Some stinkin cute cards

Happy VD everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday and by that I mean I hope you all got big boxes of chocolates...after all that is the best thing about today...lots and lots of chocolate! Hubster got me a box of my faves...chocolate covered cherries...yummers!! It was a nice treat since we usually don't exchange gifts...just cards...his store bought and mine hand made of course cause as you all know...nothing says lovin like a handmade card!
This year's cards were full of lots of love and some major cuteness...lots and lots of fuzzy cuteness.
This is the one I made for the hubster...



this is the one I made for son...



and lastly ...the one I made for my daughter...I just love the deer...it's so cute...



They are mega adorable right!! That great embossed heart paper is from american crafts and all those adorable critters are from Martha Stewart...I know...martha...yuck...I hate her too..but some of ther stuff is cute.
The hubster and my daughter loved theirs...my 18 year old son was like eh, whatever. LOL...at least he liked the big bag of candy the card was attached to.

Day whatever

So at this point I figure there is no longer any point in numbering the days since obviously I have not been on schedule for sometime but for those of you that have a need to know which day this should be...it should be day #6. Hooray!! That means this is the last post before I post that video I've mentioned like 100 times. But that's tomorrow...today we have no video but we do have a picture...



ta-da! my latest creation. I love it...hope my hubby does to...I made it for him...but that's a secret so shhhh! OK? OK! What's not a secret is the cool way I created this card ...of course I used alcohol inks and vellum...at this point that should go without saying...but to get this effect I did a masking technique. Masking of course is nothing new but I've never done it with alcohol inks and vellum and really thought the finished effect was pretty cool! What also was pretty cool is the fact that I was able to use some pretty old and otherwise useless stickers for the mask so it was a win-win...got rid of the stickers and got a cool card.
Ok so If your super excited to try this yourself and just need instructions...here's the simple steps to make this...

step 1: cut a piece of vellum about an 1" larger than finished size
step 2: adhere mask (in this case stickers) on vellum ...burnish to ensure good adhesion especially at edges
step 3: using piece of felt and alcohol ink...dab color over entire surface, allow to dry
step 4: adhere additional mask (same as in step 2)
step 5: dab 2nd color over entire surface (same as in step 3)
repeat with remaining mask and colors.
step 6: once inking is complete and dry ... use a piece of felt and black stazon ink to rub-over entire image, allow to dry
step 7: remove mask (stickers) and cut vellum to size
step 8: use spray adhesive to mount image to card and add word strips
super duper simple to make right?
OK so here's some other little tidbits of information I learned along the way that will most definitely be helpful to you...

First...stickers make great masks but you can also use rub-ons or paper die cuts. To use rub-ons...simply rub-on the rub-on and then ink over ...after you've inked...use Un-du to remove the rub-on...the trick to this though is not to remove the color when you remove the rub-on...I was able to remove a rub-on mask successfully by lightly dabbing with Un-du and then using a razor knife to lightly scrap it off. To use paper die-cuts...simply spray back of die cuts with spray adhesive to create a sticker....then apply the same way you would a sticker...only thing you have to be careful of is most die-cuts are paper which means if you get the paper super wet you will get bleed through...so dab sparingly and lightly with alcohol ink and make sure to allow to dry in between applications. As for sticker masks...obviously the best and easiest choice but you still need to know a few things...first...check the color fastness of the sticker...the stickers I used were red and when I rubbed the alcohol ink over the color bled..which is why my yellow hearts have red streaks...no biggie there cause I liked the effect..this time at least...so check first ...second thing you need to know is all stickers are not created equal...some stickers that don't have a glossy finish or that are thinner may get soggy from the ink and then you will have a heck of time getting them off successfully...again check a sample to make sure you won't have issues before starting your project. One last tip about masks...be sure to pick images that have good defined images so you get the best look..you want the outline of the sticker to be crisp and clean...if you can find them...Anita's outline stickers would work great for this project.
As for tips on using inks on this technique ..you have to remember two really important things...#1 ..you are layering color over color repeatedly....soooo you need to know how your colors are going to work together and in what order to use them...I recommend using lighter colors first and progressing to darker shades with each application...in my example I used sunshine yellow, followed by sunshine orange, then watermelon and lastly red pepper....since the sunshine yellow was applied first to plain vellum I got a true color ...well except for the red streaks from the stickers...but when I applied sunshine orange it was over sunshine yellow so I got a mix of the 2 colors...same with the following colors...each color I applied mixed with the previous color. So again be careful in selecting your color palette and deciding what order. And tip #2...use less and do more...what I mean by that is do light coats of ink so you don't over saturate the mask or vellum and do more layers of ink to get intenser colors...by using less and doing more you will get way less bleed-through. Obviously I got some bleed through on my image but I didn't care...can't be perfect all the time.
So that's it for the how-to on how to use mask with vellum and alcohol inks.
Next post...video...I promise!!

