My Very First Easel Card!

My Aunt Jackie has a birthday coming up and I wanted to do something bright and cheery. I also wanted to try my hand at an easel card and was thinking in terms of a circular card for the weekly challenge at the Anything But Cute group on Paper Craft Planet.

I cut my card base out of the bright yellow cardstock with orange polka-dots. I don't have any record of the company that produced this cardstock. I bought 4 different packs at Big Lots a couple years back; at the time, I wasn't thinking about keeping track of company names, so tossed the packaging without making a note of which company it was.

On a whim, I grabbed my tracing wheel from my sewing stuff and ran a line around the outer edge of the top circle that would become the front of my card. Then I took a corsage pin and pierced through each mark left by the tracing wheel. At that point, I decided the paper-piercing wasn't enough, so I pulled out my embroidery floss, a needle and some seed beads and proceeded to embroider a simple chain stitch through all those holes all around the card. I followed that up with an argyle strip from my scraps (DCWV) and two orange diagonal striped strips from my scraps (DCWV) which I punched with one of my Fiskars border punches. After taping those strips together to make the center background for my card front, I stuck the whole thing down with foam tape (had to get it over the top of my embroidery stitches). I cut three silk sunflowers off the floral bunches they came on and hot-glued them to the front of the card. To finish, I stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment (Inkadinkadoo image) on some plain yellow cardstock using VersaColor bark pigment ink, sprinkled American Crafts Zing! chestnut embossing powder on and heat-embossed it. I trimmed the corners with my corner-shaper punch and gave it a bit of VersaColor orange pigment ink distressing. It is mounted to the bottom with foam tape. I used VersaColor marigold pigment ink to add edge-distressing on the round card front and bottom. And there you have it! I liked the way it turned out and will definitely make another easel card, although I may not make it in a circle.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Lighthouse Challenge Birthday

As a general rule, I don't make cards without having a person in mind to receive that card. This card was no exception. I needed to make a birthday card for our sister-in-law Ingrid who lives in Georgia, while at the same time over at Paper Craft Planet in the group Anything But Cute to which I belong, there's a challenge going on to make a card using lighthouse images. I don't own any stamps with lighthouses, so I had to turn to other options.

For this card, I used a digitized adaptation of a wallpaper border from my stash of wallpaper samples (the border is too big to use on a card as is). I mounted the lighthouse image on a dark green piece of cardstock from my scrap bag, then onto a piece of medium blue cardstock, also from the scrap bag. I used a Bic marker to add faux stitching on the blue piece and cut a scalloped edge with shape scissors. The background paper is a digital print from a tile by Kitty Wompus. The three other pieces of circle print papers are from a ScrapbookScrapbook digital print. I ink-distressed the edges of those three papers with Baby Blue VersaColor ink. To complete the card, I added layered buttons, cream & shades of blue, tied with brown embroidery floss, and mounted the matted image with foam tape. I was really pleased with the way this card turned out and hope our sister-in-law likes it.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Swat's Up?

I belong to this great cardmaking group on Yahoo groups called Crazy Card Makers (check it out!). We have swaps each month that you can participate in. I made this card for the Don't Bug Me themed-swap. I had been sorting my rubber stamps and saw this fly stamp (it's rubber on foam and I think it may be a Stampendous design--don't have that info any more). Thinking of flies led me to flyswatters and picnics. The background paper is from one of my DCWV stack packs and seemed to holler "picnic" all over it. I stamped the fly images, heat-embossed them, then used colored pencil to highlight their wings & bodies. I made the little flyswatter using a length of floral wire I had handy. I made the mesh portion with drywall tape, then hand-stitched around the frame of the swatter to anchor the tape and make it look more authentic. The swatter is hot-blued to the card front. The flies are attached with foam tape. The little sentiment tag is hand-lettered; the "brads" are red marker circles covered with Clear Accent. Again, I ink-distressed the edges of things, one of my favorite techniques to soften and blend edges.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Two In Brown

A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch a Freecycle post from a gal in our area in which she offered to give away some rubber stamps and other things. I contacted her and was blessed to be her choice to receive those items. My eldest daughter Venetta and I divied out the goodies: Stampin' Up! stamps and 12"x12" papers and other odds & ends. What a blessing! I'm not sure which thrilled me more: the stamps or the papers.

So of course, I had to make a thank you card and this is what I came up with. I was thinking of a challenge over at PaperCraft Planet in the Anything But Cute group to make a card using brown & just one other color. These papers were in with those I received, as were the two stamps I've used on this card. I used my big Marvy punch to punch out the scalloped oval. To add the small punches inside the scallops, I used my small hole punch. The stamped writing in the background is the Thank You stamp, done with tan ink. Then I stamped the long-legged birds over the writing. Some ink-distressing and a border using my favorite Martha Stewart punch and there you have it!

