Not My Best

Ok .... so, I've decided that this is not my best work, but I'm ok with the card in general. It's such a cute, cute set, how could someone go wrong??? The picture in my mind just didn't come together quite right on paper.

Anyway .... Here it is. I used the Pond Pals set from Clear Dollar. It's stamped with SU Basic Black and colored with the SU WWC. The matting is done in Gable Green and Night of Navy. Basic Gray taffeta ribbon is at the bottom of the blue and has a little oval (punched with the SU small oval punch) embellished with little flower brads and watercolored in Gable Green. The Gable Green layer is paper pierced on the top left and bottom right corners. The mushroom and frog are both cut out and put on pop dots. Have I ever mentioned just exactly how much I HATE cutting things out??! I even cut around those cute little flies on the side. This card and set just called for those images to be cut out.


What do you think??

~~~Weird~~~

Ok .... I had "great" ideas for this card. I'm just not quite sure that they came out quite as nicely as I wanted. The card, to me, has a bit of a weird feel to it. Let me explain the concept and the card .... At the early part of this month, a friend sent out a Quacker challenge. She sent each of us 3 brads, some ribbon, a small piece of designer paper and the 'rules.' Another Quacker thought it was an awesome idea (and I agree!), and she started a monthly swap doing something similar. We have 2 groups that will be sending and receiving monthly swap kits (each swapper sends to the others one month of the year), and I'm in group 2. This month, we were sent lighthouse images, a piece of designer paper, a little clip, a piece of hemp twine, and instructions to create a card with the contents using any colors and/or embellishments. I used the Cricut to cut a 3-panel card with waves and clouds (waves and clouds welded to a central rectangle on opposite sides and cut using the CDS). The waves are cut from the designer paper and then embossed with clear UTEE. The clouds were colored using the WWC - bashful blue and basic gray.






When the card is open, you can see the full lighthouse image (colored with WWC) mounted on a piece of bashful blue (sponged with a little bit of creamy caramel). Black brads at the top hold a piece of the hemp twine with the clip attached.





I'd really love to know what you think about this one. I think it's growing on me, but ... I just don't know yet.

Faith

Yep. Another Clear Dollar Set. I used Faith tonight to make a cool card. I used SU paper - scalloped circle to fit inside the scalloped flap on the outside and had an extra white scallopedGoing Gray (don't use that much, but nice color on this) and the Eggplant color ...the new one (can't remember which one it is since they retired one of them). The card base was cut from Going Gray on the Cricut using the Cricut Design Studio, George, and Mini Monograms. I cut another circle that I used on the inside. I used some antique gold brads on the Eggplant layer on the inside and some Whisper White on top of that on which to write a message. Gold Brilliance was applied directly to the edges of the outside layer and to the white scallop on the inside.





Sets used - Faith (Clear Dollar Stamps) and Everyday Blessings (Papertrey Ink). Ink used - Going Gray (SU), Eggplant (SU), VersaMark, Brilliance Gold, and Basic Black (SU).





Have an awesome weekend, my friends. :)

Lovin' Clear Dollar

Oh my. I am sure loving my Clear Dollar stamps. The sets are fun, great quality, and sooooooo blasted cute. Playing with these stamps is so much fun, and I can use them for so many different types of cards. Tonight, I played with Cute Critters, again. I also used All About Spring for the background on one of the cards and Pond Pals on the background on the other. My Cricut was used for one, too. So ... ya wanna see??

This card uses Cute Critters, Pond Pals, the Cricut, Cricut Design Studio, SU paper, WWC, and SU brads. I thought it would be cute to mimic the spiky top of the porcupine on the card. The circle card was cut using the Cricut and Design Studio. The circle layers were cut that way, too. The green was stamped with the little flowers in the Pond Pals set using Versamark. The edges of both the green base card and brown circle layer were inked with Versamark, too. The porcupine was stamped using StazOn and colored with WWC.



