Make 'n' Take Card Class

I spent some time a week ago on Saturday at a Make 'n' Take class put together by my friend Tina Dowty, a Stampin Up demonstrator and Cathy Trumbo, who is also a Stampin Up demonstrator.  They do a once a month card class in Rocklin.  It is about a 3 hour class and for a small fee we get the opportunity to make 8 cards during this time frame.

All of the paper pieces, ribbon, string, are pre-cut and there are examples for us to use as a guide for putting together our cards.  We do get to do some of our own crafting, such as stamping the sentiments for the cards, inking the cards if it is a stamped card, and punching out flowers or cutting out butterfly's, whatever the card design calls for.  We are free to use our own artistic license in putting the cards together, and we are not required to do them exactly as the examples show.

These are the cards we did this month.

 

These two were fun.  The background paper we stamped on was printed with stars and dots.  We inked the sunburst and then sponged over it.  When we were done, we wiped off the ink so the stars and dots came through.  It was a cool technique.  A die-cut of the word happy and stamping the word birthday and we got a cute little birthday card.

These two were our first stamping project for the afternoon. We stamped the butterfly and then used a framelit die to cut out the butterfly.  On the background white we inked some scattered dots and a couple of opaque small butterflies.  We put some pearls down the center of the butterfly and used some pop dots to raise it off the background.  We stamped Happy Birthday along the bottom and then mounted this on some pink card stock and then on craft paper cards.  A beautiful little card.

These two cards were our 2nd inking project of the day.  It was a layered flower stamp set using pinks, corals, greens, and yellows.  It also uses a yellow ribbon to tie everything together.

The final project was a paper piecing project using some reversible paper.  That nice thing about them is you can use both sides of the papers to complete your card.  This one included a couple different sizes of punched flowers and as a background to the printed papers we had an embossed background in white that was mounted on a black card stock.  All of the cards had pearls or jewels/gems of some sort to give them some sparkle.

See you next time!  Until then, Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Mesh Wreath

Mesh wreaths have become all the rage as of late.  I decide my first try would be to make one for Laila's baby shower.  I spent a couple of different trips to Michael's, JoAnn's, and Hobby Lobby to check out the supplies, costs, ideas, and colors of mesh.  I spent some time reading through one of the books while standing in the aisle at the store.  After looking at the picture directions in the book I figured I could do this without spending the $10 on the book.  I'd rather spend the money on the supplies for the wreath.

Since I had already started the diaper cake with the bright pink colors, I followed through here.  I chose burlap looking mesh and then a hot pink mesh to coordinate with it choosing to alternate the burlap and pink mesh (I used the smaller 6" rolls versus the large 12" rolls). Once I had finished fixing the mesh to the wreath base (by using pipe cleaners in hot pink), I started adding flowers.  I took pretty Gerber daisy flowers in various shades of pink and white and glued them around the wreath with some pearl accents behind them. The pearl accents were a strand picked up from the floral section at the craft store.  I separated the different strands to maximize them as I wanted some behind all of the flowers. Additionally, I added some pretty butterflies from the floral section of the hobby store and the word Love across the bottom of the wreath. It was in the wood letters section at the craft store and already painted white, so I left it exactly as it came. The letters spell out Laila's full name: Laila Olivia Vivian Elizabeth. She will share names with two of her great grandmother's.  A beautiful tribute to both sides of the family!

Once I hot glued everything together I added a small butterfly on the corner of Love.  Kyle really liked the wreath...enough so he wants to put it in Laila's nursery.  Now I've gotta figure out how to ship it to them in Indiana!

Until next time...Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

More Butterflies!

My son Kyle's baby shower was held at his in-laws home out in Courtland on a Saturday afternoon.  The weather in March in Northern California (similar to most areas of the country) can range from cold, wet, rainy and 30 degrees to warm, sunny, dry and 75 degrees.  Lucky for us we got the warm, sunny, dry, close to 75 degree weather!  We were thrilled as we had decided to have the shower outside.  The in-laws home in Courtland sits on a large piece of property and there is a long driveway with shade trees and ample space in front of the garage area so we decided to utilize that area.  We rented round tables, tablecloths and even a EZ-Up cover.

