Christmas Tags Part I

Yay! It's Christmastime. I hope you are as excited as I am. I just bought my lifetime supply of Christmas wrapping paper from Costco, so I am officially in the spirit! Wrapping paper means it's tag time. SU! has a huge line of tag stuff so it makes it super easy to crank out these projects. All of these tags above were made using SU! stamps, punches and die cuts. Michael's Craft Stores has so many cute ribbons that these tags practically make themselves ;)

Saw this on my cuz' blog. It's so cute I had to piggyback her idea. If you haven't checked out the link yet here it is again:  by tkg
We have a lot of the same stamps and so we end up doing the same projects. I don't have the snowflake punch she has so I had to improvise. I modified the Sizzix Flourish Set in carob brown card stock. Rudolph is made using SU! Stocking builder punch in tan card stock. I shaded the edges with brown chalk and rosed his cheek and ear with red chalk. His collar is punched out of red textured card stock and embellished using the negative snowflake from ek snowflake border punch on baby blue with white polka dots. Can't really see that detail in this photo. It is mounted on a Sizzix tag die cut on the same baby blue white polka dot card stock. Finally, added a googly eye and tiny red pom pom nose. Oh yeah, and don't forget about the ribbon at the top. It matches Rudolph's collar. I didn't plan that, but it worked out so perfectly.

Yuki Merry Christmas

Between work and mommy duties I have not been able to do as much crafting as I would like to. You know how it is with school, swim lessons, music lessons and chores....all on top of the 40 hour work week. Sometimes I just don't know how it all gets done! So I have been working on this card for about two weeks. Not because it was difficult, but because I have only 10 minutes here and there to work in my studio.

This Yuki Sister Stamps is just so adorable. I painted it using those shimmery watercolors again. Then cut it out using Spellbinders Labels Four. The red paper is embossed using Sizzix Flower Vine Embossing Folder. The sentiment is heat embossed using Rubbermania Stamps #55 Red Dragon Embossing Powder on green Bazzill textured paper. I also added teeny tiny ribbons to her ponytails for that extra 3-D pop.

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for stopping by!

Flower Punch Happy Bday Card

It was my friend's birthday on Tuesday. I made her this card using a pleated paper technique I learned at a recent Stamp Camp. Can you see the gray "skirt" on the bottom half. Take a 1" strip of paper and fold it to look like pleats. I used a scorer and made 1/2" pleats, then topped it with vanilla grosgrain ribbon. I used that multi-ink technique again on the main flower image. (Wish I knew what the technical name of that technique was) Inked it all over with green and just edged lower left corner with purple to give it a gradated look. Then I added a bunch of circles and mounted Happy Birthday sentiment. Check out the background cardstock. It's dotted swiss textured paper in Celtic green. I just LOVE this color. It is neutral enough that I can use it with just about all my card projects. So cute.

Thanks for stopping by!

Simple Birthday Card

I finally got my shipment of Sister Stamps. I made this very simple card. I find it so hard now to make a "simple" card because of all the embellishments, punches, charms and fun stuff that are available. I just want to keep adding more stuff and don't really know when to stop.

I saw these really cool coloring techniques using Copics on various craft blogs. I do not own any fancy Copics, so I had to improvise. I used shimmery watercolors. It's by Yasutomo and it is a 16-color pallet. I bought it for $3.99 @ Freddy's. Here's my attempt at painting like the pro crafters. Hope I did Sister Stamps justice. Tell me what you think about the hair painting technique.

Here's the link to that tutorial by Amy super-hero-blue-black-hair. She used Copics and she made it look SO EASY. I tried....really I tried.

I really would have preferred to have it say Konichiwa for the sentiment, but I live where it is difficult to find Asian sentiment stamps. (Not sure if there are such a thing). I had to settle for this Happy Birthday sentiment.
Happy crafting to you! Have a good week.

Happy Birthday Card

Today is my co-worker's birthday on 11/11/11. Kinda a big deal, right?
I think of this card as a tag punch explosion card. It looks almost as if I just threw a bunch of punches on this card. It is very busy. I tried to use a monochromatic scheme so that all of the different elements matched. I hope she likes it.

Here is the vertical version of the same card with a Thank You sentiment.

Then I made this very linear card with the same Many Thanks sentiment as above. Very opposite from the tag explosion chaos.
Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Paper Bag Album

Paper Bag Album cover

I made this baby girl album from a sample I saw at Cut & Paste Paper Arts Store.  http://www.cutnpasteshoppe.com/
It's a small store, but they always have the latest arrivals. If I'm ever in the neighborhood I try to stop in just to see what's new. They have a lot of samples and they are so helpful with all my questions.
I distressed the designer paper with brown vintage ink before assembling. I made one of these for my dear friends that had a new baby girl and gift wrapped it in a brown lunch sack to stay with the brown bag theme. I hope she was able to fill it with cute baby pictures.

