Handmade Cards: Quilted Stars

A while ago I saw some cards that used this Square Lattice embossing to create a quilted look.  Last week I was looking at the most recent create blog challenge gallery and loved that first card with the triangle-pieced stars.  I couldn't wait to put the two ideas together in these two cards!

I made the triangles by punching squares using a Square Punch and then cutting the squares in half.  The papers were just scraps of patterned paper that hat been languishing (some for years!) in my paper scraps.  The old ones were not particularly loved papers.  Some were kindly handed down to me by a friend moving overseas.  None of them really go together, but the embossing still makes them pretty and ties the whole look together!  

To make the design I arranged my scraps how I wanted them first.  You can see that in one card I arranged the colors randomly and in the other I used yellows in the center, pinks next, then greens on the outside.  I like both looks.  I put adhesive on my background paper in approximately the right spots, then moved my design onto the adhesive.  In some places there wasn't enough adhesive to keep a triangle down and I had to add some liquid glue under one side.  In other places adhesive was showing with nothing glued to in and I had to remove it. 

Side note: Do you have one of these adhesive removal tools?  They are sooo handy!  Just rub the sticky off!  

Then I took the entire design and embossed it through the Big Shot with the Square Lattice Embossing Folder.  This is a 5x7" card so I had to run the white piece through twice to cover the entire surface.  Of course, this folder is such a regular pattern that it was easy to line it up correctly the second time.  One thing I'm still working on is trying not to get a flattened out area just beyond the overlap - if anyone has any tips on this I would love to hear them!

No time to craft?

Hey everyone!!  Been wanting to make some stuff but regular life keeps getting in the way?  Wish you could just set aside some time to create?  You would but the kids would interrupt you every ten minutes?  ("Ten minutes?!" you say, "try every 30 seconds!!") 

Well, I am so excited to be attending a crafting retreat at the end of June!  It is Cheryl's Rockin' Retreat and it is an entire weekend to create, chat, relax, learn or any combination thereof!  It's going to be awesome!  If you can be in the Central Texas area, how about joining us?  

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I'm even teaching an optional class and so are several other people:  Bits and Pieces: Designing to Use Your Scraps $10

Are all those pretty paper scraps landing in the trash bin?  Use them instead! 

We will make three projects while learning to use the little bits and pieces we normally throw away.  We'll also learn a basic system for organizing scraps so they are easy to save and use. 

Even if you have no idea how to start designing something to use your scraps, this fun class is for you!

Handmade Card: Baby Dear

Here is a pretty little baby girl card to share! I made this for a friend who was going to a baby naming celebration - I was so thrilled she was taking it in person rather than mailing it because that meant I could add some thick embellishments!  I love that pink rose - it is so shimmery and pretty but it was languishing in my embellishment stash since it was too thick to mail on a standard card.

 I love an occasional chance to go girly!

Scrapbook Layout: Ninja & Shark

I might be a little off-season with this layout, but I have really been wanting to use these awesome photos taken by our friend Brian Dewey at Halloween!  He's a talented professional photographer and also part of our kids' carpool so it was really exciting when he offered to take Halloween photos of the kids at a neighborhood party.  The images are so different than what I could manage with only the available lighting and my point and shoot flash, that even though I don't normally do a Halloween layout, I wanted to this time. Doesn't Zack's intensity about his costume show through the picture?

I was glad to use it as a chance to capture how their ages and personalities showed in their costume experiences, so it wrote on die-cut Top Notes*, one for each boy.  I wanted a spooky but elegant look without using pre-made Halloween products (since I don't do a lot of Halloween scrapbooking, I didn't want to buy any custom product with spiders or what-have-you.  Also, I just like the less Halloween-specific feel).  I choose black background paper and a dark brown transparent overlay made by Slice/Making Memories (I can't find a link to the transparency sheets so maybe they don't make them anymore).  I intentionally left a strip of the transparency without any backing.  I plan to do another layout to back it with that will coordinate with that spot, but I don't know exactly what- wish me luck! 

The title is done with Thickers in felt - I love how they feel!  You can feel the texture even through a page protector.  Then I added black, die-cut leaves and black, hand-cut branches.  Branches are not hard to hand cut, especially when they are supposed to look bare and spooky!  I got the idea for the row of paper flag/pennant pieces at the bottom of the pictures from somewhere else but I can't find it (not for lack of trying!) so thank you to a nameless inspiration!  To finish it off I stamped the bird from the Stampin' Up! Notably Ornate* set, embossed it and cut it out.  That bird can look pretty or spooky!  Or maybe both!

