Floral Challenge Card

I made this card for Papertrey Ink's 11th Anniversary Floral Challenge. I started with a piece of white cardstock and used a tape runner to affix a piece of translucent vellum to the front. I stamped a few flowers from the Daydreamers set, as well as a sentiment from the same set, on the vellum. I used blue and purple inks, blended a bit on the stamps themselves to add interest.

Papertrey Ink Sketch Challenge

I made this card for Papertrey Ink's 11th Anniversary sketch challenge. The sketch I worked off of is this one by Dawn McVey:

I used regular white cardstock as the base and cut an oval out of a textured heavy weight cardstock. I then embossed it with a trellis design. I used a tape runner to attach the oval and then stamped leaves from the Daydreamer stamp set around 2 edges. I stamped some flowers from the same set and fussy cut them out, then used foam adhesive to attach them to the page. I used the Beautiful Butterfly die and cut out of four paper butterflies (vellum, medium shade purple, dark textured purple, and the same white as the oval). I stamped 'Birthday Wishes' from the Up, Up and Away set in purple on the second butterfly (thinking you would be able to easily see it through the vellum), then glued the layers together. Once they were dry I decided to stamp the sentiment again in a light purple ink on the vellum to help it stand out more. I also added some purple rhinestones before using foam tape to attach it.

 Here you can see a close-up of the butterfly layers:

Birthday in the Clouds

I made this card for Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday Challenge: Background Stamping with Sentiment Stamps.

I stamped "It's Your Day" from Think Big Favorites 2 on a white card base in blue ink. I didn't want the sentiment to be too overpowering, so I used a piece of blue tinted vellum as a sky overtop. I stamped one of the planes from the Fly Away mini set, along with the banner and sentiment and fussy cut them out. Just as I glued the plane to the vellum I realized I should have used pop dots to attach it. Ah well. I punched out clouds from white cardstock and thick vellum and glued those down as well. Finally I used glue under the clouds and airplane to attack the vellum panel to the card base. 

The vellum clouds are hard to see in the picture above, so here's a side detail.

Easter Egg Tree

My parents always had an easter egg tree for hand made blown eggs. It always had pussy willows and branches to hang the eggs on.

Well, I decided it was time for me to have a 'tree' to hang the eggs I've been making. In addition to the pussy willows, I added a cattail, some dollar store branches (one with mini eggs and one with little buds and butterfly beads). At the bottom are foam roses (also dollar store). To light it, I added a string of blue butterfly fairy lights.

Transformation Card

For their 10th Anniversary Papertrey Ink's set up a series of challenges, one of which is to transform a card you weren't happy with into one you are.

This is the original card using the Simply Jane stamp:

While I liked the Valentine's Day colours, I didn't like what elements I made each colour and the layout was not the best.

Here's my transformed card:

I made it an easel card. I die cut two frames in addition to the stamped frame. I also added some stamped flowers from the set (the bouquet) in light pink to the base cardstock. The easel is held open with a heart button.

Nail Polish Marbling Background

I made this card for 2 challenges, Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday nail polish marbling and Simon Says Stamps' making your own background.

I took a plastic container from a frozen item, washed it, and half filled it with water. I then added drops of nail polish on top and carefully put a piece of cardstock (2 white & 2 black) on it, marbling the cardstock. You have to be quick or the nail polish will start to harden (well, it created a film that didn't transfer properly anymore).

I found that some of my nail polishes worked great for this, spreading out or streaking, while others didn't want to drip into the container at all or sank to the bottom.

Here are the 4 panels I did:

For my card, I stamped a sentiment from the Daydreamers set by Papertrey Ink in black ink into the bottom right corner. It got lost in the nail polish, so I stamped it again on a piece of vellum and folded the vellum around the back of the card to attach it to the panel. I then mounted the panel onto a blue card.

Picking Fairy Fruit

I made this card for the Lavinia Stamps monthly challenge, sparkle and bling.

I started out by die cutting a panel to do my stamping, then used a Crayola airbrush machine to add some colours. I also sprayed it with shimmer mist so the whole panel glitters.

I stamped the wishing tree, without inking the base, then inked the base further down the card. I filled in the trunk with ink using a sponge. This made the tree tall enough to fit the 'three dancing fairies' underneath the branches. I stamped them in and used glitter glue on the wings. For some extra bling, I added some rhinestone 'fruit' that the fairies are picking.

I attacked the panel to a dark blue cardbase.

Bookish Spinner Card

I made this card for the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenge to make a spinner card.

I used a light pink card base and a darker pink topper. I die cut a large circle out of both layers for the spinner to go. I stamped 2 images from All Booked Up on white cardstock (the woman reading in the photo below and the boy reading under the tree) in dark grey ink and die cut them out. I attached the 2 circles with the string between them. I then used double sided tape to attach the string to the light pink layer before putting the dark pink layer on top.

