Thinking of You

Today was a very productive day.  I finished my January swap for my two Secret Pals.  They both will be receiving a pocket calendar with a custom cover based on their favorite colors and two cards.  Tonight's creation is for one of my Secret Pals since her favorite stamp set is Lovely As A Tree.  I used embossing powder for the stamped image and then colored in with my ink daubers after I heated it up with my heat gun. It turned out quite lovely even though I changed my idea halfway through since I didn't like how the card was turning out.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Stampin UP Supplies:  Heat Gun, Black Embossing Powder, Lovely As A Tree Stamp Set, Ink Daubers, Old Olive Ink Pad, Marina Mist Ink Pad, Chocolate Chip cardstock, Designer Paper, Modern Label Punch, Word Window Punch 

Owl Christmas

Since my card was done so early today, I almost forgot to post it.  Today's creation was inspired by Pinterest.  Using my owl punch, I punch out the different pieces that I need for the owls.  I then cut out triangles for their hats.  I used my mini scalloped circle punch to decorate the hats a little bit more.  Once the owls were finished, I cut out my overlay and then used my scallop edge border punch to give it a nice border.  I then ran the other overlay through the Big Shot to make it look like wood.  To finish my card, I stamped "Merry Christmas" onto a white piece of paper and punched it out with the word window punch.  I then used my modern label punch for the background.  This card turned out super cute.  I love how adding the border to the card makes it pop a little bit more.  Christmas is 2 days away and I don't know what I will do with myself after that since I have been making Christmas cards since November.  Good thing there are other holidays.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Lovebirds

Tonight's creation was made using my Silhouette.  Once I adhered all of the pieces together to make the lovebirds.  I used the Teeny Tiny Wishes set to stamp "Happy Anniversary" and then I punched it out with the word window punch.  I then punched out the background for the word window with the Modern Label punch.  I ran into a few complications with this card, but it still turned out.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Double Slider Card

Since I have created clean and simple cards this week, I decided to create a card that I haven't created yet for this project.  It is called the Double Slider Card.  It looks complicated, but if you read the directions before starting, you will have no problem putting it together.  Instead of boring you will every direction, I will attach the instructions at the bottom of my blog.  This remarkable creation was a lot of fun to make and I will be using it for several different occasions in the future.  Creating this card was just what I needed after a very overwhelming day of meetings at school.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Front of the Card

Card Slide Open

Directions:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/double_slider_card/

One (100) Hundred!

It's official, I have officially created a new card daily for the last 100 days of my life.  While this accomplishment is an uplifting moment in my card creation life, I also realize that many people have helped me on this journey.  My friend Jessica, who helped come up with the idea of doing a card for a year.  My fiancee, who has endured many tireless nights with me crawling to bed much later then expected.  As well as my best friend Chris, who many a times has helped me edit my blogs (on such tireless nights where sometimes what I write doesn't really make sense).  Without these people and the countless others in my life who have been with me during the journey over the last 100 days, I'm not entirely sure where I would be with this project.  All things considered I've reached a milestone, and to celebrate that milestone I am dedicating this card to all those (listed and unlisted) who have helped me with my cards over the last 100 days!

When I think of characters who are good friends, the first two people I think of are Pooh and Piglet, growing up they were the best of friends.  Now before you jump to the conclusion that I am comparing my friends to characters from a book, no I am not but rather just the friendship they have.  With my creative juices coursing through my veins I took my owl punch and decided to use it to create Pooh.  Using red and yellow I punched a total of three owls to create Pooh, he required a little bit more attention to detail as his outfit needed to be placed in just the right spot or else my red would overhang like a beer gut (and we all know that Pooh doesn't drink!  An extra owl punch was used for his head (complete with ears!), and to add in the finer details I used a fine tip Sharpie to draw them on.  Using my word windows I was able to create arms and legs for him, while they are not the most perfect appendages I feel that they fit the simplistic feel for tonight's creation.  Repeating the process with a new color scheme for Piglet, I found that my biggest challenge for him came in the form of ears.  So instead of attempting to make them freehand with a pair of scissors, I used my Silhouette to trim out to even/perfectly shaped lobes.  Drawing in his smile/eyes and lines on his shirt (just like Pooh) with my Sharpie another remarkable creation took shape.

