Friday, November 30, 2012

Thanks FIRST Responders! (11/30/2012)

Today, Guy's Whatcom Community College Communication Club is honoring our brave First Responders!  They are bringing a thank you card and a lot of (healthy!) goodies to one of our local stations to tell the first responders how much they appreciate all the hard work they do to keep us safe.

I was honored to make the card for this venture, and of course, I thought LAWN FAWN to the rescue!  Let's see what I was able to pull together:

I used several Lawn Fawn Critters stamp sets for the critters:Critters in the Burbs for the squirrel, bunny, kitty and doggie; and Critters in the Forest for the pine trees and owl.

I also used Lawn Fawn's Happy Haunting for the house, Bon Voyage for the clouds, and Quinns ABCs and Quinns 123s for the sentiment.   

I stamped out all the images with Memento Black Tuxedo ink on X-Press Blend It white paper, colored them, and fussy cut them.  I stamped out the letters on colored textured cardstock and fussy cut them out too.  I also added some stickles to the "1st" part of the sentiment and the clouds, and crystal effects to the windows of the house:

The house stamp from Happy Haunting was so much fun to color!  It is designed so that it can be SPOOKY or NON-SCARY by the way it is colored.  I kept is plain and simple - which makes it perfect for a normal house, which is perfect for this scene.

I used some Lawn Fawn paper from the Bright Side collection for the ground - I free-hand cut a slope and layered another hill behind it to give it some depth.  I used some distress ink to add a little dimension to the hill edges too.

I layered everything up, and popped-up some of the critters, like this owl:

I added some white gel pen dashes around the edges of the card to help frame the scene as well.

And, I attempted an INSIDE of the card component.  Still working on what to do inside there, but since I knew that all of Guy's students would be signing the card, I wanted something to help frame an additional sentiment.  I used Lawn Fawn's Schoolhouse Backdrops and added in a line across the card, and used Bright Side Alphabet Stickers to spell out the sentiments.  Here is the inside:


I also added a little sparkly pen around "wcc comm club" to add a little pizzazz.

THANK YOU so much our First Responders - and I'm especially proud of Melisa for organizing this, and of Guy for supporting this with his club.  You are all the best!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Monday, November 26, 2012

Easter in November! (11/26/2012)

If you can have Christmas in July, then I can have Easter in November!  I realized recently that I forgot to post these Easter cards, so, throwing caution to the wind, I decided I can post them now anyways :)


I used up some old paper and embellishments that I had in my stash, and combined them with Lawn Fawn's Quinn's ABCs, the bunny from Critters in the Burbs and Harold's ABCs.


I just kinda mish-mashed different things together on each card - with the theme of HOPPY EASTER and the bunny on each card.  But the embellishments and the sentiment arrangements were a little different.


A little white gel pen stitching around the edges, a little grass border, and these cards were done.

Hoppy Easter everybody :)  I am either REALLY late, or INCREDIBLY early - you decide!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Friday, November 23, 2012

CKC Seattle Heartfelt Creations Blue Floral Card (11/23/2012)

I attended CKC Seattle, and took several card classes from Heartfelt Creations.  This is a card we made in the 3-D Cards class.


We learned how to make 3-D flowers with dimension by using a stylus and molding mat.  See my 11/21/12 post for more info.  We used cut out and pre-stamped & embossed flower petals, and shaped them with our stylus and molding mat.  We also created the bud-blossom in the center of the flower. 


To make the middle bud, we used the stylus to shape the smallest petal, then cut between two petals into the center circle.  We then adhered mini glue dots to the back of each petal, and then fanned each petal to the back of the previous petal.  This kinda makes the petal into one long balled up bud, instead of a flat petal. To finish it off, we rolled it between our fingers and tightened it up a bit!  One large glue dot later, and we have a center bud for a flower!

The leaves were also pre-cut, stamped and embossed for this class, and we shaped them and layered them onto the card.

This class was fun, and the teacher (Jennifer) was fabulous.  I highly recommend classes from Heartfelt Creations!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Mommy's Birthday Card (11/21/2012)

Today is my Mom's birthday.  My Mom is truly an amazing lady - she is generous, kind, smart, supportive, challenging (she always pushes me to be better, yet accepts me as I am!), fun, friendly, and incredibly accepting!  She is the kind of person that all my friends enjoy hanging with, and a lot of my friends do visit my parents without me - my Mom has always been like this and she is an incredible person. 