This birthday card was made for my Sweetheart's cousin Sherry. I was on a roll here with the brown & turquoise. I'd wanted to use this felt border (purchased from the dollar bins at Michaels) on the previous card, but it didn't fit, so I made this card to feature that border. I added wooden beads and the chocolate bunny button. The sentiment is a stamped tag, highlighted with gel pen and Sharpie marker. I carried the card upstairs to my sewing room to add the sewn lines. A little ink-distressing on the edges of things and there you have it.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Bird Watcher Swap Card

This is another of my favorite cards. I love the country look and I like chickens a lot. This image comes from PCCrafter.com, one of my favorite sites for clipart. Laurie Furnell has GREAT sets! This card was made for another Crazy Card Makers swap--Bird Watcher. A chicken IS a bird, right? The card begins with a cardstock base, then I layered brown cardstock and a dark blue scrap of a wallpaper sample. On top of that, I used a piece of maize-colored gingham wallpaper sample, edged with cardstocks that are edge-punched with my favorite Martha Stewart doily punch. I "borrowed" the sentiment and printed it out on my computer, inking the edges and adding three little brads. To complete the card, I added faux stitching by hand with a Sharpie marker.

There you have it. Next up are a couple of cards for family special days, but I'm saving those for another post. Til then, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Going Green Card

I like this card! Green is probably my second favorite color, after blue, and this card is so soothing to look at. I made it for a Going Green swap challenge in my Crazy Card Makers group. I began with a printed cardstock base. Then I cut a square of solid green and cut slots on all four sides to thread strips of green print through. I also cut squares of printed papers to put on top of the solid square, using pinking shears on the edges. The two papers on the right are prints of digital papers, while those on the left are from DCWV. I added brads, a 3-D floral sticker, and a stamped sentiment. The two little butterflies are brads, too.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Crazy Color Card

This crazy color card (well, what ELSE would you call it?) was created for a swap in the Crazy Card Makers group that I belong to. The swap was called the Letter C. For this card, I thought of C as "crazy" like in a crazy quilt and "color". I had this great quilted scrapbook paper that says 'Marrakech' on the bottom--sorry, I don't have the rest of the info--and wanted to use it. I also had this geometric image from Dover, which I did my best to color with Bic markers to match the colors in the quilted paper (it doesn't look like such a great match after I finished). The blue micro-dotted background paper is from a DCWV stack, as is the other dotted paper. I also used a scrap of a red striped paper from DCWV. The Dover image was covered with Glossy Accents and adhered with foam tape on top of the other papers. I added faux stitching that I did by hand, using a gel pen for the white stitches and a Sharpie marker for the zigzag stitches.

The card isn't in my usual color choices or style. I think it's quite gaudy, to be honest, but I also found that it "grew" on me, the longer I looked at it.

Til my next post, happy cardmaking! Take care and may the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with you!

Three-color Challenge

In the cardmaking group I belong to, Crazy Card Makers, we had a challenge to use just 3 colors on a card. My youngest daughter, Thea, was here when I decided to make my card so I asked her to pick out three colors for me and I'd take it from there. She looked through my cardstock and picked out an orange, a red, and a bright blue. I knew she'd pick colors I'd never think to put together. She also offered ideas on how I should make the card, so this is the result of our joint effort.

I started with an orange cardstock base, adding a layer of a striped print scrapbooking paper that used all 3 of our colors. I cut a square from the red cardstock, mounted a square of the blue cardstock on top of it, then Thea punched the flower shapes in the reddish-orange print paper so that when I put it on top of the blue, we'd have blue flowers surrounding the little kitty in his flowerpot which is a stamped image I punched out with a 2" scallop punch and mounted on a red circle of cardstock in the center. Thea wanted orange brads in the corners of the square. I stamped the sentiment with blue pigment ink, sprinkled on holographic clear glitter and heat-embossed it. The stamped image was colored with markers, BIC Mark-It and Crayola (the flowerpot).



This black, white, and red card was my original idea for this challenge and I couldn't resist making it even though I really liked the card I made with my daughter's input. To make this, I started with a square of white cardstock, a size I don't often make, but I wanted to do something a little different. Then I covered the front with the patterned black & white print. From a coordinating print paper, I cut out the stripe with the medallions on it that I adhered across the card. From yet another coordinating print, I cut out the large flower and two smaller flowers, adhering them on top of the horizontal strip. The large flower is mounted with foam tape to make it pop out more. And there you have it...