Columbines & Daisies

Today I designed a card using Susan's Garden Club Columbine die set and an older Shasta Daisy die set.  

The background was created using the Spellbinders Vine metal foil plate with the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil Machine.  The Sentiment  was die cut using one of Suzanne Cannon's A Way With Words dies.  A few Nuvo Pink tutu Sequins were added around the arrangement.

Foamiran Hydrangea

It is fun to create Susan's flowers using Foamiran.  They are easy to shape and look so realistic.  Today I have a Hydrangea created using Susan's Garden Club Lacecap Hydrangea die set.  Instead of using the flower base in the die set, I used a die cut 2-inch circle, using 120 lb card stock.  Shape the circle in a dome.  All the flowers were die cut using white Foamiran and removed from the die plate.  A small sponge dauber was used to add light blue and purple ink to the petals.  The sponge dauber was loaded with ink and pressed down on each die cut flower.  Approximately half of each one was blue and half purple.  Both sides of the die cut flower was inked.  Once colored, each flower was placed against a hot iron, holding it with tweezers.  You only need to hold it on the iron for a second or two.  The petals touching the iron curled inward shaping it perfectly.  Don't press down in the center like you do the lilac, because you want a more open flower.  Add Aileens Clear Tacky Glue to a small portion of the die cut circle and add the flower petals.  Repeat until the entire dome is covered.  Allow to dry and then you can bend the flower to round it out more.  Add three dimensional pads to the center of the flower to attach to the card.  

The background was die cut using a die from the Tonic Craft Kit #29.  The sentiment is foiled using one of the Spellbinders Everyday Sentiment II metal plates and the Spellbinder Glimmer  Foiling Machine.

Forever Friends

Today I have a card designed using Susan's Garden Club Spider Mum and Heleborus die sets.  

The background is a piece of patterened paper from Tonic Studios.  The butterfly was die cut using one of the dies in the Tonic Craft Kit 29.  

The Sentiment was foiled using the Amazing Grace Elegant Affirmation Sentiments metal plates/die and the Spellbinders Glimmer Foiling Machine.

Birthday Card

Yesterday I posted a card using some of the butterflies from the Tonic Studios Craft Kit #29.  Today I have another card using the large corner die from this kit.

For my birthday, I received the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil System, foil metal plates, and some of the different foils.  I used this system to add foiling to my card.

I used a piece of light gold mirror card stock for the front of this card.  A piece of  Spellbinders Sparkly Silver Foil  was placed over the corner die, which comes in the Tonic Craft Kit,  heated, then run through the die cutting machine - following directions on how to foil with the Glimmer Hot Foil System.  This created a pretty, foiled outline of the die. 

I also received the Spellbinders Happiest Birthday Glimmer Hot Foil Plate and used it for the black foiled sentiment on the upper right side of the card.

The corner die was used again to die cut the dragonflies and butterfly out of Tonic Speciality Card, Silver Silk, Luxury Embossed Card.  One dragonfly was attached, along the body, over the same dragonfly in the foiled design on the card front.  The butterfly was attached the same way.  The other dragonfly was attached under the sentiment.  

For an additional embellishement, a flower was added in the lower left corner.  I used Susan's Spider Mum die set from Tonic Studios.

LOVE

I love to create roses with Susan's Garden Rose Dies.  The roses petals were die cut using white card stock and the center petals were sponged with Milled Lavender Distress Ink. Today I combined these lavender and white roses with a new die from Marianne Design called "Love".   The white frame was die cut using the Spellbinders Captivating Squares.  The purple panel behind the white frame was scored on all four sides, three times, using the Martha Stewart Score Board.  Behind the roses I added the Memory Box Bamboo Shoots and the Poppystamps Massa Leaf.  I used the leaf tool and pad from the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit to draw veins in each leaf.  Drawing in the veins really makes the leaves look realistic.  For the little flowers in the corner and around the roses, I used the Poppystamps Small Hydrangea Blooms die.

Below are links to products used:

Susan's Garden Rose Dies
Marianne Design LOVE
Spellbinders Captivating Squares
Martha Stewart Scoring Board
Memory Box Bamboo Shoots
Poppystamps Massa Leaf Background
Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit
Poppystamps Small Hydrangea Blooms
Milled Lavender Distress Ink

1212768

Stair Step Card

Today I have a stair step card created with peach/pink flowers. Last year I created roses with the Spellbinders "Spiral Blossom One" die and the smaller roses and rose buds with the My Favorite Things "Mini Royal Rolled Rose" dies.  I liked the rose arrangement so much I created two panels and never used the second one, so decided I would use it on a card for a friend who sends me beautiful cards.