I always try to do something special just for her, and seeing the stamps at the Heartfelt Creations booth at CKC Seattle was just the ticket!  Mom likes flowers and frilly things, and these stamps and techniques screamed Momma!

I used the Hydrangea/Posy Branch PreCut Set, and made a bursting hydrangea card.  I also learned some 3-D techniques that I applied for the card.  Let's check it out:

I took two classes at CKC Seattle from Heartfelt Creations, and they both used some 3-D techniques to give the flowers dimension.  For this flower, I stamped it out on X-Press Blend It paper four times using Black Tuxedo Memento Ink.  I colored in all the images using Copic markers.  I fussy cut out ONE of them, and used it as my base.  I then used a little flower die and cut out tons of the colored hydrangea flower clusters from the other three colored stamped images.  I cut and cut and cut until I had a pile of cut out flowers.  This was a lot easier than fussy cutting out these little flowers!

Then, the fun began!  I pulled out my NEW Paper Blossoms Tool Kit and Paper Blossoms Molding Mat, and started making dimensional flowers.  I learned at the Heartfelt Creations classes how to do THIS!:


Mainly, all ya gotta do is place your flower (or leaf, or whatever) on your molding mat, and use the appropriate sized stylus and either push or roll your stylus around on the flower.  Depending on the size of the cut out image, and/or the shape of it, you either work on the back of it, or the front (or both!) and use it to give a lot of dimension.  For these flowers, since they are little and are tightly packed, I rolled the stylus across the front of the flowers, and cupped them.  After rolling the stylus over the front, I finished it off by pushing the stylus directly down into the center of the flower, which made it "cup" even tighter around the stylus.

To adhere the flowers, I squirted some Crystal Effects 3-D glue onto my kraft mat, picked up each cupped flower with my tweezers, dipped the flower base into the glue, and placed it where I wanted it.  I repeated this a ton of times until the entire hydrangea was covered in little blossoms.  Then, I stuck a teeny tiny pearl in the center of each flower and let the adhesive dry.  Once it was dry, I applied a thin line of glue on the petal edges, and then dusted the entire hydrangea with iridiscent glitter.  I really like this effect!

To frame the flower, I cut a strip of blue textured cardstock and die cut it with my new Fancy Lattice shape, adhered it down, and then adhered two thin strips of silver glitter paper on each side.  I adhered the hydrangea over the strip.

For the "Happy Birthday" sentiment, I used Lawn Fawn's Grand Greetings and stamped it with a black versamark (pigment) ink, then dusted it with sparkly embossing powder I purchased from the wonderful folks at the Sprinkle & Sparkle booth at CKC Seattle.  I heat-embossed it, and then border punched the paper and matted it with blue cardstock, and adhered it with pop dots.

Guy has been suggesting I also do something to the inside of my cards, and this was one of my first attempts at that.  This is what I did to the inside:

I used the same glitter strips from the front, and framed a sentiment from Lawn Fawn's You've Got Mail set.  I also used a few left over cut out hydrangea blossoms and placed them on the bottom right.

A corner-punch later, the card was finished!

I really hope my Mommy enjoys her card - it was a lot of fun to make, and I can't wait to make 3-D flower cards again!  I like this look :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Monday, November 19, 2012

CKC Seattle: FREE Make & Take - Close To My Heart (11/19/2012)

Today's card is another somethin' I did at CKC Seattle.  This was the ONLY FREE Make & Take I found at CKC Seattle, at the Close To My Heart booth.  The ladies there were fabulous, and they had a fun make & take.  We made a sweet little card, which could be great as a placecard, or anything little giftie.  Here it is:


We colored the ribbon with the ink, which made it match exactly :)

I like this simple small card, and it was nice to see a FREE make & take - they are the only ones I do!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Friday, November 16, 2012

CKC Seattle: Queen & Co. The Magic Continues (11/16/2012)

