Online Card Classes Day 7-Alphabet Dies

It's my last card for the Online Card Class Stretch Your Dies. Day 7 class focused on Alphabet Dies. I used My Creative Time Upper Case Letter Dies. This is pretty straight forward and basically came down to measuring a grid onto the card front to make placement of the dies easier. I'm not sure I was really successful because this die set does not have letters that were all the same width. But this is what I had to work with so I gave it my best shot. After cutting the letters I added foam tape to the front so I could add some star shaped sequins and make a shaker card. I placed thin strips of foam tape between each line of letters so I could place different colored sequins in each section. I'm just now noticing that I forgot to add the inside of the letter A to the card front. OOPS! This card looks awfully bare to me and I might have to revisit it and add a little something to the front.

Cardz TV Stamps Mixed Messages-OCC Day 6

So happy you stopped by today! I'm excited to be showcasing a new sentiment stamp for Cardz TV Stamps called Mixed Messages. This is a fun new stamp set with all around fabulous sentiments for all occasions. To create my scene on this card I used the Lawn Fawn Critters in the Burbs stamps and dies. I'm also very excited to have used a new technique I learned from Online Card Classes Stretch Your Dies. Fabulous class! I used a couple dies to create stencils for inking my background. I'm not a great inker, so this was a real challenge for me. I used a grass border die from My Creative Time and a cloud border die from Taylored Expressions. After cutting both from acetate I used a Tim Holtz Round Ink Blending tool to ink around the cloud using Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. Then I used the grass stencil and Green Hills ink to add the grass. After inking the grass I stamped a few blades of grass from the Critters in the Burbs stamp set. I have to say, so far, this is my best inking attempt. All the experts make it look so easy. I think in my first attempts I was too heavy handed with the ink. I used a lighter touch and like this look much better. After the background was complete I stamped and die cut the tree and paper pieced it, then stamped the other additions on white cardstock and colored them with my Copics. To finish off the card I die cut a cloud from a My Creative Time die and stamped the sentiment HELLO THERE.

Online Card Classes Day Five-Coordinating Dies

Wow-I made it through the whole week of classes and finished my homework. Today's ONLINE CARD CLASS was all about Coordinating Dies that go with stamp sets. I, sadly, needed to make a sympathy card for a friend this week after losing one of the golfer's from our couples league to a cardiac arrest. It sure makes you realize how very quickly life can change. For my card I used a stamp and die set from My Creative Time. I started out by cutting a circle die and then cut the butterfly from and worked with the negative portion. Next I cut a circle of acetate and stamped the coordinating plaid butterfly image with black Staz-On ink. The next step was to find a nice background paper for the butterfly. I chose a green polka dot from My Mind's Eye Fine and Dandy paper pad. It had the perfect butterfly paper to go along with my die cut. After I added the background paper behind the acetate I cut another circle out of fun foam to give the die cut a little dimension. I added a panel of the butterfly paper to a white base card then cut two cooridinating prints for stripes on the front of the card, cutting on at .5" and the other at .75". Finally, I added my sympathy sentiment to a banner that I cut from a My Creative Time die and popped it up on the card front with a little foam tape. Now I need to go add all my card class cards to the student gallery. Thanks for stopping by.

Online Card Classes Day 4-Mini Dies

I have another card to share from this week's Online Card Class. This is Day 4 and highlights mini dies. You know those smaller dies that sometimes come in with sets and you don't often use them. For my card I chose to use several sizes of hearts and they came from My Creative Time. The word die is Maggie Holmes. To start this card out I did a little inking on flesh colored cardstock from Stampin' Up. I used Distress inks in Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet to get this ombre look. I'm not a very good inker, but I keep trying. I'm one of those neat crafters and I hate getting dirty so the whole inking process just bothers me. I don't even like putting those little spongy heads on the ink blending tool and then trying to get them off. Next I cut the word die out of the pink cardstock and then started the tedious process of cutting all the little hearts. This card took a little longer than I like to spend on a card, but in the end I was pretty happy with how it turned out. To finish it off I just attached it to a white card base with foam tape to give it a little dimension.

Online Card Classes Day Three-Basic Shape Dies

I'm back with my card for the third day of Online Card Classes Stretch Your Dies. Today's class showed some great ways to get more out of your basic shape dies, circles (like I used), squares, hearts, etc. I'm so in love with how this card came out showcasing the adorable elephant. The elephant is made with a coordinating set of dies and stamps from Wplus9 called Unforgettable. This elephant is so adorable, I can hardly stand it. 

So to put this card together I used two standard A2 cards (4.25x5.5) and placed them together to form a basic tri-fold card by overlapping the center panels. Then I scored the two sections on each end at  2 1/8" to form the flaps that I would cut the circle from. You have to do each side separately so you don't cut through that center section. You can see from this view from the top what it looks like after the circle is cut in the center. For the inside of the card I used the sitting elephant from the stamp set and a balloon that I stamped, colored and die cut. To finish the card off I added a hand cut white heat-embossed banner to the front and added a sentiment inside that say "you are absolutely unforgettable, it's you birthday that's hard to remember". Isn't that the perfect sentiment for a forgotten birthday greeting?

Online Card Classes Day Two-Flower Dies

I'm so proud of myself for actually managing to get my class cards posted with this go around of ONLINE CARD CLASSES. The last class I took I never posted my cards because I got sick. This has been the worst winter cold season ever for me. I am trying to recover again from another sinus infection, the third one since November.

For my project today I decided to make a tag instead of a card. This tag features added dimension to the flowers by layering them. I started with a white tag cut from a My Creative Time metal die. I also used a My Creative Time word die. The flower spray is a die from Simon Says Stamp called Calliope Flourish. I just love this die and have used it many times. I started by cutting the flower die from white cardstock, bright pink, orange and yellow. I used the white die as my base and colored the stem parts green with a Copic marker. Then I just starting cutting the flower elements from the colored cardstocks. I made the layers by cutting some of the flower petals smaller and stacking them. I finished the tag off with a few sequins that perfectly matched the orange paper.

Online Card Class Day One Word Dies

Hello my crafty friends. I've been participating in Online Card Classes Stretch Your Dies class this week. Here is my card that I made for Day One's class featuring word dies. I thought it was so fun to find out that you can "shrink" craft foam. You can use your dies to cut pieces from fun foam then apply your heat gun to them and watch them shrink up. For my card I used a "thanks" word die from My Creative Time. I cut a whole bunch of them from white cardstock to make my background paper. Then I cut one word from white fun foam. You can see by looking at the word die background how much smaller the fun foam became after applying the heat. I also cut a few flowers and leaves from My Favorite Things dies. After I shrunk them I colored them with my Copics. For my card base I used black cardstock and heat embossed some stripes on the left edge using Wow Silver Pearl embossing powder. I added a small strip of glitter paper next to the top panel of the card. For a last step I added a little Wink of Stella on top of the flowers.

The Cutting Cafe Egg Shaped Box

Today I have an awesome egg shaped box from The Cutting Cafe to share with you. This box is just perfect to hold a little Easter treat. It's called the Egg Goodie Box Template and Cutting File.  The box measure about 2.75 x 4" and it comes with several overlays for the top of the box. I used the SVG file and cut all the pieces using my Silhouette. (Except for the little bunny and tag which are cut from metal dies. When Regina makes her cutting files she is kind enough to include an instruction sheet for ease in assembling. I'm just saying, it's a lot easier to put together when you FOLLOW the instructions. I was having a little bit of trouble until I referenced the instructions. After reading them the box went together in a breeze. As you can see I added a little zigzag overlay for my box top. I tied some pretty sheer white ribbon around the box then added my bunny and tag. Thanks for stopping by today and I'll hop you'll check out the rest of the Design Team projects over at The Cutting Cafe Blog on Saturday, March 21.

Cardz TV Gallery Finger Print Cards

Hi Everyone! I'm so excited to share my Cardz TV Gallery post with you today and these totally FUN cards. This is a set of cards made with finger prints. These cute little stamps are perfect to coordinate with Mary's Cardz TV Stamp Sets Critter Caption, More Critter Captions and For The Birds. They are so quick and easy to put together. I made about 16 of these in one afternoon. For the adorable finger print critters I used a stamp set from Clearly Besotted called In Print. It has the features (faces, arms, legs, etc.) for different animals. You put your fingerprint down and then add the stamped features. Now for those of you that don't like to get messy, there is also a finger print stamp included in the set. If you use your own finger print *VERY IMPORTANT* to use pigment ink. Otherwise, you're going to look like you just came from the local police department after being finger printed. You ask, how I know what it looks like to be finger printed...I am married to a retired policeman. I, actually, was finger printed for my job (educator), too.

Now to the details on how I made these cards. I used pre-cut 4.25 x 5.5" blank white cards. I first ran them through my eBosser with a metal die from Paper Smooches called Dots and Dashes to put the line of small circles on the cards. Next I decided what sentiment I wanted to use from the Cardz TV Stamps Set and added it to the bottom right of the card. Then simply stamped the finger print and added the features above the stamped sentiment. That's it! Here's a close up photo of all four little critters. Are they not the cutest? FUN, FUN, FUN I'm telling you! This is a project that would be lots of fun to do with kids and grandkids. When we travel over the summer to visit the kids I'll be toting this little activity with me. The grands will love it.

So glad you stopped by today. As always, Happy Crafting!

The Cutting Cafe St. Patrick's Day

This week at The Cutting Cafe Blog the Design Team is creating projects that are green. For my creation I used the Hershey Kiss Window Box and the St. Patrick's Day Hershey Kiss Bottoms printables. This is such a fun, quick and easy project to put together. Since this files comes in PDF as well as SVG formats it easily printed and cut by hand or on a cutting machine. Before assembling the box I made sure to add a piece of acetate into the window to keep the kisses from falling out. After I printed the bottoms I punched them out with a 3/4" punch and attached them to the bottoms of Hershey Kisses. Next I filled up the box, I think there are ten of them. I added a pretty green bow around the box and added a label I printed from the same file as the bottoms for the kisses with a piece of yellow baker's twine. That's it, it was done!

Make sure you stop by The Cutting Cafe blog on Saturday, March 7th for more inspiration in green.