the new stamp set. I had a blast doing that (you know how much I love organising)and now my desk looks great.

Here's one thing I did manage to make. I bought these 'Wildlife Reserve' from Stampin' Up and I've had them a few weeks. It's a set of 14 and as you can see most of them are on the small side.
I haven't quite figured out how to use small stamps. PLEASE, let me know if you have any tips.

I stamped the animal, punched it out with the circle punch, masked the animal and spritzed the background. Then I took chipboard letters and painted them with Distress crackle paint


Stampin' Up stamps (Wildlife Reserve), spritzer, 1.5" circle punch,
Distress crackle paint, Whispers markers, various cardstock, and alphabet chipboard (American Crafts???).

Strawberry card

Craft Stamper magazine strawberry stamp, Quickutz Alphabet: Merry, Studio g clear alphabet stamps, star punch, cardstock (red, cream, blue and light blue), red patterned paper, and Whispers markers (black and dark green).

This card was based on Katharina's sketch for Papertake Weekly Challenge.

I love organising

Ever since getting back from visiting my sister, I haven't been making very many cards. I have been organising and re-organising my crafting stash. I've put all of my unmounted stamps into a A5 binder; it's the perfect size for most stamp sets.
Another thing that I've done is make a catelog of all my inks, pens, punches, die-cuts, and stamps. I think the photos explain better. It took a very long time to stamp out all of my stamps, but it makes it so easy to flip through a choose one for a card.
I used skinny little photo albums and file cards. It might seem peculiar, but I really loved doing this. Organising can be really fun for me. Now that I'm finished, I'll be back to making cards and hopefully some videos.