*If you use the links above my friend and fabulous Stampin' Up demonstrator, Cheryl, will benefit, but so will you since you'll get the preferred pricing by checking out through a demonstrator! 

December Daily: pages part 2

Today I'm showing a few pages from the middle of the book where I worked on capturing the boys school art and events.  They bring home so much stuff that I'm always completely overwhelmed.  I am ok with recycling the worksheets but the stuff with their writing or art on it is harder.  I try to narrow down and keep only best or the most representative items... but that requires thinking so I put it off.  And when I do bring myself to do it, I find that even the "best" stuff still ends up just sitting there, without anything done with it.

For this album I picked one page from each boys stash of creations and folded it up to 5x7 and put it in the book.  I really like it in there.  Because it is squared off, it has a neater look than I though it might.  I added it on the day I was showing pictures and journaling from Sammy's program and Zack's class party.  These were also their last days of school for the semester so it forms a big finish for the "at home" portion of the book.  After that it's all travel - a "most delightful journey" (if the fortune cookie says it, it must be true).

December Daily: Pages part 1

Sammy was so funny with the chopsticks this day! I couldn't resist pulling out the camera in the restaurant and getting a series of pics. Then when he resorted to the fork it was priceless! I didn't show the picture here, but on the back I put in our fortunes from the fortune cookie - it said Sammy has "a magnetic personality". Well, I think so!
I wanted the pictures all in one long row, so that the progression would show, but to print them small enough to do that in 7 inches really wasn't cutting it.  I ended up making this accordion fold so that you have to pull out the tab to see the final (fork) picture.  I just used three sheets of heavy cardstock with "hinges" made out of brown paper punched with the Stampin' Up Modern Label punch.  

I like the view of various pages and embellishments that peeks through when you are looking at a different page. Here, the little heart from the picture of James reading to Sammy shows up after two more pages are turned.

And how could I have a December Daily album without a Starbucks sleeve? That would be as wrong as a December without a Peppermint Mocha! In this case it gave me a place to talk about the evening James and I spent shopping, just the two of us. I didn't have any pictures of us but it was a memory I wanted included.

I'll be back tomorrow to show how I included some of the kids school events/work!

December Daily: Finished Album!

I am sure many people are soooo over the holidays and December, but I'm excited to have finished my December project!  I don't care that it's the end January - I'm thrilled to have finished anything.  I mean seriously, how often do I start AND finish something, and all in a row too?  (You don't need to answer that.)

This is a December Daily album, as inspired by Ali Edwards and many others (here's another extremely pretty one). I showed my kit a while ago. I finished (notice how I am repeating that word finish?) it Monday but it took me until today to work up the energy to photograph it! It turned out kind of large. But hey, it's a whole month!

I do this project a little differently than some - I don't fully make the pages ahead of time and I don't work on it daily. The upside of making a kit instead of pages is that I can choose the papers that I like for each photo and I'm not locked into a certain page size for each one.  The downside is that it takes a little longer during December, a month that is already over-full.  But, the creative part is what interests me and draws me to the project, so that's better for me.  One big mistake I made was not making the cover ahead of time.  Somehow I had a hard time getting started on the pages without a cover to draw a color scheme/style from.  And making the cover was daunting so I kept putting it off.  That led to me starting way late in the month, which I hadn't intended.  Next time I want to stick with making the kit rather than finished pages but finish the cover ahead of time.

There are a couple of reasons that it works better for me not to work on this daily.  The first is that I print my photos at a photo shop (meaning not at my own house, on my own printer), so I don't have the photo for today at the end of each day.  I like the color by sending them out to be printed and Costco is close, cheap and our local Costco's prints are great (I think they calibrate their machines more often than other places).  I don't my going by there a few times a week so it isn't a big delay, but it isn't daily.  The second reason is that I can't really work in the time to make things every day.  My time is organized more by week.  I have two or three two-hour blocks that I try to use for creativity.  A lot of times I can do a little more here or there, but I just don't like the pressure of trying to work EVERY day.  Too much stress!  And this is supposed to be fun :)  When I realized that my time is structured weekly like this, it was very freeing and inspiring.  And fun!

The think I like best about my finished album is the way the pieces peek out the sides and top, and out from behind the other pieces, but without the whole thing feeling too messy.  And the fact that it is finished!

I'll be back with some pages to show soon.

