Nature Walk Weekend

I missed my Walk With Nature card last week due to hurricane Netta that hit my craft room......well....not a real hurricane.....it was lil ole Me....as I posted yesterday....I had decided to clean my craft room and I don't have to explain what happens when you decide to "straighten it up and organize".....not a pretty situation! Anyway, this weekend my card is about a flower. No matter what nature walk I am on...I am always on the lookout for flowers. I can't tell you how many times I frustrated my hiking buddy as I would have to stop to take "the perfect" photo of some tiny flower I spotted. Todays flower is made from the a disposable tealight candle holder. A very simple card to make. For the flower center, I punched a hole in the big white brad with my crop-o-dile and inserted a flower brad through the hole. The big brad was attached to the center of the tealight candle flower and before it was tacked down. I punched a square hole on my card front . I used my Cuttlebug to get the green leaves and then cut them out. The leaves were glued down onto the card front and the tealight candle flower was glued down on top of the leaves. Coordinating paper was glued to the inside of the card. With the card closed, I chose the stamp You've Got Mail from the set clear stamps called "Anytime Sentiments" and stamped it through the window so it would be lined up correctly when the card was closed. That is it!! Very easy!! I made this card while talking on the phone.....that is how easy it is. Thank you for joining me on my Nature Walk Weekend.........now your turn!!

Stand Up Card Tutorial

As promised a few weeks ago...here is the tutorial on how to make the Stand Up card that I did on August 14th 2009 which you can re-visit HERE. I apologize for taking so long but I decided to clean out my craft room ....BIG mistake....HUGE mistake.....it took me forever to get it straighten back up so I could actually use my desk again!

For today's card I used the following:

Sailing Martini Stamp

Navy Blue Cardstock, button and Dye Ink

White Cardstock, ribbon and Dye Ink

Red Ribbon

Starfish

Cuttlebug

Crop-o-dile

(all photos-if clicked on-will enlarge for easy viewing)

CUTTING AND FOLDING THE BASE OF THE CARD

The finished Stand Up Card measures 6 inches wide x 4 1/2 inches high when folded flat for mailing.

Step 1- Cut one piece of Navy cardstock for the card front 6 inches wide x 4 1/2 inches high and another piece of Navy cardstock for the back 6 inches wide x 8 7/16 inches.

Step 2- Take the Card Back cardstock and measure in from one side and score at 2 inches and 4 inches. (Refer to photo below)

Step 3- Make a valley fold (Refer to photo below)

Step 4- Attach the Navy card front ONLY to the 2 inch fold section. I attached two different photo views.

This is how you fold the card down in order to slip the card into an envelope.

DECORATING AND FINISHING THE TOP OF THE CARD

I cut two pieces of white cardstock..each 5 3/4 inches wide X 4 1/4 inches high. One was for the top of the card and one for the bottom (inside when folded).

I wrapped drywall tape around my brayer...inked it up with navy blue ink and brayered one of the white cardstocks I had cut for the top of the card. It is a technique that I learned from Splitcoaststampers Site. The dark strip of blue was a major boo-boo. I was going to start over until I decided it looked kinda cool so I continued. I attached it to the top of the card.

Next I cut a red piece of cardstock 4 inches wide X 3 1/2 inches high. I wanted to keep with a beachy boat scene so I used my crop-o-dile to put holes on two sides of the red cardstock so that I could string white ribbon and in & out of the holes. I layered a navy blue cardstock on top of the red. For the last layer of red cardstock I ran it through the cuttlebug and then used a brayer of white ink over the top to catch the raised areas (to resemble waves). The Sailboat Martini Image was colored with markers and liquid glass applied only to the martini glass to resemble glass...the rope and sail was layered for a 3-D look and then glued down.

INSIDE/BOTTOM LAYER OF CARD

Take the last white 5 3/4 inches wide X 4 1/4 inches high cardstock.

Measure over from the edge 2 7/8 inches...make a light mark with a pencil. It should be the middle of the cardstock

Measure 2 1/2 inches down from the top to the center of the card so that it is in the middle.

