Pun Fun Birthday

Sorry for the bad colour on the photo. My husband cleaned up our computer and hasn't put our photo editing program back on yet. I'm afraid my photo turned out quite dark.

I made this card for a little girls 4th birthday. The base card is Whisper White cardstock and I used the SU retired Soft Sky cardstock and Designer Series Paper. The stamp is from the set "Pun Fun" which I coloured with SU markers in Tempting Turquoise and Real Red. The ribbon and eyelets are Real Red as well.

The circle and scalloped circle are made with my new Nestabilities! So fun to have easy ways to cut out difficult shapes. I used them in my Cuttlebug die cut and embossing machine. I hope to get a Big Shot machine so I can see how it compares to the Cuttlebug. The Big Shot is the machine that SU sells and it sounds more heavy duty than the Cuttlbug.

Pet Sympathy Card

My parents dog of 8 years had to be put down recently. He was a very important member of the family and will be greatly missed...especially by my Dad. I made this card for them.




The base card is of Not Quite Navy cardstock with a Kraft cardstock layer on top. I used a strip of Basic Black paper and a strip of paper with the paw prints on it from an unknown source. The ribbon is an SU retired ribbon. I paper pierced the Kraft CS on the corners and the stamps are from the "Close as a Memory" set - flowers are stamped in versamark, sentiment is stampes in black Stazon ink.

My 4-1/2 year old boy also made a card for his Papa. He even decorated an envelope that I'd made a while back (I used SU's 5-in-1 Envelope Template). Here are some pics of his card. The pics show the front of the card, the back, the back of the envelope, the inside of the card and the front of the envelope. My son is very thorough to decorate every surface. He learned how to hammer in the eyelets himself, too!




He was sad to hear of Harley's passing, but was so brave. He just gingerly wiped his tears from his eyes with his favorite blanket as he asked me questions. Then decided he should make a card for his Papa and for himself too (to "help us feel better").

To answer a question...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. Spending time on the computer has been such a low priority for me lately. My new little baby along with my two other kids and life in general make for a full day.

Carol wrote a comment on my last post and asked a question about adhering ribbon to cards. Thanks for your comment, Carol, and your compliment!

How do I attach my ribbon so that it stays attached? Carol stated that ribbon tends to fall off with the adhesive she uses. I usually secure my ribbon by tying all the way around the front of my card. Sometimes I will make a hole in the front of the card so I can pull the ribbon through the hole and tie it in place (as on my "play of light" card which you can see if you scroll down the page). The bow hides the hole in most cases.

However, there are times when a ribbon is required to be attached by other means. Sometimes I use a brad or an eyelet to secure the ribbon in place. When using adhesive, I vary between glue dots, sticky strip, and basic white glue. I looked back at a couple cards and found that the ones with glue dots still held after a year (in storage, not in a sunny window, so maybe not a true test :). The plain glue holds well also, but is more difficult to hide when using it to apply ribbon because it makes a permanent wet-look. Liquid glue also takes longer to dry and can be messy. I couldn't find a card that I used sticky strip on, but I think it would hold fairly well. One thing I definitely don't have success with securing ribbon to a project, is SNAIL adhesive. This product is btter left for adhering flat paper to flat paper and is not very reliable for anything else. I love SNAIL for that purpose because it's quick and it's tidy.

So, let me know what you think? Anyone have good luck with any other adhesives for attaching ribbon to a project? I'd love to hear it.

And Carol, I hope you find some better luck with your ribbon from now on!

Happy Stamping!

Play of Light

Here's another card inspired directly from Michelle Zindorf's tutorial.

I used baja breeze for the base card and sponged it with not quite navy ink and a bit of basic black ink also. I stamped the "Baroque Motifs" background flourish in not quite navy ink (stamped off once).

The main image is done on whisper white paper. I first brayered baja breeze over the entire piece, then sponged the outside with not quite navy, night of navy, and basic black. The flowers from "Close as a Memory" were stamped in not quite navy ink and highlighted with a white gel pen, then low-lighted with a not quite navy marker and basic black journaling pen. The ground was made by first tearing a piece of paper to use as a mask, then I brayered not quite navy ink below the placed paper. Then I moved the paper down slightly and brayered basic black ink. The ground is also highlighted with a white gel pen.

I stamped the "Baroque Motifs" flourish over the main image in whisper white craft ink (stamped off once for a more subtle look).

The edges of the main image are distressed with the edge distressing tool from SU's "Cutter Kit" and gently rolled to distress it even more. This was mounted on the card with stampin' dimensionals. The ribbon is white tafetta which is threaded through a hole punched in the base card.

I hope to make some more attempts at Michelle's tutorials. They are all so beautiful and inspiring. A big thank you to her for sharing her talents!!

Collage card

I was inspired by the tutorial of a gorgeous card by Michelle Zindorf. I still love her card more, but think mine turned out pretty good, too.

The base card is Hansome Hunter with some brayered hansome hunter ink around the edges and stamped with a stamp from SU's "Fresh Cuts" stamp set.

The main collage was done on whisper white cardstock. I used a brayer to apply a mix of barely banana and so saffron ink over the entire piece, then masked off the center with a piece of paper so I could brayer a "frame" with some kiwi kiss. The edges are brayered with not quite navy and I wiped the tangerine tango directly over the edges of the paper from the ink pad. I did some tangerine tango (stamped off once) with another stamp from the "Fresh Cuts" set. I also used not quite navy with the background stamp of the same set. The centre image is from the "Lovely as a Tree" stamp set, which I did in old olive ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I lightly coloured the image with kiwi kiss and a hint of not quite navy ink using my blender pen.

The edges of the main image are distressed (using the Cutter Kit) and slightly rolled before applying it to the base card with stampin' dimensionals.

I like how it turned out. What do you think?

Card book

This is a card book that I made and gave away in a draw at my open house last week. I recycled 6-1/4" x 6-1/4" pieces of a cereal box for the covers and covered them with purely pomegranate cardstock with river rock cardstock on the inside of the covers.


I decorated the front cover by clear embossing a 1" wide strip of purely pomegranate paper for across the front of the book. A piece of pewter hodgepodge was used for the label and the label is made from a piece of river rock paper punched with my oval punch. I used my Rough alphabet stamp set for the letters in purely pomegranate ink, then sponges lightly with versamark ink and clear embossed to give a bit of texture to the label. The solid leaves are randomly stamped with purely pomegranate ink, while the outline leaves were stamped with versamark and clear embossed.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the inside pages, but I used chocolate chip paper and made pockets on each page to slot in cards for storage. The pocket portions of the pages were decorated similarly to the bottom front of the cover except I didn't clear emboss the leaf outline images.

The entire book is bound together with brown wire binding using my bind-it-all. I added the purely pomegranate satin ribbon for extra flourish.

I realize as I describe this, that I used a lot of now retired items. This project can be easily adapted with other colours and the new SU silver or vanilla hodgpodge. There are also some beautiful new ribbons that could accent a book like this quite nicely.

I think I'd like to offer a project like this as a class (if I can get my act together. LOL!). If I do another one, I'll show it as well.

Happy stamping!

3x3 Scallop Cards

I love these 3x3 scallop cards made using the slit punch and the 1-3/8" circle punch and the Coluzzle Cutter. I made them using the tutorial on Andrea Walford's blog.

That's all I have to say about that. If you'd like to know what paper and stamps I used, just leave a comment.