Flashback Friday: Technique Card

Hi friends! Another post for me today! :) My trip to Target was surprisingly good. I got AMAZING coupon deals! I'm pretty excited! I decided I wanted to go ahead and blog again today. Why I'm not saving this blog for another day, we'll never know.

My bloggy pal Amy runs a once a month challenge called Flashback Friday where the challenge is to post one of your very first cards. The current challenge is issued by yet another one of my bloggy pals and DT mate Stephanie. :) Stephanie challenged folks to blog their first technique card. On top of that, the challenge is being sponsored by yet another one of my bloggy pals, Sherry. She's giving away so YUMMY crinkle ribbon!

My first technique card that appeared on my blog is one with the dahlia fold which I still think makes a pretty classy card. This card is HUGE! I made it for my friend Paula as a thank you for a very generous gift. You can see my original post HERE. I don't know what's wrong with the picture in that post but I found another picture of the card so I posted that. I am shocked that I still think this card is a-ok! :) I cringe at most of my older stuff.

Check out the challenge HERE. Have a great night everyone! I'll be back tomorrow with a Thanksgiving card.

Video Tutorial: Poufy Flower

Here's the tutorial I made for you all for the poufy flowers that I had on my blog a couple weeks ago. I hope you enjoy. :) Sorry it's a little dark, it was night time.

Happy Day After Halloween!

Wow! I can't believe it's November already! Hope that you all had a happy Halloween! We had lots of fun. It was our first time going out since we all got well again, I didn't want to expose the kids to any illnesses. But I HAVE to do Halloween.

We went to a Halloween party with our little friends. Everyone was soooo cute! I love little kids on Halloween, they are just darling. Then we went trick or treating, which was also super fun. Parker stayed awake the whole time and everyone thought he was just too cute. And Brady had a blast even though he refused to say "trick or treat" which I had been working on with him all week!

To go with my Halloween post, I'll show you the LAST Halloween item you'll see on my blog for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween but I'm just ready to move on. This project was made for the Unity Bachelor Challenge. I'm calling it a GIANT tag. Teehee! We were to make a treat bag, box or tag and use the colors orange, purple, green and black.

This uses the spring card technique. I put some extra little pop ups at the bottom. All the stamps are from Unity's Trick or Treat Peeps. Aren't they cute?

Happy November everyone!

Softpencil Thursday Pop Up Card

It's Thursday and that means time for another Softpencil challenge! :) This week's challenge is to make a pop up card. Again, Kerry is trying to kill me. I'm sure you all noticed that I'm VERY much inside an A2 box. Actually, this card is an A2 but I'm not one for technique challenges. What can you do?

This week, our image is Snowy Day. Super cute! I cut it out but it actually has some cute snow for a background too. This is my first pop up card so I didn't know what the dimensions should be. Next time, I'll make the image larger so you can actually see it. ;) I left the house white to kind of show that it's been covered by snow. The ground is covered with Frosted Lace Stickles. And background is made using Liquid Applique. I know huh? I even pulled out my heat gun. It must be a blue moon!

Just in case you didn't know, you can play along with these challenges and win a prize! Just link your creation up to the Softpencil PCP Group and you could win some CUTE Softpencil stuff for your collection.

A Technique Challenge

I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but I'm doing all sorts of things (stamping wise) that I don't normally do. I guess I should just ride the wave being that it may stop any time now and I'll go back to my basic formula and Unity stamps. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it's kind of cool to see that I'm capable of stepping outside my box.

This card was made using the Faux Grid Technique. It was the Monday technique challenge on SCS. It's pretty simple, you just draw lines on the paper so it looks like your image is on a grid. This image is Penny Black. I got it in an image swap so I don't know what it's called. I love these little hedgehogs! They are so cute! The yellow patterned paper is Bo Bunny. I embellished with some dew drops, a Prima flower, and a brad. Pretty simple.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

Another Step Out

Look at me, all outside my box.  ;)  This is a card I made for the Get Tailored Challenge from GinaK Designs on their SCS forum.  The challenge was to make a card with a tailored bow on it.  The bow was actually pretty simple and I just love the look of it.  I think it's also a masculine enough bow to put on a card for a man too.  I'm glad I learned this technique.  I learned it HERE.

This is my only GinaK set.  I won it on World Card Making Day I think.  It's called Comfort & Peace.  I love the silhouettes of flowers in this set.  I think they are very pretty and lend themselves to some classy cards.  I really wanted to make a black and white card but this Cherry Arte paper called out to me.  So, black, white and red it was.  

I'll be back around lunch time with ULTRASOUND pictures!  Stay tuned!!

GUESS WHAT?!?!?

Do you remember this card I made for the contest at my LSS?  Well, GUESS WHAT?!?!  I won!  Woohoo!  Isn't that AWESOME?  I am so happy right now.

This is the first time I've ever won anything for one of my cards and can I just tell you, it's quite validating.  Every now and then, after entering all the different contests and design teams and being turned down, I get a little unsure of myself and question if this is really what I should be doing.  BUT then something like this happens and I am reassured that I am following the correct path.

Here's the link to the blog here the contest was held, Scrap-n-Stamp.  They are going to put pictures up later on.  AND if it's anything like last month, my card's picture will be on their website for like a month!  YAY me!  Ohhhh, and I won a $25 gift certificate to their store.  

