Remake of a Christmas card

Do you ever go back an older card?  Here I did with a card I made almost 4 years ago.  The poinsettias have been replaced with some of the new Christmas Accents die set.  The candy cane is from the Flourished Christmas Minis 3 with the flourishes trimmed off.

The background die is by My Favorite Things called Polka Dot Dienamics and peaking through is silver washi tape.

Supplies used:

Christmas Accents

Create A Wreath

Flourished Christmas Minis 3

Bright Holiday Words (Emerald Creek)

Challenges I am playing in:

Simon Says Stamps Christmas

 

Ready for those spring flowers

I took a nice long walk and snapped a bunch of pictures of blooming flowers - it felt so good!  And then I got inspired by this card on the Rubbernecker blog.  I had this Arbor die by Rubbernecker Stamps since picking it up at the Scrapbook Expo last year and it never once occurred to me to color it into a wooden arbor.  I just thought white vinyl arbors look so crisp and clean - but I loved it on that card so I tried a similar look.

I tried uploading the video here but it's not working.  You can find it on my instagram @yourstrulybydiana or Facebook page Yours Truly.

I added some Ivy, small flowers, and grass all by Rubberneck Stamps.  The little puppy is the Besties Forever small monthly kit by Spellbinders.

And then I went a little crazy and colored some more. Might as well when you have the right Copic colors out right?  The window is by Lawn Fawn and the wood grain embossing folder is by Tim Holtz.

And then back to the arbor.  Lol!  This time I sponged the background and added a bike by Memory Box.  The sentiment is by My Favorite Things.

Thanks for looking!

Challenges I am playing in: 

Simon Says Spring Mood Board

Using limited supplies

I had to pack up half of my craft room so the husband could cut into the drywall to fix some stuff.  Poor timing, I say, since I've been spending a good amount of happy time in there due to social distancing.  But I'm learning to craft on limited supplies.  These cards were made using calendar pages from a local nursery, 2 dies (My Favorite Things rectangle dies and Elizabeth Craft Designs Birds) and one stamp (Verve).

I make a lot of cards to welcome visitors in our church using Psalms 118:24 but I wanted to change it to something more fitting with the times.  Obviously we do not have visitors coming to church right now but I still want to be send cards to brighten our members, especially the older ones.

Those calendar pages were stunning and I could cut 6 card backgrounds out of one page.  One A2 sheet of white card stock yielded 10 rectangles and with my Misti, mass producing was a cinch.  I think I rather enjoyed crafting with minimal supplies - clean up was a super easy too!

Using up extra backgrounds with Quietfire Design dies

How often do you change your mind on a design as you're making the card?  For me, lots! Only once in a while does it actually turn out how I pictured it.

So my projects today utilizes Quietfire Design dies combined with those perfectly good "leftovers."  There are quite a few dies to pick out of but with back to school still in mind, I went with Be Yourself and Good Luck.  From my stash of backgrounds I found a couple of wreaths I had just painted to make table setting number placards as well as a colored stamp from a recent play date.  (The older the scrap, the longer they stay in the scrap pile unfortunately.)

These first two cards could easily be swapped with any word die (I was really tempted to use the small Happy Birthday in them).  The wreaths were my first attempt at painting tiny roses and greenery - my Koi clean color brush made it very easy to mass produce these.  If you have other tiny artwork that are in your practice piles, consider turning them into cards! 

This cute boy card combines Be Yourself with this tiny superhero from My Favorite Things - just another good fit, I thought.  Hope you like my rather random post.  :)

Be Brave Bold Yourself metal die set

Good Luck metal die

Personalized birthday card

My son had a birthday party to go to and it was for a 15 year old boy - my cute cards were not going to be appropriate at all.  So I made a quick one using my old color bursts (haven't used those in a while!) and large alphabet dies by Momenta.  The Happy Birthday is white embossed on black and I'm pretty sure it came from My Favorite Things.  (I had stamped and cut out the strips a while back at a crafty play date so this is not a set I have in my stash.)

I was going to do an eclipse card but found it very hard to read so I stacked four layers of black die cuts and shifted the top layer just a bit so that it popped up and had a shadow.

I heard he liked the card!

Chevron Cover-ups

I found a few cards I made that I never posted.  They all use the same idea - sponge a background with distress inks, splatter with water, let dry, and then use a background die (here I used the MFT Split Chevron and Chunky Chevron Cover-Up dies).  Can you tell that each background was made into two cards?  

For the first set, I kept all the pieces of the die cut together using Press On seal.  I then added foam tape to many of the chevron pieces.  I carefully laid my gray cardstock on the foam tape and came up with this first card.  By using the negative first, while the pieces were still together, I kept the spacing and location of the pieces intact.  It wouldn't be fun (for me, maybe some of you enjoy puzzles more than I do!) to try to place each piece freehand.  The Happy Birthday dies are from the A Way With Words Collection from Elizabeth Craft Designs (also available at Quietfire Design).  

The pieces that were left I glued onto a white card base for my second card in this set.  I did turn the design upside down but if you mentally flip one of these cards, you can see where the pieces all go together.  I can't help but also add butterflies to my card - this one is from the Butterfly Flourish by ECD and QFD also.