Once the two most important pieces of the card were completed, I custom cut my base and overlay.  I decided to get a bit creative and embossed the overlay with clouds.  Just to make the paper pop and give a bit of depth to my 2-D creations, this was followed up by a creative word window cut with my Silhouette.  Inside the box I put forth my dedication stamp for my friends who've helped me on this journey "A friend is someone who makes it easy," so thank you to all that have supported me and I hope to collect more followers as the days go by!  I can't wait to see what the next 100 days hold but until next time, happy carding everyone!

Little Bit O' Love

Today I spent a bulk of the day getting Christmas card photos taken by my good friend Chris (who does a 365 of the photo variety, his photos can be viewed via local paparazzi on flickr).  Aside from that I was feeling the love with lot's of kisses from my fiance, I can't wait to see the results of Chris' photo shoot.  While I was feeling the love I decided to carry this over to my card for today.  Although my anniversary isn't for another 3 months, I decided that as anniversaries are a common theme that can always use a good card.  Using a pre-made black base card, which was tied together with a custom cut pink paper I knew I had found the perfect color combination .  To create the heart pattern I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the paper before attaching it to the base with the tape runner.  I then used my Silhouette to cut out the pieces of the moon as well as the tree branch; to create the moon I used three different colors.  Once the parts were put together as a whole a 3-D effect was achieved.  Given the large size of the moon, I had to run the sphere to the edges of my overlay dropping slightly from the top to leave enough space on the bottom to add my word window for my text but we will touch on this later.  I then used the tape runner adhere the tree branch.  Using my Owl punch, I punched out two black owls and adhered them to the card.  I also used my owl punch to punch out the three pink hearts.  Once the owls and hearts were adhered to the card, I used my Modern Label and Word Window punch in order to stamp the salutation onto the card.  Using the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set to stamp "Happy Anniversary."  The card was tied together nicely with all of the different elements used.  Until next time everyone, happy carding.

Just For You!

After a tiresome day of rearranging my classroom for yet another unfilled school year, I knew many adventures were in store.  The last two years have flown by and it is hard to believe that I have already been teaching full-time for two years.  With my classroom being a destroyer zone and road construction in the surrounding area, it is hard to believe that everything will be done by the time school starts in a little over a week...while maybe not everything.  I look forward to seeing my smiley face students and hearing of their summer adventures.  Enough about school time to focus on my remarkable creation for the night.  Using my paper trimmer, I lined up the paper and cut custom overlays as well as the base for the card.  Before running both white pieces through my Zyron, I cut out 10 strips of each color measuring 12" by 3/8".  Beginning with the lower left-hand corner of the middle overlay, I placed the strips diagonally and alternated my color strips.  Then continuing this pattern to the upper right-hand corner.  Repeating this task for the outer overlay, but starting at the upper left-hand corner so that it was opposite the middle overlay.  Using the simplest tool in my box, I trimmed the extra paper off with my scissors.  I attached the smaller overlay to the larger overlay and using a glue stick I glued it to the blue base card.  Then I created the center piece for my card using the Mixed Bunch stamp set and the Blossom punch from Stampin UP.  I found the hardest part of this process was effectively applying the punch around the stamp without cutting off any edges.  Once this was completed, I used the Word Window and Modern Label punch from Stampin UP to add text to my creation.  I stamped "just for you" on the word window from the Tiny Teeny Wish stamp collection from Stampin UP.  I am sure the next week and a half will fly by and school will start sooner then I imagine, be fair worried I may become less creative with my creations once the school year starts.  Doubling teaching and remarkable creation will be a challenge and itself but I look forward to seeing what I can do.  Maybe my students will have ideas too offer up for the project, until time next, happy carding everyone.