Saturday, March 15, 2014

Reshares: Some Past Blog Hop Favourites!

Today I thought I'd reshare some of my favourites from past Paper Crafts blog hops!  First up is this hand-stitched card...


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For the Handmade Cards blog hop in September 2013.
We were asked to make cards using a certain number of supplies, and my number was three.  The three supplies I chose: cardstock, stencils and embroidery floss [basic tools and adhesive didn't count].

For most of my card's elements, I used stencils from an American Crafts kit.  For the blue flower centre and "hi", I paper pierced the cardstock freehand.  The flower from the stencil was a simple outline, but I wanted to add a bit more detail, so I pierced one hole in the middle so that I could have stitches radiating from the centre [like I did with the blue piece].  One option was to cut the designs out before stitching, but instead, I decided to stitch the designs before cutting them so that I'd have a slightly larger piece of cardstock to hold onto as I did the stitching.

Next up is Naptime Santa Card...


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For the Holiday Cards & More: Volume 7 blog hop in September 2012.
We were asked to create projects using the free sentiment downloads from the issue, and I chose to use the "Holiday Cheer" banner.

The napping Santa and couch are stamps from Starving Artistamps.  I love colouring on patterned paper, as I did with the couch there.  It's an easy way to add detail/another colour without having to paper piece!  To create the baseboard, I scored a piece of cardstock and then trimmed it.  I found it easier to score the cardstock first and then cut it into a skinny strip, rather than trying to score a fiddly, skinny piece of cardstock.

Humble, Napping Champion, was napping on the couch when I made this Santa card. :D

Next up is a Before and After set of cards that I made for the Card Design Handbook blog hop in August 2012.  The idea behind the blog hop was to show how a project can go from "good to great" by following the rules of design explained in the issue.  I decided to work with the "rules" of Fun & Cute, my favourite crafting style.  Some of Paper Crafts' tips for crafting Fun & Cute are to incorporate the following:
  • happy colour scheme
  • sweet sentiment
  • uncomplicated design
  • whimsy [i.e. cartoons and doodles]
  • simple shapes [i.e. hearts and stars]
  • friendly patterns [i.e. polka dots and gingham]

Here's my Before card:



Here we've got the uncomplicated design and cartoon.  The main thing that looks a little "off" is the sentiment -- the font is a little too fancy for a Fun & Cute card.

Now for the card makeover!


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That sentiment is WAY better, right?  Punny sentiments and Fun & Cute are like the best friends of card making. :D  This time, I covered the card base with a slightly brighter blue that's embossed with dots, and I stamped polka dots on the "sky" to add more of that friendly pattern.  I rounded the corners of the card to soften it a little.

The moose and polka dot background stamps are from Starving Artistamps.  The sentiment from them is really "That's Amooseing", but I did some selective inking with it and a different stamp to get this sentiment.

My last reshare for today is a card I made for the Card Creations: Get Inspired blog hop in December 2011.  We were asked to make cards using something from our homes as inspiration.  I chose one of my favourite vintage finds, this adorable bunny mug...


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This little guy makes me smile every day!  Here's the card he inspired...


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Jumping for joy!
For added dimension, I trimmed around the upper body and lower body separately, then I attached the lower body with one layer of foam and the upper body with two layers of foam.  The cloud paper in the background is shimmery -- fun stuff!

Again, I used stamps from Starving Artistamps.  If I had to pick one favourite stamp company, it would be them.  Their stamps make me laugh, and I just have pure fun using their stamp images.  They have lots of cat stamps, too, so it's impossible for me not to be in total stamp love. :o)  I used some of their cat stamps on a couple of my favourite blog hop cards, but I'll save those for a future cats-only reshare post! :D

Before I go, I wanted to share some news that made me giddy!  Humble will be appearing in Holiday Cards & More: Volume 9! :D  Hoo-hoo!!  I crossed all fingers and toes hoping that one particular card would make it in.  I don't mention this to brag or anything -- I'm just happy about it because I love Humble the most. :o)  I'm still grinning like a fool.

Thanks for stopping by for this gigantic blog post -- hope you have a crafty weekend!

Friday, March 07, 2014

Paper Crafts' Card Creations 12 Blog Hop

Happy to be a part of Paper Crafts' blog hop for Card Creations: Volume 12 today!



