Tag Topper Card & Hershey Eggs

Today, I was busy in my craft room before I went to see my handsome little nephew.  First, I made two Hershey Eggs.  The eggs I created by looking at a tutorial for a tea cup and the picture of the eggs.  They turned out exactly like the picture and I didn't have to buy the tutorial which made it even better.  I will be sending one to each of my Secret Pals for Easter.  Once those were finished, I created my mom's birthday's card.  Her card was created using the scalloped tag topper punch from Stampin UP.  I love how this card has to be untied to be opened.  I hope my mom enjoy opening her birthday card this year and reading the message inside.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Hershey Eggs

Tag Topper Card

Tutorial for the Card:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EAVN9OTerI

Lighthouse Card In The Box

Earlier this week, one of my fiance's cousins turned a year older and we are going home this weekend to celebrate his birthday.  He loves lighthouse and when I saw a card in the box that had a lighthouse, I knew just had to make for him.  Mine of course is a bit different.  The card turned out pretty cool.  I have to say I like the bigger card in the box better than the smaller ones that I have made over the past week weeks.  You can add a lot more detail and the images can be a lot bigger.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Envelope Card

Just when I thought we were going to have a heat wave today, the wind had to pick up and ruin that dream. It was warmer today then it has been in the last week, but I was hopping for a little more sunshine and a little less one.  Even though it wasn't as warm as they said it was going to be due to wind chill, I will take it since we are going to be -50 below zero with wind chill on Monday.  Spring is not coming soon enough for this girl.  I can handle snow, but this cold weather is not fun.  But enough about the weather and my complaints, let's discuss tonight's creation.

Since I am on this new kick of trying something new at last once a week, I thought I would try something new again tonight.  Tonight's creation is made using my envelope punch.  It is an envelope card.  An envelope and a card all in one.  It turned out pretty neat.  I should have used a lighter color for the purple dots on card overlay, but you can still read what it says.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Stampin UP Supplies:  Label Love Stamp Set, Bring On The Cake Stamp Set, Gorgeous Grunge Stamp Set, Artisan Label Punch, Envelope Punch, Melon Mambo Cardstock and Ink, Bermuda Bay Ink, Whisper White Cardstock, Polka Dot Parade Designer Series Card Stock

Just Another Lazy Sunday

Sundays are our day to be lazy and do absolutely nothing.  It is a great way to start the week.  Having to make a card is always in the plans for a lazy Sunday, but it something I enjoy doing so it is never a hassle. Today's creation is part of an order that I received last week for their Grandma.  After looking at Pinterest for a few ideas, I came across some inspiration and decided to use my Silhouette to create this card.  It came together very nicely.  When I was finished with the card, I decided to add the butterflies as something extra since I felt like there was too much open space.  I hope her Grandma enjoys her card as well as her birthday on Saturday.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Happy Birthday!

Since one of my good friends birthday is at the end of the week, I decided to make her a card tonight using her favorite colors.  Tonight's card was made using my Silhouette and an image from Miss Kate Cuttables. Even though it took me a few tries to get everything cut out, it turned out pretty cute and I can't wait to give it to her on Friday.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Fishing A Happy Birthday To My Fiance!

Today is my fiance's birthday so I made him a card that represented two of his favorite things, fishing and turtles.  Using my Silhouette, I cut out all of the different pieces that I needed for this card.  To make the fish bowl card, I had to mirror the image above and then weld them together.  One of the many features that I love about my Silhouette Design Studio software.  Once everything was cut out, I adhered everything together and then positioned everything where I wanted it before gluing it down.  I finished this card 10 minutes before he was expected to get home and it turned out super cute.  He loved it, but he thought "Fishing you a Happy Birthday" was a little cheesy.  Oh well, that is what makes the card unique.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Caterpillar

After a long day at school, I came home and finished an order that I will be delivering this weekend.  It seems like years since the last time I seen her so it will be nice to catch up.  To finish off her order, I needed to make a birthday card for her two year old niece.  I thought this caterpillar card was the perfect fit since it is so colorful.  Using my Silhouette, I cut out 1.5" circles to make the body of the caterpillar.  I then layered it so it appeared like it was inching across the card.  Once the caterpillar was finished, I drew on a smile and antennas with a black marker.  I added on pink circles to make the antennas stand out a little bit more.  I didn't add the eyes yet since I will be getting some googely eyes from one of my fellow elementary teachers tomorrow.  To finish my card, I stamped "happy birthday" from the Bring On The Cake stamp set.  This card turned out super cute and I can't wait to deliver it this weekend.  I hope she enjoys all of the cards that I have created for her.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Minnie Mouse

Tonight's creation is a Minnie Mouse for one of my best friend's niece.  This card was pretty easy to make, but a lot of fun at the same time.  Using my big shot, I made the bow and circles with the Gift Bow Bigz Die and Circle Framelits.  Once all of the pieces were cut, I assembled the bow together.  I then adhered the circles together to make it look like a Mickey Mouse head.  To finish my card, I stamped "Happy Birthday" from the Sassy Salutation stamp set in white ink.  This card turned out super cute.  Making cards for children is a lot of fun since sky is the limit with them.  They are interested in a lot of different things when they are younger.  The hard part is just keeping up with everything, but my students at school help me out sometimes. Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Mr. Potato Head

Today I was able to spend some quality time with my best friend in the whole world.  As it turns out I received the best news I've had in a while, as she is moving back home in December!  Who needs presents, when you have good friends that you can depend on.  While spending time together for the first time in over 6 months we were able to reconnect and catch up on each others lives.  While social media (mainly Facebook) is a nice way to keep track of friends, nothing matches meeting face to face.  Onward with the creation for tonight, while browsing blogs yesterday I lucked out and found that one of blogs I subscribed to was offering this beautiful "Mr. Potato Head" SVG file.  As he is a very creative individual, I was able to customize a lot of different features and in the next paragraph I will tell you how I did it!

Using my Silhouette, I cut out the different pieces that make up Mr. Potato Head.  After putting him together, I decided that he needed something more and I cut out a birthday hat to go his head.  Once Mr. Potato Head was completed, I then used my Silhouette to cut out some confetti and place it randomly around him.  Using my Sassy Salutations stamp set, I stamped "Happy Birthday" onto the card.  To make the stamp show up the way it does, I used my stamp markers to color the words individually and then cleaned the stamp to stamp the other word.  This card did not turn out the way I envisioned since I cut Mr. Potato Head way to big and had to make a giant card for him.  My nephew will enjoy this card for one of his birthdays and what kid doesn't like to receive an extra large card for their birthday.  This card brought back memories from my childhood like it probably does for most people that had a Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head when growing up.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Gift Card Holder

After creating an easy card last night, I decided that I wanted to try something new.  Once again, I went on Julie Davidson's blog and found a neat tutorial for a gift card holder.  Since I have not created one for this project yet, I decided to gave it a try.  With this card, I got to use a few more of my new toys that I haven't been able to use yet like the Gift Bow Die for my Big Shot.  Since Julie has already made a video tutorial, I decided that I am not going to bore you with all step that I took to create this card.  Instead, I will link her video at the end of my blog and give her credit for this great gift card holder.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Front

Inside once you left the flap

Link to Julie's tutorial:  http://juliedavison.blogspot.com/2013/09/video-gift-card-holder-with-stampin-up.html

Mosaic Madness

Being on a new medication has left me way more fatigue then I would have liked.  Lately, I have not had enough energy to create a card that requires a lot of work.  Hopefully, in another week or so my body will be used to my new meds and I will no longer feel fatigue.  Enough of me complaining and on to the skinny of tonight's creation.

Tonight's creation didn't turn out the way I would have liked.  This is one card I will be redoing to make it look better in the future.  I used the 2012-2014 In Color Stampin' Write Markers to color in the mosaics and then stamped them on white cardstock.  After stamping the mosaics in different color schemes, I punched them out using the mosaic punch.  I then alternated the patterns and color schemes on the pre-made card.  Once the mosaics were in place, I punched out a Word Window and stamped "happy birthday" onto it.  I think the card still needs something else, but I can't think of what that something else would be at the moment.  Even though I dislike this card, I do not think any less of myself, but I know I have to make a crappy card once in a while to learn from my errors.  Until next time, happy carding everyone.

Happy Birthday To Me!

