Welcome to another Man Card Monday! I’ve decided to ramp up this series again, as I had many people tell me that they love it! We lady crafters seem to have a hard time making cards that aren’t too froofy to give to the guys in our lives!
So, today I have a card for you that I hope you will like! I was inspired by this card on Pinterest. So I decided to recreate it with the stamps and papers that I have!
Make sure to watch the video to put it together. The sizes for each of the pieces are at the bottom of this post.
{Can’t see the video in your email, click here to watch it!}
Welcome to August! It’s a new month, and a new week, and a new challenge! Today over at H2H, the new challenge is all about coloring! There are so many ways that you can color your images or your paper, or even your embellishments, it’s crazy! Today I am keeping the coloring fairly simple! (With everything else I used on this card, it’s probably a good thing!)
Now, I have been getting a bit more adventurous lately, in mixing and matching my stamps and thin cuts. But, today’s card is a bit crazy! If you had to purchase the full package items brand new, pulling nothing from your stash to make this card, it would cost $445! (though, I did not include blocks or the paper trimmer in this number!) WOW! Crazy, right??
Now, of course, I did not use whole packets of anything on this card, and most of those things are things that will be used MANY MANY MANY times! There is a list at the bottom of the post, so you can see everything listed out (including the blocks and trimmer), so you can add things to your stash, if you wanted! 😉
So, let’s get started, shall we?
So, the challenge, as I said above, is coloring. I knew I wanted to use the paper pal sets. I decided to color one to look like my youngest daughter. She is very tomboy, so she has a blue t-shirt (her favorite color) and green shorts. This is the combo that you will see her in the most frequently! She almost always has a hat on, something that she started doing last summer. Recently she and her friend died their hair to be a rainbow, with purple at the front to red at the back. So, you can see a bit of purple, blue, and green peeking out from under the bill of her hat. As a quick side note, the hair in the set is a traditional ‘guy’ hairstyle. I just turned it so that the side would be peeking from under the brim, as opposed to over the left ear on the paper pal. (her hair is short on the sides and long-ish on the top) If she has sunglasses available, she is almost always wearing them! So, now I have her little person all colored, it’s time to figure out how the card is going to go together!
So, I reached to the Make it from your Heart, volume 2 for a card design. I picked pattern 25. I have a bunch of scraps from all of the paper packs, so I was looking through those to see what pieces would work well with the colors that I had already colored. So, I have scraps from the Craft On, True Love, and Into the Wild paper packets. I used a pattern from the Mix In packet for the front of the card, so that it had a bit more interest.
I didn’t want to have a super weird cut off for my paper pal, so I used the smallest stitched rectangle to create a frame. She is partially inside and partially outside of this frame, and I think it gives it a fun somewhat 3-D look.
So, now I need a sentiment. (this seems to be my theme, recently . . . create the card and then figure out what the sentiment is going to be! LOL) Seeing as she is such a tomboy, I didn’t want to use the super frilly/scripty fonts that are in the Flower Market cartridge (even though I DO love them so!). I decided to do a bit of stamp surgery, and cut the frame from one of the stamps in the You Are Here sets, use the “Girl” from Sweet Girl Scrapbooking set, and the “love you” from the Flower Market set.
Of course, I couldn’t leave the inside or the envelope out of the fun! So, I used the same paper scraps to mimic the front onto the inside, and two of the main papers from the front onto the flap of the envelope.
I am really happy with how this card turned out! (even if it is, technically, really expensive!) It shows that you don’t have to stick to just one set. I know that if you are a crafter, you have a stash, even if it isn’t very large, you can be creative with how you use it! So, use your stash creatively, let your creativity go, and make something that makes your heart happy!
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you like my little card! What color would your paper pal be wearing?
