Faux Metal Technique + video

Hello friends!! I’m so excited to share with you this fun technique that’s not new, but a cool look to try with your embossing powders!

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I really love how this one tuned out! I have used the “Faux Metal” technique on my card along with the “emboss resist” technique.

In order to share the steps of this card, I’ve made video so you can see how I incorporated these techniques into my design. CLICK HERE to watch on You Tube or check it out below:

Here’s a closer view of the impressed flower into the embossed panel. It’s fun to run your fingers over the flower. I happened to have found the perfect accent for the center of the flower too! I think it really picks up the pretty colors in the card.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! Thanks for dropping by!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Rainbow Card – Passion for Purple
Crafty Friends – Lace/Ribbon

Eggs in One Basket

Hello friends! Back today to share a fun Easter card with you!

Before I get to my card, I wanted to let everyone know that this will be my last post as a design team member. I have enjoyed creating with the products and I’m sure I’ll be pulling them out to play with on my blog from time to time! Sometimes we just have to lighten up our “baskets” to make things a little easier to carry.

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This little chick dressed in bunny ears just makes me giggle!! I had so much fun with this cute stamp set called Easter Parade by Jan Mahew. The other chick has this fancy hat on and is adorable too! 🙂

To start out with, I thought it would be fun to take this basket weave embossing folder to create the background of the card (resembling a basket of course!) and I rounded the top corners of it along with taking some of the new colors of Super Thick embossing powders in the Spring Lilac and Pink Cheeks and sprinkling some over top of this background. I heat embossed it from underneath so it wouldn’t fly all over. (Remember that you don’t need anything to attach it with, just heat set it from underneath!)

I’ve also used these embossing powders to create the look over the eggs as well! I stamped out the open image egg from the stamp set and then layered the Spring Lilac, Pink Cheeks and Neon Super Thick Embossing Powders in strips and very carefully heat set it from underneath. (I did this BEFORE they were fussy cut out.)

I thought that my images needed grounding, so I took a grass border die and cut a strip to place at the bottom of the card front. I wrapped some yellow ribbon around the basket background and also stamped out the CUTE sentiment from the stamp set and made a banner with it that I’ve also added a bow, button and twine in the center of. I’ve attached all of this to an A2 sized top folding card base. I flipped up the edges of the banner to give it a bit of dimension.

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Here I wanted to point out to you this adorable little chick! If you look at his belly area, you will see that he looks quite fuzzy! After I colored him in with my Copics and fussy cut him out with scissors, I took the Nuvo Medium Tip Glue Pen to go over his belly area with and then sprinkled over it with the Canary Flocking. I always press it into the area for good adhesion and let it dry. Now you have a fuzzy feeling peep! I added him to the background and nestled him in the grass border. I used the Dimensional Glue to adhere the flat images down.

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For the eggs, as mentioned above, I melted the powders (carefully trying to keep it contained within the lined stamped egg image) and then fussy cut them out with scissors. Then I took some foam tape and nestled them among the grass too. As you can see, I have cracked eggs which accidentally happened when I pushed down on the eggs to stick them. I actually thought it was sort of cute with the basket theme and funny chick dressed like a bunny, so I cracked them even more and kept it that way! (It was hard to capture in the photo, but the eggs with the embossing have a pretty shinny sheen over them. It was sure fun to play with those embossing powders!

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and that you hop on over to check out this fun stamp set along with those super thick EPs!!

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I enjoy reading each comment and what you have to say!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with optional twist: Spring
The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
QKR Stampede – #339 Anything Goes
Crafting From the Heart – Just for Fun (Anything Goes)

Kitty Celebrates Up in the Air!

Hello friends! I’m excited to start with this cute one for today:

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Tee hee! Kitty got a little “carried away” with celebrating, I think! I have used the NEW Kitty Celebrates rubber stamp set for my card. I’ve stamped him over Copic Blending Card paper and colored him in with Copic markers and then fussy cut him out.