Inside pg 2

Inside pg 3

Inside pg 4

Inside Pg 5

Inside pg 6

Inside pg 7

Materials used:
Brown paper lunch sacks
SU! Designer paper
Various paper
Ribbon
Embellishments

The open ends of the bags I glued shut just for stability. However, I made one where I kept all the bags open and used them as pockets to add more things such as little baby mementos. Cards or notes for examples, or more photos, or I've heard of parents keeping a tiny lock of hair. It makes it much more fun than a traditional album because it is so interactive. It's almost like a pop-up book. Each page had a surprise with hidden pages or pockets. There are two different lunch sack sizes. I tried making albums with both sizes. Both came out cute. It all depends on your personal preference.

Calendar Gifts

I thought this would make a great Christmas gift. I made this calendar picture frame holder out of wood, glue, screws and 6x6 album page refills and two album rings. I covered the top with paper to hide some of the excess space above. This project took some wood-working skills. I used a hand saw, but I suggest a miter saw if you want straight lines. My mom saw this project and described it to me. We drew up some plans while she was visiting and she helped me with the dimensions. The bottom piece is 10" and the side pieces are 10" as well. The middle brace piece that connects the bottom to the sides is 8" and the dowel is 8 1/4". You may need to adjust your measurements if your album pages are different dimensions than shown here. There are 6 pages; January through June on one side, July through December on the flip side. There's the Triple Treat Heart again from SU!


This one I painted gold. I stamped the calendar, but I think it would be much easier to print it off on a computer, especially if you make a few of these to give as gifts. Unfortunately, my computer died along with all my word programs. I think SU! also makes a calendar stamp, but don't quote me on that.

Side view

At first I didn't want to make the holder too ornate because I thought it would distract from the pictures. However, some subtle texture or filigrees would probably look really nice and not be a distraction at all. I think next time I will paint it black with some accents up the sides. The album rings come in all sorts of colors nowadays. You could even use ribbon instead.
Helpful tip: paint all wood pieces before assembling.
Thanks for visitin. Some feedback would be nice. Happy crafting!

Owls

Another SU! punch. Here's the owl punch I was so reluctant to buy. I use it all the time now. What I didn't like about it is that they're owls, I guess. Owls have become so trendy in the past few years and I tend to shy away from things like that. But what I do like about it is it is so fun to punch. You don't even have to stamp a thing. For this card I used only punches and designer paper with a little ribbon embellishment. It's pretty much the same card as the sample in the Idea Book & Catalog. I might have changed it a little bit. You can punch it onto white cardstock and flip it upside down to make an ghost as previously posted. You could cut off the legs and make tulip flowers. I think there's also some way to make a penguin, but I'll have to do a little more research. Happy Stamping!

Toy Horse Birthday Card

Made this card at a SU! stamp camp. This is how I got talked into buying this punch. It's a Christmas set, but this shows how versatile it is. It's a really clever boy birthday card, which are not always easy to make. It's cute without being too cutesy. Do you get what I'm saying?
Here's a handy link to much more SU! cards bytkg.bloqspot.com

Triple Treat Flower

I just got this stamp and punches from SU! It's a delight because I don't have to color anything in and I don't have to cut anything in detail. It's just ink, stamp, then punch.
My mom taught me this cool technique (I don't know the exact name of it) where you take a Color Box Cat's Eye and stamp two or more colors onto your stamp and it creates this airbrushed blended effect. If you're not familiar with this technique, here's what you do: Choose two or more colors of ink. Start with the lighter color and ink your stamp. Using the next darkest color "edge" the stamp. Lightly tap around edge of image with the ink pad. You're ready to stamp your image. Flower images are perfect for this technique. Play around with different color combinations. I didn't think the Lime and Merlot would come out so terrific, but it's a really great contrast. I tried Canary and Violet, but it just turned into brown, not so pretty.
Remember these tips: The Color Box Cat's Eyes get muddied the more you do this. You have cross-contamination between ink colors. Wipe off as much contaminated ink as you can from the pad and re-ink when necessary. If you don't have re-inkers, then don't try this; you'll just end up wasting your ink pads.

Here's a close-up of the flower. The largest flower is inked in Lime and edged in Merlot. The middle flower is inked in Dusty Plum edged with Violet. and the middle circle is just Violet. The large flower was punched using SU! matching punch, and so was the middle flower and circle. You could just assemble using glue, but I used dimensionals to make it pop. I stamped Happy Birthday sentiment (SU!) onto grosgrain ribbon using VersaMagic Concord Grape and then stapled it onto the front using Making Memories pink staples. Lastly, I embellished pink and green grosgrain knot at top right corner.

Thanks for stopping by!