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!

Another Orange Birthday Card

My inspiration for this card began with that stamped floral scallop strip. I like the way that looks so much! I am going to have to try some of my other small stamps, though, to see what other effects I can come up with. Besides the stamped strip, I also wanted to do some freeform machine stitching on this card and use more of the raffia ribbon.

The gingham check background paper is from DCWV. The darker orange floral cardstock mat came from my scraps. I cut out the little stamped flowers, extras at the end of my stamped strip, and glued them in place. The vintage flower seed print is a digital image from Dover, which I colored with my BIC Mark-It's and gel pens. I also used a little distress ink on the image (may not do that again as I didn't really like it). The image was mounted on foam tape. 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!

Two Bright & Cheery Cards

This card started with the scalloped flower border. On someone's blog (really, I OUGHT to keep track of where I see these great ideas!), they stamped a design in the scallops of a border and I thought it was such a great idea that I took a look at my stamps to see what I had that was small enough to fit in the scallops cut with a Fiskars shape scissors. This is what I came up with. The two little flowers are part of a wood-mount stamp set I have, origin unknown. I wanted to do a sunflower theme on this card, at least that was the idea when I started out. The card base is the bright orange you see on the far left of the card. I stuck the border down first, then built the rest of the card around it. Okay, I'll tell on myself: the border was supposed to go on the right side but I didn't realize I had the card base turned the wrong way until I already had the border stuck down. Oops! But I've learned to turn those kind of oopses into pluses. I think this card actually turned out better BECAUSE of my oops.

I ink-distressed the edge of the border and added a row of faux stitching. Then I cut a piece of orange & yellow diagonal print paper, added a scallop border to that, and ink-distressed the scalloped edge. The shaped die-cut is my own pattern, hand-cut and ink-distressed, from a piece of glittery floral cardstock in colors that worked just right with my design. I stamped the focal image and colored it with BIC Mark-It! pens, giving the background a "wash" with a couple pastel Prang markers. I added a paper raffia ribbon, using two colors of orange twisted together, and tied into a bow. The stamped central image is mounted with foam tape.

The background paper and the glittery floral cardstock are from DCWV stacks. The inks are VersaColors. The stamped "hello friend" image is by Hero Arts, one of their individual acrylic images.

This card went to a gal named Bobbie who has a stamp/scrapbook store in Kenyon, MN called The Secret Window. This was for a card swap in the Yahoo group Crazy Card Makers. She said she was displaying my card in her store. How cool is that!?!

After the card for Bobbie, I was still on a roll with the orange theme. As a general rule, orange is not a color I am drawn to; it's probably the color I like the least in the general scheme of things. But for some reason, as autumn approaches, which is my favorite season of the year, orange becomes one of those colors I can't seem to get enough of. I have a 3rd card in progress on my work area that uses orange also.

For this card, I started with a sketch from the talented folks over at Card Positioning Systems, using the current sketch #179. I have loads of stuff in my sewing stash that I can use on cards and when I saw this sketch, I knew I wanted to use some of my ric-rac on it. I had this lovely red-orange ric-rac and found the gold braid to go with it, which I machine-stitched to my paper background, more of that orange/yellow diagonal stripe from DCWV. The yellow argyle print is also a DCWV paper, from one of their big stacks. The flowers are stamped and colored with BIC Mark-it! markers, using two of the flowers in the acrylic set 'Flowers' from the Autumn Leaves folks. I cut the flowers out after I colored them, adding some Stickles accents to their centers, then mounted them with foam tape on scalloped circles punched from a yellow dotted cardstock. I ink-distressed the edges of things, as you can see. Two of the flowers are mounted with foam tape on the argyle background to give dimension to the design. This is a blank card to send as a note to someone so I didn't put a sentiment on the front.

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!

You're Special Card For A Grandson

Monday August 9th is our grandson Easton's You're Special day. This is my own family tradition, began about 6 years ago when Tim & I decided to no longer celebrate Christmas. You're Special days happen six months from a person's birthday, sort of like a half-birthday, but in our case, a day to say You Are Special to us. A few years back our oldest grandson Kyler decided would be nicer to spend the day with Grandma than to get another gift and since then that has been the plan on the grandchildren's You're Special days. I still make cards for our children and their spouses to honor their You're Special days. I regret to admit that I'd let my busy schedule, particularly when I was in school over the past year, interfere with making cards for my grandchildren on their You're Special days. I'm trying to rectify that situation, beginning with this card for Easton.

I began with the background I had initially intended to use with the lighthouse image in my previous post, but once I added the zigzag faux stitching, it just wasn't working, so I set it aside and started over with the background you see on that card. However, THIS background said to me that it would work just right with the leopard print I digitized from a calendar image. I mounted the image on a dark brown piece of cardstock. I also added straight faux stitching to the center strip of background paper (recognize the two prints from the lighthouse card? yep, it's the same paper), then adhered the leopard print to the center. I like it a lot! I hope Easton does, too. I think he will; he loves animals. And I know we are going to have fun together tomorrow!

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!

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!

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!

2007 Cards Once Again

For this card, I cut the front off an old card I'd received from someone and saved. I always save the cards I get. Old cards can be used for so many things! There are always art or craft projects with the children. They can be cut into gift tags or postcards or bookmarks. Or they can be recycled into new cards, as I did here. The three solid colored squares at the top of the card are cut from paint chips you get when deciding on new paint colors. Just as a FYI, at the Blain's Farm & Fleet store we shop at in Chippewa Falls, WI, they now carry paint chips that are about the size of a sheet of poster board. Each one costs about $3 but think of how many cards you could make with pieces from that! No, I haven't bought any, mostly because I have oodles of the freebie paint chip strips & cards saved already. You can punch paint chips or cut them into whatever shape & size you want. You can find some interesting projects using them at GoMakeSomething.com, which is a really cool website with a lot of neat projects and free printables.

This card also makes use of paint chips, in the small colored squares that frame the outside edges. The background paper is computer-printed, using an email background I had saved. The pumpkin is clipart from the good folks at pccrafter.com; I love their stuff and the prices are really good! I used my own calligraphy on the sentiment tag and colored the edges with crayon.

This card uses different shades of lavender cardstock, cut in diamond shapes. The floral design is cut from giftwrap paper. The sentiment tag was computer-printed and torn to size.

I hope you'll forgive me for not taking the time to edit this image. It's been a long day already and I'm tired. This card is another of my personal favorites. The background is a floral wallpaper sample. I machine-stitched the ric-rac to the card to simulate a stem, as well as using it as a frame around the flowers. The silk flowers are hand-stitched to the card, using embroidery floss, and button centers. I really should make another card like this!