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Posts Tagged ‘Handmade Birthday Card’
The “Other” Bow!
Aloha, all!
Those of you who downloaded my FREE TUTORIAL over at Create with Connie and Mary earlier this week saw that the bow that I used in the tutorial wasn't exactly the same bow that I used in my project. That's what comes of getting so involved with a project that I forget to take photos for the tutorials.
And that bow has been sitting around, being moved from place to place in the Craft Room, ever since I wrote the tutorial. Now, however, it's found a great place to be!
Today is the birthday of a good friend and I FORGOT IT! So I quickly made up a card for her, and the bow has a VERY prominent place! Happy Birthday, Karolyn!
And speaking of
Create With Connie and Mary
it's time for the
LAST PREVIEW PROJECT
for their Holiday Edition and it's Connie's very own project that's featured! So be sure to go to Create With Connie and Mary to learn more about it, download a FREE TUTORIAL FOR THE PROJECT, and comment on Connie's blog for a chance to win a subscription to their Holiday Edition!
Tomorrow is the last day of preview! So don't miss this!
Oh, and that wreath that I added to the bow: It's from the Stampin' Up! Holiday Mini Catalog hostess set, Warmest of Wishes!
I hope you have as much fun crafting this weekend as I'm planning to have. And I hope you'll take advantage of the Create With Connie and Mary Early Bird Pricing – it ends September 17th!
Subscribe to the comments for this postSummer Fun with a Challenge Sketch
Aloha, all!
As I you read this I'm on an airplane somewhere over the mainland United States on my way to my nephew's wedding in Maryland. I'm hoping that the card is close to its destination in Arizona where my cousin is celebrating her birthday. I don't dare to hope that it will get to her on time because I mailed it from Hawai'i.
The sketch for this card was last Thursday's Create With Connie and Mary Sketch Challenge. Nothing like procrastinating on both accounts! But at least this got onto their website before the links closed!
As I mentioned in a couple of places today, the brand new stamp set, Petite Pairs, is my current favorite stamp set. You do NOT have to use these stamps as pairs if you don't want to, but they do make it fun to have something to stamp inside a card that goes with what you might have put on the card front! The main stamp set for this card is Touch of Kindness, which is a set in the Stampin' Up! 2011 Summer Mini Catalog. This is one of the several stamp sets in this catalog that have not been included in the 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog, so you only have a couple of more weeks to buy it!
To make the circle and the mat behind it, I used the Circle Scissors Plus. It's so easy to cut one circle then adjust the blade every so slightly to get another circle just a teensy bit larger or smaller than the first. Great product offered by Stampin' Up!
I colored in the little kitty using Tangerine Tango classic ink. I used a Blender Pen to shade the color from the outside of the image to the inside. I'm still new at trying this out on Whisper White and Very Vanilla Card Stock. But I definitely feel that I'm getting better at this. Then onto some other skill on which I need to work! Other Stampin' Up! products on this card are the Beyond the Garden Designer Series Paper, Tangerine Tango 1/2" Scalloped Dots Ribbon, and Beautiful Wings Embosslit (the Pacific Point Butterflies).
It's too late for you to participate in this Create With Connie and Mary sketch challenge. But there will be a new one today, so be sure to check it out! And have fun joining in whatever fun sketch they have this week.
A Bright Birthday!
Aloha, all!
This past week one of the leaders of an online group to which I belong had a birthday and she challenged the group to make a Birthday Card using the Brights Colors from Stampin' Up! As it had been awhile since I'd focused on the colors in that group, I decided to accept the challenge.
There was also a discussion going on in yet another group about the value of the Circle Scissors Plus, which is also sold as a Stampin' Up! product. Add to that my wish to use up some of my Stampin' Up! retiring accessories, and this is the card that resulted!
Let's start with the colors. The Brights Colors that I used for this card are Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, and Pacific Point. I do think that they make a very cheerful birthday card, and I should try to use them more for birthdays.
