Catching Up with Make It Monday

What the Devil?! Two posts in one week? I know, right? I'm motivated. And I thought it would be fun to play along with Papertrey's Make It Monday this week. Instead of debuting a new technique, this week they compiled all of the videos they've done over the last year-ish so folks who missed a week could catch up a smidge. Needless to say, I've missed a few weeks, but I thought it would be fun to catch one of the techniques on the flip side.

So I played along with the "#31: Creating a Background Using Non-Background Stamps." At least that's what I was going for. I suppose it could have also fit into the "#39: Multi-Stamp Background Building" too. Either way, I had fun stamping these little houses into a fairly successful pattern.

In keeping with the "I-love-my-fella" theme from the last card today's little ditty is another lovey dovey number. I think I'm going to make a bunch of sweet, kissy cards and give them to him whenever the mood strikes. Be prepared for lots of them this year.


First I put all of my house parts onto different blocks and assigned each a color. I didn't want to have to be cleaning stamps and switching inks in order to complete my pattern. Then I just started stamping away on my white cardstock. I began at the bottom-center and worked my way toward the edges and then toward the top. Once my background was complete I die cut the blue pinked edge and stitched the two together with embroidery floss. Then I stamped the polka dots on my base and adhered my background panel. The sentiment was stamped, matted and given a little swatch of ribbon before the whole piece was mounted to the base with foam adhesive.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

Recipe:
Stamps: Love Lives Here, Polka Dot Basics 2 - Papertrey Ink
Cardstock: Enchanted Evening, Spring Moss, Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; white
Ink: Enchanted Evening, Spring Moss, Pure Poppy, Spring Rain, Ripe Avocado, Smoky Shadow - Papertrey Ink
Other: Pinked Edge Die, Spring Rain Saddle Stitched Ribbon - Papertrey Ink; Embroidery Floss - DMC; Foam Adhesive - Scotch

A Card and A Goal

Greetings, Blogland! Happy New Year to you and yours! I know it's been awhile since our last meeting and I wanted to address that really quickly first. I'm not usually big on New Year's resolutions (resolutions seem like they're made to be broken), but I wanted to set a few goals for myself this year. I have a good feeling about 2012 and I want to start it off right. So here are my two crafty goals for this year:

1. Post to the poor, neglected blog at least once a week. This could be a toughy, but I'm really, really going to try. I may have to spend my quiet months stocking up so I don't have a mental break in December (18-hour days are no one's friend), but I'm really going to bust my hiney to make posting a priority this year.

2. Keep the studio clean enough that there will never be another stamp set landslide. You don't want to see that, People. It isn't pretty. And I had my fair share of them in 2011, so this year I am setting a goal to keep things in relative order. I just spent 4 days cleaning and reorganizing and it's feeling pretty darn good right now.

So here we are on the 5th of January and I'm achieving my posting goal for this week with a quickie card I made for my fella. We've been talking a lot lately about how as our relationship grows and changes it only gets better. These chats inspired me to make him a little "just because" card. This accomplished a couple of things: I get back into the swing of things after a bit of a card making dry spell and he gets a sweet reminder of how much he's loved and appreciated. Everybody wins!


It's a pretty straightforward construction. I stamped the sentiment and the tree onto the base before running the base through the Cuttlebug with the woodgrain impression plate. Then I stamped the tree onto Kraft and trimmed it all the way to the edges before mounting it to the base with foam adhesive. The finishing touch was a little twine and a button. Easy peasy.

Thanks for checking in today. Hopefully I can keep this thing going. See you next time!

Recipe:
Stamps: Love and Marriage - Papertrey Ink
Cardstock: Kraft, Rustic White - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Ripe Avocado - Papertrey Ink; Brown pigment - Studio G
Other: Twine, Dark Chocolate Button, Woodgrain Impression Plate - Papertrey Ink; Foam Adhesive - Scotch

December 2011 Papertrey Blog Hop!

Hello, Blogland! I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. We weren't able to travel this year, but we had a wonderful time at home with a small group of friends and a table piled high with delicious food. My fella really knows his way around a pot of black beans (I'm just sayin'). This vegetarian is truly thankful for that skill at this time of year!


Anyhow...I really wanted to participate in this month's Blog Hop, so I whipped up this little ditty recently. In keeping with the inspiration photo I stuck with a fairly traditional red and green color scheme. I stamped the wreath branches with Dark Chocolate ink and then added the "foliage" in Spring Moss and Ripe Avocado. I turned the dotted stamp 180* before stamping the second time to make sure the spacing would look random and more realistic.


The white polka dots were heat embossed on the Pure Poppy strip using ultra fine white embossing powder and then the red was mounted to a strip of white cardstock to give the edges a nice definition. I set that whole bit aside while I stamped my sentiment and ran my card front through the Cuttlebug with an impression plate.

