Journey

The birds on this card were stamped in different angles with Stazon Timber ink on antique looking wallpaper.  Then trimmed and matted with sage flourish paper leaving space below.  Printed the caption on vellum, trimmed and attached to the bird layer with brads.  Stamped Enjoy the Journey and the birds on a wire on the sage green paper then adhered to base.  Using Vintage Photo DI, roghly edged around the base card.  Finally, using Glossy Accents, filled in 2 of the flying birds and all the birds on the wire.

Simple and Bright (for sure!)

Itching to try a MS ribbon punch I started trying out colors.  This periwinkle looked soooooo sweet and I had a fabric ribbon in the same color.  Made a card using lime green Bassill textured card stock.  Adhered a magenta rectangle 1/4" smaller all around and then I topped it with a pumpkin yellow card stock that I ran through a texture wheel.  Cut that a hair (wow, how technical is that description) shorter than the length of the magenta rectangle but 1" narrower on either side.  Adhered the corrugated panel with glue dots.  Centered the MS punched ribbon and the fabric ribbon (made a bow and dove tailed the ends first) and adhered those too.  Then on a scrap of the green card stock I stamped 'Cherish' with gold, trimmed, matted with pumpkin texturized paper, trimmed that and mounted on the card. 

Pastel Squares

This card was made with leftover paper from the previous card posted.  I glued the french flourish paper to a basic card.  I used a stamp (Hampton Arts) with several 'almost' inch vignettes, on white cardstock.  Using pastel colors, each square was colored and then sealant was applied.  Since the vibrancy of the colors was not coming through, I decided to try laminating with a Xyron and that did the trick.  The colors popped.  Trimmed the vignettes very close leaving an eyelash of white around.  Carefully measuring the location, I adhered each square with foam squares to raise them and create some depth.  Then I notched top and bottom and tied a silver round ribbon.  Easy peasy.

  

Dimensional Hearts

A little more complicated than my usual.   The key is to measure and center correctly.  Using a black card as a base, I rounded all the corners and then  glued a french toille paper and edged with a dark pink metallic ink.   Then glued down the middle a strip of metallic red paper.  Separately, punched out 1" black card stock squares, metallic red hearts and white hearts.  Glued the hearts onto each square and then pierced the squares (top one only on one side) and using 8mm silver jump rings connected the strip of hearts.  Put a foam dot under each square and adhered down to the red strip.  Added two crystal dangles at the bottom.

Colour My World!

All bright and happy colors.  Very fast and fairly simple card.  First I created a layer of paint chips in a rainbow pattern.  Trimmed lengthwise in half and glued to a black card.  Stamped a large flourish off center with archival ink.  With the other half of the paint chips, created top and bottom ribbons in the same rainbow pattern.  Using computer font, typed and printed on vellum the lyrics for Chicago's "Colour My World" (left justify),  and adhered to the inside of the card.  Trimmed with the rainbow ribbon on the top and bottom, then stamped two smaller flourishes with archival ink.

Be Mine in sepia

This card is made with a base card on copper.  Adhere flourish pink paper inside.  On glossy paper stamp lovers with sepia ink, trim close and adhere to black mat and trim, then adhere to flourish paper and trim again.  Notch corners with punch and thread copper floss to frame the image.  Adhere to card with pop dots.  Trim a rectangle out of the flourish paper with Victorian edge scissors and also trim off 1/4" off of the side of the card.  Write 'Be Mine' on the rectangle with copper metallic ink.  Make a boutonniere with small silk flowers and tie with complementary ribbon, then adhere to card.

Vintage Love

This card is all things old and soft.  A basic black card is covered with light pink paper and then deep red card stock leaving 1/8" all around.  Then a layer of decorated paper - cut 1" smaller- anchored top right is glued to the red.  Using a word stencil (I make my own with a font cartridge and Cricut) sponge dauber and chalk ink (merlot) sponge text on card.  Punch chain piece from red card stock and glue diagonally.  Glue skeleton key the end of the chain.  Punch/emboss leaves from text printed paper and edge with chalk ink (merlot).  Using graduated layers of silk flowers, ink edges with the same ink, heat set, stack and attach with brad.

