Graduation Black & White

It was so hard for me but I did a graduation card only using black and white.  I will be selling these cards at a local craft fair and wanted to keep them neutral so that they can be used for any high school or college graduation this year.

 I am so glad that I decided to make this card because it was good practice for when I make Kaela's Graduation Announcements.  I needed to get Mike's help when making the numbers because I have never used the Cricut Craft Room and we had to set up the download of software and such then get the measurements right.  

The one item I do not like in Craft Room is that you can not tell it to just cut the image say 10 times like you can with the cricut machine.  You have the place the image in each spot on the virtual mat for it to cut it on the paper.   I think I have the process all figured out but if for some reason I forget I know that Mike will come to the rescue.  

I am very happy with the way they turned out and it only took a couple of hours to make a batch once we figured out the Craft Room software.

Use Those Scraps!

It is almost my favorite time of the scrapbooking world year 

NEW CATALOG TIME!

 The entire CTMH family is getting ready for convention - I love going to convention but will not be there this year (prior commitment) but I know that once the catalog is out I will have all kinds of new papers to play with so I needed to find a way to use up some scraps.

Found it!

I found this card on Pinterest and when I followed the link it is an Etsy site called Mailbox Memories.  When I saw this card I thought "BINGO" what a way to use those paper packs that are almost used up and scraps.  

The design is just simple enough that it will work for many different paper packs and sentiment styles.   I had a blast making these cards and using up all those bits and pieces of older paper packs while making room for new items.  

Not a bad way to spend a laundry day while making the most of my supplies.

Christmas & Mother's Day

I have been in a little card making mood this week.  But I need to slow down in that department because I am running out of room to display all of the cards.  After my last craft fair I bought two more card display stands so now I am up to four display's.

And all four are FULL!  I have been having so much fun making the cards I forgot that I need to sell them too.  (hee hee) 

Anyhoo - here are two more that I made yesterday.

Christmas

I found this card design in an old CTMH catalog the patter is from Originals: Clean and Classy.  I have a really hard time letting go of my christmas stamps so the stamp image on the card is retired.  

The colors used are

Bamboo

Twilight

cocoa

Bitty sparkles just add that small touch of stars

Mother's Day

A tale of two cards

Last month I posted a 6 x 6 Mother's day card that I was making for my personal use with the mother's in my life. 

I thought it turned out absolutely fantastic and it should since I scrap lifted it directly from the current CTMH catalog.  But the 6 x 6 size means that postage was more than normal. The original card is using the Ballon Ride papers.

So I set out to make a smaller, normal card size to sell.

The smaller card is using the retired Babycakes papers.

I was going to distress the Sunset cardstock just a bit but forgot to do it on the first card then decided that I really liked it not distressed.

Colors used:

Cocoa

Sunset

Buttercup

Colonial White DMC Thread

Babycakes B&T paper

Bitty Pearls for a added touch 

(Awe Man - I did not think of it at the time but I could have used Bitty Pearls and made her a pearl necklace. Oh Well.)

Now I just need to clean up my cardmaking mess in my scraproom.

Bicycle Beauty

We hare having a creative kind of day.  It is the last day of spring break so my kiddo is home with me (not in the same room but home) and she is doing her thing and I am doing mine.  Here is a peek:

This is my play space (My Scraproom)

This is Kaela’s play space.

I find it funny that we both have the windows open and music playing while working on our artwork.  Like Mother Like Daughter

So the inspiration for today came from a show Kaela and I have been watching – Ink Masters – and while I do not have any tattoos I find the artwork beautiful.  Last night they were working on consistency – meaning that the Geographic's of the tattoo line up  time after time. 

I wonder if I can do that?

Now if you know me you know that nothing about me lines up every time. I try, I even use a ruler but nope I just have a hard time with this one but I was willing to try again.

Off to my favorite inspiration place: Pinterest.

Ok this one meets all of the marks.  First off the cuts have to be straight.  Then the boxes then the banner and so on.  How did I do?

