Kids Valentines 3×3 Cards

Posted on January 26th, 2012

If you have school age kids ’tis the season for selecting just the right set of valentines mini cards to distribute to all of your little ones’ classmates.  Not to mention choosing just the right treat to go along with it.  Well instead of purchasing the next Sponge Bob Square Pants or Disney Princess’ set, you can make sure that your child has unique valentines cards with a set like this one.

I had so much fun creating this set.  And once you’ve figured out your design, they are quick and easy to make.  These are all 3×3 flat cards, meaning they don’t fold over.  The “inside” of the card is actually on the backside.  I cut red cardstock into 3×3 sizes and selected the striped and pink dotted patterned papers, which come from Bo Bunny’s Crazy Love 6×6 pad.  I got this pad last year and still had quite a bit of papers left, perfect for cards this size.

 

The hearts image comes from a Stampin Up stamp set called A Light Heart.  It includes the word “friends” which is perfect for kids exchanging cards with all of their classroom friends.  The words and images are all one stamp, so it also adds to the ease of stamping multiples of these.

 

The other three images in the set come from Taylored Expressions Kid at Heart stamp set.  This is the first stamp set I’ve purchased from Taylored Expressions and I have to say they are great.  This set has 22 rubber cling stamps.  Its absolutely adorable.  The set includes both lined images like the little cup cake, which allow you to use your markers, like I did here, to color in the image, as well as solid images like the turtle and truck.

 

The final step is adding To and From in the back and you are all set.  The to and from in this case come from an old holiday stamp set.  All that is left to do is add your candy of choice.  You can staple some tootsie rolls to a corner, or glue the cards on top of a candy bar.  Whatever your treat of choice, these hand made valentines will make any child’s Valentines day a special one.

Purchasing tally for week 4: $0

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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Card Sketches for Scrapbooking

Posted on January 24th, 2012

I rarely use a card sketch to create a scrapbook page, but this week over at Lets Scrap the sketch is for a card, and since I’m trying to finish up my 2011 scrapbook I really wanted to do a scrapbook page.  So here is what I came up with.

The main element I took from the sketch was the scalloped background piece on the left of the page.  This page is also a great example of using my stash, combing papers and embellishments from all sorts of different collections.  The background patterned paper comes from Paper Wishes Rich & Spicy papers.  It’s a beautiful collection that has more of an autumn feel in its colors.  The orange spider web mat and the paper used for the title and accent piece with all of the different words are on it come from a 4.5×6.5 Halloween mat stack from DCWV called Ghosts and Goblins. I used a lot of these papers to create Halloween cards last season and still have quite a bit of papers left over in the stack.  They were perfect for this  page.

The different embellishment pieces on the scalloped piece are die cuts left over from Paper Wishes Halloween Finished In a Flash kit.  The arrows and tag along the edge of the bottom photo also come from the same kit.  The little knotted ribbon is another one of those left over pieces from another project.

Finally I added the two corner treatments which come from Paper Wishes Halloween Dazzles sheet.  The web and spiders were the perfect elements to go with my daughters Halloween costume: Spider Queen.

By the end of the project I’d learned to apply a card sketch to a scrapbooking page and was ecstatic at how much of my stash I’d used.

Hope you enjoyed!

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Love Nest Card

Posted on January 19th, 2012

Invite your sweetheart to your Love Nest with a cute card like this one.

I love that background paper, which comes from the Love Letters 6×6 pad I’ve been using the last few days.  It has some really pretty patterns in it.  The focal image on this card was so much fun to create.  The stamp comes from Gina K. Designs Falling for You Stamp set.  Once again I turn to a stamp set that is not specifically designated as a Valentine stamp set to create a Valentine’s Day card.  I used a combination of copics and bic alcohol markers to color it in.

The “love nest” sentiment is also a part of the same stamp set.  To add some texture I used the double stitched cream color ribbon from Gina K. Designs.  They have a really great collection of ribbons.

Total purchasing tally for week 3: $0.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

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Valentines Day Hedgehog

Posted on January 18th, 2012

For some reason this year many of my Valentine’s Day cards are falling more in the pink and brown hues than the usual reds.  Here’s another such card:

Don’t you just love that little hedgehog.  You’ll never guess that it comes from a retired Stampin’ Up holiday stamp set.  The little heart balloon and the sentiment are  from the Wonderfully Whimsical set from Papertrey Ink. The little balloon from this set is  just the perfect size for him to hold. I colored in the scarf and balloon with markers and added a touch of glitter with the clear Sakura pen.  Such an easy and clean way to add glitter to your project.  So you can clearly use stamps from sets that are not necessarily Valentine themed to make Valentines cards.  Another great way to use your stash of stamps, making them perhaps more versatile than you thought.

