Magic of Oz with Graphic 45 papers

I fell in love with these marvelous papers from Graphic 45's The Magic of Oz. I found this paper box book form at Hobby Lobby, plain. I then took some choice pieces of the Magic of Oz sheets and collaged the pieces outside and inside my faux book. I did several things to make my book unique. I made a packaging tape transparency of Dorothy. To do that, you take clear packing tape ususally about 2 inches wide, and simply lay it down firmly on top of the selected image. I used two strips of packing tape and taped over Dororthy so no part of her was not covered. I then burnished it on firmly by taking my bone folder and applied pressure to the image to make sure it was air tight on the tape. Then I dropped the image in warm water and let it set for about 2-3 minutes. Then I gently rubbed of the backing the pulpy paper will rub off with your thumb and fingers. Rub off the pulp until you see through and oila! A very cool transparent image! I then made sure it was dry, and even took my sanding block and gently sanded off any little paper shreds. You must be careful not to rub off the image, just rub off the paper backing. I have done this a few times before, and what's neat about transparent images is that you can lay them on other paper and that paper will show through just enough to entice you to look closely. It's a lot of fun too. I put the transparent image on a clear acetate sheet, and adhered another Graphic 45 newsprint from the Magic of Oz series as a clear page for the book. I taped the clear page on with clear transparent regular tape. I thought it would be neat to put one of those cute battery operated tea lights inside since I have a transparent page, but the light is a little weak to totally get the effect of the transparent image. 

For the outside of the book, I used black linen cardstock. It totally looks like an old book cover. I just trimmed it in gold trimming I found at Red Lead. It was a fun project, and it definitely qualifies for altered art. One of my other crafty things I like to do! Hope you enjoy!

Tim Holtz distress stained Happy Birthday!

A new card using Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain dobbers. For this flower, I used Walnut Stain and Broken China. The hemming lace is stained with Broken China. The frame is a Cricut die from the Cindy Loo cartridge. The yellowed ledger paper is from Stella Rose. The patterned paper is from my Cricut Imagine More cartridge. The rusty gold embossed paper is a piece I found at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. The music paper was from my stash, and I tore it and stained the edges with walnut stain. Used a rosette flower found at Michael's as the center of the TH flower. Happy Birthday sentiment is from Hampton Arts. I did stitch around the edges with my Janome Sew Mini. Card is for a very special person, my MIL!

A special Thanks!

This is a Thank-you card I made for a special friend! The designer paper is Citrus from K&G paper company. The image is a Studio G clear stamp I found at Michael's. I used copics to color in the image. I used scalloped Nesties to frame the image. I sponged orange die ink around the white scalloped frame, and them nested it inside the blue DP from the Citrus paper pack. I lifted the image with foam dots. I used paper flower punches and MS leaf frond punch for the flowers where I only glued the stem to the paper and let the flower tops rest on the lifted scallop frame. Each flower center has a mini brad. I then used jewels on the strip of striped designer paper. The card base is a bazil aqua plain cardstock. Simple but sweet!

Gruffies Birthday using Copics

This is a card I made for a certain little girl for her birthday. I am fairly new with Copics coloring. I do love to color with them! The ribbons were a little time consuming but fun. When I was done coloring in, I used Labels Eight to frame the image. Then I took the Terrifically Tacky Red tape and lined the edges of the back and then took this pale blue-green ribbon and tucked it and bunched it and made this ribbon ruffle around the frame. Then I simply used K&C designer papers as the background for her card. Fun and Sweet! Just love these Gruffies images! I got this one from my friend Julie from her online shop Scrapbook Store at your Door! Happy Birthday to my little someone special!

MIL Tray, Printers Tray altered for gift!

This is another view of the same tray. The first pic I took outside and this one I took inside.
Lots of fun! Details are in the post below this one!

