Shape Card

I have a quick post for you today with a fun simple card.

This file came from the Cutting Cafe.  They were part of a blog hop and I won it.  Woo hoo on winning and blog hops and thanks to Cutting Cafe.  It came with all three layers and two circle sentiments for the middle.  What a deal.  If you are interested in it, you can find it here.

This is the inside.

I added a circle the same size as the sentiment so I could write a little something on the inside.

I didn't do ANYTHING to this card or the cuts.  It felt incomplete but I think I could use it.  Can I whine for just a moment.  Do you know that I can't find a single embossing folder for St. Patrick's Day.  I want a combo set, shamrocks and then one like Stu Kilgore does with a little scene but honestly, I'd take ANYTHING right now.  Do you think anyone has one?  If you know of one, let me know.  I'll run right over there and pick it up.  I'm getting desperate here.  I might actually break down and make my own.  It isn't my preference but what is a girl to do?

I know I still owe you an update on my Teresa Collins class but the Wonderkid has been sick and I'm trying to get him better in time to start swim lessons.

What do you think of the card?  Would you send it?

Bugaboo Green Sketch Challenge

I'm still making St. Patrick's Day cards.  I love St. Pat's Day.  I don't drink beer, and especially not green beer but it is the day before my birthday so as a much younger adult I would go out for St. Pats and just continue the celebration into my birthday.  My brother is the same way about New Year's Eve, his birthday.  

After I made these cards and started writing the post, it occurred to me that they aren't predominantly green.  They have green in them but that certainly isn't the main color. So, I don't know if they will be "acceptable" for the Bugaboo Challenge but I can't wait to send them to a couple of friends.  I think they'll love them.

Here is the sketch they asked us to use.

For the yellow one I turned it on its side.  

I also embossed the yellow card topper with a brocade 5 x 7 Cuttlebug folder.  The images and mats on each of the cards have been cut using a Nestability Labels Eight.  I think the colors came together perfectly.  What do you think?

Here is the other card. 

This one reminded me of a cross between Mardi Gras and St. Pat's.  Given how late Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and Lent are this year, it seemed like a fitting color choice.  I love this image from Bugaboo.  I have a few of the other St. Pat's images on my coloring tray.  I'm hoping to get them done very soon.  

Here is the sentiment on the inside of each.  It has a good bit of detail.  Don't adjust your set, that is not a smudge it is designed to look that way.  I'm thinking about stamping this with embossing powder and using it as my Facebook picture on St. Pat's Day.

I have a couple of cool things coming up and hopefully I'll have something to show from my Teresa Collin's class.

Tiddly Inks Shaker Card and Sketches in Thyme Challenge

Good morning all.  Pull up your chair.  I've got a few things to show you today.  However, I'm going to start with the fun news.  I received an email this morning saying I WON!!! Creative Charms does a giveaway most months.  This month,  I won the kit of the month.  You can see it here.  It shouldn't be long before they have the new kit of the month posted, also. So, I would check it out.  I was just thinking I need to order more velvet ric-rac from them.  Now, I have black on its way to me.  Isn't this fun.  I love getting goodies in the mail (although recently my UPS driver asked if I was ordering bricks).

Now that I've shared my little bit of fun, how about some eye candy for you.  In fact, I have two cards to show you.  Lets start with the Tiddly Ink card. 

This is a shaker card.  The image is on the card base.  Over the image is a piece of acetate (I used part of the packaging from a sizzix embossing folder) then I put a strip of pop dots all the way around the edge.  On top of the pop dots was a second piece of acetate (the other half of the packaging) and finally a frame to cover all the "inners". 

Here is a side view of the card so you can see the layers.

and another showing the impossible little bits of pop dots.

The next time I do this I will have a strip of pop dot tape instead of a hundred little pop dot squares.

In between the two pieces of acetate and in the middle of all those pop dots is sand.  The Wonderkid has a sandbox (courtesy of PopPop) with it comes sand, EVERYWHERE.  So, I decided to "borrow" a little bit of it.  Just so you know, a little goes a long way when you are talking about shaker cards.

Here is the sand and the image.

I used two Tiddly Ink images for this card.  The main image is Sandy Memories.  If you notice, the little boy on the left has a bit of a sun burn.  The little boy on the right must have a good mommy who puts lots of sun screen on him.  The crab, starfish and sand dollars come from Don't Be Crabby.  I printed about a dozen sets of the starfish and sand dollars and colored them, cut them out and afixed them to the frame of the card. 

I finished it off with a button from my stash (I think it was a bag of buttons from JoAnn's) and some of my new baker's twine from the Kraft Outlet.

So, do I have you thinking about shaker cards you could do?

I need to digress for just a moment.  I ordered a few things from Christy at Tiddly Inks yesterday and I screwed up when I did the ordering (I should have waited another minute for the download button but I didn't).  So, I emailed Christy asking if she could help me out.  She was a real trooper and stuck it out with me until I had my images.  Now THAT is customer service because I'm certain she had something better to be doing than emailing with me bright and early on a Sunday morning. Thanks, Christy.

OK, moving right along.  (Now I have the Muppet Song stuck in my head. Do you remember it? Click the link if you want to hear it.)

Sketches in Thyme card.

As the name says, this is a sketch challenge.  Here is a copy of the sketch.

Do you think I followed the design?  What do you think of the card?  I'm very pleased with the way all of the colors pulled together.  The only thing I think it needs is some embossing on the light green section.  The light green is Core'dinations, the dark green is Bazzille and the pattern paper is some that I picked up last week at Archivers.  The ribbon came from my stash.