Then there are the retiring products. Rats! I love so many of them! First there's that luscious Daffodil Delight 5/8" Satin Ribbon. Satin Ribbon will still be around, but not in the Daffodil Delight color. Then there are two of my favorite Designer Series Paper sets, Sweet and Sour and Blueberry Crisp. The Sweet and Sour is a specialty paper that has some shiny swirls on one side of the double-sided printed paper. There will not be any specialty paper in the new catalog that has this feature (though there will be one set with some metallic highlights). The Blueberry Crisp has several blues in it, but this particular piece is all Pacific Point, so nice and, well, bright!
Both stamp sets that I used in this set will continue into the new Stampin' Up! 2011-2012 Idea Book and Catalog: Crazy for Cupcakes and Teeny Tiny Wishes. I colored in the "cupcake papers" with Pacific Point, but I used a Blender Pen instead of a Stampin' Write Marker to lighten the ink up a bit. Nice touch, I think!
Finally the circles: For the top (stamped) circle and the back (Daffodil Delight) circle, I used the Sizzix 3" and 3-1/2" circle dies, respectively. But I don't like that large 1/4" space between layers. Since there is neither a Sizzix Die nor a punch that's 3-1/4" round, I needed to turn to my Circle Scissors Plus. (The "plus" in this product is that you can use this for drawing circles as well as cutting them; more about that another time). I set the cutting blade for a 3-1/4" circle and, voila! There you have it.
Here is the sketch for this card. I've been having fun lately making square cards, and I'm going to have to order more Stampin' Up! Medium Square Envelopes (they're 5-1/2" square) so I can start sending some of these cards out! I hope that you don't just hoard your cards, and have fun sending them out to your friends, too!
Happy Birthday to my Husband!
Aloha, all!
Friday, June 3rd, was Harry's birthday. Oh my, what a different birthday celebration we had than we did for last year. Last year at 7 in the morning on June 3rd, he went into surgery and there truly was the possibility that he wouldn't come out of it. Ten hours later the doctor came to the waiting room to tell me that everything was just fine. The surgery he had expected to do did not have to be done because he didn't have cancer!!! Yes, there were still some things that had to be fixed, but it was just time consuming and not life-threatening.
So for us to be able to wake up Friday in our own home in rural East Hawaii rather than in a big city hundreds of miles away was truly wonderful. And the occasion required something of a birthday card that was totally different from what I usually make.
I have to tell you that I wasn't sure that there was something in my Stampin' Up! collection that had the elegant but simple greeting that I wanted for the best man in my life. I knew that I was going to use my Brushed Gold card stock (which has been gathering dust on the top shelf of my new closet because I save it for special occasions). But beyond that I wasn't sure. Then I found this perfect sentiment for him in some gorgeous lettering. It's in the Stampin' Up! Stamp Set, Bring on the Cake. It was in the 2011 Occasions Mini Catalog – AND – it's also going to be in the brand new 2011-2012 Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalog! I'm so happy to see this set carried forward into the year-long catalog because it is so versatile for birthday cards. Cute and funny and simple and, of course, elegant.
I stamped the greeting using Jet Black StazOn ink. It stays on (thus the name) that brushed gold card stock beautifully – no smearing, and a clean, crisp image. Both the oval on which the greeting is stamped as well as the Early Espresso Card Stock oval are cut from the Sizzix Ovals Die. I trimmed card stock to the size just a bit larger that each oval and cut just those oval shapes. I used the Crop-a-Dile to punch the holes on either side through which I ran some Early Espresso 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon, which I adhered to the back of the Brushed Gold Card Stock.
For the background I ran a piece of Brushed Gold Card Stock through the Sizzix Embossing Folder, Framed Tulips. Lovely! Then I mounted the whole card front to a card made of Early Espresso Card Stock. I finished the card off by attaching some Basic Pearls on the central motif. EVERYTHING in this card will be in the new Idea Book & Catalog!
I hand-wrote a note on some Card Stock Vellum that I attached to the inside of the card. Don't be afraid to make your basic card out of a dark color. You can always write or stamp an inside greeting on a lighter piece of paper or card stock, or even on Card Stock or Paper Velum, as I did.
For me, this is definitely the start of a year for my husband that will be much more fun than the start of last year. He's back enjoying what makes him happy and I'm happily creating away in my craft room. I hope that you and yours are having your own kind of fun no matter what you do. Of course, I hope that you're having fun crafting with paper – Stampin' Up! paper for sure!!