Je t'aime card

Such pretty graphics in this paper... using light sage card stock I created a double-door card slightly overlapping.  Adhered the Victorian rose paper to the outside, leaving 1/2" on the center joint.  Using Crushed Olive Distress Ink and Cut and Dry foam, edged all the way around.  For the inside, attached a vellum rectangle in the center panel  with brads and slide a piece of the rose paper underneath and adhere.  Edged all around card and Victorian paper with Crushed Olive.  On another velum rectangle, stamped and embossed text with Dusty Rose Distress Ink and detail clear embossing powder.  Matted with light sage card stock, trimmed and very lightly edged with Olive ink using a foam dauber, then adhered to center panel with pop dots.  Using a fabric marker in dark rose, hand wrote "Je t'aime" on satin ribbon, dove-tail one end and glued to card.  Using MS's Lacy Heart punch and vellum, punched a heart; matted on dark red card stock and trimmed closely with scalloped scissors.  Inked the edges very lightly with Victorian Rose and glued to card using pop dots.   Attached 'knobs' (Tim Holtz) and tied pink sewing floss with beads on the ends.

Bee-Day Card

My friend's b-day is right around the corner.  So today I spent a great deal of time making this card using the Cricut.  Not original, its a 'lift' from an excises we did in class.  Can it get any more cumbersome to lift all the tiny pieces? Really! It can be very difficult for me to do this type of stuff.  Gluing is OK if I run it through a Xyron machine, as long as I put the correct side on the glue... 5 bees later, here we go.  The effort was worth it.  She is worth it.  I'll put it in the mail tomorrow.

Lavender Rosette

This card has 5 layers of assorted papers and card stock.  Starting with a copper base, then a purple layer, a cream layer -used the Martha Stuart punch around the corner 'bird' for this one- then lavender velum and again cream card stock where I stamped using Stazon purple ink.  The accents are mostly from Tim Holtz lines: the rosette in lavender vellum; then metal pieces in copper: mini paper clip, key, key hole and the thingy to hold the key (forgive me for getting so technical!).  The ticket that I clipped to the rosette was stamped in purple and embossed in clear.

Valentine Card-Tag

All hand made.  How cool is to get the answer to a question by pulling a tassel and seeing yourself in the mirror?  And of course, a lipstick print will show on your cheek (shown here is true lipstick... a few days later I found the perfect transparent sheet sticker and wiped the lipstick off).  I used a tag I cut with the Cricut on heavy Kraft paper at 8"x3"measurements, then I had to design the envelope upon those measurements and line the back interior.  The tassel is made with twine and 'eyelash' ribbon; the heart edge on the envelope is a MS punch that I inverted and re-did from the opposite direction so that both edges of the strip turned out scalloped.  Punches are hard to handle when you have bad hands.  It took me 5 tries to get the strips to punch right... wasted a lot of paper.  

The Courtesan

Bleaching embossed stamped images is impressive to see it happen.  The paper started losing color and the image took on a very different look.  It was the bleach.  Plain old household bleach.  I put about 1tsp inside a prescription bottle (of course! secure lid, stands upright, I can write the content with a marker all over...) and used a very, very, fine brush to apply it.  The image I chose was not particularly simple.  Many lines, different thicknesses and this would require 'detail' embossing powder.  Unlike the regular embossing powder, 'detail' is super fine and sticks to everything, so it is wise to use the pillow of anti-static powder.  Impress the stamp, apply powder and heat emboss.  Let the image cool off completely and then apply bleach.  In this case I chose the neck, torso and just hints of the legs.  Slow application prevents puddles.  If the tint is uneven, you can go over a second time after it is dry.  Let it happen, it works on its own.