How to Make a Gorgeous Holiday Shaker Card Using the Best Glue Ever

Today's card for my ScraPerfect design team assignment was inspired by sketch #73 @ Your Next Stamp and by the CAS-ual Friday's "Shaker Card Challenge". And since it is a holiday card I will entering it @ ABC Christmas where "S is for Sketch", @ Christmas Card Challenges #22 and @ Crafty Hazelnut Christmas Challenge #352.

This card ended up being an A7 size to accommodate the large Sizzix ornament die that I had my heart set on using. The silver mirror paper was in my stash and I think it may actually have come from Creative Memories at one time. The brushed silver and the snowflake paper I think both came from Stampin' Up a pretty long time ago. The stamp set is also an oldie from SU!

This card has a lot of steps to it and the first one was to cut the ornament 4 times...twice on white cardstock, once from white fun foam and once from a clear acetate sheet. I used my CM circle cutting tool to cut the hole in one of the white cs layers -this will be the top layer during assembly and would have been much easier to do if I had a circle layering die set! Since I didn't, I had to trace and hand cut that same inner circle in the fun foam. After stamping the same large winter scene image twice -once on the bottom (full cut) white ornament layer and once on the top skinny white layer I then layered it using the Best Glue Ever using the No Clog Writing Cap...on the very top went the skinny cardstock ornament layer, then the clear acetate sheet(also cut in the full ornament shape) for the window and then the skinny fun foam layer. I set that aside to dry and worked on trimming layers, embossing sentiments and coloring the rest of the card front.

To heat emboss the sentiment in silver on the white layer, I repeatedly stamped "Happy Holidays" in Versamark ink. Swiping the paper first with the Perfect Crafting Pouch ensured that the embossing powder would only stick where I wanted it to. After the powder was melted and heat set, I gently brushed over the piece with the Perfect Cleaning Cloth to remove any left over residue from the pouch and really bring out the shine of the raised silver letters.

I colored the winter scene on the ornament using watercolor pencils and a blender pen. I accented the white, snowy areas using the clear Wink of Stella pen and I used the silver Wink of Stella pen to top off the brushed silver ornament topper that was die cut and glued on after the shaker was fully assembled. I filled the shaker window with the white iridescent flakes from the Tiny Bottles of Embellishments along with some clear microbeads from the Martha Stewart Collection that I found @ Michael's. 

I found it to be rather challenging to photograph this card due to the mirrored quality of the silver cardstock that covers the card front, but hopefully you can get a feel for how gorgeous this card is in person...my hubby was actually really impressed when he took a good look at it and promptly picked it up to shake it, lol.

On the inside, I used a scrap of paper from the front on the bottom and because I hadn't used watercolor friendly ink when I stamped the sentiment and holly, I ended up coloring the holly using chalk pencils and a Stardust Glitter Gel Pen on the berries and the leaf veins.

That's it for me today...until next time, happy crafting with ScraPerfect and be sure to give their blog a visit so that you don't miss out on all the terrific projects from the other designers!

Wishing You a Speedy Recovery!

Today's card is my second chance at being the Guest Designer over at Retro Rubber where the theme is "Travel On" this week.  This time it is because this anniversary card was voted as the Design Team's Favorite back in August -WooHoo!!! I will also be entering it @ the Fusion Card Challenge because I used their sketch, @ Simon Says Stamp for the Wednesday "Pop It Up" challenge, @ Monochrome Magic for "Anything Goes", @ The Divas that Diecut for "Masculine/ Men/ Boys" and @ Creative Craft Cottage  also "For The Men/Boys". 

The ABC stamp sets and the car stamp set are all long ago retired from The Angel Company and I have had them for at least 10 years now. The scribble stamp set is newer and came from CTMH just a few months ago. The patterned paper is also over 10 years old and was from a coordinated paper stack. This card was made on an A2 white top folding card base, but I did rotate the sketch horizontally to better accommodate my images.

Because there was no coloring involved, this card went together pretty quickly! I stamped the scribble circle using my Stamp Perfect tool so that I could get good ink coverage when using such a light blue shadow ink. I then embossed the "Get Well" stamp (from SU! and also several years old) in silver right on top after I used the circle punch to cut it out.

To build my inside sentiment, I had to go completely custom using ABC stamps and black ink over top of a brushstroke stamped in light blue.

 I also stamped and embossed the car in silver on a white rectangle and then used a single, long, stitched diecut from Lawn Fawn on the top and bottom edges to help give it some definition. I then took my white Signo gel pen and added the faux stitches along the edge of the blue striped panel to help it stand out a bit from the blue background. I just love the texture that embossing adds to an image!

The sentiment circle was popped up with foam tape, but the rest of the design was glued down flat using my ATG gun. The last step to finishing the card front was to wrap the thin silver thread around the card front twice and securing it under the sentiment circle.

Inside, you can see that I also made good use of two of my paper scraps, plus I went back and stamped the dotted border in the blue ink.

That's it for me today -this card is now ready to go out in the mail to one of my hubby's co-workers who just had knee surgery. Until next time~

Still Trying to Find my Planner Groove...

While I wait for my new planner supplies to arrive, I am experimenting with what I have already and trying to make it work as best I can. The new planners have all arrived as of last evening, but still waiting on the rest of the essential items to arrive...they seem to have gotten lost somewhere in Arizona, lol! Until then,  I've created one last spread in my CTMH binder and then we'll be getting ready to go on vacation. So I will have to wait to show you all the new goodies until when we get back mid-October!

This spread turned out "ok", but I am not in love with it...I think I liked using the rectangle dies better than the squares proportionally for this horizontal layout scheme! I used a stitched squares diecut set from Itsy Bitsy, washi tape (I think from ACMoore or Hobby Lobby -I honestly can't remember anymore), old patterned paper from Stampin' Up and my sticker maker.

Instead of ink blending this time, I chose to go the route of using the Poppin' Pastels technique. This worked perfectly -except for my first attempt when I tried to use a metallic chalk and it failed miserably! So I had to try to erase it and start over...which didn't work out so well, so that is why there is a dark spot near the top of that left hand side page. After I made the switch to regular chalks in 2 shades of green, it worked beautifully!

Next I did some stamping on sticker paper for my accent pieces using two stamp sets from CTMH. I discovered after the fact that I didn't care for the base pot being stamped in a solid colored ink and the plants to be line drawings that needed to be colored in. Maybe if I had stamped them in a lighter ink and done the no-line-coloring technique I would have been much happier with the results...I'll have to try that next time instead. At least by using my stamp positioning tool I was able to stamp many small images in one fell swoop!

I did my coloring using Spectrum Noir pens and then die cut everything that had a matching die and fussy cut the rest.

I used a standard office hole punch to punch the holes for the binder in the washi tape and adhered all my custom made stickers exactly where I wanted them.

The leaf stencil is from STAMPlorations and I also used those same two green chalk colors to add the soft leaves across the pages so that it didn't look too bare.

The final step was to do some shading on the terracotta pots using colored pencils to help them blend in a little better with  the plants I added to them. I will definitely be using the poppin pastels technique again because I can stamp directly on to the page and not worry about ink bleed through using the Versamark. And by burnishing the chalk into the paper surface really good, there is no transfer of color,

Hope you enjoyed getting a peek at my last spread in my CTMH planner and stay tuned in about 3-4 weeks to see what I have done to make the new Happy Planner my own unique creation! Until next time~

Mixed Media Vintage Love Card

Hello...Kathy here today with a fun mixed-media resist technique using products and supplies from Itsy Bitsy for you to try in your paper crafting and card making. I started my project out with the gorgeous Retro Style paper pack, the White Cards pack and a tag die. I cut the tags in white and trimmed my papers to layer on the card front. The base layer is really elegant looking because those black squares are embossed and shiny. There are actually quite a good bit of embossed elements included within the papers of this pack...both glossy black and some metallic elements!

Using the Acrylic Matte Medium and a palette knife, I applied the medium through the Lattice Stencil  onto my patterned paper after taping it to my craft mat. It takes a little while to dry and the time it takes does depend on how thick of a layer you apply. So I removed the stencil and washed it off right away -then I set the piece aside to dry while I worked on the rest of the card.

To decorate the tags, I stamped them using the Hand Carved Flourishes Printing Block and Black Chalk Ink. Now because there is no cushion, as this is carved from wood, I found that I got the best impression by placing my tag on top of a thin piece of foam first and applying a good bit of pressure using the heel of my hand.

The sentiments are also embossed and were hand trimmed from one of the patterned papers and some edges were torn before I inked them with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I tied the Crochet Lace at the top of both tags for added interest.

Once the stenciled matte medium was completely dry, it was ready to be used as a resist. So I blended  Vintage Photo ink all over it and then immediately wiped it off the top of the medium using a wet baby wipe. (this is a bit messy -I ended up with brown, ink stained fingers during the process, so don't say I didn't warn you, lol!) Using this technique, the stencil pattern gets a bit of raised texture to it with a clear, matte finish and the negative stencil parts soak up the brown ink to show the contrast nicely.

Using lots of foam dots, I adhered the layers to my card front and wrapped it with some of the lace too...so pretty! The last step was using a thin lined black marking pen to write in the additions to the sentiments..."best" on the front and "of my life" on the inside.

Using the ink that was left on the blending tool, I did a bit of stenciling on the inside of the card too. I love showcasing what a good stencil can do!

That's it for me today -thanks for sticking with me to the end and I hope this will inspire you to try something new in your card making. Until next time~ Happy Crafting with Itsy Bitsy!

Celebrating Fall and Coffee in my Planner #fall2017clh

As you can probably tell, today's post is a project other than a card...but first, I have to confess that I kinda fell off the Planner Wagon during the summer months when things got so busy! Partly because I had found out that the planner I was using and had grown to love was being discontinued...needless to say I was rather discouraged and I walked away from it for awhile. But I am happy to say that I've got my Planner Mojo back and moving forward I will be switching over from my current CTMH horizontal format to the vertical Classic/Meduim Happy Planner. I ordered my new one from Michael's this weekend when they were having a killer sale and it will be here Friday -WooHoo! So stay tuned as I make the switch and my goal is to post a new planner spread to share with you every Sunday from here on out, using a blend of creative stamping and stickers. (P.S. My hubby jokingly said on Monday -after seeing this spread- that "someone who has that much free time to devote to creating a fancy layout like this truly doesn't have enough going on in their life to even need a planner" -WHAT?!? I beg to differ, lol!)

 I decided on the fall coffee theme for this week because I love, love, love Pumpkin Spice Lattes and because we are right in the middle of the Fall 2017 Coffee Lover's Blog Hop! I will also be entering it @ Die Cutting Divas for "National Coffee Day" and @ Craftaholics for "Fall Colors". I have amassed quite a collection of coffee themed crafting items over the years, and some of my favorites come from STAMPlorations where Shery has a fabulous selection, great prices and even better customer service! (seriously -she is awesome and I'm not getting paid to say that, lol!) The stamps on the far right are from Fiskars and I got them at JoAnn Fabrics last summer.

The orange patterned papers are from my CTMH paper stash from a few years ago and the metallic brown cardstock is from a DCWV 12 x 12 stack that was also bought at JoAnn's. The white sticker paper comes in full letter size sheets and I got it from Amazon.

After I stamped the coffee bean border directly onto the inside page edges, everything else was done in black on the sticker paper and fussy cut/ and or die cut out. I colored the images with colored pencils and the shading on the page perimeters was done with 3 shades of distress ink. I just love the way that sets off the pages!

The FALL letters in gold were left over diecuts from this card and the COFFEE & "Weekend" dies are cut from the metallic brown. I turned them into stickers using my little Xyron  "X" sticker maker, but I used my ATG gun to adhere the rectangles that I diecut using a die set from FSJ. Then I peeled the backing off my custom stamped stickers and adhered them right on top.

The coffee stains were stamped using brown ink, the bottom of a small bowl like I showed on this card and a retired tea-stain stamp set from TAC.

That's it for me today -hope you enjoyed seeing something other than a card from me...until next time~