I did the same thing for this next card but I did leave some pieces unused.  I like the randomness of the pattern more.  The Bible verse is a stamp from Our Daily Bread Designs and the flowers are made using a Fiskar punch.  (Do you still use a punch?  I do - I just find them faster sometimes!)  The butterfly dies on the last card are from Memory Box.

Challenges I am playing in:

Simon Says No Designer Paper

Word Art Wednesday

ScrapyLand Challenge #111

You lift me up and so does organizing

I rearranged my craft room recently and with rearrangement comes finding scraps hidden in folders, boxes, lids, wherever I could stash them.  I had half finished backgrounds, embossed sheets, colored bits of stamped images - what a mess.  Today I'm sharing a card I made with the bits and pieces I found while cleaning - I only had to color the hot air balloon - the rest was already done.

I am sharing a couple of great ideas I've found to be super helpful in using up scraps.  I used cheap magazine holders to hold my scraps so that they are visible and easily accessible.  They are lined up on the wall on a (pretty empty) table and I've used more scraps this past month than I have in the whole of 2018.  (Lots and lots of roses were made!)

The other nifty idea is to use the pot holder from Ikea to store my different platforms - envelope maker, Misti folder, Tonic folder, etc.

Challenges I am playing in:

Simon Says Whatever the Weather

Word Art Wednesday - Anything Goes

Hippity Hoppity

Some snow attempted to waylaid my monthly crafty play date but we still managed to get in a few hours of play.  My friend brought over this this cute basket and between the two of us, we had enough dies to create this cute little scene.  Memory Box, My Favorite Things,  and Impression Obsession dies were used.  The tiny flower are from Elizabeth Craft Designs' Bougainvillea die and were perfect for replacing the dot of the "i" in the hippity hoppity - I can never find those things after I die cut them!

Challenges I am playing in:

Simon Says Create a Scene

Scrapy Land Challenge #109

MFT Up in the air with sponged background

I had these stamped a colored a while ago - just needed a background and a layout for them.  This stamp set from My Favorite Things Up In the Air is just too cute.

Having trouble adding the video to this blog post but you can see it on my Instagram account.

@yourstrulybydiana

Merry and Bright

It's almost Christmas!  I couldn't resist making one more Christmas card even though it will have to be popped in the mail very soon to make it anywhere in time.  I always try to look to the sentiment for inspiration - hence the glitter and Shimmer Sheetz.  I love how bright and sparkly it is in real life!

For my background, I actually covered it with silver glitter washi tape.  It's the shiniest silver glitter I have in my stash and perfect peeking through the polka dot background die from My Favorite Things.  I then layered the Merry and Bright sentiment from Quietfire Design's Bright Holiday Words set, stamped in black pigment ink, clear embossed, and then matted in with a fine green layer.

The small poinsettias by Elizabeth Craft Designs were cut from bright red Shimmer Sheetz with rhinestone centers.  And of course it's a cloudy day and I can't photograph the "bright" properly.  :)

Thank you for looking and may your Christmas be merry and bright!

Quietfire Design's Bright Holiday Words

Have a Super Day

I loved this week's sketch challenge over at My Favorite Things.  I'm in need of more boy birthday cards so this was a perfect time to whip out the Super Boy set.  I stamped him with Versamark black ink and then masked him to do a starry background.  I used distress inks Blue Lagoon, Seedless Preserves, and Broken China and then splattered some water drops on it.  The image itself was colored with watercolor pencils.

He has made everything

To make this super bright and cheery card, I made a water color wash background with my Koi watercolors.  I then toned it down just a bit by placing the MFT Polka Dot background die cut on top.  I added the verse and leaves from Verve for my focal point and a Hero Art butterfly. 

Challenges I am playing in:

Word Art Wednesday

Virginia's View #22 All About Colors

Simon Says Animal Magic 

SOL cards

The SOLs (Standards of Learning) testing for my kids are this week and next.  I made a few cards for the boys to encourage them - teacher's idea!  Of course, I waited until the last minute so CAS cards are the way to go! It also fits perfectly for this week's CASology challenge: Stencil.

Challenges I am playing in:

CASology:  Stencil 

Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes

Do not let your hearts be troubled...

Hello!  It's been a while since I've had time to craft or even blog about it beyond the scheduled posts I had set up a few weeks ago.  There was a death in the family and between travel, getting the flu, spring break... things are falling back into their routine.  

So the first card I made after my hiatus was this one for the pastor that did the funeral service for my father.  His sermon was on John 14 so it was perfect that I had a stamp from Our Daily Bread Designs with his key verse.  I added an arch window against a blue sky with softly sponged clouds. 

 The lilies are from My Favorite Things and just lightly colored with a green Copics.

 The inside is a large die cut using Quietfire Design's thank you metal die.

Supplies Used:

ODBD Boho Background Die

ODBD Double Stitched Circles dies

My Favorite Things Lily Die-namics

Spellbinders Arch One

Quietfire thank you die

ODBD Scripture Collection 6

Challenges I am playing in:

Word Art Wednesday