Her Jacket Makes The Whole Card

This is for one of my best friends. The same one I made Teacher Margaret for. Her birthday is March 2nd and she is a Teacher. I used Bugaboo Stamps Stella Calendar Months - September. I followed the sketch at the Catch the Bug challenge blog but I decided to use my Silhouette to cut out the oval and place my Stella digi right inside the card. I make this sound easy, it was not. My cutting mats are not lined up with the grid in my Silhouette program so cutting the oval right out of the card was a lot of trial and error (and cards). Then I printed Stella right onto my card by running the card taped to a piece of computer paper through the printer. Again it was lined up in my Silhouette program but was just a little off when it came out of the printer. Might have been the actual folding of the card that changed it but on the screen Stella was completely visible in the oval. I used a Silhouette pattern to create the apple patterned paper 1/4" smaller than my card. Since I couldn't use the Silhouette to cut an oval out of the patterned paper (I had no idea how to line it up properly), I traced the oval on the card and hand cut it out of the inside of the patterned paper. The green paper with the sentiment was also printed from the Silhoeutte program. Again I traced the oval and handcut it out then cut right down the middle both ways so that I just had to add the top and bottom corners. Used the iRock to set the black Glamrocks in the opposite corners. I colored Stella with my EK Success pencil crayon/Zig markers combo and added Glossy Accents to her glasses and the apple. Stella also got a pair of rose colored glasses. Every Teacher wears them you know ;o) I wrote on the chalkboard with a white gel pen and paper pieced Stella's skirt and jacket. The fact that the jacket looks like it was made out of upholstery fabric made this whole card for me. LOVE how that turned out!
My lessons learned: when I made my oval so big it weakened the narrow outside of the card. Then when I applied the patterned paper to the front it created a crease there. So I added a piece of yellow cardstock on the inside as a stabilizer. Next time I will not make the oval as big.

I would like to share my card at:

Paper Sundaes birthdays, closes Feb. 25,

The Pink Elephant printing, closes Feb. 26,

Sassy Cheryl's no embossing, closes Feb. 28,

The Poodles Parlour female, closes Feb. 28,

Simon Says 3 different papers, closes Feb. 29,

Craft Your Days Away paper piecing, closes Mar. 1,

The Sisterhood of Crafters use a digi, closes Mar. 4

The Works

This one has it all. Tulle, ribbon, handmade flowers, pearls, distressing, embossing, you name it we got it! This is not my usual style, I'm not usually so...dimensional, but it does seem to be the current style so I wanted to give it a try.
I loved this freebie image from Saturated Canary. I think you will be seeing a lot of cards made with this image! The artist has been having problems with people copying her work and selling the images as their own. So infuriating. Especially because digi artists have been so generous sharing their images with freebies and by sponsoring challenges, which is the main reason I enter them, to add to my digi library by hopefully winning new images. It's not possible to buy all the ones I love so I try to win them. If artists are losing their work to rip off artists I'm worried they may have to stop offering free images. NOOOOO! Soapbox moment over, thank-you. 
I used a pink polka dotty patterned paper and embossed it with the Cuttlebug Script embossing folder. I then distressed it with my Tim Holtz paper distresser. The frame is a Silhouette image, cut out with my Silhouette. Then I threaded red ribbon through the holes around the frame and just tied it at the back. Colored my image with EK Success pencil crayons, Zig markers and my 1 Copic (E11). The flowers were a cut file and tutorial from Birds Cards. I resized the same cut file twice in my Silhouette to make the 2 different sizes of flowers and they both worked perfectly. The tulle I folded into a fan and then attached it with double sided tape. Pop dots lift the image off the page (mostly so you don't see a bump under the image where the tulle was attached). And 4 large half pearls accent the corners.
My lessons learned: I always thought you NEVER put pink and red together, but I have seen lots of examples over the past few weeks where they work very well together. A little trick I did with my coloring this time, I colored with my pencil crayons first and then went over them with my markers. The waxy pencil crayons didn't allow the markers to wet the cardstock and pill it like I have been struggling with in the past. It also provided a nice shine too. I will get this down eventually, my coloring is still very much a work in progress (who'd have thought I'd be saying that at 30 something, lol)!

