Thinking of You

The Rainy Season

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Frogs and Splashes

Where I live it gets so hot and humid that in the summer, that it just has to rain for a few minutes to get it out of its system. Sometimes it even rains with the sun shining.

This card was made as a test of my new die called “Splashing Puddles” by Memory Box. It reminded me of the light rain and the tree frogs chanting.

I began with a stripe printed card as the base. I die cut the puddles and placed washi tape on the back of the raindrops and then sprinkled blue glitter on the front sticky side to make them sparkle. The frogs I had left over from another card, so added them hopping about in the rain. The “Hi” sentiment I picked because it was tiny and seemed to fit into the design best. I spotted it with the tips of markers just as I had colored the frogs but tried to match the raindrops in color. The final touch was some gold foiled washi tape I found in my stash.

Hope the card brings a smile to you.

 

Materials

Dies:

Papers:

  • DCWV – Strips Box of Cards – 40 A2 Printed Textured Cards & Envelops
  • Pale blue cardstock from my stash

Inks:

Miscellaneous:

  • PVA Glue – Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue
  • Washi Tape from my stash
  • Non-toxic Sparkling Glitter by Advantus Corp – Blue Mix – SUL54634

A Veggie Thank You

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Veggies-front

A very veggie tale of how this card developed. I had received some new stamps and had tested them out. The background stamp was begging to be used and I had a test strip of the garden stamps floating around on my desktop, and thought they were a good mix.

I fussy cut the garden stamps and glued all the pieces except the banner on to the background using glue dots. Next, I adhered the banner using foam squares. The card front still needed something, so I added Nuvo drops in black. I thought the top right corner needed a tad more black, but I ended-up smearing it a bit.

A day or so later I needed a thank you card and thought this card front would work well on a craft card base with matching envelope. So adhered front to card with double-sided tape. Then I stamped the ‘Thank You” sentiment inside and the peas on the envelope flap.

Veggies-inside-envelope

E-Z-peas-z. The card was finished.

I want to give a special shout-out to my Stampin’ Up demonstrator and friend, Donna Butler, for all her help in learning to how to stamp well.

Materials Used:

Stamps

Inks

Papers

  • A2 Brown craft paper card base and envelope purchased from Target
  • White cardstock

Miscellaneous

Soda Shaker

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Soda Shaker - Front Close up

Who hasn’t watched the bubbles in a carbonated drink rise to the top of a bottle? I was inspired to create this soda shaker by some pink seed beads that I found in my stash.

I picked a chevron striped pink card base and some printed cherry paper. First, I cut the card base in half separating the front from the back. I next cut the cherry print to match the inside dimensions of the front of the card. Then, using removable tape, I secured the front of the card to the cherry print making sure the edges all met up. Using the Bottles and Bubbles Framelits dies from Stampin’ Up, I cut the bottles out of both the card front and cherry print.

Soda Shaker - inside

After separating the card front and cherry print, I cut two pieces of clear acetate smaller than the dimensions of the card front, but large enough to cover the bottle cut-outs. Using double-sided tape I adhered the acetate to the back side of the card front and cherry print.

I cut two of each straws from red and white chevron striped paper and snipped each straw below the bend. I glued the straight straw pieces to the back side of the acetate and the bend straw parts to the front of the card front and cherry print to make the straws look like they were inside the bottles.

soda shaker-front CU

Normally I would have used craft foam to cut out the negative of the shaker, but I didn’t have any on hand. So, I cut out eight of each of the bottles from white cardstock, rough cut a ¼ inch frame around each piece and glued them together. Next, I aligned the frames to the acetate covered back of the card front and glued in place. Using foam tape, I filled in the space between the edge of the card front and the bottle frames. Let the glue dry for a few hours so the glitter and beads won’t stick to the edges of the bottle.

Soda Shaker -spine

Before fill the bottles, I used an anti-static pad to wipe down the acetate inside the bottles  Using my fingers and tweezers to fill the bottles with pinches of glitter and the three colors of seed beads, I was careful not to fill them too full. Next, I peeled back the foam tape backing papers, applied tiny bits of glue to the bottle frames and matched the cherry print card up to the bottle frames. A shaker card was born.

Soda Shaker - outside spine

I had cut the card base apart because the thickness of the shaker front would not have allowed the card to close properly. I used clear tape on the inside to tape the shaker front to the card back. Next, I cut a polka-dotted print paper to cover the inside card back and add sturdiness to it.  It was adhered with double-sided tape. Polka-dotted washi tape was used both on the outside spine of the card and on the inside of the card to frame the inside back and to cover unsightly edges. The finished card has the feel of a school composition book.

soda shaker-front CU

Using scrapes of red paper from an old Christmas envelop, I first stamped the bottle label sentiments with Versa Mark ink and the white heat embossed them. Next using the label dies in the Bottles and Bubbles die set, the labels were cut out. Glue was used to adhere the labels.