I haven't seen the issue in-person yet, but I'm looking forward to it!  They've added some neat new features to the issue, which you can read about here.  For today's hop, we're sharing cards made using sketches from the issue.  I chose to use this sketch:




What I came up with: Bear Hug Card!


:D
I had so much fun making this card!  I used square and rectangle rubber stamps to create the background.  I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig here -- not to create the actual arrangement of shapes [I just did that randomly], but just as a "placeholder" to help me stamp each shape twice.  That way, I could intensify the colours and also make them look more even.  The sentiment is from an Operation Write Home fundraising set called OWH Lil Hoot [25% of the profits goes to OWH].  The awesome bear is from Kaisercraft's Hello Sunshine collection. :o)

Hope you got a smile here today!  For more card fun, continue on in the hop:

Chan Vuong -- you are here!
Kalyn Kepner
Ashley Marcu
Katie Gehring
Vera Wirianta Yates
Alice Wertz
Deena Boese
Maria Fischer

Comments are open on this post if you'd like to enter for a chance to win a copy of Card Creations: Volume 12!  You have until the end of Tuesday, March 11th to enter.  I have comment moderation turned on, so comments will not appear right away.

Before I go, I wanted to say thank you to Jennifer for sharing a card of mine from this issue in yesterday's post on the Paper Crafts blog!  It was such a nice surprise and really made me smile to see. :o)

Thanks for stopping by today!  Hope you have a crafty weekend! :o)

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Hippopotamus Thanks Card

It's kind of overwhelming when new CHA releases start hitting online stores, isn't it?  There's just so much of everything.  When I looked at product previews online, the collection I was most excited about was Kaisercraft's Hello Sunshine.  The animals are so charming! :o)  When I got my order of Hello Sunshine stuff, I smiled the entire time I looked through the paper pad, die-cuts and stamps.  I had smile pain. :D


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For this card, I used just a bit of the Hello Sunshine paper [the grey], a scalloped border from the die-cut pack, and the ADORABLE hippo [also from the die-cut pack].  I like that the die-cuts are uncoated because I tend to prefer a matte finish over a coated or glossy finish on die-cuts/embellishments [though I do like specialty finishes like spot varnish -- some of the paper in the pad has varnish accents, which is really neat!].  I also like that the die-cuts are a good thickness of cardstock.  Sometimes I'll order a pack of die-cuts that are advertised as cardstock die-cuts, but they'll end up being quite thin.  Anyway, there I go rambling about supplies!  I get carried away sometimes.

I'm entering my card in the Operation Write Home ODBD challenge for this month, which is to make a Thank You card.  If they get 50 different participants in the challenge, Our Daily Bread Designs will sponsor the shipping costs of two boxes of cards from OWH.

Until next post!

Monday, March 03, 2014

Reshares: It's Halloween in March Here!

Since I've started my blog over, I thought it would be nice to reshare some old favourites once in a while.  It might be an odd time to share Halloween projects, but I was browsing through craft supplies a few days ago and saw one of my Halloween cards posted!  Here's that card again...


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A lot of love went into this card!  I used Prismacolor pencils to do all of the colouring -- I love the look of pencil crayon colouring on different cardstock colours!


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This one is a non-Halloween card using some Halloween stamps and alphabet stamps from Lawn Fawn.  The spiderweb stamp actually has "Happy Halloween" in the middle of it, but I just used the outer parts of the stamp to create my border.  Well, it's not really a border, but you know what I mean.  Just using a part of a stamp is a great way to stretch your stamp collection!  The colouring on this card was also done with Prismacolor pencils.


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I thought this little guy was fun because of his vellum ghost costume!  I die-cut the monster and "BEWARE" using my Making Memories Slice machine [remember that machine?!].  I just used a pencil to loosely trace around the monster die-cut on a piece of vellum to make his costume.


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Love shaped cards!  I die-cut the ghost from glittered cardstock [he's snazzy and jazzy] using my Slice machine.  I inked the embossed spiderwebs with a q-tip and pigment ink.  This little guy appeared in Card Creations: Volume 9.

If the date stamps on my photos are correct, the first two cards were made in 2011, and the last two cards were made in 2010.  How time flies, eh?