Lots of Butterflies

I have been wanting to use butterfly punches lately (must be Spring Fever!) so this card is all about butterflies. I used the Inkadinkadoo one inch stamps for the three butterflies across the top. They are embossed with clear e.p. and then sponged with tangerine tango. The card colors are tangerine, mustard and wasabi. The designer paper is from SU - Haiku I think. I love the pearls across the top, I was trying to add one more white item to match the stamped butterflies. I am so excited about this card! I even stamped the inside, just bright and cheery to me :)

Same Paper, Same Stamp Set, 3 Cards

Now that I think about it this would be a nice gift card set. I was making my cards for my first Survivor voted off and the requirement is that each card is different. I dont have a lot of time to think up three totally different cards so I decided to use the same paper and stamp set but vary each card to make them look different. I would file these under the clean and simple category :) So here they are, using last years (or the year before??) designer paper from SU Polka dots and Paisley maybe? And then the stamp set is Live Your Dreams. Now to get them in the mail. I have 5 Survivors remaining and I have won over 25 cards the last two times, so far I have received more than I sent! We will see this time though, I have totally random players - not one's I meticulously chose. You just never know on this game which is why I like it!

Remember Flowah Bella?

This is the very first "Bella" I bought. At the time this was one of the few and most popular. Now I think there are at least more than 50 and I am not sure how many! My mom asked me a while ago, "what ever happened to that curly headed girl?" So here you go Mom! My hair is this curly if I don't straighten it so I kind of have a kinship with her. Oh and that I dream of being that skinny LOL!

This is for the sketch challenge on Splitcoast #216, love the cards being made with this sketch! I think I love any of them that use circles or semi-circles! My card however, just didn't come out as spectacular as I thought it would. I used the Urban Prairie paper again, it has so many different patterns in it, I love it! Without going into detail about every little part of this I will tell you about my "mishap". Because well, it is more interesting than "punched out the branch and...". So I paper pieced Bella's dress with Urban Prairie paper. OK came out fine. Then I colored in the flowers in Bella's pot. OK not bad, Then I thought, "oooo let's add some sparkle to the flowers". Bright idea, NOT. It ended up looking like a glumpy mess of Stickles. YUCK!

It sat there for two days while I tried to decide what to do. Well this morning came and I had another "bright" idea! Find some SU designer paper with flowers on it and cut out the flowers to glue over the nasty Stickle mess. Now to find paper that matches AND small enough flowers. I'll be darned, the "Bella" paper from SU worked! Yes! However the flowers I needed were the smallest ones and have you ever cut tiny itty-bitty flowers out? Yikes, but I did it, 7 of them. Glued, yes glue, on top (because I found out you can't scrape off Stickles) of the mess and I think it looks so much better. That is the first time I had a disaster with Stickles. They are usually great. Oh and I will add that I put Diamond Glaze on the blue dot in the center of the flower and it looks just like I put a blue dew drop or something on top. That was not a disaster :)

Color and Sketch Challenge

Well this card certainly doesn't match my new blog colors! Oh well :) It is perfect plum, pink pirouette and kiwi kiss for the color challenge CC205 on Splitcoast. The sketch is from the week before also on Splitcoast - SC214. I had this cute little hedgehog stamp all colored in to match this and it just looked boring. So what to do, I went through a pile of stamps sitting nearby (nooo my desk isn't messy) and these butterflies were sitting there. Got them out, stamped the appropriate colors, cut them out and here we are! I had to liven them up a bit so I put some Stickles glitter glue on their wings, and then I had to find a place for the kiwi color. So got out the punch and on went the branches. Now for the sentiment - I had this long vertical area and thought - well what else but ribbon! So on went the ribbon and then I die cut the tag etc. I am happy with it.

I was reading someone elses blog where she put stampers in categories, the one who only ever cases and never does her own work, the one who puts every embellishment on the planet on her card and everyone wonders how to get it into an envelope and mail it, the one who stamps crooked, puts the layers on crooked etc. and the one who does clean and simple (which to me is the Stampin Up catalog). So her goal was trying to be clean and simple. Now for me I case, I sometimes put on a lot of embellishments, I sometimes do clean and simple, I sometimes (LIKE TODAY) make my own up and sometimes I stamp crooked LOL! So there you have it, no category for me!

Check it out! Here is my new background and it looks awesome! She did an awesome job, has been extremely patient with me and really customized it to my liking! I highly recommend her :) MadebyHolyCow. Check out my new signature too! Love this whole thing, my blog is awesome now!

Working on the Blog

Check it out! This header was made by my friend who makes awesome digital creations! Isn't it cool?! She made a background for me too but I am having trouble getting it to work. Not her fault, mine in editing the HTML to add it.

So here is a card, the gal at my church who invited me to hold the card class gave me some glossy card stock and so I had to brayer something! This was a quickie, just wanted to brayer and use my new stamp :)

Bible Verse Challenge

I joined the Bible verse challenge on Splitcoast Stampers where you make one card or page or ATC etc. your choice each month. I chose a 6 x 6 page format that I intend to hang from a wooden holder when I get one. That way I will have 12 months of verses to flip through and if there is room I could just add more.

