Love, lavender, lace, layers…..lots of bling!!

Look out….this is post #2.  Don’t worry, I don’t think I have any more to post tonight.  So, this card is actually for two different challenges that I kinda combined on SCS. For the Alphabet Challenge that the lovely Diane is hosting.  She’s doing a super job and is making each week’s letter sooo much fun by adding all sorts of mini challenges within each weeks letter challenge.  The other challenge is the Mix It Up  challenge that the multi-talented Lauren from the land down under is hosting this week.  Check out her blog for some amazing inspiration and wonderful techniques.  You won’t be disappointed you wandered over.

 

Speaking of the wonderfully talented Lauren, check out that hat pin on my card.  Yup, you may have guessed, I do believe that little creation came from none other than Lauren from a hat pin swap I was in last summer.  I’ve been hoarding these little treasures since I received them…..I have a whole pin cushion full of beautiful hat pins from all over North America and of course Aussie land!  Anyway, on to the card.  That beautiful lavender flower is actually from our local Dollar Store where you can buy 6 or 8 of these little beauts in a package for $1.50!!!  Booya.  I inked the edges of it with some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Dusty Concord and then added some Star Dust Stickles to the edges of the petals.  It’s just gorgeous in real life! 

 

 

 

Look at the fancy shmancy edge on the top of the card!!  This was done using a template I got from Paper Wishes called Diamond Folds.  I really like the look of it. It’s just a series of cuts along the fold of the card and then these cuts are folded back onto each other…..the end result looks complicated, but it’s really very easy to do.

 

 

 

 

The completed card….the embossed piece was sponged around the edges with my Dusty Concord as was the piece with the sentiment. 

 

At the Alphabet Challenge, Diane challenged up to:

Anything goes – I used the flower and hat pin, lots of bling and the layers.

Be wordy and use a word that starts with the letter ‘L’

Create with Lavender

Dare you to include a lovely accent of lace.

Embrace a new technique where I decided to finally use my Diamond Fold template

 

At the Mix It Up challenge being hosted by Lauren, her challenge to us was to sew on our card……well I decided to sew in two places.  Around the purple embossed piece of cardstock and around the sentiment.

 

K, I’m done now…..thanks once again.  Later ladies…..I love hearing from you!!

 

Huggss,

Yvonne

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello world!!!

Hello  my long lost blogging family!!!  Wow….what the heck happened over that last few days??   I think I’ll have to go on a mission and find the person that has stole my life…..I want it back right now!!!  Okay, done ranting…..lol.  Sooooo, I was able to get together with a wonderful co-worker on Sunday and we created such cute butterfly easel cards!!  We decided to make them Mother’s Day themed.  Wait till you see this little cutie…..

Look at that cute little flower hat pin!  I had these little silver flower beads, so I took some of them and stained them with my alcohol ink in a green tone.  I put a couple of coats on…..very subtle but very nice.  We had a hard time finding just the right flower to match so I finally just took a couple of my flower punches and we just made them out of the same Designer Paper as the card was made from.  I took my Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and sponged over the flower to give it some depth.  We then ‘painted’ on some Close To My Heart Glitz glitter gel in Bronze to the edges of the petals.  We inked the edges of the butterfly wings with the Vintage Photo as well and then painted on the Glitz bronze glitter gel to the edges.  The green lace bow came from a haul I’d come across at our local second hand store where someone had brought in a whole pile of this old stretch lace seam binding….cha ching!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a picture of the outside and the inside of the card.  I received the template for this card from a super talented friend, Lauren, from over in Aussie land.  If you have some time, you really need to go on over and check out her blog….Laurenscraft.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a pic of the completed card opened…..

 

There she is…..all ready to give to some wonderful, incredible Mother!!! 

Thanks for stepping into my world to take a peek…..I do really appreciate it!

 

Huggss,

Yvonne   😉

 

 

Scraps…..

Here we go again my blog buddies!!  So this weeks challenge for our very fun Mix It Up challenge is being hosted by Lynn.  Now she has challenged us to make a card only using scraps……now normally this is a challenge I love to dig into as I have ALLOT of scraps!!  But when you’re at the cabin, and the only scraps you have are from the two cards you’d just made…..hmmmm.

 

Okay, so here’s the scraps from my last two cards.  I had the sheet of cardstock that my swirls had come from, so I fussy cut around the negative holes to make a new swirl.  I had the first Faux Letterpress sheet I’d done that I didn’t really like and the left over Wax Paper Resist sheets.  I’d made a flower earlier that I’d played around with using some of my mulberry paper and hadn’t used on my first two cards.  I also had a tiny little flower as well.  I had one very small piece of lace and a second sentiment that I hadn’t used because I decided on a different color for my first card.

 

 

 

Here’s how I used the sentiment and the small piece of lace and tiny flower.  I also used up the rest of the swirls I hadn’t used on the second card I’d made.  I’d taken the first Faux Letterpress sheet I’d done and tore it and distressed the edges.  I inked the distressed edges with my Tim Holtz Dried Marigold and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks.  I also took one of the left over sheets from the Wax Paper Resist technique, tore it to attach to the front of the other embossed sheet.  I distressed it and inked it with the Frayed Burlap.

 

 

So, here’s the whole card.  I attached the mulberry flower that I’d inked with the Dried Marigold Distress Ink and I also cut around the negative portion of the flower I’d punched for the tiny flower I’d used on my sentiment.  Not sure about this one…..lol!!!

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faux Letterpress

Hello again!  Round two for the inked backgrounds for Lauren’s challenge to us last week on the Mix It Up thread.  This is one technique I’ve been wanting to try for a while now.  It took me two kicks at the cat to get it somewhat the way I wanted it.  It’s the Faux Letterpress Embossabilities technique from the resource page on SCS.   

 

 

 

I used my Tim Holtz Postmark embossing folder and the Tim Holtz Frayed Burlap Distress Ink.  I brayered the ink onto one side of the embossing folder, put my cardstock in the folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug!  How cool!  The ink transferred to the part of the embossed image that stayed flat.  I really like the look of this.  I added a vintage looking tag with some swirls wrapped around it and a strip of lace on the bottom of the tag.

 

 

 

I added some lace along the folded edge of the card as well to tie it all together, stamped my Friend sentiment to the front in the Frayed Burlap and pop-dotted the vintage image to the card front.  The sentiment stamp is from my Close To My Heart ‘Find Your Style’ stamp set.  I love that stamp set…..very vintagey.

Now, onto this weeks challenge card where we had to use up any scraps we had on the table…..this proved to be rather challenging for me this weekend as we were at the cabin and the only scraps I had there were from the two cards I’d just made!  Come along and see….

Huggss,

Yvonne 😉

 

 

 

 

Wax Paper Resist

Hello blog friends!!  It’s been a while…..getting caught up once again.  I have a couple of cards to post for some challenges over in the Mix It Up thread over on SCS.  Hubby and I are up at our cabin for the weekend and enjoying the piece and quiet that seems to be up here that you can’t find at home…..why is that I wonder….lol.  So last weeks challenge on our Mix It Up thread was to create a background using only inks.  I chose to try the wax paper resist technique using one of my Tim Holtz Postmarks embossing folder.

 

I took a piece of wax paper, embossed it and placed it between two pieces of glossy cardstock.  I took my iron and put a piece of paper towel over the cardstock so I wouldn’t get any wax on my iron.  I pressed the embossed wax paper in order to transfer the waxed embossed pattern to the glossy cardstock.  Check out all the deets for this fun technique on the resource page on SCS right here, Wax Paper Resist.  I inked over the cardstock with my Tim Holtz Weathered Wood Distress Ink to bring out the image transfer from the wax paper.  How cool!  The sentiment was stamped in Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Ink and the edges were inked with the Peeled Paint.   My sentiment is from my Close To My Heart set called A Little Thanks.

 

 

My butterfly was a die cut my friend Lynn from SCS sent me quite a while back so I’m not sure which die set it’s from.  I inked it in Broken China and the Peeled Paint inks and adhered it with a glue dot over another die cut border from Lynn. The border die cut was white and I inked over it with my foam blending tool with the Weathered Wood Distress Ink.  I’ve been hoarding them for quite a while now and decided it was time to start using some of my treasures.  I love this border die cut and may have to find out which one it is…..it’s very nice.  I added some bling to the body of the butterfly and some for attena.  I don’t know if you can really see the subtle difference in the pattern on this picture, but because I ironed the embossed wax paper between two pieces of  glossy cardstock, both the positive and negative images transferred onto the sheets.  I cut each sheet into four and used two pieces from each sheet to attach to my card front.  Made for a very subtle design.  I think this shows a bit better on the full card view below!

