Avonlea with It's Your Day

I used CTMH's "Avonlea" paperpack for this biking themed birthday card.  I paired it with the "It's Your Day" stamps--this month's constant campaign and added a little Ruby ink.  It looks flat in the picture, but the tag with the bike and "Happy Day" are raised on dimensional adhesive.

Scholastic Birthday Card

This birthday card was made with papers from CTMH's new paper, "Scholastic."  The stamp set for "Birthday" is the "Cocktail" alphabet, which I outlined with black.  The pennant was cut freehand from "Scholastic" papers.  I lifted the idea from a card designed by Jane Guthrie in the Fall 2012 issue of Paper Creations magazine.

Flip Flops for Margaritaville!

Saw this idea on Pinterest and had to make some for our Jimmy Buffett weekend in Wisconsin.

Fins Up!

Flirty Card / Mojo Monday #255

I made this card, which I'll use for a birthday, using CTMH's new paper pack, "Flirty."

I followed the sketch from this week's Mojo Monday Challenge #255.  The flower and leaves are stamps from CTMH's new set, "Love Blooms" and they are popped up over a piece of CTMH burlap ribbon.

Lollipop Birthday Card

Another card I copied from a fellow blogger.  This time from Wendy at Happy Stamping Designs.  Wendy had her version of this card published in Paper Crafts magazine, so I have to give both Wendy and Paper Crafts credit.

The lollipop is made from all circles.  For the inside sentiment, I used a CTMH stamp that came with the Cricut Artiste collection that says, "Hope Your Birthday's As Sweet As You."

Back to School Birthday Card

I saw this card on J.J. Bolton's blog and had to copy it.  Mine isn't exactly like hers, but close enough that I must give her all the creativity credit.  I used CTMH cs, CTMH "Family Ties" stamp set, and a new CTMH Cricut Artiste collection stamp and coordinating Cricut shape for the banner.  Please check out J.J. Bolton's blog for lots of great artwork.

State Fair Card

I found this stamp set (CTMH's "Country Life") in my stash today.  I've never used it, but it reminded me of the Iowa State Fair, which ends today, so I made what I'm calling my State Fair card.

Layout-wise, there's nothing special here.  I used CTMH's new Dakota paper pack, which works perfectly with the cow.  I stamped the cow stamp (all of that stamping is one stamp) on Barn Red (fitting name) cs with black ink.  I used a white colored pencil to color in the cow, which I think adds a lot.  The star is a brad I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

Growing Older But Not Up -- for Him

Stealing words again from Jimmy Buffett, here's another "Growing Older But Not Up" card--this one for a guy.  The old man is from Art Impressions Golden Oldies line, and I colored him with Copic markers.

The card base is a purchased one in metallic grey.  The pink background was made with Lindy's Stamp Gang Hottie Patottie Hot Pink Starburst mist--you can see a little of the shimmer above the word "growing."  I stamped the circles with CTMH's "Love Life" stamp set in White Daisy ink.  The banner is from CTMH's "Pennant Alphabet" stamp set and stamped with CTMH's new inks, Slate and Ruby.  The dots across the top were made with Liquid Pearls.  The sentiment was made with my label maker and outlined in white colored pencil.

Growing Older But Not Up - Collage Card

I been experimenting with collage cards and some products I purchased way back last winter from Lindy's Stamp Gang after Tresa Black's Creative University art retreat.

This birthday card has A LOT going on.  I started with some CTMH Heavenly Blue cs and stamped a newspaper image on it.  Then I sprayed it with Lindy's Tiffany Blue and Van Dyke Sepia mists.  I stamped some misc. flowers over that in CTMH's Colonial White ink, and some misc. swirls in CTMH's new Slate ink.  I drew black borders with a Sharpie.  The rose in the bottom right corner is from CTMH's new Love Blooms stamp set, embellished with Liquid Pearls.  The drink glass is again sprayed with Lindy's products and really shimmers.  It's outlined in CTMH's new metallic ink pen and embellished with ribbon and a swirl in CTMH's new Ruby ink.  A strip of Tim Holtz's tissue tape is diagonal across the bottom left.  "Growing Older But Not Up," lifted from a Jimmy Buffett song, was printed with my label maker and outlined sloppily in black.  The butterfly and flower are both paper embellishments from CTMH, painted in metallic watercolor from Yasutomo.  The card base is simply CTMH colonial white distressed with Tim Holtz distress inks, Vintage Photo and Olive.  Thanks for looking! 