 The large moss green doily, behind the roses, was die cut from the Marianne Design "Petras Large Ovals" die set. Right behind the roses is the Memory Box "Calypso Flourish", or you could use the similar Memory Box "Quinn Flourish".  The butterflies were cut out from one of the Webster's Pages design papers. 

Thank you for stopping by.  Hope you are having a great weekend.

1196322

 

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Guest Designer

 

I was very honored to be asked by Gloria Stengel to be a guest designer for the Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge this month.  This week the #9 Challenge is "Fold It".  Here is the information for this challenge. 

Use some sort of "fun fold" on your project. You can make a fun fold card, a pop-up card, an explosion box, or other type of project that makes use of folded cardstock or paper. You can share some folding techniques that are perfect for scrapbook layouts or mixed media pieces. Create a mini album with a folded binding. Fold some ribbon to make pleats. De-hoard those supplies and show us your folds....paper folds that is!

sponsors: WorldWin Papers and StencilGirl

For  this challenge I created a 6"x6" Explosion Box. This is a larger explosion box from any others I have seen or made. I created a larger box so I could enclose a a "chest" in the center, with four drawers.   Below I have a tutorial to show you how I created it.

I used a 12"x12" piece of card stock for the bottom of this explosion box. Using my Scor-Pal, I scored at 3" from the edge of the card stock, on all four sides.   Crease each score line well with a bone folder. The corner squares were cut off as shown. If you haven't made an explosion box before, the sides fall down when you remove the lid from the box.  These measurements will create a 6"x6" explosion box. 

To create the lid for the box, use another 12"x12" piece of card stock.  Score all sides at 3". 

 Cut up to the score line on two sides of this piece, as shown above, then on the "flap" (3"x3") piece cut off a narrow piece forming a "V" shape.  This will help create a smooth edge when you attach the end pieces to the long piece to create a lid.Do this again on the opposite side.

This picture shows you were to add tape to the end pieces so it holds securely.  You need to add tape to folded ends on both sides.

 With the end pieces inside the lid, match end pieces to score lines and press firmly, to create your lid.  You now have all the pieces ready to decorate your explosion box.

This is the Craft Hoarder Anonymous challenge, so I have dug out items, including design paper I have been hoarding to decorate the sides and the top of the box.  On the top I have added a Marianne Design Petra's Ornaments (LR0279) doily to the lower left side.  On top I created a hydrangea using Susan's Garden Hydrangea dies.  The small flowers were created using the Memory Box "Norland Flower dies".  The butterflies were cut out of Graphic 45 Design paper.

 On the front side of the lid, I added a Marianne  Design, Anja's Vintage Frame.  On the other three sides,  I added the Spellbinder Flourish Trim,S2-005.

 

To create the little "chest" for the center of the Explosion Box, I created four little match boxes (2.25" x 3"), attached them together with ScorTape then enclosed them with a long strip to go completely around the boxes.  The chest was covered with more of the same design paper used on the explosion box then decorated with two hydrangeas created with Susan's Garden dies.  The inside panels were decorated with Marianne Design Anja's Vintage Frame, Memory Box Norland Flowers and Graphic 45 butterflies cut from the Design Paper. 

Close up pictures of the small box inside the Explosion Box.  Susan's Garden Hydrangea flowers decorate the top of this box.

Love is like a Butterfly

 I have a new technique I tried today that I thought I would share with you.  To create the background for this card I used the largest Spellbinders "Exquisite Circles" die to cut an opening in the front panel then inserted the die cut doily piece back inside the frame.  Here is how I did that.

 I started with a 5.75 x 5.75" piece of white card stock and placed the Exquisite Circle a little high, taped it in place, and die cut it.  Before removing the die, I used the Tim Holtz Blending Tool and sponged on Milled Lavender Distress Ink over all the part around the large circle then  sponged over the die and part way inside the die.  This left a really cool effect!

 Once I took the die off the card stock, this is what I had.  The two pieces each ended up with a white edge.  Love that look especially when made dimensional.

My base card is 6x6" square. I added dimensional tape all around the edges of the larger piece, and around the die cut area, and attached it to the base card.  For a lot of dimension, you might need to add a double layer of tape, depending on the thickness of the tape.   Next I used double sided tape on the back of the circle and placed in down inside the elevated outside piece.  You can see the dimension by looking at the top portion of the die cut circle in this picture.   

