Quick Card

I'm falling behind again. Not totally due to work, but also due to the fact that I don't have very much to show. But I'm spending my day in the craft room, so hopefully that will change!!

Here is a quick card I made for my class last week. The saying is one of the new stamps from Unity Stamps and I love it!!

Simple Candi

Have I mentioned that I love the new Candi dots?? I thought so. I've been playing with them all week and they're so cool. I've been waiting to share this card all week. I taught it in my Quick Cards class and so wanted to wait until after that to share.

You could put whatever sentiment you'd like on it and it's so quick. The stem of the flower is just a flourish (Autumn Leaves).

Peace Pears

They say it takes 21 days to establish a new habit and I'm trying to make blogging a habit. So, this is day 4, right?? I'm hoping I make it to 21.

Truthfully, I think it's less of a habit thing and more of a I ran out of time thing. Or I don't have anything to show thing. But I'm working on both of those too, so hopefully I can do well this year.

This is a card I did for my December "Quick Cards" class. I really like this pear and haven't used it in awhile, so it was fun, along with an old technique: kissing. I stamped the Pear with Distress Ink and then stamped another stamp on the Pear so I got the texture. Very quick and easy.


The Pear is from "A Stamp in the Hand" and the script is "Hero Arts." I love that script stamp and use it a lot; I really think everyone needs a background script stamp.

I hold my Quick Cards class the first Thursday afternoon of each month. People are welcome to sign up for one or as an ongoing commitment. Let me know if you are interested!

Believe

I have been teaching my quick cards class for a couple months now and I'm enjoying it so much. It's a small group of awesome women and we have so much fun.

One of the cards we created this month was a quick Christmas card. Once again, it features some of my favorite Tim Holtz stamps (the trees and a different reindeer). I love how I can use them so many different ways. The trees are from "Reindeer Flight" and the reindeer is from "Season's Silhouettes."

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't been stamping much (at all). I figure it will continue like this until after Christmas. Then I'm hoping to go hard for a couple of weeks and maybe, just maybe, get Nathalie's pages done until her first birthday. It's still a possibility.

Until then, here is my Believe card.

Dazzled Flower

I got crap last week for ignoring my blog, so I thought I'd try harder. I might not type much, but I do actually have things that I can share, so I will try to do at least that.

I've been actually working through my journaling book (the one I posted about last week or the week before). I am LOVING it. I bought a little journal and I already have a ton of notes about stuff to journal and write about.

We were decorating the tree on Saturday and I asked the kids about their favorite Christmas Traditions, so I will definitely be doing a page about that for this years Christmas pages.

I'm finding myself quite inspired. What I seem to be lacking is time to do something with the inspiration. I can't seem to get everything, can I??

Anyway, here is a card from my last Quick Cards class. I love how simple it is, but how the Dazzles make the flowers pop.



My next Quick Cards class will be Thursday, January 5, 2012 from 12:30 - 2:30 pm. Let me know if you are interested in attending.

For Laura

I was texting with my friend, Laura, yesterday and I asked her what her favorite colour was. It's her birthday coming up on Sunday and I wanted to work on a project for her and didn't want to do it in a colour she hated. Well, Laura's favorite colour is purple, so I went to the scrapbook store today and bought some purple paper. More about this in a bit.

Another friend came over tonight to stamp for a bit. My big goal was to come up with a template for my Christmas card. I'm going to a retreat next weekend and I want to be able to work on my project for Laura and on my Christmas cards. I think I came up with something I can live with. It doesn't scream, I love it, but I don't hate it, so I'm going to let it sit for a couple of days and see what comes to me.

After that, I decided I wanted to make another card. I flipped through my "A Card A Day" book and found what I thought was the card for October 21. I made my own version and I kind of liked it. I was trying to pick a colour and naturally, reached for navy. I decided I needed to branch out a bit, since I've done a lot with blue lately (with working on Eric's scrapbook). So, I thought about my conversation with Laura yesterday and started looking through the purple paper. It was fun as the entire time I was stamping, I was thinking of her. I've never actually met her, but she makes me smile and laugh and so it was fun to create something with her in mind.


I decided to do a 4x4" card since the one I was copying was a square. I really like this size because it doesn't seem as daunting. I cut the light purple cardstock to 3.75" x 2.5" and I cut the dark purple to 4" across. Then I used my Tim Holtz Ornate Border Die and cut along the bottom. I trimmed it so it would fit and glued them down.

