Some birthday cards!

I had a couple birthday cards to make, so for this first one I played with some Tim Holtz inks mixed with water over an embossed map image:

I stamped the sentiment with stamps by Studio Calico and cut it out, then popped it up and added some neon sequins... simple, quick, and easy!

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This one was a fun ONE for my nephew's first birthday! I lined up a number 1 on my Silhouette to cut in the middle of one half of a 10"x7" piece of card stock that I could later fold into a 5"x7" card.

Once I had the card folded, I outlined the "1" lightly in pencil onto the inside of the card and just began pulling out all my brads, buttons, enamel dots etc. in blues, teals, and grays!

Basically I just filled it all in and attached all of them, then used separate "Happy" and "Birthday" stamps and bent them onto my acrylic block to fit neatly around the one!

I liked the clean look of the card, so called it done and wrote on the inside front of it!

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!

Mothers Day card!

Yes it's probably a little early for a Mothers' Day card, except when sometimes it takes awhile for card ideas to come to you and you have 3+ to make (for mom, mom-in-law, and sis-in-law, plus I will probably try to make one for my Grandma too) - so you take what you can get, or at least I do!

My inspiration was this sketch from the Hero Arts monthly blog contest! I just love Hero Arts stamps and stamp pads - so I searched my stamp stash for a HA stamp to use, and randomly found a circles pattern stamp from the Spread Joy Christmas/holiday themed stamp set by Hero Arts and Studio Calico!

I bought some watercolor paper the other day so I stamped the circles on the watercolor paper with Tim Holtz distress inks in Wild Honey, Victoria Velvet, and Dusty Concord. Then I took some watercolor and a watercolor brush and went over the circles to fill them in with a touch of color!

I bought the layered flower from the Silhouette Store and just used a pencil to curl the paper up a little bit and make the flower 3-D. I found the perfect little flower brad to finish, some papers from the Amy Tangerine Yes, Please line and tiny letter stickers from Pink Paislee! Phew!

Romans 2

Here are the past few weeks of Bible study notes - all of Romans Chapter 2! Yesterday, on my day off, I spent the afternoon and evening catching up and doing all these pages! The downside to this was that this morning Chris said he really missed me since we didn't hang out much last night. On the upside though, I got to rediscover Chapter 2 all in one shot and really brought it together for me! So maybe husband will just have to miss me for one day a month or so hehe! Here we go:

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Romans 2:1-4

Oh man, if this chapter doesn't convict you and make you look at your own heart, I don't know what will!

I was playing with the Silhouette so cut some simple shapes here, added some stamps and washi tape and mostly used the space for my notes!

Some points to think about:
* When we pass judgment, we think we have the ability to recognize the flaw in someone else
* Who are we to judge when we just want mercy
* We can only judge based on our perception, we don't know the heart

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Romans 2:5-16

I looked at my notes for this sermon and realized it would be a TON of writing... and since I still had 3 sermons to cover, I printed some of it out.

The other side I kept real simple and just added some stamps from the Sock Hop kit by Studio Calico so I could get the rest written down.

* A God of love gives His ONLY son to die in our place
* He doesn't send anyone to hell, man sends himself

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Romans 2:17-24

I guess I had Christmas subconsciously in my brain when I made these pages? Perhaps just a little? Oh well, we can't celebrate Christmas enough!

Chris randomly found me a typewriter on major clearance last week! I had been asking for one for awhile and he found a great deal!! I decided again, instead of writing all those verses out to try out my trusty new typewriter - I used the print feature, which just types as you type, so there were a few typos I had to white out - no wonder white out was so huge back in the day! I never knew I can't bring my fingers to type the word "thou" without turning it into the word "though" haha :)

* Knowledge isn't supposed to puff you up to look down at others, it's supposed to make you want to serve!
* Are you practicing what you preach?

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Romans 2:17-24 con't, Romans 2:25-29

So for message this past weekend on Romans 2:25-29, I missed the teaching because I was at the scrapbook retreat. In other words, to get notes for this message I went to the CC Westside website here and listened to it and typed it up instead of hand writing them, wherefore thou seeist my typed notes instead of wherein thou might seeist handwritten notes ;)

On the left side I stamped those pinked circles which was great because we were given all those examples in the Bible where people were judging others.

* You're professing more than you possess
* Man will judge God according to your behavior
* Christian, get before the Lord and ask God if there is any area in my life that I'm a stumbling block to? Is my witness a joke?

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Romans 2:25-29 con't

I clearly missed out on a great message, but there was so much content I'm glad I was able to listen back and type it out - and catch more than if I was handwriting furiously without a pause button to help me!

I kept this super simple with some washi tape on the left side and a Tim Holtz stamp on the right side since the page was already decorated.

* You have ordinances without obedience, you have rituals without reality
* Circumcise your hearts - the Lord is looking at the inward, He wants a true commitment
* Go in your prayer closet, get on your face, humble yourself before the Lord, pray to him to show your heart and brace for it, confess your sin
* Remove the deception that you're OK because you're religious

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There it is - all of Romans Chapter 2!! Have a nice day :)

Romans 1:16-17, Romans 1:18-23, Romans 1:24-32

I grouped together my Sunday bible study notes from the past few weeks here, since I am trying not to post until I have full pages completed. So here's the message from several weeks ago:

I used Studio Calico's Central High kit to complete the pages. I added the verse Hebrews 12:2 to the little folder in the upper right corner.

I like these points:
* The power isn't in the messenger, it's in the message!
* Proclaim Him boldly, unashamedly

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Continued from the second half of the first page, Romans 1:18-23:

I used pieces from the Roller Rink kit by Studio Calico, except the frame from the Yearbook collection by Studio Calico and the tag, I had sewed that a long time ago just for fun, but seemed to match the papers here.

* In order for God to be Holy and love that which is good, He has to hate evil
* God's saying, my wrath is being revealed by allowing man to do what he wants

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And finally, the wrap up of Chapter 1!

I kept these pages real simple since I had a lot of text to cover. I used a Tim Holtz stamp (the guy with the umbrella), which always looked sort of lonely to me, which is what you'd be without God!

* God can save you no matter what state you are in - the heart of God is to save you
* Love the sinner, not the sin

Lotsa Birthday cards

We had a family get together where 4 of our family members have January birthdays... luckily two of them are my parents, so I know they don't mind if I give them a combined card, hence you see 3 cards :)

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This first card was for my niece, and at first I made it using the watercolor technique I had used in the past but without the right watercolor paper, it was annoying me how it curled up and didn't blend that great... ok so scrapped that and just used your typical dry technique - using a Tim Holtz inker with blending foam. It was nice to use the butterfly misting masks while I inked so it left those spots blank, then later embossed some butterfly stamps there.

HOW-TO:

• Used regular drawing paper to ink on, so it would blend well
• Tim Holtz inks: peeled paint, broken china and faded jeans with blending foam
• Studio Calico butterfly misting masks, butterfly stamps and sentiment stamps
• Embossing powder by American Crafts in: Aqua, Wave and Leaf

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For the second card, I wanted to make it look like a book because we were giving my stepsister a gift card for Amazon for her Kindle. I loved how it turned out and I used my Zig embossing pen to write her name in cursive and emboss it with gold powder.

HOW-TO:

• The reddish-orange paper for the "binding" was by DCWV, which I cut to 2 inch width, then wrapped around the edge of the Kraft paper, so the back side had some showing too and looked like binding rather than a cut strip of paper
• The middle embellishment was cut on my Cricut Imagine using the Reminisce Accents cartridge by Creative Memories and Provo Craft
• The letter stickers are by My Mind's Eye
• I used the Zig embossing pen to write her name and embossed with gold embossing powder from Martha Stewart Crafts

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The last card was for my parents, and basically just did the easy way of making this flower embellishment again.

HOW-TO:

• The hard and easy tutorial for making the large embellishment is in this earlier blog entry of mine
• I embossed around the embellishment with the Zig embossing pen and the sentiment stamp from Recollections with Copper embossing powder from Martha Stewart Crafts
• The button is from the Lost & Found collection by My Mind's Eye
• The twine is from Jillibean Soup

Watercolor-like

Someone in our family is pregnant! And someone in our family needed to make a card to congratulate that someone, even though they found out about it like a couple weeks ago, but was too sick to leave the house or make a card for that time! I am better and I got to utilize a new technique I saw from this blog post!

I've owned those Tim Holtz distress inks for awhile, but so far have only ventured as far as using them with a dry applicator to "chalk" or blend light backgrounds. Def never tried adding water or using my fingers to do some finger painting!

Um, I have 4 different color fingertips now - dusty concord, peeled paint, faded jeans, and vintage photo. Of course AFTER I showed off my newly colored fingers to my husband did he tell me he had some latex gloves in the basement. OK next time I will see how those work out so I don't look like a crazy person!

HOW-TO:
The cool thing about this technique is I actually stamped the image first, embossed it, and then finger-painted over the whole thing! It was cool to see it come to life since it was white on white paper. The video in that blog post shows how to do it, theirs came out much cooler, but this is my first project doing this so hopefully I will get better. Plus I didn't have watercolor paper (just used white Bazzill cardstock) and I didn't have the "pearlized water" she mentioned, I just used good ole free tap water!