All supplies used are CTMH, unless otherwise noted:
Welcome back, folks! This week we are talking about borders. As always, it is up for interpretation. This week, I went with the Decorative Borders Thin Cuts! Now, like you have seen me do in the past, I went for the Make it from your Heart books to get me started. Today, I was perusing Volume 1, and I gained inspiration from both patterns 25 and 30. More the artwork of those patterns than of the patterns themselves. (This is one of the things that I love about all of the books, there is artwork to show you that it can be done similarly, but differently at the same time!)
So, I started with pattern 30, and in that artwork, there is a scalloped border that is done, probably with the old corner punch, and there are a few layers of it. So, my brain said, if they can do a few, I can do a whole card front of them, right? Right! So, I ended up cutting about 24 strips! I used 20 on the front of the card, and 2 on the inside, and have a few left over that I can use for another project!
So, I have my card front, what do I do now? So, back to the book I go, and I pause at pattern 25. It has this fun rectangle on the front, and I knew that I could use the Stitched Rectangles thin cuts for this! I thought about just leaving the rectangle empty, but didn’t much like it that way. So, I decided that I would use a scrap of vellum on it, and that would be perfect! I would be able to see through it and still see that border background. I had a scrap of the Mix In paper packet on my desk, and thought that it would be perfect to add a bit of color to the card, but still soft enough to not take over the card. So, then I decided to add a bit of color to the frame that I had cut from the rectangle die, so I grabbed my pink watercolor pencil, and colored it in, and then went over it with the medium waterbrush. I did another scrap of the frame for the inside as well.
Then I needed to decide what to do for the front sentiment and focal point of the card. I had stamped and die cut the flowers from the Escape to Paradise stamp and thin cuts, so I grabbed those, and thought they would be perfect! So, I grabbed the watercolor pencils again, and colored away! Now, I had not stamped these on watercolor paper, so I tried to be very gentle with the amount of water that I used on the flowers and the frames too!
Now, I have everything but the sentiment! What in the world am I going to do? While I like the sentiments in the set, they just didn’t seem to fit with the direction that this card was going! So, I looked through what I had, and fell back to my trusty favorite set, the sentiments from the cricut Flower Market cartridge bundle! I LOVE these things! This sentiment worked perfectly with these flowers! And gives the card so many more possibilities! (I actually already know who I am giving it to, but won’t say just yet, as I want it to be a surprise!)
I attached the vellum to the frame with micro glue dots. I used them also on the flower in the back. Then I used some thin foam tape behind the frame, behind the sentiment strip, and for the top flower. Then, the card needed a bit of bling, so I added some silver glitter gems to it. Now that I am looking at it, I could have added a ‘nest’ of the silver embellishing thread behind the flowers, and that would have added yet another nice little touch.
I hope that you like my little card! Let me know what you think, should I have added the silver thread in a nest?
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you play along with the challenges over at Heart 2 Heart, they are super fun! You always have until the end of the month to complete your challenge, with a new challenge every week!
All products used are CTMH unless otherwise noted:
Welcome back! This week are are focusing on the wild! This can mean so many different things, and I went with the Pacific Northwest version of it! Where I am here in Washington, we have the mountains an hour-ish away and the ocean about two hours away. We really do have the best of it, right here! I love to go to both places, for different reasons. The mountains are so quiet and peaceful, and I don’t get there nearly enough!
At first I didn’t know what I was going to do for this challenge. I have this problem where I tend to come up with too many ideas, and then keep looking for another idea, because, what if that new idea is better? Well, this time was similar, except I hadn’t actually come up with any full ideas yet. I was trying to go with supplies, instead of the end result. I was chatting with my friend Danielle (about something else entirely) and the image for this card popped into my head! I could NOT wait to try it!
So, I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and the Into the Wild Scrapbooking stamp bundle, and some post it notes, and tried it. And it WORKED!! Then I did it with actual cardstock, and more post its, and this is what I came up with!