I'd like to share my card at:

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge Valentine's Day, closes Feb. 15,

Bugaboo Stamps photo inspiration (roses), closes Feb. 18,

Paper Sundaes sundae bar, toppings distressing + pearls, closes Feb. 18,

Come and Get it Challenges red, white, pink + one neutral, closes Feb. 18,

Dream Valley Challenges Valentine, closes Feb. 19,

Crafty Sentiments love, closes Feb. 20,

Crafty Purple Frog flower power, closes Feb. 23,

Creative Craft Challenges Valentine's Day, closes Feb. 28,

I Can't Believe These Turned Out So Well

We made these crayon Valentine's. I saw them on Pinterest. The link took me too a flickr page with a set of photo instructions here. I went to the Dollar Store and bought 2 red silicone heart shaped muffin tins. I also bought 2 boxes of crayons. You could easily use up all of your broken crayons with this project. Daddy and Kaylee peeled the wrappers off the crayons and then Daddy cut them up into various sizes of pieces. We took out the black ones and didn't use very many of the brown because I wasn't sure how they would spread once in the oven. Kaylee and I put even amounts of each color into the tins. You don't have to fill the tins, as long as the bottom is covered. Once we got all the pieces in ours were about half full. Into the oven at 230°F for 15 minutes. Let them cool and then remove from silicone tins. Marvel at their waxy goodness!!! I printed the cards from the blog The Long Thread. I did use my corner punch to round the edges. I used pop dots to attach my crayons to the cards. Because the back of the crayon is not completely flat you will need to be creative to attach them to the cards. That's why the pop dots worked. I made 12 of them and Kaylee took 6 to Sunday School. She was so excited when there were only 5 other kids so got to bring home one of her own Valentine's!
My lessons learned: use real crayons. I bought the cheap ones that don't color very well and the kids instantly wanted to use their hearts to color. They don't color very well. But they would if we had used the real crayons. We put our silicone tins, which were very squishy, on a cookie sheet to make it easier to put them in and out of the oven. You could easily choose whatever colors you wanted to include for crayons too.

 

The Tots Teacher

This Valentine is for Ashlyn. She is in Grade 12 and is the Sunday School teacher in the Tots room (2 & 3 year-olds). She taught my Kaylee and made such an impression on her that Kaylee still seeks her out every Sunday. She also told Kaylee's Sunday School teacher now that Kaylee could come back anytime to her room if she ever had any troubles in her new room (awwww). Well as of last week she's now got my Abby. So I wanted to make a very special Valentine for her.
I used a freebie image from Whimsie Doodles (how awesome is she!!! and free too!!! are you kidding me?)! I colored her using my glitter gel pens and used red Stickles on the heart. For her face I used my 1 new Copic E11 (be gentle). I'm still learning that it takes a few 'coats' for lack of a better word to make it look even. I added the purple bangs because it is for a 17 year-old and I LOVE how they turned out! (Ashlyn does not have purple bangs by the way). I used pink polka dotty patterned paper for the frame. The frame is a Silhouette image. Sent it through the printer to add my sentiment on the back.

I would like to share my Valentine at:

One Stop Craft Challenge for the one I love, closes Feb. 10,

Bugaboo Stamps anything goes, closes Feb. 11,

Tuesday Throwdown be my Valentine, closes Feb. 13,

Stamps R Us Valentine/love, closes Feb. 13,

Charisma Cardz things with wings, closes Feb. 15,

Paper Crafting Journey fairies, closes Feb. 15,

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge Valentines, closes Feb. 15,

Cute Card Thursday pink Valentine, closes Feb. 16,

Do You Stack Up love, closes Feb. 16

Bought My First Copic

So I've been struggling with my printer ink bleeding into the light colors even after I heat set it. So I bought a Copic. E11 Barley Beige. I really don't know anything about Copics. I don't have the special paper, I just used white cardstock and I heat set it the same way I always do. I didn't color over any black lines with it and it took me several 'coats' for lack of a better word to get it even (and there's still a little work that could be done there) but for the most part it worked....I think. I could have done another pass between the eyes, but as I said I was worried about smearing the printer ink. I used an image from Bugaboo Stamps and colored it with my Zig markers and glitter gel pens. I used red Stickles on the strawberries. The frame is a Silhouette image cut out of pink polka dotty patterned paper. I ran my Valentine through the printer to add my sentiment on the back.
My lessons learned: put your freshly Stickled images up high to dry, curious little 4 year-old fingers checking to see if they are dry will leave a perfectly sized little Stickle hole on your strawberry. Easy to fix and even harder to hide a little red finger, hehehe. She was more upset than I was, but lesson learned, by both of us ;o)
And now a Tip for Top Tip Tuesday's: This is one of the best things I have learned in awhile. Color your image the same color as your Stickles (in this case red) before applying the Stickles. That way if there are any spots that don't get perfectly even Stickles coverage, there is no white that shows through!