For my Mother In Law on Mother's Day

I made this altered tray for my MIL on Mother's Day. It's a 7 Gypsies tray, that I did a quick white wash over. I selected several designer papers from 7 Gypsies, and several others. The trinkets I have been collecting awhile, but some are Tim Holtz, some are Bo Bunny, some are Making Memories, and some are from Red Lead, a specialty shop in Webster Groves, Mo. Some items are some things I had from my grandmother's sewing kit, like the white button where I put glitter in the middle. The spoon is one of my favorite items. I made this during a St Louis Splitcoast stamper's swap where our theme was altered items. I knew it would make a good feature on an altered tray! I also made the zipper roses, where I found the tutorial on one of the many blogs I visit, sorry I can't remember which one, but thanks for this cool idea! I also made the hemming lace flower by bunching up the lace in a gathering and stitching in place. I used some Tim Holtz bottles and typed Nehi Time in one and just the word Time in the other. I got this idea from the Tim Holtz website, when Tammy Tutterow showcased her beautiful tray. I simply had fun putting this together from finding the pictures of my Mother in law when she was young. Her sister helped by sending pictures to me in secret! So much fun to work with these fun photos! I wasn't afraid to cut the cute photo of my MIL when she was young in pigtails with a bottle of Nehi Orange Pop in her hand! I really liked putting all four pieces in each of those four frames. I also took another photo of her after she had her baby--now my hubby! The photo is cut in two pieces and centered in two frames. It contains her father and mother. The cute little framed picture of the four kids is my MIL second from the right, her sister and two brothers. I really love their wedding photo, they are still together after 55 years! Amazing! Still going strong! I had been thinking of doing this for quite awhile, and have gathered trinkets and collectables for a long time. These collage frames are really fun to do and the recipient was very happy with her Mother's Day gift!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful hard working mothers out there! Hope your day was beautiful!

My First Award! from Julie at: http://designs-by-julie.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

The Liebster Blog award is given to bring newer blogs into the light. 
It's a great way to share blogs that might not otherwise have been noticed and should be! As recipient you must share the love and pass it along to others, as well as these four things:

1. You must post on your blog and tell a little about the award and
announce your 3-5 picks.
2. Let those know you have chosen them.
3. Copy and post the award on your blog for all to see.
4. Have fun and continue to inspire

The 5 recipients I have chosen for this award are, in no particular order...

1.  http://serenitylanedesigns.blogspot.com 

2. http://ariiaana.blogspot.com/

3. http://www.shareyourgifts.blogspot.com/

4. http://lastampers.blogspot.com/

5. http://ogilviesfollies.blogspot.com/

I chose these blogs because they are new, and they offer some great ideas, and have fun things to see. 

I wish to thank Julie who visited my blog and simply offered this neat award! I hope to post a new project soon!

Fun shadow box project!

I have always wanted to do one of these! I plan to do a few more! I found this frame/tray made out of wood fibers at Archivers. I took some old yellowed book pages from an old paperback novel and wrapped strips of book paper around the frame. I used an old fashioned glue to make the paper more pliable so I could easily wrap it around each little rectangle in the frame. I used flour and water ala paper mache. Once I wrapped the frame, I let it dry over night. The next day I wrapped a few more pieces around the corners and tiny spots. Again I let this dry a few hours. Then I took some Ranger Distress Walnut Stain ink and sponged around the entire frame to age it. I simply then used Modge Podge over the entire surface and again let dry overnight. Then I traced the back board frames and used coordinating papers on the rectangles. From there I had fun adding Tim Holtz gears, light bulbs, pocket watch, and other fun masculine embellishments I had in my hoard of embellishments. This shadow box project was made for a retiring co-worker. I had quite a lot of fun putting it together. The silver numbers are also fro the Tim Holtz collection of items. This shadow box pretty much explains the type of person is was made for. He is not only a maintenance person, he also has a Navy and medical supply background. He helped set up many Physician's offices with new equipment and the installation of new electrical diagnostic instruments and power examination tables. I thought this tray was very fitting!

Cricut Imagine More Birthday card

I used the Cricut Imagine cartridge Imagine More and loved the printed papers that coordinate together!

I chose a bonus image for the center of the card of the Rooster and the chick with umbrella. I thoughtthis was so cute to use for a Birthday card from "All of Us" ---a group of people at work.
The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Beyond Birthdays but I chose coordinating solid colors from the Imagine More cartridge to fill in the letters with color.  The --"From All of Us" sentiment is just letters I chose from the Alphalicious cartridge and filled in with Imagine More designer paper patterns. All of the colors and patterns coordinate so nicely!  I simply sponged around some of the letters to bring them out a little more since all the colors and patterns coordinated so well and just wanted to pop out certain words. This was certainly fun, and loved using the Cricut Imagine to make such a fun card! This machine is amazing to print and then cut all at one time! I sewed around two of the panels just to provide more texture and accent.