Since the other decorations were leaning in more of a pink/brown theme, we carried that through to the rest of the decorations.  Chocolate brown table cloths, pink burlap chevron runners on the tables with strips of pink mesh in differing shades running down the middle.  Since we have tons of calla lilies in our yard, I volunteered to bring vases full of the lilies for table centerpieces.  Dana's sister Taylor worked some magic with bows on the vases and adding accents to the tables.  I followed through with the butterfly theme by cutting some more of the butterflies I had previously cut for the wands but in a  pearl pink instead of a glittery pink.  I cut them out of an old file folder and then covered with the pearl looking paper.  I had some leftover paper from my large rosette's on the other project as well and used my Tim Holtz rosette die to make some smaller rosettes.  I picked up some floral wire stems and attached them to the back of the butterfly with hot glue and a small round paper circle to cover up the end of the wire.

Back to the front of the butterfly.  I took the small rosette and hot glued it to the front of the butterfly.  Then I used some more of the pretty pink jeweled brads from the last project and added that on top of the rosette. When I cut the calla lilies for the centerpieces, I popped a couple of those butterflies in each of the vases to carry the theme through.

Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Diaper Cake -- Round Two!

When I made my first diaper cake last year, an order was placed for the future from my then daughter-in-law to be, for a diaper cake whenever they decided to have a baby!  In fact she asked how I was going to be able to ship it out to them in Indiana!  Well, we didn't have to ship one out to them because they came to California to visit us before little Laila Olivia is born.  Dana, like many of us, loves to peruse Pinterest for ideas.  She had found this idea for a diaper cake and I set about trying my best to recreate it.

Here is a shot of the finished cake.  I changed the idea shown above in the following ways.  I chose to use some hot pink sparkly mesh ribbon as the base on each of the layers and then added the corresponding leopard print or brown and white polka dots ribbons.  I hot glued them on to the mesh and then wrapped that around each layer hot gluing it in the back to give it a finished look.  For the layers I used different sizes of diapers. For the top layer I used newborn diapers, for the middle layer I used size 2 diapers and for the bottom layer I used size 4.  I used the leftover newborn diapers in the center of the bottom layer to finish it out.  I took cake boards and cut circles out of some butterfly scrapbook papers from Susan Winget and KandCompany and covered the boards with that.

The little leopard print slippers I had found at Wal-Mart before I'd seen the cake idea, so they matched perfectly with the ribbon I was able to find at Hobby Lobby. I set those on the sides of the bottom layer.  In addition to the leopard slippers I also found a pair of pink sparkly shoes to set on top along with the pink butterfly headband shown here.  The original idea had a big bow on the top but I liked the idea of the shoes instead.  Can never have to much bling as far as I'm concerned.


I picked the scroll alphabet letter L for the front and thought briefly of painting it a different color but stuck with the white.  I tied it on to the second layer ribbon with a matching piece of thin ribbon threaded through the mesh.  Additionally, I found some soft baby spoons, some baby washcloths, some hair barrettes, some little girls socks, and a couple of pacifiers with little flowers on the buttons. All in different hues of pink!


It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of the things I made for the shower, but I do think this cake turned out even better than what I had anticipated.  Of course any chance to buy pink girly things I'm totally on board with cuz there need to be more girls in my family!  Current count is 6 grand kids, 5 boys and 1 girl, so the upcoming birth of Laila is greatly anticipated!  Grandma and Grandpa need some more girls to spoil!

More fun projects to come, including how I dressed up the little hearts on top of the diaper cake shown here in this last picture.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Threaded Card Toppers

Over the weekend I worked on some threaded card toppers.  Many, many thanks to my friend Cathy over at Scrappin Cat's Creative Endeavors for the Cricut cut file which she created and showcased here. Her blog title indicates a Pazzles file, but bless her heart she also made a Cricut cut file which she graciously shared.  I am always looking for ways to use up my paper scraps...my mother was raised during the Great Depression where you used and reused everything, what can I say, waste not, want not.

These are my first two attempts which I did horizontally.  The patterned paper is from K&Company, one I have shown before on my blog, I added some bling on the front and the papers have some glitter already so I think they turned out nicely.  I left the insides blank for the recipient to write her own notes.