Next I added one of the Spellbinders "Moroccan Accents" in the center with dimensional tape.  The Memory Box Moon Light Butterfly and Kaleidoscope Butterfly were layered and it was also attached with a small piece of dimensional tape.  The Moonlight butterfly was also sponged with the Milled Lavender Distress Ink.

The pretty butterfly corner is the Cheery Lynn "Butterfly In" die and the upper corner die cuts are the Cheery Lynn "Lace Deco Corner".  The sentiment is from the JustRite "Winged Vintage Labels Two & Three" stamp set.

Products used:

Spellbinders, Exquisite Circles, S4-384

Spellbinders, Moroccan Accents, S5-064

Cheery Lynn, Lace Deco Corner, B162

JustRite, Winged Vintage Labels Two & Three, CR-04465

Cheery Lynn, Butterfly In, B205

Memory Box, Kaleidoscope Butterfly, 98261

Memory Box, Moonlight Butterfly, 98260

1036178

Moments I Treasure With You

 

This pretty card was quick and easy using the Heartfelt Creations Season Of Joy Collection stamp sets.  The finished card measures 6" x 6".  

I started out thinking I was going to create a tag, but saw this beautiful piece of design paper from the Heartfelt Creations "Frosty  Blanket" design paper pad that matched, so created a card.  The sentiment is from the "Moments With You PreCut Set".  It was stamped using VersaFine black ink and clear embossed then die cut using one of the Spellbinders "Picot Edge Circle" dies. The die cut sentiment was then added to one of the Marianne Design doily die cuts.  There are three die cut pieces which are all attached with dimensional tape.  The Sentiment was colored with Copic markers.  A bow was added to complete this card.  

You can see the entire Heartfelt Creations "Season of Joy" collection here.

Products used:

Heartfelt Creations "Moments With You PreCut Set", HCPC 3568

Heartfelt Creations "Frosty Blanket Collection" design paper

Spellbinders" Picot Edge circle" S4-345

Marianne Design, doily LR0279

1032186

Mum Tutorial using Susan's Garden Dies

 

Don't you love Autumn with all the beautiful mums, colorful leaves and pumpkins!   Today I have added all these to my card, plus I have a tutorial below on how I created the mums.  The background paper is from the Bazzill "All Hallows Eve" design paper pad.  The pretty lacy pumpkin background was die cut using the Cheery Lynn "Fall Harvest" die.  It was backed with a piece of light yellow card stock that was sponged around the edges with a darker yellow.   

Two different sets of pumpkin dies were used; the larger pumpkins were die cut using the SB pumpkin dies and the smaller pumpkins were die cut using the Cheery Lynn "Fall Pumpkins" die.  All pumpkins were die cut using orange card stock and sponged  to give them additional texture.  The two crows were cut out of a piece of design paper from the Webster's Pages "Once upon a Halloween" design paper pack.  For the leaves, I used SB Fall Leaves dies.   The sentiment is from GKD (Theresa Momber) "Life is Good" stamp set and was die cut using SB Romantic Rectangles.  The Mums were created with the Susan's Garden "Mini Lily" dies and leaves under them were die cut using Marianne Design dies.

Here is a tutorial on how I created the mums using a mini lily die:

Did  you know you can create pretty little mums using the Susan's Garden "Mini Lily" dies?   Don't you love it when you can use your dies for more than just one purpose!  It was not hard at all; I created three different colors of mums for this card. 

I used both the "leaf" and "petal" plates from the Mini Lily die set for petals for the mum.  The outer petals are a little wider and I used the narrow "leaf" petals to form the center bud of the mum.  Because I am l creating 5 layers to create this flower, I die cut the base (calyx) piece in yellow (or same color as flower) so it won't show.  

 All the petals were shaped with the small end of the loop tool from the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit. 

The calyx (base) that comes in the Mini Lily die set has 6 points.  As I have stated before, I always attach a petal to every other point then go back and add the remaining petals.

After the six petals were dry, I added additional petals inside because I want a very full flower - alternate petals as you go around.  Notice that all the petals are shaped curling up rather than down.  For the very center of the mum, I created the bud using the very narrow petals.  When creating that center bud, it is easiest to add the six petals to the calyx, let it dry, then add additional petals to the bottom pushing up to get a closed center.   Once all the layers have dried, I layered (glued) them on top of each other, pushing the petals up to form a closed flower.  Once it was dry, I pulled some of the petals out to shape the mum.

I hope you enjoy having another tutorial showing you how to create a totally different flower with your Susan's Garden Mini Lily dies.

1021479

Winter Wonderland

This week the challenge at Joan's Gardens is to create a Christmas card with the following requirements:

• Christmas pattern Paper for background
• Warn and Cozy Colors
• Snow Flakes
• Christmas Trees or Santa or anything reflecting Christmas

The design paper I used for my card is from the MME "Vintage Christmas" 6x6 Pad.  The pretty winter scene is a stamp from the Heartfelt Creations "Winter Season PreCut Set".  It was stamped with black VersaMark ink and clear embossed on a piece of sparkly white card stock.  The beauty of the sparkles does not show up in this photo.  The image was colored then Ranger Distress Stickles added for additional shine.  The image and background were die cut using Spellbinders Oval Nestabilities.     This image was attached with dimensional tape.

In front of the Winter Scene, I added a die cut tree from Marianne Design.  The pine branch at the top was die cut using a Impression Obsession die.  On the branch I added one of the Heartfelt Creations "Petite Poinsettia" flowers.  It was die cut using the matching dies.The sentiment is from the Heartfelt Creations "Winter Season PreCut Set".  It was white embossed then die cut using the Spellbinders "Labels One" die.  The snowflake by the sentiment is from the Marianne Design, COL 1330, die set.   To add snow effects on this card, I used Tulip Puffy paint.  It was heat set and glitter added.  

I hope you will join in on this challenge.  It is so nice to get a head start on all your Christmas cards.

Well I am off for a short vacation with my husband and son up to Canada.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend. 

MME, Vintage Christmas 6x6 design paper pad

Heartfelt Creations, Winter Season PreCut Set, HCPC 3543

Heartfelt Creations, Petite Poinsettia PreCut Set, HCPC 3415

Heartfelt Creations, Spellbinders, Layered Poinsettia Shapeabilities

Marianne Design, Tree #1, LR0174

Marianne Design, Snowflake, COL 1330

Spellbinders, Label One, S4-161

Impression Obsession, Pine, DIE-021-N

1016598 

Have A Wonderful Christmas

Don't you love working with the Heartfelt Creations matching stamps, dies and design paper!

 This is the piece of the 12x12 design paper from the Heartfelt Creations "Frosty Blanket" collection.  I used the lower left corner.  My card is 6"x6". I love dressing up this beautiful paper!   I wanted to use a pink poinsettia from the Heartfelt Creations "Petite Poinsettia PreCut Set" to add dimension,  so I colored the poinsettia pink on the design paper, using the RV95 Copic Marker.  The outline is black on the design paper and I white embossed my stamped poinsettias on white vellum and colored them on the back with  VersaMagic "Pink Petunia" chalk Ink.  They were die cut using the matching "Layered Poinsettia Shapebilities" dies.  In order to get the stamped poinsettia to match the one in the design paper, I used a Ranger "Perfect Medium "bullet" marker to draw over the black lines, then embossed with white embossing powder.  When I added my vellum poinsettia layers over the poinsettia in the design paper, it blended in perfect. I used a green Copic marker to add additional green to the stamped "vine" in the design paper.

I love the little "fat" bird from the Heartfelt Creations "Christmas Song PreCut Set".  It was stamped and the bird was cut out being careful to save the holly leaves in this stamped image.  The bird and holly leaves were colored with Copic Markers and shaped with the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit.  Shaping the bird almost makes it look real!  The holly leaves were added around the birds.  

The sentiment is from the Heartfelt Creations "Bright Christmas PreCut Set".  It was stamped using VersaFine Black Ink and clear embossed then cut out with Spellbinders Nestabilities.  I punched holes in the scallops using the Tim Holt piercing tool.  The sentiment was attached using dimensional tape.  The leaves in the design were colored using two shades of green Copic Markers.  The bird was attached with a large dimensional glue dot placed right in the center of the body and the poinsettia was glued in place over the poinsettia in the design paper.  To "glam" up the design, I placed small, off white, pearls in the center of the poinsettia and "Thistle" Stickles on the berries.

You can purchase these products from Joan's Gardens:

Heartfelt Creations "Frosty Blanket Collection" Design paper

Heartfelt Creations, Petite Poinsettia PreCut Set, HCPC 3415

Spellbinders, Layered Poinsettia Shapeabilities, dies

Heartfelt Creations, Bright Christmas PreCut Set, HCPC 3552

Heartfelt Creations, Christmas Song PreCut Set, HCPC 3556

Susan's Garden, Flower  Tool Kit, 658437

Stickles, Thistle

Kaiser Craft Pearls

VersaFine Black Ink Pad

Ranger Clear Embossing Powder 

Ranger Perfect Medium Bullet marker

Ranger White Detail Embossing Powder 

1015456