Button Ornaments

After making two and a half cards today, I decided to share the button ornament card.  It was an easy card to make, but turned out beautiful.  Using a stamp from the Snow Day set, I stamped "Warm wishes" onto the white overlay.  I then took my stamp marker and drew five lines with ornament tops.  Using glue dots, I adhered the buttons onto the overlay.  To finish this card, I placed pearls in the middle of the buttons.  This card was cased from on that I say on Pinterest.  It turned out great.  After making this card, I think I will be using more buttons in the future since this card turned out so well.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Minion Christmas!

Tonight I decided I wanted to do some punch art and I found this cute minon so I had to make it.  I will include the directions for the minon at the end of my blog.  After I completed my minon, I created a Santa hat for him.  I then stamped the snowman and made him appear to be looking up at the snow.  Both the snowman and the minon look excited to see snow.  This card turned out pretty cute.  Creating the minon was a lot of fun and I can't wait to get all my punches in January so I can do more punch art.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Minon Directions:  http://craftypawsbytrisha.blogspot.com/2013/06/minion-card-from-despicable-me.html

Stockings

After sitting at school for an extra 3 hours tonight at Parent-Teacher Conferences, I decided that an easy card was in order since I had to be back at school in less than 12 hours.  Using my trimmer, I cut out the two overlays and the base for the card.  I then used a few stamps from the Snow Day stamp set.  I used a ruler and my black stamp marker to draw the lines to make it appear the images were hanging from the words.  This card is simple and I know that some of my cards lately have been simple, but I have to keep reminding myself that I am keeping up with my project and not giving up.  There has been days were I have so many things going on where I want to give up, but I just keeping going and that is huge for me.  Since tomorrow is a half day, I am hoping I can find my craft table and make a complex card for tomorrow's creation.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Pop Up Slider Christmas Card

Another day of making cards for the craft fair and trying out new cards to show off there, I decided to make a pop up slider Christmas card.  It had a great video tutorial to walk me through the different steps.  Instead of boring you with the step by step instructions, here is the YouTube video tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-bLf6OaP5Y).  The card turned out pretty cool and I can't wait make it for other occasions.  After making 50 cards this weekend and still having 50 more to do this week, I am excited to create new cards that will hopefully impress people at the craft fair.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Another Snowman!

Today has been a very productive day for me.  I have created four cards and that includes the creation for today's blog. On top of being creative I also made pasta salad and washed the sheets (mind you it's Sunday and only 3 p.m.)  We should set our clocks back an hour more often as I wish I could be this productive all the time.  It helped that I had a friend coming over so that motivated me as well so I wasn't worrying about my card after he went home.  But enough about my day and onward with the blog.

This card is a little bit out of my comfort zone since I usually have an overlay on my card base.  Cutting a piece of designer paper that was about 2" thick for the top of the card I then cut out the deco label and the word "Merry" from the Deco Label Framelits and Expression Thinlits.  These items are very unique in shape and without my trust Big Shot (as the Silhouette is out for repair) I was able to create them with ease.  Then I stamped my snowman onto the label using colors that matched with the strip of paper at the top of the card.  Once that I was completed, I adhered everything together.  I felt like something was missing so I took one of my Merry Christmas stamps and only colored in the word "Christmas."  After it was stamped onto a piece of white paper, I cut around the edges so it had the same about of white on all sides.  Using my scissors, I cut a triangle off one end to make it look like a banner.  I am not exactly sure how I feel about tonight's creation, but it turned out pretty well.  It is a little bit different not using an overlay, but I need get out of my shell and be more creative.  This will help me grow as a card maker and expand my card collection that much more as well.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Christmas Stamp-a-Stack

Tonight was such a blast.  I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to send 3 hours with creating Christmas cards.  It is amazing what you learn from other people that seems so simple, but yet it isn't something you would have thought of.  Like last time, I learned a new trick that just amazed me since I didn't think of it before.  Instead of using a whole sheet of paper for an overlay, she just cut 2" strips for the edges so that it looked like there was an overlay underneath.  It is the little things that just have me in aww lately. Since the cards were pre-cut for me and scored, I won't go into much detail about the cards, but if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail me.  Let's discuss tonight's five creations.