The morning started out with homemade french toast for breakfast made by my sweetheart, being a Sunday we decided to be lazy and watch a few episodes of my newest TV addiction "Orange is the New Black" on. As today is my birthday I was given the title of "queen for the day" and was able to choose what we did.  Last weened was spent celebrating my birthday with family and friends, so sitting at home doing nothing was perfect just fine by me for this rainy Sunday.  Enough about me, you're hear to read about my card and how it was created.

Since I was able to finally catch up on my sleep, I decided to try out a new card fold technique called the "Flip and Fold Card."  First and most importantly I cut out the base (a).  Once I was done with this I scored it at 2", 4" 8", and 10".  After I scored the base, I folded the 4" score mark to the middle of the card and then folded the 2" score mark to the outside of the card.  Repeating these steps with the other two score marks as well the card was now folded. I then took my ruler and measured 2 3/4"  on the right and left side of the card and marked them with a pencil.  Unfolding the card and lining up the 4" score marks with the pencil line, I placed it within the track of paper trimmer and make a cut.  I then turned it around and lined up the score mark again as well as my pencil mark again and made another cut.

Lining the scraps up with the score marks on the card base, I applied adhesive and placed them on the inside of the card.  I then took my bone folder and gave each side a nice crisp fold.  This is followed up by decorating the inside of the card. I began by cutting two overlays (b & c) for the center and placed the whisper white overlay in the center of the rich razzleberry card stock.  After combining the two together, I then attached it to the center of base.  Using my Silhouette to cut out a label to go in the middle of the card to act like a gate.  Once this was cut out, I stamped "Happy Birthday" in the center using a ink that was similar in color to the base.  To keep the the tag on the card, I only applied adhesive on one half of it so that the card was able to open.  Now that my card is complete, it is time to go relax some more before it is back to work tomorrow and my birthday is over.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Measurement Guide:

(a)  Polka Dot Parade Designer Paper Card Base:  5 1/2" by 12"

(b)  Rich Razzleberry Overlay:  3 1/2" by 5"

(c)  Whisper White Overlay:  3" by 4 1/2"

Happy Birthday to Whomever

Although my birthday is just over a week away, I had many of my friends and family over to celebrate early as conflicting schedules kept everyone from being with me on my birthday.  As an equal opportunity celebration for all, I received numerous gifts with many inside jokes included.  But the biggest and best gift of all was having everyone here to celebrate, I am very people orientated and was glad all could attend.  As the afternoon grew to evening and the evening turned to night, I nearly forgot about creating a card for today (thanks Chris for reminding me constantly throughout the day)!  While we played card games into the night, eventually all except for one friend remained and I was left to do tonight's creation.  I was suggested a few different ideas, but ultimately decided to go my own route as it was much easier and simpler then the designs I found on Pinterest that I was suggested.  Enough chatter of the nights events and now onto the skinny of how tonight's simplistic card was created.

The yellow base was from a collection I purchased previously for Christmas cards, which while we are still seemingly forever away from the holidays: the reality is, we are less then four months from Christmas.  I've found that many of these pre-cut bases are beneficial to me as it is less work to create them this way.  Yellow was not so much an obvious choice but I felt that a bright base was needed to help draw attention to the rest of the elements.  Using a star punch from Creative Memories I punched four 1" stars to put in a column on the left side of the card.  Each with a new color, I then used a stamp from the Well Scripted collection (now retired from production).  Keeping the color pattern with the stamps as I did the stars, I placed each to the right of the star to match the color scheme.  Thus as simple as it is, this is tonight's creation; a late night of good times with good people.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Popsicles!

What a busy day it was, much to do and so little time to do it.  It seems like yesterday the school year ended, but yet here we are back at it for another year of fun filled adventures.  It was great to see many of my students for the first time in almost 3 months, but living in the area I ran into many of them around town running errands and such this summer.  Enough of the emotions of a new school year and onward with the creation for tonight.