I would like to share my Valentine at:
Fussy and Fancy Challenge dots, closes Feb. 9,
Bugaboo Stamps Challenge anything goes, closes Feb. 11,
The Pink Elephant Challenge use pink, closes Feb. 12,
Craft Us Crazy anything goes, closes Feb. 15,
Charisma Cardz things with wings, closes Feb. 15,
Paper Crafting Journey fairies, closes Feb. 15,
Crafting for all Seasons love is in the air, closes Feb. 20

A Birthday Card Challenge

This was a hard one. This is for Reverend John's birthday (Feb. 6). I wanted a religious reference but with a sense of humor (because he and I both have one). One of the challenges was to make it masculine. This was harder because he doesn't hunt or fish or play sports and that's what you find when you are looking for images for a masculine birthday card. And this is one time Gus just wouldn't work. I liked the play on words with the shell/shall. I was surprised to learn that "this too shall pass" is not a quote from the Bible. I always just assumed it was. So I went looking for turtle images. Turned out I had one, this guy was a past freebie from Little Scraps of Heaven. I love their images because I can import them into my Silhouette as a cut file. I remember the days when I had to cut the pieces out by hand, this is soooo much easier. I followed the sketch from the Stella Says Sketch challenge at Bugaboo, I just flipped it.

I used seashell patterned paper cut a 1/4" smaller than my card as my base. I printed my own sentiment onto light blue cardstock that I had cut out using a scalloped frame image from my Silhouette. The waves ribbon is also a Silhouette image and I cut them out of my brightest blue cardstock. Sand patterned paper made the base for my turtle. I used a glittery green cardstock (the same glittery green cardstock as the impossible to get a good picture of glittery red cardstock in my earlier Valentine's) for my turtle. I traced around each piece with my green Zig marker to add a little definition. My printer added the Happy Birthday to the small heart. I added iRock gemstones to the sentiment 'shell' and turtle shell. Put some faux stitching around both.
My lessons learned: he's cute, but not very masculine. Thank goodness I have 2 little girls (Kaylee gets to decorate the inside, and Abby gets to do the envelope) so I think it still works.

Those 2 circles on either side of Abby's head are her ears.....so not an exact likeness ;o)

I would like to share my card at:
Dream Valley Challenges use an animal, closes Feb. 5,
Digistamps4Joy for the boys, closes Feb. 8,
Simon Says animal antics, closes Feb. 8

I Was Inspired By This Quote

There is a lady that sits in front of us at Church that always brings her Bible and will reference it at times during the service. When I read this quote I instantly thought of her and thought it would be perfect for a bookmark. I'm going to take it for her this Sunday and I'm kind of excited about it.
I take a piece of 4"x4" heavy cardstock. I mark the 2" point of the top and bottom and then use my ruler to fold in the 2 sides to make a triangle at the top. I cut 1 piece of seashell patterned paper 3 7/8" x 1 7/8" for the bottom. You could do 4" x 2" if you didn't want a border but the 1/8" off allows for wiggle room if any of your cuts are not quite square. For the top triangle I cut a piece of what I hope looks like sunset colored sky paper 2 3/4" x 2 3/4" and then cut that diagonally to get 2 triangle pieces. I put one on the front and the other on the back to cover the fold lines. You don't have to use the same patterned paper for the front and back, but in this case I did. I also distressed the edges using my Tim Holtz paper distresser. I used my Silhouette to cut the zig zag border from purple cardstock for the middle. The Silhouette also cut out my lace border from what I hope looks like a tea stained piece of patterned paper. I like the way the 'lace' looks a little bit like crosses. The sentiment is printed onto light blue cardstock and cut out in a frame shape Silhouette image. I added the faux stitching.
My lessons learned: I try to keep my bookmarks as 1 dimensional as possible because hopefully they will be kept inside of someone's book ;o)

I would like to share my bookmark at:
Craft Your Days Away distressing, closes Feb. 2,
Card Crafter's Circle friendship challenge, closes Feb. 2,
One Stop Craft Challenge stitching, closes Feb. 3,
Come and Get it Challenges anything but a card, closes Feb. 3,
Stampin' Sisters in Christ your style, closes Feb. 4,
Word Art Wednesday scripture or inspirational words, closes Feb. 7