Once the card front and the polka dotted strip were adhered to the card base I cut and knotted a strip of Ripe Avocado Saddle Stitched Ribbon and wrapped that around the entire card, hiding the ends under the wreath panel. I prefer the way that looks over cutting ribbon at the edges of a card, for some reason. Yes, I use more ribbon, but it feels more finished to me. Truly just a preference thing.

The final step was adding the little silk bow to the wreath. I didn't have any 1/4" silk ribbon laying around, so I took white and colored it with a Sharpie. Voila! I haven't jumped on the Copic train, but the handful of Sharpies I own certainly comes in handy sometimes!

Well that's all for me today. I hope you've enjoyed today's card. Have fun hopping!

Recipe:
Cardstock: Spring Moss, Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink; white
Stamps: Wreath for All Seasons, Stocking Prints, Polka Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Fresh Snow, Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate - Papertrey Ink
Ribbon: Ripe Avocado Saddle Stitched, 1/4" silk - Papertrey Ink
Tools: Linen/Canvas Impression Plate - Papertrey Ink; Nesting Circles Dies - Quickutz
Other: Embossing Powder - Filigree; Foam Adhesive - Scotch

Who's Up for A Cocoa?

Hello, Blogland! It's been awhile since I'd had the time or a project to post, so I wanted to share this card just as soon as I made it. I've been immersed in a Christmas wonderland this week. I have all of my red, green, silver, and white embellishments arranged all pretty-like on a dessert display right in the middle of my workbench. The inspiration seems to be working! I'll do the same with other thematic embellishments when I work on other holiday cards here in the next week or so.


Anyway, enough yammering! On to the card. I pulled out my Candy Cane Christmas stamp set along with a sentiment from Fillable Frames #9 and a couple of my linear background builders to put this little number together. I stamped the patterned paper using Faux Ribbon and Background Basics: Retro. I absolutely love the way it turned out! I've done this with other colors on cards in the past, but this arrangement of colors might be my favorite.

I stamped my mug in Aqua Mist and decked it out with both a peppermint stick and an itty bitty holly sprig. Doesn't it just look so festive?! I mounted the mug to a Half & Half die cut strip with foam adhesive. Then that whole piece was mounted with more foam tape to the base. One little thing I wanted to point out was the ribbon/string treatment. I love bows on cards, but I realize that bulky bows aren't the easiest things to mail. I get around that by using a strip of ribbon and then adding a bow with embroidery floss/twine/jute/etc. over the top. I still get my bow, but it's significantly easier to mail (which is especially important when I'm making cards to be mailed by someone else).

Hope you enjoyed today's card! Have a great weekend!

Recipe:
Cardstock: Kraft - Papertrey Ink; White
Stamps: Faux Ribbon, Background Basics: Retro, Candy Cane Christmas, Fillable Frames #9 - Papertrey Ink
Ink: Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate, Aqua Mist - Papertrey Ink
Other: Ripe Avocado Saddle Stitched Ribbon, Half & Half Dies, Candy Cane Christmas Dies - Papertrey Ink; Frosted Lace Stickles - Ranger; Red embroidery floss - DMC; Holly Punch - Punch Bunch; Rhinestones - Darice; Foam Tape - Scotch

2012 Calendars Now Available

Hello Blogland! I know it's been awhile since I've posted, but it's not for lack of productivity. Most of what I've been doing lately is graphic design oriented rather than greeting card driven. I typically only post the card making projects here, but I thought I'd share this year's calendars since they've been such a big reason for my absence. It's also the first time I've branched out and done a wall calendar, so I am excited to share that as well.

First up is the desktop version.


I decided to go simple with this year's desktop calendar since I was committed to doing a wall calendar, too. Each month has the same swag of banners with different colors. I've used this motif on other projects in the past and it just felt like a fun direction for the calendar.



These are HERE in my Etsy shop, at Celebrate Local (at Easton Town Center), or you can find me at shows in and around Columbus. They'll be at Wholly Craft in the next couple of weeks, too.

And here is the wall calendar!


I illustrated a different object or scene from nature for each month. The finished size is 6" x 9" so it's small enough that it won't take up an overwhelming amount of space, but it still packs a colorful punch with each page being a full-color illustration. I also decided to invest in a binding tool because the only color my local office supply stores would use was black. So they're all me from the design and printing through to the binding. I'm really not sure which month is my favorite. How about you?




These are also available in my Etsy shop HERE and the same stocking information applies.

Thank you for stopping by today and taking a peek at how I've been keeping myself occupied. I really hope to be making cards again in the near future. In fact, I think tomorrow is Papertrey's blog hop, so maybe I'll get a project together and participate. Fingers crossed! Either way, have a great afternoon and I'll see you again soon!