I recently attended CKC Seattle and it was awesome!  I took a handful of classes, and the project below is what I made in one of them.  I took Queen & Co.'s class called "The Magic Continues" (cuz it is a DISNEY theme, boo-yah!).  We made two 12"x12" layouts:


Our class was taught by Michael, the Director of Marketing for Queen & Co.  He was a great teacher, and gave us lots of pointers about design (note: the first page is divided in THIRDS, the first third on the left is the SUBJECT, the middle third is the ART [shooting stars & bling], and the right third is the TITLE).  Here is a close up of the title section:

He also taught us a trick!  This trick will come in VERY handy ....  First of all, ya all know what washi tape is right?  Yep, that is the japanese decorative masking tape which comes in all sorts of delightful and amazing designs and colors.  Welp, he gave each of us a strip of washi tape to use with our second layout, and then explained why:  We used the tape as "transfer paper" to transfer the bling strips from the plastic backing sheet to our page!


This long strip of bling is a bit difficult to pull off the backing sheet, and then apply to the page without losing a bling dot or two, or keeping it straight.  So, washi tape to the rescue!  Place a strip of washi tape OVER the bling, then press the washi tape into the bling.  Then, turn the entire thing over, and start pulling off the backing sheet.  Roll it off slowly, and keep pressing the bling into the washi tape.  The washi will hold the bling in place while the backing paper rolls off.  Then, turn it back over, place the bling where you want it (adhering it in place) and then peel off the washi tape.  It works great!  The washi tape is a perfect transfer device because it has very low tack, and peels off after placing the bling very easily!

Another new product that Queen & Co. has created are fabric titles.  These fabric titles are backed with adhesive on non-acid paper.  They were designed this way so that you can peel off the backing paper (which is kinda difficult but doable) or just use your own glue and adhere the title (with backing paper) right to your page.  Here is my title:

You can see that I did not exactly get it adhered straight - but I got the hang of peeling off the backing as I adhered (pull off an inch, press down, roll off next inch, press, repeat!).  The fabric stretches a little too while unrolling, so it takes a little practice, but I really like the effect and will be using these titles more :) 

And, our last tip in the class from Michael was to ADD yellow bling to black, because yellow really makes the black POP.  We put yellow bling in the black stars on the title block. 

This was a fun class, and I really like having Michaell as an instructor.  Ya can't go wrong with fun and colorful Disney pages :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Fun Colorful Boxes! (11/14/2012)

Sometimes we just need more boxes in our lives!

A friend of mine has a 3-year old daughter who loves boxes ... so I made her some boxes using some colorful paper and a little bit of washi tape.  I dug through my stash and pulled out some fun papers, went to Stampadoodle and cut out some boxes using their die cutting machine.

I crafted up the boxes, taped them shut with a little bit o' washi tape across the bottoms, and had a passle of boxes to give to my friend, hopefully, much to his daughter's delight.

Hopefully she enjoys them! 

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Monday, November 12, 2012

Congrats (11/12/2012)

This card was to celebrate a dear friend's incredible accomplishment.  I was so proud of her, and wanted to make a Congrats card. This is what I made:

I used Lawn Fawn's Quinns ABCs, Schoolhouse Backdrops and Critters in the Burbs on this card.  I stamped some paper lines and then congrats using Quinns ABCs all over the card panel to give the paper some texture and background.  I stamped out congrats on white paper and colored each letter with Copics and fussy cut out each letter.  I also stamped out and colored the butterfly.  I adhered it all on the front of my card, and also stamped inside the card:

I used the Schoolhouse Backdrops to create a line for my sentiment, and stamped the sentiment from Critters in the Burbs.  I also stamped the kitty on white paper, Copic colored it, and fussy cut it out and adhered it inside the card.  I also gave the kitty a silvery-pearl collar.  Kinda hard to see on this photo - but it looked pretty cool in person.

Congrats Mary - you did it! 