Creating these five cards was a lot of fun since we got to use so many different tools that Stampin UP has to offer.  Besides the tools, we got to use a lot of the new holiday stamp sets as well.  Just when I thought I was done ordering from the Holiday catalog, I found more things that I want to get now.  It was just cool to see how many different tools and stamps you could use for just one card.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

My Personal Favorite

Christmas Bulbs!

It is finally Friday.  I thought this day was never going to come, but it has finally arrived and I am ready for a very busy weekend.  This week has been extremely long with meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and of course the day to day responsibilities of being a teacher.  Even though this week has been exhausting, I have been looking forward to receiving more Stampin UP goodies.  I even used a few of my new goodies on tonight's creations.  Let's discuss tonight's creation.

Using my new Blossom Petals Punch, I punched out four small petals in primary colors to make the Christmas bulbs.  I then used the Modern Label to punch out two separate black labels.  Once that was done, I cut them into thirds so that I could use the two end pieces as the base of the bulbs.  After the bulbs were completed, I used my Bird punch and punched out three branches in black.  Then I removed the leaves to give it the appearance of a power cord.  Once the string of lights were completed, I stamped "Merry Christmas" from the Sassy Salutations stamp set.  Since there was a lot of white space I decided to stamp snowflakes random on the overlay until I was satisfied with it.  This was not the card I planned on creating tonight, but when you talk on the phone for over an hour and play with your new goodies, time seems to get away from.  This is a simple creation and the person receiving it will enjoy it none the less.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Snowman!

Today went pretty fast.  It seemed like I sat down  to write some lesson plans for next week and it was already time for Computer class.  As I walked around the room in my various classes, I was happy to see the students using the home row.  It has been a struggle to keep their hands on the home row since bad habits have already started, but I think they are seeing the benefit of using the home row now.  Enough about my day and my wonderful students and onto tonight's creation.

After creating a few complex cards for the week, I decided it was time for a simple one.  Using my trimmer, I custom cut my card base and overlay.  Once those were cut out, I took out my Snow Day stamp set and a few ink pads.  Using the masking technique, I stamped five snowmen in different spots on the overlay.  Once the body of the snowmen were complete, I added a face, arms, and buttons to them.  After completing my snowmen, I noticed I had room for a sentiment so I stamped "Christmas Wishes" in the open space from the Joy to the World stamp set.  I still thought something was missing so I add some snowflakes onto the card as well.  Tonight's creation was inspired from Pinterest, but I changed it to make it my own.  I love how this card turned out and I might have to make a few more since I still have 50 cards left to make before December 1st.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Mini Blind Card

As I was enjoying my Sunday afternoon, I realized that there are only 72 days until Christmas, which means there are only 47 days until December 1st.  Since I try to mail out my Christmas cards on December 1st so that they arrive before the craziness of Christmas begins.  Last year, people didn't receive their card until about 3 weeks after we mailed them since our Post Office decided to hold on to them for an extra two weeks until they mailed them out.  This year I am taking them to a different Post Office to mail them out so that doesn't happen again.  With this being said, I will be making Christmas cards until December 1st since I have over 50 cards to make.  Let's briefly discuss tonight's creation since I had hard time following directions.

Tonight I decided to make a card that was more challenging then my recent cards this past week. This card was pinned awhile ago, but I haven't had the chance to make it yet so I decided to go searching for the instructions. I learned that I should read all of the instructions and not assume that I know how to  make the card just by looking at the pictures.  Since I didn't read the instructions this card not turn out the way I envisioned.  Instead of me telling you how I made the card, I will be providing the link to the instructions.  I thought that would be more helpful since I couldn't follow them in the first place.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Blind Closed

Blind Opened

Link to the Instructions:  http://papercookies.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2012/04/04/a-mini-blind-card-tutorial/

Halloween Snowman!

Today was a very long day since I had to get up extra early to attend an award ceremony in Madison.  Our school received the School of Recognition Award for the second year in a row. This award goes to schools for their work to break the link between poverty and low academic achievement through rigorous programming and attention to student needs.  I was very honored to be able to accept this award on the behalf of my school.  Our teachers and students have worked very hard and I am honored to be part of all of the great things that we do for our students.  Enough about the pleasures of being a teacher and let's discuss tonight's creation.

