October cards

Happy Halloween everyone!
It's been a while since I posted, and all I can say is that life has suddenly become incredibly busy!  Here are a few artsy projects I did over the last month:

A quick thank you card featuring a little embossed "thanks" with coordinating coloured flags.  It's sweet and simple and easy to whip up quickly to drop someone a thank you note!

This is a card I made for my friends Crystal and Josh on their wedding day!  They had a Halloween themed wedding (AWESOME!), so I really got to have a lot of fun with this card.  I got to pull in some of my favourite elements - ribbon, sequins, lace, glitter and rhinestones, and somehow it all comes together seamlessly.

This is probably one of my favourite cards I've made in a long time!

Speaking of Crystal, here's the fun little card that I came up with for her bachelorette party.  I based it on an invitation design that I found on pinterest - I used plain pink paper for the card base (it's made out of a single sheet of 8.5x11 cardstock, carefully measured to make the opening in the middle even!)
I then cut out pieces of pink damask paper, and punched holes for the corset's lace.  I finished it off with some simple eyelets and ribbon.















Finally, this is a page in my journal that's based on something I found on pinterest.  I had fun thinking of all the things that I really love and make me happy.















What projects have you been working on lately?  Link me to them, so I can come check them out!

Handmade Cards: June-July 2012 edition

Here's some of the most recent handmade cards I made - it seems like everyone had a "big" birthday over the last little while - I had cards for a 30th, 13th and 50th, plus Father's Day, and retirement!
I had lots of fun with these ones... some of my favourite features are the stitching in the 30th birthday card, the embossing on the father's day card, and the opening on the retirement card.

 

  

Handmade Cards: The May Edition

May is tied with December for biggest card month of the year.  It just seems like there are so many birthdays, Mother's Day and weddings that happen in May every year!  So without further ado, here are the cards that I made this past month:

Handmade Cards: The Wedding Edition

In a one-week span I had two weddings.  Therefore, I have had a very busy couple of months!  Here's some of the cards I created in the last little while:

First up, the bachelorette party.

This card was for my friend Amy.  It features a martini-glass cut out, where I then sandwiched glitter and confetti in between plastic to create a super fun girl's night out theme.  I used the same martini outline in black & white polka dot paper, and just some plain strips of paper & ribbon on the opposite side to balance it.

Next up is a card I made for my friend Katy's wedding.  I decided to go with simple, traditional wedding colours for this one.  It's a square card on silver cardstock, followed by gold vellum, patterned white paper, and two sticker strips that say "wedding".  The middle stamp says Happy (heart) Day, and there's some gold swirls above and below the stickers.

I created a square envelope by using the same size circles and layering them (4) and tying with ribbon.  This tutorial explains it much better!

And here's the last one - Amy's wedding card!
I knew Amy was going to have a fall themed wedding, as it was taking place up in northern Ontario, where the leaves had already started to turn... So I thought I'd make her something to match the surroundings.  I used a few different Cricut cartridges - for the leaves, the letters, and even the couple (It's actually Ariel and Eric, from the Disney Dreams Come True cart!)





What have you been crafting lately?

Handmade Cards - The June-July Edition

I had a few events in June & July that required some handmade cards.  (And a few more, that haven't been made yet!)

For my friend Christina's birthday in June (you may recall her guest blog with a recipe for Key Lime Cupcakes), I made this little number.  I started with a pink card base.  The Owl and "It's Your Day" are stamped in black ink and cut out.  The owl is affixed with pop dots to give the card more depth.  I used buttons for balloons (attached with a glue runner), and drew a line with a marker to the owl's hand.  The grass at the bottom was cut with zigzag scissors, and then cut vertically and bent forward for some additional texture.





For my friends Katy and Anthony's wine shower, I came up with one of my favourite card designs ever.  I wanted to do something wine themed, but I wanted a monochrome effect for elegance.  I freehanded a stencil of a wine glass, and cut out all the different shapes separately for some texture.  The "love" and bubbles are from a Cricut cartridge (I can't remember offhand which one).  The ribbons are attached with a pop dot.
I totally love this card, and I hope they did too!