Soda Shaker - inside CU

With plenty of space inside the card to write a personal message this card is ready to be Happy Mail.

Supplies used:

Dies

Stamps

Papers

Inks and Embossing Powders

Miscellaneous

Bendi-Shadow Boxes

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Swing Tree-front

Bendi-Shadow Boxes are quick to make when using a scene building die set. I built this tree swing example in under 2 hours from design, locating materials from scrap paper stash to die-cutting all the pieces to assembly, using the Xcut “Make Me” die set included in the Homemaker Die Cuts & Digi Stamps All-in-one Die & Digi Stamp Kit.

I cut two pieces of card stock 5 1/2 inches x 4 1/4 inches for the outside pieces and one piece 5 inches x 4 1/4 inches for the inside layer. Next I scored the two outer pieces at 1/4 inch, 3/8 inch, 5 3/8 inches and 5 1/4 inches on each piece. The score marks closest to the inside are mountain folds and the score marks closes to the outside are valley folds.

Swing Tree-Assembly 3

Next I laid-out my two rectangular nesting dies and decided on the size cuts I wanted for my shadow box openings on one of the 5 1/2 inch outer pieces and the 5 inch middle piece.  I used the largest die on the front outside layer. After cutting the front layer, I used it as a template to place the next size smaller die on the 5 inch middle layer.

I decorated my layers before I assembled the layers together. (I did use some foam tape for the grass in front of the fence for an extra layer of dimension.)

Swing Tree-Assembly 1

Using 1/8 inch red double-sided sticky tape, I ran strips down the inside edges of the outer two pieces.

Swing Tree-Assembly 2

Peeling only the left back layer red tape, I lined up the inside layer left edge to the back piece left edge and pressed together. I did the same for the back, right edge and the front edges – doing one edge at-a-time for the most control over alignment of edges.

Because the outer layers are longer than the inside layer, they bow out some which allows the card to stand-up.

Swing Tree-3 layers

Here is another example of a bendi-shadow card.

 

Swing Tree-front

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

 

Paper:

 

 

Miscellaneous:

 

Bee Sweet

| ullycatdesigns

BEE SWEET Front extended

Summer holidays are wonderful for their lazy days to be creative.

I had picked up several BoBunny paper pads at my Tuesday Morning store which included the BEE_UTIFUL YOU 6 x 8 paper pad. The collection features bees. I also picked up at the same time Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection Little Things Cling Stamps set which has a bee about to land.  Needless to say, I felt the need to get BEE-zy and created something from all this inspiration.

BEE SWEET inside detail

This simple Oval Landscape Accordion fold card was created using the Elizabeth Craft Designs Karen Burniston Pop It Ups die set 1108. I cut six frames with the inner oval taped to cut a narrow frame around the pivot oval.

BEE SWEETBack extended

Once all six frames were cut, I mixed the inner ovals patterned paper and taped them into the oval frames on the back side using white paper backed double-sided tape.  I left the backing paper on the tape until I was ready to adhere two frames together.  Once I had decided on the fronts and back of the frames and the order of the patterned paper on the frames, I placed double-sided tape on the backside frames (only the three patterned paper for the backside of the card.) Starting with my last frame on the right, I peeled off the backing paper on the two oval sections and carefully matched them up. I did not press the ovals together as I wanted wiggle room to remove the backing paper from a side of the outer frame, one-at-a-time, matching the sides together as best I could.  I did not put tape on the two tabs that would attach to the next frame.  I snipped off the two tabs of the back frame. Next I folded back the backing paper off just on the tape on the back frame of the middle section where the two tabs would adhere. I lined up the tabs and pressed them onto the tape of the middle section and started the process again to adhere the ovals first and then the outer frames of the middle frame section. Finally, I cut off the tabs on the first section before adhering the middle section tabs to the first frame as described before.

BEE SWEET inside wide

The ovals tabs were inserted between the sticky sections, aligned and firmly pressed together to adhere.  (See Karen Burniston accordion assembly video which shows a different shape, but the principles for accordion assembly are similar.)

BEE SWEET Front extended above

I decorated the ovals after I had assembled the frames so that I would not over embellish them.  To mail this card, I needed it to lie flat, but I wanted some dimension to the panels. Using small flower shapes cut from colored food boxes, I assembled six small flowers and two large flowers (see Supplies Used list for specific dies). On the Thinking of You frame, the flower and bee come from a Burts Bee’s box I had saved in my stash.

The last oval has a lacy oval of cream colored card stock to write a personal note on.