I stamped the mountains in pewter ink, and used the post it notes to mask the mountains, so I could add the peaks in the back. Then I used the largest tree and stamped it in New England Ivy ink randomly across the lower third of the card. Next was the medium tree with Fern Ink, grouped around the large tree. Then I used the smallest tree and stamped it in second generation New England Ivy Ink. I copied this onto the back flap of the envelope as well.
The sentiment comes from the You Are Here cricut bundle. There is a cricut cut for it, however, I just hand trimmed it, as I didn’t have my cricut handy when I was making this card.
Now, the sky is done with the medium flat waterbrush. This was a two part technique. I squished the sapphire ink pad, to put some ink on the lid of the ink pad. I also stamped 6 sets of mountains in the sapphire ink and trimmed them out. I then stuck the post it notes down to cover all of the mountains. I watered down the ink in the lid of the ink pad, and did a quick wash starting from the post its and going up to the edge of the paper. This pulls the ink from the post it and also from the ink pad. I made this a quick process, as the post it notes are not water proof, and I didn’t want the water seeping through and ruining the mountains. You can see that some did seep, but not a ton, and it’s ok!
The front and inside are matted with the light side of the New England Ivy cardstock. As you can see, I also stamped one of each sized tree on the inside of the card.
I LOVE how this card turned out! I hope you do as well! Leave me a note and let me know what you think! Then, go and make one for yourself, and share your creation with me!
All products used are CTMH unless otherwise noted:
If you watched my Facebook live on Sunday, you heard that I haven’t had a chance to do much crafting this last week! Well, I decided that I would participate in a few challenge blogs! So, I came up with this card fairly quickly, since I was using the sketch from Case This Sketch #330, and I went with the AAA Birthday challenge of ‘for the girls’. Their challenge blog is ALL about birthdays! It is such a great blog to go and check out! You will find ALL sorts of ideas for birthday cards! I decided to round it off with Time Out Challenge’s prompt this fortnight, which was a prose from Oscar Wilde. “With Freedom, Flowers, and the Moon, who could NOT be happy?” Hence the flowers from the Craft On paper pack! I was also going to play along with another challenge, but I missed part of it, but that’s ok, I still like how this card turned out!
I used the shaker thin cuts for both the circle and the frame, the shaker window foam and acetate for the shaker part, and I filled it with bits and pieces from the gold sequin mix, and a few of the smaller pearls. I used the happy birthday sentiment from the Hippo-Partymus stamp set stamped in Archival Black ink.
I hope you like my little card! It went together very quickly! Plus, I have found a few fun challenge blogs to play along with! I would love it if you left a little note to let me know what you think!
This week we are celebrating! All those good times!
Today I have a fun mini page for you. This is a 6 x 8 page perfect for our mini album binders. Some of these papers might be hard to place, and that’s because they aren’t going to be where you look for them! The Hearts paper is from the Mix In Packet that is retiring in August. That fun striped paper? Would you believe it is the paper that is included in the Stories by Stacy Short Story Workshop? I had a bit of it left over that I haven’t used up yet! I thought it added the perfect pop of color on this page! I also used a tiny bit of scrap from the True Love paper pack for the sapphire topper on the journal spot.
There will be a photo at the top (obviously, right?) that will be of the gifts that we will be bringing to the nurses at Randall Children’s hospital for Audrey’s 1 year anniversary of her “got rid of me day”!
There is a little spot on the bottom right for some journaling about the day.
I used the Simply Said alphabet for the date that will go over the photo, and use the Sweet Girl Scrapbooking set for the line of dots on the date and the journal card, and the little sentiment on the left.
I really like how this page turned out! It’s not super busy, but it will be perfect for the day! And, should I need, I can add some flip flaps to the page as well, to add more photos!
All products used are CTMH unless otherwise noted:
This week’s challenge over at Heart 2 Heart is all about making waves! There are so many things that we could go with on this one, but I went more crafty, than photographic!