Butterfly card using SCS Sketch SC325

This is a sketch layout from Splitcoast Stampers. Roxy71 posts a new sketch every week! I liked this one, so I tried it. This is sketch challenge 325 or SC325. I also had the SCS Inspiration Challenge in mind for this card. I viewed IC277 from the online store Ruche. I liked the photograph here that inspired me to make this card.

I had fun with this one. I used a home made embossing folder that I made with jute twine. I simply laid pieces of jute twine on a piece of cereal box cardboard, and glued then in place with very tacky glue-I used Scoth brand white liquid glue, it is one of my favorites. I used nitrile gloves for this so I could lay glue all through the twine so it would stick well to the cardboard in straight lines. They weren't perfect straight lines and that's ok because this was the look I was trying to achieve. Then when  the pieces of jute were dry, I brushed Modge Podge over the entire surface and let dry again. I let it set overnite to cure. When I made this card, in order to get the embossing to work I slightly dampened the green cardstock with a water mister and spritzed the triangle pieces, and put it through my Cuttlebug. It's a plain texture, but it worked nicely. I like the color combination inspired by the mosaic paper, and colored the butterfly with my Copics. I used Spellbinders Labels Eight nestie for the die-cut of the butterfly.

Josh's BD Card

This is a card I made for Josh's Birthday. I used a sponging technique on the background, where I had three stamp pad inks ready. First, I took my Versamark embossing pad and smeared a few streaks on plain white cardstock. Then over that, I sprinkled some clear embossing powder and heat treated it. Then I took some Post-It notes and tore off pieces and then sponged over it. Then I lifted the post-it and placed it higher on the paper and sponged with a different color. I lifted the post it one more time and sponged yet a different color. Then I wiped off the clear embossed spot with a cloth to take off any color. This method is called emboss resist. One of my favorite techniques. This idea and technique I learned by watching Michele Zindorf blog: Freedom in Creating.
I then used my Cricut Imagine to cut out the Happy Birthday sentiment and the Skateboarder and the word Skate. The Skateboarder and the word Skate came from a Cricut Lite Cartridge by the name of "DUDE". The star and the flourish came from my Cricut Imagine Cartridge by the name of JT Art . It has a steampunk feel to it, and it looks great to use for teens and young adults. My son has been a skateboarder since he was a pre-teen. Now he gives lessons to pre-teens he has been at it so long.  The background star paper I found at Hobby Lobby. I used some black square brads in the corners and just lifted the image on three layers of cardstock to bring out colors.

This is a card I made for my St Louis Splitcoast Stampers Swap. Our theme today was "3".  The tag is done ala Tim Holtz Distress Inks style. On teflon craft sheeting (found in most craft stores), swipe your desired Ranger Distress ink directly onto the teflon sheet. Swipe a second color of Ranger Distress Ink directly below or above or side to the color you first layed down. Spray with water. The ink reacts nicely with water and beads up. Then take your tag and press it onto the ink and water and lift straight up. Dry with heat gun. Don't worry if your tag curls with dampness, it flattens quickly as it dries. Tap it again in the ink and water, and heat treat it again till dry. Try not to mix the colors, try to stay in the area of color so the colors don't get muddy. Tap the tag once more into the ink and water and heat guy dry again. I tapped into the ink and water and dried the tag three times, for our theme today. This is a quick process, it takes less than five minutes. The tag was ready to embellish and stamp immediately afterwards. . For the sentiment, I stamped my tag in Andirondack Sail Boat Blue pigment and waited for it to dry. Then I colored in the word Imagine with a Spica blue gen glitter pen. I also used blue stickles to dot the i's. The black panel is a piece of Core'dinations cardstock of black over blue.  This piece was run through my Cuttlebug using the CB Paisley embossing folder. Then I took a sanding block and sanded it to bring out the blue core underneath. I also distressed around the edges with a paper distressor to bring out the blue on the edges. Then I simply embellished with three stars punched, a turquoise button, and a turquoise prima flower I trimmed with more blue stickles. I also took three curl punches and layed under the prima flower. It was then adheared to a turquoise panel on a black cardstock base. I just love texture, and had fun bringing it out on this card!

