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!

Headbands

My daughter-in-law Dana found here an idea on Pinterest for an elastic headbands station to have at her shower.  She liked this idea because it allowed the guests to personalize something for baby Laila during the shower.  I set about figuring out how to get it done! After visits to JoAnn's, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby I found all the requisite supplies mostly on sale.  Luckily the main part, the stretchy headband materials was sold by the spool at Hobby Lobby and I caught it on a sale day.  I was able to pick up about six different colored spools and ended up getting about six headbands per roll.  I cut them in about 12-14" lengths and sewed the ends together.

In addition to the headbands I picked up matching colors of felt, fabric flowers, pre-made bows, jewels, small butterflies, and small button shapes. The flowers were different colors and patterns (polka dots), different styles (zebra print), mostly daisies, and some other flowers.  I took and pulled off or cut off the flowers from the stems and then hot glued them on the bottom to make sure the centers and the flower layers stayed together.  When I looked at putting them on to the headbands though I felt they weren't going to lay flat on the headbands and would be too heavy for the headbands.  I looked at the original idea and saw some felt circles in the example so went back and picked up some matching felt.  I took my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and cut the felt using the largest flower on the die.  I cut about 6-8 of each color so they could be used to glue the flowers on and then glue on to the headbands.

So we set up a separate area at the shower with hot glue guns and all of the different components laid out on the table and told everyone at the beginning of the shower where everything was located and invited them to make their way into the dining room to create their own special gift for baby Laila.

To make sure Dana and Kyle knew who had created each of the headbands, I cut tags with my Cricut and cut 12" lengths of thin ribbon (1/8" wide).  On each of the tags I stamped the word From: on one side and then asked each Guest Headband Designer to sign their creation and tie the tag to the headband they made. The guests were eager participants and enjoyed creating some really pretty headbands for Laila.  We can't wait to see her wearing each and everyone of the gifts.

Here is a group shot of all of the completed headbands.  They really turned out nicely. She will be quite the styling little girl!  Keep on Imagining, Creating, and Enjoying every day!

Wedding Collage

Hi there...it's been awhile since I've posted.  Holidays, moving right after the holidays, and then wedding helper!  My oldest son was married in March in San Diego, California.  We instantly gained a beautiful daughter-in-law and another handsome grandson!  The weather was beautiful, the venue was lovely, a local park in La Jolla that overlooked the ocean and the reception was on Coronado Naval Air Station in a reception room looking out at the beach and ocean.  Before the photographer left San Diego I talked her into leaving a few of the wedding photos on my laptop.

Prior to the wedding I had picked up this heart shaped collage frame at Michael's.  I figured I would do a gift for the newlyweds with some of the pics from the wedding. As you can see the frame is divided into four sections with fixed dividers. Since the wedding was at the ocean I wanted to commemorate that fact in the background.  So these are the supplies I started with, the collage frame, some beach scrapbook paper, jewels, mini envelopes, flowers, and other accents.  When I first picked up the frame I knew I would have to cut the paper to fit each section.  I had precut a blank paper pattern to play with the sizing of the sections.  When I finally got the patterns to fit nicely in each section I had to decide how to cut the paper.  I wanted the word beach to be somewhat visible on the frame.  The word beach is at the bottom of the page and obviously that wouldn't fit around the curved bottom of the heart frame.  I took the patterns from the top of the heart and used them on the bottom of the scrapbook paper.  The word BEACH was divided and even though the divider falls in the middle of the word, I still feel it looks very connected.  I then took the patterns for the bottom of the heart and cut those sections from the top of the paper with the waves on them. I'll be honest, I bought extra pieces of the paper because it took a couple of times of cutting the shapes to get them nicely fitted in each section.

Once I had the paper glued in to the frame I started playing with all of the accent pieces to see how I wanted to lay out the design.  One of the examples I saw for this frame was to put the couple's wedding vows in envelopes in the design.  I found these cute little scalloped edged envelopes in the Martha Stewart section of Michael's and decided to ink them up to reflect the colors of the wedding which were brown's and roses.  I used Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink and inked the envelope and the card insert.  I printed their vows on the computer with a small font.  In order for it to fit and still be readable I had to use both sides of the card.  I had these beautiful pink scroll letters and added their initials to each envelope.  I added pearls and brown gemstone schwoopies above and below the envelopes, lovely brown flowers with jewels in the center, and a pair of doves in the lower right corner.