Happy Birthday, Jim!
Aloha, all!
One of my neighbors is having a milestone birthday today and his wife asked that I make a card that was "fun," but all black and gray. How the heck do you make "fun" out of black and gray?
Well, you have to go looking for stamps that have "fun" written all over them! And Stampin' Up! has a bunch of those to offer. In fact, there are FOUR sets that are represented in this card: the Big Bad (not!) Bear is from the set, Under the Stars; his fun balloons are all made from one stamp in the set, Crazy for Cupcakes; the greeting at the bottom is from Bring on the Cake from Stampin' Up!'s 2011 Occasions Mini Catalog; and the bear's little party hat is from the set, Beary Best Friends (originally made for bears, but not this big guy – the Build-A-Bear Workshop bears!).
To make this card really pop, I embossed all the "gray" images with Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder. The bear and his Basic Gray muzzle and belly are all cut out and mounted to the card front with Stampin' Dimensionals to give the card some texture. I would like to have used a texturz plate to emboss the whole card front; but this card is a large one (5-1/2" wide x 8-1/2" high) and the texturz plates aren't quite big enough. As I was on something of a deadline, I decided to forgo that and just move on with the card.
The paper that I used in the balloons is some Basic Black from the Neutrals Patterns Pack of Designer Series Papers. Great designs this year, as always! To make the inside of the card, I cut an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of one of the Basic Gray sheets from the Neutrals Patterns Pack and printed the customized message on that paper before cutting it to fit just inside the card, adhered to the inside with a bit of Stampin' Up! SNAIL mono adhesive.
There's nothing complicated about this card, but I thought I'd share the basic layout since this card is larger that the cards I normally make. Unfortunately, Stampin' Up! no longer carries an envelope that will hold this large a card. But there are plenty of 6" x 9" envelopes to fit this card – called "catalog" or "booklet" envelopes – available anywhere stationery is sold.
I hope you've had time to make some of your own cards or scrapbook pages this weekend! And I certainly hope you had as much fun as I did making this card for Jim!
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Happy Birthday, Marcie!
Aloha, all!
And Happy Birthday to my good friend, Marcie, whose birthday is today! And for Marcie, I have a very special card. It's called a "Never-Ending" or "Endless" card (different people call it by different names). I also gave one of these cards to my sister-in-law, Deb, for her birthday earlier in the month. But at that time I didn't have a tutorial to share with you. Now not only do I have a tutorial, but I have a video. It's been awhile since I've recorded a video, but I had so much fun doing this one that I may start doing them again regularly.
What happens with a Never-Ending card is that you can fold and unfold it and you will always have a beautifully stamped and decorated page to see. There is no back or "end" to this card!
Some instructions are required, though. And it took me quite awhile to get them straight. For those of you who like to print and read instructions, there is a one-page tutorial now in Robin's Craft Room library. But I highly recommend the video, too. I did manage to have an incorrect reference to the location of the tutorial as I made the video – the location is RobinsCraftRoom.com/techniques NOT /tutorials. Oh, well – I've never pretended to be perfect – just creative, and I was certainly creative in that reference!
Here is the card that I made for Marcie. One thing that this card shows is that you can do some nice embellishment with this card, though not much heavy embellishment because the card is always folded up. So those gorgeous new flowers in the Stampin' Up! Occasions Mini Catalog would NOT work!
The other views of this card, as you fold and unfold it, are in the Tutorial's introduction page here. The entire card is decorated with Stampin' Up!'s Specialty Designer Paper Set, Sweet and Sour. This is the same paper as I used in yesterday's Blog Post for the Diva Coffee Break Design Team challenge for the week. I'm not sure why I haven't had it out much – could be there was too much Christmas and Valentine's Day stuff going on. No longer for sure!
All of the large flowers are die cut with the brand new (in the 2011 Occasions Mini Catalog) Stampin' Up! Exclusive Sizzix Bigz Die, Fun Flowers. I punched the smaller flowers in the centers with the Boho Blossoms Punch. The cover greeting is from the brand new (in the 2011 Occasions Mini Catalog) Stamp Set, Bring on the Cake. This layer is also embellished with some Rose Red Seam Binding, with the ends tucked under the large flowers. The other layer is embellished with Pumpkin Pie 3/8" Taffeta Ribbon.