I stamped my sentiment, also from All Booked Up at the bottom of the card, the decided that the top panel looked too empty, so I used some stamps from the Daydreamers set to simulate a garden where the two people on the spinner are reading. At this point I realized my sentiment had smudged, and so die cut a label and stamped the sentiment onto that. I used double sided tape to attach the ribbon, and then put the label on top with pop dots. I also added 2 punched mini butterflies.

New Year's Card

Quite a few years ago I lived in Japan. New Year's is the major winter holiday there, so I tend to make a few New Year's cards for old co-workers and friends. Here's a card I sent out this year.

The image is a free download from III-Academy. I coloured it with alcohol markers and then die cut it out. I die cut the frame and mounted both on black cardstock.

Snowflake Holiday Scene

Here's another holiday card. I'm submitting it to Simon Says Stamps Anything Goes challenge.

I started this card by die cutting the snowflake out of my white cardstock base. The snowflake goes partly off the page.  I then used a piece of glossy cardstock and measured off where it would sit behind the snowflake so I could judge where the elements needed to go. I stamped the trees, snowflakes and Santa's sleight, then used sponges to ink on several shades of blue.

I affixed the panel behind the snowflake cut-out and then stamped the sentiment.

Doily Christmas Tree Card

Merry Christmas, to those in my audience who celebrate it.

This is a simple design and didn't take much time to make but I love how classy it looks. I started out with a gold doily, folding it back and forth so it made a Christmas tree (I trimmed a bit off the top so it would fit after the last turn). I used a black panel for backing, and edged it with ribbon on both sides. I finished it off with a sequin star.

Tree Greetings

I don't use patterned paper very often despite the fact that I own a fair bit of it. So I decided to use some on my Christmas cards this year. I picked out some papers and then coloured images so they'd match. I used pale green, red, gold and dark green on this. The edging was done with a metallic marker.

Season's Greetings Presents

I made this card for the Simon Says Stamp Make It Sparkle Challenge. I took 3 different sized pieces of white cardstock and embossed them for texture. Then I used shiny ribbon to 'wrap' them. I glued them to my card base so they overlap somewhat, and then stamped my sentiment.

Town Season's Greetings

This card took a bit of trial and error to get looking good. I started by die cutting the snowflake out of the main cardstock. I then took mini buildings and trees I'd cut out on my Silhouette and glued them to some cardstock I hand cut into hills and valleys. I added a poinsettia (stamped with a JustRite stamp), with some white cardstock 'greenery' behind it. I finished off the card with a sentiment.

Hello Kitty Skating card

I started this card by printing out a Hello Kitty colouring page I found online (sized to fit the die I wanted to use). I coloured it with a mix of Spectrum Noir and Copic markers. When I was done, I stamped a few mini snowflakes around and added touches of glitter glue to them. I also added some white applique to the white edged areas. When dried and heat set, this puffs up, giving the image some texture. I die cut the image out with the Simon Says Stamp stitched circles die. I used the same die to cut out the pink circle.

I die cut the skates, cut off the laces and added silver marker accents. I also die cut the little poinsettia accent. There's a strip if mini pompom ribbon and a sentiment from Cas-ual Fridays' Snowflake Greetings.

I'm submitting it to the Simon Says Stamp Ice inspiration challenge.

Lamp Greetings

I started this card by cutting out the lamp with my Silhouette SD. I marked out where the lights would sit on the card and then used a sponge to add yellow ink to those areas on the cardstock.

For decoration, I added some punched greenery, a bow and a tiny poinsettia. I stamped the greeting and then added snow on the bottom. Originally I just had the glitter glue, but then I saw someone do a snowy ground with texture paste and decided to add some to my picture. It gives the round real dimension.

I'm submitting this to Simon Says Stamp's Ice Inspiration challenge.

Light up Chalet ornament

This was supposed to be an ordinary Christmas tree ornament, but some LED supplies I ordered off of ebay arrived, so I turned it into a light up ornament instead. It took a while to do, both because some of the steps required drying time, but also because I had to carefully consider how to make the lights work.

Where did I get the idea for lit crafts? I've been seeing Chibitronics cards all over and I've also discovered mini dollhouse kits that light up. My husband's an engineer and suggested I get LED components if I wanted to try making some of these, rather than buying pre-strung lights or expensive kits. I don't think I can do cards with my supplies - the lights I bought are a little too large - but I can do ornaments and fairy gardens and whatnot.

It was pretty complicated, especially since I put the back on my chalet before I decided to do the electronics, then needed to cut into it to hide most of the wires. There are three lights: two yellow ones in the house, and a blue one behind the tree.