 

The next one was done vertically.  I added a butterfly to the one on the right and added a swooshie with some dots as accents.  On three of the four cards I did a layered sentiment tag and then mounted that on pop dots.  I added some bling to the bottom of two of them.  I used cream card stock for the backs and used one of the patterned sheets in the paper pad for the background paper.

And finally, I decided to do a couple of these with ribbon.  I had some ribbon I'd picked up in a grab bag over at Stamper's Corner and decided to use it.  I chose white card stock for these and once threaded with the ribbon I mounted it on a lavender card stock and then mounted all of that on a white A2 size card.  I chose the lavender background paper scraps to cut a small sentiment block and made a thank you card.  After stamping the sentiment I inked the edges and mounted it on pop dots before affixing it to the front of the card.  I added a couple of the butterflies from the sizzlet to the top of the front of the card, added a quick sentiment on the inside and called it done. 

The next one used the same ribbons only in reverse order with the darker purple ribbons on the outside and the green one in the middle.  For this one I picked a darker purple to mount the threaded layer on and for the larger tag and mounted a lighter green (to match the ribbon on the front) on top and stamped my image and added some darker green bling above and below the sentiment.  I used my Spellbinders die for these tags.  Again I raised this one with pop dots to give it some dimension.  I left the inside blank.  

These were fun, easy and best of all used up scraps!  See you next time!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

 

Baby Shower Cards

As I mentioned in a previous post, busy month for us with celebrations, including a baby shower and a couple of other babies being born to people we know.  I was surfing some blogs recently and saw this cute idea for a baby carriage card at MaggieMadeCards.  (I've tried the website, but it says it's currently not available, sorry.)  I'm trying to utilize my Cricut so I can learn all the wonderful things it is capable of doing.  When I saw this card I figured it would be a good project to hone my Cricut Design Studio skills. When all done, I had created my own little cut file!   

The first card I did was for my son's boss whose wife had delivered a baby boy.  I chose to make it with bright primary colors, blue and red since it was a boy.  I didn't get pictures of it before he gave it to the boss, but I had made a second one so he had a couple of options to pick from.  For this one I chose a burgundy colored paper for the carriage and a gold colored card stock to accent it.  I wanted something a little different than the traditional boy/girl blue/pink options.  I embossed the bottom piece of the carriage insert with a bubbles or circle embossing folder and used a texture plate with squares on it for the smaller piece on the top of the carriage.  I chose three small brown buttons and laced them with some brown and tan bakers twine I had and threaded it through the buttons.  I chose an ivory oval and stamped special delivery on it and used pop dots to give it some dimension.  For the inside I used another half circle of the gold card stock and stamped a lovely baby sentiment on it.

This next one is for a girl...now I've flipped back and forth on the color scheme idea and decided to go with a lavender baby carriage and pink accents.  I've embossed the lower half of the carriage front insert with a small flowers and the carriage cover with Swiss dots.  I added a matching lavender oval to the front with the word baby in blocks stamped on it.  I added white pearls to the inside of the carriage wheels and used my Stampin Up! butterfly sizzlet to punch out some little butterflies for accents.  I dropped two on the carriage cover and one on the carriage handle.  On the inside I stamped my sentiment in a pretty purple ink to stand out on the lavender card stock.

This idea can be done is so many different colors (think pro sports teams) and even some patterned paper for the inserts which would make a wonderful option! 

Go on...Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Luggage Tags

Recently while in JC Penny’s with a girlfriend I spotted these really great luggage tags and thought I could scrap lift the idea for making my own version.  Unless you have some really unusual luggage most pieces come in pretty standard colors, black and maybe dark blue or green.  When there are 100 plus pieces of luggage coming around the luggage carousel at the airport it is sometimes problematic to immediately identify your bag.  I usually try to put some colored ribbon or yarn around the handle to easily identify my bags.  When I saw this idea I decided to make some new ones.  I used my Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cricut cartridge and chose a tag style and then used my Cricut Design Studio to arrange four tags within a  8 ½ by 11 page size.  In a Word document I typed the sentiments from the tags I had seen using different font styles and sizes.  When I typed them up I utilized the same orientation on the tags text as was on the original tags I saw in the store. 