And here's the video! I hope you enjoy it and that you have a fun time making your OWN Never-Ending cards!
A Fun Class Project!
Aloha, all!
Today and tomorrow I'm going to share the greeting cards that we made at my Stamp-A-Stack class session last week. For this class, we all made 6 copies of each of the cards, and got them done in record time!
My group had asked for some Valentine Cards and also for some Thank You cards (very much needed after the holiday gift-giving season!). I decided that this card could serve as a card for many different occasions, not just as a Thank You card. So everyone stamped quite a few different greetings, and put them in a baggie to have available when a card is needed. All you have to do is add a bit of adhesive and you've got yourself a birthday card, get well card, thank you card, or even just a "thinking of you" card!
The papers that I used for this card are both from the Designer Paper Set, Springtime Vintage, in the Stampin' Up! 2011 Occasions Mini Catalog. They remind me of the papers on my grandmother's dining room wall – really a very vintage look! There's plenty of different designs in this paper set, and plenty to make up a lot of this particular design. The ribbon is the Rose Red 1/2" Seam Binding, which is a new Seam Binding color featured in the Occasions Mini Catalog, and the bow is another effort at making the design perfected by Mary Brown, a fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator who shared a tutorial on how to make these non-tied bows.
The one element on this card that I've not shared with you in a very long time is the Build-A-Brad which holds the bow and the ribbon together. This is a great little embellishment, and allows you to make a brad out of anything that you can punch out with a 1/2" Punch. In this case, I took a small flower from another piece of paper in this designer paper set and made that the center of the brad. As the class needed all the Pewter colored brads for their projects, I only had a brass colored one available to use for the card pictured, and that color is no longer available. I much prefer the pewter colored brads, and have more on order!
The stamp set that I used for the greetings is the oldie-but-goodie set, Sincere Salutations. All the greetings in this set are easily punched with the Oval Extra-Large Punch.
This card has a very common card layout, and one that I featured in my 2010 Greeting Card Layout eBook, and which I first published in my June 30, 2010, blog post – and here it is again!
If you haven't used this layout, it really does help you make a quick and easy card! And I always have fun with quick and easy – hope you do, too!
Summer Mini Catalog Countdown – Part III
Aloha, all!
Day 3 of my Summer Mini Catalog Countdown brings me to the Stamp Set July Fourth. If you're like a lot of us, you looked at that set and thought, "Great set for July 4th; but can I use it any other time?" OF COURSE YOU CAN!!! There's only one stamp in this set that limits us to July 4th – and it's the stamp that says July 4th! Otherwise, those stamps have uses all through the year.
Today I'm going to share two cards, both of which use the July Fourth set, but both of which are very different. This first card is a card you can make with the July Fourth set and with any number of other sets to construct a fun birthday card. I chose Pacific Point and Pumpkin Pie because the combination is so NOT Independence Day. But those stars are from the July Fourth stamp set, and they look just perfect on a birthday card. I added a few stamped images from the Stamp Set On A Pedestal because it trims up so nicely with a bit of a white edge, and because there are polka dots on the stamped images similar to the small stars that are in the star stamp from July Fourth. And I didn't have to cut out those stars because they are made to fit the Star Extra-Large Punch. The greeting is from one of this year's Hostess Sets Occasional Quotes, and the printed paper is from the Brights Patterns Designer Series Paper Stack. So, lots of products on this card, but I think that the stars make it "pop."
My second card is one that I shared in one of my recent newsletters. It's a New Year's Card!
New Year's Eve has become a great holiday for fireworks lately, and this card, with the Rich Razzleberry, Gold Stampin' Glitter and Brushed Gold Card Stock seems perfect for that time of year – a good 6 months on the other side of the summer holiday for which the stamp set was designed, and a nice, warm set of colors for those cold winter days (oh, yes, I do remember those cold winter days, even though I don't experience them much any more here in Hawaii!)
Just two more days until this set goes away with the stamp sets I shared the previous two days! Here's the ordering information, which you can use to order online at my website, or by calling me personally (808.854.6145) to place your order!
New Challenges – Hooray!