I made the flowers using white cardstock and my Tim Holtz Flower die. I stamped "French Script" (Hero Arts - I LOVE this stamp and use it all the time) in Victorian Velvet Distress ink. I really like the Distress Inks because they react so well with water and you can do so many things with them. After I stamped, I took my water brush and moved the ink just a bit. Then I took my brush and touched it to the ink pad and darkened the edges of each flower to give them some depth. I like the look of an inked edge, but on small intricate pieces, it's impossible to do directly with the ink pad. Which is what lead to my discovery tonight of just picking up colour directly from the pad and adding it wherever I wanted. I added a brad to each flower and then assembled the card. The saying (Penny Black) was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black in the top left corner.

The card doesn't really look like the one I was copying, but that's OK. I bought this book because there is a card dedicated to every day and I thought that when I was lacking motivation or creativity, I could just look at today's date and copy a card to get me started. Of course, when it was all said and done, I realized that I had copied the September 21st card and not the October 21st one, but oh well. (Did you know that apparently, September 19th is International Talk like a Pirate Day? Nope? Neither did I. I'm sad I missed that card as it would have been a fun one to make).

I dedicate this card to my friend, Laura and although I won't get her surprise to her by Sunday, I want to wish her a Happy Birthday anyway.

A new baby

My brother and his wife had a new baby boy this morning. I used it as an excuse to go to my craft room and stamp instead of cleaning the kitchen and working. I thought it was a valid excuse.

While I've been scrapbooking a bit lately, I haven't felt overly creative. I've been copying layouts and pulling ideas from magazines. It always takes me a little while to be able to just create something on my own. I jumped that hurdle today though. It wasn't the most brilliant card, but I worked through the issues I had as I was making it and not quite liking "something."

I started with the white paper and stamped "Samuel" across the bottom with a Fancy Pants alphabet set I have using Blue Iris chalk ink. Then I stamped the baby stamp (Inkadinkado) on white cardstock with Blue Iris ink. I embossed some blue Core'dinations paper with big dots and then sanded it. But when I put it together, it was still missing something. I used my little Tim Holtz distressing tool and it helped, but it wasn't enough. So, I pulled out my Distress-It-All tool and went hard distressing the edges and then I loved it. Well, maybe not loved it, but liked it well enough to give it away.

If you haven't played with the Distress-It-All, it's quite cool. I love that distressed look, but it takes forever with the little mini tool. My friend, Jacqueline, told me to get the DIA and so I added it to one of my orders. It's so quick and easy and does a fantastic job. I don't know that I would have splurged on it, but I'm so glad that I have it now. I used it on my calendar pages (I'll post my page after I get the calendars all bound and distributed). It was so quick and easy and I found that I'm really liking that look right now.

I was lucky today because my sister came over and we scrapbooked for a bit too. I even created a layout without looking for inspiration in a magazine. I'll possibly post pictures of that tomorrow.

So, Happy Birthday to my new nephew, Samuel Louis (Louis was my grandfather's name). And here is the card I made for him.

A Wedding Card

I needed two wedding cards. Glenn's cousin is getting married this weekend in BC and I want to send the card with his parents who are attending. One of his friends also recently got married and so I needed another card. I sat down last night, high from Thanksgiving turkey and excited since it's been awhile since I stamped. I was optimistic since I had some recent success with scrapbooking, however, it was a struggle.

I had a kind of idea in my head, but I couldn't see it clearly and I definitely couldn't get it down on paper. I find it frustrating when I struggle and often, I walk away, however, I needed to get these cards done as I was under time constraints. I think that likely contributed to my creative issues.

I pushed through and in the end, I finished with a card that is OK. I long ago gave myself permission to not like everything I make. Sometimes OK is good enough. And just because I don't love it, doesn't mean someone else will feel the same way. I discovered that a few years ago when I was submitting cards to magazines on a regular basis. They always seemed to publish the cards I didn't like nearly as much and seemed to ignore the ones I loved.

So, yesterday, OK was good enough.


I used the Spellbinders Labels 4 to cut out a teal panel. I stamped Love (Art Impressions) with Dark Brown chalk ink. Then I embossed the panel with the Cuttlebug Victorian folder. I stamped two hearts (Clearly in Love set by Penny Black) with Dark Brown ink on white cardstock. It's hard to see, but I coloured and traced various portions with a Stardust pen to add some glitter. I cut the hearts out and mounted them on the panel with foam dots.

Now comes the hard part. Writing the sentiment inside. But seeing as it's Glenn's cousin and his friend, I think I'll leave that part up to him.