Quick Post

I wanted to show you two cards I made earlier this month and have not had a chance to post.  One is a birthday card I made for my brother and the other is a sympathy card.  I made them several weeks back so I don't have a materials list for these two.  Sorry about that!

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Pet Sympathy

Last week I made a pet sympathy card for a family member who had to say goodbye to their four-legged friend.  I wanted to send a sympathy card to let her know I was so sorry to hear the news and I was thinking of her.  I have a Pet Sympathy stamp set by Papertrey Ink and a Pet Charms die set by My Favorite things that  I used to make this card.  I hope the card brought a little bit of comfort.  I know how hard it is to say goodbye to a beloved pet and member of the family.

Get Well Card

This week Get Well seemed to be a theme in terms of card creation.  Two family members are under the weather and I needed to make Get Well cards for them.  I used my Silhouette to cut out the words Get Well and used the Offset feature to create a layered look.  The papers chosen for the card are a little more muted to convey a more masculine feel (I can't remember the name of the patterned paper pad I used for this card.  That's what I get for procrastinating on posting to my blog!)  

After making the Get Well cards, I turned my attention to making another Valentine card.  This was a card I made on YouTube last Friday - here.

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Conversation Hearts

I love making my own embellishments.  The creative challenge of making an embellishment instead of purchasing that embellishment at the store is really a fun exercise for me.  Enamel dots are all the rage these days and they are fun to make and use.  But dots just won't do for Valentine's Day!

 The Valentine's cards I am making are calling out for enamel hearts so..........I decided to make my own.  I purchased these assorted color bling hearts from Joann.com (they may sell these in the store, but I ordered mine online for $2.49 for a bag of 78 hearts in assorted sizes).  Next I  painted the hears with white paint.  I did this to take away some of the translucency of the hearts. You can skip this step, but it may take you more coats of nail polish to give the hearts that enamel look.  Next I stuck two flat-topped toothpicks in a piece of foam packaging and put a glue dot on top of each toothpick. I did this so I could affix the heart on top of the toothpick in preparation for painting them with nail polish.  Next, I took out my collection of nail polish (most purchased at the Dollar Tree) and started painting the hearts.  Most colors only took two coats to achieve the enamel look I was after.  

The next challenge in this project was to find stamps small enough to fit on the medium, medium large and large size hearts.  I used my Papertrey Ink Tiny Tags and Tiny Tags II to stamp on the hearts with StazOn ink.  It is important to use a permanent ink that is formulated for slick surfaces - otherwise whatever you stamp on the hearts will wipe right off.

That's it.  Really fun and cute embellishments.

Thanks for visiting my blog and let me know if you have any questions.

I Am Guilty Of.......

I am guilty of major blog neglect!!!  It has been months since I last posted and my only excuse is that other things in life took priority.  I am hoping to post more regularly on this blog - the goal is at least once per week. My intentions are good so we will see what happens.

Valentine's day is a few weeks away and so I have been busy making Valentine's cards.  These are hands down my favorite type of card to make.  It's probably because I love the colors often used on these cards - the pinks, the reds, and the aquas.

The card featured on my blog today was made using the following materials:



SimonSaysStamp Heart Rainfall die
Silhouette Two-Tone Umbrella cut
My Favorite Things Flat Bottom Cloud die
Papertrey Ink Confetti Garland Border die (Hearts)
Paper Studio Tiny Hearts Embossing folder
Papertrey Ink White card stock
American Crafts 6x6 Valentine patterned paper
Wink of Stella glitter brush pen

When I purchased the SimonSaysStamp Heart Rainfall die I knew I wanted to make this card.  Don't some dies just speak to you like that?  This one certainly did for me.

I hope you like the card and thanks for visiting my long neglected blog!

Birthday Wishes

I made this card for a friend who is celebrating a birthday (a rather significant birthday!).  She is definitely not a day over 29 (again).  I wanted to make her a special card for the occasion. She likes pink so I made sure to incorporate plenty of shades of pink on this card.