Bowwow Birthday / H2H Challenge

I decided to play along with the Heart 2 Heart Card Challenge this week:  "Dog Days of Summer."  The challenge was simply make something with a dog in it.  I hadn't used CTMH's "A Bowwow" stamp set yet, so I started with that.

The dog image is obviously from the Bowwow set.  I colored him with Copics and added a little bling to his dog collar, using the sparkly Spica pens for the nose and eye.  The butterfly is from CTMH's Delight stamp set.  The body of the butterfly is glued down, but the wings are popped up with dimensional adhesive.  "Happy Birthday" is from CTMH's Card Chatter-Birthday stamp set.  For the background, I used B&T paper from CTMH's new Dakota paper pack.  Lastly, the grass was cut with a MS punch.

Here's the sentiment inside--also from CTMH's Bowwow set.

Collage Tag

I finally experimented with some of the Lindy's Stamp Gang products I bought after playing with them at Tresa Black's Creative University last winter.  After stamping the background of this tag with a newsprint stamp, I sprayed it with Tiffany's Blue Starburst Spray & Van Dyke Sepia Shadow Mist.  You can't see it from the photo, but the background has a very shimmery look.  I painted the butterflies with some Yasutomo iridescent watercolor paint.  The bright blue centers of the flowers and the highlights on the butterflies are Lindy's Stamp Gang Tiffany Blue Magicals powder.  This was my first attempt at this type of collage art, and I can see how easy it can become addictive.



Kittens!

So cute I had to post on FB, my photo blog, and here.  These are just some of the kittens of the three litters on my mom's farm.  Jess & Neal loaded up as many as they could (including a mother cat), and took them to a shelter.  In a few days, they will all be fixed and on another farm that has requested feral cats.

Baby Gift Toppers

I made both these gift toppers for gifts for my niece Heather's baby shower today.  The top tag has a flower made from strips of folded and layered B&T paper.  On the little 3.5" x 3.5" gift card, I stamped a hibiscus from CTMH's "Extreme Happiness" stamp set, then cut out and added a little baby stamped from CTMH's "Playday" stamp set.  The baby is colored with copic markers and attached with dimensional adhesive.

Fast & Easy Wedding Card

I was late leaving for a wedding yesterday and needed a card QUICK.  I had this purple tag stashed in a basket of bits and pieces waiting to be used, so I tied some tulle to it and glued it on a silver card base and added a row of tiny pearls to one side.  A quick stamping of "congratulations" on white cs, with freehand cuts on the ends, some mini white flowers and more little pearls, and I had a card in five minutes, or maybe less.  Not my best work by far, but I think it turned out just fine.

Butterfly Charms

I'm still here!  My blogging has been poor at best lately, but I'm still crafting--mostly doing a little commission project that I'll share soon.  In the meantime, here's a project I just remembered I hadn't posted yet.
Last winter when I went to Creative University in Idaho, I signed up for the charm swap,  Having never done ANY jewelry crafts of any kind, I was stressed.  Pretty silly to get stressed over something like this when life is full of real problems, but that's just me.  Anyway, the theme was "Woodland Fairies" and you could use anything that fit the theme.   The only "don't" was silver color or metals.

I came up with this butterfly charm for my art charm, which I showed on an earlier post, but here's the step-by-step how to:

I used plain wooden disks, about the size of a quarter.  I sponged theme with green, purple, and a little turquoise inks.

Next, I stamped a butterfly from CTMH's stamp set "Butterfly Kiss" on each charm.  I like that the image runs off the edge a little bit.

I edged the charms with this Krylon gold leaf marker.  It covered so well, with only one coat, and the edges were perfect.  It gave the charms a very finished look.

I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch a hole right through the wood charm--no drilling!  I do need to mention that you need to make sure your image is positioned the same way on both sides of the charm.  I didn't do this with my first batch, and many of my butterflies were upside down or sideways on one side.  I kept them all, and I'll use them sometime because all together they look like butterflies in flight, but for these charms that were given out singularly, I needed them to all be right side up.

Lastly, I sealed my charms with gold shimmer Modge Podge.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but the charms have a slight gold glittery shimmer.

Here are the finished charms.  I think they turned out pretty well for a first-time charm-maker.

I tied the charm (along with a filler charm we had to create too) on to a piece of cardstock and added my name and contact info.

I used this picture for the reverse side.  I found it on an antique postcard.  I thought she looked a little like a woodland fairy.

And here's a last picture of all my charms packaged and ready to trade.