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Friday, November 9, 2012

Butterfly Believe Card Swap (11/09/2012)

Today's card was not just ONE card ... oh no, there are TWENTY-FIVE of these!  I am attending my very first card swap ever, at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Seattle, and  this is the card I created for it:

I wanted to do something using Lawn Fawn, so I decided to make this sweet little butterfly from the Flutter By set, and used one of the sentiments from that set too.  I got white card bases and envelopes from a big box store, then layered the rest onto the card base.  I embossed a white cardstock panel with the D'Vine cuttlebug embossing folder.  I then cut a strip of patterned paper and punched it with the Fiskars Double Bubble border punch.  I rounded the corners of both the white cardstock panel and the patterned paper strip, and layered and adhered them onto the card.

I stamped out the butterfly on white paper with versamark ink and heat embossed it in white embossing powder.  Then, I colored the butterfly with Stampin' Up markers and then used a wet paint brush to give the butterfly a water-color effect.  After it dried, I fussy cut out the butterfly and adhered it to the card.  I used Lawn Fawn's dashed stamp from Gnome Sweet Gnome to give the butterfly a trail. 

Here is a close-up of the butterfly with glitter:


For the sentiment, I stamped the hexagon shape from Interlocking Backdrops onto plain, colored cardstock. with versamark ink to create a subtle pattern.  Then, I stamped the Flutter By sentiment onto the paper.  I cut out the sentiment strip, then stamped a stripe and stitch from Lawn Fawn's Belinda's Borders for additional framing and texture, trimmed a banner/ribbon end, and adhered it to the card.

A few dollops of glitter glue on the butterfly body and on the dots above the "i" in the sentiment, and I was done.  Now, repeat 24 more times :)

Here is a close-up of the glitter dotting the "i"s:


All in all, this was fun, and I am looking forward to sharing my love of Lawn Fawn with 24 of my newest crafting friends, and seeing all of their creations!  Gonna be a great time :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Mickey Mummies (11/07/2012)

Today's creation is EDIBLE :)  Totally not any paper crafting at all ... let's check it out.  I signed up to bring treats for a group I am involved in, for our meeting which happened to fall on Halloween (my FAVORITE Holiday, if you are keeping score!), and just had to combine my love of Mickey Mouse and Disney, with cupcakes and halloween. So, I decided to make Mickey Mouse Mummy Cupcakes!

Pretty easy-peasy.  I made standard cupcakes and frosted them with white buttercream.  Then, I rolled out some marshmallows in powdered sugar and flattened them, then cut them into strips.  I created ears with mini peppermint patties and eyes with black jellybeans.  After laying out the ears and eyes, I layered marshmallow strips across the cupcake, and instantly had Mickey Mummy cupcakes!  FUN!

Here is a closeup:


And, by the way, my class LOVED the cupcakes :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Monday, November 5, 2012

Halloween Treat Boxes (11/05/2012)

Halloween is so much fun - I had to share another Halloween creation I made:

I made mini treat boxes and filled them with candy!  I won some Teresa Collins Halloween supplies blog candy from commenting on Paper Crafts Magazine blog.  This set had great double-sided paper, fibers, brads, and ribbon.  I used all these things to create these boxes, filled them with candy and distributed them at a party!

I cut the treat boxes and leaves at Stampadoodle, a local mom & pop paper crafting store.  I used Lawn Fawn's Happy Everything to stamp out the sentiment on each leaf.  I assembled the boxes and added stickers and brads from the paper collection set, and tied up the boxes with the twine and ribbons from the paper set and of course some Lawn Fawn Single Natural Cord lawn trimmings hemp cord. 

Shoved some candy inside each box, tied them up tight, and I was done.  So much fun!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris

Friday, November 2, 2012

WCMD Believe In Your Dreams (11/02/2012)

Today's card was simple but easy & effective I think.  Let's check it out:

I made this card for World Card Making Day.  I created a card from white cardstock, then cut a white cardstock panel and ran it through the ol' Cuttlebug with the Leopard print Animal prints embossing folder.  I layered it on the card.  I also stamped the butterfly from Lawn Fawn's Flutter By set with versamark and heat embossed it with white embossing powder, then colored it with Stampin' Up markers, and used a wet paint brush to give it a water color effect.  I fussy cut it out and pop it up and adhered it to the card panel.  I attached a whole lot o' bling as a "trail" and slapped on the sentiment stamped on a strip of paper. A few little pearls later, I was done!

Super simple, yet elegant I think.  Happy (belated) World Card Making Day!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris