Cheryl's Shoebox

Cheryl had so many fun techniques in her card!  I have baker's twine, but I haven't used any of it yet.  I certainly never thought to use it like this!  I also love the huge grommets and popped sails, they add so much dimension!  This will be a great birthday card for my son, Ben, who just got his Class B sailing permit last summer.

Lois's Shoebox

I've been talking about the shoebox swap for almost a week now, and today I went and had a great time.  The first cards I want to show you were ones that Lois offered.  The other players all had special techniques or stamps that they wanted to showcase, but Lois gave us the basic materials for two different cards, and let us customize them to our own tastes; I really feel a sense of ownership over the art in these cards, and not like I just assembled a kit.  Thank you, Lois!

Tim Holtz style

Tomorrow I have a shoebox event with some stamping friends, and today I was putting the finishing touches on my card.  One of the important elements of this particular card is the gold splatter.  Splattering is terrible at shoebox events, because nobody wants to get splattered.  I tried other ways to get that same look, but there was no help for it.  I had to splatter.  Tim uses Perfect Pearls, but I have Stargazers.  Stargazers won't be too bad.  It doesn't stain, and wipes off of hard surfaces, no problem.   Since we will be doing this in a kitchen, this should be fine.   We have to get up to emboss, so getting up to splatter shouldn't be an issue.

I did some test runs on ATCs before doing the sample card, just to make sure I wasn't forgetting how to do it.

It took me a while to figure out how to do the mitered faux metal corners, but now I really like them - I might use them a lot.  I also decided that it was easier to glue the flowers together than to attach them with a brad.

I can't show you the sample card until tomorrow - a couple of the ladies read my blog, and I don't want to spoil the surprise too much.  One of them might lock me out when she reads about the splattering, though (it's her house!).   I really like building up a background like this - it has a lot of texture for what is essentially a single layer card.

Challenges:
Clear  It Out - clean and simple (okay, maybe not too clean)
Creative Craft - make your own background
Deep Ocean - flowers
Going Grey - anything but a card
Tip Top Tuesday - T is for Tim Holtz Technique
Cheerful Stamp Pad - favorite background

Postage stamp inchies

I needed to make some postage stamp inchies, and I found enough patriotic postage stamps that I decided to use them for my 4th of July inchie mingle, too.  Here are my patriotic ones:

You have to love postage stamps - they are little works of art in themselves.  To make them my art, I just put them on a gold leafed background and added a touch of bling.  The other stamps were harder, because not everything looks good with a star on it.

The stamps are so big that in order to see any background, I had to offset them.  I thought adding an alpha gave them some cohesiveness.  Finally, I had one stamp left.  This inchie is for a special friend:

Challenges:
Fairy Knoll - sparkle
Fairy Tale - America
Off the Wall - red, white, and blue
Stamp Something - red, white, and blue
Craft Us Crazy - red, white, and blue
Paper Play - stars and stripes
Stamp Insanity - stars and stripes
Divas by Design - anything but a card

Airplane inchies

One of my girlfriends reminded me that it was almost the end of the month - did I remember that there were mingles due?  One of the mingles was travel themed, and since I had already made metallic cardstock, and had my punches handy (including my my loved but rarely used airplane punch.  Why do I love it?  Because I used to be an air traffic controller.  Why don't I use it?  Because I don't think anyone but me would appreciate a tiny little airplane on their card) , and my desk was a total mess, I thought I would make airplane inchies.  The messy desk is relevant because near my elbow was this lovely scrap of rainbow brayered cardstock which was begging to be used as a background.

I liked them, but I didn't know if anyone else would.  So I did the test - how would they look on a card?

I like them on a card, very much.  Maybe I will send the completed card, and not just inchies.  Note:  metallic doesn't scan well.  Very shiny in real life, though - just see my previous post.

Challenges:
Bloggers Challenge - things with wings
Fun with Shapes and More - lilac and pink
Poodles Parlor - come fly with me
Simply Create - fly with us
4 Crafty Chicks - clean and simple
Shopping our stash - neglected tool
The Sketch File - sketch
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - things with wings
Pollycraft - travel

Not so metal flowers

A couple of days ago,  one of my stamp enablers suggested a shoebox get-together, which is to say, we create a card, put all the materials to make it in a single shoebox, and let everyone else make a card like ours.  I opened my mouth before thinking and said I would do a Tim Holtz style card, which was met with some approval, but after I got home, I realized what an insane prospect that would be.  Everything Tim Holtz designs is created with the idea to use as many of his products as possible at one time.  It would be silly to try and fit all things necessary for a Tim Holtz card in a single shoebox.

However, I was not going to completely abandon my original idea.  I have done nice things with Tim stuff that weren't strictly Tim, and looked through my past photos and scans for some inspiration.  I stumbled across this old tag:


I remembered that I particularly liked it at the time because instead of running out and spending 20 bucks on Tim's metal flowers and metal corners, I made my own out of cardstock.  I think my flower-making skills (all my skills, actually) have improved somewhat over time, so I decided to base my card on this tag.

The first thing I needed to do is make "metal" cardstock.  For me, that involves metallic paint and black or brown cardstock.  Then I whipped out the punches, to create the components.  Here is all the stuff I used:

The two colorful pieces of cardstock that you can see underneath are how they look dripped with paint and the colors smeared around with a credit card.  as blotchy as it looks as a big sheet of paper, punched into small pieces, it looks tarnished - everything Tim needs to look old, right?  Here is a close-up of the flowers:

 The reflection makes it look particularly shiny, but actually, it looks like tarnished metal.  I made some dimensional flowers, and then I realized that maybe a mailable card would be better, so I worked on some flatter flowers (the ones on the left will all lie flat in an envelope).

Obviously, I will bring the cardstock already painted, but now I am wondering if I should punch all the flowers, too, and just let the other players assemble them.  This is just the flowers - I also have to consider how I am going to do all the other parts, as well.  Damn you, Tim Holtz, and your dementing effect on my brain!

Spiral to donut

My daughter caught me beading on the deck, and snapped a picture.  Click to enlarge.

It's not the best picture of me ever, but you can see that I am wearing a necklace that I made, and also that I am making something else - a spiral (thanks, Vicky!).  My daughter didn't like the spiral.  I don't know why, if it was the shape of the color, but I could see that I didn't want to make a long rope of it like I originally intended, so I brought it around and made a donut.

I think this will make a nice focal bead, and plan to make some smaller beaded beads to complete a necklace.  I will have to use some other pattern to make the rope necklace that I want.