FWF Holiday Card

This Unity kit I played with tonight is the best!  I used the October 2013 KOM "Oh Christmas Tree". There are so many stamps to choose from that I had a hard time deciding what to do.  But I had two goals tonight.  One was to get a FWF card in on time and at the same time use my PAO sketch to create it with.  I think I achieved my goals.

I scanned the jar and tag and then printed and cut on my Klic N Kut.  I so love my KNK!  The jar was  printed on Copic friendly paper and my ink jet printer ink does the job.  No smearing or bleeding.  I also did a little paper piecing for the bow around the jar's lid.  Then once finished coloring the jar I stamped the peppermint candy inside the jar.  Love those little candies...so cute.

All stamps are from Oh Christmas Tree:

Thanks for looking and I appreciate comments:)

PAO December 2014 Sketch Card

I've taken over the challenge of creating a monthly card sketch on PaperArtistsOnline for my friend Jen who is focusing on the monthly layout sketch over there.  Jen will be a hard act to follow.  Her card sketches have been fabulous, challenging and so much fun.

So for my first sketch I actually created one of my typical stream-of-consciousness cards and then made the sketch.  Is that cheating?


Though going backwards here this is my sketch:

This is the original card I made the sketch above from.  Large die cut tag from PTI, fern stamp JudiKin's, little tag and stamp TSOL/Stephanie Barnard and matting from assorted MFT Blueprint sets.  Paper from assorted stash.

Finally, I actually made a card FROM the sketch.  I just wish the shimmery appearance of this card showed up better in the photo.  Card base and blue/green panel are from Club Scrap collections, tree is a die from Elizabeth Crafts and sentiment die is PTI.

Thanks for looking.

Unity FWF Easy Embossed Card

This was so easy it's embarrassing.  Embossing folders really are an easy, quick and terrific way to make a fast card.   The sentiment is a Unity stamp which fits nicely into the blank area of this embossing folder.  A few buttons with enamel dots, some baker's twine and Bob's your Uncle as my friend Jen says.

Thanks for looking.

Card Making Frenzy

The long awaited day of attending Stephanie Barnard's card class arrived.  What a fun and intense day it was.  Two, 2 hour classes of 3 cards each.  I'm proud that I finished the first 5 and nearly completed the 6th.  Maybe my energy will return tonight or tomorrow and I will finish it.

Meanwhile here is what I did finish.


Morning class

Afternoon class

Stand up card with suspended flower

Shaker flip it card

Step card

Hidden flap card

Gate fold card

My good friend Jennifer, Stephanie Barnard and me.

Thanksgiving Cards for the Grandkids

Doodlebug card stock and stickers made this a no-brainer for making cards for my nearly 1 year old granddaughter and nearly 3 year old grandson.  Paper and stickers are from the Friendly Forest Collection.  I just love the colors and darling animals and owls.  The card base is TSOL's Triple Cricle Flip-It die.  I think the children will love the interactive style card.

For my granddaughter...

For my grandson...

Thanks for looking:)

Unity FWF Friday - Masking Play

I couldn't wait to play with two new sets of stamps tonight.  I didn't give a lot of thought for a card.  Merely a chance to play with 3 stamps and some masking.  I don't feel that cards always need a sentiment.  Simple note cards are often just the ticket for a nice note to someone without a specific theme.

The flight of birds background is from Vintage Era Background and the two tags are from The Garden (What-not) Collection.  I bought the Vintage set mainly for the birds but all the stamps will be fun to be creative with.  But those birds really got me.

I stamped the tags first onto card stock and then masked them with Eclipse paper before over stamping with the bird stamp.  So simple.  The background for the tag with the glasses was easily done with JudiKins Dusters (short stubby brushes that look like shaving brushes) and Distress Inks.

The birds on the second card were stamped in my homemade pad of multi-Distress Inks.

Thanks for looking and your comments.

PAO Tag Spoiler...Beware!

I am in a Holiday Tag Swap with my friends at PAO.  I've already received many from my swap group so I needed to get busy.  I finished them last night and they'll go out in the mail on Monday.  So if by chance you are in my swap group...don't look! LOL.

I was pleased with myself for using embossing folders, stamps and dies in my stash!

This first tag is for our organizer.  I'll be giving her this one plus one of the others as well since we are both in two groups.  Tag was die cut from an MFT tag die on Club Scrap black sparkly card stock from "Cruisin'" kit.  Houses are stamps and die from Stampin' Up!

And now for my embossing folder tags.  I found this a great way to make them with some speed.  Emboss and then just swipe with Distress Ink Mini Ink Pads.  And of course I had to put a bird on it.

Thanks for looking and I hope I didn't spoil it for anyone.

A Departure From the Usual

I use this blog for sharing my crafting interests but today I want to share another interest of mine...birding.  I began birding about 4 1/2 years ago.  I went on my first bird walk with a local expert and that was all it took.  I can proudly say that I am a bird geek.

Today I had a fascinating day right in my own yard and I wanted to show just a few of the 100+ photos I took today.

My first set of photos is of a Song Sparrow.  What made me excited to see him is that I've never seen one at my home.  I see them frequently out in rural areas that I bird but never in the suburbs.  I do keep a number of seed feeders and this guy must have liked what he saw.  He fed with the other regulars but stuck around when the others moved off.  (More why they moved off below:)

He liked hiding in my neighbor's hedge for safety but when I "pished" at him (literally making that sound) he would pop up for a few seconds allowing me these photos.   In the Spring his song is beautiful.  During the non-nesting time like now they make a soft "bark" call.

The reason that all the other birds disappeared quickly was our resident Cooper's Hawk.  She (or he) is a beauty and quite amusing to watch.  The little birds however are rightfully afraid.  A Cooper's Hawk's main diet is small birds and they know to hang out at bird feeders, like ours.  She seems to like my husband's roof rack on his car.  She then dove into a shrub knowing that numerous House Sparrows were hiding in there.  Finally she gave up and went to the top of a sycamore tree to preen and groom.  Or perhaps to sulk because she did not succeed in finding a munchie to enjoy.

Today was the second day in a row for her to appear.  I wonder if she will show up again tomorrow?

Unity FWF Friday...Thank You

I had a lot of Thank You cards to send out recently after a wonderful birthday.  This is just one of them.  I loved coloring this stamp customizing the colors with my Copics to go with the cute patterned paper and sent it to a friend who recently took an online Copic Card Coloring class with me.

Happy Friday and thanks for looking:)

A few more Halloween cards

I had fun making two Halloween cards for two very special little ones...my grandchildren.  I was so proud of myself for using my 6x6 paper stash, an embossing folder and stamps that I already had also.



Happy Halloween!

Unity FWF Halloween

I've missed one or two FWF Fridays...shame on me.  But this week I finally got a few Halloween cards made and mailed.  This one is for a dear friend in Cincinnati...I don't think she'll look here before it arrives...yes, I am late with hers.  Sigh.

Anyway, this fun "Toxic" label comes from the September KOTM, "happy, thankful & blessed".  That set has so many useful holiday related stamps.  I've really enjoyed playing with this kit.

Embossing in white embossing powder and then coloring with permanent markers (Sharpies, Copics, Spectrum Noir)

is a great way to use black and other dark colored card stock.  The inks look like they are illuminated against the black background.

Thanks for looking and Happy Halloween!

Unity FWF Friday

I have a new and fabulous Unity stamp called Floral Frenzy.   It's new to me anyway.  A fine line drawing that asks for so many ways to use it.  I played around with assorted inks and papers but for FWF I chose to do it up in Copics since I've been taking the OCC class on Copics for Card Makers.

I am doing this at the eleventh hour and naturally my Aperture program decided there was a problem and is doing a backup.  So the likelihood of this getting in on time is low.  Never the less I am quite in love with this stamp and will use it in many ways.


Whew!  I found another way to get it in on time...yay!  But I wasn't able to "enhance" it in any way.  Oh well.

"Thank You" is also Unity.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment:)

Unity FWF Friday

This is a double header for me.  Not only did I use all Unity stamps but the little girl is colored with Copic markers which qualifies also for the OCC Copic Markers for Card Makers class.

Stamps used:  You're My Bestie,  Better. Somewhere. Today. and KOTM "the best is yet to be".  I love to mix up my Unity stamps to create a whole, unique look.  "Arigato" is from Hero Arts.

OCC Copic for Card Makers Day 5: People

Don't look at the faces.  The coloring isn't all that bad but I felt the need to create a face on one and "improve" on another.  Both are total fails. LOL  This assignment is more about the whole body, not just the hair and skin.  I feel like I did decently on the clothing but the faces?  Ha!

The first character is Lilli Girl from Unity Stamps.  She is adorable in spite of my coloring.  She does not have a face so I attempted to create one.  Bad, I know.  I need to stamp her a dozen times and practice a decent expression.  She looks a little ticked off about something.

Next is Pure Innocence: Little Gardener from MFT.  At least she does have a face, however I tried to make more of a happy mouth and managed to touch some black from her hair and smushed it onto her face.  Oh my goodness!  Better leave her alone next time.

Thanks for looking.

OCC Copics for Card Makers Day 5

Today's lesson was about skin and hair coloring.  Another challenge!  I tried the hair in the two different ways described in our lesson.  I prefer the first way I did it.  I was able to highlight better that way.  Skin colors need some work.  These poor girls look like they need a shave, LOL.

I am enjoying this class more and more each day and I'm having fun experimenting with my colors.

Thanks for looking.

OCC Copic For Card Makers Day 4

Oh you are asking what happened to days 2 and 3?  Beats me.  I got a bit lost in those two lessons and just moved on to today's.  I'll go back at some point.  Meanwhile I enjoyed today's lesson on light source and shadows.  My attempts are not exciting but I "get" what I am supposed to do.   One thing I did learn is that I did not like using the white gel pen for the centers.  Another method was to use the colorless blender and I think that turned out great and I really like how it looks.  The gel pen looks nice when someone talented uses it.  That would not be me, LOL.

Anyway here are two of the flower sets for today's lesson.  I'll work on this more.    I think I chose too dark of a trio for the blue flowers.  The shading is a bit lost.  The orange however were good colors but they really blended so well that it's nearly all one color.  Finding the perfect group of colors seems to be a huge key in the blending game and learning what works best.  It seems a bit of trial and error...not an exact science of color blending.  Also the Copic friendly card stock I used makes a huge difference as well.  The stock I used here seemed to bleed very easily.

 Looking forward to tomorrow's assignment.

Tea Cup Thank You Cards

Loving coffee like I do, I collect many coffee related crafting items: stamps, dies, embossing folders and so on.  So when I came across this die of "coffee cups" I knew I could have a lot of fun with them.  How amusing that the first time I use them they would be "tea cups".   Again, I am a died-in-the-wool coffee drinker or latte drinker to be specific.  Therefore it was funny that last Saturday while attending the annual West Coast Scrap N Chat's ScrampCamp we had a formal tea party.  I don't like tea,  but I was game and actually enjoyed the peach and ginger tea I chose.

Our hostess for this tea, Liney and sister Lucy put on a jaw-dropping afternoon tea that would be the envy of any tea shop.  Set up in Liney's home were beautiful tables dressed in lovely linens and china.  A beautiful collection of teacups graced a large table and 4 gorgeous teapots containing different teas were arranged on a high counter.  Tea time food was everywhere and kept coming out of the oven.  It was truly amazing.

So to make a long story short (sort of) I knew this teacup/coffee cup die would be ideal die for cards to send to the three Westies who organized this fun filled weekend.

In a nutshell, the first die cut was done on very heavy kraft card stock...or maybe light chip board...hard to say.  This would be the base for the cups.  Next I chose 5 different patterned papers from an AC 6x6 pad.  I cut the die 5 times on the different patterned papers.  Then I snipped the patterned cups apart and arranged them onto the Kraft base.  I love the tipsy look of these playful cups and I think the 3 recipients will enjoy them also.

Thanks for looking.  

Dreamweaver Die "Vertical Teacups"