It will be the spot where for a brad, a button, a bead, etc for holding the front of the card so that it stands up. Attach the cardstock to the bottom/inside of the card.

(Refer to photo)

Now finish decorating the bottom layer. The area that is just above the button or brad is where you can stamp your sentiment. After your receiver reads the card, they just have to hook the card front behind the button and display your work of art.

Hopefully this tutorial was easy to understand. If you have any questions...please leave me a message!!

(card folded for mailing)

If you make a card using this technique....I would love it if you shared it with me!!

Thank you for joining me today.

Weathered Background Technique

A few people asked how I made my background to the Feathered Butterfly card so I made another background and took some photos of the steps I used. I kept in mind what an old metal container will look like when it has sat around for awhile...it tends to get a blueish weather look. (all photos can be clicked on to enlarge and get a better view)

There are very few materials you need to make the weathered background. Heat Gun 2 Colors of Embossing Powder (I used Gold and Light Blue) Embossing Pad Sponge White Cardstock

Using a sponge to pick up glue from your embossing pad and pat where you want the first color to be on your cardstock. I used the gold first and put it over the entire cardstock but if you enlarge the photo you can see I was not fussy and there are some spots where the gold has not completely covered. It will be covered in the next step.

Heat the embossing powder. You can see by the photograph where I have heated as the embossing powder is melting and becoming shiny.

After your first color has cooled down for a few seconds, use your sponge again to dab the glue down where you want the 2nd color to go.

Pour your second color on top and knock off anything that does not stick. Heat your 2nd color until melted making sure you do not over heat or the first color will bubble up through. If you are not happy with your results, you can add more gold or blue until you get the result you are looking for.

The entire technique takes only minutes and it makes a very interesting background. It is the one time where you do not need an embossing buddy to stop stray particles ...if some stray particles are where you did not add glue, that is ok. (Enlarge photo to get a better look) It gives it an interesting affect. Now your Weathered Background is ready for you to use on your next card!!

Nature Walk Weekend

I am a huge fan of Nature and Animals so I have decided every weekend I am going to make a card for my new theme called Nature Walk Weekend. I hope you join me every weekend!!

Here is my first card!

I made this card two weeks ago and am just getting around to sharing it with you all. I saw this type of shape on the top of a box and liked it. It took me a while to figure out how to make it! I like it so much that I am going to make a pattern and make more! It lies flat and fits into an envelope with no problem. When open, the top rest against a brad to hold it open. When you lift up the top, there is a verse underneath.

The image is a single Owl Stamp which I stamped in brown ink. I used my Nesties in my Cuttlebug to cut out and mat the image on. The "Forever Flowers" No 6 leaves came from the same company that makes the Prima flowers. I bought a jar years ago and still using the same jar. I thought they went well with the woodsy theme.

Faux Leather and Tool Belt

Do you all find it as difficult as I do when it comes to ideas on masculine cards? My father-in-law is a "fix-it" man. There isn't anything he throws away...it can be taken apart, reused and rebuilt so this card was perfect for him. To begin I needed paper that looked like leather and of course...out of my entire stash I did not have any. Easy to fix...I made my own. A bit time consuming but the result was just what I was looking for...

Wet Brown paper Crinkled wet paper into a tight ball Opened paper up and laid it as flat as I could Swiped Brown Ink across the creases Iron the paper flat until it dried Wiped versamark ink all over it

let dry and cut out my pieces.

Before I glued my pieces down...I used faux stitching along the tool belt pieces and I also inserted my larger and smaller brads to resemble the rivots. I was lucky to find some left over stickers of tools to slip into the pockets! The only stamping was the word DAD on the tag. He loved the card very much. Happy Birthday Dad!

Sympathy Flowers in Sunset

Sympathy card done the Michelle Zindorf way........sort of

The rubber stamps of flowers and the background grass that I used is a Stamping Up set called Inspire by Nature. I used Stamping Up markers to color the flowers-Yoyo Yellow and Chocolate Chip. After stamping the flowers on Stamping Up whisper white cardstock, I re-colored over the images with a VersaMarker and embossed them with clear fine detail embossing powder.