I decided to create my own B&T paper with the wave stamp from the Escape to Paradise set. I used sapphire ink on sapphire paper, and a little bit of masking to make the fun paper!
I used the Make it from your Heart, Volume 1 book, pattern 22 for this card. The stars paper is from the Into the Wild paper pack. I stamped the ship and tree with Intense black ink, and the sentiment and envelope with the archival ink. I colored the ship with the Carmine Touch Twin marker, and the tree on the inside used the Vivid Green and Clay markers. I did use the matching thin cuts to cut both the ship and the tree out. Both the front and the inside are layered with some sapphire cardstock.
I really had fun coming up with this card! I hope you enjoy it as well! Let me know what you think!
Supplies used are all CTMH unless otherwise noted:
This week’s challenge at Heart 2 Heart is all about Candy Apple Red! I don’t know about you, but I LOVE how red this color is! Valentine hearts, 1950’s Chevy Truck, and Candied Apples all come in this fantastic red color! This week’s challenge is to show you different ways to use it! You have a whole month to play along with us, so I do hope that you join us!
Today I drew inspiration from the Make it from your Heart volume 1. These books give you sketches with the cutting sizes, they also give you a finished piece of artwork to help you with ideas. Today I went from the idea, more than the actual sketch! We are using pattern 20 from the book today, so go and look it up! If you don’t have these books, I promise you, they will help you so much in your crafting!
Today my colors are Candy Apple (of course), White Daisy, and Black. I used a piece of Black cardstock cut at 4 1/4 x 11, scored at 5 1/2 for my card base. I then used two pieces of white daisy cardstock, both cut to 4 x 5 1/4. One for the outside and one for the inside, as it is easier to write on white cardstock than it is to write on black (well, it is if you want it to be able to seen!)
I random stamped the large heart from Stacy Julien’s Story by Stacy, Colorful Texture stamp set in candy apple ink on one piece of the white daisy, and just one single heart in the bottom right corner of the second piece. While I had the stamp out, I random stamped the back flap of the envelope and put one single heart on the bottom left of the front of the envelope.
I grabbed the words from the Colorful Texture set to create the sentiment on the card, also stamped in Candy Apple Red ink. I created the colon using the round end of my embossing tool. I used the i from ‘this’ in the stamp set, upside down, for the exclamation point after the word ‘you’. I used the journaling pen to create a stitched line on the outsides of the Candy Apple Heart.
Next, I cut off about 9 inches of the Candy Apple Striped ribbon, and used some glue dots to create the wave in the piece. I then used a few more glue dots to secure the black piece cut from the torn edge thin cut to the back of the ribbon.
Now it is time to put the whole thing together! I adhered both white daisy layers to the front and inside of the card using liquid glass. Then I glued the ribbon/paper cluster to the card just below 1/3 of the way from the bottom of the card. I used foam tape to pop up the heart from the card, and again to pop up the white circle from the heart. To finish off the card, I added some black enamel dots!
I really like how the card turned out! If you compare it to the artwork in the book, you can see that it very closely resembles it! (the stamps and such used in the book are now retired, so I used currently available items.
I hope that you like the card that I came up with! I would love to know what you think! Please leave a comment below and let me know!
Welcome to May and National Scrapbook Month! Every May, it is National Scrapbooking Month. So many companies and people and groups do all sorts of celebrations! Close to my Heart has a special for May, however that is not what I am showing you today! Today I am using the Sweet Girl Workshop Your Way to show you this super fun layout page.
I host a crafting retreat every year, and this year we happened to be at the beach on National Scrapbooking Day! It’s fantastic! I have always loved the beach, and totally wanted to incorporate the beach into my page. While I could have added sand to the page with my liquid glass, I didn’t . . . this time!