Backing: One piece of blue cardstock die cut, glued to a round piece of stiff cardboard (not the stuff boxes are made of, more like a heavy cardstock). I punched and cut some stars out of the blue with a knife. The inside of the cardboard was painted with 3 layers of glow in the dark paint, to glow as stars. The back was painted black and then sprayed with varnish so the paint wouldn't chip.

Diorama: The chalet started out as a 3D bird house cut file from the Silhouette store. I modified it, adding windows, frames, an open door, and the balcony. There's a thin layer of German lantern paper covering the windows (it's kind of a cross between waxed paper and tissue paper - I know about it because my parents brought it home from Germany when I was a kid. I bought some on a trip there a few years ago. The point of the paper is to help diffuse the light so there's no blindingly bright spot. Tracing paper, crepe paper, tissue paper, etc. would probably work too).

The tree is from a shaped pipe cleaner, cut and dabbed with some white puff paint and glitter glue. Here's the tutorial that taught me how to make them.

The snowman is made from 4 half pearl stickers. I carefully added black embossing liquid for eyes and buttons. For the nose I used pearl embossing liquid for dimension, and coloured it with an orange marker once it was dry. I used two tiny twigs for arms, sandwiched between the lower pearls and a piece of wire through the middle of all 4 pearls to attach it to the styrofoam base. The wire and twigs made gaps between the pearl halves, so I used some pearl embossing liquid to fill those in.

Base: This is a quarter of an 8cm styrofoam ball. I thought the styrofoam looked kind of ice like, so I just I added some white puffy paint in places to look like snow and sprinkled some iridescent glitter on top. I did a failed version of the base where I covered it in a thick layer of white glue and added the glitter, but it wasn't the right size so I had to redo it. I also didn't like that the glue dried clear and flat, removing the texture and interest. I didn't realize this when I set it up, but the blue light diffuses through the styrofoam - but not the paint - giving a cool effect.

Electronics: The two lights in the house were attached to a piece of cardboard. Each led had 2 prongs, a positive and a negative. I twisted 470 ohm resisters to the negative sides before joining their wires up (behind the resisters). They come out at the bottom of the house. The positive sides were twisted and join at the middle of the house. For the tree light, I made a hole through the styrofoam for the negative wire and ran the positive one on the surface (covered by puffy paint). They join up with the wires behind the house. I punched two holes in the backing for the wires to go through. I glued a battery holder down using crazy glued, and an on/off switch with hot glue (it had a depression in the back so there was nowhere for the crazy glue to stick). I lined up the wires and my husband soldered the wires together.

I finished it off by gluing the dome on with some hot glue (alas, I made a bit of a mess with the glue in one area, so I'm trying to come up with a better way of attaching the dome for the future).

Merman card

For Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge of 'Anything Goes' I decided to do something different. I printed out the Some Odd Girl MerMan Cody and Make It Crafty's Mermaid Castle digital stamps. I coloured the images and then die cut them out, inking the edges with some blue. I mounted the images on a blue cardstock base and put some flowers around them.

Unicorn Egg Decoration

This is my third decorated egg, and I'm really happy with how this one turned out.  The egg was cleaned out and died a light blue.  I then dipped it in water with nail polish on top (it floats on the top like oil - if you do this, use a plastic cup you don't want and be aware that the polish will eventually eat away at the plastic, creating leaks).

For the inside I cut a small styrofoam ball in half, spread white glue over one of the halves, and liberally sprinkled pink craft sand on top.  I should have waited for it to dry but I was impatient and kept working on the project.  I mixed some glue and nail art fluff (similar to flower soft), to make the little bushes.  I added more glue to a small twig and added more fluff to make flowers/leaves on it.

I used hot glue to attach the foam ball to the egg, and the same glue on the unicorn's feet (I had to do this twice as it glued to the sand, which pulled off as the white glue wasn't dry yet).

I used three strands of 'friendship thread', a glittery metallic thread, braided to make the loop, also glued on with hot glue.

Pointillism card

I made this card for Papertrey Ink's Pointillism challenge.  Instead of using circles, I decided to use a small flower from the Simply Jane stamp set.  I started by using one of the beautiful butterflies dies to create a soft impression on the paper for a template (I put the paper on a foam sheet, then pressed on the die with my hand to create the outline).  I then used two purple inks with the small stamp to create the butterfly.  To add some details to the butterfly I took a dot stamp from the Foodie Fun set.

I stamped a stem ending from Daydreamers in green then used the small flower stamp to create a flower.  I was going to use the Daydreamers stem itself, but I thought that would be cheating, so I got the dot stamp and created a stem and leaves with it, and some grass at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment is from the Hello Sunshine set, stamped in the two shades of purple I used for the rest of the card.