Day 5 - 2 more cards

So here I am again...day 5... talking about the same things again...alcohol inks and vellum....yawn. Seriously big yawn. And no that is not a big "OMG 5 days of the same old stuff this is so boring" yawn...it's actually a big "I'm so exhausted cause I've been spending way too many hours playing with this cool stuff" yawn. Seriously I'm whooped! LOL. By the time I'm done with this series I'm going to need a nice long nap! That is if I can get my brain to stop churning up ideas long enough to get some sleep. Seriously I have vellum on the brain. This morning I was watching the Today show and saw a screen in the back of the host with an image and I was like "Oh snap! that is so cool! I could totally do that with alcohol inks and vellum!" ...so now of course I will have to try and see if I can do it and if it's a success I will probably have to add yet another day to this series. At this rate I am going to run out of vellum long before I run out of ideas. LOL. Anyways enough about projects I am dreaming about and projects I will post in the future...let's talk about today's projects.
Today I have 2 cards ...and of course they both have alcohol inks and vellum...but today they are both heavy on the 3rd element I am supposed to be working with this week...texture...betcha you almost forgot that my inspiration this week was supposed to be vellum, alcohol ink and TEXTURE since I've spent so much time on the first 2. But I didn't forget...actually since the day I pulled the slips from my inspiration jar the first ideas I had for projects had more to do with texture and vellum than alcohol inks. Ironic huh...especially considering I haven't posted anything much at all with texture but can't stop obsessing over alcohol inks. Anyways I was really excited about the texture thing because way back when when I worked at ACMoore I remembered a program we had for embossing vellum...it was called Pergamano. Basically you used a stylus and a stencil to emboss the vellum which would turn a bright white where ever it was embossed...I remember it looked really pretty but I had no real interest in it at the time so I didn't know much about it. So not actually knowing how to do it I decided to just jump in and try it. Well I tried and for the most part I failed. Every time I tried to emboss the vellum would rip ...grrr. I could do small bits of embossing...like the bubbles on my fishbowl card...but anything bigger was an epic fail. So totally frustrated I decided to google the technique and found the answer to my problem along with some super mega amazing projects using this technique....seriously if you have some free time go to youtube and put in pergamano in the search and prepared to be amazed..I spent a ton of time checking them out. Anyways thanks to the videos I was able to find out why my attempts were failing...I was working on the wrong stuff. See I was trying to emboss on vellum when what is really needed for this technique is vellum's beefy cousin...parchment... it looks the same but is much heavier. So after I discovered that little bit of helpful info I knew full scale embossing was out but I wasn't ready to give up on adding texture to my vellum so rather than embossing with a stencil and a stylus I turned to my only/fave embossing folder...swiss dot...to see if that would do the trick and it did!! Hooray! So I embossed a bunch of vellum and got to creating and here's what I made...
Card #1 ...Winter Scene


As soon as I embossed the vellum the first thing I thought of was how much it looked like a snowy sky so I knew right away the first thing I'd be making would be a snow scene. I played around with what to put behind the vellum and decided on a darker dusky bluish purple cardstock...totally love how it looked but decided I wanted to add a tad more detail to the sky so I added some depth to the sky by painting on the back of the vellum ...love the end result and here's how to make it... Step 1..emboss vellum with Swiss Dot folder ..Step 2...turn vellum over and with a large brush lightly brush the back of the vellum with eggplant and denim alcohol inks to create some striations, let dry...Step 3...spray ink side of vellum with spray adhesive and mount to a piece of blue cardstock, being careful not to press on the embossing....Step 4...using a piece of felt, dab alcohol ink around border of embossed piece...Step 5....cut hills out of white cardstock and embellish with stickles, let dry and then adhere to card...Step 6...add twine (shown is lilac twine from the twinery) and card sentiment (my sentiment is a very old embellishment from junkitz...you could stamp a sentiment on piece of cardstock and punch 2 holes on the end to get the same look) ...Step 7... spray the back of a piece of green vellum, layer it over a piece of patterned paper and cut out a tree (I used my sizzix tree die to cut mine), use white paint and glitter to add snow, let dry and adhere to card as shown...Step 8 ...add snowflake embellishments...Step 8...adhere design to card blank.
Super simple and super cute. Although I gotta say I really didn't feel comfortable doing a let it snow card in September...I hope mother nature gets that this card was in no way an invitation to her to bring the dreaded white stuff .... seriously cannot stress enough after last winter how much I do not in anyway want to encourage any snow... unless of course it's December 24th...then it's ok but that's the only exception...and even then it better all melt by December 27th! So since the snow card was giving me the willies just thinking about it I switched gears and made a beautiful spring card because as soon as fall ends I will be counting down the days until spring arrives!! Seriously...I will!
Card #2 - Spring Flowers



So pretttty! I will definitely be making more of these cards. Can never have too many thank you cards. Anyways here's how to make this card...Step 1...emboss a piece of vellum with Cuttlebug Swiss dot embossing folder...Step 2...Using pieces of felt dab alcohol inks on the top of the embossed surface using Meadow, Lettuce and Citrus...working from the corner out, alternating colors as you apply, being careful not to press too hard on embossing...Step 3...spray back of embossed vellum and mount to card blank, trim as needed...Step 4 ..on a piece of vellum (unembossed) use pieces of felt to dab one area with cranberry ink and another area in eggplant ink, let dry...Step 5...once dry, punch flowers from cranberry and eggplant painted vellum...Step 6...using glue dots, adhere vellum flowers and add pearl centers (mine are from queen & co.) and pull flower petals forward a bit to add dimension...Step 7...Stamp card sentiment on white cardstock, cut to size and mount to patterned paper and cut to size, adhere sentiment to card and add bee embellishment and your done! Another super simple but wicked pretty card.
Stop by again tomorrow cause the fun continues.

Day 4 - 4 cards

Yep that's right ...4...count em baby...1, 2, 3, 4 cards to share. After posting my goldfish card the other night I kept looking at it and thinkin it was kind of dullsville...I definitely could've amped it up a bit but I really didn't feel motivated to do it over..instead I started pondering about what else I could make using the same technique. I tried to think of other things that would have liquid in them and the first thing that came to mind was cocktails (no surprise there LOL) ... so I googled some clipart of some drinks and got super inspired to make a margarita and a glass of wine using the same technique as the fishbowl. So just like the other night I sketched out my image, layed the vellum over the sketch and used my alcohol inks to add the liquid....then I traced the image with black pen, mounted it to some white cardstock and cut around the image and then created my cards. Only difference is on some of these cards I actually used a brush to paint on the ink rather than dabbing it on...wanted to have more control over the ink and get a more intense color.
So here's card #1...



Cute right...I love me some margaritas so I realllllly love this card....going to have to decide which one of my lush friends is going to be deserving of this bad boy. I didn't have a saying for my card so I used a Studio-G stamp that says "when life gives you lemons..." so I just stamped the parts I wanted and used a black pen to write in the words limes and margaritas.
So after the margarita card I decided to make something a little tamer...a nice tall glass of lemonade...
Card #2



Awesome right! I used a little bit of painting and dabbing for this one...the lemons are painted but I dabbed the ink to make the lemonade. I amped up the lemonade by adding some ice...just sketched some cubes out on vellum, traced it in black ink, cut it out and laid it over the top of the glass...love the effect. Used the same stamp for the sentiment as card #1 only I used it as is this time around.
Since I was on a roll with the beverage cards I decided to make another...card #3 ...