Since I wanted the tags to be easily spotted, I chose bright orange for the text side and a pretty floral pattern from a Susan Winget pad of papers.  Once I determined the correct layout of the sentiments in a Word document I printed it on an 8 ½ by 11 inch piece of paper and then cut it with the Cricut.  This helped me fine tune adjustments to the location of the tags on the page with the location of the words on the page.  Once I had that done I printed the words on orange card stock and cut a matching set of tags on the floral paper.  On the back of the floral tag I added some labels with our names and city we live in and our cell phone numbers in case they got lost.  I ran the tags through my Xyron machine with adhesive on one side and laminate on the other and then backed the printed orange tag and the floral tag together.  I then had some orange and yellow ribbon with butterflies on it which I ran through the tag opening.  I think they turned out pretty darn cute and they were easy to spot when they came around the luggage carousel.

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Anniversary Cards

Needed some anniversary cards this month.  I had some papers from Valentine's Day so set about making a card for my BFF.  Becky and Ed celebrate their 35th anniversary this year.  I had picked up a Martha Stewart butterfly border punch and had not yet tried it out.  I started playing with it and decided that the border turned out so well that I wanted to use it on the anniversary card.  I used some pearly white card stock by Gemstones and cut it to a 6 x 9 size, scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I cut the patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle called Love Story to fit on the 6 x 4.5 front of the card stock.  The paper had come out around Valentine's Day.  I punched the beautiful butterfly border using a pearly pink from the Gemstones paper.  I cut the tag from the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die and used my little stamp about true love stories...I added pink pearls at the top and bottom of the sentiment.  I mounted the sentiment using pop dots then cut more pop dots to mount on the butterfly border to make it stand up over the edge of the sentiment block.  To finish it off I stamped Happy Anniversary in the inside of the card and added a pretty matching pink bow with some satin edged organza ribbon from the dollar bin at Michael's.

Next up I worked on an anniversary card for my sweetie.  I used embossed craft paper from my Recollections Love Letters pad previously mentioned in my blog. I cut another 6 x 9 inch size card scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I then cut one of the embossed papers from the collection to fit inside the 6 x 4.5 front of the card.  I used the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die mentioned above and stamped in horizontally with another one of my love stamps.  Since I was working with red embossing on the craft paper, I stamped the sentiment in red and then inked around the edges of the sentiment tag; at the top of the sentiment I added light grey pearls.  I used a pearly grey Gemstones paper and cut a butterfly border for the bottom of the sentiment.  I used pop dots to lift it over the bottom edge of the sentiment.  To finish it off, I added a sparkly red ribbon bow to the front and stamped Happy Anniversary inside the card.  Happy 30th Anniversary dear!

I think they both turned out very nicely.  Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Romantic Kraft Cards

A few weekends ago I was browsing Michael's aisles and found this wonderful kraft card paper pad from Michael's Recollections line of supplies.  It is called Love Letters.  It has some beautifully embossed papers that are wonderful for making Valentine's cards or love notes for your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, well you get the idea.  I decided to make this as a gift for someone so will only share a couple of them here.  I'll share the rest once I've sent them off...so stay tuned.  This paper for the first card was patterned with writing and flowers, music, etc.  Additionally it had these two pretty birds perched on the front and they were overlaid with a burnished copper embossing.  I found the beautiful matching ribbon in the Thanksgiving decorations at Michaels on sale and knew it was a perfect match.  The other nice thing about the paper pad is it had two page of tags/embellishments in it.  The tag across the bottom is one of them.  It is kind of hard to see, but it is raised with foam stickies, it says For My Love in the same burnished copper and I stamped a love sentiment next to it in copper.

For the second card, I chose to highlight the perfect block on the left side of the page and use it as my sentiment location.  In the lower left corner there are two flowers that are embossed with a glittery red as is the word Love and the No. 206.  I used my Martha Stewart embossed heart punch and punched a small red glitter embossed heart for the upper right corner of the box and used the Butterflies Sizzlet from SU! to add a butterfly in the lower right corner.  Then to finish it off, I stamped the love sentiment you see in the box in red and added a glittery red ribbon from my Christmas ribbon stash.

I can't say enough about this paper pack.  It is really wonderful and has some beautiful patterns and embossing on it.  Check it out the next time you're in Michael's!  Great for making Love Notes for your sweetie!

See you next time.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy.