A Fan of Handmade

My favorite part of making a card is sending it to someone I care about.  There are six ladies who I worked with for several years who are enjoying their fall in a new way.  They are not returning to their classrooms.  I made this tribute card to celebrate how I'm a fan of theirs.

The main image is a fan created by priscillastyles.     It is one from CDAC Progressive Freebie Challenges.  It's been colored with colored pencils.  Behind the image you can see I made my own background paper too featuring a piece of Cherry Cobbler  paper stamped with a rose image from Unity's June set using Brilliance Galaxy Gold ink and the Sizzix Flourish Texture plate, it's subtle but a handmade touch.  The top gingham paper is DCWV from the Kitchen collection. 

I've started collecting and using digi images and have a new challenge, how to store them. Any ideas?


Thanks for looking.

Gratitude Journals

This post begins as I finished reading a great book called One Simple Act, written by Debbie Macomber which was uplifting and inspirational. Here's a link to her webpage about the book. 


One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity

One of the thoughts she shared was the idea of a gratitude journal.  I thought this was a perfect idea and decided to use it as the theme of altered journals.  I created a set of four which were packaged and mailed to be exchanged today.  Hope you enjoy taking a closer look.




Gratitude Journal Sets

Included with each of the altered notebooks is a bookmark and baggie with some coordinating tabs and embellishments.

The pages in the book were a great place to stamp some of my overlooked sets and ink colors.

Thanks for looking and please leave a comment if you would.

More Images:

The Altered Journal Sets

Inside the Front Cover

Inside the Back Cover- A Pocket

Stampers Details:
Stamps: Spring Song; Close to Nature; Cats Pajama letter set
Paper: DCVW Flower Shop and coordinates
Accessories: Ribbons from my stash :); Nestablities Labels, Eyelet

Do you take a Double Dog Dare? I did.

Many of you may know that I'm a dedicated wife and mother. In fact husband and I celebrated 18 years of marriage in June this year.  It was that week that motivated me to make the card I'm posting about today.

So you may be thinking did her husband dare her to tie the knot.  No- that' s not it. 
Instead the double dog dare came from a online card making challenge group.

The ABC challenge. 

For week one, letter A- I made the an Adventure Card.  A for Adventure and Anchor.  Later I modified it to make a Father's Day card. 

Week Two... The Letter B and I heard my dear daughter say, "Mom, I watched your wedding video today and you really had a Big Butt Bow."  She was right I did.  So I made a card I titled... Bride with a Big Butt Bow.  It was a hit. 

Spirit Of Celebration

What does the 4th of July bring?  Fireworks, family, parades, and plenty of celebration.  It's an amazing blessing to be in our nation.  For all those liberties were protected and won by men and women whom dreamed of these future foundation- I am thankful. 

       

When my children were small I took them to the parades in a red flyer wagon.  I love those days and the memories of when it was a marvel to see the big fire engines, floats and bands.  If I don't make it to the parade now I'm not sure they would even care.   This year I may not see the parade but I do have a resounding spirit of celebration.

Today I'm showing you cards I made to exchange but inspired by the 4th of July. 

To learn how to make this card I used the tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers for a Pop-up Card.  I found using a craft knife challenging and aligning the scallop punch to make the double sided strip of white was a challenge as well.  I do like the results.  Thanks for looking and Have a blessed 4th of July.

Here are a few more views of the cards:

Paper: Paper Studio Red, White and Blue
Stamps: Friendship Grows and Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: SU White Craft and Versamark
Accessories: Black Embossing Powder, Red Button and Cotton Twine; Red, White and Blue fibers; Large Eyelet
Punches: Word Window, Modern Label; Eyelet Border Punch; Creative Memories Scallop Corner Punch; Fiskars Flower, EK Success Flower Outline
Other: Nestabilities  Scallop Square

The Independence we have in the United States was deliberate and defended by those who have lived here before us.  May you find a spirit of celebration this year like no other.

Spring Tweets are Sweet

Spring is my favorite time of year for many reasons one is the return of songbirds that migrate south for winter and back north in spring. I like listening to bird songs and watching winged visitors perch or fly in the yard. It’s their spring songs that inspired today’s art project- chunky pages designed using bird themes.

Today’s project reaches from my crafty comfort zone of coloring, to a bold graphics and bright style highlighting a spectrum of colors! Envision blue skies, sunshine and birds.

To start the design I looked through old sheet music.  Since I wanted to assure that the paper I used stayed bright white and that it wouldn’t turn yellow and brittle I found digi papers and found these freebies. They were available in other colors but blue brought the blue skies to the To accomplish the circles I cut a small square out of bubble wrap, I used double sided tape to tape it to my acrylic block and inked it up. My friend Joyce would be so proud of me for letting my fingers get inky. Since they were dirty now and since the background still needed more so I pulled out stencils that haven’t ever used.  I found the sun and inked it with a sponge in only orange.  This put just the right amount of spring sunrise on the project.  On to the bird- I chose a pattern paper that was used to make the birds using the SU Birds and Blooms die.

Chunky pages are meant to be chunky so now I had to think off the page!  I decided that on side two I would add a pull out tag and stamp it up with a second birdy.  

More Details:

Inks: SU: Tempting Tourqoise, Summer Sun, Only Orange, Pixie Pink

Stamps: Martha Stewart on the tag,  Wood Thrush- Stampin Up from Bird Song set; birds of a feather from stampabilities;  

Punches: 1" square punch from Creative Memories; Itty Bitty punches from SU

Paper; White, Only Orange, DCWV designer series paper both yellow glitter

Accessories:  eyelash yarn, dimensional adhesive squares

It's a Small World

Today’s project is to create fairy objects, which will be sent into a swap and eventually become part of an altered book.  I looked at many fairy images and decided on this by Phee McFaddell.  She has a fabulous webpage and some images available for download.  You may see some more of them in the days to come.

To create this element, I resized the image so that two images printed on one page.  I then used my Kimberly Watercolor Pencils and an Aqua Painter to paint the image.  At this point, I used Ranger Glossy accents as an adhesive and embellished with Tulip Shake-On glitter.  At the base of the image I used iridescent flakes and again attached them with Glossy Accents.  The background of the image was made using a scallop circle punch of vellum as a mask and then I sponged using Tempting Turquoise ink by Stampin Up.