A Wintery Feeling

 This cute card is from Spellbinder's 2023 Advent Calendar Day One. The box had this adorable little car and so I jumped straight into making it a little ride to "Grandmother's House" with the woods and the snow.

The lights are from Chibitronics. The background was actually pretty easy to make too! I masked off a line for the snow and then blended a blue background and started stamping trees. I didn't even try to mask I just stamped two different colors to make some look more like they were in the background. I am very pleased with how this came out! 

I'm playing along and entering my project here:

Inspiration Station Challenge - December: Inspiration Photo - I was inspired by all the shiny lights! Plus it's a car so we've got some transportation vibes going! I absolutely love the glow of the parade.

Double D Challenge Blog - Winter/Snow Scene - It's a pretty drive through the snow. My card gives me To Grandmother's House song vibes!

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog - Simon Says "Let It Snow" - I have snow-covered greens on the patterned papers to accent all these sweet images.

Border Attribute:  Image by starline  on Freepik 

Masking Project

My First Masking Project! I see so many beautiful layered cards, so I decided to go for it. It's funny that the process is a lot messier looking and backwards!

I started with my characters that belonged in the front.

Added a full stick sticky note to mask over all of the first stamps. Then continued for each layer.

Not very pretty but then I masked off areas for the background too. 

 Tah Dah! I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. I will definitely keep working on getting better with this technique, and maybe try slimline cards so I can have the whole crew. 

Sepllbinders Ornament Set

 I'm back from vacation! Sorry for the long interruption! It is good to be home although I brought back a cold, which is less fun. I have a few more Christmas Cards to share before the end of the year! So this is four cards from my Spellbinders Set . They are SUPER easy to make. I know you can shade and make them fancy, but for this first go around I just did the basic die for each of the cards. I love how simple they are but also how many ways to mix and match.  

For this little reindeer I used Chibitronics again. I suspect you will hear that word a lot! They are just really easy to use and yet add so much to the cards. Next time though I want to get the slow blink red effect light, which will be even better. 

A fun idea is to also use a brad to attach the bear, so this one can actually come off the card and become an ornament!

Meet Dudley

 

This is Dudley! Dudley lights up and is one of my new favorite stamps from Whimsy Stamps. I have a video of his lights up on my Instagram!

It's easier to make than it looks in the video! First I stamped and colored Dudley and cut out his light bulb with an x-acto knife.

Dudley  has vellum over the cut out light bulb. I stamped the image on vellum just lined it up and glued it down. I placed the green and red frames over it after gluing down the vellum and using a pencil for marking where to cut out holes on the frames, and where to place the light on the base card. I might have to add extra pictures for this step next time I make a light up card. 

Then I cut a hole on both of the card frames. I used a  a pencil inside his cut out light bulb to mark where they light needed to go on the base card and also to help align the squares for the frames. 

I used Chibitronic lights for creating my circuit. It is so easy to use and line up! I am in love with their supplies and bought more on Black Friday!

Here is my circuit , see just a little tape and done! Put on the dimensional tape around the frame and now you have a light-up Dudley!

On the next day...

One of my favorites for this year. It's a combo of Lawn Fawn and their Pop Up Set as well as an older Hero Arts kit. 

I love making unusual cards and taking a non-traditional take on dies. For instance the Ren Fair type dies really don't scream Christmas until you give them a red, green, and yellow Christmas scheme and put them in beautiful sparkly snow. 

The only issue is that I think my base paper is to heavy of a weight. It really struggled to not pop at the seams. I will have to try this one again with a lower weight of white paper. I absolutely love the dragon though he has an acetate stem to make it appear as though he is flying.

Although the colors say Christmas they are also my favorite hockey team colors! Go Minnesota Wild!

December is Coming!

 Everyday I get a little bit better and better! I can sit for more than 40 minutes now in a row and I've been swimming everyday to help my back get stronger. I wish I could do it all the Instagram, Facebook, and a Blog but that's just not been a reasonable goal. I miss my blog already! I might start posting my cards with a little less technical photos to help until I am fully back to normal.

How about this lovely winter card to jump start the last couple days before December. We had our first snow here in Minnesota. It was just a dusting but it was lovely and festive right after our Christmas concert we went to on the 26th.

