cards and crafting

now that I know the recipients received their mail, I can show the other cards and craft projects I've made recently!

This card started out because I didn't like that greenish-blue 3x4 inch die-cut piece of paper.  It has die-cut letters on it saying 'the daily grind' which I knew I would NEVER be able to use... I sat there staring at it for a while, when I had the (simple but brilliant, lol) idea to cover it up with patterned paper!  From there, I added more layers of stuff that matched the colors, typed and added the 'hello' and butterfly, stamped the 'xoxo' and tiny hearts onto the Polaroid shaped piece, and glued the entire thing to a card blank. Voila! 

This greeting card also started as a 3x4 scrapbooking card (the orange card with the 'good day sunshine' text on and an open area for journaling). I found the pea and peach die cuts, stamped 'hello' onto a banner, and attached it all to the 3x4 card, popping a couple things up with foam tape. Again, I just attached it to a card blank, and voila! Another completed greeting card! 

Last time I attended the all-day crop at the SB Barn, I made the following project for sending to my parents. (I couldn't post the pictures until I knew they got it, and there was a bit of a post-office snafu, but it finally got there, so I'm safe in posting it now!)  I think I found the idea for this project on Pinterest, made by a blogger who does Tim Holtz grungy-style stamping, but mine didn't end up quite as complicated as the original. (or as grungy, lol!)

I used the SB store's die-cut machine to cut 5 medium-sized
shipping tags from cardstock, and taped the edges together on both
sides with paper tape to make one long accordion folded piece.

Next I decorated the background of each tag with Distress inks and a bit of stamping.
(in the pic above, the purple circles and the orange 'splat' shapes are stamped.)

Then, I found photographs of us, the dogs, cats, and
some of the yard, and added them to the tags along with
a bit of patterned scrapbook paper and typed captions.

the top photo is all the cats enjoying their Christmas present-
kitty treats- out on the patio on Christmas day!

a couple more photos- one of Zola acting wacky,
and one of us taken at our last anniversary brunch.

Here's the entire album, standing up.

another shot of the entire album-- I really like the fact that
you can display the photos by standing the album up, which
you can't necessarily do with a 'regular' photo album. 

This was my first foray into the world of scrapbook 'mini-albums' but it definitely won't be my last.  There are so many interesting (and intricate) ways to make albums with flipping pages, pockets, hidden flaps, pockets, etc. This one was pretty simple, compared to some that I've seen, but I think if I'm careful with my cutting and my math (no easy feat, for me- lol!) that I should have a lot of fun! (and a lot of the album designs out there have 'how-to' Youtube videos, which is very helpful, since you can rewind and replay things, lol!)

Labor Day weekend crafting--

I did have a chance to do some scrapping over the Labor Day three day weekend; here's my latest scrapbook layout, using the walk in the woods photos from a couple posts ago. You can either just scroll through and admire the photos (click for larger) or you can read the text, where I explain a bit about my process of making the layout.

I had about half again as many photos printed, but I just couldn't get them arranged the way I wanted, so I had to make some editing decisions-- I took out the ones that were too similar, and a couple that just didn't make my cut from a photo design / color perspective. I decided to feature all the close-up photos on one page, and chose two of the 'regular' photos of the woods to use on the other page. I had originally cropped all of them in rectangles and squares with straight edges, but I ended up not liking how that looked so I got out my old-school circle cutter and my corner rounder. 

I think cutting the raspberry and thistle photos in a circle echoes the shape in the photo, and the rounded edges on the rest of the photos softens the lines and makes it a bit more relaxed or organic feeling. (hopefully? that's what I was going for, anyway, lol.)

Below is the left-hand page:

This page is based on a Scrapbook Generation 1-page sketch, with a few changes. The papers I chose are actually a mix of papers-- some from a Pink Paislee Christmas paper pad (the large polka dot, the green horizontal strip, and the blue zig-zag) and some other papers from my stash. I don't scrap Christmas or winter pages very often, but when I saw that paper pad in the store, I knew most of the patterns would be good for 'regular' pages, too!

The next photo is the right-hand page (sorry for the bit of glare from the upper left photo):

I extended the one-page design across the two-page spread by doing the 'opposite' background paper arrangement on the right-hand page. One other small detail- I decided to ink the edges of all the papers to get rid of the white edges and make them blend a bit more with the darker cardstock background. It was time consuming, but I think it was a good decision.

bottom right embellishment cluster: cork circle, enamel dots,
vellum phrase, decorative brad, pink sticker, and a stamped word.