So before attaching him to my card, I thought it would be fun to add some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Morning Dew (Gloss-dries clear) and apply a layer over my balloons to give them a shiny balloon look! I then set kitty aside while I worked on the rest of the card.

For the background of my card, I made a nice “blue sky” by taking some Watercolor Paper and sprinkling some Nuvo Blue Blitz Shimmer Powder over it and then spritzing some water over it and letting it run all over the panel until I achieved the look I was going for. (LOVE the subtle shimmer over it too!) and then set it aside to let it dry.

The next thing for me to do was to create some “fluffy clouds” for the kitty to be among:

So, I took some cloud dies from my stash and cut them out with some Sticker Paper.

These sheets are sticky on one side, so I carefully peeled the release paper and handled them with some tweezers and applied some of the Twinkling Clouds Flocking over top of the sticky side, rubbed them with my finger to secure and tapped off the excess. I now have some really cool soft and fuzzy clouds to attach to my blue sky!

So now all I have left to do is assemble everything for my card! I started by taking the clouds and adhering them to my background with some dimensional Glue. I then cut down the watercolor blue-sky panel with a rectangle stitched die that fit the size of my card. Then I needed to add my sentiment, so I took the sentiment from the same stamp set and stamped it with a black pigment ink and added some Sparkle EP and heat embossed it. I layered this die cut sky panel over a piece of black cardstock which was then layered over an A2 sized top folding white card base. Lastly, I’ve added the fussy cut kitty over top of the sky background panel with some foam dots and then randomly added some drops with the Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops over the sky panel.

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I think this turned out really cute and I sure had fun making it! Here I’ve laid it down so the light catches the details of the sparkle in the clouds, the sentiment and the glitter drops in the background as well as the shine over the balloons too!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card for you today! Thanks for dropping in!

Here’s some challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Simon Says Stamp Monday – ‘B’ is for: Balloons, Blue Sky, “Best Day ever”
Tuesday Throwdown – Anything Goes
Addicted to Stamps & More – Anything Goes
The Male Room – Celebrate
Little Red Wagon – House Pets

Seeing Stars at Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends and welcome to Thursday already! It seems like the weeks are quickly going by faster and faster as we close in on the end of the year! It’s the “crazy crafting season” for sure! LOL!

Today brings up another Cute Card Thursday Challenge and for this week’s challenge, we’d like to see “STARS” on your creations! I think this is a good one for whatever it is you’re crafting even if it’s Christmas…or not! I have decided to make mine non-Christmasy this time:

I am pretty much “out-numbered” with males in my family, so most of my birthday cards are for men and I have a couple more birthdays to celebrate next month, so I thought this was a great opportunity to sneak one into my Christmas card-making time!

All the stamps and dies used on my card today come from My Favorite Things. (I have recently purchased some Christmas items and look forward to getting my hands crafty with some of it soon!)

I started my card out with the Blueprints 27 scallop rectangle die. I took some star images from a retired MFT stamp set called “Totally Happy” and randomly stamped them with VersaMark on this card front panel and then heat embossed them with clear embossing powder. I taped off the scalloped edges so that they wouldn’t get inked. I’ve used the Blueprint Sketch, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide inks and blended them over the stars for an ink resist effect. I also spritzed this panel and dabbed it with a paper towel for the water drop look.

I thought it would be fun to make a shaker card, so I die cut a star from this ink blended panel with the MFT Star Shaker Window and Frame Die-namics set and then cut the frame out from some black card stock.

What makes this such an easy shaker card is that MFT also has these Star Shaker Pouches that coordinate with the die! So I’ve taken this and fit it through the die cut star area on my card front panel and then filled it from the back with some confetti stars, I found some matching-colored seed beads and pretty sparkly silver glitter chunks to fit inside and then covered the back with some white cardstock. Just love the sound when it shakes because you can hear the seed beads! 🙂

I then took a strip of black card stock and white heat embossed the sentiment (same stamp set mentioned above.) to stamp the greeting. I first layered the scallop inked panel over a black piece of cardstock and then attached the sentiment strip and cut off the edges to match that layer. I then mounted this panel over an A2 sized top folding white card base. I finished it off by adding some silver star sequins filled with some Silver Stickles in the centers of each one.