Can you see the little pieces of bling on the dark green?  They are Queen and Co pearls which are specifically designed to coordinate with the Core'dinations papers.  I have been eyeing them since Core'dinations did a post about them but I just hadn't purchased until recently.  This color is called Shamrock, so I had to use it.  The sentiment is one of the $1 stamps from Studio G.  I picked up two of them last year and now I get to finally use them.

St. Patrick's Day Frog Shape Card

I thought I would play along with a few challenges today.  Interestingly, two of them were very simple, embossing.  I like to emboss something on most of my cards so this wasn't much of a challenge but it left me so many options that I had trouble narrowing it down to one thing.

Here is what  I landed on.  I made the frog, and turned it into a shape card, from Create a Critter.  The challenge on Scrappy Mom's challenge site is a cut from Create a Critter.  This is a very cute cart but I just don't use it as often as I should.  Every time someone sees a card made with this cart they fall in love with it.  I welded the shadow for the frog to make the card base and then put the frog together as normal.  I embossed his belly with the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder.

I also cut the hat from Simply Charmed.  It is the hat from the leprechaun cut. I embossed it also, using the Cuttlebug Argyle folder.  I tried to heat emboss the hat band but it didn't work the way I planned, so I covered up my "creative learning experience" with a piece of black cut like the hat band and added a large gradient gem from Creative Charms.

If I had any Scrappy Mom's stamps I would have used one of their stamps but I don't have any, yet. So, I made a computer generated sentiment which I printed on a card liner shaped like the frog.  I used the base cut and did it in white.  Then I printed the sentiment on a piece of plain paper and placed the frog cut over the printed sentiment.  After I had it lined up I used my removable Tom Bow to adhere it to the paper.  I printed it again and then adhered the card liner to the card.

Back to the Scrappy Mom's stamps... I love the new ones.  If you haven't had a chance to check them out, go here.  If you want to join the challenge, you should go here.  The challenge doesn't close until the 28th so you have plentyof time to join in.

Cooking with the Cricut had the challenge to emboss something on your project.  I like their challenges and have been playing along for a couple of weeks.  For everyone thinking this is a cricut cake site, it isn't.  It is a great place to get ideas and they sell cut files if you do SCAL or MTC.

The final challenge for this little guy, Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog (FCCB).  If you get a chance check out some of the inspiration pieces.  I especially like this one from Crafting Cricut Mom.  I've been thinking about cutting that pear for awhile but I haven't gotten around to it.  This makes me think I need to move it up on my list.  What do you think of Helen's great card?

St. Patrick's Day Card

I knew I wanted to take part in the Catch the Bug Challenge and the Cuttlebug Spot Challenge.  Normally, that would mean two cards for me but I did something unusual for me, I combined the challenges.  I know lots of folks combine challenges all the time but I normally like to focus on one challenge at a time.  For me, the point is to be inspired.

After being frustrated by Paul Ford's choice of ATC's as a challenge on Catch the Bug, I found an ATC would have been just about perfect for this card.  In the end, my image was a little smaller than an ATC (only 2 inches by 3 inches).

Here is the card open.

I love gate fold cards.  I've never made one this way, but I really thought this was fun.  It is fairly plain (the image seemed to argue for less as opposed to more) but you should see some of the incredible cards at the Cuttlebug spot.  I'm always in awe of Donna Mundinger's cards (Popsicle Toes) but check out her incredible card which is all the more amazing because I don't normally think of this as her "style".

Now that I sent you to a ton of other blogs, lets talk about my sweet little card.  I used my cuttlebug to emboss the green panels on the front.  I choose the Spots and Dots folder.  The image and sentiment were cut out using the Deckled Nestabilities in my Cuttlebug.

This is one of the many turtles I colored.  I think he will find his way onto a similar card.  I find that the best way for me to end up with an image I'm happy with is to color a few and see what works.  On this image I used a lighter green and almost no shading.  If you look at the image I used in the final card, the turtle is a brighter green.

Don't you love this turtle?  If you are interested in buying him for St. Pat's or many other holidays, you can purchase him here.  Jodie has everything from Halloween to Canada Day with this turtle.  She also has a sweet little dragon as a freebie this week.  I'm still thinking about what I want to do with him.  You should check him out.  I'm really loving digis.

Thank you for checking out my cards.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I'm hoping I'll be back with a few more cards this weekend (although the weather here argues for being outside -- it was 70 degrees yesterday).

Kraft Outlet Challenge

This week's challenge at the Kraft Outlet is "Hip to be Square".  Well, I thought of a number of different things to do for this challenge but this is where I landed.

 The card is a square (5 x 5 card base) with three layers of cardstock ( a pretty green from Stampin' Up which I think I bought when they were discontinuing but don't hold me to that, I'm not a SU specialist).  The base of the brick wall is a cream cardstock from my stash.  The stamped images come from a company called Florishes.  I bought them at my LSS.  The sentiment also comes from the same set. 

Here is a close-up of the stamped images.

I thought this would make a nice St. Patrick's Day card.  Can you tell where my mind has gone now that Valentine's Day is over?

What do you think of this design?  How about the inking?  This card is so linear, it feels very square.  Thank you for looking and check out the other cards over at the Kraft Outlet Challenge.  There is still time to join in this challenge.  It is due by Sunday evening.