Aloha, all!
Today I am officially a new member of the Diva Coffee Break Design Team! I have been playing with their designs off and on for awhile, and was thrilled to be accepted as a new member of the official team! Of course, this now means that you'll be seeing at least one design from each week's challenge here – and I hope that you'll go visit their website to see how all of the other Design Team Members worked the challenge.
Why is this good for you? Because you'll be reminded about how different we all are in the way that we approach the same project. Once you see all the different tastes and techniques on display on a site such as Diva Coffee Break, you might just have that "ah ha!" moment where you realize that you, too, have a unique idea on how to create using the sketch or color combo on display.
OK – what do you do then? Well, you go create your own take on the challenge AND you pop your card up on the Internet somewhere and post a link to it using the link system at the end of each week's challenge post. Don't have a public place to "park" your creation? Oh, yes, you do! It's on Split Coast Stampers! Call me (808.854.6145) or e-mail me if you need help with this. I'd LOVE to see YOUR creations posted on the Diva Coffee Break website!
OK – now onto my very first official card for the group!
Yes, this paper and this stamp set are still available to Stampin' Up! customers, because they're in the 2010 Summer Mini Catalog, and it's still Summer 2010! If you love all things Hawaiian (as I definitely do), then you won't want to miss out on the opportunity to order this before the catalog expires at the end of August.
But enough of the commercial. Let's get down to the design. Here's the sketch provided to the design team members, so you can see that I pretty much followed it to the letter (well, that's what newbies in any venture are supposed to do, isn't it?)
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Oooh, that color combo (not the challenge, believe me!) made me wince. So I had to squint a bit and try to see what in my stash of current Stampin' Up! stuff would work. The first thing that I thought was that the small rectangle at the top should have the sentiment or greeting. Easy that one because the Level 3 Hostess Set, Occasional Quotes, has several that would work. That left all that other space for images of one kind or another. Maybe some Designer Series Paper with a large print – ooooh, Island Oasis (now who would have thought that someone from Hawaii would have that pop into her head?) Now we're getting somewhere! There is that "party" quote in Occasional Quotes and there is a stamp set that coordinates with the paper that's called Tropical Party. How coincidental is that? And that diagonal? Screams for ribbon – and I just happen to have a large stash of Pumpkin Pie 5/8" Satin Ribbon that would fit the bill perfectly. And the design was done.
Actually, the design was NOT done. This is the FIRST card that I decided on. .jpg)
Do you see my "problem"? There was this very uninteresting spot towards the lower left corner of the quote element that just looked too, well, too much like a corner out in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I had the picture all ready to post, and I just couldn't do it. So back to the craft table (much more interesting than a drawing board) for the little flower that I popped onto that corner. And, just for good measure, another flower in the lower right corner of the card. Now THAT made a difference.
Lessons from today: Use a challenge to get your creative juices going. And if you don't quite like the end result, well then it isn't the end result! Spiff it up a bit!
Challenge for today: Make a card and link it to the Diva Coffee Break Design Team web page! Don't forget to call/e-mail me if you need help with the technical stuff.
Oh, and here are the exact measurements for the various layers on my card. Have fun with it!!
Another New (to me!) Fun Technique
Aloha, all!
First of all, don't forget that I'll be teaching "technique" classes this fall! I'll be sending my brochure out to everyone on my mailing list early in the week. So sign up for my newsletter or mailing list NOW to get all the scoop!
Meanwhile, here is a card using one of the techniques. The card layout itself is very simple. It's the flowers that really make this card as lovely as it is (if I do say so myself!). Making these flowers was absolutely the most fun I've had in weeks. I have to tell you that I avoided this project like the plague. Even when I had the flowers cut, I just couldn't bring myself to scrunch up all those carefully cut and dyed pieces of paper. Yes, my hands just literally wavered over them as I picked them up gingerly and I winced when I wadded them up into a ball. Painful. But oh, what fun I finally had when I realized I wasn't going to ruin them! So come on over to the Craft Room for some of the same fun yourself! Sign up for my list, or call (808.854.6145) or e-mail me and I'll send the brochure (either by e-mail or snail mail).
Oh, and what technique might this be? Sign up for my newsletter and you'll find out!
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