Most of the time, I plan plan plan before I cut anything. This time, I saw a layout on Pinterest, and fell in love! I just HAD to create it with the papers that I had! SO this fun, one page layout was created! I cut 3/4 x 1 1/2 inch strips from the center of the wood grain paper in the Sweet girl, then inked the edges with Almond ink and a sponge dauber. The SUPER fun part was the silver pieces! These look JUST like the inside of a seashell that you can find here on the Pacific Coast.
To do it, I started with the technique that I shared earlier this summer. (you can see that one here) So, you start with silver foil paper, then cover the whole thing with Black Shin Han Alcohol marker. Then you take an alcohol prep pad, and lightly go over it, removing some of the ink. It will look very grungy at this point. Then, you go back over it and dot the whole thing with the black marker, then the Warm Grey 7 marker, and then the Warm Grey 4 marker. Just dotting all over the place! (I used the chisel end for all of the dotting process) Then I went over with the Turquoise Blue marker, dotting here and there again, but sparingly this time. (I made sure to scribble off all of the color that it picked up, before I put it away again.
I let it dry for a bit, and then cut out the letters for BEACH out with the Block Letters Alphabet Thin Cuts, and paired it with the White Alphabet Foam Stickers and a banner that was stamped with the Modern Typewriter Alphabet stamp set. I know you can’t tell so much in the first picture, but I am hoping you can see how much shine comes through in the second picture. It turned out SO GREAT!!
I am going to put the group photo on this page for our retreat, and start an album for just those pages (which I have a few to get caught up on!). I am so please with this whole thing!
Thanks so much for stopping by! I do hope you liked my page! I would love it if you left a comment for me below, letting me know what you think! After that, head on over to the Heart 2 Heart Challenge blog, and play along with their challenge! The scrapbooking challenge is up until the end of the month, so you will have a lot of time to join us on this one!
Today marks another challenge over at the Heart 2 Heart challenge blog, and I know you want to play along! This week’s theme is Happy Times. This would be a GREAT scrapbook page, as it could be so very many different things!
Today I decided to go with a card with a sentiment that speaks volumes for many a happy time!
This card uses many different dies, and I LOVE how it turned out! So, let me walk you through my process, shall I?
I started with the Make it From Your Heart, Volume 4, and found pattern 3 (so, yeah, didn’t get too far into the book! LOL) that I loved how the stitching looked on the card. I’m all thumbs with a sewing machine, so I thought, “Hey! I have the stitching dies in the Decorative Borders Thin Cuts set!” So, I grabbed that out, started with a white daisy piece of cardstock that was 4″ x 5 1/2″, and marked at every inch, lightly with pencil. Then I ran the cardstock and die through the die cut machine 15 times! (this is definitely not a card you want to make a LOT of!)
Then I cut a piece of charcoal cardstock to be slightly larger than what the pattern called for, because I decided I wanted to use the scallop from the same set. (I ended up cutting that piece in half, to get the scallops where I wanted them) I glued that to the back side of a piece of B&T from the Feels Like Home paper pack. Then I attached the stripe pieces from the Something Fierce paper pack to the back side of the scallops. Then I attached that little cluster to the piece that I had done the stitching to.
I wrapped a piece of the White & Gold Ribbon around the flower B&T, and attached on the back with a piece of foam tape, on both sides. Then I added Foam tape behind the rest of the white cardstock piece. I glued the white daisy and charcoal circles together and popped them up on some foam tape as well. Then I tied a bow in the white and gold ribbon, and attached it to the card at the meeting of the circle and ribbon with some micro glue dots.
I decided that I wanted to up the envelope a bit, so it would match the card a bit more, and to make it a bit more fun to receive. So, I glued a piece of the striped paper from the Something Fierce paper pack, the same piece that was used on the card, and trimmed with my microtip scissors.
I hope that you really like my card, and would LOVE it if you decided that you needed to make one just like it! It would be great if you would leave a comment and let me know what you think of this fun little card!
These paper packs and the stamp of the month will both only be available until the end of April, so you will want to make sure to hop on over and get them before they are gone!