For the sunset..I tried once again to brayer the background. No matter what I do...I cannot get the brayering method that Michelle uses down correctly so I end up sponging all my colors on the cardstock for the sunset. Before I used the darker colors, I temporarily glued down a circle mask for the sun. After all the sunset colors were done, I stamped the grass with brown and wiped it off the flowers. I did not have cardstock to match the ink colors in the sunset so I used brayer on white cardstock in the two colors that I needed to mat the sunset on.

Sunset Ink colors: Stamping Up Apricot Appeal,Pumpkinie,Real Red, Barely Banana, Really Rust & Black

For the green background I had some left over green paper that I used up. The sentiment came from the set Sympathy Sentiments. I stamped another set of flowers and cut one out for an additional flower.

Birds Singing So Long-Tri Fold Card

There are many cards being shared on the internet in the papercrafting world with this "new" type of fold. It is called the Tri Shutter Card and you can find out how to make this by going to Splitcoaststampers.com (or use the link to the right) and look up the tutorial. It is a lot of fun and not hard at all....just looks complicated. It folds up nice and small to fit into regular card envelope.

I wanted to share my version even though I made it about 2 months ago. Doc, my husband, needed a card for a co-worker who was moving away. He said everyone who signed the back of the card had to have an in-service on how to fold it LOL. All of the stamps on this card came from a challenge that I won. I really need to pull them out again.

Shiny Challenge

Here is a quick post for tonight. The challenge in the yahoo group I belong to was to make something shiny. This image is called the Peacock Butterfly. Coloring it was easy...turquoise marker and a shiny gold was from a pen. The background, gold and turquoise, was not hard but just a lot of fun to make. I may do more! It also shines but the shine was hard to show up when I took the picture.

1/2 a Birthday!

Could you take a card like this

And do this to it??

Trust me...it was NOT easy!! I kept thinking...all my hard work!!

At work, when someone has a birthday, we all bring in cards. One of my co-workers has a birthday on December 25th and her family has always celebrated it on July 25th so she did not get cheated. We decided to do the same. Someone came up with the idea...let's give her only 1/2 the card! We will save the other 1/2 for December. Great idea right?

Well easy for everyone else...they buy their cards.

So I had to come up with an idea that would be easy to cut so my card started with the idea of using the Stair Step folding technique. That way both pieces would stand up on their own. All my images, except for the lady in the middle section (she was RAK'd to me), came from the set "On the Beach Set" and were stamped on Georgia Pacific (GP) with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Blick Markers. GP along with Memento Dye Inks seems to work best with alcohol markers. No wait time, no bleeding or smudges at all!

For the scene in the background..

1st. I stamped where I wanted my images to be on the GP cardstock and did all the image coloring first.

2nd. I took a scrap paper, held it where I wanted the sand to end and used a marker to color in the sand making sure to color behind the girls a little darker to represent the shading from the sun.

3rd. I moved the scrap paper up to where the ocean and the sky would meet and colored in the water with a marker

4th. I punched out a circle to mask where the sun would be and used removable tape to hold the sun in place

5th. I used plastic piece cut to represent clouds and I used a sponge dabbed with blue ink to make the sky and clouds

6th. I removed my mask and colored the sun in with bright yellow

7th. I stamped Happy Birthday with black ink

The poem was created by my sister Faye and in case you can't read it..here is what it said..

Today we celebrate your birthday

but only half....I fear

Its not really your special day

until the end of the year

One half a card is all you'll get

Put it away where you'll remember

Cuz you don't get the other half

Until your birthday in December!!!

I took the fun one step further and actually cut the card while it was sealed in the envelope making sure the poem remained intact so she would get that 1/2 of the card first. She loved the whole 1/2 theme!!

She said she can't wait to see the rest of my card.

An online friend saw the card and suggested I decorate the 2nd 1/2 with a Christmas theme and I loved that idea!

Thanks Joyce...lots of ideas floating in my head so stay tuned!!