Sometimes you wonder about “adding too much bling” for a guy, but I think this is a fun shaker birthday card that a male would enjoy too! Hope you’ve had some fun on my blog today! I thank you so much for stopping by! I will see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Challenge Up Your Life – Celebrate/Anniversary, etc. (Happy 100th Challenge!)
Use Your Stuff – Stars
Crafty Cardmakers – Lots of Layers
Shopping Our Stash – (SOS 380) Tic Tac Toe (I used the middle row going down: stamps, glitter was handed from my grandma to my mom and then to me..so yeah, older than 5 years probably! LOL & Happy Birthday)
Watercooler Wednesday – WWC196 – “All About Occasions”

Merry & Bright Kitty

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great weekend so far! I’m back to share another creation that I’ve made using the adorable Christmas Kitty Digital Stamp Set:

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I wanted this kitty to be the main focus of my card along with the lights and I wanted them to pop out on my design. I also wanted to add my panel complete with the “extra” light string and greeting. So I opened up a blank Word doc. to add my images. I sized and arranged the kitty where I wanted him, then next to him I’ve added the additional “extra” lights and then positioned my greeting from the set where I wanted it, printed it out and colored in the lights and kitty with Copic markers. To make the lights appear as one continuous string of lights, I took an alcohol friendly fine line marker to draw a line to the existing lights on the kitty. I just love the look on his face as he was so much fun to color! 🙂

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To get the glowing look on the lights, I added some color around each light with the same color of chalk. Then I took the Diamond Dust Glitter and added it over the light bulbs with the Nuvo Smooth Precision Glue pen.

I then cut this panel out with a rectangle cross stitch die cut from my stash. After it was cut, I took some blue colored ink and stamped the pinecone image from the Holiday Greetings Rubber stamp set to frame in the kitty panel.

I decided to cut out some pine leaves with the same light blue card stock with a die cut from my stash and then I covered them with VersaMark ink and heat embossed them with the Vanilla Ice embossing powder. You will also notice a bit of sparkle around the kitty panel edge too. I took the panel and pressed the edges into the VersaMark ink pad and then heat embossed the edges with the Sparkle embossing powder.

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Here you can see the design on my light blue card front as well. This is where I took the same pinecone rubber stamp image and stamped randomly along the edges of the card front and heat embossed it with the Vanilla Ice embossing powder. The heat embossed pinecone leaves were attached to the edge of the kitty panel along with a sparkly ribbon bow and a snowflake accent. I layered a piece of black cardstock around the image panel and popped it up with some craft foam and mounted that over the front of the heat embossed light blue card front which was wrapped with some more of the sparkly ribbon. This was mounted over an A2 sized top folding white card base.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my sparkly cute card today!

Challenges I’d like to enter:

Crazy 4 Challenges (C4C458) – Card with Cat or Halloween themed
Crafting By Designs – Get Ready for Christmas
4 Crafty Chicks (4CC427) – Christmas
Craft Rocket – Christmas is Coming
Crafting With an Attitude – Anything Goes

Happy Halloween – All Treats & No Tricks! :)

Hello friends! I want to thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for everyone of you that has left such sweet comments full of birthday wishes and lots of kindness that you’ve shared through something we have in common which is creating and sharing smiles! I so enjoyed the stories that you’ve left about how you share your handmade creations with others. PLEASE continue to create doing what you love and share those smiles with as many people as you can! It really makes the world a much better place when we can serve one another in kindness.

I have always loved Halloween as a child and have so many fond memories dressing up each year and thinking about what I would be. I tried to pass that tradition onto my children, and I dressed up right along with them! For me, Halloween is full of lots of fun things besides just treats! I wanted to celebrate those memories with a card today:

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I’ve stamped the trick-or-treaters and bat and then colored them up with my Copic markers and fussy cut them all out and put them aside while I worked on the rest of the card.