Yay for Unity!

Unity Stamp Company that is.  I just got my first order from them and I am very happy with it!  I just LOVE how deeply carved the images are.  The are very high quality stamps and the packaging is super cute!  

Plus, Angela truly is amazing at customer service.  She's the real reason I bought from them.  I sent her a message asking her to contact my local scrapbook store (you should do this too, here's a LINK) to carry Unity Stamps.  When she wrote back, which was very promptly, she was beyond sweet to me.  She personable and really appreciates her customers.  And I'll admit it, I think she's pretty too.

Anyhow, on to my project.  I made this spring card using a tutorial from SCS.  It is SUPER simple and fun.  Everyone should try it.  It gives a great wow effect for not too much effort.  I also saw someone attach the image layer with a ribbon so you can write a message underneath, I will have to try that next time.  

I used my brand new owl and sentiment stamp from the Mix Up of Cuteness set.  I love it!  Isn't he just precious?  I also used some of my FAVORITE accessories of the moment; Stickles, Kaiser flowers, and dew drops.

Basic Recipe:

Paper: American Crafts DP, brown, white and blue CS

Ink: SU Choc Chip

Stamps: Unity Mix Up of Cuteness

Accessories: stickles, dew drops, button, Kaiser flower, rhinestone

Chalk Pouncing

You'll have to excuse this picture.  The wonderful camera that my parents got me for my birthday/Christmas is now broken.  I'm a little heart broken over it.

Anyhow, this week's technique lover's challenge is chalk pouncing.  I thought this was a really cool and interesting technique so I wanted to share with you all.  The tutorial is from Susan Chong.  She also has a blog if you want to check it out.  

I tried this technique with a tissue at first and I didn't like how much chalk (I used my Stampin Up pastels) I had to put on the tissue to get a good amount of color.  Then I pulled out one of my FAVORITE stamping tools, my make up remover pads.  They are great for this!  They are awesome for sponging the edges of your paper as well.  You can use them with stamp pads or even re-inkers.

I also learned from bensarmom that you should spray some hairspray on your image to set it.  This is great!  I never did it before and some of my pastels have rubbed off onto other cards.  Though it does suck that I threw out all my cheapy hairspray since I didn't want to put that stuff on my hair anymore.  I used some of my $15 a bottle Kenra, which worked great.  I guess, I'll get a little bottle of cheap stuff to keep in my craft room.

I hope you try this!  It's really easy and fun!  Plus there are so many different variations on it you could do.

Reusing a Dryer Sheet

So, many of you may know about the dryer sheet technique.  I love the idea of reusing things, but haven't really gotten to use it the way it's intended.  This is my little spin on it.  

I wanted a background for this card.  I wanted to use the same paper as I used on my flower but it just seemed too bright for me.  I thought that using the paper in it's raw form as the background would take away from my lovely flower.  So, what I did was use a dryer sheet.

I took a USED dryer sheet and sprayed it with spray adhesive.  I stuck it to my background paper and trimmed it up a bit.  Then I sprinkled glitter over the top of it.  I kinda wish I would have made it bigger so you could see it better, but I still think it's really pretty.  

My little twist is instead of making a fuzzy a glittery focal point, I made a more tame but still glittery (I LOVE glitter) background.  I just love the softness that the dryer sheet adds.  PLUS, I love reusing something that I would have thrown away.

Basic Recipe:

Paper:  Bo Bunny Ella Collection, Yellow and White CS

Ink: SU Real Red

Stamps: $1 section for Michael's

Accessories: dryer sheet, glitter, button, and corner punch

To Dustin From Brady Father's Day

I made this card for Dustin for Father's Day.  It's from Brady.  I think it's super cute.  Dustin loves monkeys and I think Brady does too so it's very appropriate for our family.  I made this using a tutorial on Faith's blog.  Thanks Faith!

I did make this late late Saturday night so it's not as perfect as it could be, but I like the way it turned out.  I think it's different and really fun.  The colors are masculine enough.  

Here's the basic recipe:

Stamps: Hero Arts Playful Animals, Image Tree 4th July

Ink: Choc Chip, Green Galore, and generic dark green

Paper: Brown and green card stock, grass print paper

Accessories: ribbon and dew drops

Dustin's 27th Birthday Card

This is a card I made for Dustin's 27th birthday, not the 27th card I made for Dustin's birthday. However, that kinda sounds like a cute idea. Maybe next year, if I get really creative, I'll make Dustin 28 cards for his 28th birthday. Or maybe I'll start with Brady since he'll only be one this year. Hehe.

Anyhow, I started with a tutorial for a two way open card. I thought the idea was really neat. You can see how the card opens in my second picture. I really wanted to do something special for Dustin's birthday and this met that requirement for me.

Then I took Dustin's favorite colors, blue and orange and kinda went wild with it. I added the yellow because there is some yellow in the patterned paper I used. I cut out the balloons and attached some real string to them for some texture. I paper pierced the icing on the cake so that it would use both of the colors I wanted. I stamped the sentiment, the presents, and the orange paper. I really did want to make a masculine card but it was just begging me for some more embellishment, so I added a brad that kinda looks like a flower. But I think overall, it's still pretty masculine.

Dustin told me it is the best card he's ever received. I thought that was pretty sweet of him to say. He even took it to work to display at his cubicle. I'm very proud and glad he likes it so much!