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.

Stinkin' Sweet Birthday

My niece turned 4 this month. Here is the card I made for her birthday. Of course, it's late (as usual), but better late than never...I hope.



This is a 5x5" card made with Pixie Pink cardstock. I used Gable Green and Basic Black cardstock to frame the image. I used the Pretty Petals background stamp over the base card with Versamark ink. The image is from the "Pun Fun" stamp set and is stamped with black Stazon ink and coloured using a blender pen and Stampin' Pastels. You can't see it very well in this photo, but I also paper-pierced the black frames using my Mat Pack as a piercing guide. The entire matted centre of this card is raised up slightly with stampin' dimensionals and I used Black Gingham ribbon as the final touch.

Build-a-brad Bracelet

Melanie and I made bracelets back in June using some jewelry materials along with the SU Build-a-Brads. I think they turned out really neat. I would do a couple things differently next time to help the clear plastic bubble covers stick better. We used the wire pliers in the SU Tool Kit to manipulate the tales of the brads around the hoops in the chain that we put them on. Next time I will do that first before finishing the brads as the pinching required to secure the brads in placed caused the "bubble" to mark and also lift up on the edges. This particular bracelet will need some adjustments made to fix the lifting edges. I think I'll try taking the "bubble" tops off and just use some Glassy Glaze Enamel embossing powder to protect the paper on top of the brads.

Maybe Mel can tell us where she got the idea to do the bracelets. It was a blog she frequently visits. Could you write it in my comments, Mel? Thanks.

Fresh Cuts with sponging

I made this card as a thank you to my brother for having us stay with them in Victoria and showing us around. We had a great time.

This card is made with the "Fresh Cuts" stamp set (available again in August) and the laser cut, 4" square Fresh Cuts Notes. To make this look, I first removed the laser cut sections of the flower and stamped the background stamp in versamark ink. Then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. After that, I sponged on my colours (Wild Wasabi, Blue Bayou, Purely Pomegranate, and Groovy Guava) and wiped the excess off of the embossed areas.

I used Purely Pomegranate cardstock as an insert inside the card after I sponged a bit of Purely Pomegranate and Blue Bayou ink in a circular pattern so that it would add some richness to the outside of the card where it showed through the laser cut petals. The clear round rhinestone brad (from the Pretties Kit) is holding the fabric flower (from the pretties kit also), which I dyed with Blue Bayou ink by pressing it directly on the ink pad, to the Purely Pomegranate cardstock. That way, when the card is opened the pomegranate insert opens also.

I think my laser cut flower would look better if it was turned around. I'm pretty sure I have it up-side-down right now. The single point should be at the top. Oops!

I think I'll miss the richness of these colours when they retire in August. But I'm sure I'll fall in love with the new colours just like I did with these. (I actually wasn't very excited about these colours at first...they definitely grew on me!)

Father's Day card

My 4 year old son stamped this card to give to my husband for Father's Day. He picked the pink cardstock and amazingly stamped the "print pattern" background stamp straight all by himself!! Sadly, that stamp set will be retiring at the end of July.

He and his 2 year old sister both took part in the stamping and decorating of the card. She stamped the flowers and the sentiment and glued on the circles after I punched them out with my 3/4" circle punch. My son cut out the sentiment and highlighted it with the yellow marker. I folded over the pumkin pie paper edge and pierced the holes, while my son picked out the brads and then proceeded to put them in the holes and fold over the backs himself. He also stamped the hedge hog image from the "Moose You" stamp set.

The inside of the card is beautifully scribbled with my daughter's artwork in a multiple colour design using my SU markers. My son printed his name by himself across the middle of the inside of the card.

Their Daddy loved it!

We had a great two week holiday in Victoria, then in Mission, then camping in Golden Ears Provincial Park (with a few too many black flies for our liking, of which most loved the taste of our children - especially that tender tasty spot behind their ears!). In the middle of all that, my husband and I enjoyed a Cirque du Soleil perfomance of Corteo in Vancouver...absolutely phenomenal!! I highly recommend it to everyone. It was amazing and shocking and beautiful!

I hope to post a few things now that I'm back. Thanks for looking today!

A Little Note Book

This is the first book I made with my new Bind-it-all. I used two 3-1/2" x 3-1/2" coasters for the front and back cover. The papers inside are cut from blank computer paper and I used my corner rounder punch for the corners to match the coaster corners.

The paper used to cover the coasters is from the retired SU "Linen Prints" designer series paper. After adhering the paper with modge podge, I lightly sanded the edges and rubbed Whisper White craft ink over all the edges as well with a sponge dauber.

The stamp is from the set "Sweet Thing" which I chose as an encouragement for one who longs for love. It was stamped with Old Olive ink on Apricot Appeal textured cardstock. The ribbon used is the Old Olive polytwill ribbon from SU which I used, not only to accent the book, but to help hold the Aged Copper hodge podge small oval in place. I also used a couple of Stampin' Dimensionals to raise up the paper label in the metal holder and help to keep it more securely where I wanted it.

To finish the book, I used white wire in my Bind-it-all machine. I was really pleased with how this book turned out. I had a little trouble with the binding, trying to keep the wire in their tidy circles after being pressed in the machine. It seems to pinch them too much. I'll have to fiddle with that a bit and figure out how to fix that so it works great everytime.

I'm going to miss this finish on the Hodge Podge hardware. Stampin' Up! is retiring their current finishes and apparently bringing in some new ones. I love these aged finishes and will be sad to see them go, but I'm always excited to see what will come next!