Thursday, September 29, 2011

You Know Halloween Card

Hi All and welcome. It's Halloween week at the Card a Day Blog and if you have come here for the first time welcome. Now I am today's designer at the Card a Day blog and I did a card based around a stamp I purchased at Micheal's. Halloween is not my best subject when it comes to card making so I struggled for a while to come up with an idea for a card, when I walked by the $1.00 stamp bin at Micheal's. I came upon this stamp that look so cute that I had to get it and it gave me the inspiration for the card today:




When I saw the witch stamp, I thought that she looked a bit dazed and had to get her. I got the spider and web for an extra stamp so I have some Halloween stamps.











So that  stamp inspired this card. Here is the front of the card:

After I left the store I started to do a little play on words for the concept that was in my head. The bat and the moon was cut from the cricut cartridge Holiday Cakes and yes you can cut paper with the cricut cake cartridges. It was cut out at 2 1/2 inches. The "You Know" was cut at 1" from the Street sign cartridge and I inked it lightly with SU basic black and my finger as the dauber to get the float feeling of the letters. I also inked the orange moon. Black diamond stickles was used on the moon for some bling.


So when I saw that dazed witch, I thought Flying isn't as glamorous as one might think and that was how this card was inspired. I didn't have a cartridge that had a flying witch so I chose that bat and the moon to portray the flying part of the card and the stamp looks like she got back form flying, clever huh.
The inside of the card shows the above words as the sentiment for the inside printed on orange paper from Staples and cut with Spellbinders label thirteen die through the cuttlebug. happy halloween is from the Holiday Cakes cartridge to and was cut out using the Fit to length function (this may be a good way to cut those borders so they fit a card with out trying to figure out the size) on my cricut at 4" cause the plan at first was to have the card in portrait style not landscape style, but as you can see that was changed. All paper used other that the paper from staples was from Keepsake Essentials Reversible paper from the local General Dollar and it doesn't cut to bad on the cricut. You may want to consider the Holiday Cakes cartridge for your next card it has lots of images for various holidays, phrases and a font too.
Don't forget to get yo own cards in for the challenge at a Card a Day Blog for a chance for the prize. Check out the bold this weekend for World Card Making day. I will have some blog candy for the event with a Christmas feel to it to win you have to be a follower or leave comment during the 2 day period, details will be coming on Saturday Oct 1.
I hope you enjoyed the card today, I enjoyed making it. Chat later and I hope you all have a great day!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Happy Hauntings

Hi you all and if any of you are from the Card a Day Blog I welcome you to my blog. Wow this month just flew on by....didn't even have time to make at least one card a week. October should be a bit different and I can at least get a card out a week if not more. Christmas card season is just around the corner and I want to be prepared for it. So enough of that let's talk about today's card:

This card was made with the masking technique which was a ton of fun to do. I did this card in my Close to My Heart club at the local scrap store, so I don't have any extra pictures but I hope I explain it well and will do another card doing the same technique and show the steps through the pictures. The masking technique is to cover part of the card some way while working on the rest of the card. The mask was the circle for the moon. We then chalked the background (with Stampin' Up chalk (got to get me some of that)) in blue and lightly with the black. Took off the mask and colored the moon with light yellow, tore the green cardstock, stamped the image (Close to My Heart stamp set) to stick out away from the green. Taped the green cardstock on added the baker's twine and threaded through the button and tied the knot. Added the sentiment. It was a quick card and alot of fun to make. I want to use this technique for a Christmas card, I think it will be a fantastic was to show off some snowflakes. Thanks all for stopping by and check back, I'll have another Halloween card up soon.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Happy Labor Day-2011

Hi you all,

Happy Labor Day to all of you. Mine will be celebrated with family, but one of our sons can't be with us because of his tour in Afghanistan. I would like to wish a great day to all the working people on the holidays such as this: The police dept., fire dept., the hospital and health service workers and of course all our men and women in uniform that can't be with their family's today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you do to make our lives better.

 This card came about from a sketch I saw at Sketch N Stash #65 and used it for the basis of this card. Everything about this card is easy! Just about all the cuts are sqaures or cut from a square. The red squares came from a 1" punch, the holographic red triangles came from the same punch just cut on the diagonal (paper came from Jo-Anns), and the vellum and the background piece were cut to a specific size square. The ribbon added some texture to the card but stayed right with the theme of the card. The only piece that was cut by machine was the Star and that came from Doodlecharms cartridge and 1.5". The stamp is from a Close to My Heart collection. Red, White and Blue ribbon I used for the border came from Jo-Anns.

