Friday, January 30, 2009

More Black, Red and White Cards...

As you can tell, I like putting these colors together! I had a class at the store using red, black and white and the ladies had a good time making the cards! We used a variety of stamps, Cuttlebug die cuts and folders, ribbon and a touch of glitter!
For this card, we use a background stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms and with black ink, stamped two-thirds of the design onto the cardstock. Next, we used the swiss dot border folder and put it through the Cuttlebug at the top of the card. We used one of the new Die Cut/Folder combos (Everyday Greetings) and cut out "get well soon" on red cardstock and attached it the upper left corner. Then we tied a red and black ribbon with a knot across the top of our stamped image (just in case it wasn't stamped straight) and added three tiny red pearls from Kaiser Craft to the lower right corner. Card size is 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches.

For our next card, we stamped a darling panda bear with her baby from Coronado Island Stamps in black ink on glossy cardstock. Next, we took a piece of black cardstock and punched photo corners into each corner. We saved the waste pieces for our third card. We tucked the panda piece into the photo corners. Then we glued our polka-dot background piece to our black notecard, and attached red strips from side to side and top to bottom. We attached the panda piece to the card and for our final touch, we cut out "friends forever" from the Cuttlebug combo (Friends Forever) and attached it to the card. Card size 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches.

Our last card is a simple card but has a pretty elegant look to it. We stamped our rose from Holly Berry House Stamps in black ink to the left of our white cardstock, then stamped our vertical "Thank you" from DRS Designs Stamps in red to the right. With a Quickie glue pen, we added crystal glitter to the rose for a shimmery effect. We glued our waste punch pieces to the corners of the piece, then mounted it to black cardstock. The XO's background paper fit well onto a red cardstock notecard. We attached our rose to the notecard at an angle and topped it with a pretty checked red and white bow. Card size 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Parchment and Valentine Cards

I love Rainbow Parchment! I get it from Ecstasy Crafts in a package of 10 and it goes a long way! I dug out another parchment grid for this pretty card. It's one of the 8 1/2 x 11 border grids from Ecstasy's Exclusive line.

I taped the shiny side of the rainbow parchment to the grid, turned it over, and proceeded to emboss, then prick my borders. It goes fairly fast, but I always recommend going over it a second time just to smooth out any lines that might be showing in your embossed areas.

I assembled a pre-cut 3D from (you guessed it) Ecstasy Crafts with foam pads and mounted it to my parchment piece. I added a pretty bow, and attached the parchment to a pretty lavender notecard with pastel purple brads. I finished the card off by using the waste pieces from a gold peel off sticker sheet, and added a "Thank You" for the sentiment.

Card size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches.

My next card was based on the tiny vinyl heart stickers I found at Wal-Mart. They are so cute with their polka-dots and stripes! My new color is brown! I love it! Can't get enough of it, it seems! You'll find these cute hearts in the Valentine section at Wal-Mart.

For this card, I used the Heart Blocks folder and embossed 2/3 of the card with the hearts. I then used the Scor-Pal and scored five lines next to the heartblocks. Then I added the tiny heart stickers to the right of the scored lines in a rambling pattern. Next I tied a red grosgrain ribbbon near the first scored line and placed a tiny brown polka-dot heart on another scored line.

I purchase a pretty Alphabet Stamp set from Inkadinkado and stamped LOVE in brown ink on a scrap of white cardstock, then I placed a tiny heart sticker inside the "O". I mounted the scrap to a velvet polkadot paper that had been cut out using a rectangle scalloped Nestabilities in the Cuttlebug. I attached that piece to a beautiful filigree paper from Deja Views called "Old World" in brown with darker shades of brown. I also put that piece through the Cuttlebug with a larger rectangle scalloped Nestabilities die.

I was going to attach that piece to the card, but it looked a little lost amongst the heartblocks embossing. The right side seemed heavier than the left. I dug around in my stash and once again pulled out a die cut heart from that Valentine set I purchased from K & Company. Who knew I'd use those diecuts so much? Um, sometimes I tend to buy things and tuck them in a box without a clue to what they will be used for!

I mounted my "LOVE" piece to a large heart diecut and attached it to the card and am quite pleased with the result!

Card size: 4 1/4 x 6 inches.

