Make it Sparkle - Another Butterfly Card

Our team meeting is coming up on Sunday and the theme for our swap is "Make it Sparkle". I thought this would be an easy swap, as it could be a card or 3D project that sparkles. Well, it ended up not being so easy afterall! I was looking at my tri-shutter card earlier today, and wondered how it would look if I made it as a standard card size and added some Iridescent Ice embossing powder to the DSP strips and on the butterfly. Tonight I got a chance to sit down and try it. I used my VersaMark pad to ink up the top and bottom strips, added the Iridescent Ice EP, and heat set it. You have to be careful doing this because you can over-do it easily if you aren't watching what you are doing. I debated about putting the EP on the middle strip, but I like the kind of vellum over DSP look of this piece, so I decided to leave it alone. The other decision was the blue DSP behind the butterfly. Still not sure if I should have added the EP instead of leaving it plain like I did. I used my Big Shot to cut out the butterfly parts, and then added EP to the DSP part of the butterfly. I used clear rhinestones for the body of the butterfly, and some silver wire to create the antennae. The butterfly and rectangle it is attached to is popped up with four dimensionals. The sentiment comes from the new Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set, available for purchase starting July 1. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of the middle strip, using Chocolate Chip, and used the small and large oval punches to frame it (and popped up with two dimensionals). It still didn't feel finished, so I added the two jumbo Chocolate Chip brads on the top strip. I'm pretty happy with it, and it really sparkles in real life! Unless I come up with something different, it looks like this is my swap for Sunday. I scanned the card, but I think I'll go back and photograph it tomorrow so you see the butterfly wings actually coming up off the card. Have a great rest of your week!

I've Been Holding Out On You

Yup, it's true - I've had something to share for the past two days but had to keep it from you until it was delivered to my downline, Heather. You see, Heather and her DH had their first child earlier this month - a darling little girl named Brooklyn. I wanted to do something for Heather to celebrate Brooklyn's arrival and knew that they actually were pretty well off after several baby showers. So, I decided to make Brooklyn a garland! Heather had used Bella Rose on her shower invites, so I wanted to keep to the same theme and make Brooklyn a garland using it, too. Here's how it came out. I had some Tomato Spice acrylic paint on hand that I thought matched the Riding Hood Red paper perfectly for the letters (I miss upper & lower Simon chipboard - thankfully I ordered myself a stash of it!). I couldn't post pictures until Heather received it, and she called a little while ago to let me know it had arrived - so now I can share it with you, too! For more detail, simply click on the image and it will open in another window for a larger view. Thanks for stopping by and have a great rest of your week!

Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday I ran across a cute, quick Father's Day card over at Amy Celona's ustamp4fun blog. She has a PDF of the directions, if you need a masculine card that won't take too long. I browsed through my new DSP binder and found Outlaw and Western Sky that I thought would work well for this card. I ended up making four - one for the girls to give my dear hubby, one for my father-in-law, one for my dad, and one for my brother. I put the brads on the small collar pieces before putting them on the card (in Amy's directions, that's the last thing you do, after they're already on the card). One word of wisdom, however - make sure you get the brads on the correct corner! I speak from experience on this - I made all of the collar pieces, paper pierced them, added the brads, and THEN realized I had the pieces upside down and the brad was in the wrong place. YIKES! So, a quick do-over, then I was back on track. Thanks for stopping by today!

A Knitting Project

In May, our youngest's Girl Scout troop leader had the girls working on a yarn arts badge. One of the projects was knitting. She gave each of the girls a Knifty Knitter circle loom and showed them how to get started. After seeing how easy it was, I decided to pick up one of the looms myself. I bought the red circle loom, which is a good size to make hats for kids. My first hat was made without a brim (basically because I didn't see that you could add one until I'd already knitted too much). My second hat, which I made yesterday, has a brim. Next thing to make is a matching scarf, but I'm starting to run low on the yarn I selected for the hat, so I'll need to make a trip over to Joann's later (and that yarn happens to be on sale this week - yay!).

I was thinking that this might make a good project as part our our FLEX schedule at work. A lot of my female students like making friendship bracelets and the like, and it might be fun to do a few crafty projects, including making a hat. The problem would be finding an affordable way of getting 36 looms (along with yarn)! Any ideas would be welcome!

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you have a great weekend, once it's here!

I Finished It!!

Over the past few days, I've been working on documenting all of the designer series paper I have from Stampin' Up! During the process, I was happy to discover that I actually did have a second pack of Porcelain Prints which retired a while back. It was filed along with Recollections, a single-sided paper that Porcelain Prints is based on. I counted it all up last night, and discovered that I have, much to my surprise, 48, yes, 48 different SU! papers! Oh my, I didn't realize I had that many. I have two more ready to go when the new catty goes active. Wow, that's a LOT of paper! Making the binder took several days, but I'm really happy to have it so I know what I have in my stacks of paper. More importantly, I can easily look through the binder when I have a certain card stock color in mind that I want to use for a project and find a coordinating DSP to use if I want - a much better system than what I was doing before. Thanks so much to Sue Madex for sending me her template for this binder!

Designer Series Paper Templates

Another project I was working on last night was a Designer Series Paper organizer which my new cyber friend from Melbourne, Australia, Sue Madex over at Madex Creations came up with. I first saw her post on this organizer template here and yesterday I emailed her to get a copy. She was quick to reply with a copy of the template along with a copy of the ring organizer for card stock colors. You cut 3 x 3 inch squares of DSP and punch out 1 1/4 inch squares of coordinating card stock, attaching them to the template which is printed out on a 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of Whisper White. You then place the sheets in archival page protectors and put them in a ring binder. So much better than the teeny sample you see in the Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog. I have a TON of retired papers and will be making pages for all of them with the hopes that I'll actually start using some of them up so I have room for some new DSP!! Yeah, right, like that'll ever happen - me actually use up some of my paper - sure!! :) Can you tell I'm a paper hoarder?