 

 

So, there you have it…..add a bow, some bling and it’s a done deal!  Thanks so much for dropping by for a look see…..onto the next card!!

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉

Victorian Happy Birthday

Okay, this is the last post for this little sprint…..really!!  I think I’ll head to bed after this one….lol.  This card was also made for the Virtual Stamp Night over on the SCS site, however, like the first card I  made….I didn’t get it completed within the 45 minute time frame.  Oh well, no biggy…..I’m sure I can still use it or sell it!!  Now I know you’re all probably real surprised that I chose a Victorian theme for this card…..I can’t help it…..my mind just goes all vintagy on me when I start making cards….lol. 

 

This card was done with paper found in a paper stack I found when we were over in Hawaii at their local Wal-Mart of all places!!  This is from a pack made by Colorbok called “Rosewood”.  Yup, a whole paper pack of vintagy goodness!!!  Anyway,  this  is a 4″ x 8″ card and will fit into a business size envelope.  The sentiment was stamped onto the torn piece of DP and inked with Tim Holtz Tattered Rose distress ink.  The entire piece of paper the sentiment is on was torn, distressed and inked with the Tattered Rose distress ink as well.  The sentiment stamp is from my Close To My Heart set called Celebration.  I’ve added some half pearls and a swirl of half pearls to the one end of the card.  I also put a strip of lace on the bottom of the card front and trimmed it with a couple of strips of mini half pearls.

 

 

 

The main piece of DP was also distressed and inked with my Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink before it was attached to the card front.  Then the card front itself was also distressed and inked with the Vintage Photo distress ink.  The beautiful flower is from a package of six from the local Dollar Store and inked with my Tattered Rose distress ink and attached to the card with a glue dot.  I love those flowers and they came in a few different colors.  They fit in quite well with my vintage style I must say…..lol. 

So, that’s it!!  I’m all caught up.  I’ll see what I end up creating tomorrow and see what other inked up backgrounds I decide to try for Lauren’s challenge this week.  There are sooo  many on my list of techniques to try…..time will tell!!  Till tomorrow my blogging friends.  Thanks so much for your clicks onto my site……it’s funny how I’ve started to watch that silly number now…..oh well. 

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉

 

 

Christmas in March??

Well, it’s technically the next day now, so why not just finish and then I can concentrate my day tomorrow on just doing cards, or working on my next smash book….yup, sounds like a plan.  Okay, so two more posts to go…..sorry for those that have followed me with their email….ooppsss. 

I’ve had this long string of tiny little Christmas lights hanging on a wire rack in my craft space for some time now.  I kept thinking there must be someway to incorporate them into a card…..then I was looking through one of my crafting magazines last weekend and….there it was….a card using little mini Christmas lights!!!  So a Christmas card in March it was!  My friend Lauren over at Laurenscraft has been cranking out Christmas cards like crazy all year.  She’s determined to have all her Christmas cards done by the time she needs to send them out this year so she’s not scrambling to get them all done at the last-minute.  Great idea I think!!

 

 

A nice CAS card…..some shimmering white cardstock pop-dotted onto a white card base, with a white doily attached.  A circle cut from the same shimmering paper has been stamped and embossed in silver with the word JOY.   (I had tried to stamp and emboss on the doily….ya, big mistake. Did you know these doilies have about a thousand little tiny indentations on them that just like to grab hold of the silver embossing powder.)  So, like I tell my friends when we get together to get inky,  it’s never a mistake….it’s an opportunity…..sooo, out with another piece of white shimmery cardstock to cover up the silver embossing mess!!  Attach the tiny Christmas lights and you have a Christmas card done up in no time at all….I wonder if the rest of my Christmas cards will go together this easy??  lol

Well, one more post and then I’m done.  Aren’t you all glad I don’t get this far behind all the time??!!  Thanks for checking my little piece of the web out……till next time!

 

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉

 

Little girls birthday…..

Hey there peeps…..I’m on a roll so thought, why quit now??!!!  Here is a card I made for a challenge that I found out didn’t qualify, because it took me longer than 45 minutes to make it……lol.  Over on the SCS site they have what they call a Virtual Stamp Night where anyone can get together on-line for a Friday evening and the following Saturday afternoon and early evening and make cards.  There is a new card challenge posted every hour…..yup, that’s right….every hour and you’re given 45 minutes to complete the card.  Now, in reality, if you’re not able to make it for the slotted in time of the Virtual Stamp Night you can still play along after the fact until Monday evening and still do all the challenges…..with the same expectation that your card only take you 45 minutes.  HA!  Okay, so I don’t know if I’ve EVER created a card in 45 minutes!!  First, it must take me all of 45 minutes  just to pick out what paper I want to use!!  (and I will clarify though that the time you spend picking out the paper doesn’t count towards your 45 minutes to create your card…..thank goodness or I’d be sunk every time!!) But even taking that into consideration, I still can’t get it done!!  I have to lay everything I picked out ono the card, arrange it, re-arrange it, decide I don’t like an embellishment, change a color up, start cutting everything out, stamp an image (s), distress an edge or two,  ink up an edge or two, decide to then make an embellishment, re-arrange everything again….geesh!!  I don’t know if I’m even capable of cranking out a card in 45 minutes!!!  I have to give these ladies a lot of credit.  They come to these Virtual Stamp Nights prepared with some Go-To card sketches they like to do that are quick and easy, they’ll have a bunch of images stamped and colored, they’ll have backgrounds already done up and ready to go, they’ll have their card bases all cut, scored and folded, ready to go.  They’ll have embellishments handy to be used on any kind of card that may come up…..I tell you…..these are seasoned pro’s!!  I was a rookie that wouldn’t even have made the farm team…..heck, the local rec team for that matter!!!  But you know…..that’s all okay…..because I can still do all the card challenges if I want to…..I’ll just post them on my blog instead!!

So, this colorful little number was made using an embossed piece of cardstock with cupcakes on it…..don’t ask me what the name of it is cause I don’t remember.  I got it when I hosted an embossed cardstock swap and I think it’s pretty darned cute!  That little present was made using my Close To My Heart Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge and the matching stamps.  I cut the main gift out of  bright lime green and yellow striped cardstock and stamped the swirls onto it with the matching stamp for that gift cut out using my Tim Holtz distress ink in Concord Grape.  The stamp is from the Celebration stamp set.  I then traced the swirls with my glue pen and sprinkled some glitter onto the swirls.  Next, what present is complete without a bow….so off to the Cricut again and cut out the matching bow for the gift.  Inked the edges of the gift and the bow with the Concord Grape, pop dotted it onto the card and blinged it up!!

 

 

Have I mentioned how much I love my Close To My Heart Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge lately??  I mean, this thing comes with the cartridge, three stamp sets that co-ordinate with some of the cuts from the cartridge and three sets of Dimentional Elements (chipboard shapes, tags and banners)  that also match some of the cuts from the cartridge.  This little shape for the Happy Birthday! sentiment is one of those shapes included with the set.  It gives you the dimensions on the packages so I was able to go to my cartridge and cut out the matching purple piece of cardstock to match the shape, glue it on, stamp it and ink the edges in no time at all!  Added some bling and……….

 

 

 

 

…one finished birthday card for a cute little girl! 

I have to give a shout out to two of  my blogging friends who have pretty much taught me all I do on my blog.  I really like the idea of posting some of the pictures of my cards in full size .  Great idea Lisa and Lauren…..you should really go and check out their blogs if you have some time.  There’s Lisa over at the Crafting Cottage and Lauren over at Laurenscraft.  Amazingly talented ladies who have some beautiful creations on their blogs…..it will be well worth you time to check these ladies out.

Now, another post or leave the rest till tomorrow…..hmmm…..

Once again, I always appreciate it when you come by for a visit…..love to read your comments.  Till next time!

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉

 

 

Masculine

Hi blog friends.  I always have a time making a masculine card!  This is one that I think turned out pretty good and could work for a masculine card I think.

 

 

 

This card was made using two pieces of a sheet of embossed cardstock with what I believe is the Tim Holtz Postcard embossed image.  I cute two rectangles slightly larger than 1 3/4 ” x 4″.  I used my Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Dried Marigold, Vintage Photo and Black Soot, my foam blending tool and distressed both pieces to give them an aged look, staggered them and attached them to the card front.

 

 

 

For my image, I started out by stamping my watch face with my BoBunny stamp set (and I have no idea what it’s called cause I didn’t keep that part of the packaging!!) in Tim Holtz Black Soot onto a piece of cream cardstock.  I fancy cut around the face of the clock and then too my script background stamp from my Hot Off The Press ‘Delicate Patterns’ set and stamped in onto the front of the clock face in Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink.  Next, I took a piece of Kraft cardstock and stamped the BoBunny watch onto it in Tim Holtz Black Soot.  I fancy cut around the outside of the image, and then glued the cream-colored clock face into the centre of it and attached a gear from my Tim Holtz idea-ology ‘Sprocket Gears’ set with a brass brad.  I then took some Kraft cardstock again and stamped the wings from my Hot Off The Press ‘Flights of Fancy’ set in Black Soot as well and fancy cut around each one.  I attached them to the back of the watch image and pop dotted it onto the front of the embossed panels.

 

 

So, there you have it.  The finished card…..could work quite well for a masculine card I think.   Thanks for peeking in….I’m off to post yet another card….

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉

Smashed……

Hey there my blog friends!!  I have to tell you……I’m really excited about my new Smash Book I made!!  What’s a Smash Book you ask??  It’s only the most fun thing thrown together for you to use to record anything and everything you want!!  A place to stick (smash) that concert ticket you’ve always held onto, or a place to smash that really funky coaster you kept from that awesome bar you found down in Mexico, or for the Oh so FUNNY things your grandkids say that make you laugh and you don’t want to forget!!  No rules…..no worries about it being a great entry, or beautiful…..for the things too good to forget…….for the conversations that made you smile…..just because you like it – smash it!!  As the makers of the actual official “Smash Book”  K&Company say,’It’s all yours – THE CATCHALL for the STUFF that makes YOU smile’.  I had my best friend down this last weekend and we stayed up to all hours of the morning (literally) and had soooo much fun making these books!  We each made two of them and they’re really easy and quite quick to throw together.  You can go to an on-line store and actually order the ‘real’ smash book from K&Company, or you can grab some paper…..any size you want to make it from a small pocket-sized one that could be 3″ x 5″, to the 6″ x 6″ ones we made, to 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″…..whatever YOU want it to be!!!

Okay…..so here’s what mine came out looking like.  Because I love everything vintage, I had to put lace (thanks to Rhonda…..isn’t that lace G O R G E O U S ! ! ! ) around my cover. 

And because I’m frugal, I found the embellishment for my front cover in the hair accessory isle at the local Dollar Store and just ripped those suckers off the bobby pins, clips and headbands they were attached to!!  The book was put together with O-rings and because I didn’t like the look of just the O-rings I tied little pieces of ribbon, lace and seam binding to them to ‘hide’ them just a bit.

Inside the front cover (which by the way was made using the two sheets of Designer Paper which were glued to a 6 x 6 piece of cardboard which came from my empty Minute Rice box…..lol) I attached an envelope and inside the envelope I filled it with journaling tags and other odd’s and end’s sentiments I thought I may want for the book.  Throughout the book there are little ‘pockets’ made where I stashed some journaling tags and they can then also be used to tuck a picture into, or a souveniere…..whatever you want! 

Here’s just a sample of some of the pages in the book….

So, there it is……my Smash Book.  I’m thinking I may add more just plain blank pages for journaling…..we’ll see how it goes as I begin to use it.  I’m not sure if the journaling tags will be enough room to write…..but the best part is….I can add to it whenever I want!!  I’ve made two of them already.  The other one I made for a friend who’s just got back from a one month holiday over in Hawaii, so I made her a Hawaiian inspired book to use to record all the great things about their trip.  I’ve started my third one too as one of the girls at work wants one for her daughter. 

That’s it!!  I’m off to go find another project to post to my blog…..I’m soooo far behind!  Thanks for checking out how I’m planning on getting smashed…..LOL LOL.

Huggss,

Yvonne  😉