Since I woke up in the dark and came home in the dark, I decided that an easy card was in order tonight.  I used a pre-made card from my collection to make tonight's creation.  I am hoping that I will soon run out of my pre-made cards, but just when I think I've used them all I'll find another box.  After picking out the card, I used my trimmer to cut out the white overlay.  I then stamped the orange snowman onto the white overlay.  Using another stamp set, I stamped the triangle eyes onto the snowman.  The stamp set that I have for jack-o-lanterns had a few face choices for the snowman, but they were all too big so I drew the mouth onto the snowman.  Once the face was completed, I used the snowman set again to stamp the buttons on him.  After the Halloween snowman was finished, I stamped "Happy Halloween" on the top of the overlay.  I then used my ink dauber and went around the edges to make the border.  When creating this card, I didn't really have a vision in mind.  I just started stamping and it lead me tonight's creation.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Happy Holidays!

Since I am feeling under the weather again tonight, I decided to make a really easy card.  I used my trimmer to cut all of the overlays for the pre-made card.  After the overlays were cut out, I embossed the middle white one with my big shot.  I then stamped "Happy Holidays to you & yours" and a snowflake on the other white overlay.  Once everything was completed, I assembled my card.  Even though tonight's card is easy, I still like it.  This card could be made in several different colors and would be very easy to reproduce.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Hello Friend

While today didn't start out any better than yesterday since I woke up to a sick dog again at 2:30 in the morning, but my day did get better when I got to school.  My day was not as crazy as yesterday and that helped as well.  It was a very tiring day since I didn't get much sleep, but I made it through the day.  Once I got home, I searched Pinterest and then decided that I need a nap before making tonight's creation.  Let's discuss the skinny of tonight's card.

Tonight I used my Silhouette sketch pens to write "Hello Friend" on the overlay.  Once the sentiment was written, I used my Silhouette to cut out the overlay so that the sentiment was in the correct location.  Using my trimmer, I cut out four rectangles that are all different sizes.  Once the rectangles were cut out, I glued the pattern paper on top of the solid pink.  I then overlapped them on my card and I tired to make sure that both sides had the same amount of space.  After that part of the card was glued down, I used the Mixed Bunch stamp set to stamp the flower and the center.  I used a dark purple (Elegant Eggplant) and a dark pink (Melon Mambo) for the flower since you can't really tell the colors in the picture.  I adhered the flower onto the card with dimensionals to make it pop off the paper a little more.  Finishing my card, I custom cut the card and adhered the overlay onto it.  This card turned out exactly how I envision it.  The layout could be used for several different occasions.  I will be making this card again, but changing the theme to something else.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

What a Day!

Today was one of those days where you want to crawl back into bed and hide underneath the covers all day.  My day started with cleaning up after my sick dog.  That is not a great way to start off your Monday.  I was hoping my day would go better once I got to school, but it didn't.  I was so busy that I barely had time to seat down and eat my lunch before the my day got even busier with back to back classes.  Enough of me complaining how crappy my day was and onto tonight's creation.

Tonight's creation I started last night, but I didn't have the right color ink for the snowman so I decided to wait until I got today's Stampin UP shipment.  In today's shipment, I got a greenish-blue ink color called "Pool Party," which was perfect for the snowman.  Last night, I used my Festive Flurry framelit and ran it through my Big Shot to create the snowflake frame of my card.  I wanted something to go inside my snowflake frame so I stamped the body of the snowman from the "Snow Day" stamp set onto a piece of white cardstock.  I then finished my snowman by adding extra details like I did when I was a little kid playing in the snow.  Once my snowman was complete, I positioned him in the middle of the frame and glued the two pieces together.  I then cut off the white cardstock that was hanging over the edges.  After the overlay was done, I finished my card by custom cutting the base of my card.  Even though Christmas is 92 days away, it is never to early to start making Christmas cards.  If you are like me, I have over 50 cards to make this year and I usually wait until the last minute to complete them so starting early is a plus for me.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.