The porcupine makes a cute image for male or female. This card was made for an adult male's birthday next month (another deacon family ministry card). Using the basic gray and the brown makes it more 'manly,' I think. The ribbon is the Chocolate Chip Taffeta from SU. The porcupine and 'happy birthday' are both from Cute Critters. The brads and paper are all SU. It's watercolored with the WWC and the Aquapainter, and the basic gray is embossed (but not all the way....) using the Cuttlebug and the 'swirls' embossing folder.




Using Bold Brights is hard for me for some reason - just outside my comfort zone, I guess. I decided this card needed to be bright and cheerful, so I used stuff from that color family. The skunk is, again, from Cute Critters. He was watercolored with the WWC and the Aquapainter. The background was stamped with the butterfly from All About Spring and the sentiment is from SU. I hope this will cheer my friend.





Hopefully, more tomorrow. Have an awesome night!

New Blog Header

Thanks to digital scrapbooking elements, I have a new blog header - fresh for summer. :) Some of the paper and elements were downloaded from this blog. Kopperhead does a great job with these, and they are so fun to use to create pages or headers. Thanks to her!! The doodle was found here. I loved this kit, too!!! Fun stuff.

Let me know what you think about the blog changes. If it's hard to read or anything, I want to make sure that gets fixed.


Have a great weekend! I hope to create tomorrow night.

Challenge Card and Clear Dollar Stamps

As mentioned before, we have challenges on our Quacker thread each month. This month, Debbie sent each of us images, ribbon, double-sided patterned paper, and brads. Our challenge was to use one or more of the images, and all of the other supplies to create a card. We *had* to use only Earth Elements colors in other cardstock, though. This was a fun challenge, and I really enjoyed doing it.


I used the cute leopard from the images (all images were from the SU safari set). I colored him with the WWC and an Aquapainter. I used the Garden Green paper to layer and More Mustard as a card base. I cut the ribbon into 4 pieces to use as a little knot, a strip of ribbon, and two tabs. I notched two of the corners of the image layer with the SU corner punch. More Mustard was used on the edges of the card base to define it a little better, and the edges of the Garden Green were distressed with the SU distressing tool.






Even Jonah was allowed to join this challenge. Here's his card.









Recently, I placed an order at Clear Dollar Stamps. I had resisted for quite some time, but the new sets released on May 1 sent me over the edge. I could NOT resist this adorable duck and the fantastic little creatures and sayings that came with him. I bought 7 sets, I believe, and I absolutely LOVE them. Tooooooooo much fun.




This little guy is stamped on watercolor paper in basic black and colored with WWC. The Basic Gray is embossed with dots and spots using my Cuttlebug. The image was layered on top of a Yo Yo Yellow rectangle - on which was stamped the Waddle Over to God saying. Gable Green brads embellish the bottom, and a orange, grosgrain ribbon (brand unknown) trims up the Basic Gray layer.

Finally Finished!

Yippee! I finished all 3 boxes. I love how they turned out, and I loved doing them. They were very time consuming, though.




Here's a picture of all 3. :)









This is one box open. Each layer is dedicated to one of my children, and the center picture is one of all 3 together.








This box is dedicated to my great niece. I used a pink and brown scrapping kit to get his one done. That made things work well. I liked using a coordinated kit to do it.





Here's the last box, both opened and closed. This one has 4 kids featured. One takes each panel on the first layer. The second layer has two sides for one of the boys and one side for the other one. The same goes for the last layer, but it's just for the two girls.


I cut all of the boxes using the Cricut and the exploding box .cut file that I created. Various papers and embellishments were used - some SU and some unknown.


Let me know what you think!!

Dream big, and have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow. :)

A few more

One more sympathy card that I did on Saturday. This one uses the With Sympathy SU set, the WWC, and the chocolate chip taffeta ribbon. The corners of the watercolored layer were punched with the corner notch punch. It's nothing spectacular, but...





Another gate-fold card .... This one was made for my aunt who turned 85 on Wednesday. We had lunch with her to celebrate. The card uses coral, artichoke, and watercolor paper. WWC were used directly on the flower, which was stamped 3 times to give more dimension, from the Pretty Amazing set and to color in the butterfly after it was stamped. A blue background was watercolored in, too. The flower and butterfly were used on the inside of the card, too, to bring the inside and outside together.