This absolutely stunning set is from the Hero Arts October kit. I just can't get enough of this kit I've made so many cards with it. It's just such a beautiful beautiful card setting. The lights were a little bulky. I'm going to use up what I have they are Tim Holtz lights, but then I plan to completely only use Chibitronics. I will definitely do some pictures for Chibi. They are AMAZING and so much fun to use and super easy!!

Pumpkin Season - Healing and Recovery

 I know everyone is posting away on those Christmas Cards, but I haven't posted any of my Thanksgiving cards!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thanksgiving it's our favorite holiday in our home. No gifts, just food, family, and friends. When we lived back in Washington we used to host a huge Friendsgiving and it was spectacular. 

I apologize for a lack of posts lately. I injured my back and it has been taking a while to gain stamina sitting for very long. This makes typing and blogs very challenging and I've been a bit exhausted during the healing process. I am almost back to normal though.

So let's start my November off with pumpkins! 

I have a whole series of these cards actually. I just took distress sprays and went to town on some paper, embossed a pumpkin stamp and fussy cut away! I wanted to add some dimension though so a lot of the pumpkins have different added elements, this one is kitchen twine. I really like the way it helps cut the background up a little. I also embossed the background with the Tim Holtz Dandelion Embossing Folder. I love have multiple elements going on in my cards. 

Hopefully won't be such a big break between my next post!

Christmas Vintage Wreath

Another Wreath Card!! So I am just in love with this die and so I pulled out this Autumn Wreath die from scrapbook.com and some of their beautiful paper pad and make another card with it! This time I took more process pictures. 

Pick out three beautiful papers I layered mine with lightest in the background and darkest in the front because I wanted my wreath to have a stronger green.

This is one of my favorite card edge techniques. I just take the cube and go around the edges, the lines you see are the edges of that ink cube as I drag it across the edge.

Next I popped my base on to a A2 card, I used the same color because I wanted that vintage wood look. I really love using craft paper!!

Pop the wreath on!

My super cute Hero Arts Greetings are just the right size for the middle of this wreath.

Tah dah! I was really happy with the way this one came out, it's pretty simple but I just think it's very Christmasy and I love the calm colors and way this came together. 

 

Breast Cancer Awareness Day

 My cousin passed away from Stage 4 Breast Cancer. Although I have known other breast cancer survivors, this one hit me harder as she was only 31, which is so young. I organized an IG hop, and I wanted my card to be really positive. She was so positive to me, despite everything going on. 

The card was really simple, but I thought really pretty. This is the new cozy autumn A2 wreath by Scrapbook.com . It's supposed to be an autumn wreath, but I'm pretty sure that's the only holiday I haven't used it for. I picked out three pink papers from Chasing Rainbows Paper Pad by First Edition. I had really struggled with this shiny pink paper, it felt like to much for me in past projects, but with it scattered throughout the wreath I feel like it worked so much better! I layered the diecuts and then glued the wreath on to a paper with a spun sugar distress ink background and a little sparkly Dyslusions sprays. 

I submitted this card to the https://daranddiane.blogspot.com/ also known as Double D Challenges. 

Unexpected Results

So I accidently purchased an iron on at the dollar store instead of a rub on. Oops! However, I have a laminator that I use for card foils...so I said what the heck it's only a $1.25 let's try. So I peeled off and applied my iron on to a piece of craft paper and voila!

 I am so surprised it worked, and it actually worked really well! How cool is that! so This is another straight forward card, with my iron on background and a die cut hole in the middle. Then I put an autumn stamp from Paper Trey Ink, I use them for almost all of my inside card sentiments, inside and added a simple leaf embellishment.  

The leaf embellishment is actually distress sprays and a chipboard from the Dollar Store. I used some blue distress sprays and mica spray. I feel like this has less going on than some of my usual cards, but I really love the way it came out, it was a happy surprise after thinking I had bought something I couldn't use!

Hope you find something interesting to craft with in your stash this week! Barbara

 

Fall Critters

 Okay so I'm not a huge fan of squirrels, they are constantly digging holes in my garden and yard for acorns. However, that being said I have caught them stealing small pumpkins from my yard and it is pretty cute...Scroll to the bottom for super cute pumpkin stealing squirrels...

Anyways so I when I saw this stamp set I surprisingly was like ohhhh it's so cute, and mostly for the sentiments. I just had to go for it. I definitely got me some nuts around me!! Pretty straight forward card with some Ohuhu coloring and fussy cutting and ink rubbing for the background. The stamp is Hampton Art  by Tracey Hey and I used Ranger Distress Inks for the background. 

Watch out for those squirrels this fall!! Barbara

Die Cuts Can Change Seasons through the Power of Paper!

 I LOVE paper. I also have way more paper than I will ever use in my lifetime probably. I also have a fairly small stash of card making die cuts and stamps. Since I was a scrapbooker first, my card stock just massively outweighs everything else.

With this in mind paper has the power to change everything. I have this beautiful cherry blossom panel die cut, and I thought why do I have to make cherry blossoms any flower would be beautiful with this die cut and I have so many Halloween cardstock papers.

This is probably one of my favorite Halloween cards. Look how pretty those flowers are!! The cute embellishments are gems from Buttons and Galore. I added a little gold shimmer to a scalloped embossed background, it reminded me of house shingles, so I was thinking of a witches hut. I love how straight forward this was though and how just using Halloween paper turned my spring die to a anytime die.

Happy Crafting! Barbara

Witches and Cauldrons

 

So, I started making cards in the fall of 2022. Halloween was actually my first card holiday. I had some cards that I now wince at and just can't bring myself to send out. Sooooo, I decided hey I could do a fun "fixer upper" . Maybe take a before picture and then do my best to make it look better so I could send it out for Halloween 2023. So here it is!!

BEFORE

AFTER

So I think it's important to not underestimate the power of a white gel pen apparently. The cauldron looks better with the definition. The really badly embossed sentiment just had to go replaced with a much nicer stamped embellishment. Not much I could do without ruining the card to fix the layering of the cardstock, so I added dimension and texture with fabric paint to match the cauldron goop. The bigger green ribbon really helps to fill in the space at the bottom of the card as well. So much better!! Still not my favorite card, but I think there are some clear improvements!

Happy Halloween Card Making! Barbara

Teacher Time

 So making cards for teachers when I don't have a kiddo felt weird at first, but then I realized why!? I am a teacher and I want teachers to realize someone is thinking about them and wishing them a happy school year and empathizes with them.

Teachers I believe are seriously underappreciated. I loved my You Matter card, this one is a little different but has the same happy teacher vibes. 

BOOM! I had to zoom this one in so you can read the pretty message! So this is a slider card, each pencil has a dimension adhesive attaching it to the strip so that you can pull the tabs and the pencil moves over showing words underneath. The hardest part actually was lining up the paper underneath the die cut slots so that it looked like the paper was put together. I took two identical pieces of this paper and cut them to size so that the one underneath was the same as the one on top, it made lining things up easier. The other paper I used was Crayola. I mean Crayola is just the best and their scrapbook / card making paper pad is so vibrant, that I have a hard time using the paper because I love it so much I don't want to mess it up! 

Hope everyone is off to a good school year! Remember to be kind to those teachers! Barbara

Leaf Peeping

 Have you ever heard of leaf peeping? Probably depends on where you live. Leaf Peeping is like walking through the woods and enjoying or looking for the leaves as the colors change. The North and the Midwest are especially beautiful during this time of year. 

Leaves have so much color which is fun to play with for making cards, I took all of my orange and brown distress sprays and just went to town making pretty paper. I also added a mica spray because I LOVE to add a little sparkle. 

Next time to cut out lots and lots of leaves. 

Here is my leaf pile for the bottom of my card, then I picked two leaves to add some interactive elements.

First interactive element is a slider. If I'm making a falling leaf card I really wanted to have a leaf that would slide down. I added two levels of dimensional foam so that if you pick the card up the leaf would fall into the pile. To make the slider was pretty straight forward. Die cut your slider spot, then cut a circle of paper. Add dimensional adhesive to the leaf and then just add the circle to the dimensional adhesive on the other side of the slider hole on the paper. I really should make a little video, it's super easy once you've seen it done. 

I then added a wobbler leaf because this also seemed like the perfect leaf interaction for falling leaves. Throw on the Papertrey Ink sentiment and ta dah! Super cute fall card!