First off there is no banner – I was working with no measurements and just ran out of room (oops).  I am not sure if I would get voted off the show but I think I nailed it.   But you are right…. I like the banner too. 

Baby Steps

Has it really been since Feb 22 that I posted any artwork? 

This month has been a little strange for me.  I was not expecting to make an emergency trip to Florida and between the stress of the trip and coming home to a house full of sick people it has taken me a little time to put my scrappers hat back on.

  Today is the first day that I have even felt like coming back into the scraproom. That is so unlike me!

Since my creative mojo has been off this month I am going to just work on a card design today.  I was having trouble nailing down artwork to start my baby step back into the creative process and found a cute little card on Pinterest.

 

The original artist is Penny Ginnery (SU Demonstrator) Pennyscreativecorner.com

This simple, elegant card design is just what I needed to get my feet wet again.

Here is my version of this little card:

So as usual with a card I admire it has the same bones as the original just a couple of different details. 

Not a bad way to spend my day

It was a busy week

What a busy week this past week was but I finished everything on my list.  Want to see? 

Well it started out just goofing off making cards and ended with a completed job.  All of the cards that my Aunt needed made are done and ready to go into the mail on Monday.

Nothing like some help from CTMH and the card confidence books.

  Wishes came in very handy.

As you can see from the above photo.  The card confidence books are very easy to use for making cards in this case or scrapbook layouts.  I was having fun making one of the workshop sets of 6 x 6 cards.  Take a good look at the photos because you will see that the book is just a spring board for creativity.

This is where I stopped one night for a rest.  I had the colors picked out for the set and the papers cut but my fingers needed a break.

Anytime I am making multiple cuts for multiple cards I employ the baggie system.  Each card has one bag and all of the cuts for that card go into that bag.  This makes it very easy when you are getting ready for a crop or retreat and just want to get a little organized before leaving the house.

A couple of items that I love to use on cards and layouts is sparkles and thread.  Both are very cheap and add just that something extra that is not found on a store bought card or layout.  It is so easy to make a project yours.

Here are the cards that I created using the Wishes templates.

This one was the first of the batch that I made and it made me giddy with happiness.  So pretty.   I made two of each card so I have one set for myself. 

On the card being sent to my Aunt I did not connect the frame stitching to the lines stitching.  I also wish I had heat embossed the sentiment but only thought of that AFTER I was finished making both copies of cards.   I would have taken a photo of the “perfect” card but it is already packaged for the mail.

I had to sleep on this card because I love the simple elegance but did not think I had a place to put the sentiment.  I ran out of bed the next morning because my first thought was tone on tone heat embossing!  LOVE IT because it does not shout but whispers that you are thinking of that person.

This one gave me just a hint of trouble.  I heat embossed the sentiment and tried to color the bird softly on my samples.  The colors just were not working for me so I just left the image as it came.  Once I put the card together after I finished overthinking it – I loved the whole look of it.

This is my least favorite but only because I think the flower heads need to be a bit bigger.  But these were the only flower heads I had left in the set so I made it work.   I think the longer I look at it the more it will grow on me.

This card made me giggle..  I was working right along and listening to a book on the iPod and it was only after I finished putting the whole card together that I realized I forgot to heat emboss the sentiment!  Opps!

Want to know a secret?

All of these cards are made with the Halloween paper pack Mischief (retired)  I just flipped the papers over for a whole new look!

Now on to the rest of the cards that I made for my Aunt.  As you recall she asked for Birthday and Thinking of You cards and what a challenge it was for me.  She needed kids, boys, girls and adults for her assortment of cards.  I was pulling out all of my card confidence books, old magazines, past workshops anything to get my brain going.  This set of cards really made me happy!

This is the only card that was made with non-CTMH papers.  I had to buy some grey and pinks for a hospital project and had some left over and thought what the heck.  I added some CTMH cardstock, embellies and sentiment and look how it turned out.