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

Stamps:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

Be Adventurous!

| ullycatdesigns

IMG_5828Say yes to adventure. Chase your dreams.  Who knows where it will lead you?  This is a card that tries to capture all these sentiments and to celebrate achievement.

The inspiration for this card comes a desire to use all of my bicycle dies, but morphed into a card trying to only use one paper set (Chasing Dreams by Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper). The bicycle die set is by Simon Says Stamp and has the wheel as a separate die so you can cut the perfect tire from a separate color and has a separate basket die as well. The balloons, string of lights and banner flags are from one of my favorite die sets by Sizzix and Courtney Chilson. A fine tipped black marker was used to color the bike’s handles, pedals and balloon strings. A white gel pen was used to color in the balloons’ highlights.

IMG_5829

While the outside of the card is to suggest the current moment, the inside is to suggest how pleasant the future will be if you chase your dreams and say yes to adventure.

All of the pop-up, stamped, watercolored and die cut images come from the Hero Arts January 2019 My Monthly Hero kit. I had to cut off the top awning of the flower stand and lower it to fit inside the card.  I reinforced the back side of the stand with strips of scrap paper before attaching with double-sided tape.

IMG_5815

The tiered stand was inspired by a tiered pop up cake by Karen Burniston for Elizabeth Craft Designs. Since the die is no longer available, I had to improvise to create the right proportional shelves.

IMG_5816

The outside sentiments come from the paper stack while the inside sentiments are from two separate sets.  The “you’re wonderful” is stamped and embossed from the Hero Arts set and the ”Celebrate” is die-cut from Momenta Firefly’s Celebrate Happy Birthday die set.

 

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

 

Stamps:

Paper:

Miscellaneous:

Potted Flowers Greetings

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IMG_5805

A colorful archway of potted plants looking into shaded shelves of plants. What could be more inviting on a hot summer’s day than the cool retreat into a shaded, colorful paradise?

The shadow frames were die cut using the three rectangles from Sizzix’s Courtney Chilston’s Birthday Shadow Box Thinlits set from a set of blue cardstock that progressively gets darker as it goes backwards, just as the light and shades would looking through a doorway on a sunny day.

IMG_5807

This card was created using Poppy Stamps’ Spring Pots Shelves, Spring Pots Frame and Tiny Frogs dies. Two full die cuts were made from each of the pots dies – one in white/cream cardstock and one in green. The green die cuts had the rectangular frame cut away from the vine on the frame and the green shelves had the two shelves separated.  Using colorful scrapes, additional dies cuts were made of pots and flower blooms.  (Hint: Use wax paper over these intricate dies. They will peel off from the back side of the cardstock and take many of the tiny dots and squiggles with them as you peel. Use a poking tool for the rest.)

IMG_5806

The green die cuts were glued onto the white/cream die cuts and the colorful pots and blooms were glued down.  Using some scrap brown kraft-paper, two narrow strips were cut and glued over the separated pots to form two new shelves that were a quarter of an inch longer on each side.

Stampin’ Up’s “Hello There” stamp and coordinating corner stamp complete the front of the card.  (I suggest stamping first before assembling the card.)  The inside sentiment is die cut from a Karen Burniston Word set.

IMG_5804

Foam tape was used between the four layers placing the tape near the cut out rectangle so that foam layers are not directly above each other so that the card will meet the .25” maximum thickness of U.S. Postal Service.

IMG_5803

SUPPLIES USED:

Dies

Poppy Stamps 2174-Spring Pots Shelves

Poppy Stamps 2173 Spring Pots Frame

Poppy Stamps 1781 Tiny Frogs

Sizzix 663581 Courtney Chilston’s Birthday Shadow Box

Karen Burniston in cahoots with Riley & Co. 1002 Word Set 1- Greetings

 

Stamps:

Stampin’Up 147464 Around The Corner

 

Miscellaneous:

Wax Paper

Scotch Foam Tape

Tombow Aqua Mono Liquid Glue

Crayola Signature Brush & Detail Dual-ended Markers

Scent of Lavender

| ullycatdesigns

img_3546

The goal of this card was to make the receiver of the card sense the scent of lavender.  The Lavender & Lilac papers were printed from Papercraft inspirations issue 177 and the window die cut is from Papercraft inspirations issue 185. I experimented with scenting the card using lavender and rose essential oils on a paper tissue placed inside the card and then placed the card inside a plastic zip-lock bag, pushing all the air out before closing.

img_3549

I made a second card with additional papers from Papercraft inspirations issue 180 and using the cat die from the window set.  Each card had interior panels as well.

I submitted these cards  to Paper inspirations magazine, and they were featured  the the “Your Inspirations” section of the this April’s issue 189.

IMG_5151 (Edited)