Card Frenzy

Hey there my blogging friends! Again I have neglected you and my poor blog. I have been super-busy with a ton of other things lately and the computer just hasn't been a high priority for me. So with a new month comes a new resolution to get on here more and document my creative adventures.

So here goes....

I don't know what it is lately, but I have been on a card making frenzy. Perhaps its the warm weather (we had record temps today...78 and counting!), Jennifer McGuire's blog, or all the new stamping goodness I have splurged on over the past few weeks, but I have been whipping these babies out like crazy.

First up are some older cards that I made in Feburary...

This sweet froggy card was inspired by a Valentines' class that I took and also taught at Archivers. I loved this large cling stamp from Hero Arts and it went so well with one of my new Quickutz dies. The papers were inspired by my sweet friend Cindy who made these adorable treat boxes with the frog paper from K&Company's new Valentine's line and some of the Dotted Swiss cardstock by Bazzill.  Such a sweet card!

I absolutely fell in love with this card that Jennifer McGuire made for the Hero Arts blog hop back in January and thanks to her amazing video, I pretty much copied her card from start to finish. It really gave me a chance to play around with Tim Holtz' distress inks and see what fun things they could do. Totally loving how this one turned out and I will definately be using this fun "Silhouette Grass" stamp from Hero Arts again!

This sweet froggy card was the one I made for my church ministry for the month of March. I made 50 of them while watching the final hockey game at the Olympics between the USA and Canada. The stamps are all from Hero Arts and I colored my frogs in with Copic Markers.

Next up are some really fun cards I made a few weeks ago when I was not in the mood to scrapbook, but was feeling the urge to be creative....

This is just a sweet, simple card that I made using scraps left over from some of my scrapbook layouts. Totally love the bright springy colors here. :)

This was one of those cards that just came together on its own. I found this great butterfly stamp from Hero Arts on clearance at Michael's when I was there last and I combined it with some Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls to create this sweet card.  The close-up photo shows you the shimmer on the butterfly...so pretty!

I also used my new butterfly stamp on this card with Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls. I also was able to use my new sentiment stamp set with these really cool scripty sayings on them.  Too perfect! :)

This sweet card is one I made for my friend Sarah who is expecting a baby this month. Sarah and I were friends in high school, but last month a whole group of us got together to go to lunch and catch up. It was a lot of fun and I inlcuded this sweet card with my gift for her.

This year I decided to make my own Easter cards. I found this beautiful cross stamp from Stampendous and used Ranger's alcohol inks in the light colors to create the stained glass look on the background. I also glittered around the cross and used a label die cut from Quickutz to add to the sweet look to my card. I made 30 of these beautiful cards to give out to my family and friends. :)

The rest of these cards are some of the ones I made for my April birthday cards for church. I had so many ideas rolling around in my head, that I couldn't just do one....

I saw a super-sweet card using this new stamp from Hero Arts and so I decided to make one myself.  Since I was doimg this for church and I had to make a lot of them, I left off some of the stuff from the original card, but I still like how mine turned out. :)

This week when Rebekeh came down to spend the day scrapbooking with me, we headed out to our local stamping store, Stamping Day & Night. I picked up these sweet flower stamps as well as a product called Gamsol that is used with colored pencils to give them a watercolored look. So I actually pulled out my new toys and created about 10 of these sweet cards for church.

The rest of my birthday cards for this month were made entirely of scraps. I went through my scrap box and pulled sets of 3 coordinating patterns that I could cut to 1 5/8 by 4 inches. I then imked the edges and attached them to an A2 size card. I then used my new die cut from Tim Holtz' Alterations line (we have them at Archivers!) to die cut scrap chipboard. I used Ranger's Distress Crackle paint on the labels and then stamped my sentiment with Staz On ink right on top of the crackle paint. Love, love, love the look it gives.  Below are a few more of my favorite color combos from this project. :)

On this one I used clear crackle paint right over the chipboard...such a cool look!

So in all, since February I have made almost 200 cards! Whew! That's a lot of cards!

New layouts to share!

Hello there crafty friends!  I was surfing through my blog today and I realized that I haven't shared any of my new scrapbook layouts with you lately...more like, since before Christmas! So I am going to start sharing these layouts over the next few days...hopefully it will inspire someone to keep scrapping and get creative!

I love this layout for so many reasons! It chronicles my first reading of my favorite Harry Potter book ever...book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Love it! If you haven't read it, go do so (after reading all the other books in the series of course!).  But I also love this layout artistically because it uses the fabulous Eerie line from Basic Grey (one of my fave companies ever!).

