Struggles on The Open Sea

The title sounds like a great book to read, but not so fun evening of card making! I don't know what it is, maybe too much working on the wedding, stress, or what have you, having to sit down to make a masculine birthday card was a monumental task.  This card took forever to design and create!

I used the stash to create this card but I believe SU Real Red, SU Chocolate Chip and GP White card stock were used.   I used Early Espresso ink to stamp the images and sentiment from Something to Celebrate, and The Open Sea.  I used Mosaic  Cuttlebug folder to emboss, and several SU punches,  namely Large Oval, Designer Label and Decorative Label.   I stamped a lot of other images and used more punches with them...I intended to make a series of 3 cards.   I think I was trying to hard...or just plain old rusty, but  one card is all I got!   SU bakers twine was a finishing touch.

Hope you enjoy it I still haven't decided if I like it yet... I guess I like it enough to post today last night not sure...Until Later... Happy Stamping!

More Wedding Projects

SO I have been busy as usual working on things I cant show you until April.  But after I finished the part I can do now, I managed to start another project...

DD's Bouquet

When My DD's get married I search the internet frantically for deals and inspiration to help me come up with a theme to go with my child and the wedding colors...In the searching this time I came across some paper rose garlands that cost about 20+ $'s for a 6' length...very expensive when you are coming up with decorating a big hall. I decided I could make some garlands myself so I ordered floral tape and wire online...Love AFLORAL for this  I always get my flowers for bouquet, boutineers and corsages from them..and a few to mix in for centerpieces and decorating.  Their flowers are a high quality, real looking silks... However I have a hard time spending big bucks on flowers to decorate a whole room.  SO I prayed about it alot and one day I had inspiration...We have hung white lights on the ceiling before nice lighting effect but a little bland...My white light source moved away, but MY new light source had lights with green wires, and in my want to make the green light cording more acceptable my inspiration came...  make your own garlands with the green wired lights.  I ordered  bulk Purple tissue paper on Amazon from  Buttons, Bags and Bows ...I got colors to go with her bouquet.  I  start fiddling with dies and things to make the flowers...the tissues proved too thin..they cut well but did not work for what I had in mind. Ultimately I did the old grade school fan fold and tore it in half and then used floral tape to attach it around every other light.

My daughter saw me attaching flowers and said gee that looks great, where did that Idea come from?... you should do a blog post...since she has never made an observation like that before  I decided to do a post.  I plan to dress them up more but I have to go in stages because I cant be over working at the end. So for right now I am only doing one color per strand.   I will be making 8-10 strands, so if I want to  I might add some green tissue leaves or add some more flowers in a different shade of purple. So for this DIY mom I will have roughly 650' of garland with lights to use in decorating..for the same price as buying 1-6' unlighted piece... In May I promise to post a picture of the finished product decorating my DD reception.  I love when inspiration works in my favor!
Until later ...Happy Stamping!

PS ...I do plan on making a nice paper one for decorating some lattice that will be more visually close to peoples eyes...if  I manage to have enough time I will post them after I make them.

Chocolate Cake Card!

This last week was very busy..I worked on getting a few odds and ends projects out of the way that I have been meaning to do for awhile.

When the F4A101 challenge was posted last Friday on SCS I imediately thought of chocolate roses and chocolate frosting on a Chocolate cake.  one day I will get to have some again but right now I am dieting and trying my best to get all the unhealthy excess fat off my body, so I guess a paper cake would have to do.  I also wanted to do the sketch challenge, SC367,  so I combined the two...imagine if you will  the center chocolate chip card sotck strip as the chocolate cake!

Still loving my Big Shot, I used my Musical Flourish, and Swiss Dots Cuttlebug EF's for the base pieces.  The roses were made using my SU Scalloped Circle Punch, and spiral cutting it, then rolling it up and tweaking it until it looked like a rose.
Since I was having glue dot issues I used 5mm sticker pearls by The Paper Studio in the centers.
the very vanilla Seam binding ribbon was the perfect touch to finish off the card.  The SU Designer Label punch was used twice once with Crumb Cake and once in Chocolate Chip to add the little shadow at the bottom, and since I made 2  the other side was used for a duplicate card.  The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations  a long time SU favorite.
the embossed background  card stock is SU Crumb Cake, with  my base a Staple's Cream cover stock.

I hope you enjoyed it!...until later Happy Stamping!

Hi I have been trying my best to keep up with post despite working on 400 invites I cant show you until Mid April.

Today I finished embossing the invites so I grabbed the same embossing folder and made a card to use for SU TLC361.

Wendy had red the challenge to me over Skype last night why I was embossing so with out looking I did what she said and this is the card I came up with.

I used scrap pieces of Cream Staples cover stock that I am using for the invites. I used it as the stamped and embossed and base of the card. The black is Embassy card stock I picked up at Wal-mart a while back. I embossed with River Rock on the negative space of the Victoria Cuttlebug embossing folder.  The ribbon is left over from the 400 invites I did 2 years ago.  So you see I have been using my stash proudly.  The black label is a Sizzix Label,Orante#4, I have been waiting to use that. The sentiment was stamped with Jet Black StazOn ink and punched out using SU: Decorative label punch.

Hope you like it!  Until Later... Happy Stamping!

Some Cricut Safari Fun

I made 2 of these cards for my little great nieces…one just had her first birthday. 

I have been wanting to make them ever since I saw this card on Wendy’s Blog months ago. 

  I have been trying to make time to make it forever. Today I was tired of working on the Wedding invites everyday so I decided to work on the Birthday cards I need the next few months.

I used DP from a K& Company, 10x10 paper pack called, “Itsy Bitsy Baby Boy”, I picked up  for a baby scrapbook album a few years ago.   I thought the blue and green dots would be perfect echoing the green grass and adding a bit of blue for sky.  I cut all the pieces out after laying them out on my Gypsy.  The two carts I used were Celebrate with Flourish and Create a Critter.  I need to use them both more. Colors of cardstock…Embassy Black, GP White, SU… Lucky Limeade, So Saffron, Early Espresso…the orange is from the stash scraps so I am not sure the color. I used th eSu Sweet button Embosslet for the center.  The ribbon you might recognize is from the first wedding  3 yrs ago., again using the stash, and  blue for the sky!

The layout was all Wendy.   I basically copied her card other than the grass, and using Designer paper.  I could have worked on the grass and merged and worked on it a bit, but all the home interruptions were just way to much today.  The sentiment is from SU’s… Up, Up, and Away set.   I am grateful Wendy did all the leg work on this card because I have been way too busy to design my own.  I just love  her Creativeness.   I am just happy to have something to blog about and glad to have time to make some cards. I was back at creasing all the lines I have been scoring the last few days.  I have another 200 to crease but I am making progress…Until later… Happy Stamping!

A Terrific Tip!

Today I was working on my daughters wedding invites. Punching 100's of corners is a pain under normal conditions,but I was having a terrible time with the punch after doing the first hundred invites(like pictured).

I kept having to tap the punch on the table to knock all the little pieces off after every piece, because it was keeping the punch from opening after the punch and having to double punch for about 25 I was beginning to wonder if punching the invite was a good idea. I thought those little pieces are such a pain.
I remembered I had a torn dryer sheet to help with plastic tabs from dimensionals and static, so I grabbed it. Like magic all the fine paper dust and little pieces fell off imediately after one swipe on the underside of the punch.

I held the punch "squeezed" so I could make contact with the upper metal. I used it for the next 25 and it worked perfectly. I then wiped all the plastic underside off too. The little pieces all fall to the table like the should now.

I am hoping to get a few birthday cards made and posted this weekend.
Until then...Happy Stamping

Inspired By Love Card

I started this card yesterday and finished it this morning...Its been one busy day. I have an event tonight that I am making decorations and food for and it has taken  up some of my time this week.  When I saw the IC318 Challenge I found this Frame that inspired me! (Shocking I know!)  However I didn't have anytime Sat to make the card.  Yesterday I looked at the Color Challenge CC357 and decided to combine the two Challenges and this is the card I came up with...I think it turned out cute.  I used several Embossing folders and Punches...I like the dimension and layers.  the fist thing I did was emboss the GP White card stock , and then trimmed it to the width of 5X5 heart blocks. then I got 2 Scraps of riding hood red and embossed the top and fifth row of the folder again. Then I trimmed the 1st and 5th hearts on each piece. Next I measured the inside square and trimmed another piece of card stock  to roughly 2 1/4" x 2 1/8". Embossed with QuicKuts Circles EF. I then matted it with Blushing Bride card stock and trimmed to roughly 1/16". Next I punched and embossed with SU Scallop trim border punch a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" piece of Baja Breeze.  After punching I line the inside flat edge on my paper cutter where the Black plastic is covers so It gets about a 1/16" edge. then I applied Adhesive to the edge of the BB matting and trimmed  trying to follow the Dots.  then I used 1/16" dimensionals to adhere the framed art to the White embossed backing and then adhered the Red hearts on dimensionals also.  the last mat piece of Baja Breeze was  Cut  1/2" wider on each edge than the white Heart Block embossed piece.  I then punched with SU Scalloped Trim Corner punch then lined up the border piece for the top and sides.. The top almost matched up perfectly. The suides however would not so I centered the Border on the piece of card stock then, used my 1/4" hand punch to double punch close to the rings on each side creating the little dip then used sciccors to trim out the little excess in between. I was going to use some brads in the dips but decided it looked nice with out. The last thing I assembled was the red Riding Hood Heart embossed with SU Embosslit Scalloped Heart to Heart. I used SU silver elastic cord to tie on the SU Tiny Tags love tag..First stamped in background of Baja Breeze ink and then using StazOn Jet Balk ink to stamp the *Love*. After I punched it out using SU Tiny Tag punch. The finished card is 4 1/4" BY 5" What  do you think??
Until Later...Happy Stamping!