This card is from a pattern that CTMH used as a constant campaign many moons ago.  I just kept the instructions with the stamp set.  Sometimes I like to pull it out and play with new papers.  On the original card the lines are dry embossed and sanded  but I love to sew on paper so I added my touch to this card. 

For the next group of cards I pulled out my Victory Workshop on the Go kit.  I still had some papers and the instruction guide.  I was poking around the guide and found “bonus cards” SCORE!  Great “guy” papers that I could mold into what I needed. I love when a plan come together!

This is another card that I took the original artwork and reconstructed it to make it my own.  I also cut the sentiment stamp so that I could make it fit into the space that I needed.  Do not worry … the stamp still works perfect it is just no longer connected together.

Screams BOY!

Do not mind me – just digging around in my stash to find CTMH products from different workshops that go so well together.   There is that deconstructed stamp again.

This card is the only card of the bunch that looks the closest to the original artwork.  I sure had fun playing around with it but found that sometimes the original just looks good.

It is time to clear the decks and get started on making layouts again for Kaela and her 9th grade album. She has been so patient. But I think I am in trouble if I am going to finish high school before she graduates….

I Just Got CRAZY

Flight Of The Arrows

Item Number: D1578

Remember a couple of days ago when I was using this stamp set to make this card?

Well this card is scrap lifted right out the New CTMH Spring / Summer 2014 Catalog (Active Feb 1, 2014) on page 96.  There is another card on the same page of the catalog that uses the same stamp that I wanted to make. 

It was a little more challenging.

I love the arrows but on the card they use 3 different colors for the arrows and the stamp is 2x6.  I know you can use a masking technique to get the same effect but I get ink everywhere just stamping like a normal personal – add masking take to the deal and I might have to re-paint the walls!

So I did something RADICAL!  I cut the stamp set!

I took 2 rows of the arrows and separated them from the rest of the arrows. The other 3/4 of the stamp is still in pristine condition.

With the smaller 1/4 section of the stamp I was able to create the look I wanted without getting ink everywhere. 

I will tell you my daughter thought I lost my mind.  It did not hurt has bad as I thought it would.    Since I was careful with the cutting this stamp is still very useable! 

It makes me happy!

Gone Fishing?

Good morning or is it afternoon? It is daylight outside so it is something.

I was on the phone with Mom this morning and enjoying a nice cup of coffee when she gave me the idea of making some outdoors kind of cards for the fishermen out where she lives.  So I pulled out my “camping” stamps and started taking a peek at what I have.

Then an idea struck using a card I did yesterday.

So I quickly got off the phone (sorry Mom) and started playing. After I inked up all of the panels I looked at my hands and started laughing.  One of the Unit Names in CTMH is “Inky Fingers” 

This was after washing my hands three times with comet powder!  I think I still might be mistaken for a team member of Inky Fingers.    so I am a messy stamper. 

Ready for the finished product?

I used various “tree” stamps that I have and one new stamp from the Spring / Summer Catalog. 

Catch You Later

Item Number: D1580

I like how they turned out if I do say so myself.

Crafter’s Block

Day before yesterday I was having some serious crafters block.  I have been working my little fingers to the bone and loving every minute of it to get this card order for my Aunt finished (half way there).

After each card is done I must clean my work area.  I like to have a clean slate when I start working on the next project but after I cleaned up my mess this time my mind went blank on what to make next. 

So I started to look about my room and saw a huge Paper Crafts book that I bought a couple of years ago before I really started making cards.  I thought that if I bought this book I would just be able to make what ever card was in there with no problems at all. Never mind building skill level – who needs that.  I found out that I was not ready to work out of that book back then.  What would happen this time when I pulled that book down?

Magic!

The CTMH card confidence books have given me the training I needed to be able to look at a card and have the skills needed to make it with little instruction needed.

Talk about having confidence! 

I was able to finally look at the Paper Crafts Best of Card Creations book and “see” the patterns in my head to re-create most cards in the book.

So what did I create?

And  I have a list of 5 more cards I want to play with.

I think my Crafters Block is gone!