12 x 12 in 2012

Wouldn't it be fun to take 12 photos on the 12th of each month in 2012 and put them together for a look at what our everyday life is like this year? At the end of the day on the 12th I suddenly remembered I wanted to do this... I had to scramble for some photos and several I filled in from other days, but no big deal! This is still what our life looks like in January (notice I left out my hiding indoors from the cedar pollen. Hm. I don't know that I really want that included anyway!).

It turns out this is not an original idea. Lots of people are doing it - check it out here!

as promised...

...another desert picture, this one taken by my dad!

Pics from the Desert

Since I haven't had time to write anything, I am going to try to put up a few recent pics instead. Here's one of Zack hiking in the mountains outside Tucson!

Handmade Card: Merry Christmas

I guess I'm addicted to woodgrain patterns!  I can't seem to resist using either my woodgrain stamp or my woodgrain embossing folder on card after card.  I like how very shiny the gold detailing on these leaves is!  Also, see the ends of the light green piece?  I punched just the ends with the Decorative Label Punch, one of my favorites. 

I am excited for the card sale tonight!

Handmade Card: Warm wishes

This toasty little gingerbread baby wishes you a warm and happy holiday!

I don't naturally gravitate to cute designs, but I really wanted to use this guy. My kids love the story Gingerbread Baby (the Jan Brett one, becasue she is just awesome!) so looking at this little man makes me happy.  I filled in his hands and feet with white heat embossing to make it look like icing.

And check out those buttons! They are cut out and embossed in one step with the Stampin' Up Sweet Buttons Embosslit Die and the Big Shot. Then of course I had to ink 'em and add some glitter!

Handmade Cards: Photo Cards

I've also been making some cards using photo art. I have a lot of different styles of these! I really like them and will be using some myself for some of my greeting card needs in the future. They use photos I took and editied and are on really nice quality cardstock bases. I don't know if they are less work than the regular handmade cards (all that photo editing is quite a learning curve for me!), but most of the work is up front so I can easily make multiples - thus, I'll be offering a little sale on sets of four of these!

Handmade Card: Baby

This baby is one-of-a-kind! I had that adorable b-a-b-y pennant set (but only one) and couldn't WAIT to make it into a card. This is another large, 5x7 beauty. Those raised dots (a Big Shot creation) are so sweet. The flower has a lot of soft dimension.

It was so much fun to make something soft and pink after all the BOY scrapbooking I do!

This will be for sale along with all the others I've been posting at the Holiday Sale. Come check it out!

 

P.S. Do the larger pictures work for you? Let me know if it looks right on your computer!!

December Daily: Foundation Pages (sort of)

It's almost December!  I'm very excited that I'll soon be starting my third annual December Daily album, as inspired by Ali Edwards.  I have enjoyed this project very much the past two years - here is the album I made two years ago.  I guess I didn't post last year's album, though I did make it and finished it pretty promptly!  The idea is to add a photo and/or story for every day of December to document the month.  Sometimes I do two pictures.  Sometimes I don't have a picture for a day and use something representative.  It's not strict!  It also doesn't need to be all holiday related - in some way it's a chance to document every day life alongside the Christmas season.

Most people completely make their foundation pages ahead of time (here's a beautiful example) but I find that doesn't quite work for me.  The idea is to make it easy to do during the busy December month... but I need it to be easy AND have the lure of a little creative play to keep me going.  So, I make pages, numbers and a few extras and let myself choose which to use each day.  I have them in a clear, zippered pencil pouch to keep the main items together.

The first photo is an idea of what the pages may look like when I choose what to use.  But I'll also probably make some pages that are just photos printed with borders and glued back to back.  The pages themselves are 5x7".  That way, I can use an occasional trimmed portrait-direction picture in amongst mostly landscape-direction pictures. 

This set-up is the same as my traveling vacation mini-book from 2010 (and the results are here).  This has been my favorite mini-book, both in process and in final product, so I decided to follow the pattern for my December Daily this year. 

I even have it in the same traveling clipboard, along with some scraps and random Christmas supplies.

Seeing that puts me in the holiday spirit!  Now I just need to get my Christmas decorations out of the attic! 

Handmade Card: Count your blessings, not your birthdays

This card started out as something entirely different - it was going to have red and a chicken on it.    However, I'm so happy with how it turned out that I may make a few more! I think the little circle of cork is a fun texture and of course I love those embossed butterflies, made with the Beautiful Wings Embosslits die.  That's even a sparkly blue staple holding on the ribbon. 

I'm really getting excited for my card sale on Friday and Saturday!  Stay tuned for more pictures of cards!