I used the Pink Paislee London Market 6x6 paper pad (one of my favorite paper collections), some lace from Hobby Lobby, a pink grosgrain ribbon from Martha Stewart Crafts and die cut frame (I made this card about a month ago and cannot remember the die I used for that frame).  I also used the Spellbinders Decorative Labels 8 die to cut Papertrey Ink Sweet Blush card stock to back the frame.  I had to cut two of these frame backs and piece them together because one die cut was not wide enough to back the frame.  I don't think it shows where I did that.

The card base is cut from a piece of Rustic Cream card stock by Papertrey Ink.  The image in the frame is from a CD of ephemera that I purchased on ebay about 6 years ago.  If you do a search on ebay you can still find CDs of ephemera.  These images are such fun to print out and use on cards and projects.

On the inside of the card I cut a Spellbinders Classic Rectangle out of Papertrey Ink Sweet Blush card stock and used the rest of the Spellbinders Decorative Labels 8 piece to give a decorative edge to the rectangle.  I stamped a happy birthday sentiment and added a bling flourish to complete the card.

The card measures 4.25 x 5.5 inches and is a side fold card.

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Letterpress Madness...

I recently purchased the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress Starter Kit on clearance at Hobby Lobby.  I have always been a fan of letterpress cards, but had never tried to craft my own.  When I saw this kit on clearance, I decided to give it a go.

The kit comes with black letterpress ink and a few letterpress plates so it does contain everything needed to get started.  While I know I will use the black ink that comes in the kit, I did want to expand my color choices.  One look at the price per tube - $6 on Amazon.com - had me rethinking that desire.

Before I had even opened the starter kit box, I was back to Hobby Lobby to find some letterpress ink at a more affordable price.  I found some Speedball Block Printing Ink.  This is a thick, sticky ink that is very much like the ink used in letterpress. The price per tube is $6.99 but you get 2.5 ounces compared to One ounce of the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress ink.  You get a lot more for your money buying the Speedball ink and I used a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby that brought the price to just a little over $4 per tube. Much better.  Then, I happened to be at Michael's picking up some resin and I browsed the clearance aisle and found 12 different colors of the Speedball ink for $2.48 each. But wait- it gets better - clearance items were an ADDITIONAL 50% off so I was able to buy each tube of ink for $1.24!!!  Score!!!!!!

Okay - so I also ran to Joann's this weekend and found seven of the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress Plate kits for $2.97 each (one of the kits was $5.97). The cheapest I have been able to find them online was $15.  I was so excited to find the plate kits at such a great price that I was almost jumping for joy in the store aisle.

Now, onto the paper needed to letterpress.  The kit came with several sheets of the letterpress paper which is a thick, soft paper.  It is really a nice quality, but again, not cheap.  I wanted to experiment with other papers I had on hand to see if they would letterpress well.   I used a Canson Watercolor paper, the Lifestyle Crafts letterpress paper that came in the kit and a piece of Pure Poppy card stock by Papertrey Ink.

The best impression was achieved with the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress paper (no surprise here). The Canson Watercolor Paper (purchased at Hobby Lobby some time ago) was a close second.  I misted the Canson paper with water and let it dry a bit before letterpressing to soften it up a bit.  I did like the results with this paper.  The Papertrey Ink card stock did not letterpress as well.  It looks nice but there is not very much de-bossing on this paper.   I may need to add another shim and see how that works.

The photo of the silver Christmas tree is letterpress with the Lifestyle crafts paper.

The damask design at left is letterpress with the Canson watercolor paper.

I also included a photo of the Canson watercolor paper  (on the left) and Lifestyle Crafts letterpress paper (on the right) side-by-side so you can compare.  It is hard to get a sense of the quality in photos and I am planning to do a video on this soon.

And lastly, below is a photo of letterpress on the Pure Poppy card stock from Papertrey Ink.

Using the kit is a lot of fun and I am planning to make some letterpress holiday cards.  This craft can be a little messy so make sure you have plenty of wet wipes on hand for clean up.

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