For the background of the card, that “tree branch” panel came in the kit, so I ran it through my laminator to foil it…it turned out awesome! (See photo below!) I then took my distress inks and blended in a night sky over it. I spritzed it with water and dried it off with a towel to get the water drop look.

I took this awesome border silhouette die from Impression Obsession and attached to the bottom of the scene for the trick-or-treaters to stand on. I sponged the bottom edge with white ink. Speaking of white ink, this is what I used to stamp the sentiment on a piece of black cardstock as well as sponge around the edges with it. I used the glow-in-the-dark embossing powder over top of it. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good photo of it glowing in the dark…. but it does, and it looks cool!) I made a banner with that strip and attached it to the left side of the card and then popped the bat up over it with foam tape.

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Here you can capture a better look at the foiled tree branch in the background as well as the heat embossed sentiment. I glued down the mummy girl and then I took foam tape to pop up the Frankenstein for dimension and depth. I also added some yellow Stickles to the eyes and mouths on the pumpkins.

This card was so fun to do! Hope you’ve enjoyed it as well!

Wishing you all a very fun Halloween however you choose to spend it! I think I will be watching some scary movies and eating some popcorn which is something I enjoy doing with hubby!

Challenges I’d like to enter:

Creative Moments – Anything Goes with optional twist: Spooktacular
Crafty Gals Corner – Halloween Colors
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Halloween/Spooky
The House That Stamps Built (O2418) – Anything Goes
Moving Along With the Times – Halloween
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with an Optional Twist: Halloween
Always Fun – Halloween

It Sparkles at Cute Card Thursday!

Hello friends! Yes, that quick and we are ready for a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! This is a really fun one too! This week we’d love to see your “Sparkles” on your creations! We look forward to seeing what you come up with for it!

Here’s the creation I made:

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I have used one of our sponsor’s image this week called Reindeer and Snowman from Kinda Cute Stamps. Now how cute is that reindeer making a snow reindeer?! I just had to give them both a red nose! 🙂

I printed out the image on white blending card and cut it out with a wonky stitched rectangle die, and then cut out some snowflakes with silver sparkle paper along with layering the image panel over some as well. I took a sentiment from a new My Favorite Things stamp set and silver heat embossed it over the top of the image panel. I’ve also dotted the center of the snowflakes along with making some additional dots with some silver Stickles.

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Here’s a closer view of the image. You can see where I’ve taken a glue pen and covered the snow-reindeer with loose glitter. I’ve also taken a Spectrum Noir Glitter Brush Pen and covered the noses as well as the snow on the ground. I used a glitter pen to color the charm on the reindeer’s collar.

Thanks for dropping in! See you soon!

Challenges:

Jingle Belles – Animals (Christmas Flock)
Christmas with the Cuties – Wrap Up Warm
City Crafter – Silver Bells (lots of silver)
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Fab ‘n’ Funky – Christmas
Watercooler Wednesdays (WWC193) – Holidays

It’s a Monochromatic Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends! Trying to work hard on projects and getting things ready for next month. So please excuse me if I seem a bit sporadic in my presence!

Stopping in to share a new challenge with you over at Cute Card Thursday! This week the theme is “monochromatic” or some people say “monochrome” which simply means that your project mainly consists of one color or tone. Stop by the challenge blog and be sure to check out the rest of the inspiration from the design team while you’re there! Here’s my project for the challenge:

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I absolutely fell in love with this flower image from the My Favorite Things card kit that they came out with! And I can’t say that I came up with this idea all on my own either, as it is very similar to one of the samples on the project sheet that comes with the kit.

It’s very simple to do, just white heat embossed the floral image and color areas in with a Copic marker and then I used a sentiment from Lawn Fawn to white heat emboss over vellum and the card stock again and then die cut the word out and attach over the vellum strip. I had been requested to make up some wedding cards and so I’m trying to make up a few of them as this is something that I’ve completely missed in my card creating. Taking mental notes for myself!

Thanks for stopping by friends! See you soon!

challenges: