Nuts For You + Friday Feature at BRI

Hey friends! It's FRIDAY!!! Which mean it's time for another Friday Feature over at Butterfly Reflections Ink. Today I'm playing with MFT Harvest Buddies and some gorgeous Hero Arts Woodgrain Texture Vellum, which I tinted with Distress Inks. My images were watercolored with Zigs. All other info is over on the Butterfly Reflections Ink blog, and also listed and linked in the description bar below the video on YouTube.

Click the YouTube icon to watch it there in HD and please don't forget to like and subscribe! It means so much. I hope you guys enjoy the video! Have an amazing weekend!

With Sympathy

Hello there!

How's your week been so far?

Enjoying your summer vacation?

One of my co-workers recently asked me

to make a sympathy card for someone in her family.

And while I was happy to do it, 

sympathy cards can be tricky to make.

I've found that simple design and classic

fonts and images seem to work best.

On this card, I used an emboss-resist technique

with two different hero arts stamps, a vintage book page,

a Fiskars sentiment stamp, some Distress Inks, and twine.

I hope that none of you find yourselves in need of a sympathy

card in the near future, but sometimes it's nice to make one or two

just to have on hand, should the occasion arise.

Then you'll be able to send off your thoughts and prayers,

and help ease the sorrow of their loss just a little bit.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Sending You Love Video

Hey there, everybody!

Wow, thank you all so much for stopping by

yesterday and showing me your support during the 

design team reveal of our latest Lawnscaping Challenge.

I really appreciate you ladies so much!

Today I have another card to share,

and a little something extra...

My first card making video!

I've done an Altered Mini Notebook video

and a Craft Room Quick Tour video,

but not an actual make-a-card video.

Until today. ;o)

So this is the card I made:

And here's the video,

which you can watch here or on You Tube

by clicking the You Tube tab at the bottom right.

Thank you so much for watching!

Maybe I'll do another before too long.

I'd love it if you would stop by on You Tube and rate my video

and leave a comment to let me know if you enjoyed it!

Take care,

and have a wonderful day!

Hero Arts Winking Reindeer & Autumn Cheesecake

Happy Cyber Monday, everybody!

Did you survive the Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend?

I did, but just barely! I worked more hours in the last four days

than I normally do in an entire week.

I'm beat.

But, I had the day off today, so I'm feeling a little more rested now.

Friday evening I had a lovely (but too short)

visit with my cousin Ashley and her husband Jason

and she and I got to talk crafty stuff, which was so nice.

I need more crafty friends!

Anyway, how about a card?

I wish I could take credit for this nifty technique,

but I scraplifted it from Lisa Spangler's blog,

with only a slight modification.

I thought the yarn scarf might not stay put through the mail,

so on mine, I paper pierced two holes on either side of

the reindeer's neck and threaded some baker's twine through.

The deer has a really great shimmer in real life thanks to the

perfect pearls, but it doesn't showup in the photo, unfortunately.

I also wanted to share a quick pic of the

Autumn Cheesecake I made for Thanksgiving.

It's covered with apple slices tossed in cinnamon

and sugar plus finely chopped pecans.

YUM!

Supplies:
cardstock: Bazzill
patterned paper: My Mind's Eye Wonderful Winter collection
stamp: Hero Arts Winking Reindeer, snowflakes, sentiment
ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Ranger Spun Sugar Distress Ink
watercolor pencils: Reeves 24 piece set
embellishments: Martha Stewart baker's twine, perfect pearls mixed with water

Have A Blooming Good Day

Happy Monday, everybody!

I'm in a good mood today because it's my

day off! Yay! I'm going to be getting all sorts

of crafty today, from a roast chicken and

corn casserole for dinner, apple crisp

for dessert, and I might even try my hand at

making freezer jam.

But first, a card.

Isn't she sweet? I just love these Pure Innocence girls.

My local scrapbooking store carries a few so

I just had to pick one up when I was in there

the other day. The minute I saw her, I knew I wanted

to try paper-piecing on her dress. It's a technique that

I've admired on other's cards, but had never tried myself.

Until today. :o)

So, I paper-pieced her dress using a pattern from

the Everyday Tango collection by

My Mind's Eye, then colored the rest of her in

with Copic markers. I'm still learning how to get

the hair to look natural, but I feel like this is one of

my better attempts, so I'm happy.

After I got her all colored up, I stamped her

sentiment and then decided to cut her out

using my cuttlebug and Nestabilities label die.

It was quite the close trim, as you can see.

Next time, I'll cut out the shape and

THEN stamp the image so I can be sure

to center it properly. Oh well.

I also added a bit of Stickles

to the center of the flowers on her dress,

her heart-shaped hair barette,

and the bases of the flower petals.

I took the next size up die and cut out another

pattern from that same MME stack pack

and used it to mat my focal piece.

I decided that my blue Bazzill cardfront

needed some dressing up, so I took

the Hero Arts canvas stripe cling stamp

and inked it up with Chipped Sapphire and

Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.

Spritzed it a little with my Mini Mister

and stamped it on the card. I used my

Fiskars stamp press to line up the lines.

After that, all that was left was to

make a slit in the spine of the card to

tie my Offray ribbon through

and mount my image up with

dimensional adhesive.

I hope you like it!

If you haven't yet entered my blog candy

giveaway, be sure to scroll up to the top

and do so. There's still plenty of time!

Have a great day!

Catching Up - Mother's Day Card

I know it's nearly Father's Day, but I wanted to share the other Mother's Day card that I never got around to posting. This one was for my wonderful step-mom.


The flower image was made using a cling stamp from Hero Arts, which I colored with Copics to match my patterned paper. I added glitter to the center and all around the edges of the flower petals, but you can't really see it in the pics. I also curled up the petals a bit for more dimention. I used a cream-colored Bazzill cardstock for my card base, and added a little sentiment (which I probably should have popped off) and some sheer, sparkley purple ribbon.


The pictures really don't do it justice. It's much prettier in person where the sparkles catch the light.

I hope you enjoyed it!

Distress Ink Happy Mother's Day

I'm going to keep this short and sweet tonight. We are having a MAJOR thunder and lightning storm here and I'd just feel safer getting off the computer as soon as possible. I made a card for my mom today using Ranger distress inks. I inked up this stamp from Hero Arts with Dusty Concord, Broken China, and Peeled Paint, then spritzed it with my mini mister and pressed watercolor paper to it. It gave the image this gorgeous watercolor effect. My mom isn't into "girly" stuff so I thought these cool colors would make a great card for her.


I mounted that on some light olive Bazzill cardstock, then paper pierced the corners and added brads for some contrast. I added a scalloped border using my Fiskars punch and a scrap of purple Debbie Mumm paper, and adhered the whole thing to the card front.


The card base was a sky blue Bazzill cardstock. I cut a small slit in the side of the card so I could thread in some sheer violet Basic Narrows ribbon, then stamped the sentiment from Studio G on a Martha Stewart sticky label and attached that over top.


And that was it! I hope she likes it! And I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a happy Mother's Day!

Imagination Tree

Hi, everyone! How are you lovely ladies doing tonight? I'm still hangin' in there. My sweet hubby actually took the kids to school this morning and let me sleep in, and then brought me home a cafe mocha before he headed off to class. Is it any wonder I love that guy? I tell ya. ;o)

After I picked my two little guys up from school, I made some grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, then headed upstairs to get some much-needed crafting done. Here's my card for today.


As I mentioned yesterday, I've been playing around with distress inks, and I really love the watercolor effect they give a project. It's taken me more than a few tries to get the result I was going for though. I think this one here was number seven or eight. It does take a little practice to get the hang of, but I think it's totally worth it.

The main technique to master with distress inks is to start applying the ink OFF the project and work onto it. If you don't, you get the dark impression of the applicator tool (in my case, round make up sponges) which is almost impossible to blend out. By cutting a piece of scrap paper into a rounded shape, I was able to apply the green color (Peeled Paint) to the center where I wanted it to show through the tree, then apply the blue (Broken China) all around the edges. I inked the stamp in Peeled Paint and Tea Dye, then spritzed it with a little water from my Mini Mister, and applied the watercolor paper directly over it, smoothing it out with my fingers to make sure I picked up the entire image. Then I dried it with my heat embossing tool.


I trimmed the image and mounted it on some brown Bazzill cardstock. I had planned to use a white card base, but it looked so drab, I decided to take the distress inks to it as well. On went more Broken China and Peeled Paint, which I lightly spritzed and dried to give it that speckled look.

All that remained to do was to add a layered prima flower with a button center and hemp tie, and to write a sentiment in my Signo broad white gel pen on a bit of scrap cardstock. I think it turned out pretty, don't you?

And that's going to close up this blog for tonight. Lady Antebellum is coming up on Idol (LOVE them!!!) and my boy Casey is currently in the bottom three. This is definitely going to require my undivided attention. ;o)

'Night, all!

Distress Resist Flowers

Hello, all! TGIF, am I right?

I tried an interesting technique out today. It's called distress resist. What I did was take a stamp with a solid background, stamp it in versamark on a book page, then emboss it with clear embossing powder. Then I took my tea dye distress ink and rubbed it over the image where it collected only where the negative space was. It gives a neat effect.


I cut that out and mounted it on some brown cardstock, then on cream cardstock, and finally on the brown cardstock base. I think the ribbon is from American Crafts.... I thought it was going to be dark brown, but I guess it's actually black. Oh well!

This is the great stamp I used from Hero Arts. Love it.


I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Talk to you soon!

Delightful Butterfly

Happy Wednesday, everybody! How are you all doing today? I'm sitting here watching the American Idol results show as I type this, eating a slice of pepperoni pizza with a glass of Arizona iced green tea (totally addicted to the stuff!), so I think that qualifies for multitasking! Lol. Seems I do that a lot these days -- life just keeps getting busier and busier. And that's how I like it, pretty much. At least that way it never gets boring. Although sometimes it's nice to have a little downtime. Especially if you want to get crafty! It's pretty hard to multitask when you're working on a project. Which is exactly what I did this afternoon. Check it out.


I was in a purple mood for some reason (obviously) so I went with an entirely purple theme. I used a darker cardstock base, and stamped a Hero Arts background stamp with plum ink on a pale lavender cardstock. I wanted to see if I could emboss it, so I did, using clear embossing powder. I don't know that it made much of a difference though.

I then stamped a butterfly from The Paper Studio in the plum ink on white cardstock, and again on the back of the patterned paper. I cut both out and glued them together only in the center. I tied the ribbon from American crafts so I could figure out where to center the butterfly, then folded up the top wing layer a little bit so that they popped up.

I stamped the sentiment from Fiskars on the lavender cardstock with the plum ink and cut that out. I had planned to pop it off, but decided it looked more like it was part of the pattern when it was flush with the card, so I attached it that way. And as a final touch, I added a few mini gitter dots to make the butterfly body and drew on the antenna with a white gel pen. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.


Also, I got a chance to run up to Joann's this afternoon and bought a yard of blue ribbon for $.99 and changed that first sympathy card. I think it looks so much better now. I'm a firm believer in putting your best foot forward, or giving it your best, or however you want to say it. What we put out into the world is a direct reflection of who we are, and I just didn't feel comfortable giving out a card that I knew was not the best that I could do. Now I can breathe a little easier when I bring it to my writers group.


Whew, I'm so glad to see that Casey is safe for another week! Don't get me wrong girls, I'm a happily married woman, but he certainly is nice to look at. ;o) And his voice isn't bad either.

I'm also cheering on my girl Didi. I love her. Great voice, great look, great personality. I hope she goes far.

Off to watch the rest. See y'all tomorrow!

My Sympathies

As promised, I've returned today with my sympathy card, though I have to admit, I'm not happy with it. I hesitated to even share it with you all, but I did say that I would, and besides, sometimes it's good to see others mistakes so we don't have to make the same ones ourselves.

The bottom half of the card isn't too bad, but the ribbon is just awful, in my opinion. I found this beautiful navy velvet ribbon and I thought it'd lend the card a formal elegance. I wanted to tie it in a bow, but the ribbon was so thick that it stuck way off the page and just looked heavy and wrong. Even just knotted as it is now doesn't really improve anything.


Unfortunately, I don't have any other ribbon that matches and I've already spent my meager crafting budget for this week (thanks to a one-day sale at Michael's on Sunday) so I don't know if I can do anything about it. The card has to be done by Thursday so that my writers group can all sign it (the friend who lost his daughter is a member) so that doesn't leave me much time. I might just scrap the whole thing and try to come up with something else.

I rolled up the edges of the petals with a pen to give it some dimention. I do like that effect. Maybe I can salvage the flower if I remake the card.

I also don't like how the sentiment almost blends in with the pattern on the paper.


You'll notice I darkened up the center of the flower quite a bit to try to get it to match the ribbon. I think I liked it the first way better though. I don't have any real deep blue copics, so I had to go with something in the blue violet family.

flower petals: B21 (Baby Blue), B06 (Peacock Blue), and BV13 (Blue Hydrangea)
center: Y11 (Pale Yellow), Y15 (Cadmium Yellow)
stem: G24 (Willow), YG03 (Yellowish Green), and G05 (Emerald Green)

I finished this up late last night, then spent this afternoon making another card to send from just myself. I'm fairly pleased with how this one turned out, though at one point I nearly threw the while thing in the trash! I wrestled with that stinkin' bow for like 20 minutes. Ever have one of those days? Anyway, the bow finally got tied decently and the card got finished.


I first picked out my papers -- I chose this yellow print from Cosmo Cricket, gray cardstock for my focal piece and yellow for the card base. I arranged the hydrangea stamp and the sentiment how I wanted them on the gray, then picked them up together with a large acrylic block and stamped them with Versamark ink. Then I sprinkled the whole thing with white embossing powder and embossed it using my heat tool. I wrestled with the silly ribbon until I was satisfied, and popped it off the card using 3D dimentionals.


I really like the effect from the white embossing powder. You could use that in so many different ways. It took a little bit for me to get the hang of -- at first I couldn't tell which part was melted and which was still powder, but I caught on. As with anything, you get better with a little practice.

Well, that's it for me tonight. If any of you out there have had to make a sympathy card, I'd love it if you could post a link in the comments section. I'm interested in seeing what other people have done with a card that requires such sensitivity.

Now go spend some time with your loved ones!