The Cuttlebug was used on the patterned paper, but instead of 'embossing,' I 'debossed' the paper. Organdy ribbon was brought across the front to soften the edges, along with 3 Prima flowers along the edge of the patterned paper. It's a simple card, but I really liked it.





Hope you're having a great week! Weekend is so very close. Sleep well, dream big, and have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!! :) :)

More From Saturday

Here are a few more things that I got done on Saturday.

This one is a birthday card. When my son saw it, he immediately thought it was for my mom. Hmmmm ... I think I may have to make another one for her. :) This one is for one of the ladies in our deacon family ministry. I used scraps for this - a scrap of patterned paper (have no idea who made it) left from a scrapping kit, a scrap of artichoke paper cut into a wonderful scalloped circle, and a scrap of watercolor paper cut into a circle to fit into the scalloped circle. The set Pretty Amazing was used to stamp the hummingbird - in StazOn ink and the flower - using WWC and water spritzed on the stamp itself. WWC were used to color the hummingbird and to put a bit of blue in the background. Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon was used for the ribbon embellishment. I really like how it turned out. My mom would like it, too .... I think. :)



This card is very generic and simple. The child that is receiving it is named "Peyton." Since Peyton could be a boy or a girl, I thought that I would play it safe and do something very generic. The background is embossed with the cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder. I cut a simple, right triangle from the turquoise and stamped it with Happy Birthday in the same ink. The smilies were stamped and then, punched out with the SU circle punch (1 1/4", I believe). Simple, but that's really what I aim for with these cards.




Hopefully, I will have some explosion boxes to share soon. Need to get this thing printing pictures soon (blasted network!!! :) ).

Hope you guys sleep well, dream big, laugh often, smile much, pray incessantly, and have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!

Very Creative Day!!!

Woohoo! What a day. There are seven birthdays in our deacon family ministry in the month of May. I had three done, but needed the rest. My aunt's birthday is Wednesday, so that needed to be dealt with, too. Along with all of the birthdays, I needed 2 sympathy cards as soon as I could get them done. Whew. Busy time, huh? Anyway, seven cards were made today and a new top was cut for one of the explosion boxes I'm making. The top was too snug, so I resized it in CDS and cut it again. perfect size now.

I'm not going to post all of the cards today. Let's just go with a couple for now.

The first card that I'm going to share is one of the sympathy cards that I needed today.

Nothing very special about this card, but I really liked the way it turned out. I used With Sympathy from SU. As I look at the card, I think everything about it is crooked, but .... it *is* handmade, right? LOL!! I used a white card base, basic black, and light blue. The ribbon is white organdy. WWC were used to color the flowers and to make a light blue shading around them.




This is a "gate fold" card as shown in this tutorial on SCS. I created the .cut file before the tutorial was highlighted on SCS, but decided that now would be a good time to do a couple of these. This one is done in Bold Brights because it is being sent to a kid turning 15. The card was cut from Real Red on the Cricut. The scalloped oval was cut from Only Orange using the Cricut. The inner oval was cut from watercolor paper using the Cricut. The Design Studio was used to size everything and make it all fit together. Gable Green brads were used to embellish the bottom with 1/4" circles punched from Only Orange and used as 'washers' under each one. It was stamped with Because of You from SU. I LOVE that set.




Here's the card open. I used a light-colored piece of cardstock for the inside liner. I also used Only Orange for the folding panels to cover the brads that poke through to the inside.






Here are the box tops, too .... just to show you the difference in size. Because I used 3 layers on the box, the lid was just a mite too small. I didn't want to give that to someone with it not fitting well. It's sized now just big enough to fit the box.







On Thursday and Friday of this week, the kids and I worked in the yard. We got a LOT done. We sure are tired, though. :)


Hope you guys have a great weekend! Sleep well, dream big, laugh often, smile much, pray incessantly, quack like crazy, and have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow!!!!!!!