Fighting with the weather (which recently has taken a cool down) I felt it was a good idea to make a summer themed card as I'm not sure how many warm days we actually have left.  Popsicles are a great summer treat, even if they do leave your tongue a rainbow palette.  Today I used two of my go to tools: the always reliable Silhouette, as well as a stamp (which are always an easy choice).  The popsicles were cut out in layers of 4, each layer consisted of a different color to give it a more 3D look.  The first layer was brown, followed by white, thirdly a darker shade of the solid color making up the popsicle.  Only the solid color required extra cutting as it included the month and eyes to give a face to the popsicle.  Underneath these included features I placed a white piece of paper as to imitate white bottoms. As today is the 3rd of September I decided to go with the theme of threes, and thus created three separate popsicles.  Obviously each have their own color, but the smiles are all the same.  Using my "happy birthday" stamp from the "happiest birthday wishes" collection I finished this card off with a stamp in the bottom right hand corner, with a blue darker than my overlay I was able to make it stand out more.  Well everyone its been a long day and just about time for me to turn in for the night, until next time happy carding!

Fishing You a Happy Birthday

Today was yet another day spent in my classroom prepping for the start of the school year, only today was different.  I was greeted by visitors as it was open house at school this afternoon, all my hard work getting the classroom ready was put on display.  While I have spent the better part of the last week getting ready, I still feel there is plenty left to do with not enough time to do it all.  So as the days grew closer the more simple my cards have become, tonight is no exclusion to that logic.  On a warm summer day like we had today, I think back to June when I went to the water park to relax and stay cool.  The great memories of summer that will keep me warm in the coming months, but alas I knew I should do an aquatic theme for tonight's remarkable creation.

A constant this summer has definitely been my Silhouette, tonight every piece of the card was cut with my favorite tool.  But before I get to the main feature of the card, let me explain one of the more creative parts of the card.  The green seaweed was stamped in alternating pattern with a stamp meant for flower stems, letting the ink run dry on the stamp also allowed me to freely wave the weeds more accurately.  Moving up on the card the next element is a fish, also made with pieces meant for a flower.  Using a flower I cut with my Silhouette, I removed all petals except for two; to mimic the appearance of tail fins.  Using the pedals from the flower that I had cut off I attached them to the circle.  This gave the look of the other fins, the fish was completed by punching a small heart and putting it on the front right side of the circle for a pair of fishing lips.  Making a small black dot with a fine tip sharpie, my fishy was now able to see and he was completed.  I then made five circles of the same color as my base card, using foam adhesive squares I was able to make four of the five appear 3-D on the card.  The fifth and final circle received a darker blue underlay to emphasize the importance of "Happy Birthday" stamped inside.

I finished the card off with the border on top in darker blue then my overlay.  These half circles give the look of waves at the top of the water.  Now I can go relax with thoughts of days spent relaxing on the boat.  Until next time everyone, happy carding!

Squash Fold Card

Today, I decided to step it up a notch from the previous cards this week.  After creating a few easy cards, I decided to make squash fold card.  For this card, I used my bone folder and a piece of designer paper measuring 8" by 8".  I chose to use designer paper that was double-sided since the viewer will seeboth sides when the card is opened.  After cutting out the piece of paper, I then folded it in half diagonally and used my bone folder to press the fold into place.  Then I opened the paper up and folded it once again diagonally, on the opposite side.  Then I re-opened it back up and folded it in half horizontally.  After I folded it horizontally, I opened it up and folded the center horizontal line in until the two sides met.  Once the two sides met, I pushed the folds to the center until it made a triangle in shape.  I then used my bone folder to flatten it out.  Using the top two corners, I folded them towards the center to form two small triangles and then folded both corners until they were slightly touching end-to-end.  Again, using my bone folder to flatten the fold I flipped the designer paper over and repeated what was explained in the line previous.  I had to use two hands for this step since I needed one to hold the two triangles in place and the other to flatten the fold with the bone folder.  After all of the corners are folded inward, I noticed that each corner has "legs" hanging down.  Taking one leg at a time, I opened up the leg and pushed it towards the inside of my card (repeating this step for all four corners).  Once this was completed, I pushed the card to lay it flat and once more used my bone folder to press down all of the folds.  After this part of my card was completed, I cut a piece of dark pink cardstock that measured 4-1/2" by 9".  Once the stock was cut out, I scored the longest side at 4-1/2" and folded on the scored line.  Then I cut out four different colored balloons and a happy birthday phrase using my Silhouette.  Until tomorrow, happy carding everyone!

The outside of the card.

The inside of the card.  It is not completely open in this photo, but it is hard to take the picture and hold the card open at the same time.

Honey!