Monday, January 19, 2009

New cards...


I've been busy creating a lot of cards this week. I published 9 new paper embroidery patterns that you can find on my website "A Stitcher's Dream". I'm particularly pleased with the special pattern I've made for everyone as one of my free patterns.


(A Free Pattern for you! Right click on the pattern and click "save Image as...", then save it to your computer.)

This pattern is very important, as it's perfect for anyone who is currently facing a difficult battle with illness. You can stitch the ribbon in any color for whichever "illness", i.e, pink for Breast Cancer, red for AIDS, etc.

May God Bless the person you stitch this special pattern for! Remember, as long as they are living, there is always HOPE!

The next card was made using one of the new Parchment Crafting Grids on the market. You can purchase these grids at Ecstasy Crafts under the "Exclusives" portion of their website.

I taped a piece of Rainbow vellum, (also available on their site), down onto the grid and pricked and embossed one of the border patterns. What I love about these grids is the fact that you don't need a lot of fancy parchment tools to achieve the look of beautiful parchment cards. A simple stylus and one needle pricking tool is all you need to make the card above. Once the border was done, I then taped the piece onto another grid that has butterflies on it.

Once I finished my pricking and embossing of the butterfly, I attached it to a piece of white cardstock embossed with the Cuttlebug using the Swirls folder. I used pretty blue flower brads to attach the vellum then mounted the piece to a pink note card sized 5 1/2 x 4 1/4.

I used my Quickie glue pen and Art Glitter Institute Sea Shell glitter to add some glitz to the border and butterfly. A silver "Happy Birthday" peel off sticker was added to finish the card.

This card was just fun to make! I had to force myself to stop at a certain point, because I was getting heart crazy! I had all kinds of heart embellishments strewn all over my table and they were begging for a place on this card!

I started by using the Cuttlebug with the Swiss dots Folder on a piece of white cardstock. For some reason I have a fascination with pink, red and brown lately. I just love the look of it!

With this card, I began with the cute tiny heart ribbon that I bought at Michael's in their Valenine section. I glued a strip of the ribbon to the white cardstock, then tied a dark red ribbon underneath it. At that point, I stared at it for about ten minutes, going over in my mind what I had in my stash that would go with the ribbons.

Of course, that is how all the heart embellishments became strewn over my table. I found the pretty die cut heart from a box of Valentine diecuts by K & Company that I purchased last year from Michael's. I dug about and pulled out heart rhinestones from Martha Stewart that I wanted to use.

Then I had an "aha" moment and sprung up from my chair (I don't usually spring up, by the way) and searched a bit for the brown and pink ribbon with "love" on it. It fit perfectly! It was attached underneathed the dark red ribbon. I added the die cut heart and the red rhinestone hearts, but the corners was missing something.

Last week, Michael's had all their specialty papers on sale at 7 for $1, so of course, I bought tons! In particular, I purchased a very pretty rose velvet paper with pink polka dots on it. I used a Cuttlebug die and cut out two small corner frames and mounted them to the lower corners of the card, and too the waste from the cut-out and attached them to the upper corners. I was thinking of adding more rhinestones, but slapped my hands and told myself the card was finished. I think that was the hardest part of the card :)

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Card frenzy, continued!

My next card is centered around a floral frame 3D sheet that I downloaded from Penny's photobucket site on Circle of Crafters. (Thanks, Penny!) I used the Script Cuttlebug folder for this white card, then sliced the frame in half and attached it to the card. I cut the scrolls with a Sizzix die, and glittered them with seashell glitter. The heart diecut is from a package of Valentine embellishments from K & Company. I added a pink grosgrain ribbon down the center, embellished with pretty rhinestones and pearls, then finished it off with cutouts I made from a Martha Stewart punch.

This card uses a piece of stationery I fell in love with. I purchased the Pansy heart notepad from "Sew Pieceful", a quaint quilt shop in Savona, NY. It is just one of the more beautiful stationery sets from Carol Wilson Fine Arts. I mounted the embossed heart onto a striped purple cardstock, and punched decorative corners with a Fiskars punch.

I attached that piece of a silvery swirl patterned paper, then added a lacy edge from a notecard from the same company. A pretty purple ribbon was wrapped around the piece, rhinestones were added and then was mounted to a soft green card. The lovely script "Thinking of You" is a stamp from Close to my heart, and I stamped it in royal purple ink.


My last card uses another pansy notecard from Carol Wilson Fine Arts. Using my rectangle Nestabilities, I cut out a border frame and a smaller square of the pansies. I punched a strip of white cardstock with a Martha Stewart punch, attached it to a purple rectangle, then added the border frame. I stamped "Hello" (Close to my heart) in royal purple ink, then affixed lavender rhinestones to the piece. The small pansy piece was attached to a light purple cardstock, then to a green cardstock.

I mounted my striped purple background piece to a light purple card, then added a lacy paper doily to the left side. I attached my two pansy pieces to the card and tied a pretty shimmery green ribbon around the entire card. Lastly, I made a beaded embellishment and stuck it through the knot of the ribbon.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Card frenzy!


I haven't posted in a while but I've been working on a few cards and had a lot of fun! I dug out quite a few embellishments to play with, chose different color combinations and more! So let me show them and tell you how I made them!

My first card was created with my new favorite color combination of teal and brown! I just love how they look together.

I pulled out my Cuttlebug border folders and my Scor-Pal for the base card in white. I next, wrapped a teal ribbon around the card and added my floral embellishment with tiny decorative rhinestones to add some bling. I used a stamp set from Close to my Heart for the filigree card with "amour". I colored the stamped images with Prismacolor markers. It's hard to see the glitz on this card!
My next card was created with the companion piece to the Scor-Pal which has curvy and diagonal score lines. I scored a piece of pink cardstock, added some gold peel off lines, wrapped a polka dot ribbon around the center and tied a knot. I had difficulties with this card as I couldn't decide exactly what to do. I pulled out the fabric flowers and added them along with the red rhinestones. I used a shimmery patterned paper for the background that's hard to see in the scan. I used the Swiss dots folder on white cardstock then mounted the scored pink piece to it. I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day" in pink ink, and added some pearls to the center of the flowers. I still can't decide if I like this card or not.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Pretty punched cards


We have some pretty new punches at the store for special order and I decided to play with them to show their capabilities. I've only just scratched the surface of these punches as they are very versatile and really adds a lacy touch to your cards.

These punches work with full inch sized cards, i.e., 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 as the corners and borders punch one inch in size. To use these punches, for a 4 x 5 inch card, you must first put your card piece under the corner border slot and punch both the corner and the border at the same time. (Punch the 5 inch side first) (see #1) Once the corner/border part is punched, you'll move your paper to the left (#2) and punch only the border punch. You'll move the card to the #3 spot and punch only the border again. You'll next move the card to the #4 spot and punch only the border again. Now, you'll TURN your card and place it back at the #1 spot and punch BOTH corner and border punches. Now you'll be working on your 4 inch side. You'll move the card to the #2 spot and punch the border only. You'll now TURN your card and start again until the card is completely punched on all sides.
The punch I used on the first card (above) is called "Comin' Up Roses" and is perfect for those romantic Victorian cards for Valentine's, weddings and more. I punched the card first, then put it through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder. I next assembled a pre-cut 3D from Ecstasy Crafts with foam dots. A scallop punched square was added underneath the 3D and a "with love" peel off sticker finished the embellishment. Lastly, a big red organza ribbon bow was added to complete the card. Card size 5 1/2 x 4 1/ inches.

My second card (below) uses the "Lattice Entertain You" which is also a corner/border punch. These punches cut nice and crisp, with no jams, and are very easy to line up with the one inch increments that are on the base of the punch.

I punched the larger blue piece (5 x 5 inches) and you can see that these punches are also photo corner punches. You can tuck a photo into the slots for a lovely frame. Remember that your inner piece or photo must be an inch smaller all around to fit into the slots. I punched a second light blue card piece sized 4 x 4 inches and slipped it into the corner slots of the previous larger blue piece.


From the same 3D sheet through Ecstasy Crafts, I assembled the pretty basket of roses with foam dots. I cut a piece of white paper (3 x 3 inches) and put it through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder. I then cut the square in half and inserted each wide end into the corner slots of the smaller blue piece. I mounted the floral basket to the overlay, added a "Get Well Soon" peel off sticker, decorative rhinestones and finished it off on a blue 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches card.