For my niece Nicole's 5th birthday, she insisted on a Hello Kitty themed party - so I thought I'd make her a card that went along with the theme.  The week before, she had also come swimming at my apartment, so when I found this postcard of Hello Kitty in a pool, I thought it was perfect!  The postcard came from this set (Hello Kitty Haiku postcards! How cute is that!) which I happened to have stashed away.  I used some white with blue/green swirled scrapbook paper as a background... then added the pieces of the swimming pool that were "scraps", with a ribbon in a coordinating colour.  I then used the actual Hello Kitty image, and affixed it with pop dots for dimension.
At the top, I used a piece of colourful scrapbook paper and dimensional stickers spelling her name.

Hope everyone here can use these cards as inspiration - leave a comment and let me know what you think, and especially link up if you've created something of your own!

Lots of greeting cards in May...

 


May is a big month for greeting cards... between birthdays, Mother's Day, and various other events like showers, new babies and then some.  I like it, because it means I get to flex my creative muscles.

The first card here is a birthday card for my sister.  I used a turquoise, white and red colour scheme, and my first step was to gather objects in those colours and decide which ones I wanted to use.  I picked out a heart-shaped doily, a page from a French novel, some ribbon and a sparkly brad, and then some scrapbook paper.  I used my Cricut cartridge to cut out the star, and a stamp that says "Happy Birthday".

The second card was for my mom on Mother's Day .  I used images and lettering from my "Wall Decor and More" Cricut cartridge, and a pink, brown and beige colour scheme.  Really love how this one turned out!

The last card was for my grandmother on Mother's Day.  I actually ended up making this one using only supplies I had left in my craft room at my parents' house, that I didn't take with me when I moved out.  It was pretty challenging, because I didn't even have a pair of scissors with a straight edge, or any of the proper adhesives!  I ended up getting creative with the ribbon, and I adhered it to the card using my GeMagic machine!  I used blues and browns of different shades, and I think it came together quite nicely!

Anyone else doing anything creative this month?  Post your links in the comment section and share with the class :)

Birthday card fit for a princess

Yesterday, a very special little girl turned 6 years old.  She loves pink and butterflies more than anything... so naturally, I had to make her a card that incorporated both of these elements.  I didn't take any process photos, so I'll try to just describe what I did.

I started with a printed pink base card.
Then I cut out the silver & white cardstock with pinking scissors, and the silver paper with a paper cutter (and wrote the text by hand, with a Sharpie pen).
The black and white polka dot strips are actually stickers, and I just cut them to size and laid them across the card.
The pink bow at the top is stuck on with a dimensional sticker.
The flower and butterfly at the bottom of the card are stickers.

The butterfly was cut out using my Cricut Home Decor & More cartridge.  First, I cut out the butterfly shape.  I popped it out of the paper, and sliced it in half, so that I could fold the wings upwards to give the butterfly dimension.
I set those aside for a bit, then I took what was left of the main sheet of paper (ie the silhouette), and I used Smooch Spritz spray ink in black.  I held the spray ink pretty far from the page (which had some scrap paper laid down underneath, so that I didn't ruin my table) to get the light ink spatter pattern.
Then I cut out a little border of the silhouette, and glued it down to my card.  I took my two butterfly halves and stuck them down in the middle of the silhouette, and folded the wings up.
Voila! All done!

I also created this little insert for the trinket box that I presented her present in.  See if you can figure out how I made it.
(I'll give you a hint... the items used were:
- Smooch Spritz spray ink
- a patterned mask for the ink
- my cricut
- a few stamps & some ink.

And an even bigger hint... you can click through the Smooch Spritz tag on my flickr to see some process photos!)

All U Need Is Love wedding card

Here's a card I made for two of my friends who got married this weekend!  (Hopefully they've already opened it, or they don't see it online before they do!)
Materials:

• silver patterned cardstock
• gold vellum
• blue ribbon
• silver paper
• gold cardstock
• stamp & ink pad
• Cricut Cartridge: Straight From The Nest

I started with a 5.5" by 4" card base.  Next, I cut the silver patterned cardstock to about 4x3 and glued it down.  The gold vellum is about 5.5" by 2", and is glued down across the middle.  The ribbon is cut down to size at 5.5" and glued on top of the vellum.

Then I took my Straight From The Nest cartridge and cut out the shadow (silver) and main (gold) "Bird4" border image at about 2 inches.  I glued them down on top of the ribbon.

Then I just took my stamp & teal ink and stamped my main greeting along the bottom... and done!

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