The patterned papers all come from Love Letters 6×6 pad by First Edition Papers.  It’s a nice thick stack of papers, some double-sided, some with some texture and shine.  The die-cut shape behind the stamped image was created using a Spellbinders Labels Sixteen die and my trusty Cuttlebug.

Hope you enjoyed!

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Valentines Day Hearts Card

Posted on January 13th, 2012

I’ve started working on Valentines cards for this year and have been having lots of fun with all sorts of different papers and stamps. So stay tuned for more valentines projects throughout the next few weeks.  Here is the first one of many to come.

For this card I used papers from the Love Letters 6×6 pad by First Edition Papers.  It’s a nice thick pad of papers, some double sided, some with a bit of glitter on them.  Very nice color palette of soft colors.  I used two chipboard hearts and covered them with papers from the same pad. These are from Scenic Route and got these at a tag sale at my local papercraft store over a year ago.  More good uses of products from my stash.  I stamped the stitched border and the greeting with brown ink.  The stitched border stamp comes from Paper Wishes Stamped Stitches.  For those of us who don’t know how to sew this is a great and easy way to get the look of stitching without all the fuss.  The sentiment is an A Muse wood block stamp.  Small but very versatile for making all kinds of Valentines Day Cards.

Total purchasing tally for week 2: $0  (lots of temptation but I made it through another week)

Thanks for stopping by!

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Tree Farm Page

Posted on January 11th, 2012

I rarely do double page spreads, but this sketch from Lets Scrap was really inspirational.  That, along with having the right amount of photos all on the same theme, made it all come together perfectly.

I’ve never used banners either, so I thought I would give it a try.  Here is the left side of the layout.

 


And here’s the right side completing the double page spread.

My favorite part of this project is how so many different items from my stash coordinated so well together to create these two pages.  The background papers come from the Calisto Christmas Collection by Anna Griffin.  It has a vintage feel to the papers and some of them have flock, like the tree ones I used here, adding a wonderful texture.

 

I used a lot of these papers in some of my Christmas cards.  Because we crafters don’t throw anything away, I had a few scrap pieces left over from this same collection.  These became the banners (or are those flags, I always get the two confused).  I used fuzzy rick rack from my stash and silver brads.

The alphabet tiles as well as the Trim the Tree and tag on the right side of the layout, are left over pieces from another collection, The Busy Scrappers Christmas Papers collection from Paper Wishes.  This collection includes cut out embellishments and alphabet tiles.  The papers are long gone but I still have tons of the embellishments and alphabet tiles.  They were perfect on this page and the colors went surprisingly well together.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Skater Girl

Posted on January 5th, 2012

Lately I’ve been so involved making cards that I’ve been neglecting my scrapbooking.  This year I’m trying to balance my time between both card making and scrapbooking.  Here’s a page I made yesterday, all with items from my stash!  This last Fall my daughter finally got the skateboard she wanted.  It’s a pretty cool one with an image of Bob Marley playing soccer (her other favorite sport), underneath the board.  She’s just learning but she’s having a great time experimenting.

 

For a couple of years I was a member of Paper Wishes Monthly Personal Shopper where each month for a set price they send you a box full of their latest papers and embellishments.  It’s a wonderful collection of goodies to play with.  But of course I wouldn’t use up my box in a month.  So I’ve accumulated a nice collection of papers from Paper Wishes.  Now that I’m working through my stash, I’m enjoying perusing through all the different papers.  For instance the background paper for this page comes from the June 2010 kit.

I took my time creating the title, “Skater Girl.”  I used alphabet stamps with blue ink on white paper and then cut out each letter.  I created a tag using the Tag’s Template. I embellished it with some 3-D Star Dazzle Stickers, a button and some ribbon.