Once I get all the background papers and photos attached, I start looking for embellishments for the pages. (this post shows a picture of the 12x12 Iris cases that hold all my embellishments- tags, brads, enamel dots, stickers, and all sorts of rhinestones, wood veneer shapes, etc.) Page embellishments are little bits and pieces that (hopefully) lead your eye through the layout and reinforce the shapes and colors on the page and in the photos.  

the title embellishment cluster: more cork, wood veneer
camera, gold brad, layered paper, vellum phrase, a bit of
pink, more enamel dots, and another stamped /cut-out word. 

left-hand embellishment cluster- the same combination of
items: brad, cork, enamel dots, stamped word, stripes, and blue, pink (in the brad), and gold,  which I used in each area. 

Choosing embellishments and deciding how to arrange them is a slow process for me, but it's also kind of fun-- looking through my Iris boxes to see what jumps out at me that could be used on the page, and deciding how to arrange the small items to emphasize colors in the photos and on the page. I decided to use pink in the embellishments so the raspberry photo wouldn't look so out-of-place, since otherwise it's the only pink on the page.

Embellishment clusters sort of 'lead' your eye across the layout, too, so I laid them out in a 'visual triangle' arrangement-- since we read from left to right, your eye goes from the lower left up to the title, then across to the right-hand page to the pink in the raspberry photo and down to the lower right-hand corner. (again, that's what I was going for, anyway!) And, even though it took a lot of effort and arranging on my part, the result I was trying for was a loose, collage-style layered look. (I just need to be a bit more decisive to make the process go quicker.)

Oh-- and after all that was on the page?? That was when I decided to add all the gold splatters with Heidi Swapp colorshine spray. I had to cover up the photos and embellishment clusters so I wouldn't get gold splatters all over everything. This is definitely a design decision better done at the beginning, for sure!! 

And now, a switch from scrapbooking to card-making-- which I don't do all that often any more. I made four altogether, but can only show you one right now, since the other ones are on their way to people who I know read my blog, lol!

it's five layers total, not counting the card base (which is not
nearly so bright in real life... my phone camera didn't capture
the color correctly, and I couldn't edit it back to the true color.)

I pulled some tags, die-cuts, and other things from my stash, and started layering things together just to see what worked. 

The butterfly is stapled to the pink tag, and everything else is glued / tucked underneath on the round journaling tag. The glitter on the butterfly wings was supposed to just be polka dots, but-- me and glitter glue? not a good mix-- so after a bit of a glitter glue accident, I had to cover up the evidence by outlining the entire thing. 

I have a slight obsession with tiny alphabet stamps (I only own 5 or 6 sets of them so far, lol!) so I used one of them to stamp the 'hello' on the blue banner. 

I hope the recipient likes it! 

I have a 12-hour SB store crop coming up in October, and at the end of September I'm going to the Scrapbook Expo in Mesa-- I haven't attended one of those in years. I'm taking two classes, as well as attending a 16-hour crop, so I'd better get busy editing and printing photos, and designing layouts! :D

so, besides birding...

In addition to birding, I have been doing a little bit of crafting here and there, too. Not much, but some-- I craft a lot more when I'm in a good mood, and the uncertainty of my job situation over the last couple months just sort of 'sucked' the creative spirit right out of me for the most part. (I know that some people craft whatever their mood, or that crafting gets them out of a funk, but my creativity just doesn't work like that. If I'm not in the right frame of mind, then whatever I try do just makes me frustrated, so it's really better if I don't craft when I'm in one of those moods. But enough of my self-analysis... on to the pictures, right?!?)

thank you cards

same basic card design

I only glued the center, so the medallion has a bit of dimension to it

blank card- I love the pink and grey color scheme!

The focal shapes on these cards were all made using my new toy, a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine that can cut paper or fabric using patterns that you design or download from the internet. I've wanted one for a couple years now, and Amazon had a really good deal on it before the holidays, so I finally pulled the trigger on it (it was my verison of Black Friday shopping, lol!). I've only used it a bit so far, but it's pretty cool!!