Happy Birthday Mom

My mom's pretty cool. She is a person I look up to, and wonder how she raised six wild kids in all the places we lived. I have had my hands full with three kids but she handled all six of us! She is very special to me. Her birthday is this week, and this is the card I made for her! Lots of texture, but I am a nut about real textures on a card or scrapbook page. The pretty embossed white paper is from a sheet of textured papers I found at Hobby Lobby. The piece of mesh with a sheer overcoat is from a friend. The black ribbon on the bottom I ran through my crimper and it only slightly rippled it. I found that wound white ribbon at Target in their scrapbook area. I stamped the central daisy three times so I could cut out the paisley centers and piece them back on the petals to give more depth. I used a scalloped rectangle nestie diecut for the frame and wound some lacey seam binder around it to give it texture. The happy birthday sentiment is from Hampton Arts. I found the black and white prima flowers at Tuesday Mornings also. The panel designer papers are from a black and white scrapbook collection I picked up from Tuesday Mornings. I also used a Sizzix die cut called scribble swirl die. I popped things up with pop dots and used Hershberg Schutz floral spray I found at Michael's. Lots of fun details and was fun to make!

VICTORIAN VINTAGE IMAGES | Vintage Clip Art Vintage Ephemera Vintage Scrapbooking

VICTORIAN VINTAGE IMAGES | Vintage Clip Art Vintage Ephemera Vintage Scrapbooking

Three Wishes Birthday

I made a card for a friend at work. This was fun to do! The three panels have eyelets and I strung a black cording through the eyelets to connect the panels with three birthday sentiments, for three wishes! The designer paper used is from Recollections Purple Daze. The ribbon is two pieces together, one green and one purple to go with the theme. I used some Hero Arts metallic jewels in the top left and bottom right corners. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from a set I found at Target. I used some prima flowers and colored some plain white ones with some purple and green markers to coordinate with the color theme.

I think it's a fun card! Let me know what you think!

Ted's Valentine Blog Challenge

I am trying something new! From the blogs I follow, I found a challenge I just had to try! From Happily Ever Crafter, the challenge was to make a Valentine. The challenge though was to use your very own writing for the front sentiment and the inside sentiment. Most of us really don't like our own handwriting. That's why we use stamps! So this was a challenge to write your own sentiment! So here is my card for the challenge.

 I used my Cricut Imagine and had it cut the scalloped red heart just from it's in the box shapes provided with the machine, no cartridge neccessary! Then I tried the Martha Stewart lacey boarder punch to trim around the heart. That was challenging too because as you know boarder punches only punch straight rows. What I did to curve it around the heart was to make little snips on the opposite side of the border and helped to curve a little. It's still not perfect, and I used those roses on the bottom to cover where the pieces came together. I made the roses by cutting with my scalloped scissors in a circle. Then I just used a stylus to curl it and then adhered together. I found some heart shaped buttons in my red button collection (from Archivers), and the corners are Cuttlebug's corner rounders.
The center of my heart theme was from the Inspiration Challenge from Splitcoast Stampers website where the Inspiration Challenge host places a website for all to view and when you find an object that inspires you --the challenge is to make a card from that inspiration and post the picutre from the website along with the picture of your card to show how you were inspired. Yesterday's website was: Uncommon Goods. I chose this neat metallic box. I love copper and turquoise together so I was inspired by this neat item.
The challenge was a little outside my box, but I had fun trying it! Thanks Ted, for the challenge!

Designed this card in hopes to take to a swap. The vertical birthday stamp is from Archivers. I have been looking for a vertical birthday stamp for a long time! I used some older stamps from Hero Arts and Inkadinkado. The friend stamp is from Michael's dollar bin. I colored in the flowers with Copics markers. The ink used was SU real red ink and Archival soft leaf for the ink on the friend stamp. The clear vellum flower stem and flower is from Martha Stewart. The pink ribbon is from my stash. 

Thinking of You Cricut Card Using Imagine More and Create a Critter

This is such a cute frog, and for some reason I am drawn to frogs in many cute versions! I made this for a friend. The frog is cut from Cricut Create a Critter cartridge. I also used my Imagine More cartridge to color, print and cut the lilly pad. The little heart on the frog is simply a small Fiskars punch. The background paper is SW Raspberry Tart. So is the little heart. The card base is Kiwi Kiss and the red cardstock panel is Bazzil Cherry Splash. The word phrase is from Alphalicious Cricut cartride. I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder on standard green cardstock for the frog. I used the idea from Cricut.com website under Cards and found a similar card here and cased it for my card: http://community.provocraft.com/Cricut-Community_postst48253_-Thinking-of-You-.aspx Fun to make!

Homemade Clip-it-up--I made one!

I have read several ways to make a homemade Clip-it-up on the Internet and from You-Tube and from several other websites. I was starting to collect a lot of stickers through sales and friends buying me little scrapbook presents. My old method of keeping them in a box prevented me from seeing what I had. The Clip-it-up idea really was right up my alley-especially the frugally homemade version-haha! I love it! I went to a local thrift store and bought the right kind of lampshade. It has to have a supported center that will screw onto the standard lamp fitting. I looked for the ugliest lampshade because I knew I would tear the material off the metal lampshade frame. I bought the lampshade for $2.00. Then I went to the local hardware store and bought the standard lamp fixture threaded rod. I also bought the locknuts and washers that fit the standard threaded lamp fixture rod. Then I looked for a base to put my clip-it-up on. I found one at Michael's. I think it cost $2.99, and I used a sale coupon so it was about 2.69 or close to that. The threaded rod cost about 4-5 dollars, and the locknots and washers cost about 2.79 or close to that amount. I know I spent a total of 13.00 for my homemade clip-it up, and it rotates around, so all I have to do is just twirl it slowly so I can pick from my collections! I mostly used the version I saw on You-Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Up523UXUk This is a great tutorial if you want to make one too!

Male Birthday Card for someone special-My Son!

Wow I didn't use a Cricut or a stamp! I used cool male looking papers, some very cool mesh a friend gave me, and some cool trinkets I've collected from all over. The Key and the Locket are from Red Lead, a local store where I love to browse for cool things such as neat papers, and very interesting eclectic trinkets. The papers I got from Archivers in their Heritage Collection. The paper where the clock face is placed is also the same paper used on the bigger panel, I just placed the cool mesh over it and adhered with my Mono Multi liquid glue. I put the trinkets on with Glossy Accents. Glossy accents seems to work really well when I need to adhere trinket type embellishments. I got this layout idea from Splitcoast Stampers where an artists there used stamped images for a masculine card. Here is a link I used: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1864120?&si=vintage masculine

I love the look of Vintage and Masculine together.

Happy 

Birthday Justin! 

New computer adjustment time!

New computer, new things to learn! Need to learn how to post new projects on the new computer. Nice thing is the computer has lots of nice space! Will post a project later on this weekend!

I made these two cards for some male family members. I used the Cricut Imagine More and my Old West font cartridge. The top card I used the Old West font, and chose an Imagine More paper to fill the letters. I did the shapes with craft paper and sponged Ranger walnut stain ink around the edges. The top card's letters were also sponged around the edges with the same ink. The bottom card I used Old West font and also chose Imagine More paper to fill in the colors. The wild west is flourish and shadow fonts used together. The Happy Birthday sentiment on the botttom card was made using the Imagine More cartridge and I layered it by having the Imagine print and cut each layer and I pieced it back for dimension. The central star is an icon from Old West, the horses are images from Old West. I did distress and stain around the panels on both cards. A friend got me those cute star clasps I put on both sides of the bottom card. These were fun to create!

Here are a few of my first cuts from my Cricut. I made Thank-you cards and birthday cards with these. I needed words the most, and used my first cricut font cartridge Old West. I do love this one! I grew up with a Western theme family, and our house was always decorated Western. I still love that theme, so it is very appropriate to make my father, mother and my siblings western themed cards. We all love horses and cowboy and US Western Indian themed things. We all collect western art, and love it.

This is my first Cricut Imagine project! I used two cartridges for this card. Imagine More cart and Old West cart. The Old West Cart is what I used for the front of the card. I used shadow flourish and flourish to get the two tones. I used Bazzil cardstock in almond cream and chocolate brown. I used regular white card stock for the cute gratitude sentinment inside. I layered it by having my Imagine print out each layer and then I pieced it back together to get dimension. I then used a Paper Ledger sheet by Jenni Bowlin Studio I bought from Red Lead in Webster Groves Mo. The flowers are altered by using some old book pages, white acrylic paint, and then staining some paper flowers with Ranger distress inks of Walnut stain and then some Glimmer mist. The brads I've had forever and could be from Michael's or Hobby Lobby or even JoAnn's. Lots of fun learning how to use my new Cricut Imagine!