 

I must confess I did not come up with the decorative ideas you see on the bottom border.  I have a hard time imagining collages consisting of different types of embellishments. With the Personal Shopper kits come great full color idea newsletters with lots of page examples using all of the materials in the kit.  There was a similar idea of combining a folded ribbon with both ends knotted with the star dazzles.  So I tried it and it worked!  I like how it all worked together at the end.  The stars all came from the shame sheet of dazzle stickers, which I’d used before, and with this use I finished the sheet!  First item completely used up from my stash!

 

Total purchasing tally for week 1: $0.

Thanks for stopping by!

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New Year Crafting Resolutions

Posted on January 4th, 2012

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday season with your loved ones.  Did you get any crafting done?  I was able to sneak some in here and there.  How about some craft related new year’s resolutions?  I’ve made one and I’m counting on you to hold me accountable.  I’ve decided to use my stash and not make any crafting purchases (other than essentials like glue and blank cards), until either June or whenever my local scrapbook store has its next big yard sale, whichever comes first.  My local store, Papercraft Clubhouse, hosts periodic yard sales where they invite their customers to bring their used items to sell at the store.  They sell the items at the prices you set.  Instead of getting the cash, however, you get what you earn in the form of store credit.  It’s a great way to get rid of things you’re not using anymore and to restock on some new things.  So I will break my craft purchasing fast on the day of their next yard sale.

This means I’m left to use just what is currently in my stash.  I have a number of stamp sets, a nice collection of papers, and quite a bit of other embellishments like flowers, stickers, cut outs, and ribbons.  I’m excited by all the creative possibilities.  I’ll share what I make with my stash with you here on the blog.  And to keep me honest at the end of each week I’ll tally how much I’ve spent on crafting materials and share the amount with you.  It shouldn’t amount to very much at all unless I’m restocking on essentials like glue.

To get us started here’s a birthday card made with my stash collection:

The papers come from Paper Wishes Floral Ultimate Pack.  I don’t think they carry it anymore, but I still have plenty of it to use on lovely feminine cards like this one.  The stickers are Butterfly Dazzles.  The large butterfly was backed with some of the floral paper.  I added some bling with gold pearls both on the butterfly’s body and smaller ones on the tag.  I stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment on the tag with blue ink.  I’m not sure which paper pad the tag comes from.  Sometimes I just cut out the sheets of tags that come in paper collections and put them all in a plastic bin.  This way when I need a tag I just look in the bin instead of looking throughout all the different collections of papers that I have.  The drawback to this system is that I then don’t know where the tag originated from.  Oh well.  The sentiment comes from My Sentiments Exactly Birthday stamp set.  I use this set a lot because of its many versatile sentiments for birthday cards.

Beautiful feminine card all with materials from my existing stash!  Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Vintage Christmas

Posted on December 22nd, 2011

If you like the vintage look you are going to love this Christmas card.

I love the gold tones in this set of papers. The paper pack included a sheet of cut out images, which is where the focal image came from.  I matted the image on red card stock and added two strips of green patterned paper with which I used a Fiskars scalloped punchd to create the scallop edges.  The final touch was sponging some Rich Cocoa Memento ink around the edges of the whole card. I’ve recently been using this technique of using a sponge to ink up the edges of my paper and I’m really loving the softer effect you get than when you ink the edges directly with your ink pad.

Hope you enjoyed!

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Birthday Cards Set

Posted on December 20th, 2011

Is one of your new year’s resolutions to never forget a birthday and always send birthday cards on time?  Well, what better way to ensure that you succeed with this resolution than by having a set of birthday cards handy ready to be inscribed with your personal message and put in the mail?  Like this set.

This set was so much fun to make.  I used all different types of papers and stamp sets.  I wanted to make sure to create both feminine and masculine cards as well as cards that could be used for adults, younger children, or teens.  All of the papers, except for the polka dot green “best wishes” one, comes from various sets from Paper Wishes, including Earth’s Palette, for the more masculine cards with the boat and deer images, and the Cardmaker’s Citrus papers.  The polk dot green background paper comes from DCWV’s Rock Star 4×6 pad.  The image on the right side is in white flock, adding great texture to this card.

 

Some of the stamps sets I used include:

Vintage Ladies Stamp Set

Tiny Words and Images

Expressions Stamp Set 

My Sentiments Exactly Birthday Sentiments

Gina K. Designs Guiding Light and Pleasant Plurals

Additional elements include the great deer dazzle sticker which comes from the Great Outdoors Dazzle sheets.

Thanks for stopping by!

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