Today's card idea came from my mother.  My dad's birthday is in a few weeks so she wanted me to design her a card.  I asked if she had any ideas and this is what she came up with.  I used my Silhouette to cut out all of the pieces for this card.  After everything was cut out, it was quite easy to assemble.  I did use a technique that I saw another blogger use earlier this week.  They used vinyl for a part of their card that was more difficult to assemble.  For this card, I used black vinyl for the bees strips.  I was going to glue the strips down but I decided it was going to be much easier with vinyl and transfer paper.  The vinyl and the transfer paper work out great since it was so easy to line up the black strips with the body.  For the background, I cut out a hexagon background and used it as a stencil.  I used my ink daubers and yellow ink to color in the hexagon to make it look like a honeycomb.  Until tomorrow, happy carding everyone!!!

Three Fold Fun Card

Today, I was asked if I would make some "Thank You" cards for an old college roommates wedding party.  So I decided to make a card that she might find neat, as I progressed it turned into a birthday card since I don't know what her exact idea is yet.  As I also know some people who are having birthdays in the next month, I decided that I would create a card for them.  This card is called the "Three Fold Fun Card," while I don't have the exact tools that were used in the tutorial to create this card.  I did what any creative individual would do and improvised using what I already have combined with my Silhouette.  Firstly, I drew out a rectangle that was 11" by 4.25" using my Silhouette Design Studio program.  After I drew out the rectangle, I located 8.5" and then I used my ruler to draw a straight line.  Then I drew a 2 3/8" circle, making sure that it was placed in the middle of the line that I had drawn.  Once my card was cut out, I used my scoring board and scored lines at 4" and 8.5".  I then folded at the 4" line followed by the line at 8.5".  Thus giving me me three folds as shown in the last picture.  After deciding that I wanted to do a little something extra on the smaller flap before I finished up my card, I used the polka dot embossing folder to emboss the area.  After it was folded and embossed, I cut out a square that was 4" by 4" on a designer paper that I thought went well with purple.  I glued the square onto the first flap that, and then I used my Silhouette to cut a 2.375" scalloped circle.  Keeping the last fold placed down and opening up the second to assure that the scalloped circle is placed perfectly in the middle of the circle so that when you close the flap, you see all of the scallops on the circle.  I cut out a 1 3/4" circle to place in the middle of the scalloped circle and used the "Think Happy Thoughts" Stampin Up Stamp set to place "Happy Birthday."  Cutting out a cupcake using my Silhouette, I embossed the frosting with stars and then used my scoring board to score the lines in the cupcake wrappers to give more of a pop.  I used a 3D adhesive dot to hold the cupcake in place, the dot needs to be placed at the bottom of the cupcake so that it holds the card shut.   When the card is fully open, you can write a little message to the person that you are giving it to.  The more complicated these designs become, the more fun I am having with the challenge of creating something different.  Until next time, happy carding everyone!

Xylophone Card

Today was a long day, so a simple card was in order.  Using what seemed like a rainbow of colors I made a xylophone card.  Using my Silhoutte I cut out the keys from five different colors (all scrapped from previous creations), I opted for no yellow as I felt it would take away from the brads affixed to each key.  I placed the brads in the key using the punch on my Crop-a-Dile.  Using adhesive I then laid out my keys on the white base from largest to smallest, just as you would find on a real xylophone.  With a small gap no more then 1/4 of an inch between each key the instrument was nearly finished.  I then added a mallet laying over the keys, make sure to use the color opposite the key I laid it across.  This way it helped make the mallet pop more against the many colors of the background.  I then stamped "happy birthday in the right hand corner of the card.  Finishing off the card I affixed a black card stock background, which gave a nice solid POP to this easy card.

Happy Birthday!

As birthdays happen everyday of the year, I feel that a birthday card is something that one can never have too many of.  Today's card was created using simple techniques that are very easy to follow and replicate.  The two most common "S" in my collection were used today, those being the Silhouette and stamps.  On a white overlay, I applied a simple square flower cut out design.  I was able to reuse the flowers form one cut out to the next, just one odd duck out left me with a leftover flower which maybe I'll find a home for on my future card.  Using a new acquired tool called a Crop-A-Dile by Stampin UP, I applied eyelets to the center of each flower.  Stamping to the right "Happy Birthday" in a color close to the flower cut out, I repeated this two more times.