The machine connects to your computer and the patterns are set-up on the computer screen (using the machine's software) to be cut any size you want, all the way up to 12x12 inches. (it can even be used with vinyl on a roll, so you can even make signs with letters up to 12 inches high.) The paper is set onto a sticky cutting mat to hold it steady and loaded into the machine. Then you 'send' the instructions to the machine which cuts the pattern out of the paper using a teeny-tiny blade. After it cuts the shape, you very carefully 'peel' the paper off the cutting mat, and voila- a really neat, intricately cut shape, without any work at all! (well, not much work, anyway)

Here's the first shapes I cut out of some scrap paper after I got it hooked up-- I wanted to see just how intricate of a shape I could cut. I like the Polaroid frames, and that stem of leaves is pretty cool, too.

this snowflake is about 3 inches across- isn't the detail in the cutting amazing??

This picture shows the machine and laptop in the picture for size comparison's sake. Now, I've been scouring the internet for shapes and designs- there are plenty of people who post shapes for free, or for sale, for those of us who don't want to design our own. It will also cut any font you have loaded onto your computer, too. In addition to cards and scrapping, it can be used for cutting out the parts for assembling 3-D paper projects, too. It can also be used to cut fabric, for craft projects or for quilting. I doubt I'll be doing that, but I do plan to use it for making scrapbook page embellishments.

birds and a butterfly (card)

Just a few random photos from the last couple days- first, a card I made last night using scraps of paper leftover from the Quilt Show scrapbook layout I re-worked a few days ago. I've heard people say before that they use their scraps to make cards, but I never really got the concept, for some reason. I had these leftover pennant pieces, the twine, and the butterfly punches in a little bowl sitting on my desk, and that's all I needed- plus a bit more of patterned paper and a manila tag. Voila! I may actually do this more often!

a close-up of the card... (I love having a huge roll of 3-D foam tape at my disposal to use whenever I want to add some dimension to a project!)

This afternoon as I drove into our neighborhood, I actually turned around and drove back to the entry pond common area... because I caught a glimpse of this guy, doing a little fishing- a great blue heron. (he didn't stay very long, so this is the only photo I got- thankfully, it turned out okay.)

I looked around a bit, and saw that he had a dinner companion! This cattle egret was hanging out close by, but he was a bit more shy and took off before I could get a decently clear photo of him. Plus, with all the sun shining on him, I didn't have a very good chance of getting much detail out of the photo, anyway.

The usual selection of ducks was hanging out in the pond- mostly mallards, but there were also some more exotic waterfowl, as well- this group of ring necked ducks meets the definition of 'snow birds'  (haha! just a bit of birding humor, there) since the southern US is their winter habitat. I'm pretty sure they were being so friendly because they thought I'd feed them, but once they figured out I didn't have anything for them, they headed off. (they look sort of ominous, actually, all eyeing me like that!) 

and lastly, a view of the entire pond-- after a few days of higher than normal springish temps around here, it's been cold, windy, and rainy again the past couple days (there was actually a report this afternoon of snow falling in north Phoenix!!) so unfortunately, spring isn't here quite yet!

card crafting

I started out this whole scrapping / rubber-stamping "thing" by making cards. My sister went to a Stampin' Up! party, I think, then either showed me what she had done, or invited me to attend one myself. It's been a looong time ago, now; I don't really remember exactly any more... heck, I don't remember exactly what I had for lunch on Monday, let alone something that happened at least 15 years ago! :D

Anyhow, over time I lost the card-making-mojo... I went from making tons of cards, to making cards only for Christmas, and I think that might have been the last time I made any. Till yesterday, when I made these:

My problem with cards has been mainly that I can't figure out how to design them; it's easier for me to work on a scrapbook page, for some reason. So, I brought the scrapbooking thing to my card-making, by using a scrapbook page sketch to design the card!! You can see the sketch I used here: Sketchy Thursdays 8/11/11 challenge.

I used the main layout placement for my card design, and placed the butterflies where the photos would be placed. I think it worked out okay; plus, I used a new stamp (Martha Stewart doily), used some of my tiny left-over paper scraps, and used some rather "difficult" patterned paper. (hopefully the patterned paper doesn't overwhelm the butterflies; I don't think so, anyway-- let me know what you think!)

close-up, just to show that I popped-up the butterfly wings with 3-D foam tape... they needed some dimension to them! (too bad I didn't decide that before I glued them down, but I pried their wings back up...)

and, another cute dog picture! Bisbee was just hanging out on the couch this evening... she really doesn't like that Prescott can't play right now! (just one more day till he's recovered enough from being neutered to play again... then, only a couple more days till we pick up Krista!)

random weekend pics

busy as a...