Latrel Smith took a beautiful picture of Kyle and Dana praying together and I wanted to highlight that picture. I put it up in the upper right corner of the heart and added a small brass cross over the picture and a set of doves from Jolee's and a pretty jeweled heart with schwoopies next to it.  In the bottom left of the frame was one of my favorite pics of the kids.  They are facing the camera with Kyle's arms draped around Dana.  It is a beautiful shot of them and they look so very happy.  I added some more of the pretty brown and rose colored jeweled flowers and more schwoopies to finish it off.  All in all I think it turned out beautifully.

The finished result is shown below.  The kids were very excited when they received it.  I sent it to them with a couple of other items in the box.  This was on top and the first thing they came to...they didn't finish going through the box, they called me right away!  I think it was a hit!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

More Fall Decorating!

October came and our monthly craft group was once again looking for ideas...Pinterest to the rescue!  We found this cute idea shown here for a framed craft.  I decided to go with something in the fall theme as my Fall and Thanksgiving decorations are not as plentiful as say my Christmas decorations.  Once again I attempted to use everything from my own stash and was fairly successful!  I do believe Tina contributed some of the stamps and ink for the sentiment and she found great frames at Wal-Mart for $3.  I picked up one package of KandCompany fall accent pieces/die cuts and was ready to roll.

I used a solid piece of Gemstones tan card stock for the back ground and I used five different 1/4" ribbons and one 3/4" ribbon from my stash.  I pretty much followed the Pinterest idea for the basic layout, but added my own personal touches.  I utilized the die cuts around the centered sentiment piece rather than offset it to the left.  I used a golden colored card stock and chose a fairly large sentiment stamp so needed something to make it pop from the other brown tones.  I added a scalloped edge die cut in a deep reddish/burgundy behind the sentiment oval.  I added a small brown bow at the top of the sentiment and jeweled up both the sentiment and the background die in gold jewels. It's a little hard to see the shimmery paper with this picture.

I think it's time for some Christmas projects!  Imagine, Create, and Enjoy!

Green Bay Packers

Last month I shared some baby shower cards I'd made and also made reference to the different ideas that could result from these patterns.  Today I'm sharing those cards.  Close friends of ours became grandparents for the 2nd time recently and were blessed with a baby girl.  While I myself have three boys and a stepdaughter, three grandsons and a granddaughter, I love making my projects in more girly colors!! I'm surrounded by too much testosterone in my house, so I welcome any chance to make things with girly colors.  However, in this instance I gave up that idea for some sports oriented colors even though it's a girl! 

Gene our friend and his daughter Jasmin, the new mommy, are huge Green Bay Packers fans! I mean huge fans! When I was making these cards last month it dawned on me that they would be cute done in the Green Bay colors, so I researched the colors for the Packers (really, I knew they were green and gold) as I wanted them to be as accurate as possible.  So here is the baby carriage in what I believe to be the correct color match.  I used a dark green Gemstones card stock I found at Stamper's Corner and a pretty gold that was a great match.  I used Colorbox Evergreen to stamp the sentiment on the yellow oval and added some green gems to make it girly and then used pop dots to lift it off the front of the card.  Inside I mounted a white card stock inside on the bottom half of the carriage.  I found some Jolee's football helmets and I picked up some small letter stickers in the style I figured most closely matched the Green Bay "G" on their sports stuff.  I put green pearls in the middle of the wheels to carry through my green and gold theme.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.

My friend Cathy over here at Scrappin Cat's Creative Endeavors had done a baby onesie a couple of years ago and had sent me her cut file.  I had not yet used it...what can I say...it takes me awhile to try out some projects!  I thought this would be a cool way to showcase the Green Bay colors a different way.  I used basic white for the onesie cut and the same Gemstones dark green for the front of the onesie and utilized the gold for the ruffles on the onesie.  I added the football helmet again with a small "G" below it and then added a football on the left side of the onesie.  I also added some small gemstones on the bottom of the onesie to simulate the snaps on real ones.  The sentiment stamped on the inside of the onesie was stamped in the same Colorbox Evergreen.

The shower was yesterday...I hope that Mom and Grandpa Gene enjoy the salute to their favorite pro sports team!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, and 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.