These particular people shine each and everyday! So don't forget to Thank them for their service when have the chance.

I have included this card in challenge: Ribbon Carousel Challenge.RCC19-Anything goes



If your up for a challenge check out the challenges at Card a Day Blog: Challenges there are a variety of themes for the month to choose from and a monthly winner chosen at random to win a fantastic prize! Join in on the fun.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

1st Card-New Blog-Card a Day Blog

Hi you all I have some very exciting news I was the card designer for the Launch of the Card a Day Blog. If your interested in knowing more about this fabulous blog you can go here at the Card a Day Blog. We welcome you to play along and try the challenges too, you will find them on the challenge page of the Card a Day Blog. There will be a monthly prize given out to a random winner but you have to play to win!

So the theme this week is Celebrations. What better way to honor celebrations than with the celebration of a new life.
 I  made a baby shower card with the technique of welding a card base with a Gypsy: The scallop card base came from the Elegant Edges cartridge:

1st Step is the card base: I pulled up Scallop1-shift from the Elegant Edges cart in my gypsy for my card base. Duplicated the image and lined it up so  (2) scallops are on the same number on the y axis, Nudge them together slightly for the weld to take effect  along the edge to make the card base and then cut it out on the cricut.



this is what it looks like when I completed step 1. I used 8.5" X 11" cream cardstock for my card base. The cardstock was out of the Natural pack form ANW/Crestwood, Inc (The Paper Company) from Jo-Anns






Step 2: Using Circles Lg (#S4-114), Classic (Spellbinders die cut), using the largest one in the pack, cut out a circle from the same color card stock as the card base using the cuttlebug. Emboss that same circle w/ swiss dots folder through the cuttlebug leaving a 1an1/2" edge un-embossed and ink edges ( I used Stamping Up More Mustard ink to stamp the edges)
 

Step 3: Cutting out the bottom section of the circle. I used Baby/Rows of Icons cardstock (it is  Heidi Grace design paper from Fiskars). I choose the strip I wanted to use. I will need a 4" X 2" strip to fussy cut for the bottom part of the circle (used a section that had Baby and presents for this). Then cut it out with the same circle die cut from earlier. This is where you want to fussy cut the way that you want it to sit on the card and make sure all edges are under die to get the cut. I used tape to hold the die in place.

Step 4: Cut out the middle border. I used a piece of scrap cardstock that had a straight edge and punched the edge with Fiskars scallop edge punch and then cut it with a straight edge cutter leaving at least an 1/4" edge to glue to the pattern piece of paper for the border by 4 1/2". You could use any type of punch you would like to match the theme of your card. The scrap paper came from the Jewel pack from the same company mention previously.


Step 5: Putting the pieces together. Adhere border piece to pattern piece, trim off any excess of the green border. Then adhere that piece to the un-embossed edge of circle making sure edges line up. Cut ribbon at 4an1/2" length. Wrap ribbon over layered circle just under the green border and secure ends to the back of circle (I used scor tape to attach ribbon). Adhere layered circle to the scallop folded card base (I used ATG tape to attach together).


Stamp sentiment on the same color card stock as the base in black ink (I used Stampin Up basic black)and punch out with you chosen punch (I used Stampin Up extra large scallop oval punch). Ink edges with the same color that was used for the embossed circle attach with 1/8" foam tape and add a rhinestone or stickles to give it some bling (I used a rhinestone from KaiserScrapbook). To dress it up more add an image of balloons or a rattle. I used the rattle from Cricut Sampler cartridge @ 2" and used 1/16" foam tape to attach add some stickles to the yellow card stock. A perfect card for a baby gift.

Another version of the same card just with balloons. The inspiration for these cards came from the May 2001 issue of CardMaker. I had never made this type of card before so it was fun for me to try a new technique. I have included this card in a challenge at Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog the color yellow is the challenge-to have yellow on you card. I have also included this in the Stampin Sisters in Christ Challenge #105 for pastel colors. This was a fun project, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.