(well, I haven't been, really-- the bees have been very busy in the prickly pear, though.)

Ariel, sunbathing ... I'm sure Butters was curled up somewhere napping, too, but I don't know where.

Prescott: what did I do? (I'm not sure, but probably something!!) Bisbee, relaxing on the tile till dinnertime.

these last two pics are of a card I made for a co-worker whose last day at work was Friday. It was sad to see her go, but we'll keep in touch.

closeup of the butterfly punches-- this card was very simply made with two different Martha Stewart punches: one makes the bigger butterfly, and the other makes the medium and the small ones.

(I love butterflies-- can you tell??)

I hope everyone had a good weekend, whether you spent it sunbathing, working, or relaxing!

Spoiler alert!! Valentine Mail-Art

I forgot about President's Day (no mail, darn it!), so some of my Valentine mail may be really late in getting to its destination, but I can't wait any longer to show my postcards to you!! I started them out with a large piece of corrugated cardboard and peeled off the outside layer to expose the wavy insides (every once in a while I go thru the recycle container at work, looking for cardboard boxes... not every box is the same type of cardboard- some tear apart easier than others).

After I exposed the corrugated layer, I painted the whole piece with acrylic paint and gesso- dry brushing gesso, red, pink, light blue, and green over the entire thing. Then, I cut 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 pieces for the postcards, and went from there. (fyi, these pics were done using the scanner, not the camera, so the colors definitely look better in person.)

For these two, I used a Stampington rubber stamp (Scroll heart) with heat embossing in pirate's gold... The paper and stickers are all from the Basic Grey Sugared line... I love the look of Basic Grey papers, but for some reason I've always been afraid of using them- maybe because there's so many patterns, it scares me a little. I really like the way it turned out on my postcards, mixing it up with the paint and the rubber stamp.

The tickets came from my favorite store, Frenzy Stamper. Debbie has rolls of blank tickets on tons of colors; since they're blank, you can stamp anything you can fit onto them! (Frenzy Stamper is definitely one of those stores that I can't go into without spending money, but she has such good stuff, I can't help it!!)

After getting the basic design elements together, I brushed gold paint on the edges to finish them off. On the reverse, I glued watercolor paper for writing the sentiment and address... (since some of the cardboard still had the box company logo on... I figured that wouldn't really add too much to the romance of the design.)

I also mixed it up on a couple of them with manila shipping tags, ribbon, fibers, and more of the Basic Grey stickers. These tags caused some consternation for the postal worker at my local PO... she looked at them, made a face, and said "ooooh, this isn't good..." What, I can't mail them?? Everything's glued! "oh, but these small tags aren't secured; they'll get torn off- wouldn't you like to tape them down with scotch tape??" Heck, no, I wouldn't! I spent all this time making them, and now you think I want to plaster scotch tape all over them??

And yes, I know I was taking my chances, but I have faith in our Postal System... thru rain, sleet, snow, dark of night, and all that, right?? I think they can handle a few little cardboard postcards! (PS- please let me know if your postcard got to you in one piece, so I know whether or not my faith was justified!! LOL!!)

sneak peeks...

...of the latest creations to arise from the chaos of my art studio. I barely got it straightened up from the last project, and it's already a shambles again--so is the kitchen table and island at the moment, too! (I've tried, really I have, but I can't find anyplace better to heat-emboss than the kitchen counter.) These close-ups are all I want to show of my valentine mail-art, till the recipients get them- I want them to be surprised, after all, and I know some ofthem read my blog. Hopefully all the cards will make it to their destinations safely- I never know what the Post Office thinks about this kind of mail, but I will find out tomorrow! (can you guess from the photos what I used for the base of the cards?? It's something that you can find pretty much everywhere, but it's not a "traditional" papercrafting supply.)

Paper, paint, stamping (and embossing), glue, and scissors- it was definitely my kind of project!! I will be really interested to hear what the recipients think of them; they're certainly not the usual "pretty" Valentine's Day cards you can find in a store, that's for sure!