I had this all in my mind, was rockin and jammin through it (the song using this verse was in my head!) and loved it when I was done, all except I can't figure out what to put in the upper right side. So it is blank. I didn't want to use flowers or branches since I did that last month. Maybe I will come up with something later, I can always add to it! The colors are pacific point, basic gray, baja breeze and then Basic Grey designer paper. I put the top layer of the light house, verse and scripture all up on dimensionals and it really works well.

Heart Shaped Card

I am making some changes to the look of my blog. It's time for a new look! I have a friend who might be working on something else for me so it may change again - yes, it's still me! I need a nice Title design too so if you know of someone who would like to make one, let me know! I made one a long time ago and it wasn't pretty and I am not looking forward to attempting another one :)

Now about the card! This is one more card for my church Friday night, so the basic look of the card is simple (no flowers or brads etc.) I cut out the heart shape using the Creative Memories Cutting System. I had the big and small hearts from when I was a consultant and thought it would be fun to make a shaped card. To make it you make fold the card base in half then simply take the cutting template and put it above the fold on the card and make the cut. If you line it up right it leaves just enough of the fold to be able to work. I used the biggest width (blue blade) for the card and then the next width blade (green) for the rose card stock and then the smallest (red blade) for the striped paper. I have done it before with the Nestabilities dies and I know others have done it with the new Stampin' Up dies so if you want a shaped card, give it a try!

Urban Prairie

I recently picked up one of those 6 x 6 paper packs from Basic Grey called Urban Prairie. I used to buy exclusively 12 x 12 paper packs so I can use them in scrapbooking but lets face it, I have plenty of 12 x 12 paper and I haven't scrapbooked in a while. The thing I like about the 6 x 6 packs for card making (other than price of course!) is the pattern is also scaled down and printed smaller. Which in turn works better for card making :) These are two cards I made with the same pack of paper. There is a nice variety in this pack!

The first card is a bird from birds galore by Inkadinkadoo, I used a brilliance spectrum pad to stamp the bird. The 2nd is the Penny Black Critter party set that has that cute dog I did a few days ago - there are a bunch of cuties in this set! The first card I left simple and I think it is nice just as it is, the 2nd card I kept adding and I could add more! I embossed the happy birthday with clear ep and then decided it needed something more so I punched the branches out and put them under it and then they blended in too well so I drew lines in with a white gel pen. Then I decided the left side needed something so I punched a flower out and put it on and that needed something so I put the white brad in the center. Now I could add more flowers, and even some branches to that area but I think it would over-power the little mice and their cupcake. Of course I used liquid applique for the frosting, looks so real! Also put stickles on the flame. So there you have it :)

Cards for non-stampers

I am trying to come up with some easy cards for non-stampers to make. My church has a monthly Crop and tries to add something different every other month to let people who don't scrapbook do a craft. These cards are Valentines and Friends cards. I have to limit the layers and I will pre-cut some of it, especially the dies - but do these look ok? Would you want to do them? I am struggling with making simple ones as I have gotten used to lots of embellishments and lots of layers which of course take me hours and hours to make. Can't do that at a Crop! Anyway here are the first four, I am going to work on some more over the next few days. Oh and the black ink keeps smearing on me! Not sure what's going on but I smeared it on a couple of these cards, ugh! TFL :)

Valentine Containers

These are some cute containers I made with a friend for Valentine's Day :) You put M & M's, Kisses or any chocolate or even candy hearts in them. I haven't gotten that far yet! I need to go buy some chocolate, hmmmm not a bad thing ;)

Kinda busy

So I will hit ya with several Valentine's Cards at once! These are all CASEs. I am just kinds busy right now. My boys have just entered leadership training and I am a bit confused as to when to bring who where, what to get, what to bring and goodness what to do. I hate it when two people tell you two different things :) Oh well. Today time got away from me and tomorrow I have to be at one kids school while I am supposed to be driving my other kid to practice. I wonder what other mom's do? Especially ones that have like 6 kids or more than 2 anyway! How do they get to two places at once? Hubby is out of the picture, this is busy season for him and I am lucky to see him before 8pm.

I will be back maybe Thurs. to post some containers I made for Valentine's Day :)

Valentine's Heart Card

It's official! This card has the most comments of all of my personal cards on Splitcoast. It is so dazzling in person. I used Stampin Up's chunky glitter on this chipboard heart that I die cut with my Cuttlebug. I used some pretty Valentine's paper I got at Archivers last week and not wanting to cover it up I layered it even on the middle strip. The layout is this weeks TSSC (techno stamper sketch challenge.)

The medallion is my favorite part. I made it up all by myself LOL! I used burgundy cardstock with circle Nestabilities die then I cut a piece of pink pirouette cardstock with a scallop die and went back and cut the inside with a plain die to make a "ring" or "frame" and placed that on the burgundy piece. Then I stamped the circle sentiment and placed that in the middle. I used a 1/2" punch to punch out one of the hearts from the paper and put that in a build a brad, then put the brad in the middle of the sentiment. I put the whole medallion up on dimensionals so it overlaps the chunky heart. So there you have it!