Sewn Thank You Card!

I made this card for a woman who doesn't even know me but lives near my grandparents in Louisiana, and hand stitched a blanket and bib for my unborn little girl!! What a blessing this woman is! So I didn't mind spending the time to sew this special thank you card for her.

The idea was pretty simple - first I cut one of those muslin fabric bags that Studio Calico sends some of their products in, to 5x7 to match my card. Then I used my Silhouette to cut out the flourish shape (from the Cut It Out class with Studio Calico) and used it as a misting mask. I taped the shape down with good old Scotch tape so I could get a clear shape, then misted with Mister Huey's mists in Lemonade, Cameo, and Sunset! I misted really close, since I didn't mind the huge splotches on the fabric.

Once that was done and dried (well, partially dried - I was too impatient to wait long and got my fingers a bit messy), the bulk of time was spent hand stitching along the edges and around the shape! But it wasn't so bad, I got to do that part in the living room and hang out with Chris while he read - sometimes we wonder if we are the only couple that can go weeks without turning on the television!?

Anyway, I didn't really know what to do for the sentiment, so I stamped the Thanks onto a tag with Hero Arts Ink in Soft Cantaloupe, added the Simple Stories brad and voila! The card concept was easy, just the stitching was time-consuming but well worth it for someone who hand stitched my unborn daughter a blanket and a bib!!

3D Paper Box Envelope!

Today is wedding day!! For our friends Stevie and Brittany :) A week ago when I made their card (see here), I knew it was probably not going to fit inside a regular envelope since those acrylic cabochons (flowers) stuck out so much. So I designed my own envelope using just a piece of paper, the Martha Stewart Scoreboard, scissors and some adhesive!

The card is a 5x7 (A7 size) and I should've taken a pic of my post-it note planning... but here is what I did:
1. Cut a piece of card stock at 8.25"x12"
2. Placing vertically (long-wise and backside up) on the Scoreboard, score at 1/2" in from both the left and right sides
3. Turn the paper 90 degrees so it is now horizontal and make 4 scores at 1/2", 5-3/4", 6-1/4", and 11-1/2"
4. What you are left with are 6 small squares wherever the scores intersect (4 in the corners and 2 in the middle) - cut them all out
5. It should be clear that now you can fold "in" the 1/2" flaps all around and fold it to make a box!

Of course I practiced on crappy paper and made a prototype first to test :) Also, you can wait till the end or what I did was after I scored, I decorated the outside of the paper with Gold Glitter embossed hearts! After I sealed in the card with a small amount of tissue paper, I tied it up with twine, tied in the label and added a couple embellishments from this month's Planetarium kit by Studio Calico to decorate! Handing over this decorated paper box is so much better than a plain envelope! So happy for our friends, can't wait for the rest of the day!!

Mothers Day cards and a Baby Shower card!

Yesterday was a near-perfect cardmaking day! The weather wasn't great, my friend was already planning to come over to scrap, and since it was the day before Mothers Day, we both had some cards to finish up! I made 2 Mothers Day cards and 1 baby shower card! For each of my cards, I used this month's kits by Studio Calico - I got the Scrapbook kit, Card kit, and Stamp kits this month!

For this first Mothers Day card, the idea just sort of came to me to use 3 tags and figure out the rest as I went along. I also decided to try one of the National Scrapbook Day challenges from Studio Calico to use 5 patterned papers - so keeping that in mind, I cut the tags from the Silhouette, and added the notebook paper to the left.

I was sort of stumped at that point for the 5th pattern, but punched some small hearts and sewed them down on each tag, added my sentiment and some twine and done!

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This next card is for my own Mom. I really loved the color combination and the knot used for this card!

For the middle part, I pulled out a sheet of Vintage paper, then stamped the frame in Hero Arts Neon Green and cut around it. I stamped the I Love You sentiment and embossed it with Silver Glitter Zing embossing powder and colored in the letters with Tim Holtz Blue Jeans ink mixed with water and a watercolor brush.

I cut 4 pieces of twine, three from the same pack of beige & gray hues and one piece from a coral color, then knotted them, after doing a Google search for Sailor's knot and looking at this idea.

The back of the stars were a little indented, so using my usual glue zots weren't working since I'd need to use about 3 or 4 each just to get them to stick out far enough to catch the paper. Pop dots were going to make them stick out too much. I asked my friend about my dilemma and she asked if I had a glue gun (which I don't) but that gave me the idea to use good old Glossy Accents! This was my favorite card I made out of the bunch, perfect for my Mom!

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Wow I actually had time to work on one more card - so I worked on a card for a baby shower for a friend at church that I am going to in a couple of weeks! She is having a girl and they are naming her Ezra!

I started by choosing some papers and embellishments I liked together - the gray card stock with the pink polka dots looked great, and I've been dying to use those candy striped buttons - they just look delicious! I had a leftover piece of vintage paper from the last card, so decided I could use that too!

I arranged how I wanted it and figure I'd use the middle space to add her name somewhere in big letters, so I grabbed those Heidi Swapp plastic letters from the Scrapbook kit - I loved how they still looked soft even though they were a different color. I added the extra lace trim, twine and cabochon and finished this last card very quickly! Out of all the cards I made, this one was Chris' favorite!

Baseball Birthday Card!

It's our nephew's 13th birthday! So what kind of card do you make for a 13-year-old boy who is really great at baseball? This kind I suppose! :)

I knew for the past week I wanted to make a card like this, specifically a square shaped with a big baseball. I also am taking the Pop Off the Page 2 class with Jen Jockisch at Studio Calico, who had a great layout with all these sewn on pieces of fabric. I also was trying to decide if I should throw away all these muslin fabric bags I have, that some of the Studio Calico products come in... So these 3 separate pieces of information in my head culminated to form this simple birthday card!

I cut a piece of muslin fabric to 5x5, then lined up a circle template at the edges to pencil and hand-cut a greater circumference circle at the edges than using a corner punch. I hand sewed around the edges to keep it attached to the card better, then drew in the wavy lines and sewed with white floss. Finally I added my red thread, using a thicker thread, and stamped the sentiment onto the fabric with Black Staz-On ink, but went over it a little further with a Sharpie!

A Wedding Card

Our friends at church are getting married soon, so I made this card for their wedding!!

I got the latest Planetarium kit from Studio Calico in the mail yesterday and got working on this right away - this month I also purchased the card kit and card add-on kit since I knew I had a lot of cards to make coming up! With all the supplies, this card came together very quickly!

I stamped "Today" using the new stamps from the stamp add-on kit, and cut the "Enjoy" portion from an older SC stamp that said "Enjoy the Ride" - both embossed in Gold Glitter Zing embossing powder! I painted the chipboard star in the upper right with Green Gable Mister Huey's mist mixed with water to add some more of that sea-foamy color to the card. Love the colors of this month's kits!!

NSD - Wild Life Caught!

Happy NSD!!! What's NSD? Why it's National Scrapbook Day of course!! Over at Studio Calico they posted a bunch of challenges and stuff last night so I was able to make this layout for the Numbers challenge!!

Yes, this is a series of pictures of a Hawk in our backyard, chasing down a chipmunk and eating him! Poor Chippy! It was really captivating to watch and actually capture on film, I just happened to be walking by my window when I heard something going on and ran and got my camera! Unfortunately they were taken through the screen, but it was exciting!

I used the Central High kit by Studio Calico - originally I figured I'd do a green background, but my Pop Off the Page class told me to try a different color that didn't necessarily match, and went with the yellow instead! It turned out perfect, and I love how those numbers show up so bold on it!

Hope to have some more layouts this weekend and next week for these NSD challenges!! Have a nice day! :)

I Love Him!

Another layout for the Pop Off the Page 2 class with Jen Jockisch from Studio Calico! This time our challenge was to scraplift one of the layouts from the first lesson - so I scraplifted from Jen's layout, and it turned out a bit differently than I envisioned, but still so easy! Here my husband took it upon himself to wash and paint the windows in the house! He is extremely good at keeping our house in excellent condition, it would look so crappy otherwise!!

Originally I had selected some different color papers to layer, but after combining the black and white striped piece behind the photo and the greenish watercolor looking paper below the main photo, I realized I really wanted to stick to shades of black and fluorescent green! Once I figured that out, the process was a little slower, since I had to dig through my stash a bit to find the pieces I wanted to use, but still so easy! I love that my husband used such a cool color tape to mask off haha next time I should try to figure out my color scheme first, then have him use tape to match :)

To make the die cut, and other punched pieces from the fluorescent green, I knew I wanted to use my Hero Arts Neon green stamp pad, but without stamping… so I finally used these older Jenni Bowlin foam stamps that I've had for a year and a half now, and inked one up, then stamped it directly onto plain white paper. I cut the paper and ran it through my Silhouette to make the die cut! Then I used the same method to punch a circle and a notebook edge as well!

This is definitely a totally different way of scrapbooking for me, but really fun and simple to do!

Outdoor Pets!

Chris and I don't have any pets - no dogs, cats, or even a goldfish. But I love feeding all my outdoor pets including birds of all sorts and last summer, my ducks! They came over every evening, walking over to eat any leftover birdseed on the ground, but then they'd run over when they saw me come out back!

The class I'm taking this month at Studio Calico, Pop Off the Page 2 with Jen Jockisch began yesterday! I didn't take the first class and since I have NO IDEA how to create layers (I’m more of a full page, fairly "flat" scrapper), I decided to see what I could learn from this class and so far, wow, so good! It was SO quick and easy to create this layout, especially without much of an idea what I was going to do.

Usually I have to have an idea, sketch, or example to follow to get going on a layout, and for this one I thought I was going to just copy Marcy Penner's example layout she made for the class. But this took a whole different direction after I selected papers from my pile of scrap pieces leftover from this month's Spencer's kit by Studio Calico! I also didn't try to line up everything perfectly, added in a few extra pieces and watched it take a life of its own!

Therefore I am very excited to finish this class this month!!