SOTF

On her blog, Myrna frequently displays cards she has made from her POTD (Pile On The Desk).  She uses that abbreviation so frequently, she no longer feels the need to explain what it means; her readers know.  I can relate to the POTD. My desk is so overflowing that stuff slides off the sides.  This card was made from the SOTF.

The scalloped ruffle and the rosette are made from bits of packing paper.  The great thing about rosettes is that they don't look girly like flowers do and you can use them on masculine cards.  I had to layer two other ribbons on top of my orange ribbon to hide the stains on it.  The panels on the top are 1x4 inches, and the bottom piece is 1.5x4 inches, so you can see that these are fairly small bits that I can't bear to throw out.  Even skinnier strips get saved for ATCs.  It's a good thing that the stamps in the snail&co stamp set from a•muse studio are so small!

Challenges:

• Allsorts - masculine
• Sweet Stampin' - ribbon
• Fussy and Fancy - circles 
• Pattie's Creations - recycling
• Southern Girls - kraft (the base is kraft)

glitter sig tag

One of my Paint Shop Pro students liked a certain glitter fill that is used in one of the lessons, so she asked me for it.  Being the kind of teacher that I am, I told her how to make it herself.

Of course, I had to test my tutorial before I sent to her, so then I had the glitter fill that she wanted.  Once I had it, then I had to use it.

I think this font is so funny!  I could do this with any font, though.  Would you like an animated sig tag like this?  Or maybe you like it more like this:

The background is transparent, so it will look good on any color blog or email.

If you would like a glitter tag, just email me and we can talk about colors, fonts, and art, and I will happily make one for you for free, just so I can exercise my mad PSP skills.  I'm that kind of girl. 

birthday tags

My family almost never goes into my card stash to find a card, but I notice that when I leave my tags in the gift-wrapping bin, they always get used, even though I have a lot of store-bought tags in there..  Thus, I decided to make some birthday tags.

I started by stamping some small sentiments in gray on white cardstock - I wanted white cardstock so that they could write a message on the back.  you would think it would take forever to stamp a background with such small words, but I put several sentiments on the block at once (there are 14 sentiments in the enjoy the ride stamp set from a•muse studio).  It went very quickly.   I then softened the background by burnishing with distress inks.  I decided to dip into my stash of silk flowers and ribbons to decorate the tags once I cut them.  A little more inking on the edges to pick up the colors in the flowers, and a little bling/glitter, and they are ready for use.

Challenges:

•  Allsorts - flower power
• Hiding in My Craft Room - tags
• Crafty Catz - anything but a card
• Frosted Designs - give a gift
• Sassy Studio Designs - ribbon, roses (I take mine apart and use the layers separately), rhinestones

Just like I hoped

It's very rare that I buy stamps with a clear vision of how I intend to use them, but these stamps from SweetStamps just called out to me.  The roses fit perfectly around an oval focal point, and I thought that the vintage lady looked perfect with them.

 The ovals were cut with a new Little Stackers die set I just bought.  The set contains 6 dies in the sizes I would actually use for making cards, with less than a half inch difference between each die - this makes it possible to layer them without huge borders (the one thing I hate about spellbinders dies).  My copic coloring still needs work, but you really can't mess up roses; they are a naturally messy flower.

So, what I have here is a nice card that has fussy details while still being nice and flat for easy mailing.  I think this will be good with red and purple for my Red Hat friends, too.

Challenges:

• SweetStamps - die cut with a flower stamp
• Amusing Challenges - fussycutting
• CMC Copic challenge - pastels
• SweetPea Stampers - CAS with no embellishments
• My Heart Pieces - girly

Cracked Glass collage

I love techniques!  This project has a few.  I started off with coffee paper, one of my favorite things to do when I forget to turn off the coffee pot in the morning.  I then stamped this vintage image from SweetStamps and colored it with the Penciled Marker technique.  I Then applied a ton of clear embossing powder for the Cracked Glass technique.

Tissue tape, a french book page, old tickets and diecut flowers, a doily, a charm, all kinds of stuff made it onto this 4 by 4 collage that I made for my altered designs yahoogroup.  

Challenges:

SweetStamps - cracked glass technique

Delightful Challenges - add hearts

Frilly and Funkie - follow your muse

Craft your passion - vintage

Quirky Crafts - something new (the stamp is new) + pink

Glitter Leaves

I have had a tower of embossing glitter in my stash forever, but I rarely think to use it.  Today, I forced myself.  It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be.

I probably should have used the technique with a Christmas card, but frankly, I'm sick of making Christmas cards. I felt like it needed something, but I'm not the ribbon was the right something.  Glitter is hard to compete with, especially colored glitter. I used the marvelous marigolds and snail & co stamp sets from a•muse studio.  The background paper is a scrap from the Bohemia collection by My Mind's Eye.

Challenges:

• Corrosive Challenges - something old
• Craftymess - sparkle/bling
• Totally Gorjuss - ribbon
• Daring Cardmakers - colors
• Creative Moments - embossing

Astrid McLean birthday card

one of my yahoogroups challenged us to make a project using an Astrid McLean background.  Her work is so pretty, I didn't want to cover it up.

There is a little glitter on the sentiment, and that is metallic thread holding the button in place, and that is a pink metallic organza - I love a little sparkle!

Challenges:

• SweetStamps - pink, green, brown
• Fetch a Sketch - sketch