Also in that post from Sue is a cool punch guide that she created, which I will definitely be making, too! It's great to match up to an image to see how it will look punched out before you actually do it.

Seen here is the new Razzleberry Lemonade DSP that demos were able to preorder. You'll be able to get it on July 1. It uses three of the new In Colors - Rich Razzleberry, Crushed Curry and Melon Mambo. So far I like all of the new In Colors with the exception of Soft Suede. I was really hoping for another good green and was bummed to see the brown instead. Oh well! Word is SU! may be doing something with past In Colors in the future, so don't throw out your ink pads, reinkers or papers just yet (like I'd really do that - again, I'm a craft hoarder, big time!). Have a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Butterfly Tri-Shutter Card

After spending some time cleaning up my craft room this afternoon, I sat down at my desk to try one of the tri-shutter cards that I've seen around lately. I basically followed the directions from Robin, seen here. I changed one measurement - instead of cutting the top and bottom edges at 1 inch from the long edge, I cut at 1 1/2 inches. Making this fun card gave me the opportunity to finally use my Sizzix Beautiful Butterflies die and Bella Bleu designer series paper (which makes a return appearance in the new SU! catty). I'll probably go back and add a sentiment, but here it is thus far. I used Not Quite Navy card stock for the card base, with some Chocolate Chip as a highlight. The body of the butterflies are small clear rhinestone brads with the butterfly head being a medium sized one. I added the antennae using some silver beading wire I happened to have, wrapping it around my paper piercing tool twice before cutting. I hope you like it!!

Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge

This is my first true Mojo Monday sketch challenge card. I wanted a relatively simple card for the ladies to make at my stamp camp coming up on Friday, and wanted to use some product I already have without having to order anything else. Julee's sketch fit the bill so I could use the large flower from the Pretties kit. I bought it a while ago from the bulk package SU! demos can order and this card design is a great use for the flower. I added a 1 inch circle of Red Riding Hood card stock topped off with a Kiwi courderoy button to make the flower center. The DSP is all Bella Rose (I'll miss it once it retires!). I was debating on which brads to use, and ended up using the now retired red eyelets as they seemed to match the other colors quite well. The panels are popped up with dimensionals and the flower is popped with a thicker non-SU! foam dot. I hope you like it! I've had a lack of mojo lately and am so happy with the way this turned out. The color didn't reproduce as well as I'd like when I photographed it (too yellow), so I'll have to try it again tomorrow using some sunshine instead of my desk lamp. Thanks once again for stopping by!

DSP Beaded Pens

The bonus project for my stamp camp on Friday is to make a beaded pen. I decided to use some scraps of DSP for this project - Bella Rose and Raspberry Tart - and a Pentel R.S.V.P. pen. Here's how I made them:

1. Cut DSP scrap to 3 1/4 by 1 1/4 inches.
2. Run DSP strip through a Xyron (I used my Create-A-Sticker, model 150 with a permanent cartridge installed, which my dear stamping friend and coworker, Darla, gave me a couple of years ago).
3. Leaving the pen lid on, attach the DSP strip sticker to the pen barrel (start by aligning the short edge of the DSP with the edge of the pen lid). Press down hard to make sure the paper adheres well to the pen barrel.
4. Cut a piece of Terrifically Tacky Tape (from the 6" x 8" sheet variety of TTT) to 3 1/4 by 1 5/16 inches (you could also use Stampin' Up! Sticky Pages for this).
5. Peel away one side of the TTT sheet and place it over the DSP on the pen barrel. I used the leftover backing paper from the Xyron to help stick the TTT sheet well to the DSP.
EDITED TO ADD: I had a few of my earlier pens have the DSP/beading come loose because the TTT or Sticky Pages sheet didn't overlap enough. To solve that for the ones I'd already prepped for a stamp camp, I had everyone take a piece of 1/4 inch wide SU! Sticky Strip and have it overlap the place where the TTT edges met. Then I finished the pen as written below. Pens done this way haven't had that separation problem.
6. Using a heat tool, heat up the TTT adhesive on the pen. This will make the adhesive even more sticky.
7. Roll the heated pen in clear microbeads. I used a small SU! stamp case lid to hold the microbeads as I crushed the beads into the adhesive by rolling over the beads.
8. Lightly rub away any extra beads from your pen, and you are finished!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

A Birthday Invite

This year for her birthday, our daughter wanted to invite a couple of friends to go with her for a horseback ride. I wanted to create a special invitation for the event, but didn't have much time tonight. This is what I came up with. The invite uses Kraft card stock, Parisian Breeze specialty DSP, Chocolate Chip card stock, and Baja Breeze card stock, and Confetti White card stock. The horse is from Wanted, stamped in Chocolate Chip classic ink on the Confetti White. The sentiment is from All-Year-Cheer (II, I think). Striped Baja Breeze ribbon tops it off (although if I did it over again, I'd probably do two ribbons around the brown Parisian piece). On the inside, I printed up the information about the ride in brown ink on Confetti White. I stamped the horse image over the image, stamping off once first. She really liked the invite, and they're ready to be handed out tomorrow! Yay!