Spectacular right! I love how this card came out...even though I totally wanted to throw it out the window while I was working on it! Making the wine glass was a piece of cake but the rubons I used for the sentiment were a nightmare...maybe I shouldn't have actually been drinking wine (yummy Reisling!) while making the card. Thank goodness for Un-du cause I had a ton of rubon disasters to remove. Once I got the front of the card done I was going to use rubons to do the sentiment inside but in the interest of sanity I decided to handwrite it. The inside of the card says "wine always make me feel better"...so true...I had 2 more glasses after my rubon fiasco.
After 2 cocktails on paper and a couple real life ones I decided to try something a little different. I was really liking painting with the inks so I decided to try some more of that so here's what I came up with...card #4



For this card I drew a circle and laid the vellum over it...then I used a liner brush to handpaint the wreath using 2 colors of alcohol ink...lettuce and meadow and using the circle I drew as a guide. It is so so easy to paint on vellum with the inks...I just love it. After I painted the wreath I decided I wanted to mount it to the card ink side down because it was a softer look so again I used my spray adhesive to mount it to my card base. After that I stamped my sentiment on a strip of vellum...outlined the edges with a silver permapaque pen and mounted it on the diagonal across the wreath. Then I blinged out the wreath with some stickle berries and a simple bow. Lastly I outlined the whole card in silver. The end result...a simple, classic Christmas card. Oh and speaking of Christmas...please note that it is only September 15th and I have already made a Christmas card. Crazy early right! Well for me it is. Maybe this is an omen of things to come...that I might actually get all my cards done on time this year...yeah right!
Alright...enough blogging for one day ...2 days worth of posts is a lot for one day. Check back tomorrow for even more cool, fun, and awesome ideas.

Acrylic stamps should come with a warning label

that say in large bold letters in the brightest color possible...Hey dumba$$...yeah you... acrylic stamps should definitely not under any circumstances be left in the sun. I mean seriously how else is someone to supposed to figure out that the sun...which is hot...will heat things...even things like a plastic polymer which are not meant to be heated...and thereby destroy them. I mean I guess the average person could rely on some common sense to figure it out but no not me...apparently I decided to give common sense the day off and because there was no large warning label from the scrapper general warning me of the dangers from the molten ball of gas in the sky I left a stack of my stamp cases filled with acrylic stamps on the edge of my picnic table...all day...while I scrapped...completely oblivious to the slow steady rise in temperature that was taking place until it was too late and they were destroyed. And as if it was not tragic enough that I slow baked a whole stack of my stamps like an Idaho potato I discovered that the top 2 cases...which had the most damage...were in fact my newest sets of stamps.

So so sad...so many good stamps needlessly lost. All this senseless tragedy and waste because the stamp companies couldn't be bothered to put a large red universal no sign over a cute little graphic of the sun on the front of the package...I mean come on like that would take so much effort on their part. So I blame them...the thoughtless, inconsiderate stamp manufacturers for woefully neglecting to warn me and the rest of the scrapping population of this incredible danger. And yes I said I blame them...not me... for this senseless tragedy...after all this is America...land of the lawsuit...where we take pride in blaming others for our own monstrously huge acts of stupidity...and for that I say God Bless America. After all I cannot assume blame...that would mean I would have to admit I was a complete and total moron and well that just ain't gonna happen. So to all those stamp companies out there I say...please please please for the sake of those lacking the common sense God gave billy goats...won't you please put a warning on your package before another innocent stamp is harmed. Thank you.

Authors note...the above story was slightly embellished for dramatic effect.
Only 4 of the 24 stamps in the top 2 cases were actually damaged...they are too warped to stamp clearly...and even though they were good stamps...luckily they weren't expensive stamps...they were $1 stamps from Jo's but it's still tragic because they were really pretty $1 stamps and I hadn't even used them yet.

Author's note #2...Even though the stamps were destroyed, I was still able to save the printed transparencies that showed the stamps image and used one to make this card...

The pile 'o crap is a little smaller

and my stash of cards is a little bigger. Actually it's not a pile o'crap anymore..it's a box o'crap since that is what I put all of it in to take with me this weekend and as it turns out it wasn't all crap...when I started going through the basket of stuff on my desk to be put away and started tossing it in the box I found all sorts of stuff....remnants from my doubles swap kits, remnants from other LO's and even some new stuff I bought online and a package I got in the mail that I never put away...since I didn't feel like sorting new crap from old crap it all went into the box. In addition to my box o'scrap crap, I brought card blanks of course, a bag of ribbon scraps, some inks, basic tools and some stamps with card sentiments. With all of that I was able to complete a whopping total of 8 cards in 2 days....amazing right. Not really I know... most people can make 8 cards in an hour or two but not me...I am a very very very slow card maker...like turtle in a coma slow. In addition to my general slowness I was multi-tasking while I scrapped which so didn't help my cause...I watched almost all of season 2 of NCIS (I heart my portable DVD player and I big time heart Gibbs....still dreamy after all these years) ...besides the NCIS marathon I also stopped to cook, eat and clean (only one of which I did willingly) and I did socialize a bit...cocktails on the deck and all that...we were camping after all and it was a holiday...just say'n. Btdub...the cocktails...they were frozen lemonade slushies...very very yummy. So if I had to break it down I probably spent about 14 or so hours camped out at my picnic table with my box o'scrap crap but I probably only worked for about 2/3 of that....and yes I know it is not easy to calculate 2/3 of 14 in your head so I'll save you the braincells...that's about 9.33 hours...divide that by the 8 cards I did ...carry the 1, subtract the 2 ...it's roughly 1.16 hour per card. Like I said I'm slow. It's a good thing I don't work for Hallmark or I would've been canned. Oh well even though 8 cards is not that impressive it's still better than none. So as promised I took pics...so here is a picture of the pile... which is actually now a box...o'scrap crap..



and here's the 1st card I made...



I used paper scraps from a kit from my doubles swap challenge and the chipboard circle was from a pack of Making Memories chip ...the sentiment is actually a clear sticker that came in some random mailing from CK ages ago.

this is card #2...



again more scraps from the doubles swap, more MM chip and the sentiment is from Inkadinkadoo

card#3...



again more MM Chip and more scraps from the doubles swap along with a random scrap....don't you just love the color combo... I know I do...the sentiment is studio g wood stamp...the brads were also leftovers from a doubles swap kit and that cool flower stem is ribbon

here is card #4...



I made the background for this card with some squares I had cut and inked for a LO and never used them ... thought they were so pretty so I couldn't part with them...worked out pretty well as a background since the front of this card blank was actually in sad shape. I wasn't really happy with how the sentiment on this card came out...the rubon didn't want to rub on and I totally goofed and put the ribbon too high so my original sentiment wouldn't fit ...oh well blame guess I can blame this one on the a a a a alcohol.I did get lucky with the bow...it was already tied and in my bag o'ribbon scraps and it is just super pretty.

this is card #5....



The embroidered flowers and clouds were things I had pulled for different LO's and never put away ...the rest of the card is just random scraps of paper and a tiny bit of ric rac. I wanted to add a bee or something but there was none in my box o'crap.

here is card #6...



one of my faves...the patterned paper is just so pretty...it too was leftover from the doubles swap as were the 2 buttons and the little bit of cord...the sentiment is another CK sticker and the metal tag was in a package sent to me that I never put away and the rubons were for a LO and never used

here is card #7...



another fave..the flower tags were from the same scrappy mail package..another CK sticker for the sentiment, the last of the only 4 buttons I had in my box, a ribbon scrap and a brandy-new label sticker from my ACOT order that never got put away

and lastly card #8...



this card took a while to do...not because of the alcohol...but because I wanted to use the star lace paper and had trouble finding scraps to match....that star lace paper is the last of a 12x12 sheet...that stuff is so expensive so I definitely wanted to use every last scrap...the sentiment is from MAMBI and the rest of the card was just paper and ribbon scraps.
So like I said I only made a small dent in my box o'crap so I will have to see if I can make a bigger dent this week and get some more cards done..I have high hopes I will get more than 8 done...after all I'm out of lemonade slushies.

Good to last scrap

So Friday night I sat down to play with this really super cute kit my friend Meg sent me as part of the doubles swap I'm doing....



Wasn't quite sure what to do with it when I first got it...the kit was really great but outside my norm so I was a little stumped. Was a little baffled by the colors and patterns...separately I liked them all...together they were overwhelming me ...my brain couldn't process how to put them together...decided the best course of action was to divide and conquer...I picked my favorite pattern..the yellow one...and the really strong teal cardstock and went from there. Luckily I was able to dig up some old photos of my daughter I hadn't scrapped that went perfect with the colors.

By the end of the night I had finished one LO...



Busted out the acrylic paint for the title letters so they would work with the LO...which I knew I would have to do when I saw the kit...I never have much luck with those multicolor packs of letters...always one letter in the wrong color and super picky me just can't have that...matchy matchy is way more my style. Lucky for me one of the papers in the kit was all borders...I heart borders... so I was able to cut out the fun orange one for this LO. Had some epoxy dots that I wasn't sure what to do with but I ended up using a large one for the dot in the title and used the little multicolor ones for fun flower centers.
So after I did this LO I still had tons left from this kit to use so Saturday I decided to see what else I could create...this time I decided to focus on the brown patterned paper, the softer colors and the large chipboard butterfly to make another LO and this is what I came up with...


Again I had to go way back to find photos that worked...luckily both my kids did field trips to the butterfly conservatory when they were younger ...decided the colors in my sons pictures worked better for this LO than my daughters. Used my trusty martha stewart butterfly punch to make the really cool butterflies from the brown patterned paper...love how they came out. Spent about an hour playing with the large chipboard butterfly to use as an accent on this LO...totally loved how it came out...but it didn't work with the LO so I had to try something different...so instead I traced around it onto some of the teal cardstock from LO #1 and handcut the details with my cutterbee knife...which looked much better. Used more of the borders including a piece of yellow to make the tag and the notebook edge.
So once I finished that LO I still had that really cool chipboard butterfly that I spent all that time on and I really wanted to use it so I decided to make a card...



Isn't that butterfly cool? Used lots of different inks to get the final effect. As for the card itself...it took forever...card making is so not my forte. Luckily my late night chat buddy Em hooked me up with a link for some cool card sketches and some much needed inspiration. Even though this one was a total PITA to make...being the glutton for punishment that I am I decided to make some more and see how much of the scraps from this kit I could use up...
so I made this card...



Cute right! The little strip of flowers was a scrap from the first LO...glad I kept it ....it was perfect for a card.
Since this card went so well..
I made another...




Totally love how this card came out...the back of one of the papers was actually a soft mint green so I was able to use that a lot for accents...I punched the butterflies out the mint green and then inked them to make them bolder. So pretty.
so since by this time it was only midnight I decided to make another...



This one was a bomb...not happy with it at all...I really wanted to use the velvet paper Meg sent in the kit and I had the hardest time with it and I'm afraid I didn't really do it justice. Oh well..win some..lose some...
but even after this failure...
I made another....



Fun and simple...played with more of the borders...ran it through my crimper...after I dusted it off that is....haven't used that thing in ages...but some of those old tools are so fun to play with once and while.

still had more stuff left so
I made another...



Decided to use that bold brown pattern straight up this time...totally love it...painted some more letters for the sentiment and to make them extra fun I stickled the heck out of them.
At this point it was about 1:30 a.m. and I had very slim pickings left but I managed to get one more card done out of the scrap pile... but this one you only get a sneak peak of...I figured out how to make something really cool and I don't want to share it just yet....I'll post the rest of it tomorrow...trust me it will be worth the wait.




As for the kit...the scrappy math works out like this...1 kit = 2 LO's + 7 cards and the only remainders were some random letters, 3 epoxy stickers and a small square of velvet paper. Pretty darn good if I do say so myself.