I also was able to play with crackle paint on here which is another one of my favorite new techniques to play with. The title letters and all the stars were first painted with acryllic paint and then once they were dry I added a fairly thick layer of the Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint over the top and let it dry overnight. A word of caution: DO NOT use a heat gun on Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint - it will bubble and look yucky. Trust me on this one...I personally experienced it with this layout. Then rub over the top of each of the letters and stars with Black Soot Distress ink and work it into the cracks to give it a  more grungy look.  I also used Black Soot Distress Crackle Paint on the chipboard circle and dried it with a heat gun after letting it set for 5 minutes. All this works together to make this one fabulously fun and goulish page!

This page showcases one of my absolute most favorite pictures of my sister and her husband that photographer Kris Gay captured during their engagement photo shoot. I never would have paired brown and pink with this layout but this paper from SEI's Chocolat line just jumped out at me and I love the result. I created the journaling list box in Adobe Photoshop Elements and I have left it blank to let my sister write in the box. :)

This layout is based on a sketch from Janna Wilson and her challenge 52 Weeks of Stress-Free Scrapping. Every week Janna puts up a new layout/sketch and a challenge to get other scrappers motivated to scrap and have fun and not stress about scrapping. I haven't completed all the weeks yet but I am hoping to get caught up with some of them this weekend! Check out Janna's challenge here.

A few years ago I discovered the beauty of Celtic Woman. I absolutely love their music and it is beautiful to listen to. When I found out that they were coming to our city for a concert the day before my birthday, I knew I had to go. So my mom and I headed out to the concert and it was one of the most beautiful and breath-taking things I have ever seen.  I bought a program at the concert and found this beautiful paper by BoBunny called Delilah that perfectly matched the photo of my mom and I. To tell my story, I added pages from the program that I got at the concert to my layout. The small photos on the left, the list of songs that were played, and the large group photo all came from the program and really added to the page.

This is a sweet simple layout that I made with some leftover pieces from my December Scarlet Lime kit. I also added a lot of doggie themed embellies from my stash to help tell my story about my sweet puppy Bailey and her rope.

And finally I want to share a simple sweet page I did about our adventures one day in the fall of 2007. I used this fabulous paper by KI Memories and diecuts from my Cricut to help me tell my story of this beautiful November day. The leaves were cut out using my Cricut and Doodlecharms cartridge. I inked the edges of each of the leaves and used 1/16 and 1/8 inch pop dots to attache the leaves and acorns to the page in various layers to give the page some dimension.

Well I am off to finish up another layout, but I will be back tomorrow to share more of my favorite layouts from 2010 so far. :)

A Wintery Technique

Well it is Friday and much of the midwest and east coast are headed into a wintery blast. Here in northern Indiana we are expecting 3-5 inches, so in honor of the wintery weather that is headed our way I thought I would share one of my design team projects over on If It's Groovy from January.

I took these pictures in 2008 during the ice storm that we had a few days before Christmas. I was able to play with these beautiful papers and accents from Bo Bunny's gorgeous Snowy Serenade collection and I also was able to play with my new crackle paint to give the snowflakes their wintery look.

 Want to create this look on your next page? You're in luck because I am going to share this technique today.

Gather the following supplies: chipboard snowflakes, Tim Holtz Crackle Paint in the color Picket Fence, a heat gun, Ranger non-stick craft mat, cardstock, temporary adhesive, paper towels, makeup sponges, various colors of acryllic paint, a mini mister filled with water, and paper towels.

1. Cut a 1 inch strip of cardstock and adhere the snowflakes to it using the temporary adhesive. This will give you a way to hold onto the pieces as you paint them.

2. Shake up the crackle paint before using. Apply a medium to thick layer of the distress crackle paint to the snowflakes using the applicator in the bottle. Make sure you are working on the non-stick craft sheet to make clean-up a breeze later.

3. Allow snowflakes to dry on their own for about 5 minutes, or until you start to see it cracking on its own.

You can either let it dry completely naturally to get fine cracks in the paint, or you can get large cracks with a heat gun.

4. Zap the snowflakes with a heat gun until dry. Make sure not to hold the heat gun in one area for too long or it will burn the snowflake.

5. Use a makeup sponge to dab paint on top of the crackled surface. Make sure to work the paint down into the cracks.  Adirondack paint daubers work well also.

6. Spray the painted snowflake with a mini mister a few times just to moisten the paint and use a paper towel to gently wipe away the paint from the surface of the snowflake. The paint should remain in the cracks giving the snowflake a muted color.

7. To finish off the snowflakes, use a Fantastix and some Distress ink to go around the edges of the snowflakes. Attach to your project with glue dots or pop dots.

I also made this cute card with some of my leftovers from the project. The inside reads "Thanks 'snow' much!"